Old Potato
John:
And meanwhile, Adam's upstairs right now having nightmares about old potatoes.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So as usual, we should start with some follow-up.
Casey:
And I shouldn't be excited about this one and only follow-up item.
Casey:
And I shouldn't be excited because it's about boring big business stuff.
Casey:
But I'm actually kind of excited about this because it's some news about Nomad.
Casey:
So tell me about what Nomad is, what problem it's supposed to solve, and whether or not it solves it.
John:
Last time we talked about this, it was like me complaining that I got a new computer at work, and my new computer was on the Active Directory network, and it was a Mac.
John:
And I was complaining about how it seemed like being on the Active Directory network was making lots of things about my Mac worse, and I was sad about it.
John:
And then in follow-up on the subsequent shows, a lot of people sent us information about this thing called Nomad.
John:
They said, hey, you should try this.
John:
I think the story I was told by a couple of people in feedback was like,
John:
Apple's Active Directory support is not great in macOS, and it never really has been.
John:
And there was a consulting wing of Apple that would come to your company and help you set up all your Macs for your big enterprise or whatever.
John:
And the consulting company recognizing that Apple's Active Directory stuff wasn't that good, but also recognizing that they weren't in a position to make it better.
John:
came up with a system uh just like a sort of a series of like shell scripts and other little programs and stuff that would try to give you the effects of active directory without actually being active directory and that they would pitch that to their clients and my my recollection was that this is like an this is an apple not not like just a consultant but like actually part of apple going to help people and this part of apple because it wasn't empowered to change mac os was
John:
was doing this other thing and giving it to clients i don't know if i got that part right but anyway uh we will put the link in the show notes they have a dot menu domain nomad dot menu which i think is not good um you can you can look at their website uh and read about what it does there's a a blog post from another company that it does
John:
uh mac related enterprise stuff that basically saying you get gives you the experience of active directory without requiring as they put it a bind to ad uh so you're not constantly connected to active directory and you know all the things that i thought were making my mac slower like me trying to wake it up from sleep and me you know getting to the point where i can enter my password to unlock my computer or
John:
you know random spinners before it will allow me to have network access and stuff like that in theory this thing would help so uh i took that feedback i said yeah that sounds kind of neat but it's not like i have any control over when when or if that's going to happen but i had a pleasant surprise a couple weeks ago and my work started uh doing a trial of this and i asked if people wanted to sign up i said yes
John:
And like a day or two later, some Active Directory stuff disappeared from my Mac and this Nomad stuff appeared.
John:
And so I got to try it.
John:
And I have to say, I'm about a week in here.
John:
It feels like a lot of the things that seem stupidly slow are not stupidly slow anymore.
John:
That's good.
John:
It is much faster for me when I wake my computer up or whatever to get to the point where it lets me enter my password.
John:
The computer unlocks faster and I feel less...
John:
like hangs for no reason.
John:
So I'm pretty happy with it so far.
John:
This also lets me know that my complaints about Touch ID on the Mac were not related to Active Directory because now I'm not on Active Directory anymore and still Touch ID on my 2017 15-inch MacBook Pro.
John:
like when i want to unlock my computer sometimes the screen will say enter your password or do touch id and that's what the screen says but me repeatedly putting my finger on the touch id thing is telling me that it is not reading my finger like it's not like it's failing it just doesn't care my finger is there at all it doesn't have the little to put your finger here arrow animation it's just completely blank and putting your finger there as many times as you want doesn't work
John:
When it does work, it's great.
John:
But when it doesn't work, it makes me sit there with my finger on this stupid thing and putting it up and down until I realize, oh, I have to type my password.
John:
Why do I have to type my password this time?
John:
Who knows?
John:
But anyway, I'm guessing it's not Active Directory related.
Casey:
That's interesting.
Casey:
My work has been grumbly about Active Directory stuff.
Casey:
And so we've kicked around the idea of Nomad, but none of us really knew much about it.
Casey:
So I will have to point my IT people to this episode at the beginning of it.
Casey:
So hi, Rory.
Casey:
This was for you, even though you didn't know it.
Casey:
But we'll definitely have to check that out.
Casey:
That's super cool.
Casey:
Because the advantage of being in a place that's only 500 or so people is that there's an IT group of maybe 5 to 10 people, which means I can actually somewhat influence this decision-making insofar as if I put in a good word, that's a positive thing.
Casey:
So cool.
Casey:
No, I'm glad it's working out well.
Casey:
Any other follow-up?
John:
Let me just have some preemptive real-time follow-up from the question from the chat room.
John:
Yes, I know that sometimes you have to actually press the Touch ID button thingy to get it to try to register.
John:
I'd do that, and it would just not register.
John:
So sometimes it just is not in the mood to read my finger, and I don't know why, despite the messages on the screen.
John:
To the contrary.
Casey:
I have some news.
Casey:
We have another new child in the house.
Casey:
We have adopted a child called Alexa.
John:
That's not news.
John:
You told us that last week.
Casey:
Did I tell you that it was forthcoming?
Casey:
Okay, I'd forgotten about that.
Casey:
So yeah, so Alexa's here.
Casey:
Now, remind me, John, in your household, you are mostly on Google Home.
Casey:
Is that right?
John:
Yeah, I've got a regular Google Home, and I've got a mini Google Home, and then I have the HomePod that we talked about last week.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
And then what's going on in the Armid household?
Casey:
You guys are all in on Alexa.
Casey:
Is that right?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
She's my girl.
Casey:
So this is the first time that I have ever had any sort of smart thing in my house.
Casey:
There's a joke here.
Casey:
I see it.
Casey:
I don't care.
Casey:
It's the first time I've ever had any sort of smart assistant in the house.
Casey:
Because Siri definitely does not count.
Casey:
So I had heard from other people talking about the lady in the tube that she has skills and things and that you can add stuff onto her.
Casey:
And so I was vaguely familiar with the ecosystem that I was trying to set up.
Casey:
So, you know, I got the lady in a tube.
Casey:
I set it up, which was pretty straightforward.
Casey:
It's like a Wemo light switch or something like that.
Casey:
You connect to its Wi-Fi, it reads your Wi-Fi, then everything reconnects to the regular Wi-Fi and things happen.
Casey:
This is old news to probably 95% of the people listening.
Casey:
Anyway, I added a few skills and it's cool.
Casey:
It works with Spotify, which is great.
Casey:
Doesn't sound like utter garbage, which is surprising.
Casey:
I wouldn't say it sounds great, but it
Casey:
is listenable.
Casey:
I would not plan to use it for music.
John:
You got an Alexa and you're playing music on it.
John:
That's what you're doing.
John:
You got an Alexa and you're playing music on it.
Casey:
Well, no, no, no.
Casey:
I tried it just to see and it got surprisingly loud and it didn't sound utterly terrible.
Casey:
Again, I would not say it sounds good.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
She knows a lot of animal facts.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You should ask her about animals.
Casey:
I tried to install a skill.
Casey:
I don't remember what it was called.
Casey:
That's basically like a quiz for Declan.
Casey:
You know, what animal makes this sound?
Casey:
And the one I found was clearly written by someone who does not use English as their first language.
Casey:
And it was just very peculiar.
Casey:
So you don't have to answer right now.
Casey:
But if you have some sort of suggestions about like toddler friendly games, which you guys may have gotten this too late because Adam may have been too old at that point.
Casey:
But if you do have suggestions.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Adam basically tells Alexa to play Timber.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
By Kesha?
Casey:
No.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Is that right?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Pitbull, Kesha.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, he likes that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And he also likes Fireball.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
He's always like, Alexa, play Fireball by Pitbull.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So that's how he communicates with Alexa.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
We're not really playing animal games.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
We've passed that and we've moved on to the inappropriate hip-hop stage.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So it's fine for us.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But...
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But yeah, I mean, we had books and stuff for that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You hit the little, like the sound animal buttons on the side.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
They were like old school.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Like the ones that haunted Lex's house that one time.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
If anyone remembers that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's right.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I had forgotten about that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, the door of the Explorer book that was haunting him.
John:
Yeah, the battery was going low and it was making a terrible noise.
John:
I remember that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And he like tore apart half his house to find it and it ended up being a stupid book.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But...
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, we mainly use it for weather.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Adam will ask the weather in the morning.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it actually, talking to Alexa greatly helped him improve his pronunciation because he would get frustrated that she wouldn't understand him.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So then he would have to articulate the word a little bit more.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And I really think that talking to her has helped him develop his linguistical skills.
John:
He's more receptive to instruction than my children because my children have the same problem.
John:
And I tell them, you have to enunciate
John:
and it will understand you better and they say they roll their eyes and then say forget it so yeah adam really really wanted to hear fireball by pitbull so he made sure he got that right he's got no other way to do it yeah does he does he learn that like that syntax play fireball by pitbull like if he just says play fireball i'm sure there's other songs that are by fire like did you
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, no.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
He'll say he'll say bye, Pitbull.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And he also he found it really funny that when he tells Alexa to say he said, Alexa, play nothing, that it will play a song called nothing.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And he thinks that's really funny because he told her to play nothing when then she goes and plays something.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, he asked the weather.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Like I said, it's pretty good at animal facts and other basic facts, asking it and setting timers and stuff.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, he's been setting timers with it, too, because every time we're like, all right, you know, you have five minutes for this and he'll set a timer.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, in the morning, he comes downstairs by himself.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
He like gets up, gets dressed, brushes his teeth and comes downstairs and tells Alexa to turn on the lights.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So he's pretty capable now.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
He's like a little person.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's amazing.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Who would have thunk it?
John:
Asking the weather is actually the most common use of Siri in my house and it started many years ago with my daughter coming to my bedside table and using
John:
whatever device i have there to find out what the weather is so she could figure out what she wants to wear although she ostensibly it's to find out what you're supposed to wear but regardless of what the weather is she just wears clothing that is not appropriate for the weather so i don't know what she's doing but anyway uh the key fact is that you you don't need to unlock any of my devices to get the weather you can you know hold down the little button and then say
John:
uh what's the weather and it will give you the weather report without the device being unlocked so that's why she's using even she has her own devices now but she still likes to come into my room and use my ipad or my iphone to get the weather report um so i was trying to think how often does siri get used and like well i use it set a reminder once every few weeks or something mostly we don't use it then i realize it gets used every day to tell my daughter the weather
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
And so it's been interesting for us trying to I mean, again, it's been all of a day, but, you know, starting to figure out how can this integrate into our lives?
Casey:
Because we didn't exactly seek this out.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
It kind of fell in our laps, just like my white cars.
Casey:
And so anyway, it just kind of appeared, if you will.
Casey:
And we're trying to figure out where does this fit in our lives?
Casey:
Because this is not something we we've like wanted yet.
Casey:
And so far, it seems like weather and timers have been popular.
Casey:
We did enjoy doing a little bit of Spotify just because it's nice to be able to call out across the room, you know, hey, you know, lady in the can play such and such by so and so.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, you can ask it to tell you stories or jokes.
Casey:
Oh, good to know.
Casey:
I did not know that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Adam, during Halloween, really enjoyed asking the lady in the can to tell him a scary story.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But they weren't really scary.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It was like, then the old potato.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It was really cheesy.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It was like, oh, no, you have rotten vegetables.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
How scary.
John:
So, Casey, where did you physically put it?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So, well, actually, Tiff may remember this, but it's next to the plant on the ledge by the table in between the living room and the table.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Duh.
Casey:
That's exactly.
Casey:
Totally, John.
Casey:
So basically, if you walk in from the garage, you're dumped directly in our kitchen from the kitchen to the little breakfast nook from the breakfast nook to like our main living or family room, whatever you want to call it.
Casey:
And there's a little ledge in between the breakfast nook and the family room.
Casey:
And so we just stuck it there for now on a piece of wood.
Casey:
And after all the HomePod stuff, I'm like, man, should I get a little doily for this or what?
Casey:
I don't even know.
Casey:
But we put it there because, you know, that's easy access orally, verbally, whatever, to both the kitchen and the family room.
Casey:
And so without having to, like, scream, you know, most of the downstairs can hear or can speak to her and can hear her.
Casey:
And one of the striking things to me about this, which I think I intellectually knew, but it creeped me out to see on the lady app on your phone, it actually shows you, hey, here's the things that you've said recently, which in and of itself, okay, I can kind of understand that, but that's a little weird.
Casey:
But then you can listen to yourself.
Casey:
making these requests, which is again, like understandable.
Casey:
My brain understands, of course it's listening to you.
Casey:
That's how it does things.
Casey:
But like, it's also recording me, which is a little weird, but I still mostly understand it, but it's saving that, which is a little weird, even though I do understand it.
Casey:
So that's like a little bit funny.
Casey:
Um,
Casey:
And that did creep me out a little bit.
Casey:
The only skills I've installed are Anylist, which we spoke about an episode or two ago, which I didn't realize you actually have to flip a switch on the lists within Anylist in order to get them Lady in the Tube enabled.
Casey:
And once I did that, it's been working pretty well.
Casey:
We don't have Nest thermostats because we're not cool like that, but we have one of the – it's not Honeywell, but it's like some other manufacturers, rough equivalent.
Casey:
And so I've installed a skill for that.
Casey:
It's the Nexia skill, N-E-X-I-A, but I haven't actually tried it yet.
Casey:
I've installed an Eero skill that I haven't tried, and the aforementioned garbage gets the animal sound.
Casey:
So I haven't done much with it, but it is neat.
Casey:
It is more neat and more convenient than I thought it would be, but I wouldn't say that it has changed my world quite yet.
Casey:
And the one thing that did strike me as super world-changing, no sarcasm intended...
Casey:
is being able to just shout at the tube, you know, hey, play Timber by Pitbull, or whatever the case may be.
Casey:
In our case, it was actually play, you know, Five Little Ducks by Rafi.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But anyway... Yeah, you gotta update that.
Casey:
Yeah, well, but, you know, being able to be synced with Spotify...
Casey:
And that's really cool because I pay for Spotify anyway, and just having it being able to use Spotify.
Casey:
And then if I turn Spotify on on my phone, we can do the the I forget the term for it, but the thing where you can control other Spotify clients.
Casey:
And so even the hardware buttons on my phone, as long as the phone was left in kind of like Spotify mode.
Casey:
The hardware buttons on my phone can control the volume of the lady in the tube playing music, which is super cool.
Casey:
I'm not even entirely clear how that works, but it does.
Casey:
And so in that sense, all this integration is super awesome.
Casey:
And it occurred to me, wow, I really wish that this tube was a much better speaker.
Casey:
And I thought, well, then I should get a HomePod.
Casey:
And then I thought, well, no, because I can't use Spotify with it in the way I want.
Casey:
And then it occurred to me, like, I don't know where I've been for the last two years, but they make an echo.
Casey:
What is it?
Casey:
A little dot or something like that.
Casey:
The echo dot that I can plug into the stereo.
Casey:
Like, why have I not thought of this for two years?
Casey:
And I could just shout at this little, you know, dot echo dot or whatever it's called.
Casey:
You know, hey, lady in the tube play, you know, Timber by Pitbull.
Casey:
And it would play on our home theater stereo, which is not a remarkably great stereo.
Casey:
In fact, it's kind of crappy, but it's the best stereo we have in the house.
Casey:
Why didn't I do this a long time ago?
Casey:
Why do I do this to myself?
John:
So how does the other people in your house feel about your new tube?
Casey:
Erin is kind of ambivalent about it.
Casey:
I don't think she's really embraced it as yet, partially because it's been a day, partially because I don't think she's really seen me successfully add things to the grocery list a few times.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
you know, she's not one to typically play music if I'm not around.
Casey:
So usually I'm like the family DJ.
Casey:
Um, Declan is scared to talk to it in, not in the like, Oh God, Oh God way.
Casey:
But the, in the, like I'm bashful and shy way.
Casey:
Uh, but he does enjoy the fact that we can talk to it and ask me to talk to it from time to time.
Casey:
Um, and Michaela is just sitting there as, as per expectations.
Casey:
So it's so far, I wouldn't say it's a rousing success, but I mean, I'm enjoying it more than I thought I would.
Casey:
And for the 17 or so dollars that it cost me to ship it here, it's worth $17.
Casey:
I don't know that I personally would pay like 100, 150, or in the case of the HomePod, $350 for something like this, especially in the case of the HomePod where Siri is, in my personal opinion, kind of garbage.
Casey:
But it's pretty cool.
Casey:
I like it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I mean, a few of the times it made me fall really in love with the lady in the tube was when we have game nights and we all end up having like song suggestion battles and we just keep interrupting each other's songs to play other songs.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it just gets really fun.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
The back and forth, just yelling at Alexa to do different things.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And in addition, you can also order stuff on your friend's Alexa's and that gets pretty fun, too.
Yeah.
Casey:
So, yeah, I don't know.
Casey:
It's cool.
Casey:
I don't see myself buying a HomePod, although it wouldn't surprise me if that's on the birthday list.
Casey:
It occurred to me that all this waffling I'm doing in front of Erin is probably not helping her for my birthday shopping because my birthday is in two weeks.
Casey:
So I don't know if she's looking to buy me a HomePod, would never buy me a HomePod, has already bought me a HomePod.
Casey:
I don't know what the plan is.
John:
She brought you a child, Casey.
Casey:
I have no argument here.
Casey:
I'm fine with that.
Casey:
But it just occurred to me that I need to be more clear about what my desires are for the HomePod, just in case that's on her radar.
Casey:
But the thing is, I still don't know what I want to do about a HomePod.
Casey:
I feel like it's not something I want, except I do think having a really great speaker would be nice.
Casey:
Yeah.
John:
I don't know if she listens to this podcast, which she won't.
John:
So you should tell her separately.
John:
Maybe she can get you a dot because it's cheaper and it'll give you something to hook up to your good speakers.
Casey:
That is true.
Casey:
Now, John, how is your HomePod second week on?
John:
It's not seen much use.
John:
Like, I mean, I don't think my kids know that they can ask it the weather or maybe my daughter just likes to use the stuff on my nightstand because it's closer to her bedroom where she's deciding what she's going to wear.
John:
Uh, but yeah, not, not really getting much use.
John:
I mean, my Google homes don't get much use either.
John:
It's just that they're, they're there when I need them to be there.
John:
Like that's the key component of these things is I don't, don't use them that frequently.
John:
Uh, certainly not daily, probably not even weekly, but in the moment when I have a desire and I'm too lazy to get up or too lazy to go get my phone or just want to know right now, the fact that I can yell something into the air and, uh,
John:
get satisfaction immediately is great and so i feel like it's well worth the money uh for these things just just for those times and of course like i said when my kids have friends over they use them you know they become the house djs and they use them to play whatever songs they want and laugh and do whatever they're doing and interrupt each other's songs and stuff like that so it's a it's a home entertainment device to keep the children entertained as well alexa play tub thumping by chumpa wumba oh
Casey:
at least it's not that gargle song i just listened to the valentine's uh top four uh just earlier today i'm way behind on podcasts and uh yeah that that gargle is bad but tub thumping i i can't i cannot abide by that it's like their own personal uh never gonna give you up i'm never gonna give it up
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Casey:
Any other thoughts about ladies in canisters and tubes and cylinders and things of that nature?
John:
Tiff's not in a cylinder, but do you want to explain why she's here?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, Marco is sick, so they found another Armand and replaced him.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So, hey, it's me.
John:
And who are you?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm Tiff.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm lossless.
John:
Wow.
John:
Sorry.
John:
You don't have to assume that everyone who listens to the show knows who you are.
John:
You should introduce yourself.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Hi, I'm Tiffany Arment.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You may know me from such podcasts as Top 4 or Playing for Fun with Relay FM's Michael Hurley.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm also sometimes on ATP and I'm married to Marco Arment, who's usually on ATP.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Bam.
John:
There you go.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You can find me on the webs under Tiffany Arment.
John:
All right, you skimmed over the part about Marco being sick, which is kind of vague.
John:
He's not dying, and I think he could have been on the program, but he doesn't feel well enough to do it, so here we are.
John:
Hey, screw you, man.
John:
Oh, God.
John:
I can't talk, you jackass.
John:
He totally can talk.
John:
He's perfectly fine.
Casey:
Oh, God.
Casey:
Is somebody having fun with Terminal and the say command?
John:
Not that we're complaining.
John:
It's great to have Tiff, I'm just saying.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Do you guys remember Smarter Child?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Do you remember talking to that bot?
John:
No.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
What?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
There was a bot, Smarter Child, in like the 90s that you would talk to.
John:
I don't think I ever did it, but now that you mentioned it as a 90s thing, I think I vaguely remember it, but I don't think I did it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, and we all did it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You know, after school, chatting with Smarter Child on AIM Messenger.
Casey:
Like all the cool kids do.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Eating snacks, talking to Smarter Child, listening to No Doubt.
Casey:
As you do.
Casey:
You know, a piece of 90s nostalgia just came back recently.
Casey:
I feel like every six months or so, maybe it's every year, for some reason or another, somebody brings up ICQ.
Casey:
Like, you know, the precursor, predecessor, or... Yeah, we know it.
Casey:
Yeah, well...
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Not everyone does.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Not everyone listens to this as old.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I don't know what you're talking about.
Casey:
See, thank you, Tiff.
Casey:
So ICQ, the letters I, C, and Q, which is supposed to be funny because it's also the words I seek you.
Casey:
It was like the first particularly popular online presence, like IM applications.
Casey:
So this was either before AOL Instant Messenger existed or it was before it existed to anyone outside of AOL.
Casey:
I don't know exactly what the timeline was, but...
Casey:
What was interesting about ICQ, and I think it does still exist, but what was interesting about ICQ in its heyday, which was like mid-90s, maybe late 90s, was that it had sequential user numbers, not on Twitter, actually.
Casey:
And you actually use these user numbers.
Casey:
I believe that was the equivalent of a screen name.
Casey:
And so everyone knew their user numbers.
Casey:
And to this day...
Casey:
And welded into my brain, or that's probably not the right phrasing, but whatever, somewhere in my brain in a place that I cannot remove it is 1202572.
Casey:
And I will never forget that probably for the rest of my life.
Casey:
And it's funny because, you know, you bring up this weird bit of nostalgia that just comes up out of nowhere.
Casey:
I really feel like every six months or so somebody brings up ICQ and or their ICQ number.
Casey:
I don't know why, but it happens all the time.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
There's a new TV show on Netflix called Everything Sucks and it's very 90s.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
They pretty much just like throw in all these 90s references just for people our age to be like, whoa, remember that?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And, you know, it's like little teaser 90s candy kind of show.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And Marco and I just binge watched it because we've been sick.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So it was pretty fun.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I suggest it to anybody who is feeling some 90s love.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Go for it.
John:
So you never had ICQ, Jeff?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
No, no.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I started with AOL Instant Messenger.
John:
I think they were kind of contemporary.
John:
I had all these things, right?
John:
But I was not as into any of them to remember my ICQ number.
John:
It was a pretty big number, too.
John:
But it was like anything else where I would...
John:
It was more fractured then than it is now.
John:
Like, you talk to some people on ICQ, some people on AIM, some people I talk to on the, you know, the university's, like, real-time communication thing, like, just using the talk command.
John:
University?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm sorry.
John:
I'm old.
John:
Yes, I know.
John:
But, yeah.
John:
And the ICQ had this terribly drawn flower icon on the Mac.
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
It was not a good-looking icon by any stretch.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
marco's in the chat room letting everyone know is that your number marco you all you all have big numbers too i think my number was similar length i just don't remember what our screen names are gone now right or do can you like look up stuff with people's screen names because someone just asked about what my screen name was and it's pretty really teenager-y and i don't know if i should say it
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Screen name for what, AIM?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
No one can do anything weird with that, can they?
John:
AIM just recently shut down.
John:
I know because I got the message that said, hey, you've been signed on to AIM every day since it existed, but guess what?
John:
It's going away.
John:
Because I was still on an ADM.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Is it gone now?
John:
Yeah, I got the message about it.
John:
Once I got the message, I deleted it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, well, I guess I still had mine, but I saved all the important chat messages from when Marco and I first met because we're super cute like that.
Casey:
I actually have some I think I might have our first instant messenger conversation somewhere buried between Aaron and me and every couple of years I stumble on it.
Casey:
Uh, so, because we're also super, I'll go with cute, maybe creepy.
Casey:
I don't know.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, it's like saving love letters, right?
Casey:
Like, right.
Casey:
No, I'm serious.
Casey:
It's hilarious listening or not listening, but rereading this because it's like, after you've been with any human being for a long time, be it married or just, you know, partners or whatever.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
you you as a couple will change like you as individuals and you as a couple will change and looking at like this totally like you know scuffing of the feet looking down at my toes casey like hey you know maybe we can chalk later as opposed to today's dynamic wall scaling ice crushing casey i'm picturing you in overalls with a daisy hanging out of the butt pocket right well i mean that's how it reads that's how these like chat these these chats between aaron and i read it's it's hilarious and embarrassing but
John:
nevertheless it is adorable to go back to that yeah marcos and i we were all um like oh well what do you what's your favorite meal and do you like thunderstorms like long walks on the beach yeah it's like you like pina coladas nice so the generation before like had to save their paper love letters your generation is saving your uh messages right but the current generation doesn't have to say anything because it'll be in the cloud forever
John:
lucky bastards like they'll want to expunge it right after they get divorced and they won't be able to like google searches will still turn it up because it's feeding some training model and uh in google's uh giant machine learning cloud all right so what was your aim name casey let's let's see what yours was
Casey:
I think I have mentioned this at some point in the past.
Casey:
So I was trying to think of like a cool 90s AIM name.
Casey:
I don't know.
Casey:
I think it was 97-ish that I joined Instant Messenger, 96, 97, something like that.
Casey:
And so I was trying to think of a cool name.
Casey:
I needed a cool name.
Casey:
And I was on the bus on the way home from high school.
Casey:
And my friend Ben was talking about how he's trying to learn to play bass.
Casey:
And he had gotten a lot of blisters on his fingers.
Casey:
And I thought, ah, got it.
Casey:
Blister.
Casey:
But...
John:
you think that wasn't going to be taken your name was blister well no no no no it gets better it gets better okay it was even worse than that exactly robot marco i know what this is because i had your aim address it's all coming back to me now i have i had blocked it out but now in fact i could probably pull you up on my buddy list right now if i could connect to the service you probably could that sounds like it's like a metal name like my name is puss
Casey:
Right?
Casey:
I'm saying it was such a great name.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Did you have like a nose piercing with a safety pin?
Casey:
Yeah, totally.
Casey:
Yeah, that's definitely me.
Casey:
No, I was like the dorkiest white boy in the world, which surprises no one.
Casey:
But nevertheless, it turns out that the word blister, B-L-I-S-T-E-R, was taken.
Casey:
Who knew?
Casey:
So what do you do if blister is taken and you're, I don't know, 15, 16, 17 years old, however old I was at the time?
Casey:
B-L-I-S-T-A, of course.
Casey:
Blister.
John:
Blister.
John:
At least you didn't put a number on the end of it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's true.
Casey:
Blista 69.
Casey:
Right.
Casey:
Or Blista 6732 and four, you know, or whatever.
Casey:
Those were the worst.
Casey:
So Tiff, now that you've compelled me to share, it is now your turn.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Okay.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, mine is really like wafy teenage.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm like super deep and write poetry.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So mine was M-A-M-T-J-S, which stood for music always makes the journey sweeter.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Wow.
John:
You win.
John:
Wow.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it was also the title of a painting that I liked by this really weird artist.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I believe his name was James Christensen.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
He was like some Mormon artist guy that a Mormon boy showed me because I was super in love with him.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Hey.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
This whole thing.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
hey yeah it was in high school dude i didn't even meet you yet robot marco don't don't be in love with mormons oh no it was it was a whole scene he he i don't even think he's straight like it's no it was it was a whole thing it was a whole thing he was deep though he played the piano beautifully we hung out on the jetty you know it's those type of things so yeah music always makes the journey sweeter explain to marco and casey what a jetty is
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
They don't know what a jetty is.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's a big whole bunch of rocks that jut out into some water that kids go out on.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Margo might know.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Now you're indoctrinating him into Long Island culture.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's true.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
He knows now.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I don't think he's been out on... He's seen the rock jetties, but he hasn't ventured out on them or gotten stuck on the end when the high tide comes in.
John:
Until he's slipped and given himself a terrible cut on the barnacles or something and he hasn't really arrived.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, exactly.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Until you grab a croissant from the local bakery and go out on the jetty and cuddle a little bit.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You haven't lived.
John:
So these aim, you know, you have these aim names, right?
John:
But were they, did they span outside the service?
John:
Did they become an identity outside the service?
John:
Or are these just the names that you picked for the thing?
John:
Because I think a lot of common thing in the early internet was to be forced to pick some name on a service with lots of people who haven't picked named and to come up with something like these two things you've just described.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
These two things.
John:
Yeah.
John:
yeah and to attach that and then so for the next service to use like the same name because for the same reason because like you know it won't be taken and you become to be identified by it that happened with either of these oh yeah oh yeah i had my name forever until i started using like my real name places i was always mem to just same here at least at least no numbers but i think that's worse than this is not pronounceable
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
No, it's not.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It doesn't even pronounce it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It was a terrible decision made by a really confused person.
John:
Casey, where else did you use blister?
Casey:
I think I actually, well, generally speaking, I used blister where I could and fell back if possible.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I wish my name was blister.
John:
That's such a gross name.
John:
Blister is not.
John:
So give me the origin again.
John:
It's like a bass player and he had got blisters.
Yeah.
Casey:
So if you think I'm nerdy, and my friend Ben was even nerdier than I am, or at the time anyway, and he was learning to play bass and was lamenting on the school bus on the way home from school, because we lived a couple of houses down from each other, that he was getting blisters all over his hands.
Casey:
And this was as I was pontificating about what I should call myself online, and that's when I chose blister.
John:
And the image in your mind said, blisters?
John:
That's an image I want to associate myself with.
John:
Why not?
John:
Why not?
John:
Because the blisters are gross.
John:
Yes, but I was 17 years old, for goodness sakes.
John:
How about abrasion?
John:
Well, yes.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You were 17?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's way too old to be naming yourself blister.
Casey:
I mean, whatever it was, I was in high school.
Casey:
I know I was in high school.
Casey:
That I'm sure of.
Casey:
So, yeah, I was probably told to be naming myself that.
Casey:
But remember, everyone, that this was a different era and that things were different back then.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I had a friend whose name was Gravy Boat, and I was so jealous.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm like, that's so good.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I wish I thought a gravy boat.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's not better than your name.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Gravy Boat's amazing.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Are you kidding?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
No.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Such a good name.
John:
So my AIM name, which I can share because the service is now dead, was J.C.
John:
Syracuse.
John:
why was it jay syracusa because both jay syracusa and syracusa were taken because dj syracusa was taken no you should have been dj syracusa yeah i'm i don't know i've been trying to teach my children don't pick usernames with numbers in them because i feel like that's not something our family does we don't do that in our family no we don't it's not it's not appropriate um
John:
but beyond that they're not good at picking usernames uh i and it's hard to do i had to come up with with my son's playstation account name and like everything is taken and i just wanted something that would like not be embarrassing to anyone in the present or in the future but be somehow meaningful and connected to something right hard it was hard to do we spent a long time on that
Casey:
You know what?
Casey:
Having you two on the show reminds me that I need to pick a bone with Long Islanders because for the longest time, once I realized that I should just start embracing my actual name like I was old enough.
Casey:
Because remember, early internet, you never used both your first and last name on the internet.
Casey:
Never did that because it was too scary, especially if you're a kid.
John:
Not for...
John:
yeah see that this is weird you're yeah that's i feel like that skipped my generation because i guess it was like before we were taught like we at the point i would when i was doing it they were teaching the younger kids not to do that but no one was teaching us not to do that so we did it
Casey:
Yeah, I think this is one of the rare times, I mean this genuinely, that I remember that you are more than just a year or two older than I. Because generally speaking, you and I, I mean, there are some subtle differences between our upbringings and some bigger ones, but they're not in my face very often.
Casey:
And this is one of those times where it's very in my face.
Casey:
But anyways, when I realized that I should start purchasing domain names because they were less than like a gazillion dollars for .com, you know, so things had started to level out a little bit.
Casey:
For the longest time, I wanted to get list.com.
Casey:
And for the longest time, it was taken by Long Island Soda Systems.
Casey:
And I remain to this day bitter about that because not only did they take my surname and my rightfully deserved domain name, but because I wasn't very organized, they eventually let it lapse.
Casey:
And now some squatter has it and probably wants a billion dollars for it.
John:
You could have sniped it.
John:
I know.
John:
Yeah.
John:
You should have had a watch on that and picked it up as soon as it came available.
John:
It's hard to say that you have, you know, anything that begins with LI, you have to give it to Long Island.
John:
So tough luck on that one.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Reign supreme.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
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NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
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NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
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NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Should we actually talk about tech stuff?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
No, I like talking about Long Island.
John:
Actually, there is one tech-related, game-related thing that I wanted to do a quick hit on, and Tiff may actually have something to say about it.
John:
This is a story about Vulcan coming to the map, V-U-L-K-A-N, which is the latest version of...
John:
Well, it's a graphics API made by the same consortium that does OpenGL.
John:
And, you know, all of our Macs have OpenGL.
John:
And there's a mobile OpenGL ES on the iPhones and stuff.
John:
But it's been years since Apple did anything with the OpenGL stack on the Mac.
John:
And it shows in the performance and features of OpenGL on the Mac, which tends to hamper the ability to either make Mac native games, which almost nobody does, or to port games from other platforms.
John:
Because if you make a game and it uses some gaming API that doesn't exist on the Mac, that's not going to work and you need some kind of shim layer.
John:
to work with opengl you know converting from directx to opengl or something or if you try to write it portably in opengl for multiple platforms opengl on the mac is so old and so slow that you can't like unless you use it as a you know lowest common denominator like and most people don't do that for games it's not good so i think it has hurt uh
John:
Gaming, gaming performance and game availability on the Mac.
John:
And so and of course, Apple is now doing the metal thing where it's a lower level API with a much more modern, lower level API that is nevertheless exclusive to Apple platforms.
John:
It's on iOS and it's on the Mac.
John:
And a lot of game engines have written to that.
John:
So the Unity engine, some other, what's the other, what's the other big game engine?
John:
If you probably know from the opening screens of games, Unity and, oh, Unreal.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I was totally just going to say that.
John:
Yeah, have support for Metal.
John:
And so that helps bring some games to the Mac because like, okay, well, I'm not writing my game using OpenGL.
John:
I'm using an engine and the engine knows how to target these platforms.
John:
So that has helped a little bit.
John:
Uh, but now finally Vulcan is coming to the Mac, not from Apple, but from the same, I don't know if it's the same consortium.
John:
Uh, it's an open source thing anyway, uh, to let people write games using the Vulcan API and then run them on the Mac and on windows and on wherever.
John:
uh with equal feature set and uh there's a couple of stories we'll put the links in the show notes of like they tried porting a game and the vulcan implementation even though vulcan is just like translating those calls down into metal for the game to run is like 50 faster than the old version which would translate the calls down to the open gl stack so i feel like this is
John:
Yet another nail in the coffin of OpenGL on the Mac, which has basically been dead ever since Apple decided they're never going to update it again.
John:
But having it there and having it be old and slow was just depressing.
John:
And it was almost like I didn't like it when games used the quote-unquote native Mac API because it was slow.
John:
So now just all the game makers are taking this all out of Apple's hands.
John:
And I'm hoping what it will mean is...
John:
better performance for games when running on the Mac, so you don't have to reboot into Windows, like running games in Steam or whatever on the Mac.
John:
And finally, everyone giving up on waiting for Apple to do anything gaming-related on the Mac other than Metal, because they changed the Windows server to Metal, I think, and Sierra or High Sierra, I forget when.
John:
But like, you know, OpenGL seems to be fading fast.
John:
I wish I wish Apple instead had just said, oh, well, never mind.
John:
We realized we should have kept updating OpenGL and making it faster and better.
John:
But it doesn't seem like they're doing that.
John:
So I'm glad someone else is doing it for them.
Casey:
I'm excited for all the games I play on my Mac.
Casey:
I like games.
John:
Do you reboot into Windows to play games, or do you mostly just play them on Steam on your Mac?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I play mine on Steam on Mac.
Casey:
I haven't played any games on my Mac except Firewatch, which I almost forgot the name of.
Casey:
That's how long it's been, and that was very good, but that is the only time I've ever played a game on my Mac.
John:
Oh, and you did do boot camp because you had all those big complaints about how hard it was to get boot camp working.
John:
What game was that for that you were trying to do boot camp?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, that was for the... Inside.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Thank you.
John:
Thank you, Robot Marco.
John:
Inside.
John:
I'd totally forgotten that wasn't... Did they just not have the Mac port out then or are they still not?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, the Mac port wasn't out.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It literally came out like a week after we recorded or like a few days after we recorded or it was coming out...
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
while i was playing the game but i needed the time to play the game before i could i so i couldn't wait for the port to come out and that's another podcast you're on occasionally you didn't you didn't list it in your list of podcasts tip is also on the incomparable occasionally oh and i'm also i'm a player on um
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
all the game show the incomparable game show stuff yeah boulder dash oh i mean not boulder dash low definition oh no that's a copyrighted uh trademarked game owned by some other company no we don't play boulder dash at all i don't i don't even know what game that is i never heard of it before in my life yeah low definition
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
The lowest of lows and the highest of highs.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
Let's talk about this weird patent that just came out, which is that really that weird in the grand scheme of things?
Casey:
So at Patently Apple, they noticed that Apple has been granted a patent for a dual display MacBook or perhaps second generation iPad Pro.
Casey:
So the gist of it is there's a display that you look at and a display that you would ostensibly type on.
Casey:
And since Marco has done a little bit of kvetching and complaining about the modern keyboards, I think this is really, we should just call this the Marco patent.
Casey:
This is to make Marco happy because clearly the answer to Marco's problems is if dust is a problem, Marco, we'll just remove any mechanism by which dust could get in the keyboard because there is no end to the keyboard.
Casey:
It's all just glass.
Casey:
So you're welcome, Marco.
Casey:
It's all for you.
John:
I actually don't think there's that much to say about this.
John:
I put it in here mostly so we can refer people back to the original discussion of this, which was episode 193.
John:
The title of that was The Escape Zone.
John:
It was when we first talked about the Touch Bar MacBook Pros, like right after they were announced.
John:
And the first thing that I think occurred to anybody, including us, who looked at the Touch Bar MacBook Pro is...
John:
uh okay so they've got a little screen on top of the keyboard uh it seems kind of like a half measure uh do we think that that eventually the whole keyboard will be a screen and we had like this long conversation about it so go back to that episode if you want to hear it because i don't think we're going to repeat it here we took we did all said all the things you're going to expect us to say about the pluses and minuses of having anything that's that's entirely a screen to type on um and then this story is like any other apple patent story the idea of having an entirely screened keyboard
John:
is obvious to anybody uh including apple and i mean they they did it on their ios devices it's they put a screen on their keyboard surely they had investigated that and like anything that apple does they investigated and they patented especially the obvious ideas because that's how our stupid patent system works um so as with all patent things this means nothing about any product that apple actually ship um
John:
But it's a thing that's been in everybody's mind.
John:
I think people do want to touch screens on their computers.
John:
I think people don't like the... Some people don't like the keyboards as they exist now, and we expect them to change.
John:
I don't expect them to change in this direction, but this is just, you know...
John:
time delayed confirmation that yes of course apple has considered having the whole keyboard be a screen or having the whole thing to be a convertible snap apart thing with like an ipad and a screen thing or whatever um but until we hear more we'll just continue assuming that this is a thing they investigated but are not going to produce but
John:
I think they could sell something like this, not maybe as a Mac laptop, maybe as an iOS thing, but it doesn't seem imminent to me.
John:
Let's start with baby steps.
John:
Let's fix the mechanical keyboard reliability problems first, and then after that, maybe...
John:
fix the marco satisfaction index on the mechanical keyboard that is now reliable damn straight on that topic i have to say i've been using my 2017 macbook pro at work with the keyboard has not yet broken because i rarely use the keyboard so i'm not using a lot but it's not yet broken and i'm mostly a convert to the key switches i still hate the touch bar mostly because of the escape key which i want to be a real key but i like the actual keyboard obviously the reliability part is still an issue
Casey:
No, I agree with you, John.
Casey:
Now, granted, I've not used a Touch Bar Mac, but just the key switches and whatnot, I adore them.
Casey:
And I have spent years talking about how much the Magic keyboards are my favorite keyboards ever.
Casey:
And in the last six months to a year, I have decided that, no, my favorite keyboard ever...
Casey:
if you can put a humongous asterisk on the end, is the one that's in the modern MacBook Pros and MacBooks.
Casey:
But that humongous asterisk is when it's working.
Casey:
And as much as I want to say that Marco's being a big baby and that really it's not a problem, no, really, it is a problem.
Casey:
I've never needed to buy compressed air in 10 years.
Casey:
But as I've mentioned several times, I had to buy compressed air to get
Casey:
some like microscopic dust out of my macbook keyboard but man when it's where it's like my car isn't it like when it's working gosh i love that thing uh but then occasionally it fails and it makes me sad but you don't love the arrow keys though like i mean they're still i i have i have general hatred for laptop keyboards but specifically the arrow keys in this it's grim
Casey:
I don't like the arrow keys, but they don't drive me as nuts as I think they drive you.
Casey:
And I think some of that is because I've been using the inverted T for less time.
Casey:
Well, no, is that really true?
Casey:
Because my PC stuff always had an inverted T, I think.
John:
i don't know the fact that you could feel for it because you could feel for the gaps so that the one the one is that we talked about the feeling for but the other thing i find that surprised me using the keyboard now for a long time besides not being able to feel down there to find where the edges are is that the up and down arrow keys which it's the same essentially the same logical arrangement has always been a half size up and half size down crammed into a single key space
John:
i find it more difficult to differentiate and find and select like the up versus the down and i don't understand why maybe it's because the travel is less maybe because there's less of an indent or a space between them but i find myself i've found the correct key with my finger i'm not looking but i found the correct key the up down key with my finger and i have to like carefully navigate which one of the things i want to hit anyway all that as i've said for years and years would be solved if they just put an actual full-size inverted t and broke the symmetry of the outline of the keyboard but
John:
Not hold my breath on that.
Casey:
Yeah.
Casey:
Tiff, are you using any sort of mobile rig or, well, mobile computer computer or are you on iPads when you're running around?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm on iPads when I'm running around.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But I want to say something about this virtual, the all screen keyboard patent thing.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So like...
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Apple does a lot of different patents for everything.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Right.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So it's not like super important that they did this one because they're doing weird patents all the time for different things that they think of, which is as they should a smart business move.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But what if I didn't read this article because I'm, you know, I'm not allowed to prepare for the show.
John:
You're filling the Marco role.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I mean, you're not allowed to read stuff.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I asked him and he was like, no, no, no.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, nothing to read.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's fine.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But so I use a kind of like a skin on the top of my keyboard now, which has Photoshop shortcuts on it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And generally the shortcuts that I use the most, I don't need a keyboard for.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But the ones that are kind of more obscure, I do use it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it's nice to have that reference without having to look up.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
uh, a guide online to find out what is the shortcut for a certain obscure tool that I'm just not used to using that I want to try out.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But a virtual keyboard kind of, well, not virtual because it's, it's, you know, there is a physical pad there, but it would be kind of an all screen digital keyboard.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And that like, you can kind of have those layouts, um, built in, in the software, you know, you could just like swap them in and out.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And I think that would be kind of cool.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Wouldn't it?
Yeah.
John:
Yeah, no, that's that's why I mean, if you don't remember what episode 193, but that's kind of what we talked about.
John:
Like it was the original pitch for Steve Jobs up on the iPhone.
John:
It's like, OK, well, you got a keyboard on your thing, but then like the keyboard is what the keyboard is.
John:
But what if you could change the keyboard based on the application you're using?
John:
Like if you just make the entire front of the phone a screen.
John:
it's you know it's much more configurable and they demoed that in the original iphone like look when we when we ask you to enter numbers we'll just change the whole keyboard to a numpad and when you're entering just letters we can save room and not have and we have like a key to toggle you know we all know this from using ios but like we don't have to have the numbers above the letters all the time taking up more room on what was then the very small iphone screen we can just not have a number row at all and then when you want to type numbers hit this little thing in the corner and then the whole keyboard changes the numbers
John:
uh that's like the most simple form of this and what you're talking about is like when you have a screen you could put anything you want there it doesn't even have to look anything like a keyboard it could be like this palette of of buttons that you can hit to do photoshoppy type things or yeah that's well that's because like it would keep the layout of a standard keyboard because that's the way people learn and are used to typing right because like old people right old people um
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But, like, you know, in general, like, that's where it's laid out that way for a reason, I guess.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I don't know.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I remember CGP Grey talking about some sort of weirdo keyboard that he uses.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But, I mean, again... Dvorak, yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Why?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But, I mean, looking at my keyboard right now with this floppy skin on it that gets a whole bunch of crud underneath and it just... It's all...
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I don't know.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's not a pretty solution.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I mean, everything's laid out similar, but it has the shortcuts written on top of them.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it would be really nice to kind of have that transparency layer be in a digital format instead and then be able to switch back to see a normal keyboard instead of revealing the crud covered keys that now live underneath this floppy skin.
John:
That's like the transitional model, because people who have been using a physical keyboard to use Photoshop for a long time have muscle memory for where the key shortcuts are for like the commonly used ones, for example.
John:
Right.
John:
And so if you.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
The common ones that I'm talking about, like, you know, some of the obscure stuff.
John:
Yeah.
John:
No, but I'm saying I'm saying like that's that's the reason why you display a virtual keyboard on the screen instead of something.
John:
uh you know more sort of like uh thinking outside the box because you're not limited by a physical keyboard anymore you can display anything you want down there it could be like a custom palette made for manipulating photoshop really quickly but because people are coming from a world where they're using photoshop on pcs and things with regular keyboards
John:
they would probably want a layout that mimics a physical keyboard only with, like you said, with the overlay on it or whatever.
John:
But eventually I'd have to think that all of us would die out and it would be like, well, why am I showing you a picture of a physical keyboard down there when what you really want is a custom control layout
John:
uh made specifically for using photoshop most efficiently perhaps that you could even rearrange them so it just becomes another it just becomes another piece of software in the same way they let you rearrange all like your sidebars and your layers palette and all that other stuff and dock things to each other and customize in that way the bottom the screen that is horizontal is just another version of the screen that is vertical and you should be able to lay it out the same way even to the point where that could be the surface that you draw on with your pencil instead of drawing on your vertical screen a laptop which would never work
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
We're just talking about the multi-pad lifestyle here, right?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Essentially, you just put two iPads next to each other and communicate.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Didn't they have a shuffleboard app that you could string them all up and you could throw the pucks right across four iPhones?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I think Margo and I set that up once.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It was pretty sweet.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But yeah, that's basically what this is, right?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But in a laptop?
John:
yeah well the patent doesn't say i mean it's just a patent right but you know they think they try to cover all their bases like you know could be a tablet could be a personal you know they're all vague about it right that's the thing with patents but there's lots of possibilities here of uh you know applying second screen to a thing that apple makes whether it's an ipad with a second screen that snaps onto it or a laptop thing or you know both and you can snap it onto either one with little magnets or something or they just never do anything like this and you know we'll see
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I don't know.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I can get behind this.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I can get excited about it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
This sounds kind of fun.
John:
So you don't have a hang-ups about typing on it?
John:
Because say it was on a laptop or something, the reason people usually buy physical keyboards for their iPads, there's two reasons.
John:
One is they want to have something they can type on that's not a screen.
John:
But the second one I feel like people forget is having a separate keyboard and iPad frees up the entire iPad screen for screen purposes.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, I'm seeing the benefit in having the screen, the double screen space.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So if you're doing any kind of even if you're drawing or typing or doing anything, the screen space in front of you is precious.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And you don't want to take half that up with some keyboard that you're typing on.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But no, I type a lot of my phone.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I don't think it really matters anymore.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Is that working for you?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Seriously?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I mean, I don't I don't type a lot.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It is so bad for me.
John:
but i don't type a lot i mean i answer some emails and even long emails i sit and i type them out of my phone because it's easier being mobile with it than coming back and sitting at my computer i guess it's a casey problem yeah that's that's one of the things we've discussed in the past of how some people really don't like typing on glass but a whole generation of people's growing up typing on glass and they're not going to have the same hang-ups about it that some of us do yeah
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I feel more fine about it.
John:
Tiff's young at heart.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I am.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm the youngest right here right now.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So, I mean, come on.
John:
By like a couple of months or something?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, I'm millennial, man.
John:
I don't like to think about it.
John:
I don't like to think about people born in the 80s.
John:
It's gross.
Ha ha ha.
Casey:
Love you too, John.
Casey:
Oh, goodness.
Casey:
No, I don't know about this patent.
Casey:
I mean, I'd try anything.
Casey:
And just like you guys said, the idea of having another screen that's modifiable to suit your needs or suit the needs of what's going on right then does sound good.
Casey:
I never really played.
Casey:
Was it the 3DS that had the two screens set up?
Casey:
Is that right?
Casey:
No.
Casey:
Yes?
Casey:
Still does.
Casey:
Okay.
Casey:
I never really played one of those for more than like two minutes.
Casey:
And it seemed kind of silly in the two minutes I played it.
Casey:
But I'm sure that there were plenty of games where it actually made a lot of sense.
Casey:
But I don't know.
Casey:
I'd try it.
Casey:
I'm not great at typing on glass.
Casey:
I'm better on a full-size iPad, which is funny because I don't have a full-size iPad in the house.
Casey:
But I mean, I'd give it a shot.
Casey:
But man, I can't imagine I would want, especially for a full-on computer, I would enjoy having glass as my only input mechanism.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
What was that projection keyboard from like Microsoft?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
that never worked it was from sharper image i think i know what you're thinking no we went into a microsoft store when we had adam was young enough to be strapped to me you know like a like in a little harness thing that you wear when you wear your babies uh and we were in a microsoft store typing on some sort of like projected keyboard yeah they still make those that's that i feel like is even worse than the screen ones because they never quite worked as well as even a screen keyboard would
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, yeah, and you couldn't see it too well either.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It wasn't great.
Casey:
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
So before we do Ask ATP, we're going to do a brief Ask TIFF.
Casey:
And I'm assuming that this was mostly John's work that I'm now taking credit for.
Casey:
But I will emcee and let John take over as soon as he sees it necessary.
Casey:
Tiff, what's your favorite tech product right now?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
These questions.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I mean, come on, dudes.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's a tech podcast.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You must endure.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's all, John.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
These questions are so cheesy.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
All right.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
My favorite tech product right now, I would have to say, is the Switch because I've been playing it constantly.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So go Switch.
John:
Are you playing it handheld or on the TV mostly?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
uh tv with the pro controller good yep the proper way but i put stickers on the pro controllers oh that's fine you got the doggy stickers uh well the dog sticker is on the main um the little joy con
Casey:
set up a holder thing yeah that make when it actually looks like a little dog but on the back of all of our pro controllers we each have kind of like our own sticker so each family member has their own controller you know i do still love my switch but i almost i feel like i never have time to play it and the part of the problem i have with the switch is that i've only made it i would guess like a quarter of the way through zelda despite having had it for months now
Casey:
And I feel like it's so hard, and maybe it's me, but it's hard for me to pick it up, play it for like 10 or 15 minutes, put it back down, and then remember what the crap I was working on the next day when I pick it up again.
Casey:
Like, Zelda is not the kind of game that you just pick up and play for 10 or 15 minutes and put down.
John:
it totally is you just haven't here's the thing it is that type of game especially this zelda is having him but the problem is that you have not because you don't have to do any you don't have to do anything it's so yeah fair yeah but the thing is like you haven't the game hasn't grabbed you like that's the problem like because if the game grabbed you the way it works like when you you know showing that you can dip into it is yeah you only have 15 minutes so you dip into it and do a thing but if the game has actually grabbed you and really gotten your attention
John:
all the while you're not playing you're thinking about here's what i'm gonna do the next time i play i'm gonna go over here i'm gonna do this thing and then i'm gonna do that thing and maybe i think about it like you're thinking about it you're thinking about this place this virtual place you know even when you're not there uh but if you don't get grabbed in that way when you come back it'll be like okay uh reboot everything where the hell was i in this game because you haven't been thinking about it since then so it's not i don't think the game doesn't allow you to play in short spurts it's just that it hasn't really got its hooks into you it's just not connecting with you or whatever
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, because when I was very into Odyssey, I could sit down and play Odyssey for like 10 minutes, get one moon and then shut it off.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You know, like I would be like, oh, I'm just going to do this real quick.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And the same thing with Zelda, too.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You could just play a quick little temple and be like, all right, I'm just going to beat this temple and then I'm just going to shut it off and I'm going to go do something else.
Casey:
Yeah, and maybe that's part of the problem.
Casey:
And now I'm showing my inability to play games, but I feel like I got all of the temples that were easily accessible.
Casey:
Shrines, please.
John:
I can't allow this to continue.
Casey:
Sorry, thank you.
Casey:
I went to all of the shrines.
Casey:
I'm sorry, John.
Casey:
Sorry.
Casey:
you you must now do 10 push-ups no uh i went to all and i do too uh i went to all the shrines that that were easily accessible and now all that remains that i can see anyway are like in the super hot lava area or like the super cold tundra area all the shrines they were easily accessible can you put a number on that for us please
John:
i honestly don't remember i can give me a minute gosh there's so many you can't even find them all well then that's then that's probably the thing is just i'm not exploring the right areas hold on let me see if my switch is even charged but you don't but you don't have to do shrines at all you don't do shrines don't do shrines like that's the thing about the zelda like if there's something fun that you find you know just like maybe you just want to get the your the best horse you can get right you could spend hours just find oh you you got to get a lot of you got to get a lot of donut to get the best horse you can get let me tell you
Casey:
You know, one thing that is really nice that I like about having my MacBook is I just ripped the power charger cable-y thing out of my MacBook, slammed it into the Switch.
Casey:
And unfortunately, it's like any modern iOS device in that it needs to be at least slightly charged, even if it's hooked up to power to turn it on.
Casey:
But just grabbing my computer's power cord and putting it into my video game system's power cord, that's pretty cool.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Wait, you just did that right now?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Wait, why is the Switch in your office?
Casey:
Because I never play it on the TV.
Casey:
Sorry, guys.
Casey:
And to be honest, I never really play it at all.
Casey:
Even though I do enjoy it.
Casey:
It's not that I enjoy it really any less.
Casey:
I just never have a chance.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's why you're not playing, because it's not in the hub of the house.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's not in the enjoyment center.
John:
Sorry, that sounds gross.
John:
He's just not that into it, as they used to say in the 90s.
John:
But one of the great things about the Switch...
John:
especially for, you know, short gaming sessions, is that of all the gaming things I have ever known...
John:
it is the fastest from powering on to picking up where you left off.
John:
Now, it's easy because it's not an MMO or whatever, but you turn that thing back on and you are the exact millisecond you were in Zelda.
John:
Yes, it's awesome.
John:
And I love that.
John:
That's no boot screen, no spinners, no cursors, no anything.
John:
I wish Destiny did that.
John:
Obviously, it can't because of online stuff, but that makes it so easy to just dip in.
John:
run do a thing grab a thing fight a person put it back to sleep and then just pick up right where you left off you can even be a total monster and play half of a mario kart race and then uh and pause it and then come back and pick it up yeah although i would that's that's the thing about that i do it sometimes with alto's adventure and alto's odyssey now um
John:
When you're having a long session and you think you're doing well, sometimes you think, I should take a break now because I'm approaching my record and if I take a break, I will reset all the goodness and I'll come back to this later when I haven't burned through my attention or whatever.
John:
But on the other hand, you might come back to it and you're not in the groove anymore.
John:
So knowing when is a smart time to take a break and how long that break should be
John:
John, you have to know when to hold them and know when to hold them.
John:
That's totally true.
John:
I found with Alto that it is useful to take a break, but it cannot be a very long break because I don't want to get out of the flow.
John:
But sometimes I do want to release whatever tension I feel like is building up.
John:
Also, my problem with Alto and Al's Odyssey and Adventure is that...
John:
eventually when you get good your games start lasting a really long time and it's like do i have 45 minutes to play alto maybe not 45 minutes just sit there and do nothing that sounds amazing i'm doing nothing i'm going downhill you know what i mean i don't mean that i don't mean that in a disparaging way i'm just saying like to just have 45 minutes i go i go that way really fast something gets in my way i turn
John:
it's an 80s reference for you 90s kids nope not a bit uh yeah i got nothing i know it's fine i'm playing marco so i don't get it you're doing you're doing great thanks uh favorite tech product the switch uh what tech thing is tiff most looking forward to in 2018
John:
i'm looking forward to getting marco's computer after he's done how about that that's good all right yeah after he's done you mean all right so i think more accurately would be after he decides to buy the mac pro you're going to take his computer and then when he returns the mac pro you're not giving it back right i am definitely buying the mac pro
Casey:
we know we know uh computer man everyone knew this this is like me definitely not buying the watch everyone knows you're buying a mac pro all right if you could change one oh i'm not asking this this is yes no it's tech related no no you ask this i'm not i'm not doing this like the dating game
John:
i know right yeah yeah so this question is make whoopee yeah in the butt um if you could change one if you could change one tech related thing about marco what would it be i feel like this is safer because it's tech related we're not asking you to like critique him as his being one tech related thing about marco what would it be
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
If I could change one tech-related thing about Marco, what would it be?
John:
It could be a thing that he does with tech that you don't like, a product that he has that you wish he didn't, anything tech-related.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I wish he would play games a little bit more, but then I would have less time to play games.
John:
You need to get more two-player co-op games.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
yeah yeah well we we played um oh digital marco what was that one where you're under the bunker and we played it like back and forth shadow complex yeah shadow complex that was fun when we did that and we had time and things you kind of you do your kind of
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
not co-op playing but like uh backseat driver playing no can yeah over the shoulder playing with each other with stardew valley or like when the one person has played the other person is advising right yeah yeah we did that we did that for um odyssey 2 a little bit well it was more i advise marco or laughed when he totally missed stuff like the good wife that i am um so but no that's that's a terrible answer i don't know that's pretty good i mean that's tech related you wish he played games more
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I mean, he's so supportive when it comes to getting technology stuff all set up for me or if I need his help with anything.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
He doesn't get mad if I need extra help.
John:
We're not asking you to say the good things about him.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, he's great.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I don't know.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I am the best.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
All right.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I take away that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Whatever he's using right now, I would take that away from him.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
He should not be allowed to have this.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's freaking me out.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Good luck.
John:
Just tell him to pass a different argument to the voice parameter to the command he's running.
John:
He can pick a different voice.
John:
He just keeps picking the default Fred one, which is boring.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, you should definitely pick the sexy Australian Siri voice because that one's pretty good.
Casey:
All right.
Casey:
And I would ask the next question, but I have no idea what it means.
Casey:
So go ahead, John.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, I put that in there.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, okay.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But you don't have to say it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's fine.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Okay.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So you know how there's so many different companies now that gather or collaborate a box that they send you and you can get like a quarterly box or a weekly box of whatever things.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, Pusheen, the little gray internet cat, has a box and
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it's stupid expensive.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it comes quarterly.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But it does look pretty cute.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So I've kind of been debating about it.
John:
So what's in it?
John:
I'm familiar with Pusheen.
John:
I'm not familiar with the box idea.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, it's just a whole bunch of merch.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
like that's the best way to describe it in like the cheesiest way possible because it is it's just like here's some pusheen socks and a little vinyl figure and uh i don't know like a a towel and a printed turban i don't know like there's like all kinds of weird stuff in there that you get and so it's like you don't get to pick so it's kind of like a surprise where you're like i wonder what i'll get yeah
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, it's like a curated collection of Pusheen paraphernalia.
John:
Does the box cost more or less than the sum of the retail prices of the things it contains?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, less.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's usually the appeal of the whole box situation.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But they say, you know, it's $100 value for only $69.99.
John:
Since this is a question that you are asking about yourself, my answer, based on the experience seeing my...
John:
children have way too many possessions yeah is that you really it's not so much about whether the box will be exciting it's about what happens with the stuff that's in the box after because you will rapidly run out of places to display things no matter how cute they are that's it that's the answer i needed so it's no no to the pushing box i will just enjoy it on instagram
John:
Plus, you got a whole new art room and you're going to be filling it with art junk.
John:
So you're going to be getting plenty of boxes of stuff.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, I have plenty of stuff to fill my art room with.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's a good idea not to invest in the pushing box.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Thank you.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That really did help, actually.
Casey:
See, this is the opposite of the advice Marco gives, because with almost all things, Marco's advice is, oh, yeah, definitely buy it.
John:
Well, now Marco is free to get her one of those boxes for a special occasion because she wouldn't have bought it for herself.
John:
But now here's a box.
John:
But an ongoing commitment to continual boxes, you will run out of places to put that stuff.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, no, no.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I wasn't going to commit to the whole yearly box situation.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I was just thinking for spring.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You know, like Easter Bunny situation.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Treat yourself.
John:
You can get one box, I feel like, but be careful because one box turns into me.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
No, see, I'm just going to open it and then it's going to be over.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So I might as well watch a video of somebody opening it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You get the same thrill.
John:
There you go.
John:
Now you'll be like every other seven-year-old kid who watches Disembodied Hands silently unbox things on YouTube for hours and hours and making people millionaires.
Casey:
Yeah, why not?
Casey:
Spread the wealth.
Casey:
Where do I figure out how many shrines I have in Zelda?
John:
In their load screen?
John:
On the loading screen in the upper right.
Casey:
Oh, God, I wasn't paying attention.
Casey:
In the hood?
Casey:
It was something like, it was 20-some shrines, which I'm sure is where you go, oh, God, are you kidding me?
John:
Exactly.
John:
Yeah, you're not a quarter.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You're a baby.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, my goodness.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
sorry i do have the elephant dude what is that called the divine beast there you go yeah yeah yeah there you go i just had to draw a whole bunch of those for adam he kept requesting them for his lunchbox notes and i'm like look i need like two days to draw a divine beast kid like i can't whip that out in the morning in like 20 minutes tell him you you can't give away your eye for free anymore yeah he has to buy it wow
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
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Casey:
all right uh jimmy bossy bossy buffett jimmy bossy uh jimmy writes in uh max out hearts or stamina i'm assuming this is a video game thing i'm assuming about zelda is it not yay reading this okay uh this is actually relevant to my interests if i ever get back to this game so uh marco or just marco cheesy peasy and so you're saying marco and john so tiff and john uh what what do you recommend let's start with tiff
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'm gonna go with stamina aka donut which Adam calls it donut but Marco insists that he came up with the name but it's really cute and we call it the donut um I definitely think donut because the more stamina you have the more you can explore and then you can get hearts later so stamina is way more important to max out first I think this is a choice that people put on themselves like with these extremes here max out hearts or stamina so like
John:
Long term, obviously, you're going to max out both, right?
John:
That's your, you know, if you just keep playing the game, it's going to happen.
John:
What people really want to know is in the early game, where should you put your points, essentially?
John:
And my experience, I know there's a lot of people who say, oh, just put everything into stamina, but like Breath of the Wild is...
John:
you're more likely to die in Breath of the Wild than you are in a lot of recent Zeldas.
John:
Because they start you weak and because there's no sort of guided path through the game, you can find yourself encountering enemies that want to kill you.
John:
And so I don't feel like it's good advice to tell somebody just put everything into stamina.
John:
If you want to do like a recipe, like a two-to-one ratio, like two in stamina, one in hearts, two in stamina, one in hearts, just pick like a pattern like that that has some reasonable balance and go with it.
John:
I do agree that...
John:
If you have to weight one, weight stamina more than you think you should weight hearts.
John:
But I'm hesitant to tell people put everything into stamina because you will die a lot.
John:
And I feel like that is just as frustrating as not being able to climb a hill.
John:
But I'm super into climbing.
John:
And also, by the way, you will max out stamina long before you max out your heart.
John:
So if you do this two to one ratio or any kind of thing that favors stamina...
John:
You will max out your stamina and you'll feel sad.
John:
You're like, really?
John:
That's all I can get?
John:
Yeah, that's all you can get.
John:
And then you'll just spend everything else on hearts.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And then you'll get upset.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, I agree with John.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
You articulated that in a much more, you know, delicate and poetic way.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
This is my life.
Casey:
Hey, every Wednesday night.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I know.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's like, duh, do the stamina.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And John is like, well, actually, let me...
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
eloquently tell you exactly.
John:
I did not say well, actually.
John:
Defend myself.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But yes, I agree with you, John, that you should do a little bit here, a little bit there, but more stamina is better.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So get a good recipe going.
Casey:
Brian Middleton writes, what arcade games are each of you nostalgic for from your childhood?
Casey:
Is there one game that you would like to own?
Casey:
And this time, let's start with John.
Casey:
And I actually have answers for this.
Casey:
Thank you very much.
Casey:
But we'll start with John.
John:
i was trying to think of this uh like it's the one game i've known it easier but like games and nostalgia for it there's so many um i did spend a lot of time in arcades as a kid i have mine do you want to think about it uh yeah go ahead i mean i'm like i'm probably not going to pick one because this is in top four but you but if you're you're you should you definitely have answer you go okay ski ball
Yes.
John:
It's totally an arcade game.
John:
I know they said arcade game and not video game.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yes, they did say arcade game and not video game.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Totally skeeball.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And I would love to own a skeeball thing in my house.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That would be awesome.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's what you're nostalgic for from your childhood as well.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I played skeeball all the time as a kid.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Every time I went to arcades, that's what I would play.
Casey:
Tiff, you should listen to this show called Top Four where the rules really don't matter and the points and rankings are all made up because that was a very top four answer to that question.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I know.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Top four arcade games.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, we already know my top one, so busted.
John:
Spoiler alert.
John:
You do top four video games and then you don't have... We already did that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
First episode, man.
John:
really was that yeah it was but you have to revisit it because now there's been so many new games come out i know yeah we have to do a top four mistakes but you hadn't even played stardew at that point you hadn't played mario odyssey i know and i made the big mistake of not putting journey on there so
John:
It's all coming back to me now.
John:
I blocked it out.
Casey:
For me, these answers are truly and utterly terrible, but I don't care because they're my answers.
Casey:
What would I love to have?
Casey:
We actually do have a pinball machine in the house.
Casey:
It's true.
Casey:
I've seen it.
Casey:
It is old.
Casey:
It's older than I. Probably not older than John.
Casey:
Hey-o!
Casey:
But anyway, I would love to have either Street Fighter 2, which is actually an okay answer, or Cruisin' USA, which is a truly and utterly terrible game that I loved when I was a kid.
Casey:
See also Tropic Thunder.
Casey:
No, not Tropic Thunder.
Casey:
That's the movie, isn't it?
Casey:
It was Hydro Thunder or something like that, which is basically Cruisin' USA, but boats.
Casey:
Either one of those, I think, would be tremendous.
Casey:
And...
Casey:
I don't know why.
Casey:
Street Fighter, yeah, you can make a pretty decent argument, I would imagine, that that was actually a good arcade game.
Casey:
Cruising USA and Hydra Thunder, both really not good games, but oh man, I spent so many hours playing those in the arcades.
Casey:
By arcades, I mean in a Fuddruckers or something like that.
Casey:
But God, they were fun.
John:
Yeah, but I spent a lot of time in arcades, so much so that I think one of my first memories is learning that five times four is 20 from putting a $5 bill into, you know, like learning multiplication based on bills that you would put into the machine that would give you quarters, right?
John:
That's how young it was, like it's before multiplication tables.
John:
And also the other factor that comes into this is that arcades,
John:
probably still like this i think but even when i was a kid uh like games come into an arcade right and they don't really leave so when they got the space invaders yeah probably yeah probably before i was uh
John:
probably before i was even born when was space invaders before i was old enough to play space invaders someone got a space invaders machine and it would just be there and it would stay there and then they would get pac-man and then we get ms pac-man galaga centipede and like just you know all the different things and it'd be it's kind of like this like layers of sediment like the lower down you go the older the games get so they never left so i played
John:
all of these games some games that were before my time at the same time like afterburner would come out and it was the big 50 cent machine and the thing moved and so on and so forth but still pac-man was sitting right there space evaders missile command was still there missile command compared to afterburner it was like but in the same arcade so i have this huge spread of things that i'm nostalgic for going all the way from you know things like centipede and millipede and pac-man and stuff like that all the way up to the quote-unquote fancy new games like hydro thunder or afterburn and stuff like that
John:
So I can't... If I had to pick one, I would probably say Gauntlet, the original, because I think that was... I think I had the most fun playing that because it was four-person, sort of side-by-side, in-person, which was... Gauntlet was the first game in my arcade, anyway, that did this.
John:
That was a novel experience versus you just standing there fighting against yourself or the high scores or whatever.
John:
So Gauntlet is my most nostalgic pick.
John:
Now, which game would I like to own?
John:
None of them because arcade machines are huge.
John:
Just kidding.
John:
Just play the name.
John:
That's true.
Casey:
That is true.
Casey:
And pinball machines are both huge and weigh a ton.
Casey:
I cannot even begin to describe to you how heavy that pinball machine is.
Casey:
It is preposterous.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Now, John, why in your fantasies do you always think about putting, like, if someone asks you, well, what would you pick to put in your house, like an arcade game or something?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And then in your fantasy, you're squeezing this fantasy object into your real house and
John:
Because I respect the parameters of the problem.
John:
They didn't say, oh, and also you get unlimited money to make a giant house.
John:
If I had a giant house, surely I would have a full arcade and then I wouldn't have to pick a game.
John:
I would have all the games.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, see, then you could say things like that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Because I don't assume that it means like, OK, actually put these things in your house.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Because I feel like if you would want that thing, it would already be in your house.
John:
Which would you like to own?
John:
Some people might have an answer.
John:
Some people might say, look, I was really into the Star Wars, the Vector Star Wars game, and I would love to have one of those.
John:
People do.
John:
They buy them, but they buy that one game because they have room for one of it, and they make room for one game in their otherwise normal house.
John:
I'm just saying there is no game that I want enough to make room for it in my otherwise normal house.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, but I couldn't put a skee-ball game in my house, but I'm still like, that's what I would want in my house.
John:
You totally could.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
No.
John:
You have an art room.
John:
If you cared as much about skee-ball as you did about art... The art room is outside of the house.
John:
Whatever.
John:
The whole point is, if you were into skee-ball instead of art, you could put a skee-ball thing there.
John:
This is my ski ball.
John:
Mommy needs to have some private time.
John:
She's going to go flexible.
John:
And I did enjoy ski ball, by the way.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, my landlord goes and asks me why I'm renting this space.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And I'm like, well, I am an avid ski ball player.
John:
And I just don't have room for it in my house.
John:
You're going to be in the ski ball Olympics.
John:
I need to train.
Me too.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I bet you there is.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I bet you there is totally professional ski ball players.
John:
Oh, yeah.
John:
No, I've played a lot of that.
John:
I do have nostalgia of ski ball.
Casey:
Ski ball is so fun.
Casey:
I'm terrible at it.
Casey:
I am truly and utterly terrible at it.
John:
All right.
John:
So here's a question.
John:
Two questions, two parts to this.
John:
All right.
John:
So the ski ball angle is if you had a ski ball machine in your house, would it be important to you that it gives tickets?
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
yes and i would have a basket of things that you could win with the tickets all right now if you have an arcade game in your house would you make it take quarters yes because then you would use the quarters for fun stuff later on
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
our pinball machine does not take quarters i mean it has the slot for it it's all part of the ceremony yeah i feel like then it's it's like restricting it in some like weird kind of not important way because you're in your house you can make like a little like a little cardboard thing with with an nfc or qr code on you'd hold it in front of the the game i like the idea of having to go to the bank and get a roll of quarters to play a game in your own home
John:
no what you need to have what you need to have is a token machine so you have to build little armament tokens that you can only spend in the armament arcade yes custom token armament arcade can you imagine adam armament's arcade there you go oh we're building this digital marco write that down in the good ideas list please done
John:
Oh, my God.
John:
So you pay the miners with money they can only spend at the company's store, see?
Casey:
The final Ask ATP question, which Tiff is probably the most equipped to answer, Simon Tandler asks, what are some good resources, blogs, books, people to follow, et cetera, for photography beginners?
Casey:
Not really gear-wise, more about learning the craft.
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So I read this and I was thinking at first thought I was thinking of like what the pretty much the one photographer that I follow.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And that's Jamie Beck.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And she has been living in Provence for the past year and doing a lot of still life photography and actually showing her techniques with using film and digital.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it's just been really fascinating to watch.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So she's a really great one to check out.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But it's very personal what you want to see as to learn for technique and craft on what type of photography you want.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's a lot like art, right?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Like you find a style that you're very into or an artist that you're very into.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And I think a great resource for that right now is
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
is Instagram.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And if you find one photographer or one, I'm just going to say artist, it doesn't matter.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It translates both ways.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So you find a photographer on there that you really like and you can see who they follow or who follows them and especially in the explore tab.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And then it kind of
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
rolls into finding other photographers that are interesting to you, whether it's landscape or it's portraits or it's various different styles, the way they shoot texture, the way they shoot light.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And I think if you start following that and you start looking at a lot of
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
pictures and a lot of other people's work, it can kind of open up your eye to find a style that you like.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And at first, when you're practicing, it is not a problem to mimic someone else's work.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Obviously, give credit.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Don't charge for it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Don't try and sell it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Being it for you as a learning experience, I think that that is a fantastic way to open up your creativity and then you can move on from there.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But I really I've been loving Instagram for following artists and seeing the way that they do different techniques.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And then that kind of.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
it snowballs into the next person that I follow.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And then they follow other people that are similar, but slightly different.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And you kind of can see how someone's art or photography evolves through even their own personal feed.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And it's been really valuable to kind of immersing yourself in all of that.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And that's what I would definitely suggest.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So Instagram.
Casey:
Yeah, I would agree with that.
Casey:
I still love Instagram.
Casey:
And even though it's owned by Facebook and Facebook is getting ever more creepy with each passing moment, I adore Instagram.
Casey:
I look at Instagram a lot.
Casey:
A photographer that I admire quite a bit on Instagram is Aaron Brooks, whose username on Instagram is Aaron R. Brooks.
Casey:
She has two young daughters and most of her shots of are of her or of her kids or her and her kids.
Casey:
And I would guess about a third to a half are like a big camera, but half to two thirds are just her iPhone.
Casey:
And what's really great is as we record this, she's done some Instagram stories where she'll take a shot that she shot on her iPhone and show how she like tweaks it and, um,
Casey:
And edits it all on her iPhone in order to make it into the final product.
Casey:
And I think she's a great follow.
Casey:
I'm sure that there's a bunch of others that I'm not thinking of, but she's really great.
Casey:
Also, if you happen to do if you happen to like, say, a particular subject matter like cars, for example, I don't know if anyone on this show has ever talked about cars for any length of time, but.
Casey:
You know, there's oftentimes a lot of really good car-related accounts or maybe it's watches if that's your thing.
Casey:
Whatever the case may be, oftentimes you'll find somebody that likes not only photography but that thing.
Casey:
And it's really great to follow them because you can get a lot of the same kind of ideas about composition and depth of field and things like that just by looking at shots of cars.
Casey:
You know, they're pretty cars and they're pretty shots and it works out well.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
one other photographer that I really like that I think people should check out if they like portraiture.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Um, Benoit Pele, B E N O I T P A I L L E. Um, I, I think that's how you pronounce his name, but anyway, he's an amazing, uh, portrait photographer and you should check out his work.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's just stunning.
John:
How do you feel about Marco's tasting cars, which is another way to come at it is when it's time for you to get your next car, you're going to get an electric one.
John:
How do you feel about your car?
John:
Like what's the car?
John:
What's your take on the car situation in the Armin household?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, my car is a dinosaur and I forget to fill it up with gas.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So I don't want to do that anymore.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And I definitely want a Tesla for my next car.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
big one or small one like you have the small one i want the small one the the uh the roadster or the three the three the new one that's going to come out or has come out or has big waiting list to come out i don't know but i figure in two years when my lease is up we're good to go have you looked at the dashboard that casey hates so much
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, I don't care.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I'll figure it out.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I just don't want to fill my car with gas anymore.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So it'll be easier just to have two Teslas.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Right?
John:
That sounds reasonable.
John:
Well, you used to be taking your car because Marco had anxiety about the superchargers.
John:
But now it seems like you're just taking a Tesla all the time.
John:
And like, I don't know what you use your car for.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Oh, I don't know what I use my car for either.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I like go down the block sometimes.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I drive around the corner when I don't want to walk home at night and hang out with my friends.
John:
So it seems like you've collectively gotten over the whole like whatever the limitations of electric are.
John:
You've felt them out to the point where now there's no reason for you to have a gas car in reserve just in case you say you need to flee an expanding mushroom cloud or something.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Wow.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, I'm abandoning it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I mean, the amount of times that I forget to fill it up with gas versus how many times the mushroom cloud might be here, I'm going to go with the Tesla.
John:
But if you order the three now, you might get it by the time your lease is up.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
That's true.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Interesting point.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Marco, we should order that.
John:
on it this is the version of adding things to the shopping list including the car right right marco add model three to shopping list do you want me to search the web for add model three well played robot marco well played are we done here i think we're done all right well thanks to our sponsors casper fracture and squarespace and we'll see you next week
John:
Now the show is over They didn't even mean to begin Cause it was accidental Oh it was accidental John didn't do any research Marco and Casey wouldn't let him Cause it was accidental Oh it was accidental And you can find the show notes At ATP.FM
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M-E-N-T, Marco Arment, S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's accidental.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Accidental.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
They did.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
I started a new podcast called Playing for Fun with Mike Hurley.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And we talk only about the positive stuff about playing video games.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So it's like two besties playing video games and discussing them.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
We don't have any negative talk, no industry talk, no... Just very much...
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
the fun and the enjoyment that we get from the game and what we liked about it and yeah so that's where we're going we already had our first episode it was about mario odyssey and you can check it out um on relay fm so what is the publication schedule because shouldn't we be having the second episode by now
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah, we're recording on Friday, the next episode, but we're going to be doing it once a month.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So that way we each have... Once a month?
John:
I wish I'd known that before I got invested in this.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, why?
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's a great thing.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It's easy to invest in because it won't bog down your playlist of podcasts because we need time to play the games.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
all the way enough to discuss them and then that way it and it also doesn't become like a big uh burden for other people to add a new podcast to their list so it's nice and easy and yeah so it's it's uh i i like it once a month it feels good it comes up faster than you think because we're already recording again on friday and i just finished the game we're going to be talking about so
John:
Well, I don't think you need the time to play the games because you have such a backlog.
John:
You could talk about games that you've played in the past for like a year before you even got to games that are going now.
John:
Because again, it's not like you're talking about current events or something.
John:
You could talk about games you played seven years ago.
John:
Oh, definitely.
John:
Maybe Mike hasn't played them then.
John:
He's probably not.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Well, that's the thing.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
It has to be both of us.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
We've started a nice little list of things that we would possibly like to games we would like to talk about in the future.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But a lot of them, it's one of us has played it or one of us hasn't.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
And then or one of us has tried it a little bit, but didn't get very into it.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So we do need the time because we do have other things to do besides play games all day.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
even though we are mostly playing games for fun anyway in our free time because that's what we enjoy.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So we do have some nice things to fall back on, some things that we've played in the past, just like you said.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
But yeah, so John, this is a show that you can definitely never be on because I don't think you could stay positive about a game for an entire podcast.
John:
This description here of like, who wrote this is probably Marco.
John:
John probably has some nitpicks about a show focused solely on the good things about games.
John:
Like there's only been one episode that I've heard.
John:
But I know you're trying to say it's not like you're going to critique and you're not going to talk about games that you don't like.
John:
But even when talking about the games that you like, there are always quirks and odd things in the games that you are briefly momentarily laughing at the game instead of with it or talking about how you wish this thing was a little bit different.
John:
That happens.
John:
It's just in general it's positive.
John:
It's not as if you are blind to the quirks of the game, let's say.
John:
You still do talk about that.
John:
Nothing is so perfect.
John:
Yeah.
John:
Yeah, it's true.
John:
And even these things.
John:
And as for, like, the reason I'm asking about past games is I wonder how you're going to navigate, speaking of trying to stay positive, I wonder how you're going to navigate this because I want to hear you talk about, like, The Long Dark and Half-Life or all sorts of games that I assume Mike has never played.
John:
want to get him to play the long dark i do right but if the rule is that you both you have to play it and one of you quote unquote makes the other one play it what if the other one doesn't like it i still want to hear you podcast about it right and so then will mike have to be politely explained as so often happens in other shows where mike is talking about games with somebody else one person might like it more than the other let's say and you have to be able to have that conversation in a reasonably positive way and i hope that's what you do
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
yeah i think that's what we're going to try and do because or we're just won't if the game is so negative or so disliked by one of the one of us then we probably wouldn't talk about it or we'd put it on the back burner for for a later date but right now for the shows that we're going to be talking about the first few episodes or so we're going to try and stay mostly positive i was reminded of when gruber was raving about the grand tour to marco it was the best
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
See, I didn't have three hours to listen to that.
John:
By the way, I have an explanation for that for Marco, who is sitting there off to the side pretending he can't talk.
John:
I think it's because he's never seen Top Gear, so he doesn't understand how much better this same thing could be.
John:
So if this is your first viewing of these three people doing something they like, you're like, eh.
John:
you know whatever but if you don't realize that this is the much worse version of a previous thing it may be so bad i'm trying to make some excuses for why like gripper likes the grantor as much as he seems to it's so bad oh gosh it's not that i shouldn't say that it's not so bad it's just so bad compared to what it was it's just the the mighty have fallen yeah that's what i'm saying and he doesn't have he doesn't have a comparison he
Casey:
Makes me sad.
Casey:
The Playing for Fun reminds me of a podcast by a couple of local guys here in Richmond called Sam and Ross Like Things.
Casey:
And we'll put a link in the show notes to that as well.
Casey:
It's a similar idea where just every I think they do it fortnightly and each of them has to bring something that they like to the show.
Casey:
And the rule is no hedging.
Casey:
And so.
Casey:
um, in, in this era, that's, you know, everyone complaining about everything.
Casey:
Hello.
Casey:
Uh, then it's nice to have something like playing for fun or, you know, Sam and Ross like things or something else where, uh, where people are more positive.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
Yeah.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
We're trying to keep it light and happy and give people something to smile when they, when they listen.
NEW_SPEAKER_SPEAKER_01:
So bring people up instead of down.