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Connected

385: Federico Viticci and the Multiverse of Madness

 

00:00:00   (upbeat music)

00:00:02   - Hello and welcome to Connected episode 385.

00:00:12   It's made possible this week by our sponsors,

00:00:15   Indeed, Smile and Memberful.

00:00:19   My name is Steven Hackett and it is an Odd episode.

00:00:22   So as always on Odd episodes,

00:00:24   I'm gonna introduce Myke Hurley first.

00:00:25   - Hello.

00:00:27   - Hello.

00:00:28   - That's all I have to say.

00:00:29   I didn't prepare anything in advance today.

00:00:32   - No opening statement or greeting of any kind?

00:00:34   - Hi Federico.

00:00:36   Ooh, that's interesting.

00:00:38   - Hey.

00:00:39   - I didn't think about this.

00:00:40   I could assert you.

00:00:40   I could take my moment to assert you

00:00:42   and then introduce Federico.

00:00:44   - So instead of me introducing each of you,

00:00:46   it's like an introduction chain.

00:00:47   - Yeah, I actually think I prefer that, you know?

00:00:50   That feels more democratic.

00:00:51   - Democracy's overrated anyway.

00:00:54   - Although I guess nobody ever would introduce Steven.

00:00:58   That would be the problem.

00:00:59   There's no round robin.

00:01:00   No one introduces me now.

00:01:01   I mean, I would say it would be really intriguing in the way that this show works to round robin

00:01:08   introductions episode to episode.

00:01:10   We could never keep track of that.

00:01:12   Somebody could.

00:01:13   We could barely keep track of how it works now.

00:01:14   I feel like someone, a passionate one, could build a website that tells us who needs to

00:01:22   introduce who.

00:01:24   You know?

00:01:25   Yeah.

00:01:26   I'm just putting that out there.

00:01:28   Nobody introduced me, by the way. Like, officially.

00:01:30   I did!

00:01:31   No, Myke did!

00:01:32   Well, I did just say hi. Let me just... And please welcome to the show, he is the Italian

00:01:38   blogger Fueled by Coffee, the one that they call Federico Vittucci. Hi Federico.

00:01:42   Hello. Hello, that is me. That was also my opening statement. Hello, there.

00:01:47   This is me.

00:01:48   Yes.

00:01:49   It's a good one.

00:01:50   Yeah.

00:01:51   It's a good one.

00:01:52   Jason Snell has texted me, as he does during the show.

00:01:56   episode is introduced by a different member of the triple j. That's too much work. Don't

00:02:00   like that. No, too much work. Yeah. It's once again trying to use like, you know, usurp

00:02:06   us by being the first voices you hear. It's like they want listeners to imprint on them,

00:02:11   you know, you know, like with animals, like the first thing they see. And then you think

00:02:15   Jason's your daddy instead of Federico. Exactly. Exactly. What?

00:02:24   - Follow up, last time, Myke, I think you and I both

00:02:28   were sort of amused at Lutron's naming system scheme.

00:02:34   I don't know what it is.

00:02:37   So they have Caseta by Lutron,

00:02:39   which are their smart light stuff.

00:02:41   They have Serena, which is the company

00:02:43   that makes the smart shades.

00:02:45   - The problem I have is that everything is by Lutron.

00:02:47   And at that point, there's no point having the sub-brands

00:02:50   of every time you're gonna mention the main brand.

00:02:52   What's the name of the shade that you just mentioned? Serena?

00:02:57   Serena?

00:02:57   Like the Pokémon? Serena?

00:02:59   Like Williams? The tennis player?

00:03:01   Yeah, I was thinking of the tennis player.

00:03:03   Oh, Serena, not Serena. I thought it was Serena.

00:03:06   There's a Pokémon named Serena.

00:03:07   Every time you say this, it sounds the same.

00:03:09   I don't know if you're trying to pronounce them any differently.

00:03:12   It's T-S-A-R-E-E-N-A. Serena.

00:03:16   Oh, I hear it now. I hear it now.

00:03:19   I can't hear it, nor could I pronounce those differences.

00:03:22   - It's fine, don't worry about it.

00:03:23   - Anyways, listener Christian wrote in.

00:03:27   Christian is a lighting design engineer,

00:03:30   which is a pretty cool job, I think.

00:03:32   Get to make things lit just all the time, everywhere you go.

00:03:36   They wrote in saying this sub-brand thing

00:03:40   is really industry-wide because basically

00:03:43   all these manufacturers have tons and tons

00:03:46   of products and lines, and they try

00:03:48   to like stand out with product naming.

00:03:51   And so he sent us a link to RAB Lighting or Rab.

00:03:56   I think it's RAB 'cause it's all capitalized, RAB Lighting.

00:04:00   And they have some examples of some pretty funny names

00:04:04   like Gus and Gus Jr., Falcor.

00:04:08   I mean, go through this website.

00:04:09   There's some hilarious examples of lighting sub brands.

00:04:14   So apparently it's more common than we thought.

00:04:17   - Real time Pokemon follow up.

00:04:19   So, uh, listener Ryan in Discord sent a link to Pokemon number 763.

00:04:29   Now I would say, Zareena, like a Tsar.

00:04:32   Like I think that's what they're going for, right?

00:04:33   Interesting, Zaree. Oh, you said Zareen.

00:04:36   Zareena's got like a little tiara on the top, right?

00:04:39   Ah, you're probably right.

00:04:40   So it's like a Tsar.

00:04:42   And I mean, Ability's Queenly Majesty definitely sounds like a Tsar.

00:04:46   Yeah.

00:04:47   Zareena.

00:04:48   Oh, that actually makes more sense. I always wonder what that meant.

00:04:52   There's always puns. They love a pun.

00:04:54   It's a grass type.

00:04:56   Yeah. I hate the rename. Anyway.

00:05:00   That's a whole conversation we don't need to get into.

00:05:03   The feared Pokémon has long slender legs and a cool heart.

00:05:07   It shows no mercy as it stomps on its opponents.

00:05:11   Yep, sounds like a Tsar.

00:05:12   She doesn't.

00:05:14   Can I interest you in some competitive Pokemon play discussion?

00:05:18   I think I'm okay. Thank you.

00:05:21   I would like to hear it.

00:05:21   No, no. Well, Queenie Magis is kind of broken as an ability, but anyway, we can move on.

00:05:28   Are you going to be okay? Do you like really need to get it off your chest?

00:05:33   No, no, it's fine.

00:05:34   You're a follow-up type of Pokemon.

00:05:36   Yes, Steve.

00:05:41   That was funnier than you all had on.

00:05:43   I'm sitting here laughing, I don't know what you want from me.

00:05:46   Like how, what was that, ah ha ha ha, is that what you'd prefer?

00:05:49   Yes, thank you.

00:05:50   Okay, I'll work on that next time.

00:05:51   Thank you.

00:05:52   Okay, maybe I just start doing a laugh track on Connected.

00:05:55   Smart Shades, so this is related to follow up.

00:05:59   Josh wrote in that the company Eve, they make a bunch of different smart home stuff.

00:06:04   They have just released their smart home home kit enabled blinds motor.

00:06:12   So you can go to smartblinds.com.

00:06:15   There's a link in the show notes.

00:06:15   They have a couple of different models and examples.

00:06:19   This website looks pretty cool.

00:06:21   I think they've got some nice options.

00:06:23   It's a lot cheaper than what I put in,

00:06:25   but it's good to have some competition.

00:06:28   So hopefully more people can enjoy the beauty

00:06:31   that is having smart shades, because it's awesome.

00:06:34   It's really awesome.

00:06:35   Federico.

00:06:36   - Hello.

00:06:37   - I have a box here from you to me.

00:06:39   - What?

00:06:40   - Did you ship me something?

00:06:41   What?

00:06:42   Did you mail me something?

00:06:43   What is happening?

00:06:44   I have something here from Federico Vittucci and it has your address.

00:06:48   It's to me.

00:06:52   Me what?

00:06:52   And it has my address and this box looks like it got run over by a train.

00:06:57   It is completely smashed.

00:06:58   Has something been returned again?

00:07:00   Wait, what?

00:07:00   I don't know.

00:07:01   Let me open it.

00:07:01   Oh my God.

00:07:02   I saved it for the show.

00:07:03   Wait, what?

00:07:04   I'll do a little ASMR opening my knife.

00:07:06   I haven't shipped anything.

00:07:09   Is somebody proxying you?

00:07:11   through you? What is happening right now? It's like a reverse Big Apple Buddy. Oh my gosh.

00:07:18   What? Okay. What is on then man? Inside the crush box was a smaller second crush box.

00:07:24   Is someone pretending to be me and shipping things to my friends? It's full of white

00:07:33   powder and I'm just kidding holy cow what is it it is the original crochet

00:07:41   Ricky that I mailed you like a year ago no oh my god what does this keep

00:07:46   happening that happened in like 2020 I now have two of them Wow how I don't

00:07:54   know how well I got crushed I don't know and this the smaller interior crushed

00:08:01   box has like Mary's handwriting on it from the form she had to fill out and tape to the side of it

00:08:05   that that is mad that is incredible it's like getting a package from a lifetime ago almost

00:08:13   yeah i mean i'm gonna see if i can find a date on here um let's see oh what's that movie where um

00:08:21   oh god what's it called the lake house where uh the lady gets a letter from the future

00:08:29   and it's like there's two timelines in the movie and she receives letter from the other person

00:08:36   who lives in the same house but in the future. Somebody please help me. What's it called? It's

00:08:40   not called the lake house. The lake house is the 2006 American fantasy romance drama. Oh, so it's

00:08:47   called the lake house. Love blooms when Kate, a doctor, exchanges letters of Alex, an architect,

00:08:52   who is fed up with his life. Unknown to them, they lead lives two years apart. Yes, yes, that one,

00:08:57   that one who are the actors? Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves. Yes, yes that one that one.

00:09:04   Was this before or off to speed? I think it was off to 2006. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, I've uncovered

00:09:10   the date here. This was mailed in June of 2021. And here it is back in Memphis. So you're just

00:09:21   gonna have two now or are you gonna do something with that? I don't know. I feel like I should do

00:09:25   something with the second one. I feel like we're just amassing things to raffle off for

00:09:29   Saint Jude later in the year is what it sounds like to me. Yeah. Probably. Unbelievable.

00:09:33   I've put a link in the Discord so you can see pictures of them both. Mine is on the

00:09:36   right and this new quote unquote new one is on the left. It looks disheveled, you know,

00:09:42   it looks like he's seen some things. Looks tired. I don't want to share a picture of

00:09:47   this box because it has either my or Federico's address on every single side of it. It is

00:09:51   totally smashed. This Ricky came from a different timeline so of course it looks a bit tired.

00:09:57   It's a variant Ricky. Oh no. Federico Vitticchi and the Multiverse of Madness.

00:10:05   And we established a Ricky multiverse at this point. We have now. This is incredible. Wow.

00:10:15   The mutant Ricky. Pretty amazing. Will you put this picture in the show notes too?

00:10:21   So, so...

00:10:22   Yes, I will.

00:10:23   ...so everyone can see it?

00:10:24   So that's...

00:10:25   I thought you would mail me something, and it was like a surprise.

00:10:26   So much drama.

00:10:27   And it was a surprise.

00:10:28   So much drama.

00:10:29   It's not what I thought it would be.

00:10:30   It's a surprise to everyone, which is the best part.

00:10:32   I mean, I'm glad it's with one of us and not just wandering around the world lost.

00:10:36   I mean, it has for a while.

00:10:38   Here's a question for you both.

00:10:39   Here's a question for you both, okay?

00:10:41   Pay attention.

00:10:42   And don't question the idea behind my question.

00:10:46   Just accept it as it is and provide an answer, please.

00:10:49   You meet yourself from a different timeline from five years ago. You have one question

00:10:57   that you can actually know. You can tell them one thing and one thing only. What would you

00:11:04   tell them? So yourself from a different timeline from five years ago, you see them and you

00:11:09   can say one thing. What is the one thing? So they're from 2017 for context. And the

00:11:19   The timeline is the same at this point, but what you say may or may not alter the course

00:11:25   of the timeline.

00:11:26   Invest in Pfizer.

00:11:28   Oh god, oh my, that is so good.

00:11:38   Okay, oh wow.

00:11:41   Put your stock...

00:11:42   Oh, I think Steven's gone.

00:11:46   Oh no.

00:11:47   I just got a thing that said "You are the host now."

00:11:50   Well, this timeline thing went a bit too far in a way that I did not expect.

00:11:54   I think we've got a power issue with Steven.

00:11:58   He hasn't said anything. I guess we'll just wait for a minute.

00:12:02   Oh, please stand by.

00:12:04   Yeah.

00:12:06   Well, we are witnessing Tennessee weather as we speak.

00:12:14   Isn't it weird though that Steven was just gone as soon as I asked about the timeline thing?

00:12:19   Yeah, that is weird.

00:12:20   He just... he blipped.

00:12:22   [Laughter]

00:12:25   Disappeared from the current timeline.

00:12:27   You sound stiff.

00:12:29   Well, uh...

00:12:32   You asked the infinity question.

00:12:34   I mean, I literally asked about the timeline, and he said the power just blinked.

00:12:40   I got a bail on this one.

00:12:41   I don't know, was Stephen from a different timeline?

00:12:44   You know what, I figured we should just embrace this chaos and maybe I'll just do the first ad

00:12:49   and then like, maybe Stephen will come back, you know?

00:12:52   This is the show now.

00:12:53   I will not ask his questions again because look at what I did.

00:12:57   You think about it, I want to know what your answer is, you think about it.

00:13:00   Okay, okay.

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00:14:50   our thanks to indeed for the support of this show and all of relay fm so what's your answer well i

00:14:56   - I think--

00:14:57   - Federico Vitichio, five years ago,

00:14:59   you get to skip one message to him, what is it?

00:15:01   - Okay, well, I thought of the COVID strategy,

00:15:07   but like that, I don't wanna copy your approach.

00:15:10   So I'm just gonna tell the me

00:15:14   from the different timeline stuck in 2017,

00:15:17   hire a new web developer sooner.

00:15:20   - Oh, that's a good one.

00:15:21   That's like a good life lesson for you right now.

00:15:23   So you can get started on all the things you want to do with a couple years before.

00:15:29   Way earlier, you know?

00:15:31   That feels like good advice.

00:15:33   I don't know, I just think it's a fascinating question.

00:15:36   And I also, like I said, I watched too much Matrix these past few days.

00:15:41   So my brain is also thinking about these sort of metaphysical things at the moment.

00:15:45   I'm not surprised.

00:15:47   Let's talk about Apple Music.

00:15:49   Apple Music, okay.

00:15:50   So I don't know if you know, but the new year has just begun.

00:15:53   Wait, what?

00:15:54   And that's why, that's why, I mean, maybe, maybe what Apple are not telling us is they

00:16:01   can, you know, Spotify, they're like, they go about the calendar year, you know, like

00:16:05   the Roman calendar year for their replays for their, like, what is it unwrapped and

00:16:10   Apple they're observing the lunar new year, which is why they put out replay 2022 in February.

00:16:17   Right.

00:16:18   If you think about it.

00:16:19   Correct. That's a good theory. I think so, yeah.

00:16:23   Can't think of any other reason why they would have their Replay 2022 playlist arrive mid-February.

00:16:29   So, maybe there's a bunch of boring answers. One, they forgot to do it earlier, which could be an explanation.

00:16:37   Or maybe they just wait, I don't know, five weeks or so to collect data from your listening habits in the first five weeks of the year.

00:16:46   and then they give you the first take on the replay playlist.

00:16:51   They do this, like this is not the first time

00:16:55   they've done this, to give you access to the replay playlist

00:16:59   and updated website early in the year.

00:17:03   I believe from now on, it is going to update every Sunday,

00:17:08   I think, they're gonna update it every week.

00:17:10   So you can check on your replay playlist

00:17:14   as you go throughout 2022.

00:17:16   But that's the thing about Apple Music and their approach.

00:17:18   I guess that's the thing, right? It confuses me.

00:17:21   It's not the 2021 thing, right? It's 2022.

00:17:24   But still, it's just like, I don't know why I need to replay the year while I'm in it.

00:17:29   Exactly. Exactly.

00:17:31   The really clever part of the Spotify approach, I think, is they made it an event.

00:17:37   Like, you know that toward the end of the year, you're going to get a recap.

00:17:42   That is why, at the end of the year, lists of "best of" the year are popular for anything,

00:17:50   like best movies, best video games, best books. Because at the end of the year,

00:17:53   you want to remember what just happened in the past 12 months in my industry.

00:17:59   It's useful to have that kind of recap, and Spotify capitalized on that by offering you

00:18:04   these multiple data points that you're like, "Oh, yeah, they're visually nice to look at,

00:18:10   and they are shareable on social media. It's clever.

00:18:12   And it's part of the culture at this point, right?

00:18:16   Everybody talks about it, and you don't want to feel left out,

00:18:20   and so you also share yours.

00:18:21   And it's like this FOMO approach that everybody talks about it,

00:18:25   and it's popular because it's popular, right?

00:18:28   Apple doesn't do it.

00:18:29   It's like, what if you got access earlier in the year?

00:18:32   What if the entire year you could replay the year?

00:18:35   And as you mentioned, it doesn't really make sense,

00:18:37   because as I'm living the year,

00:18:39   I know what I'm listening to. It's like, sure, I can get almost real-time stats about my

00:18:48   annual listening habits. That's not exciting. You know, it's data-driven and it's kind of

00:18:53   boring and it doesn't have any of the pop culture aspect of the Spotify wrapped thing.

00:19:00   Yeah, just the statistics, like, telling me what I'm listening to, it's basically just

00:19:06   a smart playlist. It used to be able to do this in iTunes, right? Like, what is my most

00:19:11   listened to songs of any time period? It's like, it's, they're just, it's, they're just

00:19:15   not doing it right. Like, honestly, I feel like if I was Apple Music, realistically,

00:19:21   I don't know if it's worth even trying to match Spotify here. So like there is kind,

00:19:27   I kind of understand why there might be a thinking of like, we're just not even going

00:19:32   to try. Like Spotify Unwrapped is so good now that maybe there is people that switch

00:19:40   to from Apple Music Spotify for it, like maybe, but I feel like any attempt to try and match

00:19:47   what they're doing, I don't know if it's gonna land. What do you think about that?

00:19:52   I don't know, I feel like they could probably do something that is more, like they could

00:19:55   pitch it as, you know, it's not a, it respects your privacy, but we can still learn stuff

00:20:02   from you in a way that is not creepy. They could do some interesting things with Siri,

00:20:08   and because of the integrations they have with music and your iPhone or iPad, I don't

00:20:12   know, they could do something fun like get a wallpaper made out of your top music, I

00:20:19   don't know, something like that. Like, they could use some of those integrations in a

00:20:23   a fun way I think but they don't. Hello. Steven's back. Hello. So we mentioned this in the pro

00:20:32   show but there's weather occurrences in Memphis right now and that was why Steven's power

00:20:40   exploded but he's back now. Is everything okay? We'll see if the internet holds up.

00:20:46   The power only blinked but Comcast is very angry. What version of Steven are you? Yeah,

00:20:52   is the issue. We started talking about variants and multiverses and then you just disappeared.

00:20:59   So it's all very suspect. We never got your answer to the question of you go back in five

00:21:05   years, tell yourself something. What is it?

00:21:09   Install a whole home generator.

00:21:14   That would work. That would work. That feels like that would be a quite intensive piece

00:21:19   of equipment, a whole home generator.

00:21:21   Yeah, well I have a project and to do is just all about it. Oh, do you?

00:21:27   How do you power something like that?

00:21:30   natural gas oh

00:21:32   So it's not it's not your kids running on a bicycle. No gender. Okay, that's natural human power

00:21:38   What is where does the natural gas come from? I have a gas line because my hot water and

00:21:43   Furnace and stove are all gas. Oh, it's like that kind of gas

00:21:47   But what if you what if the gas is also cut out? I think at that point

00:21:53   You should kind of I mean don't it really do that as like a break somewhere in the line. Okay, so it doesn't require power

00:21:59   How long would it run for is it just like it just runs

00:22:03   Indefinitely so you could get off the grid and except for you know my whole career. Don't worry about it

00:22:09   You're off the grid man, so while we're talking about Apple music we spoke about replay

00:22:14   There was a thing I saw on nine to five Mac from nine to five Google

00:22:18   Sometimes I feel like the post just appearing. I don't know how it works

00:22:21   I don't know how the system works is intriguing about the widgets in the Apple music Android app. Yeah

00:22:28   Yeah, they're vastly better than the widgets. Yeah

00:22:33   For a couple of reasons one they've always had this

00:22:38   Controls so they actually have like actual controls so you can skip tracks and play and pause tracks

00:22:45   Because Android just has interactive widgets, but also recently the design changed quite a bit

00:22:51   So previously the widgets on Android had that like hot pink design that Apple music does

00:22:58   but they recently changed to be more like

00:23:03   They kind of take cues from the artwork of the song that's playing

00:23:09   But I don't really know how to describe it

00:23:12   It's like gradient like I guess really or at least they take like a color like a dominant color and change the color of the widget

00:23:19   iTunes used to do this. Do you remember that? There was a version of iTunes that an album view

00:23:25   the little window that would open up like

00:23:28   I just like split in the middle and reveal an album like folders used to do on iOS and

00:23:33   The background of that section would be colored in a very similar way

00:23:37   It would pick a couple of colors from the album artwork and make a gradient. Sometimes it looks really cool

00:23:41   Sometimes they look really bad. This seems very reminiscent

00:23:45   I think also like the music app on iOS used to do this for a time. They would kind of change

00:23:52   So that was just like a fun thought right like that. It's intriguing

00:23:56   Maybe it seems that the Android developers have kind of got a little bit of free rein.

00:24:01   I can't imagine that they're like taking a jump on iOS 16, right?

00:24:05   It's like, "Oh, this is what the music app is going to be like." That's funny.

00:24:09   Also, Apple Classical was referenced in the most recent version of Apple Music,

00:24:17   which I guess is going to be the name of the upcoming music app.

00:24:19   I mean, that makes sense, right?

00:24:21   They're going to just call it that.

00:24:23   Yeah, so, you know, it's Apple Classical.

00:24:26   They could have gone with Apple Music Classical, but that's one too many words, probably.

00:24:31   So yeah, this is the result of the Primephonic acquisition from a few months ago.

00:24:38   It's going to be a separate app, and we discussed this, like, I think, we believe they are going

00:24:44   to do a bunch of integrations in terms of like.

00:24:48   It's not just going to be for listening to classical music, but you will be able to dive

00:24:52   Deep and maybe check out interviews, podcasts, episodes. That was part of the appeal of Prime

00:24:56   Phonic, having this rich catalogue about conductors and performers and multiple versions of the same

00:25:05   concert, I guess would be the name for these performances. And Prime Phonic was very cool

00:25:11   because it allowed you to listen, read, check out interviews within the Prime Phonic app,

00:25:18   And knowing Apple and how much they like to cross-integrate these things wouldn't surprise

00:25:23   me if Apple Classical has a strong listening component, obviously, but also a new approach

00:25:30   to metadata and exploration for all these additional layers of information that fans

00:25:37   of classical music want to know and want to browse and search for.

00:25:42   So my hope, though, is that the work they are doing for Apple Classical, in terms of

00:25:48   searching metadata and exploring based on those additional criteria, my hope is that

00:25:55   that technology will also make it to Apple Music, right?

00:26:00   Because right now, if you want to gather information out of Apple Music, you can, but you've got

00:26:03   to use third-party apps for it.

00:26:06   Something like MusicSmart, for example, which is an iOS app that integrates with Apple Music

00:26:10   and gives you metadata details for performers, mixing engineers, mastering engineers, all

00:26:17   kinds of information that is hidden by default. So my hope is that if Apple is doing the work

00:26:23   for Apple Classical, then that technology is also used for regular people's Apple music.

00:26:30   I do feel like a little bit that this... It has a ring to me of like, this is someone's

00:26:36   pet project at Apple. Like somebody cares a lot about classical music and wants this

00:26:43   to exist. Because it is odd, it feels odd to me. Unless there's like some really big

00:26:49   incentive from an additional payment model, like it costs more. But still it seems like

00:26:55   a lot of work. Maybe I'm just not, like I know I'm not the target market, but maybe

00:27:01   Maybe I just don't understand the market size for a service like this.

00:27:08   This is all music you could listen to in Apple Music.

00:27:11   You just don't get as much information about it, I guess.

00:27:15   It was kind of terrible to browse classical music in Apple Music before.

00:27:20   I'm gonna try and find some articles about this.

00:27:24   But yeah, it was a pretty terrible experience and it was all messy.

00:27:27   were mixing up like multiple performances from the same conductor, for example, from

00:27:32   the same orchestra, and it was all very scattered and disorganized. And classical music has

00:27:36   some unique requirements, I guess, when it comes to listening to a specific version of

00:27:43   a specific piece, right? Because of like, what if the same piece is played by different

00:27:49   conductor, by different symphonic orchestra, for example, right? There's all that complexity.

00:27:56   And I think that's what Primephonic was trying to achieve, like allowing you to search by

00:28:01   different criteria, searching not just by music but also by people, which is not something

00:28:07   that Apple Music has ever really supported.

00:28:09   So I mean, besides, you know, the artist, but in the case of classical music, the artist

00:28:14   is like Beethoven, right?

00:28:17   But like, you don't, you shouldn't be able to just search for that or for Bach or for

00:28:22   Mozart.

00:28:23   you should be able to also search by a specific orchestra or a specific performance or a specific

00:28:28   conductor and that's the complexity that was involved.

00:28:33   There was also an interview in Billboard with Oliver Schusser, who's Apple's VP of Music

00:28:40   and Beats. There was just a few things that I wanted to reference from this article, it

00:28:46   was intriguing. Schusser noted that more than half of Apple's customers are using spatial

00:28:51   audio. This is one of those things where like I wonder if people know like do they even know?

00:28:56   I mean isn't it on by default? Yes.

00:29:00   So what's even more interesting is that kind of half of users have turned it off.

00:29:07   Not necessarily, not necessarily because not necessarily everyone is listening to music

00:29:15   that has been put into spatial audio?

00:29:18   Eh, sure, okay.

00:29:20   You know, they know, their catalogue is only thousands of songs in spatial audio.

00:29:27   Yes, of course there will be a portion of people who have turned it off, but I can imagine

00:29:32   there are a lot of users who just never encounter it.

00:29:35   But, to your point though, I wonder if there are even people that know.

00:29:42   As Kate has mentioned in the discord, you have to have a product that can do it and you don't necessarily do, right?

00:29:49   Like if you have not all, I don't think, do regular AirPods, like they don't do it, right?

00:29:54   Only AirPods 3, is that right? I don't remember anymore.

00:29:58   I don't, it's confusing.

00:30:01   Whatever it is, but like if you use any kind of Bluetooth headphones or wired headphones doesn't mean you're going to be able to do the special audio stuff.

00:30:06   So yeah, AirPods 2 do not sesqate from this point.

00:30:09   Like I wonder like how many people even know what do they think what what is

00:30:16   their experience I don't know like I could imagine a lot of people maybe have

00:30:19   this and just don't really notice or just be like oh that sounds nice or that

00:30:23   sounds not nice you know what I mean like I don't know what the average

00:30:27   person on the streets experience is with spatial audio.

00:30:31   Yeah I guess from this interview they're trying to make it sound like all these

00:30:36   people are doing so intentionally. Like, oh, they're all that they love spatial

00:30:41   audio, but do they even know that it exists? That it's a thing? I don't know.

00:30:46   It's on by default and there's a very good chance that sure they are using

00:30:50   spatial audio, so the statement is technically correct. They are using

00:30:54   spatial audio, but like we know what you meant in the interview with this and

00:30:59   it's the reality is a bit more complicated than that. So, PR man. I wanted

00:31:04   to read a few quotes about that Shusa was giving in relation to lossless and spatial

00:31:10   audio and how they kind of do and don't go together. Everyone in the industry was really

00:31:15   focused on lossless but the challenge is it doesn't play on any headphone in the world

00:31:19   over bluetooth or any wireless connection and that is by a country mile the number one

00:31:24   way people consume music these days. Shusa says most people can't tell the difference

00:31:29   when lossless music is played and noted that while it's an important feature to a select

00:31:33   niche it isn't a mass market product. We went out and said, this is back to Shusu, we went

00:31:39   out and said we would like to have a feature for the mass market that works on pretty much

00:31:43   every device and where people notice a difference, that's spatial audio. We listened, and then

00:31:49   also this is maybe a change, we listen to every song that comes in spatial audio to

00:31:54   us and we try to engage with people who make the cut during the process to make sure that

00:31:58   it's good. And also now more clarification before we get the follow-up

00:32:04   AirPods, all AirPods have spatial audio they don't just all have head tracking

00:32:08   so that the movement part of it but they can give you the Dolby Atmos part just

00:32:12   not the head tracking part. So any thoughts on the lossless spatial thing?

00:32:17   Federico I would like to know what you think. If I have any thoughts on this?

00:32:22   Yeah, but not you personally, but to what he is saying.

00:32:27   Like, you know what I mean?

00:32:30   I am glad that they said they listen to every sound that comes in with the spatial audio

00:32:34   mix.

00:32:35   I think that's exactly what they need to do to make sure that what happened at launch

00:32:41   does not happen again, in terms of like getting this batch of initial albums that were very

00:32:47   badly mixed in spatial audio.

00:32:50   So it's good that they are participating in the process, I guess. That's good to hear.

00:32:53   I don't think I've heard of any other horrific instance of the spatial audio mix going very,

00:33:00   very wrong, so it's good that the process is getting smoother. I still feel like it's

00:33:09   true that people cannot hear... It's absolutely true that people cannot hear the difference

00:33:15   between lossless and the default Apple Music quality. If you're just wearing AirPods or

00:33:19   using AirPods Max, but for me personally, so this is where my personal opinion comes

00:33:26   in, it's more about, and I know I'm gonna sound like one of those people, I take responsibility

00:33:32   for what I'm about to say, I am embracing my true self here, it's about the purity of

00:33:38   the source. Look, I literally just told you I'm sorry.

00:33:43   I know, but I can still react to it, I'm still allowed to react, right?

00:33:47   Okay, it's the fact that I'm listening to a flavor of the song and not the, if you'll

00:33:58   allow me, the one true song, right?

00:34:01   It's that that bothers me.

00:34:04   Like this idea of like you're listening to a mix of it.

00:34:09   I don't know.

00:34:10   It just…

00:34:11   I guess my question to you then is like, how does that differ to MP3?

00:34:15   Do you feel the same way about MP3?

00:34:18   - Well, there's a difference between an encoding technique

00:34:21   and the spatial audio mixing, right?

00:34:24   Especially when it comes like, okay,

00:34:26   you take this recording, you take this master recording

00:34:29   that digitally speaking can be represented as a FLAC file

00:34:33   and then you encode it down to whatever formats

00:34:37   Apple likes to use, whether it's MP4, MP3, whatever.

00:34:43   And that's a separate thing. Like, you take the original digital file and you make it lossy.

00:34:50   But the way that the instruments, right, and the vocals...

00:34:55   And I'm simplifying this for the... But this is a podcast for people, not for audio files.

00:35:01   But the way that it sounds, the way that the sounds are placed around you, if you will, it's that, right?

00:35:09   And then you can hear more or fewer details, but that's the song.

00:35:13   The Spatial Audio Mix is what if we took the original song, but we changed, we fundamentally changed

00:35:23   what you hear and where you hear it and how you hear it.

00:35:27   And that's what I have a problem with.

00:35:30   It's like, imagine if you got a book from a popular series.

00:35:34   Like, imagine if you got a Lord of the Rings book.

00:35:37   And you get the, I don't know, you get the 2012 Fan Edition, where some of the chapters are,

00:35:47   you know, in a different order, because it makes more sense. It's like people watching, and I'm not

00:35:52   speaking this from personal experience, but I know that people do this, like, when they tell you,

00:35:57   "Watch the Star Wars movie in this order," and some of these, like, particular orders

00:36:03   even have nicknames like "oh watch the movies in the mic order" or something.

00:36:08   No there is, I can't remember what that phrase is but there is a phrase to it.

00:36:11   But it's even more than that, like you're taking the original song and you're making it sound

00:36:17   different. Machete order, that's it. So here's my counter challenge to you, if you don't mind.

00:36:24   If you think about it, right, if what they're trying to achieve is as if you're standing in

00:36:31   in the room with the music being played,

00:36:34   isn't Atmos closer to the original way it's recorded?

00:36:39   Because like, if you imagine that everyone's in a room

00:36:42   and they're all playing the instruments,

00:36:43   which I know isn't always how it works,

00:36:44   but let's just imagine for the sake of this argument

00:36:46   that it is, you then take all of that

00:36:48   and you flatten it down, right?

00:36:50   To put it into the audio file.

00:36:53   Where like, at least for spatial audio,

00:36:54   it's like, oh, well, the guitar's over there

00:36:57   and the singer's over there.

00:36:58   You know what I'm saying?

00:36:59   I'm being facetious, but... Right? Do you get my point?

00:37:02   I do, yeah.

00:37:03   I know you don't agree with it, but...

00:37:05   I do not.

00:37:06   I don't know. Maybe it's just a matter of, like, what it used to be and what it could

00:37:12   be now. Like, these two opposites, like, it's always been that the artists go into the studio

00:37:19   and they make the master recording and then you listen to that in whichever format you

00:37:23   prefer. Maybe... and that was the default, right? That has always been the baseline.

00:37:28   Maybe from now on, maybe in the future, maybe five years from now, I don't know,

00:37:34   maybe the default will be spatial audio, it's what the artists make, right? That's the new default.

00:37:41   And so my problem is that I've grown up a certain way, I've always listened to music a certain way,

00:37:47   and now having this spatial audio, it makes me uncomfortable, like all new things do. And I think

00:37:53   I'm less willing to accept it because a part of me feels that it's a gimmick.

00:38:01   But I will say this, I am very aware of, like, I don't want to become the person that rejects

00:38:13   new stuff because it makes him uncomfortable, because that's, you know, one step toward

00:38:18   irrelevancy for any industry for any hobby, right? Like, "Oh no, back in my day we used to play

00:38:24   2D Super Mario games. I reject 3D Super Mario video games." And I don't want to become that

00:38:31   person, but I should also be honest and say I'm struggling to accept it, right?

00:38:36   It's like how you won't accept the metaverse, you know?

00:38:38   No, that's just...

00:38:39   Web3 and like NFTs, you know?

00:38:42   The reality is, like, most of this isn't new. I found this article, we'll put in the show notes,

00:38:47   from 2012 about the "Mastered for iTunes" section, and this is how Apple described

00:38:54   it in this screenshot of the iTunes store from 10 years ago. "Experience music as

00:39:00   the artist and sound engineer intended." I mean, Apple's done this for a long time,

00:39:06   others have done it for a long time. Unless you're in the room when the dude's

00:39:10   recording it, I'm not sure you can actually escape some sort of

00:39:14   intermediate stuff. I mean we can we can basically like this it can all get very

00:39:18   meta like what is the one true representation of a song is it you

00:39:23   standing in the room as the artists are recording the song like how deep does

00:39:28   the rabbit hole go like what if the artists use samples do you also need to

00:39:33   be in the room where samples are originally bit like it's it's complex

00:39:39   and probably there isn't a one true answer, really. But the thing is, the one

00:39:49   truth we know is that if for 20 years of your life you listen to a certain song

00:39:55   and it always sounded a certain way, like you listen for 20 years to "What's My

00:40:01   Age Again" by Blink-182, and then you listen to the spatial audio mix and you're like,

00:40:05   this is not the song I know. But then my, I would say I have, for example, I think

00:40:10   it was Billie Jean. I thought for an entire way of my life a song was sung

00:40:14   this certain way. I listened to it in "Lostless" on your really good headphones

00:40:17   like, wow, I didn't hear that part before. So then what's the truth? To me, you know?

00:40:21   It's all relative. I know, I know. We're very, we're very like up in the clouds

00:40:27   today. Yeah, it's very like, what, what is, what, what, what is audio when you think

00:40:34   about it. Like what is it? Is it like, what is it, like particles moving through the air?

00:40:41   It's just air, right? It's just a movement of air. It's not even...

00:40:44   But like it also depends on your ears. Like what you hear is not necessarily what I hear.

00:40:49   How do you know that what I think is the color green is the same as what you see is the color green?

00:40:57   But this is actually like a very, this is actually like a very interesting discussion.

00:41:01   for all forms of media. There's a Jason and Matt are talking in the, in the,

00:41:05   and Zach are talking into this court right now.

00:41:07   Like it's absolutely true when it comes to movies, when it comes to video games,

00:41:11   when you get the multiple versions of something,

00:41:15   when you got a director's cut version of something like is it the snot a cup,

00:41:19   right? Is it, but is that the one true copy of it? Like in the,

00:41:23   I especially feel like maybe,

00:41:26   and I'm totally willing to accept that I'm mistaken here. Right.

00:41:30   And I think I am. I think I'm in the minority here, especially in the digital world.

00:41:36   This sounds so stupid, but bear with me. But in this era, right,

00:41:40   it's increasingly difficult to say this is the one true copy of something.

00:41:47   And then some people will say NFT from the background, but no, I don't want to talk about that.

00:41:54   Blockchain your next album is what we're saying.

00:41:56   When it comes to video games... So, okay, last week, we talked about this last week, playing

00:42:02   old video games on an emulator. Are you playing the original game or not? If you're playing

00:42:07   an old game and it's upscaled in resolution. That is not the original game! But it also

00:42:13   is. Like, it also is at the same time. It's exhausting.

00:42:20   Okay, you've seen too many Matrix movies this week.

00:42:22   But I also feel like this is a valid argument. At the end of the day, there is one neat way

00:42:33   to sum it all up, which is "Enjoy what you enjoy, and it's fine." Then we can get into

00:42:42   the technicalities of it, but I feel like the more time passes and the more we get this

00:42:49   like spatial audio, or binaural audio could also be another topic here, or remasters,

00:43:00   upscaling, like all these technologies that augment what you know. As long as you enjoy

00:43:06   it, and as long as it's true, maybe being true to the source material is more important

00:43:12   than being, you know, an exact one-to-one version of the source material. Like, maybe

00:43:19   being truthful to the source is what matters. To who? And, I don't know. To anyone, really.

00:43:27   Like, if I'm playing Zelda Wind Waker, which is a game from 20 years ago, and it would

00:43:33   look horrible on my 4K TV right now, but if I'm playing this game upscaled by software

00:43:39   on my 4K TV and I'm enjoying the game, so what?

00:43:43   Why are you not being true to it?

00:43:45   Well, the game is the game.

00:43:48   The story is the same story, the controls are the same controls.

00:43:52   It's all very complex and there's no one real answer to it.

00:44:01   And I'm contradicting myself because I don't have an answer because it's...

00:44:05   What we've learned is Apple has spatial audio app store review powers. That's what we've

00:44:09   learned.

00:44:10   Oh.

00:44:11   You think they ever go back and tell somebody, "Hey, your spatial audio mix sucks. Try again?"

00:44:15   Well, yeah, I think that's exactly what they're saying. We try to engage with people.

00:44:20   Yeah.

00:44:21   Yeah, that means, no, we don't like the way this sounds.

00:44:22   Thank you, Matt from the Discord for recognizing that this is an interesting philosophical

00:44:28   discussion. Matt knows what I'm talking about. So, yeah.

00:44:32   Does anyone truly know what you're...

00:44:34   - It's a real problem to think about things too much.

00:44:39   Sometimes I wish I took more things for what they are,

00:44:43   more things for just what they are

00:44:45   without thinking about them.

00:44:46   But then I think about them, that's my problem.

00:44:48   Thinking too much is a limitation in some cases anyway.

00:44:52   - You'll hate yourself.

00:44:53   This episode of Connected is brought to you

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00:47:03   I wanna talk about the MacBook Pro

00:47:05   with you guys a little bit.

00:47:06   - Okay.

00:47:07   - There's a rumor going around that in a early March event,

00:47:12   Apple will unveil an update to the 13 inch MacBook Pro.

00:47:17   The particular story right now,

00:47:20   or at least from this source,

00:47:22   is that this MacBook Pro would retain the old design,

00:47:27   which itself comes from that 2016 class of MacBook Pros,

00:47:32   including the touch bar.

00:47:34   - Oh no.

00:47:34   - It would be the M1 MacBook Pro just with an M2.

00:47:39   And I just don't see any reason this makes any sense.

00:47:43   This is something that Apple would do.

00:47:45   And I'm curious what you guys thought about it.

00:47:46   - Why still do the touch bar?

00:47:49   because they had the parts built in a warehouse somewhere? Like why?

00:47:53   I mean it's the, I guess the question is, well, the question would be is it more cost effective

00:48:01   to just keep making the touch bar, like the version, or to get rid of it and replace it

00:48:09   with the version with the physical keys? Yeah that has to be it. The old quote-unquote

00:48:17   MacBook escape right the old two port no touch bar MacBook Pro that's been gone now for

00:48:22   Probably two or three years. I mean that CAD files laying around somewhere but to your point

00:48:29   They've been making this chassis now continuously since 2016 and perhaps you can just drop a new

00:48:35   Logic board with the m2 in it and move on was this MacBook pros internals modified when they put the m1 in it not

00:48:42   Significantly, I don't think right but maybe enough like a little bit, right?

00:48:47   so that like what now they're gonna drag that old thing out and I think this is a if this happens

00:48:54   the interesting thing about this is this rumor says it will have it Mark Gorman said it wouldn't

00:48:59   have it right um the in regards to the touch bar I don't know I feel like logically you should get

00:49:06   rid of it but I could see a situation where they don't just because they have the parts and they

00:49:11   just want to keep burning through them which would be a very Tim Cook move I feel like

00:49:17   This kind of reminds me of, this is reaching back like a decade or something, do you remember

00:49:24   for a while they had the old 13-inch MacBook Pro that still had the optical drive? Yeah. And they

00:49:30   sold it for a while even though everything else had had moved on. It stuck around in education

00:49:37   for a long time with memory serves. Yeah, yeah, it was, well you could buy it yourself. I think

00:49:44   I think it eventually went education only before it went away, but it was like this

00:49:51   remnant of a past time.

00:49:54   It was like still hanging on somehow.

00:49:56   Mm-hmm.

00:49:57   Yeah, I don't know.

00:49:59   I don't really have any feelings on the touch bar sticking around.

00:50:03   It just feels like a very...

00:50:05   It feels like an old thing.

00:50:08   When I say nobody cares about it anymore, I know that I'm going to upset some people

00:50:10   or like the touch bar is incredible for me and I mean sure more power to you if it is

00:50:15   but you know you look at the M1 Pro and M1 Max MacBook Pros and obviously that's the

00:50:21   future without the touch bar and so if it sticks around I feel like it's a very Tim

00:50:27   Cook move that must be cost effective and it just feels kinda sad you know uninspired

00:50:37   I guess.

00:50:38   I will say to the people that are holding on to the touch bar in their minds for some

00:50:44   reason like they want to let it go. I mean I don't know if I have to be the one to tell

00:50:49   you but like you're fighting a losing battle here. You know like the writing is on the

00:50:56   wall like if the touch bar sticks around it is purely like just because it's cost effective

00:51:02   to not get rid of it not because like Apple truly believes in it and it's gonna make a

00:51:07   Like that thing is dead.

00:51:09   - It doesn't send any message like,

00:51:11   "Oh, does it mean?"

00:51:12   No, it means nothing.

00:51:13   It just means that it costs less to make it.

00:51:16   - It does just make me question yet again,

00:51:18   why this price point in Apple's product line

00:51:22   seems so difficult for them to solve.

00:51:24   For years, we had at this sort of, you know,

00:51:28   1199, 1299 price area,

00:51:31   we had the old MacBook Air, the single port MacBook,

00:51:36   and the two port, no touch port MacBook Pro,

00:51:40   it was very confusing.

00:51:41   And then the MacBook went away, the MacBook Air got good.

00:51:44   It just seems like if you're,

00:51:47   that this machine only exists to fill a price point,

00:51:51   to fill the gap in between the MacBook Air

00:51:54   and the 14 inch MacBook Pro price wise.

00:51:57   And one, I don't think Apple actually has to fill

00:52:00   that price point.

00:52:01   Like I don't think they do.

00:52:03   I think they could have, this is the MacBook Air,

00:52:05   it costs this much, it's the MacBook Pro,

00:52:07   it costs this much.

00:52:08   If you want something in the middle, like, kinda too bad,

00:52:12   but that's not really the way Apple works.

00:52:14   They want a Mac or an iPad and iPhone

00:52:16   at every $200 price, you know,

00:52:20   breaking point that they can.

00:52:22   But keeping a machine around that the design is old,

00:52:25   even if this does not have the touch bar.

00:52:26   So let's say that Gurman is right,

00:52:28   and I tend to believe that he is.

00:52:30   Why would you keep a 13-inch MacBook Pro

00:52:32   that does not have the new design,

00:52:35   does not have new ports, does not have the new display.

00:52:39   Yes, it's at the price point,

00:52:40   but you're diluting what a MacBook Pro means, right?

00:52:43   You have this MacBook Pro that's really just the old one,

00:52:47   but other than you have like the real MacBook Pro over here

00:52:50   in 14 to 16 inches, new design, new ports,

00:52:53   all this great stuff.

00:52:55   And then, oh, there's this other one,

00:52:56   if you can't afford the nice one.

00:52:59   I think it just dilutes the branding.

00:53:01   Like if you're gonna keep this machine around

00:53:04   and Apple's willing to make that hit against the brand,

00:53:08   then I guess that is what it is.

00:53:10   But there's opportunity here for Apple to do

00:53:12   what I want them to do, which is a bigger MacBook Air,

00:53:15   and let that hit this price point,

00:53:17   or de-content a 14-inch somehow.

00:53:20   It just hurts me to see this machine stick around

00:53:23   with or without the touch bar, honestly.

00:53:25   - Don't think I agree with you yet.

00:53:28   'Cause I don't think this is a bad computer.

00:53:31   That's the thing.

00:53:32   I am more willing to agree with it

00:53:33   when we're like many, many years old.

00:53:35   Like for example, the 21 inch iMac

00:53:38   that had the hard drive in it, right?

00:53:41   That stuck around for way too long.

00:53:43   Even if we got another few years from this one,

00:53:46   if they put an M2 in it, like it's gonna be great.

00:53:48   The only thing is like the design's different,

00:53:50   but it's about some, maybe not everybody cares about that.

00:53:53   The ports are different.

00:53:54   Well, we all got to learn to live with that

00:53:55   for a long while anyway, and maybe you don't need them all.

00:53:59   And then outside of that, we got a touch bar,

00:54:00   but it doesn't necessarily hurt you.

00:54:02   I think that the fact that the internals of this would be relatively on par, like the chips,

00:54:08   I think that that makes this one less egregious than some of the other stuff that they've kept

00:54:12   around for a long time. Yeah, it's just that the new ones are so much better. Yeah, but they're

00:54:16   also more expensive. Yeah, back to square one. Exactly, and like I think we're a while away from

00:54:22   that computer coming down in price, and so when either being deployed at scale for education or

00:54:29   for business, I don't think that they can get away with it.

00:54:35   I mean here in the UK, I'm looking at the Apple Store now, right?

00:54:39   The MacBook Pro, the M1 MacBook Pro starts at £1299.

00:54:45   The MacBook Pro with the M1 Pro chips in it, £1899.

00:54:50   That is a £600 difference.

00:54:53   That's too much.

00:54:57   a big jump here too and if you go from like the MacBook Air to the 14 inch it's

00:55:02   it's even a little bit more it's like almost it's basically a thousand dollars

00:55:07   difference so that's why and that's why you got to keep it around but it still

00:55:11   makes me sad I know but this this is one of those things where you can't really

00:55:15   do much about it and like is there there that Delta is too large right now

00:55:21   between the prices of these machines and and this is more like that when that

00:55:27   retina MacBook Pro came about right and it was way more expensive and it was just

00:55:33   the only one and it was up there and they kept the non retina ones around for

00:55:36   a really long time like get used to in my opinion a 13 inch MacBook Pro being

00:55:41   around for many years to come until they can start to get that price down no I

00:55:46   know you're right it just hurts because like it's they're so close to like just

00:55:50   great product line simplicity they haven't really had since the early Intel

00:55:58   days where they had the 13 inch MacBook and they had the 15 and 17 inch MacBook

00:56:02   Pro it was like really easy to understand what was what and there was a

00:56:07   big price jump then not as big as we're talking about now but I sort of always

00:56:13   like long for them to go back to that that simplicity because if someone's

00:56:17   looking at, okay, I need a MacBook Pro for whatever reason, like the Delta

00:56:23   between the 13 and the 14, like they're different machines in almost every

00:56:28   single way. And it feels like yes, why you said it is a good machine. Like it's

00:56:34   not as nearly as good as the 14. It just is kind of a bummer. People are going to

00:56:38   miss out on that because Apple can get the price down.

00:56:40   Yeah, I agree with you. Like it would be cool if they could, I mean, maybe like

00:56:46   the next MacBook Air will get so good they don't need that 13 anymore.

00:56:50   Yeah, or you know, make a bigger MacBook Air, Apple. Just do that.

00:56:54   Do the 50. But what, how would that solve your problem? If they had a 13-inch MacBook Pro with

00:56:58   the price it is now, which is $999, and you put a 15-inch MacBook Air in the $1299 slot,

00:57:04   then you hit, you hit the two price points. So you have two MacBook Airs and two MacBook Pros,

00:57:10   13 to 15, 14 to 16.

00:57:12   - Pro, a 15 inch MacBook Air is not a 13 inch MacBook Pro.

00:57:16   You've just hit price points.

00:57:19   - No, but if they hit the same price point,

00:57:22   then I don't think it really matters past that

00:57:26   because right now the 13 inch MacBook Pro spec wise

00:57:29   is a MacBook Air.

00:57:30   It's the same processor, the same number of ports.

00:57:33   It just gets better battery life.

00:57:35   - Yeah, but I don't think I would want a 15 inch MacBook Air

00:57:39   Like it's too big.

00:57:40   - I think a lot of people would be interested in something

00:57:42   that's big in life. - That's really big.

00:57:43   They have it physically very large.

00:57:45   Like the 14 inch MacBook Pro is pushed the very top end

00:57:50   of what I want computer size wise for the space.

00:57:53   Like if then we're going bigger than that,

00:57:56   like that's just too big.

00:57:58   Like then it's not a price thing anymore.

00:58:00   It's like, I don't want a 15 inch computer.

00:58:04   So then we're back to square one again,

00:58:06   where now we haven't, we filled the price points,

00:58:09   but we haven't actually filled the use cases,

00:58:11   which is probably one of the other reasons

00:58:13   this 13 still exists.

00:58:15   - I think that people generally like options

00:58:20   and generally like, if you look at what is selling

00:58:24   in the Windows world, like there are,

00:58:28   like 13 inches clearly is the most popular screen size,

00:58:31   but there are like thin and lights that are bigger.

00:58:36   And of course there's also like a contingency

00:58:37   I'm gonna head you off now.

00:58:39   who would want a smaller MacBook Air.

00:58:40   Well, that's not gonna do anything

00:58:41   about our price point problem, but,

00:58:43   or a MacBook again, like I tweeted about this the other day,

00:58:45   people were like, "I want the MacBook back!"

00:58:46   Like one, you forget how bad that computer was.

00:58:50   Maybe, I mean, surely it would be better

00:58:52   with an Apple Silicon chip in it,

00:58:53   but there's still a lot of trade-offs

00:58:54   to make something that small,

00:58:56   and it doesn't fix the price point.

00:58:58   Like, there's a world in which Apple

00:59:00   keeps the MacBook Air at 999.

00:59:03   They introduce like something basically like the old MacBook,

00:59:06   and that takes the 1299 price.

00:59:08   then we're back in the confusing times of 2016.

00:59:11   We're like, I don't know what computer to buy for $1299.

00:59:13   So it's just, I guess like the ultimate blame here

00:59:17   is that the 14-inch MacBook Pro is just too expensive.

00:59:20   - Yes.

00:59:21   - And it is an expensive computer.

00:59:23   The 16 even more so, they can't seem to bring it down,

00:59:27   at least they're not gonna bring it down $700 anytime soon.

00:59:30   So Apple's created this issue where

00:59:33   maybe the 13-inch MacBook Pro carrying on

00:59:35   like the the least bad option I have a bunch of bad options I just think it

00:59:41   does a disservice to the brand and to people who kind of end up with that

00:59:47   machine even though like probably should just bought a MacBook Air especially if

00:59:51   the touch bar goes away and you're not getting all the goodies that like modern

00:59:55   MacBook Pros have. I think that the eventual solution to this is that they

01:00:00   add a bunch of new features to the MacBook Air and then they just don't need

01:00:03   the MacBook Pro anymore. Yeah. I think that's the way they do it. Like put MagSafe,

01:00:07   couple more ports in the MacBook Air. I don't know if that's what they're gonna

01:00:09   do but if they do that then they could probably just get rid of that MacBook

01:00:13   Pro. Maybe. And you can just like spec up a MacBook Air. I mean you already can

01:00:17   spec a MacBook Air up. Pretty expensive. Because there really isn't that much

01:00:20   difference between them anymore. Like so I think eventually they would just get

01:00:24   rid of that MacBook Pro. Like that's just the way to do it but they're not

01:00:27   gonna do that yet for whatever reason. I'm really happy with the 14 inch MacBook

01:00:31   I'm glad it exists. I just wish it was cheaper.

01:00:33   I feel like this is the point where Federico could jump in and tell you that this conversation's over.

01:00:39   Like you tried to pull him away from the conversation in the previous segment, you know?

01:00:44   Yeah.

01:00:45   I mean, what is the true laptop, you know?

01:00:47   This conversation is over.

01:00:49   How do you know what the designer's intended without being in the room?

01:00:52   Can you really be a designer at Apple if you're not Johnny Ive?

01:00:55   Like, there's also that question.

01:00:57   But it gets deep and I don't want to get into it, but yes, this conversation is over.

01:01:02   Like, look, we get it.

01:01:04   You want computers and more computers to exist.

01:01:08   Let's move on.

01:01:09   What else is new?

01:01:10   Am I right?

01:01:11   What else?

01:01:12   Steven wants more computers.

01:01:13   Okay.

01:01:14   Yeah.

01:01:15   Oh, surprise, surprise.

01:01:16   Big deal.

01:01:17   He just wants to fill out those shelves, those non-CALAC shelves.

01:01:21   See how fascinating conversations can be?

01:01:23   How they can take a leap into different directions?

01:01:27   by using a few words. Isn't the human language interesting when you think about it? You can

01:01:33   just say a couple of words and suddenly conversation takes a completely different direction.

01:01:37   And then nobody wants to talk to each other anymore.

01:01:39   Right? I know.

01:01:40   It's funny. It's funny how that happens.

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01:03:49   All right, Federico had an idea that we should, we should spend some time talking about non-Apple

01:03:54   hardware.

01:03:55   So we're obviously all big Apple users, big Apple buddies, all three of us.

01:04:01   But we have lots of other things in our lives and I think this is going to be fun.

01:04:07   Talk about some...

01:04:08   I mean, if you think about it though, like, you know, what is Apple hardware?

01:04:11   Because like it's all made by third party companies anyway.

01:04:14   So like, you know, who actually owns the hardware?

01:04:17   Exactly!

01:04:18   You know?

01:04:19   Like, see, when I say it's a problem to think about these things too much, because then

01:04:23   you never come up with an answer!

01:04:25   Which explains why being a thinker, being a philosopher, used to be like a job in ancient

01:04:33   times.

01:04:34   Because like, these people made a profession out of thinking about these things.

01:04:38   Now anybody with a Twitter account can do it, you know?

01:04:41   Yes!

01:04:42   It's the real problem for us to say.

01:04:44   Can you be a philosopher for a living? I mean, I guess maybe if you write books, right?

01:04:48   Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I think these people tend to be employed by companies now, or like

01:04:53   management consultancies. Anyway, Steven, why don't you tell us about some non-Apple

01:04:57   hardware that you love?

01:04:58   Are we gonna round robin this? We all have three.

01:05:01   Then yes!

01:05:03   Then yes!

01:05:04   Yes! Up first are my beloved Harman Kardon sound sticks. These are the speakers that

01:05:10   I've used on my desk.

01:05:11   These are the transparent ones, aren't they?

01:05:13   Yes, okay. Yeah, I've got a link in the show notes. You can look at them.

01:05:16   Can you still buy these new?

01:05:18   Apparently, you can.

01:05:19   That's unbelievable to me, because like I remember seeing these alongside the iMac G4.

01:05:26   Yes. Are these speakers like a thing now? Like are they back in fashion or something?

01:05:32   I think so. Look, the website says they're an award winner. I don't know what award they won.

01:05:37   I mean, they've been around for a hundred years, so they should have won some award by now.

01:05:41   (laughing)

01:05:42   Yeah, I got a set of these.

01:05:44   My right one is hot glued shut, as I've mentioned before.

01:05:47   Still holding on.

01:05:50   And I love the kind of the retro,

01:05:52   you know, early 2000s vibe.

01:05:54   They sound pretty great.

01:05:55   I like having an external subwoofer

01:05:57   that I can have separate control of.

01:05:59   And they just look fun.

01:06:01   Clear hardware is awesome.

01:06:02   More things should be transparent,

01:06:03   as we've talked about before.

01:06:05   And I use these every single day for music, for editing.

01:06:10   Basically, anytime that I'm at my computer,

01:06:12   I'm not recording,

01:06:13   I've got something going on on these sound sticks

01:06:16   and I've done so for like 15 years now.

01:06:19   - Sound sticks.

01:06:20   - Sound sticks.

01:06:21   - They stick out, that's what they're called, sound sticks.

01:06:24   - Apparently there's a Bluetooth version as well.

01:06:26   Mine are not that, mine are old, pre Bluetooth.

01:06:30   - Are they really pre Bluetooth?

01:06:32   - I mean, they actually,

01:06:33   this pair may actually be pre Bluetooth,

01:06:35   but at least before Bluetooth was put into the sound sticks.

01:06:39   This is like back in the old day when technology used to last, am I right?

01:06:43   Yeah, you know, audio just sounds so much better when you can plug it in.

01:06:47   Really, the musician intended me to use copper, not...

01:06:51   Particles in the air.

01:06:51   Bluetooth magic.

01:06:53   Do you ever feel like you want to pour red wine into the subwoofer?

01:06:57   Oh...

01:06:58   Look at the can, some alcohol in there.

01:07:00   It kind of looks like a decanter.

01:07:01   It does look like a decanter in there.

01:07:03   Could you pour something in the top?

01:07:05   I mean, yes.

01:07:06   You should try it.

01:07:07   So, technically you could, but you shouldn't.

01:07:11   Yes, it is open.

01:07:13   It is open.

01:07:14   I did have gold confetti in there from when we hit.

01:07:17   So you have poured something in it.

01:07:19   Okay.

01:07:20   Well, I shot confetti at my desk,

01:07:22   and then I had to take the subwoofer apart

01:07:24   and clean the confetti out of it.

01:07:25   Decanted some confetti.

01:07:27   Decanted some confetti.

01:07:29   Ah, the vintage on this confetti is very good.

01:07:32   Yes, the tannins are excellent.

01:07:34   (laughing)

01:07:37   Gold with a hint of foil.

01:07:39   Mmm.

01:07:40   Mmm.

01:07:41   It was a good year.

01:07:42   Okay.

01:07:43   [LAUGHTER]

01:07:45   All right.

01:07:46   So I'm up next because that's the order of the document.

01:07:53   Something I love are my Intel NUCs, plural, because I have a second one now.

01:08:00   These are tiny Windows-based computers that are the size of an Apple TV.

01:08:05   like a slightly chunkier Apple TV, and they are Windows PCs. One of them is still on Windows 10,

01:08:14   I got upgraded. The other one came with Windows 11. They are excellent home servers that cost

01:08:21   much less than a Mac Mini, and they are much more space effective than a Mac Mini. I wanted to have

01:08:28   a home server that could fit under my TV in the kitchen, and a Mac Mini was too much for it,

01:08:35   because we have this very small shelf underneath it, and a Mac Mini wouldn't fit, and it would cost

01:08:41   double, and so I got this cheap Intel NUC that does exactly what I want, which is a couple of

01:08:48   things really. Mostly it's a Rune library, we talked about this before. Rune is a music

01:08:56   application for folks like me who, speaking of, you know,

01:09:01   lossless music, want to maintain an offline lossless music collection.

01:09:06   And Rune, it's kind of like Plex, right? You gotta run it on a home server somewhere,

01:09:12   and then you use the client app on your iPhone, iPad, Mac, whatever,

01:09:16   to connect to the server. And Rune is always running on the internet.

01:09:22   I last rebooted it in August. Like, this thing is super reliable, I have zero problems with it.

01:09:29   It runs quiet, it doesn't run hot at all, because it's just, you know, streaming some audio files

01:09:37   over my Wi-Fi network. That's all it does. And I loved it so much I got a second one

01:09:42   that I placed in Viterbo at Sylvia's place. It's also doing the same thing for when I'm in

01:09:50   I'm in the Turbo and I want to listen to music. I also have some equipment there, and it's running Rune.

01:09:54   My music library syncs with Dropbox, so everything is fine there.

01:09:59   I don't need to maintain two separate libraries because it's all stored in Dropbox, and

01:10:05   it's excellent for that. I also use the NUC in the Turbo.

01:10:10   This is something that I thought about a few weeks ago, and I asked myself, "I wonder if this works?" And it does.

01:10:16   To play Xbox games. Now, there's a catch, obviously. These computers are nearly not powerful enough.

01:10:24   You know, they have integrated Intel graphics. They cannot run modern Xbox games, but

01:10:30   you can totally use them to play cloud games from Xbox.

01:10:35   I installed the Xbox app on the Intel NUC and I hooked it up to the TV with an HDMI cable.

01:10:41   I paired an Xbox controller as a Bluetooth controller in Windows settings, and I can stream

01:10:49   Halo Infinite or Forza or Death's Door, all these other Xbox games, and I can play them as cloud games.

01:10:57   And the beauty of the Xbox ecosystem that we mentioned before is that it's all

01:11:02   part of your Xbox account.

01:11:06   So you can play a game locally on your Xbox with a literal physical disk,

01:11:12   and you can save the game, or you can play on your local Wi-Fi network

01:11:17   on something like an iPad or an iPhone, and you keep the same save file and save profile,

01:11:23   all your progress follows you around, basically.

01:11:26   Or you can play with the cloud.

01:11:28   And so when I'm in Viterbo, I can continue playing my Halo game that I started in Rome, for example.

01:11:33   for example.

01:11:34   And it's all thanks to this small Windows computer

01:11:37   that I absolutely love.

01:11:39   So Windows, I mean, we can get into that or not.

01:11:43   I think it's fine.

01:11:44   It's better than it used to be.

01:11:46   I still prefer macOS, but for this very specific task,

01:11:49   it absolutely gets the job done.

01:11:51   And the Xbox app with cloud streaming,

01:11:55   nice additional use case for the Intel NUC.

01:11:58   - Speaking of Windows,

01:12:00   I love my PC that I built like a year ago.

01:12:05   I have built my PC inside of the Lian Li O11 Dynamic Mini case.

01:12:12   I'll put a link in the show notes to all of the parts

01:12:15   that I have in my PC.

01:12:16   I have an AMD Ryzen 9 5900X.

01:12:19   I have 32 gigabytes of RAM, one terabyte of SSD,

01:12:24   and a Radeon RX 6800.

01:12:27   I love this thing.

01:12:29   I love the case.

01:12:30   case is so easy to build in. This is so simple compared to the previous build that I had

01:12:35   and it's a great time for PC hardware. PC hardware is really powerful right now. I guess

01:12:40   the only issue is you can't get any of it. If you could get some of it, it'd be great,

01:12:44   but most people can't get any of it. And I was really lucky to get some of the stuff

01:12:48   that I got. I was gifted the Ryzen 9 by a friend, which is awesome. And I was very lucky

01:12:53   to get in and I got my graphics card just out of like, I don't know, sheer will of the

01:13:00   world. I just was in a queue waiting to get one one day and got one, you know, like online

01:13:05   they put these queuing systems in. And I love my PC. It has anything I throw at it. I've

01:13:10   done some gaming stuff on it, mostly for live streaming stuff, but that is what I use it

01:13:14   for in general is live streaming stuff. And it's absolutely rock solid and so powerful.

01:13:20   I feel like I've got years and years and years of headroom in this PC.

01:13:24   And it looks really cool and I've got lots of RGB in it but I have it all set to white

01:13:28   because it looks really nice to have a white PC.

01:13:30   And the RGB is white and it looks really nice when it's all built together.

01:13:33   So I love my PC.

01:13:34   You built this two years ago, three years ago?

01:13:37   No, I built this one a year ago, I think.

01:13:42   Yeah, about...

01:13:43   So it's not the one I saw in person?

01:13:45   No, that was many years ago I built that one.

01:13:48   That was like years and years and years ago.

01:13:50   This is a newer one with all new components in it.

01:13:54   That PC now is covered in googly eyes and I hate it.

01:13:58   This one is much, much nicer, much sleeker and looks really good.

01:14:01   The case is so great.

01:14:03   I recommend by the way anybody who is thinking about building a gaming PC to look at the

01:14:08   Lian Li line of products of cases, they really think through accessing and like expandability.

01:14:16   It's really, really cool.

01:14:17   You should get one of those 390s graphic cards in there eventually.

01:14:22   The Radeon 6800 is really nice.

01:14:26   It's comparable to the low to mid tier of the Nvidia cards.

01:14:29   This is all I need right now.

01:14:33   Eventually I would like to go to an Nvidia card,

01:14:36   but this one is more than enough for me right now.

01:14:39   And I mean, you could also like, with the Ryzen stuff, you could do the...

01:14:45   what's it called, the AMD FSR, like the super resolution thing that they do for the upscaling.

01:14:51   This is stuff that they mostly talk about so far, then there really being that many games

01:14:57   that support it, but it works really well for me. Nice, nice, very nice. Alright,

01:15:02   Steven, it's back to you. Yeah, I was gonna bring up my custom-built PC as well. Look at us,

01:15:10   Picking windows in our and all of our I know all three was a big PC's

01:15:14   mine's an Intel build with an i7 it's in a

01:15:19   Corsair

01:15:22   ATX like mid sized case

01:15:24   If I was to build something new I would pick the case that Myke has I think that case looks awesome

01:15:30   And I've I've only heard good things people who have built in it

01:15:33   The Corsair case is big, but it was my first build and I figured

01:15:38   Rather have a little breathing room in terms of that's what I did with mine

01:15:42   My first one just the biggest case I could get and then just build inside

01:15:46   yeah, so it is black all my

01:15:49   components are blacks in my video card I ended up with

01:15:52   Through kind of like with Myke sort of just being in the right place at the right time a founders edition

01:15:59   3080 that case that I'm very jealous of this

01:16:05   That card is not black. That's like a dark silver, but it looks awesome

01:16:10   And it's got a bunch of RGB in it because I think if you build a PC you might as well really build a PC

01:16:16   And have a bunch of color in it so when I run it

01:16:19   It's like cycling through colors all the time and it looks it looks wild

01:16:22   And it is like Myke's it is my

01:16:25   streaming PC and it serves double duty as I

01:16:30   Record onto it from my overhead table. So we're gonna get a regular video not a live stream and there's overhead shot

01:16:36   I recorded the same camera I use

01:16:38   for live streams, but I just record it on the PC directly and then transfer it off and

01:16:43   It is rock-solid and I have no need to touch it. Even though I always want to like tinker with it because it's fun

01:16:50   It'll be a machine that I can use for for years and years to come you should do you should do some real gamer

01:16:57   Gaming yeah on that on that should you should do some real with the 3080 you should do. I don't know Steven

01:17:02   I could see you you know playing cyberpunk for example on it. Yeah, I mean you could at least play flight sim Oregon Trail

01:17:08   Nope, that's not the kind of thing. We're talking about age of empires golden. Eye

01:17:13   Age of a virus the fourth one no flight simulator. I don't know GTA online

01:17:21   No nothing yeah, I've wanted to do GTA. I just have no time really makes me sad

01:17:26   Huh. Yeah, yeah man. I've never talked about my...

01:17:31   Granted, it's awesome. Look at you. Steven has bloodlust. Well, it's all

01:17:37   that pent-up dead energy, right? I mean, it's gotta release it somewhere.

01:17:43   Might as well be GTA and be a crime lord. Maybe we should squad up, you know.

01:17:50   join my discord server.

01:17:56   Maybe we can play some GTA when you're here.

01:17:57   Oh my god, this is...

01:17:59   I...

01:18:00   Can you...

01:18:01   Alright.

01:18:02   I'm not gonna...

01:18:04   Like please do not take this the wrong way, right?

01:18:06   I really...

01:18:07   I don't mean this the way it sounds.

01:18:09   But can you play games like that?

01:18:11   Like are you proficient?

01:18:12   What do you mean?

01:18:13   Like have you played many 3D games?

01:18:17   (laughing)

01:18:19   Look, you run around, you steal cars, you do the missions,

01:18:24   you run over people on the sidewalk.

01:18:26   What more is there to do?

01:18:27   I'm bad at games or you have to shoot things.

01:18:30   I'm not fast enough.

01:18:31   Well, that's a massive part of GTA.

01:18:33   Do you like transforming to a different person?

01:18:38   Like, are you one of those people that like,

01:18:39   when you play like a sports game or a shooter,

01:18:42   Like you become someone else and like you yell at the screen like that type of...

01:18:48   You become someone you don't like.

01:18:50   Yeah.

01:18:51   Do you?

01:18:52   Not really.

01:18:53   So you just stay your usual self, you know, calm and collected.

01:18:55   Yeah, just like hanging out, you know, stealing pickup trucks.

01:18:58   That is even...

01:18:59   Stealing ambulances.

01:19:00   That is possibly even more creepy.

01:19:01   Um, okay.

01:19:02   I've become my true self.

01:19:04   Yeah.

01:19:05   I mean, what is even your true self?

01:19:08   A cold blooded assassin as I play GTA.

01:19:10   No, I know shooting is part of GTA, but like it's different than you're playing like Call of Duty or something, right?

01:19:15   It's those sorts of things like first-person shooters

01:19:19   I have no I do not have the skills to survive any time in those games. None of us do. We're too old

01:19:25   Yeah, none of us are 14 anymore. No, none of us

01:19:29   None of us have got that kind of time to get good at that. Speaking of video games

01:19:33   I my next pick is more like it's a it's a category pick

01:19:37   It's my portable consoles in general. Like, I've mentioned this before,

01:19:43   I really feel like the portable console space is having a resurgence right now.

01:19:47   It's amazing to watch what's happening in the portable console space, and I mean,

01:19:53   surely it's because of Nintendo and what they did with the Switch five years ago.

01:19:57   But I want to call out three of them, specifically, obviously my Switch OLED.

01:20:03   It's my...

01:20:05   The Switch is the best. Honestly, it's the best thing Nintendo has done in a long time.

01:20:10   It's so obvious to say I love my Nintendo Switch, but I really do. And the OLED

01:20:15   model is even better because of the bigger screen and the much much better OLED display.

01:20:20   It's gorgeous and it makes even... Speakers are good too. Speakers are good and the kickstand is awesome also and it makes even

01:20:29   questionable games, graphically speaking like

01:20:34   Legends of Arceus look decent enough on the OLED display.

01:20:38   Kinda.

01:20:40   But that's a different discussion. Listen to remaster because we talk about this. But I also want to mention the analog pocket.

01:20:46   Incredible console. Such an incredible thing that the analog folks have done with the pocket. The pocket can play old

01:20:55   Game Boy cartridges. It's incredible what they've done in terms of backwards compatibility.

01:21:01   you can slot in a cartridge from 30 years ago and it'll work. I put in GBA cartridges

01:21:07   for Game Boy Advance games that I played 17, 18 years ago and they still had my save file

01:21:15   on it and everything. I was able to just pick it back up and play the game. But it's not

01:21:21   just that, and it's not just that it looks like a Game Boy and it's got USB-C, it's the

01:21:26   screen. What they have done with that incredible IPS display is just amazing to

01:21:32   look at in person. It makes old games look like what you remember them looking

01:21:38   like. It makes them look perfect, honestly. And it's especially impressive on the

01:21:43   original Game Boy games, not the GBA games that have a different aspect ratio,

01:21:49   but the original Game Boy, with the square aspect ratio. They look incredible

01:21:54   because the Pocket has exactly ten times the resolution of the original Game Boy.

01:22:00   So, you look at those games and they are so crisp and bright and vibrant, it's the wow effect of the

01:22:10   analog Pocket never ceases to impress me. And so, I absolutely love it. I finished Zelda Minish Cap,

01:22:18   which is a GBA game on it a few weeks back and I had a great time and I have a long list of old

01:22:22   games that I want to get into next. Lastly, I love my Aya Neo. I talked about this last week.

01:22:29   It's a portable PC handheld console that lets you play PC games in a Switch-like form factor.

01:22:37   I love that thing, I talked about it last week, so I'll go listen back to that segment. But there's

01:22:42   also a lot of excitement, I think, for portable consoles that are coming out in the future,

01:22:48   in the near future. Aya Neo, they are working on the Aya Neo Next, which is gonna have a much more

01:22:54   powerful integrated graphics. I believe they're gonna use the Ryzen 6500 maybe? Maybe not, it's

01:23:05   the 5800. Anyway, it's gonna be better, more powerful, battery is gonna last longer, and the

01:23:10   joysticks are gonna be better. But there's also the Steam Deck, obviously, coming out next, and

01:23:16   the long-awaited panic playdate. So I really feel like portable consoles are having a moment again

01:23:23   and it's great. If you are someone who loves portable consoles it's a great time

01:23:27   to live right now and I love mine. What a time to be alive as they say. Yes. I don't know if you

01:23:35   know this about me. People probably don't. Might be a bit of a revelation. I like mechanical keyboards.

01:23:42   No way, you're that guy?

01:23:44   Yeah, I've been into them for a while now, mostly in secret.

01:23:47   You know, I didn't want to show my shame.

01:23:50   I didn't know if people would know that about me.

01:23:53   I want to talk about four keyboards that I love.

01:23:56   I'm not really going to talk about them in any...

01:23:57   So like you build Logitech keyboards, right?

01:24:00   Yeah, so one is by Razer.

01:24:02   They make the real true mechanical keyboards the best you can find on the market.

01:24:07   Nice.

01:24:08   You want to get the Razer Huntsman Mini with the red optical switches.

01:24:13   That's a popular brand. I've heard of it. It must be good.

01:24:16   Yep, because you really got to get the speeds for when you need to do the 180 kill shots.

01:24:21   Nice.

01:24:22   Because you got to make sure you go for the optical switches.

01:24:24   There's absolutely no resistance.

01:24:26   That way you can really steal some cars just like Stephen Lake's.

01:24:32   Outside of that, my favorite keyboards.

01:24:36   My favorite keyboard of the year last year that was released is by a company called Mode

01:24:42   Designs and the Mode 65 is a really really wonderful keyboard, 65% keyboard.

01:24:48   What I really liked about this is you had loads and loads of options so you could really

01:24:51   configure this keyboard the way that you would want from an aesthetic perspective and also

01:24:55   from like sound and feel perspective.

01:24:59   If you become well versed enough you can kind of understand how different materials can

01:25:04   change the feel of a keyboard.

01:25:05   I really loved the Mod 65, it was a bit of a watershed moment in the keyboard hobby community

01:25:10   because it was like, you can actually configure this and buy it and you wait a few months

01:25:14   and you get it.

01:25:16   I will say that the mechanical keyboard community is in its infancy from a logistical standpoint

01:25:24   and this was I think a pretty important moment.

01:25:27   There's a keyboard called the J01 which I really love.

01:25:31   It sounds very very much like an old IBM keyboard.

01:25:35   It's really amazing the way that it's built.

01:25:38   They basically made these acoustic channels in the aluminium so it has a real deep sound.

01:25:42   I love it, it's fantastic.

01:25:43   And it also has a pen rail on top which I think is cute.

01:25:47   The Rama U80, this is the first serious keyboard that I bought.

01:25:51   And it's the one I've got in front of me right now while I'm recording today.

01:25:55   a big hefty this this this keyboard that I have it weighs 8 pounds is that is

01:26:04   that a lot that is Federico 3.6 kilograms oh I gather you're into lifting

01:26:11   weights but that seems a bit excessive it's a hefty it's a hefty boy you know

01:26:15   and then also another people that I enjoy is from previously I mentioned

01:26:19   mode designs is the mode 80 they're like four of my favorites if I just had four

01:26:24   If I only had four keyboards, these are the four that I would choose.

01:26:28   And that is...

01:26:29   What a hardship that would be.

01:26:30   That is just a percentage of the keyboards I own.

01:26:33   That is a very specific question.

01:26:35   Like, you're stuck on an island and you can only get four keyboards.

01:26:39   Yes, it must be four, minimum.

01:26:41   Do you not understand?

01:26:42   Useful information to have.

01:26:43   I mean, for the way that I live my life, because I'm a weirdo,

01:26:46   I do have three keyboards in use on a daily basis.

01:26:50   Like, that's just the way that I live my weird life.

01:26:53   Does that count the Apple One taped to the underside of your desk?

01:26:56   No, that's number four.

01:26:58   Do they have all these keyboards, do they have like a very specific slot in your circadian rhythm during the day?

01:27:07   Like for example the J01 in the morning and the Rama in the afternoon, like...

01:27:13   No, it's mostly about my physical placement at any one time.

01:27:16   Got it, okay.

01:27:17   You know? Where am I, what desk am I on, what am I doing? That kind of stuff.

01:27:22   Right.

01:27:22   Because as I said, I'm a weirdo.

01:27:25   Honestly, I feel like this is like what I love about these hobbies

01:27:30   is that on the internet any niche is big enough

01:27:33   and any community can be big enough to find other people like you

01:27:37   so nobody is a weirdo anymore, really, when you think about it.

01:27:41   Some people are, but by and large you can find your tribe, as they say.

01:27:46   Yeah.

01:27:47   You know?

01:27:48   Yeah, you can be into any, you know, what maybe one... what some people may have called

01:27:55   in the past "weird hobby" and you're not weird anymore because there's others like you.

01:28:00   And you know, you know you've found your community when you have a good time talking to other

01:28:06   folks on an online forum board.

01:28:08   I... just a few months back I asked...

01:28:12   I was looking to replace... and this sounds totally ridiculous but bear with me...

01:28:15   I was looking to replace the fuse of my DAC,

01:28:19   and I wanted to update to this fancier fuse.

01:28:25   Of course.

01:28:27   I found someone on a forum that did this exact same thing,

01:28:33   and I posted about it like a few weeks before.

01:28:38   And I wanted to confirm that the voltage

01:28:40   that the fuse supported was OK for my DAC,

01:28:44   And it was an extremely long shot.

01:28:46   It was like, you know what I'm going to do?

01:28:48   I'm going to create an account just to ask this question

01:28:52   to this random person on the internet

01:28:54   that also did this operation to his DAC replacing the fuse.

01:28:59   And David from Germany was very kind in replying to me

01:29:04   like a couple of days later.

01:29:07   And I got the fuse a couple of days ago,

01:29:09   and it totally works.

01:29:11   And yeah, being a weirdo with a weird hobby

01:29:15   on the internet these days is beautiful.

01:29:17   So keyboards, music, whatever, you know, sound sticks,

01:29:22   anything works.

01:29:24   - We live in truly wonderful times.

01:29:26   - Steven.

01:29:29   - Yes.

01:29:30   - We're back to you.

01:29:31   - I wanted to pick something old.

01:29:32   This is actually the first thing that's like came to mind

01:29:35   when you brought this to us the other day.

01:29:40   So I'm gonna go back in time a little bit

01:29:41   and choose the HP Mini 1000.

01:29:43   - I thought this was a joke

01:29:45   when you put this into iMessage thread.

01:29:47   - No, me too.

01:29:48   - I was not expecting to see it in the show notes today.

01:29:51   Do you remember netbooks?

01:29:53   - Yes.

01:29:54   - Netbooks aren't better at anything.

01:29:56   Yes, I remember netbooks.

01:29:58   - Exactly.

01:30:01   The HP Mini 1000 was the best netbook.

01:30:03   It has this awesome edge to edge keyboard,

01:30:06   which I still think looks,

01:30:08   I still think this computer looks pretty good.

01:30:10   And it had just the right amount of hardware

01:30:14   that you could hackintosh it.

01:30:16   Now the Dell Mini 9 was really the one to get.

01:30:19   I ended up with one of those later.

01:30:20   But I have this post from 2009 that I wrote,

01:30:23   putting Leopard on this HP Mini 1000.

01:30:26   - Hackintosh, baby.

01:30:28   - Mm-hmm.

01:30:29   Running Leopard on a netbook.

01:30:31   What a time to be alive.

01:30:33   And I mean, I like the design of this thing.

01:30:35   I think the keyboard was pretty great.

01:30:37   trackpad looks bad and was bad but it was like the first time I sort of like

01:30:42   tried something like really nerdy with OS X and making this thing boot into it

01:30:47   was like a fun project and I don't know it's I had like fond memories of this

01:30:52   little project so I wanted to throw that out there for for everybody.

01:30:56   I see this keyboard, you got any pictures? No, this blog post has no photos.

01:31:00   There's a link to Wired in the show notes.

01:31:02   You're supposed to be a blogger, you know any pictures? Something like that.

01:31:06   - Yeah, 2009, you know, Wordpress was hard then.

01:31:08   - Didn't have CDN back then.

01:31:10   - In fact, I remember writing this post,

01:31:13   I think I was in class.

01:31:14   - And I think it was called Fork Bomber, so.

01:31:16   - 2009, it probably was still Fork Bomber, yeah.

01:31:20   - All right, my final pick is my--

01:31:22   - I would just like to say, sorry, Steven,

01:31:24   that neither of us really wanted to talk about

01:31:26   your HP thing, I just wanted to just apologize.

01:31:30   - I mean, what really is a computer?

01:31:32   You know, that's what this computer's asking.

01:31:33   - It is true, it's true.

01:31:35   So I love my PlayStation 5. More specifically, I love the expandability of my PS5. More specifically,

01:31:45   again, I love the M2 SSD upgrade of my PS5, which is an operation that I recently performed

01:31:53   over the holiday break in January. And there's a video on YouTube, but basically you can

01:31:59   expand the built-in storage of a PS5 with an M.2 SSD. I got the Samsung, what's it called,

01:32:06   the 980 Pro SSD with the hitsync. It's recommended that you get the SSD with the hitsync, and

01:32:16   you gotta get a specific size, but it's fine, you can follow those specifics online. This

01:32:24   That adds 2TB of storage to my PS5, and it lets me play games stored on the SSD at full

01:32:31   speeds.

01:32:32   So, there's a video that I watched on how to open up a PS5 and install the SSD, even

01:32:38   for someone not like I don't necessarily consider myself a "manual" person, in terms of like

01:32:45   dealing with screws and small components and things.

01:32:48   I've gotten better at it.

01:32:50   For example, I replaced the fuse of my DAC.

01:32:52   So I felt very accomplished there.

01:32:55   But with the M2 SSD, it was easy enough.

01:32:58   You open up the PS5, you remove the faceplates, there's a few screws that you need to unscrew,

01:33:03   and then you get access to the expansion slot.

01:33:05   And these M2 SSDs, they're really small.

01:33:07   And it's incredible what 2TB can look like these days.

01:33:12   It's the size, it's slightly taller than a credit card, basically.

01:33:17   And you just slot it in, you wait for the click, and then you close the PS5, you boot

01:33:21   it back up, you run through a guided process to format the drive, and then you're good

01:33:27   to go. And there's nothing else about it. And I love it, and I can now download all

01:33:32   the games I want, and I will get to them eventually, but that's a different problem. But yeah,

01:33:37   expand it.

01:33:40   It's just a box full of stuff you're not going to do, which is hilarious. I have increased

01:33:45   more storage, so I can save more games to my PlayStation 5 that I won't apply.

01:33:49   - Why do you think people get like a bigger desk

01:33:53   or a bigger drawer or a bigger closet?

01:33:55   Just to make you feel safe.

01:33:56   Exactly, it makes you feel safe

01:33:58   that all your stuff is on it.

01:34:01   - You have room to expand.

01:34:02   - Then it doesn't matter

01:34:03   what you're gonna do with the stuff.

01:34:05   But as long as it's organized and stored somewhere,

01:34:09   that's what counts.

01:34:10   And so I, you know,

01:34:12   it's nice that Sony is letting you do this.

01:34:14   And it's nice that they're not forcing you

01:34:17   to purchase a proprietary thing.

01:34:19   like Microsoft does for the Xbox.

01:34:21   So yeah, M2 SSD.

01:34:23   - With the heat sink.

01:34:24   - With the heat sink, with the heat sink.

01:34:26   - It's important.

01:34:27   - So you gotta get the heat, you gotta get the heat out.

01:34:29   You know, too much God of War.

01:34:30   - It's gotta go somewhere.

01:34:32   - It's gotta go somewhere.

01:34:33   - Speaking of heat, Myke.

01:34:35   - I would like to recommend my soldering iron, the TS-ATP.

01:34:39   Kind of goes hand in hand with the previous pick.

01:34:44   This is a USB-C powered soldering iron.

01:34:47   It's awesome.

01:34:49   It heats up super quickly.

01:34:51   - Can plug it into the iPad Pro and solder stuff.

01:34:53   - You need power delivery.

01:34:55   - So what you're saying is you can't get real soldering done

01:34:57   with an iPad.

01:34:58   - Very true.

01:35:02   - Add it to the list of things you cannot do on an iPad.

01:35:04   - Very true.

01:35:05   I actually now want to know,

01:35:08   will the Mac power it where the iPad wouldn't?

01:35:11   Now that would be an intriguing thing.

01:35:13   I don't think anything would.

01:35:15   I got one of those little anchor gang plug things for this.

01:35:19   I really love it, it's got a little screen on it.

01:35:21   You can set the temperature

01:35:23   and it heats up incredibly quickly.

01:35:26   It's a lovely little tool.

01:35:27   It's very small, very compact.

01:35:30   I love my little soldering iron.

01:35:31   I did burn myself pretty badly on it once,

01:35:33   but it's all okay, you know, that's gonna happen.

01:35:36   - I like on the Amazon page,

01:35:38   there's a picture of someone putting it

01:35:40   in their shirt pocket.

01:35:41   - Sure.

01:35:42   - Don't do that with a soldering iron.

01:35:44   Why not?

01:35:45   They call that.

01:35:46   Why not?

01:35:47   It's not constantly on.

01:35:48   It can be a classy accessory.

01:35:51   Yeah.

01:35:52   Get a little pocket protector.

01:35:53   Don't you ever find yourself, "Hey, I want to go to the bar, but also I don't want to

01:35:56   leave my soldering iron behind."

01:35:58   What if somebody needs some soldering at the bar?

01:36:00   I'll be ready.

01:36:01   Yeah.

01:36:02   I want to go out and about with my soldering iron.

01:36:05   Sir, do you have a pen I can borrow?

01:36:07   No, but I have this.

01:36:08   You just say, "Get a battery bank with you and you're ready to roll at a moment's notice."

01:36:13   - Do you have a GaN charger?

01:36:14   - Excuse me.

01:36:16   - GaN.

01:36:17   - Yeah, no, this is cool.

01:36:19   And I think it's cool that you've gotten into it

01:36:21   and know how to do it

01:36:22   and that it's more accessible than ever.

01:36:25   I think that's really the coolest thing.

01:36:27   I think soldering used to like

01:36:29   kind of be off limits to some people

01:36:31   'cause the equipment was expensive

01:36:33   or they still didn't know how easy it was

01:36:35   or how approachable it could be

01:36:37   and products like this make it easier

01:36:39   for people to get into it.

01:36:40   - Yeah, but then you go to another piece of equipment

01:36:42   I have, which is the Hakko FR301 vacuum desoldering tool.

01:36:48   It's a gun, basically.

01:36:54   You can't put this in your shirt pocket.

01:36:56   You can in America.

01:36:57   It is a soldering iron with a vacuum on it.

01:37:03   So you are able to remove the solder that you've put down on the keyboard.

01:37:08   That thing was like $400.

01:37:12   Oh so wait, it goes both ways? You can solder stuff and you can remove the solder from stuff?

01:37:17   You could technically solder with it but I wouldn't recommend it. You would probably

01:37:24   really struggle. This one, it is basically so you can desolder things. So like you heat

01:37:30   the solder with the iron and then you press a trigger and the vacuum sucks it in.

01:37:38   All these things you're doing are very dangerous.

01:37:41   is an element of danger to a lot of it especially when I'm using leaded solder I mean that's

01:37:45   just a danger of its own you know it's just like I'll breathe in all these fumes you know

01:37:50   so you know there's an element of danger. We need a tiny fan. Are you breathing in the

01:37:55   fumes? I have a little fan that my friend Ian made for me like out of a PC fan that

01:38:00   extracts the fumes at least I hope it does. We don't want you to get hurt you know. Yeah

01:38:05   I know right. You gotta continue the podcast. I mean well someone's gotta someone's gotta

01:38:10   all this stuff, you know what I mean?

01:38:12   If you want to find links to the stuff we spoke about,

01:38:15   head on over to the website relay.fm/connected/385.

01:38:20   There you can get in touch via email to follow up,

01:38:25   follow up on something or send us feedback.

01:38:27   Those come to me, I like to read them.

01:38:29   Sometimes I share them on the show.

01:38:30   You can also leave feedback online.

01:38:32   You can find all of us on Twitter.

01:38:34   You can find Myke on Twitter as I-M-Y-K-E.

01:38:37   He hosts a bunch of other shows here on Relay FM.

01:38:40   Myke, anything fun coming up?

01:38:42   Wow, that silence! Okay!

01:38:45   Sometimes I don't know how to answer!

01:38:48   Oh, Federico mentioned remaster.

01:38:50   If you are interested in, or you've played, or whatever the new Pokemon game, Legends Arceus, go check out remaster for our review of it.

01:38:58   Or Arceus. There's a debate as to what's the correct pronunciation.

01:39:02   I think the debate has been settled, but the problem is it was settled too late, so everyone now calls it Arceus when it is actually Arceus.

01:39:09   but they shouldn't have left us out in the cold

01:39:11   to work out on our own.

01:39:12   - That's also part of the episode by the way, so.

01:39:16   - Yeah, spoilers.

01:39:17   - Yeah, I know, I know.

01:39:18   - You can find Federico on Twitter at Vittiti, V-I-T-I-C-C-I.

01:39:23   He's the editor-in-chief of MaxStories.net

01:39:25   and is on that remaster episode.

01:39:27   So go check that out.

01:39:28   - Go check that out.

01:39:29   - I just pressed publish on it.

01:39:30   I figured might as well as to put it in show notes.

01:39:32   - Hot off the presses.

01:39:33   - Yeah, hot off the presses.

01:39:35   - Get the hot bits in the way

01:39:38   Get the fresh new bits the way that the artist intended.

01:39:43   While the badge still works.

01:39:45   (laughing)

01:39:47   That's it, that's the podcast.

01:39:52   That's it.

01:39:54   You can find me on Twitter as ismh

01:39:57   and I write over at 512pixels.net.

01:40:00   Check out Sunday's episode of MPU.

01:40:03   It's all about the stream deck

01:40:04   and we recorded it yesterday and it's really good.

01:40:06   So that'll be up this weekend.

01:40:08   - Don't like break the stream like that.

01:40:11   Don't tell people you're, you know,

01:40:12   and they're not gonna know, right?

01:40:14   Don't tell it like, that's not the artist.

01:40:17   Think about how the artist intends the episode.

01:40:19   Like it can come out at any time.

01:40:21   - I am the artist.

01:40:22   - Oh, and do you intend it to be that way?

01:40:25   - I mean, I said it, so yeah.

01:40:26   - Interesting, okay.

01:40:27   - I mean, what's intention really, if you think about it?

01:40:29   - That's a really good point.

01:40:31   - How do you know what you're gonna say before you say it?

01:40:33   Can you even know what you're gonna say before you say it?

01:40:35   you know what as you're saying right is everything predetermined right do you do

01:40:40   you really have do you have free will on a podcast when you have show notes in

01:40:44   front of you and what what if and that like I want to explore at some point

01:40:51   like episode like podcasting and Plato's cave metaphor like it's a whole thing

01:40:57   we'll talk about it.

01:40:59   Will we?

01:41:00   Yes, we will.

01:41:01   I'm not sure we will.

01:41:03   Subscribe to Connected Pro so that we can talk about philosophy and PLATO and all of

01:41:10   this in the future.

01:41:12   You can get Connected Pro right there on the Connected webpage, on the Relay website.

01:41:17   Connected Pro members.

01:41:18   I like your webpage.

01:41:23   once stopped me at WWDC in person and said, "Hey, you're lit." I'm mimicking, but it points

01:41:32   fingers at me. It's like, "You're..." and it's doing the thing. "I like your web page." Thanks?

01:41:41   I appreciate it. So I like your web page, Steven.

01:41:44   So Connected Pro members get longer ad-free versions of the show. This week I talked about

01:41:49   fire trucks in my neighborhood, and we're gonna pick titles in a minute. So lots of

01:41:52   fun stuff in connected pro it will make a lot more sense for why steven left the show

01:41:57   for a little bit you know if you want to understand the full context of this episode everyone's

01:42:03   fine that sounds bad like it sounds worse than it was but we did say the power was out

01:42:08   like i was giving you haven't heard this yet but i was giving frequent updates okay man

01:42:15   you see you've broken the time stream now now we've both done it now who's a variant

01:42:18   time is relative anyway we can get into this in the future don't worry about it we'll talk

01:42:22   about time and everything else. How it's intended. Our thanks to our sponsors

01:42:28   Indeed, Smile, and Memberful. Until next week guys, say goodbye. That's it. That's my

01:42:33   goodbye. Cheerio. Bye y'all.