I'm sure they're doing their best

Drew 00:00

Okay, okay, so uh I'm dying to know how we found this program.

Paul 00:10

So After last week's episode and just the absolute shit.

Drew 00:16

Well, hold on. Wait, I I gotta do this. Hold on. Okay. I I I I listened back and I had a lot of people say that your little jazz interludes and everything were

Paul 00:32

Yeah.

Drew 00:33

Like chef's kiss. So really, really nice job with that buddy.

Paul 00:38

You did a hell of a job given the circumstances. Thank you. Thank you so much. Yeah, that uh so yeah that edit was uh something else, I'll tell you that. Uh yeah. Yeah, yeah. So I mean usually I have a routine, like you know, we record on Thursdays most nights. And I usually edit the podcast like Sunday morning. I get up, I, you know, make my coffee, and I sit down. And that was this is the first episode where I had to like take a break. Okay. Okay. Okay. Usually I know what I have, right? Like the episode, everything's there. It's it's fine. Uh, you know, the I know what the audio quad is gonna be like So I had to sit down and like I had like just so many clips and I'm like, okay, what what the hell do I have and what can I use? And then I st I pulled together like uh like I w I I thought about it. I'm like, okay, I think I know what I'm gonna do. I'm just gonna do like honestly what I thought of was if you ever watch Shut Up and Sit Down And they have like an oopsie and they'd be like detectively difficult. For some reason like that came into my head, like, okay, I need I need like a little breaker in between these things. So I had to find some like open stuff.

Drew 01:54

It was perfect. It was it was it was perfect. Everything about it was perfect. You did a great job. I mean I we I think we both knew that it was gonna be hell for you to piece that together, but Given the circumstances, dude, you you absolutely crushed it. So tell everybody what we're using here.

Paul 02:10

We're using a website called Riverside. Okay. Now how did you find this? So I started doing some research after Lip Sin shit the bed about like what other uh applic what other like tools are like this browser-based like recording and riverside just kept coming up over and over again is is really good. You can tell it's really good because it's black. Uh the w the website is it's you know it's bit it's all dark mode all the time. Uh and they had like a Black Friday sale. I'm still we're still on a trial of the pro version. Uh and I'm like, you know what, just screw it. Like if it doesn't work, then I'm not on anything. And if it does work, yeah. And plus also apparently uh the more we record, the more it trains their AI on our voices. speak as us and say silly things. So I'm looking forward to that. Hmm.

Drew 03:02

I don't know how I feel about that. Okay, but I mean how I mean like we're okay, fine. That's this the it's the future we it's the future we got.

Paul 03:12

Yep, exactly. Oh right.

Drew 03:15

So uh given that um I didn't look at the doc until today. Okay. So tell me what this follow-up is.

Paul 03:25

Okay. So obviously last week we talked about terminal. So I got I got it right here. I got it.

Drew 03:31

Oh wow, that's way smaller than I realized. Yeah. Yeah.

Paul 03:34

For those of you who don't know, Riverside also does video, so apparently I'm also recording video for this. I don't know what I'm gonna do with it, but we can see each other, which is probably bad for an audio podcast, but here it is. Uh So we talked about that, and I got I got an email from uh Ryan at Terminal. He at looking on their website, he's their founder. Um And he said, like, hey Paul, I'm Ryan from Terminal. The Terminal team. Someone linked me your episode, which I enjoyed listening to. The worst possible episode to start listening to, by the way. Yeah. And basically he said like, hey, like the summary is like, hey, like, I'm glad you did that thing, but like we made a better version. Oh get cucked, fucker. Yeah, I did. Like they uh they have they have an uh I'll put I'll put a a link in the show notes here. Uh So they're like their documentation. They have an app. It's in uh still in test flight. But I joined the test flight, downloaded it, and it's called like curminal calendar sync.

Drew 04:44

I think it's a good one.

Paul 04:45

Terminal companion for iOS. Yeah, yeah, that's what it is. Yeah. And uh I use I I downloaded and I gave it a try. And I switched over and I'm using that instead of my my stupid little thing now. I emailed back and said, like, hey, like, thanks for listening. I appreciate it. The app works great. I'm using it. Ta-da.

Drew 05:05

So that's the second time we've talked about a product on here. Yes. Now it's been a few years, but we talked about that calculator and they reached out to us. Yes. And then uh somehow through their scouring of I would I assume is just like press, right? Just looking for any mention of what they have. Someone's got a Google alert set up, I'm sure. Yeah, something. He didn't offer you anything for free though, huh?

Paul 05:30

No, no, no. No lame. No, but what are you gonna do? Okay

Drew 05:35

Uh I'll tell you what you're gonna do. You're gonna stop using terminal. You're gonna say, you didn't give me anything for free, Ryan from Terminal.

Paul 05:42

Yeah, dickhead. Oh.

Drew 05:45

Yeah, so that thing's actually kind flush that back up on the screen again. That's way smaller than I realized. It's kind of cute though. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Approximately one pole wide.

Paul 05:55

Yeah, it is, exactly. Yeah.

Drew 05:58

One point two five paw foreheads. Okay. Okay. Uh now this next one, I'm completely perplexed. I don't know why on the earth you need this.

Paul 06:09

Okay, so if you don't know, USB C is a hellscape.

Drew 06:15

Uh you have no idea what you're in for with my topic.

Paul 06:20

So so The USB-C connector supports so many different things, right? There's USB-C power delivery, which is technically USB two speeds, but like fast charging. There's USB like three, there's USB four, five, all different like like your cable could have different capacities for charging, for data transfer. And I've been looking so there's this little device. I have a previous version of this.

Drew 06:50

Yeah, yeah, I was gonna say like my my synapse just started firing there. Like you bought like a circuit board.

Paul 06:55

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. So this is basically the next iteration of the device. It's got a screen. Yeah, it's got a screen. I'm gonna plug I'm gonna show I'm gonna show it to you here. So it's uh it's got a little screen. It's hard it's kind of hard to see. It's not a very good screen. Yeah. But you you you power it with the USB and then and then you plug in hold on I I'm not prepared for I was I wasn't prepared for video. I have another USB cable here. So you see this one right here? It's a nice braided cable. And and you take this thing. It's called the BLE Caber Q. They need a marketing department that name's horrible.

Drew 07:31

Blacker Q. Blacker Bla Bla Blacker Blacker Q.

Paul 07:34

Yep, and then you plug. the USB C cable into each end and then it does some testing, it's measuring, and then it tells you exactly Well this one that that's obviously wrong is the charging power zero watts. It's not perfect. It's not perfect. For 106 euros? Yeah, yeah. Uh yeah, so it supports 40 gigabit data transfer speeds and it shows you right there on the little thing. And you can go through and see like exactly what pins it supports and all the different like protocols. Like this is this is a USB-C4 cable. Uh it also supports alternate mode. I'm not sure what that is. There's a book. And so yeah, you plug a USB-C cable and it tells you exactly what to expect from it. So whether it's a high capacity data cable, whether it's like uh used for like fast charging. And it's pretty you can find these on uh Amazon every once in a while. They have a store there, but they kind of sell out. And I got I actually got this on sale. Uh Yeah, and it's just a cute little thing. It's a little, it's a I think it's handmade. Uh yeah, and it's just cute. You you could you could, you know, test your test your USB-C cables. If you're worried about you if you're using the right cable for the right thing like me, it's a great it's a great investment. Oops, I'm just knocking shit off my desk now. Yeah, yeah.

Drew 08:54

See? We're cute. It's cute. We're pretty tolerant about how we spend our money and we don't judge. We we listen and we understand. You really needed this to test your USB-C cables. Yeah, I did. Really needed this, Paul. You already had one. But this one, this one comes with a cute little case. Now how often will you be taking it out of that case now that you've tested your cables?

Paul 09:19

Um whenever I get a new cable or I forget. So Drew Drew Drew, you do not understand. Uh I have so one of the things I did like uh probably a couple months ago, you can't see it, it's off camera here, but I have this big white dresser back here. It's at four drawers. And it was just full of absolute sh like shame.

Drew 09:41

The longest thing. Yeah, that's that's over there. That's over there on my shelf. Yeah. Okay.

Paul 09:46

So I bought some like plastic plastic totes. And I took everything out of there and I I sorted everything out and I m made the decision like how many VGA cables does Paul need? Uh the answer is zero. Zero. But I had like four or five. Hmm. I went through and I threw everything away and I sorted everything. So like I have like I have like a bin of like USB-C cables, like a one with like lightning and like other chargers. And what I have I have different color t cable ties. And I went through and based off of what type of USB-C cable it is, I put a different cable tie on it.

Drew 10:32

Paul, we are not young men. We're not we're not young men. Did you leave documentation for your for your spouse if you pass away with with a different cow or cable ties mean? No. Okay. We're we're we're approaching an age where we might want to start thinking about that. I'll be dead, that's her problem. She's just gonna take it all and throw it away. I don't need to do that. Yeah, she's just she's just gonna plug it. She's just gonna plug it all in and it's fine Mm-hmm. Okay. Uh so did you get a screen protector? I see there's all kinds of options here.

Paul 11:03

Yeah, I bought the one with the kit with camps with the screen protector and the case and like a a cable and stuff. So yeah, yeah, I bought I bought the I bought the fancy one. Uh for sure. Of course for sure. Of course I did. I believe that's bec mostly because I wanted to buy it off Amazon because like I didn't want to ship it from overseas. And uh it was the only one they had in stock at the time. So

Drew 11:25

I gotcha. I gotcha.

Paul 11:26

This is um but it's nice if you're if you're anal like if you're broken in a particular way that I am broken and you really care about your USB-C cables, it's a great investment. It's got and and it's got a little app you connect with via Bluetooth. Uh of course. Yeah. Of course it does. Oh, I can't hear you anymore.

Drew 11:48

Wait, what?

Paul 11:49

Uh-oh. Nope.

Drew 11:52

Uh it's lighting up on my screen. How about now?

Paul 11:58

Nope, swing and a miss. Did you pull out a cable or something?

Drew 12:03

No. It's it's detecting me. Yeah, really off to a great start. You were great. I can't get that at all. Is my Is my is my picture lighting up for you? I I use chat. I use the chat. Uh-oh. 99% uploading. Did I do something wrong? Installink communications microphone to oh actually I think I know what the problem is uh Hang on, hang on. Boy, we're we're great. Uh oh, nope, nope. Mike. That's not it. You can't s you okay.

Paul 12:55

Uh-oh. Uh-oh. Dude's gone. Oh, there's a chat message. I don't know where the chat messages are. Chat, chat. My stupid pic is my picture lighting up for you. Oh okay. Okay. Back. Nope.

Drew 13:13

Still no sound. It's lighting up for me. It might be on your end, buddy. I think it's on your end. It's it's lighting up for me. Help. Yeah. Help. Public chat.

Paul 13:28

Public check. I see your video. I see when you talk, I see the purple. Maybe it's okay, maybe it's me. Maybe it's me. I'll leave and rejoin.

Drew 13:37

Yeah, what's interesting is it doesn't let me it doesn't let me change recording. Okay, so there's studio chat. Whisper backstage. I don't want to whisper to anybody. Mark clip. Okay, so it's it's my speakers are correct. My mic is correct.

Paul 13:57

Okay.

Drew 13:59

How about now? I still can't hear you. Uh it's lighting up for me.

Paul 14:04

All right.

Drew 14:05

Check your check your stuff. Okay, okay.

Paul 14:07

We're good. We're good. We're back. We're back in business. We're back in business. What was it? I have no idea.

Drew 14:12

Yeah, I mean my so my little background was lighting up. Um it wouldn't let me change input sources while we're recording, which was interesting. Yeah. But uh You actually sound a lot better now. Uh and I think I know why. I think it was using my webcam camera before. Oh shit. Yeah. That's right. Okay. But that's fine. I mean, we're learning, right? I mean we've only been doing this for three fucking years. You think we can get our shit together? Oh All right. Perfect. Well, okay, good for you on your new toy. Yeah, yeah. All right. Here we go. Are we ready? Are we ready to take a trip?

Paul 14:45

I feel like this segment also needs a a jingle, but you know.

Drew 14:50

I I'm I I'm not I I don't hate it.

Paul 14:52

I don't hate that idea.

Drew 14:53

Okay, there we go.

Paul 14:54

I'm gonna I'm gonna make AI make us a jingle. That's what I'm gonna do.

Drew 14:59

Well, it's funny you mention AI because Drew's Computer Corner today is all about AI. Oh, fancy. So uh a couple episodes ago I talked about that KVM switch that I got for connecting to I could I could connect to my remote Linux machine, which I basically have you know, cannibalized every extra PC in my house. And I I basically built a Linux development machine. Um because one thing that I have discovered is that if you want to do any sort of generative AI locally You need Linux. Okay. You j you just need Linux. Why is that? Well, because a lot of like the Python libraries are natively compiled for Python and Linux versus Windows. Getting shit to Windows requires a lot of workarounds. It's it's just it's not great. Like I had it working on my Windows machine, but I was just like I was hitting some weird bugs and I spent a lot of time on like GitHub issues and reading about other people that had the problems and they're like, yeah, it's because you're using like this. Windows version versus the Linux version of this, like libgcc, etc. etc. So I just said fuck it, like I have extra stuff here. So You know, I threw Ubuntu on first and then I eventually went to Fedora for for reasons, because it's more close to Red Hat And then once you get like the NVIDIA drivers installed and everything, which interestingly enough, like they installed automatically on Ubuntu, but Fedora was a little bit more time in the console. But everything works. Like every workflow that I download for comfy UI, every model I download, everything just works better in Linux. And And hey, I'm not opposed to that. I mean, uh, a desktop Linux experience is not terrible. I've really become fond of the KDE plasma experience. But having said all that, um the KVM switch is good, but honestly, I need more native access to the computer. And what I don't want is I don't necessarily want to clutter up my office with multiple PC towers. So I made a decision. Mm-hmm. And the decision was to buy a rack and rack mount cases for my computers. Okay. Okay. Okay. Now this is a story in two parts. So I did a little research and essentially they make ATX compatible rack mount cases.

Paul 17:38

I yeah, I agree. How many use are those? Because ATX power supplies are pretty pretty chonky. Well, I'm I'm glad you asked. So the one that I bought

Drew 17:47

First. Here we go. Yeah, the one. Why can't I type in the Google Doc? What is happening? Yeah, the Google Doc's also acting weird for me. Okay, we're just gonna reload this page. Hold on.

Paul 17:59

Yeah. Yeah

Drew 18:01

Okay, there we go. Oh, nope. Nope. Nope. I can't I see your cursor. It won't let me I see your cursor. Mm-hmm. Oh, my cursor's there. What the fuck?

Paul 18:13

Okay. We're good at this to everybody. We're really good at this, I promise.

Drew 18:17

We're yeah, Drew's computer corner is somehow above your set idle.

Paul 18:21

It got it got moved. It's okay. It's okay.

Drew 18:23

Okay. Here we go. So originally I bought this. Okay. It's a power spec uh 360 millimeter radiator. For you. 4U chassis.

Paul 18:35

Those of you who don't know, basically, 4U, the the U is like how tall it is and how many

Drew 18:41

slots in the rack effectively it uses big yeah so so think about this though imagine that you have a modern ATX case and you tilt it ninety degrees It has to be that big, right? Because you have GPUs and power supplies and in my case radiators for liquid coolers. Now the premise here, and on the Micro Center website, you can't see it very well, but Essentially, when you crack this thing open, there's like a bracket in there that can hold a 360 mil radiator. And then, you know, you just basically throw the motherboard in there and throw everything in. The problem was my graphics card was too big for this. It's too tall. For you is not tall enough. It's too tall. Yeah, four. I had to go to a bigger five U case for this.

Paul 19:35

Oh my goodness.

Drew 19:37

So this is the one.

Paul 19:38

That's like a quarter of a rat.

Drew 19:41

Uh yeah. So this so this is the one that I that I wound up with. Okay. The Silverstone RM fifty two. Okay, RM52. Now on the Silverstone website there are far more pictures of this thing. Okay. But you can see that it's pretty substantial. It's big. It's pretty fucking big. But it's not heavy. Because it's kind of empty space. And what's interesting about it is again, it also has a bracket to hold up to a 360 millimeter radiator for and like an all-in-one cooler or whatever. It's got hardware in it for like stabilizing GPUs because the nice thing about this case is that you can use it as a tower or you can use it as a rack mount. The unfortunate thing is, is that, you know, because it's Silverstone, it has proprietary rails that I had to buy and all this other stuff. And I went on Amazon and I basically bought a 12U rack that is Strangely enough, the exact same height that I have my desk set to right now. Okay. And I racked the servers up. I threw a shelf. Uh with the two remaining slots. You already had a rack though, right? Well, I had a rack for my networking gear. Okay. But but here's the thing though, and and I and I'm glad that I did a little research on this because When you go out to like Amazon and you search for rack mount, a lot of that stuff is designed for networking equipment and like audio equipment. A lot of them aren't deep enough for server racks. Because the rails, the rails have like a minimum distance. And a lot of them, they need to be like 24, 25 inches deep or more. A lot of those little racks on Amazon are like 20 inches deep. Okay. So like when like I was just gonna buy the same rack that I already had, but I took my rails back to it and I'm like, why can't this doesn't work? Like I can't make the rails go small enough. Like they I because like they they expand and contract to meet different depths, right? But the minimum the minimum depth was wasn't enough. So I had to find one that was like compatible. And honestly, I'm really disappointed in the one that I chose because it's level, but when stuff is mounted in it, like the the pillars are not the pillars are not pair are not perpendicular to the ground, but it's somehow level. I have no idea. I have no idea. It pisses me off every time I look at the front of this thing. I'm probably gonna end up buying another rack, which these things are not cheap. They're two, three hundred dollars a pop. And I and I want one and I want one with wheels because I have to have it. But that's that's what I ended up doing What so where where are you gonna you get to take your rack on a walk or like why is that cap wheel? Well if I have to move it to clean behind it or for cable management, right? Because the rack itself is pretty heavy, and once you throw two servers in there, like I mean, I'm a strong boy, but I'm not gonna slide this thing across my carpet. Okay. So I'll pay a little extra for for the luxury of having some wheels on it. Okay. But uh I mean maybe I will take it for a walk. You don't you're not my dad. You're I am not, you were correct. Yeah. So so that's that's what I ended up doing. And I gotta say, it's pretty good. Like I have basically the the so I I have my old PC thrown into one of these cases and I have my Linux machine thrown into one of these cases. And essentially, you know, I have a wireless keyboard and wireless mouse that I pull out, just like I do for the for the Mac. when I want to use those things. And my current workflow is I just changed the input on my monitor. Okay. Now that worked for about a day. But I have new problems. Okay. You're making fun of me for buying a USB-C tabletop. Just shut up. Shut up. Shut up. So the problem number one is my my Windows PC is in the bottom of the rack. And things like my webcam, the cord won't reach the USB-C port. Yes. Yeah. So I decided to go buy a USB-C hub. Okay. Now, when I bought the U, I I went on, I was like, listen, I don't need something fancy. Okay. So what I did is I went out to Amazon and I bought the P9, which I can't click on that link. I don't know why.

Paul 24:11

I'm searching for it, yeah.

Drew 24:13

Yeah, P nine USB C hub.

Paul 24:15

Okay. I had something similar to this before

Drew 24:18

Yeah. Yeah. And and and and you think you look at that and you're like, wow, okay, it's got a USB-C cable that I plug into my computer, it goes to this thing, and then I can plug in like my webcam or Yeah. You know, other stuff that isn't gonna reach the because just given the the new lifestyle that I'm in here. That thing already got returned. Okay. No good. Because well, the cable, like the USB-C cable that plugs into the computer is only like a foot long. That doesn't solve my problem.

Paul 24:52

Yeah.

Drew 24:53

Doesn't solve my problem. And it's not and it's not like I can't unplug it and plug in a different one. It's like tied to it. So I'm like, yeah, okay.

Paul 25:00

All integrated.

Drew 25:01

Yeah, so I was like, I was like, good try. That's not gonna work for me. So I went the nuclear option and I bought the Anchor Prime docking station. Nice. Nice. Yeah. This thing, this thing, okay. So I wanna I wanna talk about this thing. Uh yes it's it's costly compared to the other one.

Paul 25:22

I mean I'm you I'm currently using a Thunderbolt dock that costs Not quite twice that, but more. Yeah. So I get it.

Drew 25:32

Now now this isn't Thunderbolt. It's just regular USB-C. Yeah. Right. But what's nice about it is is that it it serves two purposes. One, it's a hub. So on the back it has a bunch of USB-C ports and display ports if you wanted to connect monitors, right? So It's it's I think it's I think the primary use of this is like you would use this with like your laptop for external displays and all that other stuff. It's got a nice little L C D display on the front. The USB-C ports on the front are are also charging. So even if my computer's off, yeah, they're powered. So even if my computer's off, I could plug in like my phones or whatever and charge on it. Um It's it's pretty good. Like it's it's it's it's a pretty nice little unit. It has a clock, which my desk there there's no clocks in my office, so that's kind that's kind of a luxury that I didn't have before. I do have to check my phone every time for that. Uh and the nice and and again, pri the primary reason here is that when I was looking at similar devices, anything that had a removable USC USB-C cable. was at least $100 to $150. So I was like, fuck it. I'll splurge. I'll get anchor. I know it's nice. And and so far it's good. I did have to install a driver for it to get the the clock to work. Okay. Yeah, so funny enough, the clock is actually synced to your computer's time. It it it doesn't have its own internal clock. So you need to install like a driver for it to sync the clock, but otherwise it works out of the box

Paul 27:06

Like if I didn't want the clock, I could just see fuck it. Now I I have I have a very important question. The knob on the side. Yes. A, what is that for? And B, how is the knob?

Drew 27:19

How's the knob scale? Uh here, let's lay let's let's let's do it's do a real-time knob review. So I'm just gonna take my my mic here. Okay, ready? Ready? Ooh, nice click there. Nice click. So what does the knob do? So the knob, the knob does a couple things. Number one, it lets you flip between different displays on it. Okay. So like the scre the screensaver is the clock. So when nothing's happening or I'm not using it, it just defaults to the clock. But if I have things plugged into it. One of the displays that you can flip to is like what's plugged in, what's the current wattage? How much power are you drawing? Okay. Okay. Okay. So that's that. Then the other one of the other displays is if you had if you had monitors plugged into it, it basically has three little boxes. It says HDMI 1, HDMI 2, and then display port. It would tell you like what's connected, what's the refresh rate, what's the what's the resolution, all that other stuff. And then there's this thing called performance mode. um that you can click into and I and I don't really understand like what it does. Um It it basically is like because this thing has a built-in fan, so like if you were if you had like a shitload of stuff plugged into it, it would have like an active cooling fan to like to like use it. Uh and then on any one of these screens, if you click the button, it would basically like go into like a little sub-menu where there's a couple of little options or shows you more info. And then of course there's like a settings tab that you can like you know, change change a couple things. Like, I don't know. But yeah, that's what that's what the knob does. So you can flip between different things. I don't know how useful that is, but it's cool. I think it I think it's kind of nice. So uh I got that and then it came with a longer USB-C cord, but it wasn't long enough, so I had to buy a USB-C extension cord to plug into this, and everything seems like it's working. So So so that that solves like my USB-C problems right now. But we're not out of the woods yet Because the bigger complaint that I have is that changing the display inputs on my monitor has proven very flaky Really? Yes. So like sometimes like when I want to flip over to my Linux machine, I would basically hit the button on the back of my monitor, pick HDMI2. And it would flip over, and sometimes it flips over and stays, and sometimes it flips over and flickers, and sometimes it flips over, but then flips back to Windows. I think this has something to do with the fact like I I I I truly truly think that it has something to do with NVIDIA because it never happens on my Mac. If I flip over to HDMI1, which is my Mac mini, absolutely no problems. Now what what further fucks this up is like right now I have two monitors. I have one that's horizontal and one that's vertical. So like my layout is this.

Paul 30:26

Nerd

Drew 30:27

Uh what I have found is on the Linux machine, sometimes when I flip between the input modes, Linux is like, oh, that monitor's not here. It's actually over here. And they're not connected anymore, so like the mouse ends up over here and then like it can't get home. Uh uh Linux, whatever. Like I don't know

Paul 30:46

Submit a pull request, you you you nerd. Yeah. Yeah, exactly.

Drew 30:50

So it's and then sometimes I get to a point where I'll try to like I'll switch over to Linux, it'll switch over. Everything's fine. Then I'll go switch back to Windows and it's just like, oh, I don't have a signal. No, you have a signal, so I have to like power cycle my monitor to get it to come back. Now There's a there's a weird combination here between like switching between HDMI and display port and multiple NVIDIA display adapters and multiple monitors. Like it's just this perfect storm of shit. So the the the the other thing that I've ordered that isn't here yet is another variant on a KVM. Okay. And it is the um It's the third link there, which we can't click on in our doc for some reason. I can't even select the text. Yeah, I know. Let me let me get you a new link because it's important that it's important that you look at this one. Okay So it's this. Um, yeah, did we like break our dock or something? I think so There we go. Yep. So this is the triple monitor. My goodness, Drew.

Paul 31:55

Yeah. What the hell did you buy?

Drew 31:58

So this is an 8K, 4K, triple monitor, KVM switch, three monitors, three computers, and it has support for three two display port and three inputs for each

Paul 32:12

Oh yeah, okay I make so it's still an abomination, but at least it is an abomination. Looks makes sense now.

Drew 32:20

Yeah, so basically what what I'm hoping that this does, and for $80, I'm willing to take a risk. And remember that remember that dollar figure for a minute. So basically the idea will be I will plug all three computers, PC, Mac, and Linux, all into this. There will be basically two cables that come out of it. Okay. And the the hope Is that I can just push a button on this to flip inputs and I'm sort of taking my monitor mode switching out of a loop. Okay. So now what's interesting is like um my my desktop PC is connected via display port and supports 144 Hertz. HDMI is only up to 120. Now, I don't know what that's gonna mean when I Flip between the different inputs here, or if this thing is just gonna constantly send out 144 hertz or a you know, based on based on the input type. There's there's a lot of things that I don't fully understand about how this is gonna work yet. Okay. But the the again, the hope is is that my monitor, I don't have to switch inputs on my monitor. I could just push one of these buttons and immediately have a display from whatever. Now, all of these things vary wildly in price. But one thing I have noticed is that this is like The model. There's like eight variants of this same device on Amazon made by different companies, range ranging from anywhere from $60 to $200. Now More more ports, more money. But there but there's literally some in here that are just in a different color scheme that are slightly more money or slightly more than the same chipset. They're just buying off a factory and putting a case on it. Exactly. Exactly. So I mean, they they seem to be pretty well reviewed.

Paul 34:22

Um again, I'm it's got lots of it's that got lots of Amazon stars.

Drew 34:27

Yeah, I mean it has it has pretty good reviews. It will it will show up next week. So I'll have uh yeah we'll we'll we'll revisit this and see if it like is working or not.

Paul 34:36

But well Ernest Williams here uh hate he hated it one star Uh-oh, what did Ernest say? That's it. Hated it. This sucks. Hated it. This sucks.

Drew 34:47

A few mu a few months later it's dead in the water. Absolutely does not work. I used the provided cables and plugged directly into my Mac M1. Nothing. Big disappointment. It's great if you like wasting your money. Chaz. Sometimes like try like sometimes you get a dud, right? Like just yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean for $80, what do you want? I mean, there are obviously much more high-end ones, but If it if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. And we'll we'll see if it's if it solves my problem. But that that's what's happening now. So it's funny, like when you talk about AI and stuff, like That is primarily what I've been doing on this other computer. Like it has an NVIDIA 3090 in it, so I can run most models with a little bit of CPU offload, but I've been messing with computer vision stuff. I've been doing some audio stuff as well and trying to marry the two together. Um you know it's I I like playing around in Linux. It's not necessarily my daily driver. And I, you know, I already have a computer that I do most of like my adult work on, which is my Mac, but having this sitting here next to me, it's also my Plex server. It's a bunch of other stuff. So it just kind of lives in my office style versus in my back cellar. Nice. Yeah, so that that's the thing. Now those cases were not cheap. Um so I'm I'm definitely married to this now for the foreseeable future. But uh I will say my desk is much less clutter f uh clutter free because like My Mac is on the shelf that I put in the rack. All my audio equipment is over there as well. So literally the only thing on my desk is my keyboard, the anchor. uh my stream deck, my monitors, my keyboard, my mouse. That's it. Everything else is off my desk now, which is pretty nice. Okay.

Paul 36:27

Okay.

Drew 36:27

So I I like that minimalist lifestyle. Nice. Yeah. Alright. So what other topics do we have? That's kind of all of them, right?

Paul 36:37

Yeah, we went through all the notes. Did you buy anything good for Black Friday?

Drew 36:42

Besides everything you just listed. None of this was a Black Friday purchase, unfortunately. I mean I I uh yes I did, but it's not something I'm ready to talk about yet.

Paul 36:56

Okay, okay.

Drew 36:57

Yeah in fact in fact it just got delivered. Some of the stuff I ordered just got delivered. Uh Okay. When we were recording, I heard Vito going crazy upstairs. Okay.

Paul 37:07

Uh what about you? Okay, so so I I I haven't gotten I haven't gotten either of these things yet, but uh I I I will I will share them with you. Okay. Uh do you want you want the thing that's a little embarrassing or the one that's really embarrassing first? Uh dealer's choice, buddy. You go you go for it. Okay. So obviously as uh you can see uh I I have a vinyl collection. I I like listening to to vinyl records. Yep. And uh you have to keep your records clean.

Drew 37:34

You have something for that.

Paul 37:36

Okay, yes, I do. I do. So I have a Humming Guru Nova ultrasonic record cleaner, and it works great. But but but they're like, hey, you know what I gotta find the link. Here we go. Okay. You know what makes that even better? if there was some way to automatically fill the water tank. Cause right, 'cause it's a cause it's a process, right? What? Your piss? Like where's no okay okay so here's here's what happens Drew. Okay, here's here's how Here's how pleball has to do it today. Okay. So the the this device it cleans and dries. Okay, so you have this little you have this little water tank. If I it was closer, I'd I'd grab it. And you fill this water tank up to a point and you put a couple drops of surfactant, which basically reduces the surface tension. so the bubbles can get in there. Then you have to take that thing and you have to pour it into the cleaner. You have to pour it into the machine. And then it runs so it cleans and then it drains and then it takes all the water out of the machine back into the tank so it can dry Okay. So if you're cleaning multiple records, like usually like I'll I'll clean like four, five, six records with the same water because I I pre-clean them and stuff and whatever. So I bought they so they are now selling this thing, the Humming Guru Water Dispenser, and it automates that process of putting the liquid back into the machine. So but you but you still have to make the liquid. Yeah, I but I do it once. I do that once and then I I I instead of uh this goes into where the water tank is And then it handles all that other stuff for me. It just does it. So I can I can go in between I go to the next record and just go. That is not the most embarrassing thing I bought. Okay. I get it. Okay. So The other enemy, so dirt, dirt and vinyl, not a good, not a good thing. The other big thing you're fighting with is static electricity Right? Okay. It's getting colder, the air is getting drier, static electricity is getting worse. Right? You take the record out of the sleeve, it just feels all crackly. It's it's it's un good. Now I have the zero stat. w that little zero stack gun, which does work great. But I love that thing. Okay. But you do have to like you have if you pull the trigger too quick, it doesn't work and you have to you have to So I I love automation, Drew. I love automation. I love I I love I love machines that do things for me. So I ordered This.

Drew 40:32

A Tesla coil? No. Okay. Okay, hold on. I'm I was on the Humming Guru website. Mm-hmm. Uh orbit record static remover.

Paul 40:43

Mm-hmm. Okay, so well how this works is you put your record on your your on the platter of your turntable and you put this on top of the spindle. Then you push a button and it rotates itself around the record, shooting negative ions or ions, I don't know, science magic. at the record makes 10 revolutions and then stops you take it off and then you play your record So one button and it's rechargeable, it's got a low rechargeable battery, so you gotta keep it charged, but you put this thing on top and it just you just hit the button and static gone. Static on static on Drew Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So if you look at the pictures, right, it literally just Uh hold on I I She thick though. Uh it's big. It's big, yeah. It's it's it's like that tall. Yeah.

Drew 41:45

I can hear a difference in the low level surface noise caused by the usual static charge that builds up on vinyl records from handling I don't have any test equipment to test for the intensity of static charge before and after using the device, but sonically I am pleased with the performance. I will provide an update should I procure the appropriate test equipment. Thanks, Lucian. Now If you if you Oh my god, I'm sorry, I love some of these people's record players. This one that this one that's made out of wood and has like the little leveling feet that's gotta be expensive, right? It can't.

Paul 42:19

Yeah, probably. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, there's some very high-end equipment in those pictures of the user reviews. Yeah. I mean I mean oh I mean My turn if you got it. Yeah, if you if you got it, flaunt it, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it. But Yeah, so uh it's currently uh on a boat coming over from China. So yeah. Prepare prepare for prepare to be tariff son. Yeah. Have you gotten the U Owe Tariffs email from like DHLU? I I I had that recently. What what was it that I bought?

Drew 42:55

I've been I've been I've been pretty lucky even with all of like my foreign gun stuff that I bought. A lot of that stuff um the distributor's been paying I be I I mean I have been paying it. in cost increases, but I haven't I haven't had to pay it directly.

Paul 43:09

Yeah, I got I got a DH. I can't remember what I bought. Oh, I know what it was. Oh

Drew 43:16

It was uh oh yeah. A vol a Voltron. You bought a Voltron. No, no.

Paul 43:21

Oh do I have the Okay, okay, okay, okay. I'm ready. I got maybe I'll put this on YouTube. Okay, so okay, so here is this is my Retro Pocket 5. This is this is my okay, this is my go-to go-to emulation device. Okay. Well well Drew, hold on. Let me You got a new one, didn't you? No, no, I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. It's hold on. I gotta I gotta figure out how to Okay. So so they s they sell this thing and it adds another screen.

Drew 43:56

What does that do? So you can uh can you like have a web browser open in it?

Paul 44:00

Yeah, or you can do uh dual screen emulation

Drew 44:05

Oh, the thing you bought the thing you bought the transforming one for. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have that one within within his arm's reach? I wanna see I wanna see what it looks like.

Paul 44:15

Hold on. I I probably where is it? I don't know where it is right now. Okay. Hold on. Don't worry about it. Oh no, I'll find it. I'll find it. Um where the fuck did I put it?

Drew 44:25

I'm gonna I'll get up hold on I'm gonna have to get up hold on go ahead check that ass for me let me see what you're working with ooh I like that I see skeletor and he-man back there Well, he does have a lot of vinyl. I see Voltrons. All sorts of minifigs on top of that shelf. I do hope he puts the video on YouTube. Maybe Eric Darling will see. I still have his shirts hung up in here. Okay, well. How'd we do?

Paul 44:57

My my hair is askew. I have no idea where it is right now.

Drew 45:00

Oh, okay. Well that's fine. Oh yeah, I was I was just describing all the things to our listeners that I saw on camera. I like your chair by the way. That's The first time I saw that chair.

Paul 45:09

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah.

Drew 45:11

Is that still working out for you?

Paul 45:12

I love it. It's it's great. Like I have I can sit all day on my fat ass and no back pain. So yay. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Drew 45:22

Yeah, I I think I think after this weekend I'll be able to talk about my Black Friday purchases because um Yeah, they're they're not here yet and I just have to I have to get everything assembled. So Um, that's 46 minutes of content. I think that's a good one to come back to. And you know, we're we're sort of kicking the tires on this new thing. Yeah. I so does it does this does this do the same thing where it basically spits out one audio file?

Paul 45:47

Yeah, so I'll get uh in theory I'll get a combined audio track and I'll get separate audio recordings just like Libsyn. I'll get your track and my track separately And which is what that's all usually I'll use for the edit because it just sounds better.

Drew 46:00

And I can and then what about will you get like a video feed?

Paul 46:03

I think so. I think so.

Drew 46:05

Maybe maybe we publish to YouTube instead of them doing it for us.

Paul 46:09

If if it's easy to edit, and apparently I also can do like the editing in here and uh supposedly have you ever heard of uh uh a tool called uh D script? No. So DScript is an audio editing tool. It's designed for podcasts, but how it works is Oh, right up our alley. So you do but how D script works is you upload the audio and it transcribes it. And you edit the text. So if you want to cut out a section, you literally highlight the text and delete it Oh, and it just will be omitted. Uh-huh. Yeah. And then it knows what the audio is. And I think this does that too, which is also part of the why I think they're doing like the AI. Training. So like if you want to change a word, you can change a word and it just goes, I can make Droop say whatever I want to say.

Drew 46:57

Yeah, I want to see. I want to see how that works.

Paul 47:00

Yeah.

Drew 47:00

So uh what does this cost? Oh hold on. Like compared to Libsin.

Paul 47:07

Okay, so here's another reason. Libsin is raising their prices. Oh fuck that. So which I'm still gonna use them for hosting. But uh if this works, I'm gonna take that back down to the much lower plan that doesn't give us call connects. I don't need that anymore. Uh so I'm getting it for 35% off Uh so it is what? It's uh hold on. I can do math. So for the first year it's gonna be 15 bucks a month.

Drew 47:43

Okay. I mean let me know if you want me to throw some money at that.

Paul 47:47

But yeah, if this works, my plan is to take the Lipson plan back down to where it was. uh before because we don't need the the that stuff. Honestly, I it's I I don't know, it's it's definitely fancier. Like I don't know if you've looked, but I I can see like, oh, this is your the name of your camera and what audio equipment you're using and how much you've uploaded. And yeah, yeah.

Drew 48:11

I mean I think I I think we're still uploading chunks. We're just not calling it chunks.

Paul 48:15

Yeah. Oh no, my chunks will still be there. But yeah. Yeah, that's yeah. I'm curious to see how it goes. So yeah, we'll find out on Sunday

Drew 48:23

Yeah, uh the last thing to mention here is this is episode two ninety-eight. We need to get on the stick for we need to get on the stick for what we're gonna do.

Paul 48:31

I know.

Drew 48:33

I still haven't decided. But I don't have to travel the rest of this month. I thought I was gonna have to travel for work, but I don't, so I'll be around.

Paul 48:41

I am traveling next week. Oh, you're going to Gartner, right? I'm going to the Gartner conference in Las Vegas. I'll be I'll be home like late ther like late, late Thursday. Technically Friday morning. But if you record on Friday, I'll be fine.

Drew 48:54

Well you might be tired. Maybe we'll do Friday or Saturday.

Paul 48:57

I'll yeah, Friday. Friday w Friday would totally work or sat E. Where where are you stay where are you staying in Vegas? Uh the Plazio is part of the Venetian resort.

Drew 49:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Is the conference at the Venetian?

Paul 49:06

Mm-hmm.

Drew 49:07

Yeah, that's where we ha uh I was out there in January for a conference and we stayed there too.

Paul 49:11

It's nice. Yeah, it's nice. Yeah, yeah. As far as conference centers go, it's it's Fine, nice place to stay. Yeah. Casino's not horrible.

Drew 49:19

Are you gonna go back to the spear?

Paul 49:22

They're like doing like a Wizard of Oz thing. And that's just not that's not my thing. That's fine. That's fine. Yeah. Plus it's it's also gonna be cold in Vegas again and I don't wanna go outside. Gross.

Drew 49:37

Yeah, I don't blame you. Outside is gross. All right, get us out of here, dude.

Paul 49:41

Yeah, uh doingtheirbest. com. You can find all of the the hot links we talked about. Hey, maybe this video will be on YouTube. Who knows?

Drew 49:49

Uh and uh thanks for listening.