Drew: Drew.
Drew: Hi, Paul.
Drew: How are you?
Drew: How are ya?
Drew: It's been a little bit, huh?
Drew: It's been a bit, yeah
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: So uh by by way of explanation, right?
Drew: So we were scheduled to record two weeks ago.
Drew: Uh and I had to cancel extremely last minute because I wasn't feeling very well.
Drew: And last week was Halloween and trick-or-treat.
Drew: So it just, you know, had to had to take a couple weeks off.
Drew: And I'm sure that I'm sure that all s
Drew: Six of our listeners really missed us.
Paul: I'm sure I'm sure they noticed right away.
Paul: Where's where's the episode?
Paul: Yeah, where's the episode, right?
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: It was really a test.
Drew: Oh, my dog's peeing.
Drew: Great.
Drew: Good job, Vito.
Drew: Um I'm watching I'm watching him on camera.
Paul: Okay, okay.
Paul: But you know, whatever.
Paul: Don't judge me.
Drew: I mean, uh who am I kidding?
Drew: What kind of podcast would this be?
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Um
Drew: All right.
Drew: Uh I just want to start off by saying that uh I'm a degenerate.
Paul: You're a degenerate.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Yep.
Paul: Uh I mean, aren't we all in some way?
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Well, I mean
Paul: I bought another gun.
Paul: Oh, you just can't help yourself, can ya?
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: So in in the two intervening weeks uh since we talked, um one of my favorite gun companies made a really sad announcement.
Drew: Um yeah, and that is the um FN Hurstle, which makes the SCAR platform.
Drew: We've talked about this before.
Drew: Um
Drew: They basically have decided to discontinue those guns.
Drew: Now, I think that they are phenomenal firearms.
Drew: Um, but I had been kicking around picking up one of the heavier caliber ones, probably the SCAR 17, which is a 762 by 51.
Drew: uh NATO round gun and I had planned on kind of making that sort of like a mid-range just kind of fuck around type gun.
Drew: Unfortunately, uh FN has decided that they're gonna stop making them and selling them.
Drew: So uh what what that has led to has been a run on the inventory that has been remaining.
Drew: And it is shocking because I was lit, I was literally on a website called uh Kentucky Gun Company.
Drew: Uh they have a they have a really nice online store, really like they carry a pretty large inventory, and their website is actually like one of the better gun websites, because it's like all the filters work.
Drew: And like nothing.
Drew: Oh, okay.
Drew: It's it's actually a pretty pleasant experience.
Drew: But
Drew: They had a few in stock and literally the day after that it became known that they were discontinuing this, like they sold their entire inventory of every model of Scarf.
Drew: Yeah, okay and now uh really your only chances of picking one up are on the used market or going on gunbroker.
Drew: com and picking one up from
Drew: what is essentially a scalper, uh, who has like the new inbox and and everything.
Drew: So that was really disappointing.
Drew: And you know me, I like to buy guns.
Drew: I like to shoot guns.
Drew: So, you know, it really got me thinking, you know, would I have an opportunity to pick up another gun this year?
Drew: And and I did.
Drew: So what I ended up buying
Drew: Was the Heckler and Coke uh MR762, which is the same caliber of the scar that I was looking at?
Drew: Uh it is the A4 version of the gun.
Drew: Um
Drew: You know, when you look at different guns, this is like a Halo product.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: It is extremely expensive.
Drew: It was um if if you're actually on that link,
Drew: Uh it lists the manufacturer's suggested retail price, uh, which you should expect to pay.
Drew: Oh, okay.
Drew: Yeah, I'd say it there.
Drew: You will not usually find them for less than that.
Drew: Uh if you do it'll be a couple hundred dollars at best.
Drew: Um so I was uh traveling last week.
Drew: I had to go to Nashville for work and
Drew: On my way home from Nashville, I found myself at a particular gun store and they and they had one.
Drew: And I was like, you know what?
Drew: Game time decision.
Drew: Gotta go for it.
Drew: Uh so I picked that up instead.
Drew: So it's no scar, but it's it's up there in terms of quality and accuracy and everything.
Drew: So
Drew: Uh had to make room in the safe for that.
Drew: Um and of course, Paul, HK does things a little bit differently.
Drew: Um this is known as an AR-10 pattern gun, which is like the same as an AR-15, but it's a heavier caliber.
Drew: Uh now most AR tens take regular what we call uh Knights Armament uh 762 mag AR ten pattern magazines, like AR ten pattern steel magazines.
Drew: No, no, not HK.
Drew: You have to buy proprietary magazines uh to use.
Paul: Of course.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: I had to buy a couple of those.
Drew: Also picked up a new suppressor that's in suppressor jail right now.
Drew: Uh and I'm waiting for Black Friday to see if I can get a good deal on an optic.
Drew: So yeah.
Drew: Uh total total degenerate behavior.
Drew: Total degenerate behavior.
Paul: We all have our we all have our things.
Paul: It's fine.
Paul: We do.
Drew: So anyway, I won't I w uh people are probably sick of me talking about guns, but I had to mention it.
Drew: So uh what else we want to talk about here?
Paul: I just want to say we're coming up on th almost 300 episodes, Drew.
Paul: Almost.
Paul: And we haven't run out of stuff to talk about.
Paul: We haven't.
Paul: Oh
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: What do we what do we want to do?
Paul: I don't know.
Paul: We should do something.
Paul: I don't know what it is, but we should do something.
Drew: I mean if we keep our current pace, that will probably line up right around Christmas break.
Paul: It could.
Paul: Oh, that's true.
Paul: That's true.
Paul: We gotta do the the uh it's almost time for uh
Paul: For uh Christmas.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Our annual tradition.
Drew: We should we should we should definitely do something weird.
Paul: We should do something weird.
Drew: We should do something weird.
Paul: I like weird.
Paul: Well we
Paul: Chew on that for a bit.
Paul: We'll figure something out.
Drew: I mean, we started this.
Drew: What was the date we recorded our first episode?
Paul: Oh, I can tell you that.
Paul: It was it was dur it was during COVID times, right?
Paul: Or was it before COVID?
Paul: Oh, we recorded it on May 30th, 2019.
Paul: That was before COVID, right?
Paul: It was, yes.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: It was like shortly after I left IGS and started at Microsoft.
Drew: Yep.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Man, 2019, six years we've been doing this.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Drew: So averaging hold on, carry the
Drew: Averaging once a week for six years.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Almost once a week, yeah.
Drew: Almost once a week for six years.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Think about that.
Drew: Like we we have managed to talk to each other because this is this hey hey hey hey hey hey listeners
Drew: This this is this isn't for you.
Drew: This is for us.
Drew: We've managed to t we've managed to keep in touch and talk to each other for six years.
Drew: I think that's special.
Drew: I think that I think that's actually pretty impressive.
Paul: Yeah, it's great.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: And and and we honestly we we did this as an well, okay.
Paul: We did it as an excuse to buy some microphones.
Paul: But we also did it as an excuse to keep talking to each other after we stopped working together.
Paul: So That's true.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: That's true.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Drew: All right.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Uh okay.
Drew: So uh if you're listening and you have ideas, uh we would love to hear them.
Drew: Um
Drew: Maybe we need to get Eric Darling back on the podcast.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Get another three away going.
Drew: He just uh he just had a birthday.
Drew: Oh.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah, he's uh he's very important these days.
Drew: He's gonna be out in Seattle for a big conference here pretty soon.
Drew: Fancy.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah, maybe we'll get him.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: We gotta think we gotta we gotta really think about this.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Hmm.
Drew: Yep.
Drew: Um okay, so we're gonna talk about electronics stuff next.
Drew: Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?
Drew: I think we should go first.
Drew: You sure?
Paul: You sure?
Drew: Yeah, because like my next topic sort of goes to the next one.
Paul: Okay, okay, okay.
Paul: Uh I am going to keep the Asus ROG Xbox Ally X.
Paul: Why that name gets worse every time I say it.
Drew: Okay, so so how help me understand your thought process because you didn't sound super into it.
Paul: Uh
Paul: Okay, so what it comes down to, Drew, it is just so goddamn comfortable to hold.
Paul: I've had a lot of handhelds.
Paul: I've I've ha I've I've put weird grip things on switches before.
Paul: You know, like I've I've done all kinds of weird stuff.
Paul: This it's it's so comfortable to hold.
Paul: It is unbelievable how well designed this ugly
Paul: This ugly black weird shape thing is to actually be in the hand.
Paul: I mean, and it's got it's got problems.
Paul: Like
Paul: The Xbox full screen screen experience right now, two thumbs way down.
Paul: It's not good.
Paul: It's buggy as heck.
Paul: I end up just using Armory Crate
Paul: It's got too many buttons, like three out of three buttons basically do the exact same thing.
Paul: They could have just they could have just it does it need five buttons.
Paul: They could have done exactly what an Xbox controller had, and it would have been fine with three buttons.
Paul: And of course it's Windows
Paul: Sleep and resume doesn't work well on handhelds with Windows at all, especially if you're coming from something that runs Linux like a Steam Deck or something running Bazite, where it just does exactly what you think it's gonna do all the time.
Paul: So I've resorted to to to putting the using hibernate uh instead of sleep.
Paul: Uh you know, it's it's
Paul: problematic to you know, if you got like four places to get updates uh s sometimes like
Paul: Steam opens and the window is bigger than your resolution, so you have to like change the resolution like to get it to like resize and and back.
Paul: If you have a game where like uh so like you remember how like okay you know I've been replaying Batman Arkham City.
Paul: Great game.
Paul: Uh, but on PC, this was this was kind of like the thing at the time where like your video settings weren't in the game.
Paul: You first had this little pre-app that launched and you can change the settings in there.
Paul: If your game has one of those
Paul: It it it's a it's a nightmare.
Paul: It's a nightmare.
Paul: It's a weird size, everything is like it's blurry.
Paul: Uh sometimes when you launch a game, it just doesn't bother to change that window to be active.
Paul: It's got problems galore.
Paul: But games run really well on it, and it's a delight to hold.
Paul: So it's gonna have a spot in my collection.
Paul: In fact, I put a larger SSD in it last week.
Paul: So I'm keeping I I cracked her open.
Paul: Uh and uh yeah, I'm keeping it.
Drew: All right.
Drew: So a couple things.
Drew: Uh let's start with the SSD upgrade.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Drew: How did that compare to doing it on the Steam Deck?
Paul: Uh just as easy.
Paul: I mean, granted, this I think this uses a the Steam Deck uses one of those small weird SSDs.
Paul: This one uses a regular size one.
Paul: It's real easy.
Paul: The you've got like maybe ten screws on the back.
Paul: You just, you know, and then break out your little like guitar picks and pop the clips and
Paul: There's plenty of room to work around in there.
Paul: I didn't even have to like detach the battery, even though I probably should have because, you know, electricity.
Paul: But it was easy.
Paul: It took me maybe maybe 10 minutes tops
Drew: Okay.
Paul: And and then it took like an hour to like reinstall Windows on it and and get everything back and running.
Paul: But yeah, it was it was fine.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Now, you mentioned that it's really comfortable to hold.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Now I know one of the things that you and I disagree on is what the superior
Drew: console controllers.
Paul: Yeah, I mean, do I wish it had symmetrical thumbsticks like a PlayStation?
Paul: Absolutely.
Paul: But you know, you pick your pick you choose your battles.
Drew: So Okay.
Drew: But it but it's comfortable to hold though.
Paul: Yeah, those stupid little ugly ear wing thingies.
Paul: It it's it's great.
Paul: It's great.
Paul: They did a really good job.
Paul: uh of on the ergonomics there.
Paul: You know, you kind of just tuck your fingers around.
Paul: You know, your fingers are close to the back buttons, but not like, you know, you're not in risk of of hitting them accidentally.
Paul: It's just
Paul: It I can even though this device weighs a little bit more than the the previous one, it's obviously the heaviest handheld I own by far.
Paul: It is the one I can play the longest.
Drew: Interesting.
Drew: Now, speaking of length of time, what how long like do you normally play it?
Drew: Are you running the battery down or is it always plugged in?
Paul: Uh no, I I use the battery quite a bit, though I do I you know, if if I sometimes, like if I know I'm gonna come back to it throughout the day, like on a weekend, I will like plug it in in the living room and let it sit on the couch and come back to it, but
Paul: Uh I mean, you know, if if you're playing a demanding game and you have to run it at twenty-five, thirty watts, you get
Paul: an hour, an hour and 20 minutes, you know, it which is which is fine.
Paul: That's honestly about as long as like my longest gaming sessions are anyway.
Paul: Uh because, you know, adulting.
Paul: Oh
Paul: But if you're playing at like 17 watts, like it lasts like three, four hours.
Paul: And if you're playing something less intensive, like I don't know, like a Dave the Diver or a Dredge and you can get it down all the way to like like 10 like 10, 12 watts, it lasts for like five hours.
Paul: It's ridiculous.
Paul: That's pretty good.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: So it really just depends on what kind of games you're playing and and like, you know, is it it's it's a trade-off, right?
Paul: Like you can always drop the game settings down to lower and lower the resolution so you can play at a lower a lower
Paul: TDP and get more battery out of it, or you can crank things up and have a little bit less.
Paul: And depends on what you want to play and and and stuff.
Paul: But like I said, like Arkham City, it's an older game.
Paul: I'm running it at
Paul: Probably like medium settings at 1080p, I'm getting easily 60 frames a second consistently.
Paul: Uh I actually I think I may have the some set settings on high.
Paul: Uh and that b would last for like th that that's on seventeen watts and I that would last like three hours.
Paul: So Huh.
Paul: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Now you mentioned you're replaying the Arkham series of games.
Paul: I'm playing Arkham City, which I believe to be the best one.
Paul: Yes.
Drew: Okay, so um
Drew: Those have always been like in my backlog of games to play.
Drew: I've never played them.
Drew: And I know they're good.
Drew: So Arkham Origins is alright.
Drew: Okay, so uh
Drew: What what are the three in like canonical order?
Drew: What's the original?
Paul: Uh Arkham Asylum, Arkham Asylum, and then Arkham City, and then Arkham Knight.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Okay, Arkham Asylum, Arkham City, City, and then Arkham Knight.
Drew: Arkham Knight.
Drew: And you're playing City, the middle one.
Paul: The middle one.
Paul: I think is I think is the best one.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: Well why?
Paul: Uh okay, so obviously as each game so the all of them are great.
Paul: They all have great stories.
Paul: Uh I mean I would play them in order.
Paul: Uh Arkham Knight, the Arkham Knight still to this day looks incredible.
Paul: What Rocksteady did with that game is still bonkers.
Paul: It looks amazing
Paul: And it's fun, except one of the things that but did an Arkham Knight is they introduced the Batmobile.
Paul: And like the first time you're getting in the Batmobile and you're you're driving around and you're going into battle mode and you're blowing up these tanks, it's real fun.
Paul: uh like the tenth time you do it and it's just like a never-ending parade of drones.
Paul: You're just like, God, can this be over, please?
Paul: It just it just stops being fun.
Paul: And there's some really kind of drawn out, like uh, yeah.
Paul: It's like someone like, yeah, no, we need to have like 12 hours of Batmobile gameplay or this game's gonna be shit.
Paul: It's like, no, dude, like
Paul: You could have just left it out.
Paul: It's fine.
Paul: But it's all right.
Paul: It's all right.
Drew: Now who did the voices for those games?
Paul: Uh that is uh Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin
Paul: Connolly?
Paul: Is that his name?
Paul: Was Batman?
Paul: Like it he it's the Batman voice.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Right.
Drew: It's it's the animated series cast, right?
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: I remember like watching people play it.
Paul: Kevin Conroy.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Got it.
Paul: Except in Origins, they have a diff they have different voice actors.
Paul: They're fine.
Paul: Origins Origins is technically s time-wise before
Paul: Arkham Asylum, but you don't need to play it.
Paul: It's it's fine.
Paul: It's made by a different developer.
Paul: It's different voices.
Paul: It's it's fine.
Paul: It's got some really good boss fights, but
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Uh what else are you playing on it?
Paul: Uh I've been playing uh oh of course I'm playing uh Deep Rock Galactic Survivor because
Paul: Uh I like I like dwarves digging mines.
Paul: And uh I have been playing the uh origin not not not the most recent sequel, the original of the outer worlds.
Drew: Yeah, the new one came out, right?
Paul: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: And you'd never you'd never played the first one?
Paul: Nope.
Drew: Nope.
Drew: It's pretty it's pretty good.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: It's you know, you you definitely can see the Fallout New Vegas roots.
Paul: So
Paul: Yeah, obviously the new one came out, the original one was on sale.
Paul: I was like, shit, you know, like 12 bucks, no-brainer.
Paul: Let's play it.
Paul: So and it runs really well on the Steam Deck.
Paul: So or that Steam Deck, the R excuse me, the Asus R O G Xbox L I X.
Paul: It plays pretty good on there, so yeah.
Paul: Cool.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: All right.
Drew: Well, uh congratulations.
Drew: Uh I know that was not a small investment.
Paul: No, no, no.
Paul: But I'm done with handhelds, at least for the through the end of the year.
Paul: Uh-huh.
Paul: Sure.
Paul: Even though there's some really interesting ones that I want to buy, I'm not spending any more money.
Drew: Um I wanna before we hop off this topic though, I want to ask you if you're still playing Civilization 7.
Paul: I come back to it and pick at it.
Paul: I it just hasn't gripped me like some of the uh older ones.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: So have you have you seen the recent news about that?
Drew: Nope.
Drew: So uh there was a big patch that just came out um recently, but the developer announced that the next
Drew: patch that comes out after that, they are going to give you the option to turn off that switching civilization feature.
Drew: Which I mean I remember you talking about the game and that was like a
Drew: quote unquote feature.
Drew: I had a hard time wrapping my head around that.
Paul: Yeah, it's even without that, I it's
Paul: The switching between ages.
Paul: Like you you're you're playing civilization, you you get you get in this like you get into the state
Paul: Where you know where everything's happening and what's going on.
Paul: And, you know, like, okay, I'm in the middle of a war over here, and I'm trying to explore over here and and you know expand my civilization.
Paul: And then an age hits.
Paul: And like the whole game, like your cities are still there mostly.
Paul: And but like all of your units are like gone and different and everything kind of resets and it's
Paul: It's so jarring because like you know, like civilization's always about like getting into that state and that one more turn, one more turn.
Paul: And it's such a like just such a
Paul: It just hits you right in the gut.
Paul: It's like, okay, screw all that.
Paul: You gotta figure everything else out again.
Paul: Ta-da.
Paul: And I don't know.
Paul: I just it
Paul: Again, it hasn't hooked me like some of the old like some of the older ones.
Paul: So bummer.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: I I just I saw that.
Drew: I was like, huh, I wonder how long Paul continued to play that.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Alright.
Drew: Paul, guess what time it is?
Drew: It's time for Drew's computer corner.
Drew: Yep, yep, yep.
Drew: So, uh.
Drew: As you can imagine, when you fuck around with computers and build computers as much as I do, you end up with a lot of spare parts.
Drew: You can, yes.
Paul: My son's gaming PC is mostly your spare parts.
Paul: Yep.
Drew: Now
Drew: Uh currently, you know, my home lab, I've I've kind of I've really consolidated.
Drew: I used to have old rack mount servers and like older networking switching gear, like stuff that I use to like learn how to do stuff.
Drew: But I've really consolidated and frankly a lot of that stuff was really old and it's just e-waste and I ended up taking it to like a specialized recycling center to dispose of it and like all the hard drives out of it and all that other stuff.
Drew: But with all the spare parts I have, like my home lab right now is my Ubiquity switching and networking gear and wireless gear.
Drew: And I basically have two desktop computers that operate as my lab environment.
Drew: Now, when I say operate as my lab environment, uh both of them have motherboards that have onboard
Drew: uh networking, right?
Drew: So like an onboard like RJ45 plug.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah, it's pretty common these days.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Yep.
Drew: But I but I have like some 10 gig network cards that I've got plugged into them.
Drew: So
Drew: you know, when I'm doing like virtual machines on there, I can basically have the virtual machines run on a completely different network, isolated from the core networking of
Drew: Nerd.
Drew: Well, there's there's reasons because like sometimes sometimes I run those things exposed to the internet or allow pass-through stuff.
Drew: So I have like there's there's there's a method to my particular
Drew: kind of mental illness, but so I have these two computers that are cobbled together and uh though they run things like my Plex server and they run things like Kubernetes and Docker.
Drew: And uh I also like I have one of those machines as a dedicated streaming interface.
Drew: So like you know, on my computer when I'm gaming, it's literally just capturing my screen.
Drew: And sending that to this other computer in my lab that actually does the encoding and uploading to Twitch.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: So I offload a little bit of that processing versus trying to do it myself.
Drew: Is it really helping?
Drew: Maybe, maybe not.
Drew: And like there's a little bit of jank with the additional delay that that adds to the stream.
Drew: So I have to kind of have to fuck with like delay, like artificial delay and all this other stuff.
Drew: But anyway.
Drew: So um one of the one of the ideas that I've really been like kicking around in my head is taking some of this lab equipment and really, really going deep into generative AI on it.
Drew: Oh, okay.
Drew: Now let's level set.
Drew: So when it comes to the the raw processing power that I have in my lab, these are these are literal desktop computers.
Drew: Okay
Drew: So both of them have uh I guess you would say two generation old AMD processors, one is a 12-core, one is a 16-core.
Drew: Uh the bigger of the two has 64 gigs of RAM, the smaller one has 16, and then I have my old NVIDIA 3090.
Drew: And I have a graphics card from two times ago, which was a Titan X, which for its time had 16 gigs of video RAM, which was like unheard of back then.
Drew: So when it comes to a lot of this generative AI stuff, it's usually how much video RAM do you have, then how much physical RAM do you have, then how much CPU power do you have?
Drew: So uh what I did the other day is w the computer that had the NVIDIA 3090 in it
Drew: Um I decided that I was gonna make that my sort of generative AI playground.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: So I downloaded a bunch of utilities.
Drew: I started fucking around.
Drew: Uh and then I quickly realized that I had two problems.
Drew: The first problem is is that 16 gigs of RAM is not enough.
Paul: Yeah, yeah, I could see that.
Paul: Yeah, those models are pretty big.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Yep.
Drew: E even, I mean, because what's happening is it's trying to fit a lot of the stuff into the video memory.
Drew: But stuff that spills out and some of the models just run in regular RAM.
Drew: There's not an option to load some of the models and some of my workflows into video memory because I'm loading the other models into
Drew: Uh like the like the big image libraries into that.
Drew: But that that's not that's not what the the topic here is.
Drew: Like I I could do a whole separate podcast on that.
Drew: So uh so that was problem number one.
Drew: So what I did is, you know, uh this is an older machine.
Drew: It's DDR4, we're up to DDR5 now.
Drew: So I'm a little limited in my upgrade options.
Drew: Now, this motherboard has four memory slots.
Drew: The two like I'm using two slots now, they're both 8 gig chips, but I was like, okay, I'm just gonna go see
Drew: I'm gonna go out to microcenter.
Drew: com.
Drew: I'm gonna see what kind of memory they have in stock, and I'm gonna try to figure out like can I upgrade this?
Drew: Short answer yes.
Drew: So microcenter is Micro Center, yeah.
Drew: Yeah, Micro Center still carries a decent amount of DDR4 memory.
Drew: Not as much.
Drew: Like there is it's clearly dropped off, but they still have some kits.
Drew: Um now if you've ever built a computer, you know uh you might know what the the acronym QVL stands for.
Drew: QVL.
Paul: Uh I don't.
Drew: Qualified vendor list.
Paul: Oh.
Drew: Compatibility, right?
Paul: Oh, that bull that kind of bullshit.
Paul: Okay.
Paul: Uh-huh.
Drew: Because because again, for those of you that never had the pleasure of building a computer before, your your motherboard really ultimately determines what type of processor you put on it and what type of memory configuration you can use.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: These motherboard manufacturers go out of their way to test as many possible configurations of memory type, memory speed, memory capacity, memory configuration, like one slot, two slot, four slot.
Drew: They really go out of their way to make sure.
Drew: Now, I pulled up the QVL list from my motherboard that is now four years old.
Drew: And uh and that's a lifetime in computer terms.
Drew: Right, right.
Drew: And I went and I went I went and looked what they had at Micro Center.
Drew: None of them are on the list.
Drew: Now, I looked at the memory I currently have.
Drew: I looked at the memory speed and the timings, and lo and behold,
Drew: They sell 16 gig sticks of the same timings, of the same brand, of the same speed.
Drew: So I was like, that has to work.
Drew: So I went to Micro Center the other day and I bought two 32 gig kits.
Drew: Reasonably priced, about $150 for pop-pop.
Drew: So not cheap, but not an outrageously expensive upgrade to basically uh take this to where it needs to be.
Drew: So I got home, powered down the machine, took uh the two RAM sticks out, and then proceeded to attempt to put the four RAM sticks into my computer.
Drew: I Paul?
Drew: Huh?
Drew: Uh did not go well?
Paul: I bent a ramstick
Paul: How did you fucking I mean I mean I know it is possible, but like what did you do?
Paul: It's not easy.
Drew: Okay, so
Drew: So come into my mind palace.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Now, Paul, picture the canonical motherboard.
Paul: Picturing it.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Now, there are slots on the motherboard for memory.
Drew: There sure are.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Usually it usually four.
Drew: Usually four.
Drew: Sometimes more.
Drew: There there are four.
Drew: There are four in this case.
Drew: Good, very good.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Drew: Where on the motherboard do you normally encounter these slots for the memory?
Paul: Oh, I mean usually they're it's been a while.
Paul: Usually they're pretty close to where the CPU socket is.
Paul: Very good.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: Now, what do we put on top of our CPU?
Paul: Uh well that depends on how crazy you are, but some sort of uh method to cool the CPU.
Drew: Yep.
Drew: So I have a c I've currently have a closed loop cooler, nothing crazy.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Um the Paul.
Drew: It's got nubs.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: And those nubs overlap just a bit.
Paul: Oh no.
Drew: Over one of the memory slots.
Paul: Oh no.
Paul: Your cooler was too big.
Paul: Cooler too big.
Drew: So I.
Drew: I put in the I I I basically put two sticks in to replace the two sticks that were there, leaving a stick like a slot because like if you've ever done this again, like picture the four memory slots.
Drew: What you normally have to do is you have to put a slot
Drew: Then an empty slot, then a slot, then an empty slot.
Drew: In in in some sort of configuration.
Drew: Now, left to right, right to left, like it varies by motherboard.
Drew: You have to read the manual.
Drew: Please read the fucking manual.
Drew: Um anyway, replaced the two that were there.
Drew: And then I put the third stick in in the gap in between the two.
Drew: And then I tried to put the fourth one in.
Drew: And it became very apparent to me.
Drew: I'm like, uh-oh.
Drew: And like this is a these are uh braided like uh rubber hoses with like braiding over them.
Drew: And where they go into the cooler, there is like a large rubber protuberance.
Drew: Now it rotates.
Drew: So like it rotates like 90, 90 degrees in either direction.
Drew: So you got a little bit of play.
Drew: So I attempted to squeeze that fourth stick in there and it just wasn't gonna go.
Drew: I was like, okay.
Drew: I was like, I got this.
Drew: So I took I took the the slot next to it out so I had a little more play.
Drew: And then I was like wedging it in there and I was like, I I thought I heard it click.
Drew: I thought I heard it click.
Drew: And I'm like wiggling it, wiggling it, wiggling it.
Drew: And then like this particular memory is the G Skill Trident Z
Drew: And of course it's got like LEDs.
Drew: Of course.
Drew: So it's taller th than it needs to be, probably.
Drew: Well, the the the height wasn't the problem.
Drew: It's just the width.
Drew: If if I had if this had just been a regular no-frills DDR4 stick, like, you know, go go ask go ask like
Drew: Grok to like draw a picture of a ramp, right?
Drew: Like that's what you would get.
Drew: Uh that that would have worked fine.
Drew: But this is like, you know, it's got the memory, and then it has like the cladding for the heatsink, and then it's got the LED strip on top.
Drew: I was wiggling it and trying to get it in there, trying to force it, and I'm like, oh, you're almost there.
Drew: And then I heard snap and it broke the heat sink.
Drew: And it broke the and it broke the uh plastic piece that covers up the LEDs.
Paul: Oh no.
Drew: Now at at first I was like, well that fucking sucks.
Drew: But then I noticed on the motherboard
Drew: that the socket was a little askew.
Drew: Uh-oh.
Drew: So I done fucked it good.
Drew: Oh, Drew.
Drew: Oh no.
Drew: And Paul, like, I'm not that strong of a guy.
Drew: I'm really not.
Drew: Like I work out, play a lot of video games, got a lot of grip strength.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: I've never done that before.
Drew: Hmm.
Drew: Like the like this the angle that I was trying to put it in at plus like it try trying to like basically push the cooler out of the way.
Drew: So I could get it in there led to like a perfect storm of circumstances.
Drew: So I'm out probably, I don't think I can return this in good faith.
Drew: Like I could probably put it like
Drew: Like if I really wanted to be a shithead, the box has a clear slot.
Drew: I could put the good one in the clear slot and take my chances, but I'm you know what?
Drew: I I I would hate to have that happen to me
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: So I'm not gonna do that.
Drew: Um but uh but I think I'm gonna take I think I'm gonna take the good one back and and try to get like a 64 gig kit.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: But I've never had that happen before.
Drew: And then like I'm like, oh fuck, did I just break my motherboard?
Drew: But I left it, I left the two good sticks in there.
Drew: I ran a memory test tool and everything's fine.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: So that was problem.
Drew: That was the first problem.
Drew: Mm-hmm.
Drew: But I still had another problem, Paul.
Drew: I don't know if you've attempted to fuck with some of this local image generation stuff.
Drew: No, I have no need for I got Chatty G.
Drew: I'm good.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Well I I have more time than money these days.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Um, but the the tool that I use is a program called Comfy UI.
Drew: Have you ever heard of it?
Paul: Uh no, I don't think I have.
Drew: Okay, so here here's what comfy UI is.
Drew: So if you actually go out to that webpage, if you if you Google search it, I did.
Drew: And you like there's a there's this thing called local comfy UI.
Drew: And uh what they do is it it basically it is a it is a Python native program.
Drew: Now you can download a like quote unquote compiled version of it for Windows and Mac, or if you don't want to download that application.
Drew: You can basically clone the GitHub.
Drew: It's got all the scripts.
Drew: It's got all the code.
Drew: You can just run it locally.
Drew: So it's like a little more portable.
Drew: So you've got a lot of choices.
Drew: The problem is on Windows it's a huge pain in the ass to get to work with some of the models because
Drew: When do like in like a lot of these models, whether it's like image generation, video generation, uh you know, some of the more advanced stuff requires like CUDA libraries for your video card.
Drew: It requires like specific Python libraries that are compiled a certain way, like actual like natively like C compiled shit.
Drew: And the versions for Windows just do not work sometimes.
Drew: And I've also noticed that there's all these different compatibility issues that you'll run into with like versions of Python on Windows and some other libraries that you can.
Paul: Python's a mess.
Paul: I'm I'm sorry.
Drew: It's yes, yeah.
Drew: No, no, no, no shame in that.
Drew: So uh I was able to, you know, get it to work, but like some of the models, some of the workflows, and again, the reason that comfy is so popular is like
Drew: When a new model comes out, the community for this for this thing is amazing.
Drew: What it is, Paul, is it's basically drag and drop workflows for like
Drew: You know, start with this image.
Drew: Send the image to this next step that like describes it or sends it to a a Laura or
Drew: uh generates a video and then saves the video or extracts images or adds audio.
Drew: You like there's all these different nodes you can add.
Drew: And there's nodes that are part of like the default comfy install.
Drew: There's a million libraries, like third-party nodes you can add that like give you more options or let you do different things.
Drew: So it's a really, really neat way to do it.
Drew: But the other thing is people share their workflows.
Drew: So if you ever go out to like the stable diffusion subreddit, for example.
Drew: People will share their workflows.
Drew: They're basically just glorified JSON files at the end of the day, but they you load them up into your
Drew: comfy UI, it will tell you like, oh, you don't have this node or you don't have this model.
Drew: Go download it or I'll download it for you.
Drew: So it's a it's actually a pretty slick way of doing it versus like
Drew: you know, trying to use some giant web UI that basically just translates all the different dropdowns into some like arcane Python command.
Drew: Do you you see what I'm saying?
Drew: I do, yeah.
Drew: So uh you could actually download this for the Mac if you want to try it.
Drew: I'm uh getting it installed right now.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Uh and then like once you get it installed, if you go to like the templates
Drew: Um they they give you out of the box like video generation, image generation, text to video, image to video, text to image, image to image, like all the latest, all the latest popular models.
Drew: It's it's it's really slick.
Drew: But like I said, it's a pain in the ass to get on Windows.
Drew: So once I got this other computer stable, I said, you know what, I'm going back to Linux because both of these were running Windows, both were running Hyper-V.
Drew: I was like, you know what?
Drew: I'm gonna do this the right way.
Drew: I'm gonna use a Linux machine to to get this done.
Drew: Now
Drew: That's fine.
Drew: I have no problems with Linux, but you know, I'm installing a desktop version of Linux because I need a UI to be able to work on this on.
Drew: Now, that's where the second problem comes in.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Both of these machines are headless
Drew: In other words, they're they're not hooked up to a keyboard or a mouse.
Drew: So I need a way to interact with them.
Drew: Now in the past, what I have done is I have like
Drew: temporarily hooked up a monitor and a keyboard, installed Linux, and then once it's like, yep, you're up and running, and I can remote SSH into it or whatever, I'm usually good to go.
Drew: Off to the races.
Drew: Um and in the past I have relied on uh XRDP, which is an open source uh RDP library, remote desktop protocol library.
Drew: So like
Drew: You could use your Windows remote desktop software to basically remote into a Linux machine.
Drew: Um, but I have found that to be not the best experience.
Drew: And here's why.
Drew: Everything you do in that session is software powered.
Drew: There's no hardware acceleration that you take advantage of.
Drew: So like you might install really slick desktop manager
Drew: Or do certain things.
Drew: The color range never looks right.
Drew: The animations don't work.
Drew: Transparency doesn't work.
Drew: And I've tried a million different things, tried a million different hacks to try to get it to work.
Drew: I've never been successful.
Drew: Um, so I don't know like what to do about that.
Drew: So I just decided that I was going to um
Drew: You know, I I was gonna try something different.
Drew: So what I ended up buying was a remote KVM.
Paul: A remote KVM?
Drew: Yes.
Paul: What is that witchcraft?
Drew: Okay, I'm gonna show you.
Drew: Link, link, link.
Drew: I'm getting there.
Drew: Um let me see if I can find it here.
Drew: Products.
Drew: Oh, I I do not like this website.
Drew: Um okay.
Drew: I bought from the same company that makes my travel router.
Drew: Sorry, nerd.
Drew: A comet remote KVM over internet.
Paul: Remote KVM, okay.
Drew: That is also PoE.
Paul: Okay, so ex- okay, I I know what a KVM is.
Paul: Uh what is a re what is a remote KVM?
Paul: All right.
Paul: Does that mean that mean you can use like your keyboard and mouse at your desk and your computer somewhere else?
Paul: And then it just okay.
Paul: Okay
Paul: Yep.
Drew: So here's what this is.
Drew: This is a little device that is power over Ethernet, meaning all I have to do is plug in the uh powered over Ethernet socket, so just RJ45.
Drew: And then plug in an HDMI cable from the device to my computer and a USB cable from the device to my computer.
Drew: Uh then I can either uh the way I'm doing it right now is once the device is powered up and online, you log into it in a web browser, and you are using that device remotely.
Drew: If you've if you have ever used like um Azure's remote desktop to get into a VM like Azure Bastion.
Drew: It it's exactly that.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: It is it is exactly that.
Drew: And uh it works.
Drew: It works really well actually.
Drew: So
Drew: I actually have it up in my brow.
Drew: I actually have it up here right now uh on my computer.
Drew: Uh and it is a fully functional window
Drew: Um, you know, because it's on my local network, it's blazingly fast.
Drew: I have like the quality turned up the maximum.
Drew: You can basically specify
Drew: Go ahead.
Drew: I was saying like what kind of resolution can you get with that thing?
Drew: So up to 4K 30 hertz.
Drew: Huh.
Drew: Now I'm running sl I'm running 1440p at 60 hertz just because I like to smooth this a little bit more.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Now, is it perfect?
Drew: No.
Drew: Like there's no like if you want to use the clipboard, you first have to like use like there's like a special like scratch pad in like the web UI where it's like pasted here and then you can paste it from that in
Drew: Got it.
Drew: Like there they're like there's some there's some remote desktop habits that die a little bit hard.
Drew: Now supposedly they make a desktop app that lets you do this too versus using it in a web browser.
Drew: I have not tried that yet because
Drew: Honestly, I've been able to get onto this computer, run my Linux desktop, full, full-fledged, like accelerated experience, and it works.
Drew: Great.
Drew: It works great.
Drew: And the fact that it's power over Ethernet is really nice because that means there's literally just one cable that runs from my router, which has a ton of power over Ethernet ports to it.
Drew: Uh and it has a lot of other stuff too.
Drew: And there's also tail scale integration.
Drew: So if you wanted to use tail scale to get to this device remotely, you can.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Uh because it's like the protocol is built into it.
Drew: I do like Tailscale.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: So so basically like you could like plug this into your Mac and instead of running a like a Tailscale cloud on your Mac, it runs on this, and then you would just connect to it that way.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Yeah, it's uh it's a clever little device.
Drew: So I've I've been using it for the past couple days now.
Drew: Uh I've gotten used to it.
Drew: It I I I think it works extremely well for what it is, and it's reasonably priced.
Drew: Uh
Drew: For it too.
Drew: And then like you can also uh use like virtual media.
Drew: So if you wanted to, um like let's say I had a file on my computer that I absolutely needed to get on uh
Drew: Like the remote computer, I could like basically take a bunch of files, drag it to like a little storage disk, and it basically will mount a quote unquote USB stick on the remote device where I can then drag the files out.
Drew: It's pretty neat.
Drew: Um and there's other stuff too.
Drew: Like you know you can you can put a virtual keyboard on the screen.
Drew: Um there are shortcuts where you can like basically create shortcut keys.
Drew: uh that you could click that send the commands to the remote.
Drew: Um there's also like a built-in terminal for this thing if you wanted to like really get nasty and ribbled with it.
Drew: Going full screen, the quality is really good.
Drew: So what it's basically doing is you can determine like what mode you want.
Drew: There's Web RTC H264 compression and there's also direct H264 compression.
Drew: I'm using the direct just because again, it's local network.
Drew: I have all the bandwidth in the world.
Drew: It's not a problem.
Drew: Uh yeah, no, it's it's really good.
Drew: It's really fucking good, actually.
Drew: And it just it makes it makes using the Linux desktop remotely just just better.
Drew: Like I know that I I know, listen, nerds, I know VNC.
Drew: is still very much a protocol.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Um, but I like this.
Drew: I I like the fact that I can just have this thing plugged in.
Drew: Um I'll probably buy another one hook up to my other computer.
Drew: Uh so that this it's pretty good.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: So yeah, two-pack for $213.
Drew: Not bad.
Drew: That's pretty cool.
Drew: Yeah, no, it's a neat little thing.
Drew: So yeah, I I so now I've like consolidated uh so what I ended up doing, like the the the code of the story is I basically took
Drew: the best parts of both computers, right?
Drew: So I took the 3090 out of the other one, put it in the machine with 64 gigs of RAM.
Drew: I gave up four process records in the bargain.
Drew: Uh but that's like the least of my worries there.
Drew: So Yeah yeah.
Drew: Yeah, so it's pretty good stuff.
Drew: Cool.
Drew: Um, all right.
Drew: Dealer's choice in the time we have left.
Drew: Do you want me to talk about this or do you want to talk about yours?
Paul: Why don't we save mine to next week?
Paul: It'll sit.
Paul: Mine will sit.
Paul: Mine will sit, which is why, yeah.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Yeah.
Paul: Um We hired Vito a tutor.
Paul: Uh I I okay.
Paul: Yeah.
Paul: I mean I've I I mean I haven't met the little little guy yet, but I ha from what I've heard, he feels like he's uh a little ball of energy.
Drew: He has a little ball of energy.
Drew: So Vito is now six months old.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: And when I say we hired Vito a tutor, we basically had a dog trainer come to the house.
Drew: Now
Drew: Um, look, what what has become apparent to us, and we knew this when he was still with us, is Rocky was a very easy dog to train, super smart, very inquisitive, uh, took the potty training really quickly.
Drew: Everything was good.
Drew: Now Vito is six months old.
Drew: I mean, I depending on who you ask, he's either a teenager or a puppy or both.
Drew: Uh so yes, like I, you know, he's he's a little ball of energy.
Drew: He loves to play.
Drew: Um, but the one thing that he does that we just have not been able to break him of yet is that when he plays, he still likes to bite.
Paul: Got it.
Paul: Okay.
Drew: Um and we've tried, you know, listen, I've watched videos.
Drew: I love dogs.
Drew: I've read stuff about like how you're supposed to break them of that.
Drew: And like it's just not working.
Drew: And then like when when I come home from the gym or like work, if I'm traveling, he likes to, he's he's just total love bomb.
Drew: And he and and when I say he bites, it doesn't hurt.
Drew: Like he's obviously playing.
Drew: He's not nipping.
Drew: He's not biting to hurt.
Drew: He's just like taking his mouth and just like taking your hand or your feet or your pant leg and like tugging at you like play, play, play.
Drew: We just can't get him.
Drew: We we couldn't get him to break him of that.
Drew: So there's a local company here called Clever Dogs.
Drew: Now Clever Dogs offers a whole bunch of different dog training.
Drew: And for the record, we never took Rocky to any kind of like puppy kindergarten.
Drew: We never took him to any classes or anything like that.
Drew: But we're like, you know what?
Drew: I was like, I I just the window for training him is closing.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: Okay, because as they get older, like there's the reason we say you can't teach an old dog new tricks.
Drew: But
Drew: The window for training him is closing.
Drew: So I'm like, you know what?
Drew: Uh I went on this website and like they have one-on-one coaching.
Drew: And you can either take them to their facility or they can come to you.
Drew: I was like, you know what?
Drew: It wasn't that much money.
Drew: So we had them come to us.
Drew: And like they came over and man
Drew: What a cool job, first of all.
Drew: Um they first of all, it was it was a really good experience.
Drew: Like you can tell that they're really good at being dog trainers uh and like kind of like
Drew: as a result, like good human trainers because she she was giving us just as many cues as she was giving him.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Paul: Because these they have to teach you what you need to do so you're consistent.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Right.
Drew: And and she she was just like she was very pleasant, but she was just like very matter of fact.
Drew: Like, do this, do this.
Drew: Here's what he's doing.
Drew: Do this
Drew: And it was just like it was really good.
Drew: So it was like it was it was an hour long session.
Drew: And in that hour, we got like so many new ticks and uh tips and tricks, not ticks
Drew: uh tips and tricks uh for helping with him and already we're we're putting some of those to use and he's doing he's doing pretty good and like his potty training's good like he's like in the 95th percentile
Drew: Now he still has a couple little fuck you accidents here and there, but that's just what dogs do, right?
Drew: Like yeah, uh if you're looking for a dog trainer in Central Ohio, um
Drew: Uh clever dogs.
Drew: Really, really good.
Drew: And like she came out, you know, spent spent her hour and then she was going to teach another class and like
Drew: Uh, you know, I asked her towards the end, I was like, do you think that he would be ready to do like one of the you know regular training classes?
Drew: She's like, absolutely.
Drew: She goes, he doesn't bark.
Drew: I was like, yeah, he doesn't really bark that much.
Drew: He only barks if you startle him.
Drew: Like if I'm if if if Mandy goes to bed and he goes to bed with her, if I come up from downstairs and I make a little too much noise and it startles him, he'll he'll bark
Drew: But like he looks out the window all day, doesn't bark.
Drew: Hmm.
Drew: He he'll growl when he plays, doesn't bark.
Drew: Doesn't bark at other dogs on his walks
Drew: Just a real just a kind of a kind of a chill dog in that respect.
Drew: And that's really all they were looking for is to make sure that like he's not gonna do that.
Paul: Yeah, yeah.
Drew: But it's a pretty good experience.
Drew: I don't I mean
Drew: Like I said, I'd never done that before and I would I would definitely do it again.
Paul: Excellent.
Paul: Yeah.
Drew: Yeah.
Drew: But it ended up being a pretty heavy Drew episode, huh?
Paul: Yeah, it's okay.
Paul: I mean, I I had shit too.
Paul: It's okay.
Drew: Yeah.
Paul: Yeah, yeah, no, but I love Drew's computer corner.
Paul: I love going there.
Drew: Okay.
Drew: Do you want it we got a little time.
Drew: Do you want to do yours or you wanna wait
Drew: Uh, you know what?
Drew: Let's just wait.
Drew: Okay.
Paul: Let's wait.
Paul: Because my and mine gets mine I go down rabbit holes.
Paul: There's there's there's
Paul: C building an app and a custom shortcut and oh it's it it gets not it gets not.
Paul: So all right.
Drew: Well what let let's let's let's let it marinate.
Drew: So go go ahead and get us out of here.
Paul: Uh doing their best.
Paul: com.
Paul: You can find all of the show notes
Paul: Also, you probably can find the show notes in your podcast player, let's be honest.
Paul: That's where you should go.
Paul: But if not, doing their best.
Paul: com.
Paul: And hey, thanks for listening.