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ATP

394: The Price of an ATP Sticker

 

00:00:00   All right, so we were discussing this on Slack and then it occurred to me that maybe we should discuss this publicly for the bootleg people.

00:00:08   It's nothing bad, nothing, you know, illicit or anything.

00:00:10   When you say that it makes it sound worse. Why give that?

00:00:15   As a manager, it's not like we're talking about robbing a bank. Yeah. Well now I think they were robbing a bank.

00:00:21   Yeah, it's like if you go to a restaurant and there's a sign taped at the door that says don't worry,

00:00:25   we're not gonna spit in your food. Exactly right. No rats in this kitchen.

00:00:30   Rat free kitchen. You two are already on my shit list for the treatment I got yesterday morning.

00:00:37   And now you're gonna do this to me? That's how it's gonna be? Oh, this was amazing.

00:00:41   What treatment did you get yesterday?

00:00:43   We'll get there. We'll get there. Casey Star list? Yes. Yes. Oh, yeah.

00:00:47   Well, you brought that on yourself. Oh my god. I hate you. You're you're fired.

00:00:53   You're both fired and I quit. Anyway,

00:00:56   September is a very special month to a lot of people,

00:01:03   but particularly the greater Relay FM community and that includes this very program, the Accidental Tech podcast.

00:01:08   September is childhood cancer awareness month and this all started for for me and for us with our dear friend

00:01:16   Stephen Hackett whose eldest child

00:01:19   was afflicted with childhood cancer when when the kid was like six months old and so because of that

00:01:25   this the childhood cancer awareness month is near and dear to our hearts and in particular

00:01:29   St. Jude Children's Research Hospital is near and dear to our hearts and every September for at least the last two or three years

00:01:36   if not more

00:01:37   we've been trying to raise money in concert with Relay since we're all Relay hosts.

00:01:42   We're trying to raise money for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and

00:01:47   we would very much love it if you the listener could donate any amount of money a dollar five dollars ten dollars a

00:01:55   Whole pile of money that's cool to any amounts of money to St. Jude

00:01:59   particularly during this month and so if you wanted to and if you if you have a little extra cash you can send their way

00:02:05   You can go to st. Jude that's st. Jude.org/ATP pretty easy to remember

00:02:12   st. Jude.org/ATP and

00:02:14   And you can send them a little bit your money I should note that it now supports Apple Pay

00:02:19   Which it never did before which is super excellent and you can in just a matter of moments send

00:02:24   Money to help fight childhood cancer

00:02:27   So let me give you kind of the formal spiel and then I'd like to tell you a little bit about what ATP is doing

00:02:32   for this

00:02:32   In September like we said you can join supporters around the world during childhood cancer awareness month to raise money for the kids of st.

00:02:38   Jude Children's Research Hospital where families never receive a bill for anything. Let me say that one more time

00:02:43   Families never receive a bill for anything

00:02:47   Each year between 180,000 and 240,000 children are diagnosed with cancer worldwide

00:02:54   treatments invented at st. Jude Children's Research Hospital have helped push the overall childhood cancer survival rate from 20% to more than

00:03:01   80% since it opened more than 50 years ago st. Jude won't stop until no child dies from cancer

00:03:08   So again, if you could if you please

00:03:12   Donate and you can do that at st

00:03:14   Jude.org/ATP and you can join the fight to end childhood cancer

00:03:19   And again, you can do that now with Apple Pay which is super convenient

00:03:23   so

00:03:25   The three of us were thinking about well

00:03:28   What can we do here in order to try to show how important this is to us and how much we value

00:03:33   St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and what we have done is as a threesome we have donated a sum total of twenty thousand and one dollars

00:03:42   Which is a very odd choice

00:03:44   but yesterday

00:03:47   Under a little bit of duress in my case which I'll explain in a moment. We donated each of us donated

00:03:52   $6,667 exactly such that we could get to

00:03:56   Basically 20 grand although it ended up if you do the math to be twenty thousand and one dollars

00:04:01   That happened as we record this yesterday morning

00:04:05   And it's important to us that we note that you know

00:04:08   This is this is because we're we find St. Jude to be such an important thing and and we we value it so much

00:04:14   And we're donating even more this year than we did in prior years

00:04:17   Thanks in large part to our members and and we really appreciate that and so, you know whether or not you're a member

00:04:22   We really really really urge all of you and we will say this a couple of more times this month

00:04:27   Please go to st. Jude org slash ATP and throw any amounts of money in st. Jude's way

00:04:34   Anything helps don't be embarrassed about a dollar or five dollars. No, no, no, no, no, no be proud be proud of that five dollars

00:04:41   That counts it does be proud of it donate what you can and we'd really appreciate it

00:04:46   Yeah, it's really hard to find like great charitable causes where there's no like

00:04:51   Asterisks on well, how effectively do they use the money or whatever like sometimes like you got to do some research?

00:04:57   Fortunately, we've done the research for you

00:04:59   and this is a fantastic place to donate money if you want to make a difference in real people's lives in a really effective and

00:05:07   Concrete way st. Jude is a really good place to give money, you know in addition to

00:05:12   the incredible work they do

00:05:15   Providing care for kids and their families like, you know kids with cancer and again what case is it notice?

00:05:22   This is a very important detail

00:05:24   The kids who receive treatment don't have to pay for it in the u.s. That's incredible

00:05:30   and if you know you think like this this horrible thing that

00:05:34   This family and this kid are going through if they if they have this diagnosis

00:05:38   the last thing you want to think about is money like how are we gonna pay for this to save our kid and

00:05:43   They take that question away, which is incredible and they're also a research institution

00:05:50   So in addition to all of that, you know incredible financial help they give people

00:05:56   They also use the money to conduct research to treat and prevent childhood cancer

00:06:02   And so it's a huge deal to you know

00:06:05   The things they do are incredible and really help the world in a pretty amazing way and they're just a fantastic organization

00:06:12   You know, if you can look up as much as you want to look up about them. They're a fantastic organization

00:06:16   And they really use the money. Well, and they do very good very good work

00:06:20   So I'm gonna go as usual a little bit more aggressive than Casey's pitch. I'm gonna say

00:06:26   You can donate if you can if you're listening to this show odds are good

00:06:30   You can afford to give them more than five dollars if you can only afford five dollars great. They will appreciate it

00:06:36   We will appreciate it. I bet you can do more

00:06:38   So I'm gonna say as we typically do this is you know, Apple Hardware buying season is about to be upon us

00:06:47   Usually Apple Hardware launches during September or is at least you know about to launch during September

00:06:52   And so usually we get to make this pitch to you every year

00:06:55   Whatever you're about to spend on a new iPhone or a new iPad or a new Apple watch or whatever

00:07:02   You're probably gonna spend

00:07:04   You know seventy five a hundred hundred fifty dollars in tax

00:07:08   Or like buying a case or something, right?

00:07:12   So if that's the if you're lucky enough to be able to do that

00:07:16   Take some of that and give it to st. Jude as well justify your ridiculous Apple hardware purchase by giving

00:07:23   whatever you would spend on

00:07:26   Tax or a case or Apple care for some new Apple device give that to st. Jude if you can do more even better

00:07:33   But that's what I'd say the set that is your target what you would spend on an accessory or on some kind of additional

00:07:39   Sir charge on your frivolous hardware purchase this fall give at least that much to that

00:07:44   Yeah, I agree. And you know, what is it? I probably have made the same comparison before but last I heard

00:07:51   CGP gray has something like adblock absolution, you know

00:07:55   So if you subscribe to his patreon, then you don't have to feel about using it feel bad about using an ad blocker

00:07:59   well, like Marco said this is you know frivolous spending absolution if you donate a

00:08:04   Small to medium to large size pile of money to st. Jude you get frivolous spending absolution. Yes all of us

00:08:09   So it's a win-win. Oh, yeah

00:08:11   I mean if you send them like a hundred two hundred dollars something like that

00:08:14   You could buy whatever iPhone you want guilt-free and plus the relay thing like they had I figure where the goal was last year

00:08:19   But they totally smashed through their goal this year. Their goal is bigger than last year. I think it's like over 300 grand

00:08:25   So we're all collectively everybody in this sort of tech nerd

00:08:29   Podcasting sphere that's in any way related to relay. We're trying to get them over the line

00:08:34   I think their goal is three hundred and fifteen thousand. I believe we can go higher than that, right?

00:08:40   So it's just beginning now

00:08:41   We're not quite there yet every little bit that you can add

00:08:44   Gets us closer to that goal and they're doing a bunch of fun things and they have like a podcast

00:08:48   Athan and they've already had a bunch of videos they put up when they reach certain goals or whatever. So

00:08:52   Check out that content if you want to be motivated to give even more if you give five bucks now and then give five bucks

00:08:58   Tomorrow and then give 20 bucks a day after that like as you see the content that they're producing

00:09:02   For this, you know remote COVID telethon that we're all doing here

00:09:08   hopefully you'll be motivated to give even more and more and it's it's like like you both said it's such a great charity because

00:09:13   Like you are essentially directly

00:09:16   Letting someone else not have to worry about paying for something or you're not just helping them pay their bills

00:09:21   You're not just giving them money towards their insurance. Nothing like that

00:09:24   It's like every dollar that you give is

00:09:27   Something that prevents a family from having to think about money when they're dealing with their kid having cancer if they're treated at st

00:09:33   Jude so it's an extremely good cause and it should you know make everyone feel good to donate

00:09:39   I mean you could literally be paying to cure cancer. I mean how many how many times have you said cancer?

00:09:45   Well, you know what if you want to say that then now's the way to do it

00:09:48   Yeah, if you want cancer to go away. This is how you do it. So please well, we'll let it go but st

00:09:54   Jude org slash ATP

00:09:55   We're gonna say this a few more times during the month of September, but seriously st

00:09:58   Jude org slash ATP if you please now, let's talk about some text formatting. I'd like to file a formal complaint. I

00:10:06   I

00:10:09   Occasionally will get fired up at Marco and or John. I have never been more

00:10:20   Casey's idea was originally and I don't know if this was his idea just because he was busy or it was a legit idea

00:10:25   It was like we should give our money

00:10:27   During the show and the last thing I wanted to be doing

00:10:29   Doing during recording is like filling out forms on a website and carefully entering numbers and stuff like that

00:10:34   It's like no we should we should have our donations done and we split it up into three with our weird odd number

00:10:40   So we were trying to reach 20k

00:10:41   So we did 20,000 and one because that's how it divided evenly by three whatever right and we were all gonna give it

00:10:47   You know around about the same time

00:10:49   So our names would appear near each other on the little donation list, right?

00:10:52   And but we were having this debate over like well, what do we put it for the names?

00:10:55   Do we just put our first and last name? Do we do we write ATP colon John ATP colon Marco?

00:11:00   Do we include our spouses names do we include all our family names?

00:11:04   Do we include just our last names not that it matters because it's just a text field that shows up on a website

00:11:08   But these are the type of things we discuss right and and Marco wanted to get it done because he had something to do

00:11:14   And was about to get in the car

00:11:15   I wanted to get done because I wanted to get done before the show but Casey was recording a podcast

00:11:19   It's like I don't have time to deal with this like whatever but Marco and I like tough. You're outvoted. We want to do it

00:11:23   So like let's just do it just get out of the way let's just do it we amount to type six six six seven

00:11:32   Dot zero zero do the thing submit and go so Marco went first and he did Marco and Tiff and we even discussed in the chat

00:11:39   Like are we including spouse names? Yes. Okay, and I'm like, okay

00:11:42   Can I are we gonna format it like this Marco and Tiff army?

00:11:45   Okay, and I'm like this is we're gonna do right confirm confirm. Yes. Okay. Yep. Yep, and I did and then he Marco did that

00:11:50   And then I did John and Tina

00:11:52   Syracuse and submitted the thing following the format exactly the thing we noticed by the way is when Marco did his like there's a leaderboard

00:11:59   Of like who gave the biggest donation so Marco's at the top of the leaderboard

00:12:02   But then I do mine with the exact same amount now

00:12:04   I'm at the top of the leaderboard

00:12:05   So we realized I was just like recency because we gave the exact same amount and so we've realized Casey's gonna be at the top

00:12:10   Of the leaderboard because he's gonna go last and then I think I just didn't think about it close the window

00:12:14   But then I looked back at it

00:12:16   Casey was indeed the number one in the number one spot and still is as we record days later

00:12:22   But the name written there was not

00:12:24   Casey and Aaron lists it was Casey space asterisk space Aaron

00:12:30   Like we talked about this

00:12:36   Asterix doing there and he angrily says it's an ampersand. I'm like, it's not an ampersand

00:12:42   Which would have also been wrong with all which would have also been wrong

00:12:45   It was gonna be space a nd space and so now if you look at the number one donation

00:12:51   It looks like that thing you get in your credit card bill where you can't figure out what the vendor is

00:12:54   All caps Casey star

00:12:57   Aaron slash something like who is this? What is this? What is this charge? Oh, it's just Casey. You can't type

00:13:05   Okay, let me make it plain. I'm in the midst of recording analog

00:13:09   well, I'm trying to not ignore Mike and trying to have a conversation with him and

00:13:14   Dealing with these two numb nuts trying to tell me go go go and normally I wouldn't have really thought that much about it

00:13:22   I would have waited and I would have just done it like an hour or two later

00:13:24   But I had this vision of somebody watching and I'm saying that just me and Marco gave money, but you didn't give any

00:13:30   Exactly and then like hours later. Okay, fine. I guess I'll do it too. You jerks, you know or something like that

00:13:37   And so I wanted to do it really quickly behind the two of them now

00:13:41   Ampersand and an asterisk are next to each other on the American keyboard

00:13:47   So it is certainly plausible that I had typed an asterisk, but I am

00:13:52   99% sure I used an ampersand now to be fair

00:13:57   We did all agree it was going to be space a nd space, but I was in a hurry. I was distracted

00:14:02   I was trying to get through it as quickly as possible. So I just did a friggin ampersand and next thing I know

00:14:07   I see Casey star Aaron lists. Why didn't you just tell Mike? Hang on a second?

00:14:11   I think Mike would have paused for two and a half minutes if you told him hang on a second

00:14:15   I'm about to give a bunch of money to st. Jude who would have said fine go

00:14:18   That's true. But I was just trying in theory. It shouldn't have been that hard

00:14:23   Well also like if you include the shift you're only saving one keystroke

00:14:27   Oh my god, like is that really worth it instead of a nd shift 8 or shift 7

00:14:33   Just be glad you didn't put emoji in yeah, right. That's true. You should I should have done like an emoji answer one of those big pluses

00:14:39   Anyway, the point is now I have the pleasure

00:14:43   Not like I don't want to be at the top of the leaderboard for more than like 10 minutes like being there for 10 minutes

00:14:49   Okay, that's kind of fun. But like I don't want to be there anymore

00:14:51   So like hey if you're listening to this and you want to donate even a dollar more than six thousand six thousand six hundred sixty seven

00:14:57   dollars

00:14:57   Send me your mailing address and in the redacted version of your receipt and I will put not for sale ATP stickers in the mail

00:15:04   I'm not even kidding. I don't care where you live in the planet. I will do it

00:15:08   I always wonder what it would take to get a sticker, you know, it'll take six thousand six hundred and sixty eight dollars or more to st

00:15:13   Jude that's it. That's how much it costs right now. That is the price of an ATP sticker. That is it

00:15:18   but anyways

00:15:19   the point is I

00:15:20   Did I didn't want to necessarily be at the top and now every time I look at this because you know at the top of this

00:15:26   Page they show like the different milestones that Mike and Steven are trying to hit and now every time I look down

00:15:31   It's Oh God Casey star

00:15:33   Fantastic

00:15:38   I was so angry at you - it couldn't wait like Marco

00:15:41   I sort of understand that you were trying to get in the car and like go somewhere

00:15:44   So I give you like a half pass on this

00:15:46   But John cut me a little slack man

00:15:49   Like you couldn't wait it when I wanted to get it done before the show and I had things to do as well

00:15:53   I didn't want to be doing it during the show fine. All right. Anyway, we did we donated a good job, buddy

00:15:58   Everyone who's listening go donate. Yes, ST. J your D dot org slash ATP. Oh my gosh. All right before I

00:16:04   Let me actually have a little bit of schadenfreude and John tell me about your Mac Pro. Oh, where did we leave off?

00:16:11   I know it was like I

00:16:14   had

00:16:16   Revived the t2 which had fixed the sleep problem

00:16:19   I had all my data on my linked data volume, but I couldn't actually boot into it

00:16:24   So it's just sitting there and I had a plan for how I thought I was gonna fix it

00:16:27   But I didn't want to go forward with that plan until I had some more backup. So I got another hard drive

00:16:33   I did a complete backup of linked data. Also. I forgot to mention this last show. I also did another backup of

00:16:38   My entire photo library to another hard drive

00:16:42   So I made two additional copies of my photo library and one additional company of my entire data volume

00:16:48   Then I was ready to try my approach. I remember my approach was was I was going to

00:16:52   Delete all the volumes from my boot thing all the visible volumes. This is the thing in disk utility doesn't show you like

00:16:58   the some of the hidden volumes in different APFS roles, but it shows you the system volume and the user volume so I had a

00:17:05   system volume and then I had an associated almost entirely empty user volume and

00:17:11   Then I had my real user data volume, right? So I was ready to do this. I had my backups

00:17:17   They were all disconnected put to the side

00:17:19   Right and then I booted into recovery mode and I deleted my system volume and I deleted my empty user volume being very careful to

00:17:26   Make sure that I was deleting the empty user volume and not my real user volume

00:17:29   Which was easy because I had renamed the volume so they didn't have the same name

00:17:32   Anyway, now I'm left with just one volume. I'm left with essentially an unbootable disk. Just one volume called link - data, right?

00:17:38   and

00:17:40   Then I ran the Catalina installer and when it asked me where I wanted to install I said please install on link - data

00:17:47   Oh, actually I renamed it to just plain old link before I did it just just for cleanliness because I knew

00:17:50   What I hope it was going to do that was the right thing to do

00:17:53   So I renamed my data volume to be just link a random installer

00:17:56   And I said you should install on this volume right here and installer did exactly what I thought it was gonna do which is

00:18:02   Made a new system volume rename my data volume to be link - data and wove them together during the installation process

00:18:09   So after the installer finished running my computer rebooted and I was back exactly where I left off with everything perfectly fine

00:18:16   So I could have done that like a week ago, but I didn't know that was going to work

00:18:19   So if you're wondering how are you if you just have a data volume how you can sort of revive your computer?

00:18:25   the one thing that I tested that apparently works is delete all the other volumes and

00:18:29   Then run the installer on your data volume and it will

00:18:32   Make a separate read-only system volume connect it to that data volume

00:18:37   Even if that data volume was like a data volume from an old installed Catalina, it will all do the right thing

00:18:41   So it was great worked out great. Oh, and by the way the photo book

00:18:45   That wasn't sure whether it had actually gone through because that was like the first time I can remember my computer not waking from sleep

00:18:51   Was it was like uploading my photo book?

00:18:53   And taking a long time and then I came back to my computer later and it wouldn't wake up

00:18:57   And I was like, I wonder if that photo book turned out

00:18:59   Okay, turns out did photo book arrived at my house. It had all the photos in it. None of the pictures were truncated

00:19:04   It looked perfect. So

00:19:06   All's well that ends well

00:19:08   And now I have a bunch of spare hard drives hanging around in case I have some other disasters

00:19:12   I can hopefully recover from it. So

00:19:15   Blood dodged I am excited that it worked out for you, even though

00:19:19   There is some amount of shot in front of like I said that this was all happening. I am glad that it all worked out

00:19:24   What a mess though. What a how would any normal human, you know reasonably diagnosed and debug this

00:19:31   I don't think I would have been able to figure out all the stuff

00:19:33   I mean an old person would probably just live with the fact that their computer doesn't wake from sleep and just make sure not go

00:19:38   To sleep, right?

00:19:38   And then I think most people debugging it like and the thing that would do the thing that I was tempted to do which is

00:19:44   Like let me just wipe this clean and restore from a backup

00:19:46   But I did not want to do that just because I knew how long it would take and my backups are recent within

00:19:51   Hours, right, but they're not like completely update

00:19:56   The only thing that was completely up to date as of the moment, right?

00:19:59   It was my data volume and the data was all still there

00:20:01   So I just stubbornly refused to lose even the tiniest amount of data if I didn't have to and it turns out it didn't have to

00:20:07   But to be clear with all the time you spent diagnosing all this you could have

00:20:11   Easily backed up that thing from time machine or whatever in

00:20:14   Considerably less time and lost like an hour or two worth of data. Well, the thing is by the time that I had like

00:20:21   Remember it didn't even it didn't even occur to me that I was gonna ever get into a situation where there could be data loss

00:20:28   This is just a sleep problem, right?

00:20:29   But it was reviving the t2 that made my machine on bootable and once it's on bootable

00:20:34   I can't boot into it to run one more time machine backup, right and I can't even run a super duper clone or whatever against it

00:20:40   Because all those cloning programs expect to be pointed out essentially

00:20:42   Like your volume as viewed by the OS as one contiguous thing and not just at the data volume, right?

00:20:49   But I ended up doing was cloning just the data volume, but that's not a bootable system, right?

00:20:53   So at the you know, once I cross the line of like, oh, I might have to restore from a backup or something here

00:20:59   It was too late. I couldn't boot into my computer anymore except for into that other system, right?

00:21:03   So now that I know that that's a possibility

00:21:06   It probably would have been better for me to just ignore the fact that my computer can't wake from sleep and just do a bunch

00:21:11   More time machines and clones and all that other stuff, which I think I might have done at the beginning

00:21:15   But this was a multi-day restore process

00:21:17   I mean, I guess there was no data generated during those multiple days because all I was ever doing is rebooting and sleeping

00:21:22   But it's the principle of the matter. But anyway, it felt way better

00:21:25   not to have to do any kind of restore and to just

00:21:28   Continue to use my data exactly as it was

00:21:31   Tell me about Big Sur and bridge OS so that's the question is okay great

00:21:36   You did all this thing you fixed your computer great good for you. What the hell was the problem?

00:21:40   We know that reviving the t2 fixed whatever the problem was, but what was the actual problem?

00:21:45   So we have a lot of feedback from people with theories in their own stories and anonymous Apple genius says

00:21:50   Both 10 15 6 and Big Sur beta 5 5 contains bridge OS updates mentioned before that one of the things that can modify the software

00:21:58   That's on, you know, modify bridge OS for your t2 is it is an OS update?

00:22:01   Both of the most recent updates had a bridge OS updates

00:22:04   In fact each and every 10 15 point X update has also upgraded the t2 including the Catalina 10 15 6

00:22:12   Some of bundle update that was released on the 12th

00:22:14   So this genius goes on to say

00:22:16   When John revived the Mac Pro via Apple configurator 2 the latest shipping version of bridge OS would have been installed on the t2

00:22:22   So the one from 10 15 6 like, you know, since I was using Apple configurator 2 to revive it

00:22:27   It's not gonna revive it with like the Big Sur beta

00:22:29   It's gonna revive with whatever the latest is for the supported released OS and that would be 10 15 6, right?

00:22:35   Here is in an anonymous Apple employee saying

00:22:39   One point on why did revive the revive operation hose my OS volume? I'm pretty confident

00:22:44   This is because when you did the revive it essentially did a reinstall of the GM bridge OS this meant that you

00:22:50   Downgraded bridge OS from wasn't what was installed previously from the Big Sur beta

00:22:53   Whenever bridge OS is downgraded login window failing to recognize login passwords is a known side effect

00:22:59   So that is a possible explanation for why why wouldn't it let me log in apparently unrelated to any unmountable volumes?

00:23:05   It's just because I downgraded bridge OS, right?

00:23:07   I wondered if anyone else who had a Mac Pro out there and listen to the show had similar problems a

00:23:12   John Sandiland says I heard your tale though

00:23:16   I also updated my Mac Pro to Big Sur beta 5 and wake from sleep stop working immediately after

00:23:21   So there's someone with a Mac Pro who did Big Sur beta 5 update and had the exact same symptom

00:23:28   Paul Colton says I'm having the same issues with my Mac Pro and Big Sur beta 5. I'm hoping beta fixes fixes the sleep issue

00:23:34   So if you're running what people would do maybe sitting around and hoping beta 6

00:23:37   And job says another another listener job says Mac Pro has the same issue with wake from sleep

00:23:47   And I've never run a bait on it. So and the story start to tail off from there

00:23:50   I put the two ones that are like I had the exact problem that you did it

00:23:53   But then people like I have a Mac Pro and it also can't wait to sleep

00:23:56   But I never ran Big Sur beta and you know and there many people have many sort of sleep problems

00:24:00   Even if you don't have a Mac Pro, there's some people so

00:24:02   Hagen Terschuren says Big Sur beta 5 broke

00:24:06   But you were bridge OS so hard that it turned my 16 inch MacBook Pro into a brick that had to get a new logic board

00:24:11   There was no fix

00:24:12   I heard a bunch of stories from people who said

00:24:15   Something broke with bridge OS and even like the Apple Store could not bring my computer back to like life

00:24:21   Like they couldn't restore it. They couldn't revive it

00:24:23   it was just dead and you need like a logic board swap which is

00:24:27   No good

00:24:28   And Leeward says my 2014 Mac mini wouldn't wake from sleep at all while 10 15 6 was running many many

00:24:35   reboot hard reboots 10 15 6 supplemental on August 20

00:24:38   August 12th has completely fixed the problem as far as I can tell so and again many many more bits of feedback

00:24:43   explaining

00:24:45   problems with waking from sleep

00:24:48   coinciding with various software updates and all sorts of different kinds of hardware and a smattering of stories where like literally your hardware is bricked because

00:24:56   The t2 is it's hardware and it's software and it's firmware and if it really really really gets hosed

00:25:01   There's just no coming back because like sort of the DFU mode

00:25:05   I'm imagining that requires some minimal functionality of your t2 to even get into that mode. So if you really hose it bad

00:25:11   You're in trouble. So I never want to touch my teeth

00:25:15   Whoever again and now I'm very wary of beta releases or any release for that matter

00:25:19   So, you know like every single Catalina update has included a new version of bridge OS that's a little scary

00:25:25   But I guess that's how software updates work. So

00:25:28   Now I'm a little scared of every update. Yay

00:25:31   Super and now I'm scared of it, too

00:25:33   Think we should all be like it is Mac minis MacBook pros a bunch of people with iMac said a bunch of problems related to bridge

00:25:41   OS yeah, like you don't usually think of a point update to your OS as being a potentially entire disk losing process

00:25:49   But if things go wrong with the bridge OS and with the t2 that is a possible outcome

00:25:54   Mm-hmm, especially if you have an encrypted disk and you know, like it's

00:25:58   scary

00:26:00   Make sure you have good backups. It's a good thing. Apple's software quality is always so stellar. Yeah. Yeah, I mean like

00:26:08   Really though this I mentioned that the big Sur beta cycle has been terrible for me and in one aspect

00:26:13   Which is updating from one beta to the next because they've totally changed how the OS update process works

00:26:19   But up until this point we've had max with t2s for a long time and it's kind of amazing that

00:26:24   This type of problem hasn't been more prevalent

00:26:27   So I think in general Apple is pretty careful with these updates and has a process that must be pretty

00:26:32   you know have a lot of safeguards in place to make sure you don't get into a completely unbootable state, but

00:26:38   You know, I did install a beta and betas aren't perfect. So what can you do?

00:26:42   So tell me about hardware tests then Roland Manson run in to tell me that

00:26:46   Apparently the hardware test that you can run by holding down keys on your Mac

00:26:49   Has a longer version that you can run

00:26:52   So if you hold down the D key or run built-in hardware diagnostics if you hold down a boot if you hold down

00:26:56   Option D will do a thing where it pulls the latest hardware test from the internet

00:27:01   But then after that test is run apparently you can press command E to run the extended version of the test

00:27:07   And apparently this is entirely undocumented in the Apple support article that we will link in the show notes. So

00:27:11   There is apparently a longer

00:27:14   More thorough hardware test. I'm not really inclined to run that right now, but next time I have some sort of terrible problem

00:27:19   I would definitely remember to let the hardware test run

00:27:22   After booting by holding down option D and then hit command D

00:27:26   Although of course with the arm max we know this is all changing like they're not they don't have any more of these command option PR

00:27:32   Command our option D D. Oh, that's gone

00:27:35   The arm axis are just gonna be like you hold down the power button or something

00:27:38   I don't know we talked about it on a previous show, but this whole you know boot process is changing

00:27:43   So instead of memorizing a bunch of keys that you have to hold down you essentially get into this mode with a single key and then

00:27:49   Choose what you have to do. So I suppose hopefully the next time I have this problem

00:27:53   I'll be on an arm Mac and everything will have changed

00:27:56   Speaking of more diagnostic tools. There's this tool called silent night night spelled like the medieval night with a K

00:28:03   That will dump a bunch of info about your bridge OS and your EFI version and stuff like that

00:28:08   We'll put a link in the show notes to that program

00:28:11   And if you don't want to install another program if you run user lib exec remote control

00:28:16   Remote control space dump state will put that command in the show notes, too

00:28:21   So you don't have to wonder how to spell it that will also

00:28:23   Dump a little bit of info about bridge OS plus a bunch of other stuff

00:28:27   So that's useful to know like I know everyone's like I'm looking at the OS version and I'm a Mac power user

00:28:32   So I know that you can click on the version and it will show the build number

00:28:34   There are many other numbers that are relevant to what state your computer is in and in my case the thing that mattered was

00:28:40   You know either something having to do with the bridge OS or possibly EFI and if you're wondering what those version numbers look like

00:28:46   They're scary. For example, my current EFI version is

00:28:49   1037

00:28:51   147 dot 4 dot 0 dot 0

00:28:53   That's my EFI version and my bridge OS version. I know my I says I bridge

00:28:59   I don't know

00:28:59   I don't know if that means the OS version but anyway says I bridges 17 dot 16 dot 1 6 6 1 0 dot 0

00:29:05   dot 0 comma 0

00:29:07   At least you can look at them and see

00:29:12   Did big Sur change something or did reviving it decrease the number like you can compare the two numbers to each other

00:29:18   But yeah, there's a lot going on inside your t2 equipped to Mac

00:29:21   Marco would you like to recant anything you said with regard to cable management last time?

00:29:29   A surprisingly no now that being said so people a lot of people wrote in to say

00:29:35   How could I have possibly?

00:29:38   had the conscience or lack thereof to

00:29:40   Recommend that people throw away their cables because there are things that can attempt to recycle

00:29:47   cables and get stuff out of them I

00:29:50   Didn't know about this and a lot of people say oh there are these bins

00:29:54   You can just dump your electronic waste into in you know places like Best Buy or whatever

00:29:58   and they will do it for you I

00:30:00   Hesitate to recommend anything like that because

00:30:04   the reality about

00:30:07   Recycling is that it doesn't always happen the way you think it does or the way you think it should and I simply don't know

00:30:14   how widespread

00:30:16   Actual recovery of actual material from actual things you dump it to bins and places like Best Buy

00:30:22   How much does it actually happen? I'm

00:30:25   Willing to guess based on other specialty recycling things

00:30:28   I'm guessing it's not very common to get useful material out of your discarded USB cables

00:30:34   Maybe I'm super wrong about this, but I don't think it's I don't think it's pragmatic to tell people

00:30:39   You shouldn't recommend that you throw things away because you could recycle them because what you're doing is giving people a

00:30:46   Reason to hesitate or you're adding friction of the process of getting rid of stuff that you should get rid of

00:30:52   When it's something like this where like I don't think there's a lot of like trace metals and cables the last thing anybody needs to

00:30:59   Hear is wait. Don't throw away your cables because you might be throwing them away wrong

00:31:03   Sorry, if I'm super wrong, I'm sorry to the earth, but I bet I'm not

00:31:07   Well, I understand what you're getting at and that you don't want people to have a barrier to getting crap out of their house

00:31:12   But we'll put these links in the show notes Apple itself has a recycling program

00:31:17   If there's one company that I would trust to actually try to recycle them it's Apple because they have a ton of money and they're

00:31:23   Good about that type of stuff. So and yes Best Buy also has a free recycling program. So

00:31:26   People should be aware of that and they should do it if they can I think even if even if this is a small percent

00:31:33   Chance that they're gonna actually recycle it

00:31:35   It's better than the 0% chance of when you throw it in the garbage and it just goes into landfill somewhere

00:31:40   So I suggest doing it. I understand what Mark was saying about like, okay

00:31:44   Well now you've just added friction and now they're never gonna get rid of their cables

00:31:47   But honestly if you're using your house as the landfill, that's probably still better for the planet

00:31:51   Then then putting them in the actual landfill and plus Margot you can drive there in your electric car and have a much smaller

00:31:57   Environmental impact than the rest of us. So keep that in mind for your own personal choice

00:32:01   I don't know whether you should recycle if that's the only reason you're driving there

00:32:04   You're probably having a worse impact just the energy you're using to drive there

00:32:08   You can continue to use your house as a landfill for all those cables

00:32:11   Anyway, Apple has a free recycling program and so does Best Buy and so do tons of other places. So please consider recycling

00:32:16   Yeah for for my local Best Buy don't be creepy the last I had recycled

00:32:22   Smaller stuff like cables. It was just in that initial

00:32:26   Like what is it a vestibule where it's like in the airlock between the outside and the actual store itself?

00:32:31   There was just a bunch of bins where you could just throw things like cables and stuff like that

00:32:35   So yeah, it's really if you're paranoid like me about basically anything that's inside

00:32:40   You have to step into the airlock if you will and that's it

00:32:44   Or at least at my Best Buy and maybe like yours as well and and just drop it off and run and so it's about

00:32:49   As low contact as you can get

00:32:51   And I am in full support of trying that because yeah, it may not actually do anything

00:32:57   But I don't know I feel I have a lot better doing it that way

00:32:59   All right, throw all your cables into Best Buy. Yeah, yeah problem solved

00:33:03   I mean you could just kind of treat Best Buy as a giant landfill

00:33:06   Perfect. I mean it already kind of is. Yeah. Yeah, it's kind of it's pretty sad in there

00:33:11   Alright, DJ Ghostmare writes on Epic versus Sony/Microsoft and crossplay

00:33:17   Epic quote-unquote

00:33:19   accidentally

00:33:20   enabled crossplay for a weekend before shutting it off this weaponized the fan base against Sony until they caved and there's a

00:33:26   Post from IGN that I guess details all this

00:33:29   I guess that that that is interesting and we're gonna talk about this at some point

00:33:35   But Fortnite is not available to download on iOS right now, and that's surprising to me

00:33:41   I'm surprised neither one of them flinched in this game of chicken. Yeah, this was the the story

00:33:46   I was trying to think of where I talked about last time about enabling crossplay

00:33:49   And this is just the the icing on the cake and it was also something that I had remembered

00:33:53   But couldn't find a link for that epic was kind of a jerk about it

00:33:56   So yes epic eventually convinced both Sony and Microsoft to allow crossplay for Fortnite and eventually other games as well

00:34:02   But the way they did it was you know

00:34:05   reminiscent of what they were doing and are still doing with Apple, which is

00:34:09   They just broke the rules and said but you know what we can enable crossplay because it's totally technically possible and oops

00:34:15   We just enabled it for a weekend and people got to play against their friends on

00:34:19   different consoles and of course players loved it because it's a feature that players would love and

00:34:23   You know what what effect that had I mean

00:34:27   You know this person is saying that it weaponized the fan base because the fans got a taste of what it was like to have

00:34:32   Crossplay and they wanted it back also there are some people saying like they were just showing that there's no technical barriers because of course

00:34:38   The console makers would be like well if we allow you to play course platform

00:34:41   Maybe there's some differences in the platforms that would make it unfair and they all have these hemming and hawing reasons

00:34:46   Why cross play is much more complicated than you think but epic just said you know what we're just gonna turn it on

00:34:50   And we know it's against the rules and maybe we'll get like a band from the Sony and Microsoft store

00:34:54   but in the end their act of civil disobedience resulted in no punishment and

00:35:00   Potentially helped get what they wanted so

00:35:02   Epics mo is consistent

00:35:05   Be you know swing your radar wait around show that you are you know a big company. That's important to these platforms

00:35:12   Disobey them intentionally if you think it will get you closer to your goal and in the case of the consoles

00:35:18   Console makers and epic were able to work something out in the case of epic and Apple so far. They haven't worked anything out

00:35:25   Yeah, and we'll get to that in a minute, but before then Claire's the dog cow rights on last week's ATP

00:35:31   Syracuse has said Congress should pass a law where you should where you must be able to unsubscribe from a service the same way you

00:35:36   Subscribed to it mark to Connell who is a Democrat from California has authored answer sponsored if nothing else

00:35:42   Unsubscribed act of 2019 which would do just that we'll put a link in the show notes to it. This is HR

00:35:48   2683 if you want to look up the bill we'll put a link and you can read it this website

00:35:53   This is gov track that us has a little thing that shows a percentage chance that this

00:35:58   Bill could be enacted as a law this has a 3% chance because our government is non-functional

00:36:03   But anyway, it just goes to show that if there's a good idea out there chances are some well-meaning politician has thought of it

00:36:09   And their dreams will be crushed by the rest of the machinery that is our non-functional government

00:36:14   This bill was introduced in May of 2019 by the way

00:36:16   Do you remember when we had something that vaguely resembled a government

00:36:22   Remember on the last show I was like this is the type of bill that people can get behind because it's not partisan

00:36:28   It's the type of thing that everyone's constituents would like it's common sense like it

00:36:31   You know and it's not even particularly burdensome to industry obviously industry thinks everything is burdensome if you make them do anything

00:36:37   But like if if they allow you to subscribe over a computer chances are good

00:36:42   They have the infrastructure to let you unsubscribe or a computer and the only reason they're not doing it is so they can make you

00:36:47   You know write a letter and you know cursive on a piece of part from paper or whatever the hell it takes to get subscribed, right?

00:36:54   You know, it's just but three per I mean, I don't know how to how seriously to take these gov track

00:36:59   Numbers but a 3% chance of being enacted doesn't it's depressing like is there no bill like about the puppies are cute bill

00:37:06   Oh, sorry, there's only a 1% chance of passing we can't get everyone to agree. The puppies are cute

00:37:09   It's like what's wrong with us a lot. Yeah. Yeah, so you want to let's talk about something awesome like

00:37:17   Terminating epics game epic games developer account for the hell Apple didn't flinch. They really did it

00:37:23   Yeah

00:37:23   epic didn't upload a version that was compliant and Apple did exactly what they said they were to do is if by the 28th you

00:37:28   Don't upload a version that's compliant and just as an app purchase. We will terminate the developer count that you use to develop fortnight

00:37:36   They did not because the judge wouldn't let them terminate the developer account that epic uses to develop Unreal Engine

00:37:41   but they did the one for fortnight, so

00:37:44   Yeah, and the Apple released a little statement that says we're disappointed that we've had to terminate the epic games account on the App Store

00:37:50   Right. We hope that we can work together again in the future. Like it's like the door is open

00:37:53   We can still work it out, but it didn't work out right now. So

00:37:56   We have had to terminate the epic games account. Did you did you have to you know, they said they would look what you made me do

00:38:05   Epic did violate the rules and here's this is a consequence of violating the rules

00:38:10   So I think this is a proportional and entirely predictable results and it happened, right?

00:38:15   And so if you if you've previously downloaded fortnight, you can still play it

00:38:19   But of course the stuff we mentioned about the seasons means

00:38:21   That the viability of that is going to be limited very quickly when everyone else on the new season and you're still stuck on the old

00:38:27   Season just playing against a much smaller user base on iOS and Mac OS

00:38:31   So that's a shame

00:38:33   and then of course epic sent out their email to fortnight players saying the reason you can't get is because Apple's mean and

00:38:38   They're blocking fortnight and blah blah blah

00:38:40   Some people noted that Apple did a editorial feature on the App Store

00:38:45   promoting pub G which is

00:38:48   Say a fortnight competitor also potentially the game that that epic copied exactly to make fortnight because pub G was the first sort of battle

00:38:56   Royale popular that popularized that sort of format and for tonight copied it anyway

00:39:01   Say how look at Apple really screwing

00:39:04   Epic by promoting their competing app when fortnight is off the store and can't compete with them anymore

00:39:10   The only problem with that theory is well twofold one pub G uses the Unreal Engine. So

00:39:15   Epic get something from them too and to pub G is published by Tencent which owns 40% of epic

00:39:22   So I really don't think Apple did that feature to say screw you to fortnight

00:39:27   Maybe they did but if they did it's not really as effective maybe as they thought it would be

00:39:33   We are sponsored this week by cotton bureau cotton bureau is our merch partner

00:39:39   They make all of our awesome, you know, like the t-shirts the hoodies the hats even Casey's Polo that Casey buys

00:39:47   They are a merch partner and they are because they make really good stuff and they are also the merch partners for MKB HD

00:39:55   538 Chatecary Adam Savage Rainforest Alliance and many more

00:40:01   Podcasts and youtubers and other things that you've probably heard of they make a wide variety of graphic tees

00:40:07   Also available from thousands of independent designers a lot of times

00:40:12   I actually will go to cotton bureau and just browse their stuff just whatever designs they have

00:40:16   Because they have some really cool t-shirts and I would say about a third of my t-shirts are cotton bureau shirts

00:40:21   And because they're just a lot of fun stuff whether it's like, you know

00:40:24   Our merchandise or some other podcast that we listen to our friends stuff and a lot of it is just like that independent designer stuff

00:40:29   Just you know, like cool symbols. I like my Unix shirt

00:40:33   It's just it's a fun fun side of cotton bureau and their stuff's really good

00:40:36   So you can go to cotton bureau right now and you can use code ATP at checkout to get 10% off

00:40:43   Anything on the site through September 10th?

00:40:46   They're also going to pick one random person who uses code ATP at checkout to get 10% off before September 10th to receive a

00:40:54   free Xbox elite

00:40:56   Wireless controller series 2 so once again go to cotton bureau use code ATP for 10% off through September 10th

00:41:03   And then one person who uses that code will receive a free Xbox elite wireless controller series 2 now

00:41:09   They happen to send one of these to John to review. So John first of all, I don't even know what this is

00:41:16   I mean, I know what the Xbox is. But what is the Xbox elite wireless controller series 2 and boy typical Microsoft name?

00:41:22   That's a very long name and how is it?

00:41:25   Yeah, this is a product that I love the fact that exists and for a long time I was sort of

00:41:29   Upset that I couldn't use it because I don't have an Xbox if we had a PlayStation, right?

00:41:34   But in recent years everyone has been expanding their support

00:41:38   For controllers, so practically speaking. This is a Microsoft, you know controller for the Xbox console

00:41:44   But you can use it with iOS devices with Macs that I think that are using big server

00:41:49   Though I'm afraid of that OS now, so I didn't try it

00:41:51   You can buy in it. You can buy an adapter and use it with your PlayStation, you know, it's a Bluetooth controller

00:41:56   Like it has a surprising amount of compatibility, right? What is it? It is a controller. You've seen a console controller

00:42:01   This is the little buttons and the sticks and or whatever, but it costs a huge amount of money

00:42:05   it is like

00:42:08   $180 I think

00:42:11   Yes, just for just one control it's essentially four times the price of a regular control you can almost get a switch for that

00:42:18   Yeah, that makes no request to you, but I don't understand Marco scoffing considering the price of the headphones he wears, right?

00:42:23   Why would somebody want a controller that costs almost $200 when the one that comes with the game console?

00:42:30   Seems perfectly fine. Like what's wrong with that one? The reason I wanted this product to exist is I love you know

00:42:36   Handheld devices that are high quality, right? So I you know, the stock one is fine

00:42:44   But if you can get one that feels a little better that is a little smoother that doesn't get creaky

00:42:48   That's more sturdy and that has more features. I would love that

00:42:52   I would love a PlayStation controller that is like the Xbox elite now. What's what's different about this control?

00:42:57   This is the second version of this

00:42:59   That's why it's the series 2 right but it has mostly the same features as the original in the first major feature

00:43:03   Is that everything you see almost everything you see on the top of the controller the sticks the d-pad?

00:43:10   Those can be pulled off their magnetic so you can just pull those off and put on different ones and

00:43:14   That may sound like oh, it's not flimsy. It's like a magnetic connection flimsy

00:43:18   Or like why would I want to change those it doesn't make any sense

00:43:22   Well, first of all, they're not flimsy like you would never know that if I didn't tell you these are magnetically connected

00:43:28   You'd have no idea. They don't come off. You can't accidentally push them off with your fingers. They're very solid

00:43:32   and the second is

00:43:33   They give you an option of what you want. For example, like Microsoft has this weird radar dish looking thing that they use

00:43:40   Instead of a d-pad if you don't like that take it off and put on the little d-pad thingy now

00:43:44   You have a regular d-pad. It looks like a cross. I

00:43:46   Don't know. I think maybe they did that on the original Xbox because Nintendo's d-pad patent hadn't expired

00:43:51   I forget some stupid reason

00:43:52   But anyway the sticks you can have sticks of different heights

00:43:55   because if you have a longer stick it lets you do more precise sort of like aiming when you're sniping where you can move your

00:44:01   thumb a longer distance and the stick will move a

00:44:03   Smaller amount because the the stick is longer you can choose what kind of caps you want

00:44:08   You want them to be concave or convex you want them to be smooth or grippy?

00:44:11   And then this comes with like a little tool where you can change the tension on

00:44:16   The the the analog sticks to make them stiffer or looser. Oh my god on the backside of the thing

00:44:22   There are triggers where on the regular Xbox controller and the regular places control

00:44:26   There's no buttons down there

00:44:27   Like I mean like on the total underside like there's just the smooth bottom right on this thing

00:44:31   You have two sets of triggers both of which are magnetic and removable

00:44:36   So if you just want one trigger on either side you can put that if you want to you want one two on one side

00:44:39   One on the other whatever you essentially have four new buttons that you can press without

00:44:43   Moving your thumbs from the thumb stick if you want on the front side of the thing

00:44:48   It's got the normal you know l1 and l2 triggers the l2 triggers have

00:44:52   Adjustable stops and then default position that you can pull the triggers all the way in just like a regular Xbox controller

00:44:58   But you also have two other positions including one where they barely move at all and that's good for again a game

00:45:04   Where like say you're trying to use a sniper in a game and you keep getting out snipes because it actually takes time for you

00:45:08   To pull the trigger you start pulling the trigger

00:45:11   But it doesn't actually fire until the trigger gets to the end of it's like one centimeter travel

00:45:15   Well with these things cranked all the way up you have like two millimeters of travel

00:45:19   And so you have a little bit more reaction time

00:45:22   You know edge on your opponent or maybe you just like the way that feels better

00:45:26   the thing

00:45:28   Looks expensive everything in it is like the the controls like the sticks and everything are all made of metal the d-pad is made of

00:45:35   Metal the triggers are all made of metal the bottom triggers. I mean it's a high quality grippy material it is

00:45:41   Rechargeable it is super heavy it comes in a case with a little

00:45:44   Recharging pad inside the case so you can charge it when it's in the case

00:45:47   But you can also take that out of the case it comes with all the different

00:45:50   You know knobs and things that you can put on it it

00:45:52   When you hold it you're like okay? This looks and feels

00:45:57   like a $180 controller because it really really does and

00:46:01   That I think is its first and one of its biggest problems

00:46:05   When you make something feel like a hundred and eighty dollar controller

00:46:08   Like you know just like it like a car interior everything is made of metal, and it's heavy and it's smooth and silky

00:46:16   Those are qualities that make something feel expensive

00:46:19   But I'm not entirely sure that the qualities you want in

00:46:23   controller parts

00:46:26   It's kind of like the controller equivalent of unsprung weight on a car

00:46:29   By making the snail of six all out of metal

00:46:33   They are heavier, and they have more momentum when you move them and even on the loosest setting

00:46:38   I feel like these are a little bit stiffer than I would like them

00:46:41   Having a controller that weighs

00:46:43   Maybe twice as much as a regular controller means you have to hold that controller

00:46:47   And it's more tiring to hold a heavy controller

00:46:50   The controller itself has more sort of

00:46:54   Inertia if you're the type of person who moves around a lot when you play I

00:46:57   Feel the extra weight of all the controls and the controls that aren't metal like the buttons aren't metal and that and the two front triggers

00:47:05   Aren't metal I like them better because they're plastic because they feel light and they feel easier to press

00:47:10   Second thing is the triggers no console that's shipping as far as I know has these triggers on the bottom

00:47:17   And it's weird to have triggers on the bottom

00:47:19   It means that if you've never used a control like this you're not used to it

00:47:22   I tried to play destiny and this is Apple you can map every single one of these

00:47:26   Controls to whatever you want right so I tried to mapping them to something reasonable

00:47:29   So I could keep both my thumbs on the thumb stick and do all the things I would normally do

00:47:32   And I played for hours

00:47:35   It was very very difficult to sort of remap my brain to use the triggers in the end

00:47:39   I decided I would rather just not have the triggers on so I took the triggers off

00:47:42   But when you take the triggers off there's the little holes where the triggers go and you could feel them

00:47:48   underneath with your fingers and finally this is not a fault of this controller, but I'm used to the PlayStation and

00:47:53   On the PlayStation the two analog sticks are lower down

00:47:57   Which is not a great position for them ergonomically except in one case L3

00:48:01   Which means pressing in on the left stick is what the default mapping and destiny is for run

00:48:05   And I'm very used to pressing in on the left analog stick to initiate run

00:48:09   Which is thing you do constantly in the game with the analog stick in the quote unquote better position

00:48:14   I have less leverage like in the Xbox version where it's a pie I have less leverage to push down

00:48:19   The thumb stick to run so very often

00:48:22   I would try to run and fail to press it partly because of the position also partly because

00:48:26   Everything on this controller is heavier and stiffer stiffer, right?

00:48:29   That's one of the reasons I was trying to use the trigger to run because like why do you have to use press in on L3?

00:48:34   Is that awkward just use one of the triggers, but I just feel like I feel like a piano player is running out of fingers

00:48:39   It's like yeah, I have all these triggers and everything

00:48:41   But like some some part of my hands needs to hold the controller like I can't have my pointer fingers

00:48:48   Handling the trigger handling the front triggers and then two other fingers handling the bottom triggers

00:48:53   What's and then the thumb on the stick? What's left? I've got like I've got like my pinky and

00:48:58   That's it. I'm a pinky and like on the side of my hand holding the controller

00:49:03   I just feel like I don't know I feel like or maybe like someone trying to

00:49:07   stop leaks in a dam by sticking their fingers and all the different holes and you just run out of fingers and you're like

00:49:12   the controller as a piece of

00:49:16   Hardware is beautiful. You would love the interior of your car to look and feel like this the controller as a just plain controller

00:49:22   It's pretty good except that it's heavy

00:49:24   But for me personally as a someone who's played destiny on the PlayStation for a long long long time

00:49:30   I could not remap my brain to this controller, which is disappointing now

00:49:34   I tried using in other things besides destiny that are sort of less hardcore and there was much more successful like playing a basic arcade game

00:49:40   That just requires to stick in some buttons feels great because the stakes are lower like I played sayonara wild hearts

00:49:45   Which is not quite as high stress or whatever as a competitive game like destiny and that felt great

00:49:50   The only other complaint I have is that I do like the triggers to be in the you know, sort of two millimeter travel position

00:49:56   But when you put them in any position except for the default maximum travel position

00:50:01   They feel different when you pull them in the in the default position you pull the triggers and it feels great

00:50:06   It's like they're like they come to an end and it's like a soft landing in the other positions

00:50:11   It must put like a stop there and the stop is hard. So suddenly they make a harsh click stop

00:50:15   It doesn't feel like it's broken, but it feels

00:50:18   It feels less pleasant than the default position. So basically the the default position is

00:50:23   privileged to have a

00:50:26   Gentler nicer feel and all the other ones feel kind of like you're hitting against a stop because you are right

00:50:31   I never used the series 1 of this thing. So I don't know what they improved in the series 1 to the series 2 but

00:50:35   This is a really cool product if you are super into controllers

00:50:41   Especially if you're an Xbox player and you're already used to the shape because by the way

00:50:44   It's pretty much the same shape as a regular Xbox controller

00:50:47   So if you are used to Xbox controller shape and think you might like triggers go to find this in a store and try it

00:50:53   Out I think you'll be impressed with it

00:50:56   I would have no problem paying this amount of money or more for a PlayStation equivalent of the same controller

00:51:03   but right now after playing with us for many hours when I went back to my

00:51:07   PlayStation controller and played destiny just felt like coming home and it was just so much lighter and nicer and yes

00:51:13   Even though you know after several years in destiny, maybe one of my trigger squeaks, you know what happens when that happens

00:51:18   I just spend 50 more bucks and buy a brand new

00:51:20   PS4 controller and I'm a lot happier

00:51:24   Thanks to cotton beer sponsoring our show

00:51:26   If you want a chance to get one of these things

00:51:29   Go to cotton beer use code ATP at checkout to get 10% off through September 10th

00:51:33   And you'll have a chance to win this ridiculous thing. Thanks cotton beer

00:51:36   There's been something in the show notes for I don't like a month ish my sonology

00:51:45   Yes

00:51:46   Oh and I really really really want to hear about this and

00:51:50   I also am going to piggyback on this at some point and I have a request for the listeners. God help me

00:51:55   So I'll talk about that at the end

00:51:57   But all I know is in the show notes is Marco's sinology. What's going on friend?

00:52:04   So I teased Casey at the very very very end of the after show a few weeks back

00:52:11   thing that I might one of their snot and and then stop the show which was amazing and

00:52:19   I'm not sure that's the word I would use to describe it. But sure let's go with that. Yes, so

00:52:24   the problem I'm trying to solve is

00:52:27   I

00:52:30   recognize with a massive disclaimer upfront

00:52:32   the

00:52:34   firstest of all first world problems

00:52:36   even for me

00:52:39   Okay, so with that disclaimer out of the way

00:52:43   We have been spending more time this summer at the beach than usual

00:52:50   the sinology is

00:52:52   Back at my house not at the beach. I am NOT going to get a second wheeled suitcase to bring that

00:52:58   Whenever I come here, that's not gonna happen. So basically the longer I spent at the beach the more I am without my sinology

00:53:08   Because my iMac is here with me

00:53:11   what that also means is

00:53:14   By not being with in the same household as my sinology what that also means is

00:53:19   that I don't have time machine backup for my iMac and

00:53:22   That I don't have access to my archive drive where I put like, you know archive podcast files of episodes

00:53:29   you've already recorded and stuff like that and

00:53:31   It also provides like extra storage for other like, you know massive files that won't fit for my computer and TIFF's laptop. So

00:53:40   Basically without that we have no time machine and no archive storage

00:53:46   Now I wanted to figure out okay. How is there some solution I can do to

00:53:51   Fix this problem in a useful way for me for the future

00:53:55   in the future we are going to be spending probably as much or more time at the beach as we do now and

00:54:02   so

00:54:04   Wanted to have something

00:54:06   something that I could have at the beach so that I could have the same functionality that I have as

00:54:12   My sinology at home. So basically archive storage and time machine one option I could do is

00:54:19   Set up a VPN between my house here and my house my other house. I know I'm sorry

00:54:26   and

00:54:29   And so like it's like an access the sinology from here from remotely and do time machine over a

00:54:36   network like over the big the biggest network and

00:54:40   And I know it would be slow, but I don't frequently need time machine

00:54:44   So it's already slow and you do it over the network

00:54:46   Anyway to have it be even slower by doing it over the internet basically would be inconvenient

00:54:52   But not fatally so like I don't I'm not using it every day

00:54:55   I'm backing up to it a lot, but you know, but I'm not I'm not like restoring from it

00:55:00   So I don't really see how slow it is. So that was one option

00:55:03   another option is I guess have a second time machine disk here and

00:55:09   That could be on a sinology. It could be a local disk who know, you know, it could be anything

00:55:12   But have a second thing here because time machine I think fairly easily

00:55:16   replicates to multiple disks

00:55:19   Like depending on what network it's on like you're you can you can have more than one disk register with time machine and it'll just do

00:55:24   What I think whichever one it can reach at any given time

00:55:26   So that's fine the archive storage

00:55:30   I didn't have as many good options for that unless I'm gonna do like remote access to my home sinology from here

00:55:35   Now my home sinology is the sinology that they sent us back when we first started talking about NASA's

00:55:42   I mean, what was that six years ago? It was a long time ago, right?

00:55:46   Do you remember what year that was? Well, I think it was 2013 because the model we have is the DS

00:55:51   1813 plus so that's an 8 bay model and it was

00:55:56   2013 vintage and so

00:55:59   At the time it was a phenomenally nice piece of hardware

00:56:03   I still use mine daily and it's still really nice. Although it's

00:56:07   Starting seven years on to feel a little bit old

00:56:11   But yeah, it's a very nice model and it's basically I think it was on the upper end

00:56:17   If not the top of the line for like either crazy home users or like small businesses

00:56:22   Yeah, and and so at the time we got them the biggest hard drive that I put in it

00:56:28   I think was either two or four terabytes

00:56:31   I think I started with all twos and slowly upgraded them to fours over time. I think I think that's how it happened

00:56:35   Regardless, you know capacities were much lower back then. So it's this it's this big 8 bay unit

00:56:41   I have all eight bays filled with this crazy arrangement of like striping and combinations and I scuzzy stuff

00:56:47   I don't recommend anybody actually do

00:56:49   Because it's crazy. But you know these days I would do things differently. So that's what I started thinking. Okay

00:56:54   For years, I've been thinking well if I was gonna start over I would do things a bit differently

00:57:00   I would do something simpler. I would use fewer discs. I would love to use all SSDs

00:57:05   But you know the pricing on that is kind of crazy a lot of times. So, you know, and so maybe I could get away with less storage

00:57:11   So all this factored in and I was thinking okay

00:57:15   well, maybe the right idea for the beach is to just get a small like two to four discs analogy and

00:57:22   have a second copy of time machine and

00:57:25   Basically have it be like for the most part time machine only or like time machine in a small archive drive

00:57:31   But I would still have my primary archive drive back at home

00:57:34   Second option hybrid have local time machine and then have the archive be accessed remotely from home

00:57:42   another option would be to

00:57:45   Move the archive to some kind of cloud storage thing

00:57:49   So, you know, however that would work whether it's something like back blaze because I'm already using back blaze for cloud backup

00:57:54   But I could also you know

00:57:56   Like cloud archive storage could be something something like where I store my files just on s3 or something, you know

00:58:03   So it's one someone one of the various cloud providers

00:58:05   So that's that's one option

00:58:07   but that gets pretty expensive when you're storing like many terabytes of back of archive data and

00:58:12   I don't love the idea of having archive data be like only in the cloud for just speed and access reasons

00:58:19   I don't I don't love that and a lot of its stuff like

00:58:22   Blu-rays that I've ripped that I wanted to play on my on Plex or something

00:58:26   It's like that's it seems kind of ridiculous to rip a blu-ray only to upload it to s3 and have to pay for it every month

00:58:32   That's I don't I don't love that either. I you know, I might as well just

00:58:36   Rebuy everything in digital formats and not to do worry about any of that stuff

00:58:41   So anyways, that's that's another whole thing. So I decided

00:58:45   Let me look at what Synology offers and they still offer tons of great stuff. This is not a an ad for them

00:58:51   You'll see why in a few minutes, but this

00:58:53   This is not an ad for them

00:58:56   But they still offer great stuff and I was looking at their current models and they have some nice really, you know small ones

00:59:01   But then I started thinking, you know, I don't I've been saying for years that

00:59:08   While I have a Synology, I don't really want one anymore

00:59:13   is getting a second one really gonna get me closer to my goal of simplicity and

00:59:21   Having you know less to deal with and not having as many systems to have to update and everything

00:59:25   okay now again another

00:59:28   disclaimer I

00:59:30   recognize

00:59:31   that the correct solution most people should do in the situation is

00:59:36   Just get a giant external hard drive and plug it directly into my computer and have that be time machine and archive storage

00:59:44   I could even get a little you know, two disk raid box that does hardware raid one

00:59:50   And have it mirror and have redundancy and everything. That would be amazing

00:59:54   Right hardware raid one with a couple of you know now because hard drives are so big now

00:59:59   You don't need a them anymore just to save my data

01:00:02   You need like one or at most two because you can get inexpensive ish like eight terabyte drives these days

01:00:10   Ten terabyte. I think they'll go up to sixteen now

01:00:14   They're so cartridges are so big now that you can just get a couple hard drives and be done with it

01:00:20   but at the beach I

01:00:22   Don't have a great place to put a spinning disk enclosure where I'm not going to hear it at home

01:00:29   I have the Synology in the garage

01:00:31   I have no care in the world for how much noise it makes because you can't hear that noise anywhere in the house

01:00:37   It's isolated enough from the house. It's fine. But here I don't have anywhere to put it where I could where I can't hear it and

01:00:43   I am

01:00:46   not at all interested in hearing a hard drive or

01:00:49   Fan noise or anything anywhere in this house. This is 2020 damn it. I'm not gonna hear

01:00:55   Disks and fans if I can help it if I'm if I'm sending something up that's new

01:01:00   I'm not gonna buy new discs and fans if I can help it

01:01:04   so I

01:01:06   Started looking into what are what are like?

01:01:08   SSD based options here

01:01:11   There's not a lot of good of good options out there for like SSD enclosures that are managed in some way now

01:01:18   You could also just use little like, you know disc bracket things and stick a bunch of SSDs into a Synology

01:01:25   There's nothing stopping you from doing that

01:01:26   They even sell a small one that is made specifically to hold a bunch of SSDs like this is a thing that you can do

01:01:32   but I started realizing, you know, this is

01:01:35   overkill

01:01:38   If I'm willing to just set a bit more money on fire. Oh, it's the Marco approach. I can just

01:01:44   plug an SSD enclosure

01:01:48   Directly into my iMac if I can get one that is like small enough ideally I would like

01:01:54   velcro tape it to the back of the iMac and just stick a short USB cable into the back and

01:02:01   Then I have a silent solution that moves with the iMac

01:02:07   wherever I bring the iMac as you know throughout the year and

01:02:11   I don't have to deal with having two different setups. I can have one setup. Are you getting it one?

01:02:18   Set up. Mm-hmm all in one. The iMac is an all-in-one computer. I can have all-in-one storage

01:02:24   All in one plus the wart. Yeah all in one

01:02:27   Yeah, plus a wart velcro to the back, but you can't see that from the front

01:02:30   So as far as far as I'm concerned, it's not there. It's invisible

01:02:32   You just got to make sure you get a wart that doesn't have a fan because you mentioned the SSD Synology

01:02:37   I bet that SSD Synology has a fan and the fan and the Synology the fan of Synology is gonna be the loudest thing by

01:02:42   Far so if you get if you tape it to the back of your computer

01:02:45   Just make sure whatever enclosure you get has no fans. Yeah, I believe me

01:02:48   I was looking at that because a lot of hard drive enclosures even have fans

01:02:51   Especially almost anything designed to hold multiple disks that it almost always has fans

01:02:55   However, I was able to find there are these I believe it's from Micron

01:03:00   There there are SSDs that are seven point six eight terabytes. So little you know, seven and a half terabytes

01:03:06   It is not they were not as expensive as you would expect a nearly eight terabyte SSD to be because they're not very fast

01:03:13   They're not very good, but I don't need them to be very fast or very good

01:03:18   I just need them to store a bunch of data in dead silence that I that I don't frequently access and

01:03:23   so I got two of

01:03:26   these seven point six terabyte kind of crappy SSDs put them in a

01:03:32   Whatever no name enclosure I found on Amazon that holds two SSDs and is fanless and is very lightweight

01:03:38   And it is not velcroed yet

01:03:40   I don't have any velcro tape at the moment, but it is sitting behind my iMac behind the little foot and I can't see it and

01:03:46   It is glorious. It just works. What is the interface?

01:03:51   USB it's USB three point something it who knows

01:03:56   But it has C and a cables and it's C on its end as crappy as those SSDs may be

01:04:02   They're starving to death behind your USB connection. Are they also SATA? They said

01:04:09   They sure are

01:04:11   Because again cuz speed doesn't matter for this application. No, but it's just like

01:04:14   The the chips are capable of one speed and then SATA is capable of a slower speed and then USB is capable of a slower speed

01:04:22   Still yep, you're right. They are silent. But like it's almost it's almost a shame that you couldn't buy cheaper worse SSDs

01:04:27   You know what? I mean to be even slower

01:04:28   I mean, maybe that their souls aren't being silent right now, but they're they're being held back, but it was totally fine

01:04:35   it is these things have worked perfectly and the total cost of

01:04:40   my

01:04:42   15 ish terabyte

01:04:44   fake Synology

01:04:46   Was not it was about 50% more than I would have spent on a comparable Synology setup now

01:04:53   50% more is a lot more that's not a small number, but it is so simple

01:04:59   It is just with the computer when I move the computer it will move with it like with no separate carrying of anything

01:05:06   I'll just you know, toss it in the iMac carrying case with everything else and

01:05:09   It's directly connected. It's backed up to backblaze with no problem because it's just an external drive

01:05:15   Time machine works very well locally and I was able to use the Mac OS sharing panel thing to set up

01:05:23   serve like a time machine server setup, which was

01:05:27   Not at all intuitive as it was set up set up time machine servers for my laptop and TIFs laptop to be able to back up

01:05:34   To this from when they're on the network

01:05:35   Which is wonderful because neither of those laptops had any time machine until now

01:05:39   And so now I have time machine archive storage and time machine for three for three computers and archive storage for all three computers all

01:05:46   Accessible over the network and everything all directly connected to my iMac Pro in a portable silent tiny solution

01:05:53   So while it is less capable than a Synology it does everything

01:05:58   I want it to do and it does it better than a Synology could because what I want is

01:06:02   Simplicity and smallness and silence and everything else and it only took a bit of money fire setting on

01:06:09   to

01:06:11   Whatever the verb for that is

01:06:12   It only took a bit of that to pay the premium for SSDs to be the storage medium instead of hard drives

01:06:18   But overall totally worth it

01:06:20   So if you had a Mac Pro like me you could get it was a new bent piece of metal little support ten

01:06:26   internal SATA

01:06:28   Did you see that recently some some company has come out with a whole series of bent metal bent pieces of metal for every combination

01:06:34   three three point five inch hard drives

01:06:37   Two two point five inches and one three point five inch and yes, their biggest one is ten two point five inch SSDs

01:06:43   That's fantastic all internal

01:06:45   So if you can find like if you could have a bunch of junk SSDs hanging around right just you know

01:06:50   I've got a 200 gigabyte one a 64 gigabyte one and just like

01:06:54   Pick them all in there and put them on raid zero. You can have your own very very cheap internal SSD

01:07:01   Yeah, I would I would totally have internal SSDs in this thing for my local backups

01:07:06   But I do not want to set that much more money on fire yet

01:07:09   eventually and eventually what I want to do is

01:07:12   stop using the four terabyte boot drive and start using a

01:07:18   Faster nvme card and a PCIe card because you can get faster for a terabyte SSDs that go in a PCI slot

01:07:24   And that would use that as my boot drive

01:07:26   But I don't I don't need to do that and it's also very expensive

01:07:30   So as usual Marco is living in all of our futures once the prices come down

01:07:33   I also will get rid of my spinning disks, but they're all internal and I'll replace them with internal SSDs and

01:07:39   Right now I'm external desk my boot camp drive and my big sir drive are both SSDs

01:07:45   So it's nice to be able and they're so tiny like, you know, my boot camp drive is it's in an enclosure

01:07:50   It looks like it has a 2.5 inch drive in it. But of course it doesn't

01:07:53   Above my big sir one has a thing that's like the size of a book of matches. It's a it's a one terabyte

01:07:59   Padded rubber book of matches. I can't it contains big sir plus a redundant copy of my photo library

01:08:05   Because that's where I put my second copy. Of course, but they're all disconnected now and yeah, well the big sir one is just gonna

01:08:11   Anyway, the boot camp one is connected and and I also and that enclosure that I got the the one for a big sir is

01:08:16   Thunderbolt so it's you know, it's not as fast as an internal SSD, but it's as fast as it can be externally

01:08:21   It's Thunderbolt 3. Yeah, that's nice

01:08:23   The downside of Thunderbolt 3 is or a Thunderbolt in general not only is do you have fewer options?

01:08:29   And they tend to be significantly more expensive. Yes, but also a lot of times the Thunderbolt controller chips inside the

01:08:35   Enclosures run so hot that they need fans and so that if you're trying to go look like a fanless setup

01:08:42   USB is almost always gonna give you that sooner than Thunderbolt will

01:08:46   Yeah, this doesn't have any fans like it's too small to have fancy. It's just a sealed rubber thing

01:08:50   Let me see what brand it is thing. I was like, so while John's doing that

01:08:52   What is the plan for the 8 base analogy and also dibs?

01:08:57   You want another seven year old Synology?

01:09:01   Maybe I'm not sure I found the brand but it's a brand whose name no one knows how to pronounce

01:09:06   LAC ie it's been around for ages Oh Lacey. I remember getting hard drives from them for my classic Mac

01:09:13   I always said Lacey. I always say Lacey in my head, but I don't know. I've never heard it

01:09:17   Anyway, this is a Lacey completely rubberized completely solid zero moving parts

01:09:21   One terabyte SSD and yes, it was expensive, but it's Thunderbolt and it's cool

01:09:26   It's a shame that it's got big sir on it. But oh, this will this will be one of my scratch drives for

01:09:31   Other random stuff. This is the problem with my with data inflation. Like Mark's got a good little bit but like I

01:09:37   you know I was

01:09:39   One terabyte was my boot drive for the longest time and then I graduated to four but this one which feels so good

01:09:45   But that means everything needs to graduate to four my time machine back

01:09:48   It needs to be able to own for my super duper back needs to be able to hold for that

01:09:52   Yep, it cascades from there

01:09:54   So unfortunately now I have all these one terabyte drives hanging around that are not useful to me

01:09:58   If they can't I can't use it for time machine. I can't use it for super duper

01:10:01   I can barely fit my photo library on it and that's gonna change so

01:10:05   Still waiting for those prices to go down, but someday I'll be able to achieve Marco's nirvana

01:10:10   Even better because my computer won't have won't have something taped to the side of it. Yeah, right

01:10:14   No, and you know just a quick little thing about your external disk problem here. This is one of the reasons why

01:10:21   Whenever I am shopping for disks storage SSDs or spinning or whatever

01:10:28   always buy the biggest ones you can because

01:10:31   The size of disk that you buy is directly related to its lifespan

01:10:37   Like it's useful lifespan in your setup the if you get one

01:10:42   That's like, you know half of what the current ones can go up to

01:10:45   You're gonna stop using that or you're gonna you're gonna stop having good reasons to use that or good ways to use that

01:10:50   You know in less time than if it was bigger

01:10:54   And so if you can get one that's bigger it will have a longer useful life and therefore while it is more expensive upfront

01:11:00   You will get more time out of it probably

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01:13:05   So why haven't you already bought yourself a Mac Pro since you're in the setting money on fire

01:13:11   Frame of mind then just buy a Mac Pro and fix the problem

01:13:16   You can get it with the wheels and use it to cart things to and from the freight thing

01:13:20   You don't need a wagon for it it is the wagon I actually thought about that because I thought basically

01:13:28   when my iMac was having the problems of like the the

01:13:33   seemingly possible overheating and it was you know kicking the fans up really easily I

01:13:37   Thought like am I gonna have to replace this and if so like

01:13:40   It's literally still this exact same as the iMac Pro that's for sale today

01:13:44   I wouldn't really feel good replacing with that. I want to you know I'm gonna replace this what is it a three-year-old computer now?

01:13:49   I'd want to get at least something better

01:13:51   You know faster, and so I thought about that I looked into that

01:13:54   And I also I thought I really thought about it again a few weeks ago

01:13:58   As as it was as it became clear after that like non update the iMac Pro is never getting updated

01:14:04   I thought well

01:14:05   I have a very busy fall ahead of me of development work

01:14:09   And I'm doing a lot more Swift than I was before and I'm hitting lots of wait time in my development workflow

01:14:16   even on this 10 core iMac Pro because Swift is so incredibly slow and so I

01:14:22   I'm like I mean it might actually pay if I can get something that's significantly faster than this

01:14:28   The amount of work I'm doing right now with with all this Swift crap

01:14:31   You know I could save real time here

01:14:33   And so I looked into it, and I looked into benchmarks and looked into pricing all again

01:14:37   I even thought like maybe I should get another iMac Pro just with a faster CPU

01:14:42   like like up to the 24 or 28 core or whatever and I looked at everything and

01:14:47   the reality is that the

01:14:49   When when the iMac Pro came out whatever it was three years ago, and we were all like this is incredible

01:14:57   It's because it was three years ahead of the curve

01:15:01   What you can get now in an iMac Pro or a Mac Pro

01:15:06   You have to spend so much money to make it meaningfully faster

01:15:12   Than the three-year-old 10 core iMac Pro that existed back then that I'm still using today. You have to spend like

01:15:18   twelve fifteen thousand dollars on a setup to make it meaningfully faster than that and

01:15:24   if you do that the fastest you can get is

01:15:27   Like twice as fast. It's not you're not making it like five times faster by doing that you're not you're not making it like

01:15:34   Massively faster you're making twice as fast which is very fast, but

01:15:40   for the for that amount of money and

01:15:43   Disruption and everything it's just it's not worth it to me so believe me. I did consider that

01:15:47   But it's it's just not worth it. You shouldn't be buying an Intel based Mac Pro right now

01:15:53   It's like it's you know

01:15:55   It's the arm transitions happening if you can hold out wait for the for in two years wait for the arm

01:16:00   Mac Pro, and if you still got the edge then that one should be considerably faster and much cooler

01:16:06   And that's the one to get buying spending tons of money on an Intel Mac Pro now when you're not entirely sure that you have

01:16:12   A use case for it is not a good idea

01:16:14   Yeah, and I came in the same conclusion as well like that yeah

01:16:17   this is not a great time to invest extremely heavily into a very expensive Intel setup and

01:16:21   You know especially and what made it even easier to accept is that my iMac Pro has stopped having that overheating problem

01:16:28   I like when I moved it to the beach this summer

01:16:31   I guess I must have dislodged a dust clod somewhere in it or something and it doesn't have that problem anymore

01:16:35   Well, it's just more relaxed at the beach

01:16:37   It doesn't although it doesn't heat up as much. Maybe it's going in the water, but the salt air getting in there

01:16:43   Yeah, really just it's corroding some pieces of metal. It's allowing the air flow more freely

01:16:49   Yeah, it is so interesting question from woofed in the chat room who asks, but Marco

01:16:55   What would you buy today if your iMac Pro was stolen slash burnt?

01:16:59   And that's this I always loved this question

01:17:02   When thinking about like how happy you are with your current purchase like if it just disappeared and you had to replace it today

01:17:09   What would you replace it with I've waffled on that as well. I think I would probably

01:17:15   Still get an iMac Pro, but I would give it like a 50/50

01:17:20   maybe shot that maybe I'd lean towards the Mac Pro just because again like I would want it to be

01:17:25   Better than what I had if I'm if I'm going if I'm forced to replace it today

01:17:29   I would want it to be some kind of upgrade

01:17:31   I wouldn't you know, even though it makes no sense logically logically

01:17:36   I should still get the iMac Pro because here's the thing. I'd be like John I wouldn't tolerate some crappy monitor

01:17:42   I'd have to get the XDR. And so you're again you're looking at like a

01:17:46   $15,000 combo here it would be it would be ridiculous

01:17:49   But I would I would feel bad

01:17:52   but like spending iMac Pro money on a

01:17:56   Computer that I had already had for three years and there wouldn't be that much better

01:18:01   Like, you know, maybe I get a higher CPU or something this time

01:18:03   But like overall it wouldn't be that much different than what I have already had. So I would I would

01:18:09   Probably rationalize a Mac Pro and XDR setup, even though it would be a terrible use of money

01:18:15   So I'm hoping my iMac Pro lasts until there is an ARM

01:18:20   Something or other that I want to replace it with. Oh my all right

01:18:24   So let me hang off this subject with a request for help

01:18:27   so a

01:18:29   Friend Chris Gray who is one of the hosts of the starports 75 Disney themed podcast

01:18:35   Which I made an appearance on a while back actually a couple times

01:18:39   he had a

01:18:40   for base analogy, I forget what vintage but a little newer than ours that he wasn't using and sent to me and

01:18:45   My thought at the time was this is perfect

01:18:50   I will make a redundant copy of my snow

01:18:52   like I'll put big fat drives in this thing and I'll make a redundant copy of my Synology onto it and

01:18:57   Then god forbid I have an issue like I had a few months ago

01:19:01   There will be effectively a second Synology ready to go at a moment's notice and Oh bonus

01:19:08   my parents are about to get gigabit internet at their house like I have although a different provider and

01:19:14   so

01:19:16   Perfect. I will just put it at dad's mom and dad's house. I will sync to that Synology and everything will be great

01:19:22   What I want to know is what is the right way to set up that replication because I did I think it's called shared folder sync

01:19:31   I forget exactly what it is, but it's basically like it's a Synology of rapper

01:19:35   Okay, so hold on so it's basically a Synology wrapper around our sink and I can tell you it took literally a week or two

01:19:41   To get everything synced across this is locally on you know on a gigabit network in my house

01:19:46   It took forever and then it's been extremely unreliable

01:19:51   And I think a lot of that is because my parents have this extraordinarily weird like local ISP

01:19:56   And maybe we can talk about that in the after show if we don't something better, but nevertheless

01:20:00   It's not working across the internet

01:20:05   Really at all and I think some of that is user error on my part and some of that is

01:20:10   Their ISP and some weirdness with like the way they're doing, you know port forwarding and things like that

01:20:15   So anyway leaving in the ISP side aside

01:20:18   What is the best and most appropriate way?

01:20:22   Using onboard Synology software like I don't want to have to install some other weird thing

01:20:28   I don't want to run something in Docker like using what Synology provides

01:20:32   What is the correct way to make a complete an entire duplicate of my Synology?

01:20:38   To or my between my two Synology's and then keep them in sync. What is the right answer?

01:20:44   Let me tell you why shared folder sync isn't the right solution

01:20:48   I use shell photos sync locally as well because I do it like a backup of a subset of my Synology to a second Synology

01:20:54   that I have and I use shared folder sync for it and

01:20:56   Because it's like basically, you know, I don't know if it's running our sync band the covers, but it's like periodically

01:21:02   It runs and says oh stuff has changed. Let me copy it over there

01:21:05   If you're making changes to the source drive while it's trying to copy it gets angry and it's like oh

01:21:11   I tried to copy but the copy failed because the file moved out of the way and it's like yeah

01:21:15   That's gonna happen because you know activity is happening on the source though

01:21:19   And what you want from a comprehensive backup is yeah

01:21:22   I know things are going to be happening on the source your job as a

01:21:25   Backup program is to make copies to the destination and not bother me about it because of course

01:21:30   I'm gonna continue to add files and delete files and modify files in the source and you've just got to handle that and

01:21:34   Shared folder sync does not handle it gracefully now Synology has a feature. I don't know. I wish I knew the name

01:21:41   Maybe it's a part of hyper backup that does exactly what you want, which is I've got two Synology's

01:21:45   Make this one a backup of the other one

01:21:48   I've never used this feature

01:21:50   But it's not shared folder sync and it does exactly the job that you say you want to do

01:21:56   So I have to imagine it works better than shell for share folder sync and B

01:22:00   Will just copy everything like you want, right?

01:22:03   So go to the hyper backup thing and see if you can find me like whatever replicate my entire Synology to another Synology because that

01:22:09   feature definitely exists

01:22:11   All right

01:22:11   Well if you listener have done this before with two Synology's and have tips or write up that I can follow

01:22:18   Please please let me know because I really want to make this work and right now it's not working

01:22:22   Just use just launch hyper backup. It'll be obvious Synology is just like it's the interface with a bunch of checkboxes and screens

01:22:28   You can just figure it out. Well, but the thing is

01:22:30   There's hyper backup and then there's like a hyper backup vault like already

01:22:35   I'm confused and don't know what the right answer is

01:22:37   And the thing is under the covers ideally would be great if you used a file system that supports snapshots on both the source and

01:22:43   The destination I don't know if that's possible on your source because it's so old

01:22:47   But it would probably make the job of the backup software easier

01:22:51   I don't know if you have that level of control, but it's something worth considering especially if you haven't I mean

01:22:55   No, you just said you did a big backup

01:22:56   But like if you're willing to reformat your new one and if it's if it supports BTR FS I would use that everywhere

01:23:02   Just on the off chance that it does snapshots. Yeah, the new one is on BTR FS

01:23:07   The old one is very much not it's on X 2 or X 3 or whatever it is

01:23:11   For I think I one way or another I I feel like this has got to be a solved problem

01:23:17   And I have looked around on several different occasions and looked a lot

01:23:22   and tried to figure out what the right way is and I'm either a dummy or

01:23:26   Synology software is not the best. I don't know what it is, but I could not and cannot figure it out

01:23:32   So if you have done this and it doesn't I don't necessarily care if it's a perfect live backup

01:23:38   Like a daily backup would be sufficient for me, but and I don't necessarily need like high availability

01:23:45   You know, I just said earlier on like oh I could swoop it in in a moment

01:23:48   So it's like I don't expect like failover or anything crazy like that

01:23:51   I just want to be able to say in a desperation scenario. Oh god, the one in my house has died

01:23:58   I can drive an hour. Don't be creepy and pick up the other one and bring it to my house and have

01:24:03   98 percent of my data there and I don't think that's too much to ask and I gotta imagine this is all this is a

01:24:09   Solved problem with synologies, but like I said for the life me I can't figure it out

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01:26:16   Ask ATP, let's do it. All right, we start with Ron Olson who is also grumbling about disk related things Ron writes

01:26:27   I can never seem to get an accurate idea of how much disk space is left on my computer with APFS

01:26:31   I rarely reboot my Mac. I've noticed available disk space on my Mac's hard drive is always decreasing

01:26:37   I remember that this is APFS and begrudgingly reboot to discover that most if not all the disk space is magically back

01:26:43   I've researched this and APFS has quote free space quote quote purgeable space quote and to which I say big frickin deal

01:26:51   I just want to know whether I can copy the those enormous files to my machine and I can't seem to get an accurate idea either

01:26:56   From the finder or DF or anywhere else how much space I have free

01:27:00   Is there anything that will actually tell this info that anyone knows about for all of each of us pluses shortcomings?

01:27:05   At least I always knew how much space I had used on the disk if only to mourn its loss when HFS

01:27:10   HFS plus corrupted it. What do you do John? Yeah

01:27:14   Well, it sounds like Ron understands the issue here

01:27:16   like APFS supports things like snapshots and the way snapshots work is like it just takes a

01:27:23   As it says a point in time image of your disk and then later if you make changes like say deleting a gigantic file

01:27:30   The snapshot retains the space that that file was using because yeah, you deleted it and you don't see it anymore

01:27:36   But you have a snapshot from an hour ago and that thing still existed and the snapshot will keep that file around

01:27:42   Obviously snapshots don't you know, it's not like it doubles the storage

01:27:45   You can take snapshots all day long and just the differences between the snapshots are preserved, right?

01:27:51   How that manifests is

01:27:53   You know Mac OS is periodically taking snapshots behind the scenes whether you know it or not

01:27:58   And when you delete that big file

01:28:00   You don't get the space back because that big file exists in one or more snapshots doesn't matter how many snapshots it's in

01:28:06   It only exists once right but like you don't get the space back because to get the space back would mean

01:28:11   Destroying that snapshot because that snapshot is like what your computer was like before you deleted that file and in order for that snapshot to

01:28:18   Exist your big files still got to be there which means it's still got to be on your disk that and

01:28:22   The distinction of like free space versus particular space yada yada

01:28:26   That's more of a user interface thing as far as the file systems concerned. It's all just space that's being used

01:28:32   We decide that snapshots are purgeable because we decide you know what if I have to ditch that snapshot I

01:28:38   Can because the user doesn't even know it's there and we're just using it for backup versus and yada yada

01:28:43   So we'll call that purgeable space. So if the operating system ever needs more disk space

01:28:47   I've got a whole bunch of snapshots

01:28:49   I've been taking one every hour and I keep ten around if you want some more space just delete some snapshots which snapshots which one

01:28:57   Which deleting which snapshot will free up the most space all you'd have to dip the snapshots and see which files are unique to them

01:29:02   And stuff like that or whatever, but that's what the OS considers purgeable

01:29:06   But as far as the file systems concerned there, it's all just data

01:29:11   the problem with Mac OS is that it does a really really bad job of

01:29:16   Freeing up space when you need it, right?

01:29:19   So it's not the display because the display could you know?

01:29:21   What is the truth the display can tell the truth in various ways it can show all the space used it can show

01:29:26   The space minus the purgeable space but whatever it shows the promise that it should be keeping is if you

01:29:32   Suddenly need more disk space it either needs to tell you

01:29:36   I

01:29:38   Can't give you more disk space unless you delete such and such snapshots and here's how much space you would say

01:29:41   That would be one option or even better what it would do is ditch snapshots behind the scenes to say well

01:29:47   They need the disk space

01:29:48   So I'm gonna have to abandon those snapshots because those snapshots are happening not because the user asked for them

01:29:53   But just because it's a thing that time machine does and it's a useful thing and you can save your butt if you have a file

01:29:58   That you didn't want to delete you can recover it but those features are not well exposed in the OS

01:30:01   So I think what Mac OS should be doing is

01:30:04   aggressively purging

01:30:06   Snapshots to give you free space what it actually does is nothing like you try to copy and it's like oh, sorry. It's not enough space

01:30:13   It's like yeah, but make space

01:30:15   And so what I end up having to do is go to TM util this local snapshots or whatever

01:30:20   You can do it manually from the command line very very painfully and manually deleting snapshots

01:30:25   Everywhere you go in the Mac OS talks are like oh Mac OS will automatically purge space for you as needed but it won't I

01:30:31   Mean it will maybe eventually but not when you need it to and there's no good user interface with like buttons and stuff to do

01:30:39   To make it do what you want

01:30:40   Rebooting apparently triggers some process that trims back the snapshots or whatever which is why people think oh, I rebooted now

01:30:47   I have my free space

01:30:48   but

01:30:49   It's it's a terrible system and it's not the fault of the file system. It's the fault of the OS

01:30:53   that's managing the file system because

01:30:55   tons of these really cool features are

01:30:57   Not exposed anywhere to the user people have no idea that they're even happening and no matter what they show in the free space

01:31:04   Well, it's in DF or in the finder or whatever. It's not useful or actionable information

01:31:10   So you it's like you either lying to the user and telling them they have more free space than they actually have or you're telling them

01:31:16   The truth and it's frustrating because I just threw out a 20 gig file and I don't have 20 gigs more of this space

01:31:20   What do I do now? How do I get this space back and people learn experimentally?

01:31:24   Well, it turns out if I reboot now it suddenly tells me have 20 more gigs of free space. That's terrible

01:31:28   So I really hope Mac OS gets its act together when it comes to disk space

01:31:32   But if you're gonna assign blame, it's not the file system, which has lots of cool features

01:31:38   It's the operating system on top of it that doesn't

01:31:40   Use those features very well and doesn't have any sort of GUI interface to those features

01:31:44   I'm hesitant to recommend people look at the TM util man page because time machine is usually I think it's creating the snapshots

01:31:51   because

01:31:53   You can kind of hose yourself if you're not careful

01:31:56   With TM util like you don't want to destroy your backups or accidentally delete them and sometimes deleting a snapshot can take a long time

01:32:02   and you have to distinguish between the snapshots that are in a time machine backup versus the local snapshots and

01:32:07   You have to copy and paste these really long paths with quote characters around them because they have spaces in them and it's just

01:32:12   It's kind of exhausting. So I don't quite recommend people do that if

01:32:16   Rebooting is your workaround for freeing up space and that works for you. That is definitely a safer move

01:32:22   Than trying to mess with the TM util command-line tool and in the meantime

01:32:26   We'll just all wait for the operating system to catch up with the features of the file system

01:32:30   How long is a PFS been around it's been like two or three years, right?

01:32:33   Yeah, and Big Sur brings the version of time machine that in theory understands a PFS better

01:32:38   So I'm looking forward to that but as far as I'm aware Big Sur does not provide any GUI to

01:32:43   Snapshot disk usage. Maybe it's better about freeing up space

01:32:47   I haven't tried it enough to know but

01:32:49   What I would want to happen is I dragged the big file over and when it says about to copy 20 gigs at that

01:32:54   Moment, it says well, it's not enough space. But before I throw up the dialog box, it says not enough space

01:32:58   Let me check if there's any that so-called purgeable space and if there is throw up a second dialog that says

01:33:04   Purging free space to make room for the thing that you copied and show me that progress bar

01:33:08   And then when that's done do the copy that would be a better interface

01:33:10   agreed

01:33:12   Michael Grossman writes have you considered the idea that the Mac menu bar is going to move to become window chrome this year

01:33:17   This is what's going to fix the active window discoverability problem in Big Sur and some others

01:33:21   But they couldn't show it before showing the new all interaction models touch iMac with the boom style lowering stand in the back

01:33:27   I'll have surface studio. So what does this mean is?

01:33:29   Michael talking about like having the menu bar within the window chrome like window style. Is that what this means? That's how I interpret it

01:33:36   Yeah, no way. That's what that's what I thought but no way. I don't see it happening

01:33:41   I don't even see so yeah

01:33:43   So not only do I agree with you that I don't think they're going to do that

01:33:46   if you just think about it from like a pragmatic point of view the

01:33:49   Developer Advanced notice for that would be significant because if you're moving the menu bar into each application's active window

01:33:58   you're changing the dimensions and behavior and theme and

01:34:02   Appearance of every active window potentially and that's something that developers would need to adopt to over time

01:34:08   So they wouldn't that would be something that they would most likely do you know in the wDC?

01:34:14   Preview beta thing not in the fall like one week before hardware. Here's the gm version kind of thing

01:34:21   That's a very big change so that they wouldn't I don't know do that, but this question was also predicated on the assumption that oh

01:34:26   Yeah, also, they're going to have like basically a server studio style iMac where you're going to be able to touch everything on desktop and one

01:34:33   unified

01:34:34   You know physical interface you can touch or mouse everything and I I don't think that's going to happen either. I do think it's

01:34:41   potentially likely

01:34:43   Although not a guarantee that all apple Silicon Macs might have touch screens. That's possible I

01:34:50   Don't think that's the most likely outcome honestly

01:34:53   I think the most likely outcome is we still have Macs that are non touchable

01:34:59   That are untouchable. I don't think they're ever going to make desktops have touch screens

01:35:04   I don't ever see Apple making the

01:35:08   Surface studio style iMac as a giant like drafting table or easel kind of thing where you can bring it down and start touching it

01:35:14   I don't I don't see that happening if they're going to have touch Macs. I think they're going to be laptops and

01:35:20   Even that I think is not necessarily a guarantee that that's going to happen again. I think it's possible

01:35:26   Maybe even likely on an infinite timescale, but I wouldn't say it's a given and I don't think they're ever going to have touch desktops

01:35:35   I run a past show where I talked about how happy I was that the Mac used command

01:35:39   For its common keystrokes, you know for cut copy paste and like the primary modifier because that left control available for Unix

01:35:46   So I could have this one operating system where control is Unix land and command is Mac land

01:35:51   the menu bar in the window is in the same class of

01:35:55   Issue in that

01:35:58   What windows did was such a terrible mistake?

01:36:01   And now they have to live with it forever of not having a menu bar at the top of the screen probably because they just

01:36:06   Didn't want to copy Apple probably because they were too busy copying next which had a whole different notion of what to do with menu

01:36:10   Bars, right, but the menu bar at the top of the screen as opposed to being in every window is such a genius idea

01:36:16   Especially if you use a computer like I do

01:36:19   Actually having multiple windows not making everything full screen if you make everything full screen

01:36:23   It's the same thing because the menu bar is at the top of the screen

01:36:25   It's at the top of the window chrome and you only ever see one window

01:36:27   That's not how I use computers having the menu bar in every single one of my million windows is a huge waste of space

01:36:34   And of course, there's the whole Fitz law thing of it's harder to target with the mouse cursor and blah blah blah, right?

01:36:39   I think people who like it in the men in the windows would say well

01:36:42   It's a waste of space to have that menu bar on the top of the screen. It's always visible taking up space

01:36:46   Since the years when we used to argue about that Mac OS has a feature that lets you hide the menu bar

01:36:51   So it doesn't even need to take up a space when you're not using it

01:36:53   So if you don't ever use the menu bar, it's not even visible

01:36:55   Menu bar and window was a terrible terrible windows mistake along with using control as the main modifier key

01:37:01   And I'm so glad the Mac never did that and it never will

01:37:04   Finally Jake Bennett young writes Marco. Do you have a target loudness which apparently is LU

01:37:11   I hear a large range of loudness between individual podcasts and few and few similar to a known standard

01:37:17   Which is music some podcasts even differ from episode to episode. I'm always riding that volume rocker

01:37:23   First of all, if you want your podcast to all be the same volume I

01:37:28   Suggest I'm so unbiased that you use overcast and that you use the voice boost feature because that is literally what it does

01:37:34   It is literally volume normalization to a particular target loudness now that target loudness

01:37:41   For for what I make versus what voice boost is in the units

01:37:45   I use LU FS which I I think LU is

01:37:51   I think you know LU FS is LU relative to its loudness units relative to full-scale

01:37:55   I think it's the same thing or at least in practice. It's the same thing. Anyway, my

01:38:00   mastering target is

01:38:03   Approximately 14 to 16 LU FS as output what I do first is I master all the tracks to

01:38:11   negative 16 and then I bring them into logic and logic is applying a very slight amount of

01:38:18   Compression dynamics compression two weeks track and then you know outputting it that way

01:38:22   So it probably boosted up a couple maybe, you know one or two more so it might hit negative 14 then

01:38:27   So I do think negative 16 is a good mastering level for tracks. It's it's loud, but not too loud

01:38:33   voice boost

01:38:36   Normalizes everything to negative 14 in most circumstances

01:38:40   I actually do it a little bit louder if using the iPhone speaker

01:38:43   The built-in speaker on the iPhone just so you can get a little more volume out of the speaker

01:38:46   But the the standard configuration of voice boost for most cases that are not the iPhone speaker is negative 14 LU FS

01:38:54   cool

01:38:56   Alright, thanks to our sponsors this week

01:38:58   Squarespace, Eero and Cotton Bureau and thank you to our members this month as usual go to ATP that FM

01:39:06   Slash join if you want to join them and we will talk to you next week

01:39:13   Now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental

01:39:20   It was accidental

01:39:23   John did any research Margo and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental

01:39:30   Was accidental

01:39:33   And you can find the show notes at ATP

01:39:37   FM and if you're into Twitter

01:39:42   You can follow them at

01:39:44   Cas

01:39:46   ey L

01:39:48   ISS so that's Casey lists and a RC o a RM

01:39:52   anti Marco Arman

01:39:55   SIR AC

01:39:58   USA, Syracuse

01:40:00   It's accidental

01:40:02   Marco you've been running recently. What's that about? Well, I wouldn't say incredibly recently

01:40:18   This has been in the show notes for about 11 D billion years. So that's understandable. But tell me about your running

01:40:26   I started running the meeting this summer

01:40:29   Tiff went through a big, you know learning to run thing about a year ago

01:40:32   and

01:40:33   I didn't want to do it because I hated it and didn't think I could do it because I have

01:40:39   Some mild asthma and didn't have incredible lung capacity for like high aerobic activity

01:40:44   I can do like moderate aerobic stuff for a long time, but higher aerobic stuff

01:40:47   I really I couldn't do and I thought that was it. I thought well, I just can't do running because of that and

01:40:53   Eventually, I decided you know what? Let me try. Let me see

01:40:57   Because running as an exercise form has a lot of potential upsides, you know

01:41:03   There's a lot of convenience factors with running. There is no equipment that you need. You don't have to be in certain locations

01:41:10   I mean, you know certain conditions might help but like you can do you can run

01:41:14   Pretty much anywhere you are much of the year. Although certainly not all of the year if you're somewhere with winter and you have lungs

01:41:23   But you can you know, you can run as a casual runner in lots of conditions and you don't need and you can

01:41:30   You know

01:41:31   You can use a treadmill if you're in like a hotel gym or something

01:41:33   Like there's all sorts of places and contexts where you can run and you don't need a whole bunch of specialty

01:41:38   Specialty gear in most cases. So it's a very appealing thing that this is an action. I should do it's also high aerobic activity and

01:41:46   I've been doing a lot of exercising and various fitness improvements over the last few years

01:41:52   But I didn't have that component of it really solve. I didn't do a lot of high aerobic activity

01:41:58   I do have a rowing machine and I love rowing

01:42:03   Like I have no trouble doing that. I I'm

01:42:06   That is that has been ever since I got it like last fall. That has been my exercise of choice. I

01:42:14   Love rowing and it's great

01:42:16   but I'm not getting to those like super high heart rates that you can get when running and

01:42:21   It's something that you need a rowing machine to do which I don't always have

01:42:25   You aren't getting to like equivalent heart rates on a rowing machine because I haven't rode in 20 years

01:42:31   But my parents used to have one and that thing would destroy me. It was

01:42:36   extremely difficult to do like well in

01:42:39   In the sense that it is a tremendous amount of work to row with any sort of quickness or speed

01:42:45   my high heart rate when rowing is usually somewhere around like

01:42:51   130

01:42:52   Whereas when running it's like 150 like that's that's kind of where I top out. Yeah, you should row faster

01:42:57   I mean, I just I've tried that but like, you know

01:43:00   If I row fast enough to really get it up there my arms get tired too quickly

01:43:04   So I do a kind of you know moderate to quick pace. I think I

01:43:09   Don't even know what the unit of measurement is

01:43:12   But whatever unit is measured in like how many minutes it takes you to row a certain distance

01:43:18   I'm usually at about two and a half minutes for that unit

01:43:20   Another way to tell you is what I actually care about usually is total strokes

01:43:25   I usually do 1200 strokes and it usually takes about 35 minutes. So whatever that is

01:43:30   I don't know. I don't know how to convert that into useful things, but that's that's my usual pace

01:43:35   but I

01:43:38   Decided you know running is especially, you know running here at the beach is wonderful because not only is the weather really nice for much

01:43:44   Of the summer. I mean sometimes too hot but not only is it nice for much of the summer. It's also

01:43:49   very flat land here and back at home, it's very hilly and

01:43:53   Running uphill sucks running on a flat ground is much nicer. So anyway, I

01:43:59   decided I'm going to join TIFF this year and and learn to run and and that can be my challenge for the summer and

01:44:07   that was great when we were here in June and

01:44:12   We actually built up to being able to do 5k

01:44:16   Which I never thought I would be able to do but it turns out that my my lung capacity

01:44:21   Limitations were not entirely due to my mild asthma

01:44:25   they had more to do with I just hadn't ever done it before and

01:44:29   So I was able to push past it and not far past it mind you

01:44:34   I still don't have a great capacity, but I'm able to do a little more

01:44:39   And again and running I wasn't able to go that fast for that reason and maybe I could build up to it if I if I

01:44:44   kept at it, but I

01:44:46   eventually

01:44:48   we eventually didn't run that much because this has been a much more humid summer than usual and

01:44:54   that and in addition, you know, this is mask wearing summer and

01:44:59   I'm not going to be one of those people who thinks that when I'm running somehow I'm immune to airborne viruses

01:45:08   I'm not gonna be one of those people who who like, you know

01:45:10   leaves the mask off and then just pulls it up when I pass somebody because I'm afraid I'll forget to do that and

01:45:16   Then run past somebody without the mask up and I'll be a jerk. I don't wanna be a jerk

01:45:20   so I

01:45:22   did all those runs here with a mask on and

01:45:26   As it got more and more humid the combination of those factors made it

01:45:31   increasingly difficult to run and we would try waking up earlier and earlier but

01:45:36   You know even at 6 in the morning, it's still pretty humid

01:45:40   a lot of these days this summer and you still wearing a mask and so it it became a

01:45:45   hindrance to run so I actually

01:45:48   Since about I think about early August. I really haven't run much

01:45:54   So that's that's basically the story is that I started the summer

01:45:58   Becoming a runner and then I ended the summer doing a lot more rowing in the air conditioning

01:46:05   It's understandable, you know, it's worth noting I enjoy running I didn't for a long time

01:46:11   There was a window of time where I was running a 5k at least two to three times a week

01:46:16   And that for a long time when I was working also included waking up at like five

01:46:21   I think it was sometimes in the dead of winter. So I'd be running in like, you know underwear shorts

01:46:27   Sometimes like like long underpants and sweatpants, you know on the bottoms and then like three or four shirts

01:46:34   And a sweatshirt on top which is not particularly enjoyable. I assure you

01:46:37   But it is worth noting that running from everything. I have understood as a non doctor

01:46:43   Running is absolutely terrible for your entire body like it is exercise, which is great

01:46:47   but like in terms of your joints and and in the repetitive injury of smacking the pavement like it's

01:46:54   Everything I've understood is that it's not great for you. I still run at least a mile

01:46:59   If not, you know a full 5k which is about three miles in our messed up units

01:47:02   I still do that usually about once a week, but I have moved to more

01:47:07   Weightlifting and or aerobic stuff again in the air conditioning like you said for the most part

01:47:13   But yeah, I really enjoy running. It's great podcast time in when you do in the morning. It's

01:47:20   Particularly delightful because we don't see that many people in our neighborhood out and about I don't run with a mask because

01:47:26   It's extremely easy for me to avoid people. I'm on the other side of the street all of its always

01:47:32   And I usually only see like one or two other people when I run if that and I get the feeling that at Fire Island

01:47:37   It's it's not. Oh, that was that was a little bit of ops. I get the feeling that where you are

01:47:43   It's probably a lot more crowded than where I am. So I

01:47:47   Don't know

01:47:48   I I am inside it's funny because I'm in both in support of you running and I like the idea of it for all the reasons

01:47:54   That you enumerated like, you know, you can do it almost any time of year if you're willing to it doesn't require equipment

01:48:00   It's it's a relatively easy thing to do, you know, there's it's not conceptually difficult

01:48:05   But yeah, there's a lot of reasons why it's also not particularly fun

01:48:09   I'm pretty like mostly mostly humidity in all the Californians who don't have weather are very smug right now

01:48:16   But those of us who actually have this thing called weather

01:48:18   It makes things very challenging

01:48:21   And first of all, I do want to disclaim that if for anybody who's gonna you know armchair train me

01:48:26   I appreciate that. This is not like rowing and or running are not the only for exercise I do

01:48:32   We've been seeing a trainer a few days a week. Usually most of the most weeks has been two days a week

01:48:38   For I think about three years now me and TIFF

01:48:42   we've and it's funny like we actually been doing like FaceTime sessions since before the quarantine because

01:48:48   he moved out of the area and

01:48:52   We stayed with him because we like him and so we like geared up for remote exercise sessions

01:48:58   About three months before the quarantine and we felt like the luckiest time to people in the world for like

01:49:04   Buying a bunch of exercise gear for home right then because you can't get it now

01:49:09   Like it's you still like you still can't buy like free weights and stuff. They're sold out everywhere still

01:49:13   But so we do like like strength training stuff for the most part and core stuff with the trainer

01:49:19   So then we're left on our own to do like the aerobics kind of as homework

01:49:24   So, you know to complete my exercise

01:49:27   regimen I just have to get in some aerobic work somehow and so it can really be either thing but like

01:49:33   You know running I would dread every single time and hate the entire time. I'm doing it. Whereas rowing I

01:49:40   Set up I have like a little laptop stand on the rower

01:49:44   And so I of course you do open the laptop and that's that's where I got on my youtube watching in

01:49:48   So I'm like I'm sitting there like watching like, you know YouTube explainer videos

01:49:52   you know, he's like I'm watching like, you know, CGP gray and and you know, the Wendover stuff and

01:49:58   Technology connections all like all my favorite YouTube channels watching all that stuff learning about

01:50:03   Oh, here's how airline economics and retro reflectors work as I'm like pumping the rower

01:50:08   It's totally fine and and it's I actually enjoy it and I can control the environment like

01:50:15   You know, you mentioned the California, you know jerks they have all this perfect weather all the time

01:50:20   well, yeah in New York, we do have some amazing weather but not every day and it's it varies a lot between all these extremes and

01:50:28   Running, you know, I think if you are a well-conditioned runner

01:50:33   You can run in a wide variety of climates and you can take it if you're an amateur runner like me

01:50:39   It there's a narrow range

01:50:41   It's reasonably comfortable to do so

01:50:45   And and New York does not stay in that range very long. So

01:50:49   Having something like this where I can do it indoors in any conditions

01:50:53   It's it's quite nice. You know, you've personally got a solution to your problem for the aerobic exercise

01:51:00   There's something you can do no matter how humid it is and without a mask and doesn't have the impact of running and it's called

01:51:06   swimming

01:51:07   That's true. It's aerobic. You will definitely get your heart rate up and

01:51:11   Even if it's super hot and humid you'll want to go in the water because it will cool you down

01:51:15   You just got to make sure you don't drown or get eaten by sharks. But other than that, it's right there for you

01:51:19   That's true how I will say though. There is a you know, a slight challenge with that is that the ocean

01:51:26   In the summertime on a public beach is not exactly

01:51:32   Not crowded. It's it's been extremely cradling. We haven't done a lot of ocean swimming this year because

01:51:41   You know, the beach is still open

01:51:42   It's a public beach anyone's welcome and therefore everyone is coming and it's a very very crowded public beach during the during like

01:51:51   The hot days and in the middle of day

01:51:52   So we haven't been going that much because it just doesn't seem incredibly safe to do

01:51:57   So you get up at the crack of dawn and there's no people there or you're just walking past them

01:52:01   Anyway, because you're gonna go out past where the breakers are anyway to swim back and forth along the shore

01:52:05   It's definitely more dangerous than running but you know, yeah also beef at the crack of dawn

01:52:10   There's no lifeguards. So that's that's not great lifeguards aren't gonna save you

01:52:13   That's even less great

01:52:17   I'm gonna save yourself

01:52:19   Yeah, I think I'll just row with my youtube. Thanks

01:52:21   Titles

01:52:25   Do I actually do I even have to ask it's got to be Casey star Aaron less, right? I

01:52:29   Like the Casey star Alan Aaron less one, but I don't like the idea of having their names up there

01:52:35   Especially Aaron's name. She didn't sign up for this. It's fair. It's not her fault that Casey doesn't know how to type

01:52:41   I mean she did pick him

01:52:43   I know but she didn't say you use my name in the title of an episode enough. It's the price

01:52:48   It's the price of an ATP sticker you jerk

01:52:51   Still waiting for pictures of that at birthday meal that you made her. Oh, yeah

01:52:56   Just just make some belvita mac and cheese put sprinkle some parsley on top

01:53:02   Your kids will like it they're half you yeah, that's true they would like it

01:53:10   Yeah, that's funny. They're there. No, you know what? I know and I'm not gonna do it

01:53:14   I was gonna bring up another dumb meal that I'll cook for when it's just the kids and me

01:53:17   But I'm not gonna do it cuz I don't listen to the two of you wine at me. Oh, we have to hear this

01:53:21   Sandwich made of chocolate chip cookies surrounding marshmallow. What is them do it for the members Casey the members want this? Nope

01:53:29   Nope, no, you're too a jerk. No rice krispies treat salad. No, it's not that bad. Christ sakes. Good grief

01:53:35   Does it contain a vegetable?

01:53:37   No

01:53:40   Put one on the side but like it

01:53:42   The entree does not the absolutely doesn't have to tell us what it is. No, just tell us it's

01:53:48   Let me see if I can find a link. Is it a president a product?

01:53:51   You're finding a link this makes me think it's a it's a processed food product. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah

01:53:56   It is it is not going to surprise you at all. I'm trying the dinosaur shaped chicken tenders. No, but those are delicious

01:54:03   There we go in in the chat room. There you go rice aroni

01:54:09   Mm-hmm cheesy rice creamy for cheese flavor

01:54:12   Mmm now does this mean they're very careful to say creamy for cheese flavor

01:54:19   Is this like there's not actually four cheeses in it. Is it is it cheese with a Z?

01:54:22   Yeah, well, no, it's CH. Yes. See but I mean basically it's rice vermicelli vermicelli. However, you pronounce it and

01:54:29   and

01:54:31   Cheese paste that or not. I'm sorry not paste. That's probably yeah cheese dust powder cheese dust. Yes. Oh good cheese does

01:54:38   So my favorite thing about this is it says in the description here

01:54:41   The only thing better than tender rice blended with cheese is tender rice blended with four creamy cheeses now I

01:54:48   Can think of a few things?

01:54:51   Besides that that are better like tender rice blended with two cheeses or three cheeses

01:54:56   Or does it not get better until the fourth cheese?

01:54:58   Almost anything I eat is better than tender rice blended with cheese. Wait, I can get even better scroll to the bottom of the page

01:55:05   I hope it's the same for everyone rice aroni product and preparation hack. Mm-hmm. Are you prepared gentlemen?

01:55:13   I've tried to say this was a straight face. I can't prepare yourselves for this hack

01:55:19   This is the best hack ever life hack having extra guests over for dinner question mark make two boxes at once

01:55:26   Exclamation not only is this an amazing hack in the vein

01:55:30   Of why have one when you can have two or twice the price but it makes people buy more of this product

01:55:35   Oh genius, where's the ingredient list? I'm trying to find the

01:55:38   ingredient list

01:55:40   Ingredients starch dust rice wheat flour parsley. I draw donated palm oil salt cheddar

01:55:46   Parmesan mano and blue cheeses. Well, there's some apparently real cheese in here that contains milk cheese culture salt enzymes

01:55:54   Produce lactose whey corn syrup. Yeah, of course, you need corn syrup in your rice cuz why not?

01:55:59   Why wouldn't you onions palm oil? I mean, this is a side dish. This isn't a meal though, right?

01:56:04   No, it's the meal. That's the meal. That's not a this is not a complete meal for your children. Stop making them rice

01:56:11   well, I mean, I'll usually put I'll usually put a

01:56:13   Frozen vegetable like a bagged frozen vegetable on the side, but this is the star of the show

01:56:19   I will also point out that the while this does

01:56:23   admirably actually contain four cheeses

01:56:26   It contains more salt than cheese. That's not surprised

01:56:31   It also contains more palm oil

01:56:34   flour

01:56:37   Then cheese right because I guess I assume it's like thickening up the sauce

01:56:41   Yeah, it's so it's you're really just eating like rice in a flour and oil sauce over the seven years of this program

01:56:48   I think we're getting a glimpse of exactly how much of Casey's diet is processed cheese or at least processed starch

01:56:53   You know you say that but generally it's not

01:56:56   so

01:56:58   You know in yeah, this is gonna be a reference that lands for neither view but in the hunt for October particularly the book

01:57:04   They went on and on about how the the like sonar system that they used which was originally

01:57:10   Written like the software was originally written to detect like volcanoes like undersea volcanoes

01:57:15   They kept referring to magma displacements and the joke was that Jonesy the sonar operator said whenever the the software got confused

01:57:22   It would kind of run home to mama and just assume. Oh, it's got to be a magnet displacement

01:57:25   That was in the movie. We saw at least I saw the movie I get this. Yeah, well

01:57:28   Yeah, but they go on and it makes a lot more sense if you read the book because they describe it a lot more

01:57:33   Explicitly but nevertheless I bring all that up to say I feel like when I bring up like the Velveeta in the rice-a-roni

01:57:41   Creamy four cheeses of the world. That's me running home to mama because my mother whom I love dearly

01:57:47   She is an amazing amazing woman

01:57:49   for all of her many many many

01:57:53   Perks and wonderful features. She is not the best cook

01:57:56   She has a very limited repertoire of things that are not from a box or a freezer or a can or whatever

01:58:02   She made a meatloaf and threw it out

01:58:04   in the woods in Connecticut and that she found it like a few days later and not a single deer had eaten it and

01:58:09   We have like a zillion deer around our house in Connecticut and not a one of them would touch this meatloaf

01:58:16   That was just sitting there our deer carnivores. No deer and our herbivores

01:58:20   There were other animals too, but no your raccoons should have eaten it exactly but no your point is fair

01:58:25   But the point I'm driving at though is that I feel like this is me running home to the figurative and literal mama because this

01:58:30   Is the sort of thing that that not I I mean I grew up with in the sense that it was part of the repertoire

01:58:35   It was not the only thing I ate now Erin does

01:58:37   98% of the cooking in the house and she makes legitimate healthy meals all the time like tonight we had

01:58:44   salmon roasted cauliflower

01:58:46   Sweet potato and a little bit of roasted regular potato

01:58:50   For example, it was super tasty

01:58:53   Aaron Aaron has become a very good cook and he can tell I love her because I married her before I knew she was a

01:58:57   Really good cook because she wasn't a really good cook when we got married

01:59:00   So that's how you know, I love her and neither were you but only one of you learned

01:59:03   [beeping]

01:59:05   (beep)