We chat about the news, LEGO Saturn V progress, Stuart Fails to Save the Universe, and a bunch of home video game products that just didn't make it.

Hosts: William Sikkens, Bill Snodgrass, and Gretchen Winkler

Welcome to

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User Friendly 2.0 with host Bill Sikkens,

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Technology architect.

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And this is User Friendly 2.0.

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Welcome.

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Welcome to this week's show. Bill.

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Gretchen. Welcome, blue. Hello there.

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So we sort of got to go to the Oregon

Air Show.

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We're going to be talking about that

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a little bit in a news item

that's coming up this week.

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And our second segment

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this week is some programing

that you have been asking questions for.

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We're going to be covering

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video game consoles specifically some

that have failed and why over the years.

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So that's coming up in our second segment.

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So with no further ado,

let's jump into the news.

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What do we have this week?

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All right.

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Our graphic card rentals a thing.

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You know, this is a question

that's been coming in.

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And the thing of it is is

I don't know Bill.

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How much is a average graphic

a good gaming graphics card.

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Now it's still a couple grand, right?

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Yeah, easily.

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So the idea of running graphic cards

kind of makes sense.

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So if you're buying a computer,

the graphics card can cost

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more than the system itself.

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So what we're talking about here,

for anybody that's not into gaming

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or hasn't heard of this, is

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when you have a have a computer, modern

computer, one of the components that's in

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it is a separate processor

that does your video.

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And this has been done for a while.

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This is not new technology

or anything like it,

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the idea being that it's taking the load

of doing video off of the main processor

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and setting up in a way

that you can get a lot more out of it

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because it's its own thing.

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So the quality of this additional device,

this additional graphics processor,

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allows for the computer to do more

or less, depending on what it is.

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So if you have a machine

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that you're just using what most people do

or you're browsing the web,

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sending emails, writing word

processing documents, that kind of thing,

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you have a situation

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where you don't really need that expensive

of a graphic card to carry all that out.

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Most of the ones on the market

now will handle your windows,

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whether it's a PC or Mac,

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drawing out the screens, doing all that

kind of stuff in a fast, timely way.

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That's pretty normal.

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But gamers require additional hardware.

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And Bill,

you know a little bit more about that.

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Can you talk polygons and a little bit

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of what a game graphic card

does that differs from standard graphics?

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Well, it also does physics, so it does

math.

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It also does,

like you said, rendering for polygons,

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which by today's

standards are huge numbers.

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And to some degree

I understand that the new video cards

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also handle AI.

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Yeah, that's a that's an upcoming thing.

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That's that's been in there.

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And so what you're dealing with

is powerful computer

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hardware and powerful computer

hardware costs money.

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It's kind of what it comes down to.

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And Bill, you've touched upon AI.

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One of the other things is graphic cards

in of themselves are repurposed.

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And sometimes the train AI models,

and also for things like Bitcoin mining.

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So that's also been running prices

up to because of supply and demand.

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So when you're talking about something

that's two grand or more,

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the idea of renting,

that kind of makes sense.

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But then I'm thinking is, well,

if I rented a graphic card and paid,

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you know, for a

certain amount of time on it,

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you know, and got this thing, and

what happens if you don't send it back?

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You've got a huge thing.

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Well, that's not what this actually is.

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Companies are renting out

GPO compute time,

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not sending you the card in the mail,

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which means you're renting time

on a server somewhere to be able

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to use the graphic capability

on that machine in a timeshare.

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Yeah.

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How does that work?

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Wouldn't you have some lag time from.

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Yes. Yeah.

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Okay. You understand what I'm getting at?

Because you have.

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Yeah.

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No, that definitely is a claim

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because you'd be receiving

the video feed remotely and stuff.

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However, with higher speed

internet connections and things, that's

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becoming minimal.

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It's not gone

by any stretch of the imagination, but

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it's suitable enough that in certain

situations it's worth doing.

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So you connect the server

over the internet

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and you pay for access

by the second minute, or our,

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depending on what you're doing.

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Some of the companies that are doing this

or companies like run, podcast,

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AI, code, weave and others

that provide the service.

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And so you would go out

and basically pay for this time share.

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And again, what's really pushing

the price up of these things is AI,

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because it's taking the hardware

that would normally be used in this way

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and using it for another purpose

with companies that have

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sometimes unlimited budgets

so they buy up the stock.

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Not that the graphic cards would be cheap

anyway, but it just is a thing.

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And then the other place, Bill, you were

talking about some of the applications.

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We're also seeing this in things

like physics labs and those kind of areas

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where they have 3D rendering,

computational computing

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of that nature, putting together designs.

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Gretchen and area

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you worked with AutoCAD

that uses a lot of these hiring cards too.

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So you have a thing

where you supply and demand.

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So that's what's going on here.

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So you know the highest in graphic cards

by the way can run 20,000 plus.

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So it's not just yeah. And

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consumer oriented cards

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which are like your Raytheon RTX 3990.

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Those kind of numbers, those

go for about $0.69 an hour.

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So it gives you an idea of

what is going on with all of that

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and where this goes.

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So if you need a GPU for only 20 hours,

it makes sense to maybe do it this way.

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And it's not necessarily for gaming,

but it could be.

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So, you know, there's even an Airbnb

ish version of this.

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This is vast AI's model. And

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you, they make the machines available

so different

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operators can do it, and then customers

can rent out the capacity.

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So in other words, it'd be like

the three of us would put up a server

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with one of these monster cards

and pay for it.

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And then we would go through this company

where they would have customers

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that would rent time on our systems,

kind of like an Airbnb.

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Okay.

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Weird.

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Okay.

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Used booksellers are racking up

huge sales.

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Yeah. And, you know,

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I was looking at this too,

and it's kind of interesting.

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And it wasn't because I

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somehow knew about this,

but I've been going through

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and cleaning out some things

and put a box of used books up on eBay,

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which normally take a while to sell,

and it was gone within two hours,

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and it was just random books,

and I didn't even think about it.

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I was just like,

oh great, I don't need these anymore.

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And they sold

and they sold for a decent amount.

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It wasn't like it was $0.10

on the dollar or something.

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And then I got this article, Gretchen,

that I think you found. Yes.

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And being reported by Gizmodo.

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Mike Peril is the writer of this.

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And basically what's going on here

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is you have a situation

and I can only speak to this as a layman,

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not as like a legal thing,

but from my understanding of this,

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what's going on

here is companies that are training

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large language models or

AI models were using copyrighted material,

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and there's been some kind of a court

decision saying, well, you can't do that

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illegally

unless you have a right to do that.

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However, if you own the work,

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the fair use doctrine

allows you to use it for this purpose.

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So what's happening is used

books are being bought all over the world.

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They're slicing the spines off, scanning

the men, destroying the original copy

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because you can only have one copy legally

and then using that to train the model.

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So if somebody that's a bit of a book

lover, that makes me shudder a little bit,

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and it also makes me worried that

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what if these are historical

things that they've grabbed

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that are extremely rare

and they're destroying it?

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Yeah. And that's what's happening.

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Yeah.

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I've seen a few other things about this.

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It's it's quite bad.

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But what have you seen Bill,

that's beyond kind of the headline here

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basically that I believe

it was one of the bigger ones.

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I'm not going to say which one

because I can't remember completely,

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but it was in one of their rows about

what did they call it,

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destructive cultivation

or something like that.

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Yeah, yeah, I haven't heard that term,

but that makes sense.

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But it was basically that it was

they were destroying books

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to feed their machines

and it was disgusting.

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And there was an interview

on this carried by the BBC,

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this little outside of the initial article

we're talking on here,

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where there was a bookseller,

I believe, in London

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that was talking about this,

and he's saying, you know, he's trying to

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look at this from a standpoint that

if it's books these people are buying,

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that there's a lot of copies of them,

you know,

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like The Da Vinci Code or something

that's been mass produced.

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That's one thing, you know.

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Yeah, one copy of that.

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It's not going to be a big deal

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for even some of the rare books,

like, say, you have a textbook

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where only 100 were made

and 75 are in libraries.

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That's still not such a big deal.

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But some other things

where there have been destruction of very,

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very rare books

and that kind of a thing is a problem.

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And how do you can refuse to sell them,

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you know, in that case,

but then do you refuse to sell it?

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And if you're a bookstore, it's a problem.

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It's a problem.

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All right.

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This is a little happier.

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Guess what? NASA has a YouTube channel.

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I'm shocked.

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I'm absolutely I couldn't

I can't believe it.

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They have a YouTube channel.

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What's YouTube anyway?

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All right, stop being stupid.

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No, not 60,000 subscribers.

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They've got a little over

390 videos online.

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And the YouTube

channel has learned with NASA.

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And it's something kind of fun.

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We talk about NASA

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and some of their Stem projects

and other things that are going on.

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And it's cool

to actually think about this.

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And I think it's interesting

because obviously

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they would have a YouTube channel,

but it's not something that I would

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necessarily

have thought of right off the bat.

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No. Me neither.

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It makes sense.

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But you know, so

there's all kinds of stuff out there.

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Yeah. Check it out.

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YouTube learn with NASA

is the channel name, and it looks like

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they've got like little kid oriented stuff

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along with adult grown up,

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like a documentary type of of,

you know, films and stuff.

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So there's quite a variety. So.

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All right.

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Back on video cards.

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Nvidia to invest 1.5 billion

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in SB energy

under OpenAI data center deal.

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Yeah.

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So basically

that's kind of what the headline says.

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It's another investment

for more data centers.

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This has been somewhat controversial

as time goes by.

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In fact, a lot of pauses have been put

on data center development just because

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the electrical and water use

that's coming out of them.

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Not that a data center is a bad thing,

but what's happening

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is, is

the impact was not being considered.

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What was being considered

by a lot of places is the tax revenue

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that was going to come in

from building these places,

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and all of a sudden we've seen stuff

where power grids are failing,

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that kind of thing.

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But it makes sense in vedere like Bill,

like you were just saying

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as a maker of video cards, in fact,

the maker these days, pretty much

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of these chipsets, and of course

they're going to invest in something,

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they're selling their product.

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I mean, that just, you know,

follow the money. Right.

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So anyway, just another announcement

of what's going on here and.

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Yeah.

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All right.

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Errant drone delays, blue angels

demonstration

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at Oregon International air show.

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Yeah.

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So you and I had a chance to kind of

go see this this last week.

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Yeah.

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Evergreen Air and Space Museum,

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which is across the street

from the airport where this is held in

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Oregon, was holding a watch party

and were members of the museum.

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So it was a lot of fun to go

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there and check it out

and also be able to check out the museum

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and stuff at the same time.

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Great day, great family day.

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But yeah, the apparently

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somebody was flying a drone

in the path of the Blue Angels.

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White. And this is a bad thing. Yeah.

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If you, you're, you're supposed to go

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and have like a training class

in order to fly a drone.

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I did it. You had me do one. Yeah, yeah.

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And it's so,

so what you're supposed to do from

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what Gretchen was just talking about

here, is a standpoint

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that there are places

where you can just fly a drone

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without a license, that they do exist,

and you can look online.

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There's an app shows you

where all this stuff is.

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But generally speaking,

you go through this process

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to get a recreational drone license,

and it's a pretty straightforward thing.

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You take an online

class, answer questions,

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and if you pass the test,

you get the license.

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And that's what Gretchen's talking about.

I did mine recently too.

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And one of the things is, is that you are

not supposed to fly drones near airports.

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And in the case of McMinnville,

which is where the organs

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where the show is held,

the municipal airport,

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the no fly zone for drones

is a five mile radius.

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And these create safety problems

and is somebody myself

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that likes to fly in the air,

you know, in the jet suits and things.

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You have to be careful because

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if you hit one of these things in a plane

or even your jetpack or whatever,

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you're in a situation where it can cause

a lot of damage, it can kill you.

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And it's

because these people are being in,

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you know, indiscriminate,

not following the law.

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Yeah.

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And in this particular case,

the Blue Angels were doing demonstration

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flights at all three days of the show

Friday, Saturday, Sunday we saw them on.

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What was it, Gretchen? Sunday,

I think. Yeah.

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And when we were there and yeah,

they had to pause everything

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to get this individual and his drone

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out of the airspace from the airport

and be able to continue the air show.

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And by the way,

this isn't just a situation where it's

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causing inconvenience

or this type of a thing.

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The FAA, there's fines and all kinds

of other stuff for doing this.

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Your drone will be confiscated.

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You could be detained.

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Just don't do it in the app.

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You know, to be where it is.

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And if you want to fly around,

you know, jets

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and all kinds of other things in the air,

then get a jet pack and do it safely.

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You know,

they're also the test. It's free.

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Yeah. I didn't have to pay anything

to do the test.

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And the test teaches you

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what you need to know

as you're taking the test.

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Yeah.

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So it's a no brainer.

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You know, it's very easy.

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And then you understand.

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Hey, I'm supposed to, you know, be

very careful about where I fly this thing.

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Yeah.

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And and just a footnote on that,

because this has come up, is like Gretchen

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just said

it is to get a recreational drone license

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is something that doesn't cost any money

to register your drone afterwards.

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It's like five bucks

through the appropriate website.

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So if you go on and somebody's

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going to charge you to take this test

or the class or something like that,

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it's a scam. It is free.

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Now, if you're doing it

for commercial purposes,

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like you're going to photograph houses

for a realtor

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or wedding or something like that,

that's a completely different scenario.

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Yeah, recreational drone flying is free.

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Registering your drone,

I think in my case was $5.

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So it's just be careful.

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Rock raises 350

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million to fuel its

pivot from AI chips to neo cloud.

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So first question that came up about

this was

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are we talking grok or grok in the sense

of, yeah, that's what I was wondering.

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Rock. And no,

these are two entirely different things.

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Oh, so this isn't this isn't the weird

AI that that was on X. No.

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That's correct.

That's correct. Okay. Yeah.

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There are two different things.

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So what you're dealing with is one grok

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is a company and that's grok,

which is what we're talking about here.

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The grok from X is grok.

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Oh that's confusing or anything like that.

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Oh no not at all.

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But I thought maybe one of the,

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the grass had escaped from X

and decided to start its own business.

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Yeah.

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Yes and no.

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That's a that's a that's coming.

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That's a Skynet thing.

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And we'll talk about that later

when the A's allow us to do.

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I mean, that's not the case here.

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So so what is what is grok with a Q okay.

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Grok with a Q is a company okay.

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And they were doing some work

that Nvidia effectively absorbed.

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So they're reinventing themselves.

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And the investment firm

was called disruptive.

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That put this money up

350 million in new funding puts

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a market valuation of grok at about

3.5 billion.

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That's a lot of money. And

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the one thing

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about it is is a year ago

that company was valued at $6.9 billion.

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So you can see where

something like this decreases things.

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So a lot of money, but it's almost half.

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And so originally

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grok developed what it called an LP

or language processing unit.

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And it was specifically designed

to run AI.

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Quickly, you know, the interface.

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And it was being used as a teaching model,

training model and that kind of a thing.

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And then Nvidia came in

and kind of stole their lunch

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a little bit on that. So.

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So what's a neo cloud a neo cloud.

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Yeah. What's that.

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Well, okay.

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According to their press release,

instead of primarily making the AI

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chips, we'll provide the infrastructure

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that lets companies use AI computing

that's in the cloud.

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Oh, okay.

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Think about renting graphic cards.

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Now we're running AI space.

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Okay okay okay. So

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yeah.

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So they're building data centers

filled with AI accelerators

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and rent that computing capacity.

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The companies that don't want to spend

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the buildings on building their own

AI infrastructure.

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So that's what that is.

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They're operating 13 data centers across

North America, Europe and the Middle East,

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as well as Asia.

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And it says it serves more than 6 million

developers,

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enterprises with AI native companies.

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So there you are.

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All right.

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Investigators say unprecedented

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number of Apple users

received Spyware Alert.

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Now this is being reported by TechCrunch.

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And yeah,

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the Apple users are just getting bombarded

with spyware alerts.

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And that's something

I haven't experienced personally,

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because I do not have Apple products

that would be under

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this kind of a thing, but

they're having some problems with that.

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And is hacking continues to get worse.

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Over the weekend, Apple

sent out a new wave of notifications,

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and this went to customers

in 110 different countries

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and said that they had been targeted

with powerful spyware. So

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Apple sends these kind of

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alerts in batches to customers

they believe has been targeted.

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And this thing called mercenary spyware,

at least that's what they're dubbing.

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It is something where governments

are involved

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in the creation of the spyware

that's targeting their customers.

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And in the last few years,

not to this last event, but overall,

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Apple says it has learned people

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in more than 150 countries,

but 110 countries in this last batch.

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And that being the case, it's

something where I think

401

definitely raising the

402

you know, I don't know,

people need to be aware

403

that this kind of thing is happening.

I can understand why they're doing.

404

And it would be a tough decision to make

because it has the idea of, well,

405

your equipment's not secure.

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I mean, that's certainly

would be coming up with a notification

407

like this, but educating everybody

as much as they can.

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On the idea of these things existing

and also giving

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a rundown of how to protect yourselves

does make a lot of sense.

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So I do give kudos to Apple on

at least doing it and making it

411

something to where they're trying

to help people deal with this.

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You know, one of the places

that's been targeted with This is Ukraine.

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Not a shock that

that would be happening. And

414

they use a lot of Apple devices there.

415

But it's not just limited to that.

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It's limited to

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or not limited much at all

to a lot of different parts of the world.

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So yeah, if you get one of these alerts

look at it and you can go online.

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There's a lot of places

to go to get common sense steps

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to help secure yourself.

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But a lot of this is still being targeted

in the way it has for many years,

422

and that you get an email

or a text message or something

423

where they want you to respond, or click

a link or something of that nature go.

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And when you do, go to the website

or download the link or whatever

425

the case may be, it installs

malicious software on your phone.

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So if you get an unknown link in an email,

certainly

427

in a text message, don't open it.

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And if you're worried about it, it's

claiming to be some company

429

like your bank or whatever

and your accounts been compromised.

430

Don't do anything that's in the email.

431

Call your bank with a known good phone

number that's like on your credit card

432

or on the bank's website, but not one

that's linked from within that email.

433

And then check it out there,

434

and you'll probably find

that there's nothing wrong at all.

435

So all right, well,

436

we've got a few things to talk about here,

and I think it's going to be kind of

437

interesting to see where you've gotten to

if your Lego project.

438

Gretchen.

439

We might be doing that at the beginning

of the next segment because beforehand.

440

I want to talk about Stuart Fails

to Save the universe,

441

which you finally got me to watch.

And I have to say, I really enjoyed.

442

Tell me.

443

Tell us a little bit about this.

444

Okay. Well, apparently

445

the characters from The Big Bang Theory

446

how are Leonard?

447

And of course, Sheldon creates

some kind of crazy device,

448

and it appears that Stuart

may have bumped it or did something

449

and created an apocalyptic reality. Yes.

450

And he's he's assisted by, like, Burt,

451

his girlfriend.

452

I can't remember

Stuart's girlfriend's name,

453

but she's helping.

454

And the guy with a lisp.

455

Kripke and Kripke's helping,

which everybody's.

456

Yeah, he's kind of a pain in the butt,

but that's his character, you know?

457

Yeah.

458

And so we have an unlikely group of people

459

put together trying to set things right,

460

and we get a chance to see

461

what kind of weirdness

that the writers have come up with.

462

And you also need to pay attention

that every time

463

we see the beginning of the show,

the intro, it's different.

464

Yeah. The opening,

the opening is different.

465

For those that remember the series,

think sort of a version of sliders.

466

It's kind of like a play on that,

and it was a lot of fun to see what they

467

what they are coming up

with, and I'm looking forward

468

to see what they come up with

in the future.

469

And by the way, it's

called a quantum entanglement machine.

470

Pretty much the issue for any,

you know, physicist that's out there,

471

or at least theoretical.

472

Maybe not.

473

I'm glad you can't get these on Amazon,

but yeah, check it out.

474

We love the episode.

475

Oh yeah. Go ahead, go ahead.

476

I was just going to say

477

I really love the episode

with Will Wheaton and Burt battling.

478

Yeah, that was that was fun.

479

Check it out. This is user friendly 2.0.

480

We'll be back after the break.

481

He's from the future.

482

He's got a really big computer

483

and uses it uses it every day.

484

And he uses it uses it in every way.

485

What do you use for.

486

You know I'm not sure

because it uses here.

487

Welcome back. This is user friendly 2.0.

488

Check out our website.

489

User friendly dot show is your one

stop for everything user friendly.

490

Send us your questions.

491

Send us

your comments. We'd love to hear from you.

492

And in fact,

493

that is where we got the idea

for what we're going to be talking about.

494

Here was your questions, and there were

lots of them that came in on this.

495

So talking a little bit

about historic tech

496

this week, we're going to be going over

video game consoles and specifically

497

some of the ones that didn't quite

make it for a variety of reasons.

498

And we're going to go through these

and see what ended up happening

499

or didn't happen.

500

And the list, the order that this was

put into is somewhat random.

501

So it may be that our number one on

the list

502

would not be what you would be considered

to be number one on the list.

503

But afterwards,

let's meet in the comments.

504

Go to User Friendly show

and give us your feedback on this.

505

Let us know what you think.

506

So the number one on our list

507

First 64 bit gaming system.

508

This was something that was interesting

when it came out game that came out on

509

Tempest 2000, which is something

that I actually really like.

510

So it had its place,

but it had some other weird things to.

511

One of them is,

512

is that Atari never seemed to get too good

at designing controllers.

513

And if you look back at some of their

514

which has what is considered to be

515

the worst controller

ever made on a video game system,

516

you can see where this comes from.

517

The Jaguar controller

seemed to take that idea,

518

and while it was an analog stick

and did work a little bit better,

519

it had telephone

keypad on it, which I'm not one.

520

Yeah.

521

Interestingly enough, at the time

there was no standard on

522

what a game console controller

was really supposed to be.

523

So there is that at other systems

also had stuff like this,

524

but it was a situation

525

where they came out with this,

and you looked at it in the store

526

and gave you the idea of a telephone,

and that was a marketing problem for them.

527

And then on top of that, the game library

was relatively small compared to others,

528

as well as the resources

that Atari had at the time,

529

because they were having all kinds

of financial problems

530

with the company and competing

against Nintendo, Sega and later Sony,

531

they just didn't have the budget to do it,

532

and those other systems

made them feel obsolete.

533

And this is a system I'd love to get

someday just in my retro collection,

534

but they are somewhat expensive

to find a working example of it.

535

So if you happen

to have one in the garage,

536

they really aren't worth anything.

537

Go ahead and send them to our address

on the website and I'll let you know.

538

All right.

539

Our next one, also from 1993

540

was the 3D Interactive Multiplayer.

541

So 3D technologies

licensed this to companies

542

such as Panasonic Gold Star,

and instead of making a system

543

themselves,

debuted it in the USA at roughly $700,

544

which in 1993

was a lot for a game console.

545

Oh yeah. Yeah.

546

You know, in 2020, I remember this one,

547

the Jaguar, the Jaguar I'd heard of.

548

And I remember the weird telephone thing.

549

This one.

550

No clue.

551

Don't even call it.

552

It's one that didn't last very long

I know.

553

And again the price made it out of range

for most people.

554

And again, what they were doing here

is they had this technology

555

that was a video game console, and third

party manufacturers were making this.

556

And the reason why it was so expensive

is even to this day, most of the money,

557

the way they monetize

these things is through the software.

558

So you buy a game console or a computer

or whatever

559

the case may be, at a reduced price,

sometimes even cost, making it lower.

560

But then you pay a premium

for the games that run on it.

561

And that was not the case here since

it was third party hardware manufacturers.

562

They couldn't do it that way,

so they actually had to sell it

563

and make a markup.

564

The system itself was pretty decent,

but not a lot of exclusive games,

565

which is something that drives, you know,

console sales and that type of a thing.

566

And the PlayStation arrived

and it was cheaper

567

and had more of a library

almost out the gate than this did.

568

And kind of the rest is history

from that standpoint.

569

So games such as Road

Rash, the need for Speed and Star Control

570

two were good on this system and again,

it was pretty impressive.

571

Our next one is the Sega 32

came out a year later in 94.

572

This is one that I'd like to get as an add

on for my Sega Genesis,

573

or actually my Sega mega drive.

I am in North America.

574

I have a working mega drive.

575

It's a little unusual,

576

and it took a little bit of engineering

to get it to work, but it's there.

577

Please note he's bragging.

578

Yes, because it was it was a challenge.

579

Believe me, we had to change the frequency

that it was putting out at.

580

So in set a palette was in TSC defeat

the region lock.

581

Which of course I did

582

not do because that would be bad

and get the thing to just work in general.

583

But it's cool.

584

And anybody else would have spent

the 80 bucks on eBay to buy a Genesis

585

if they had wanted one and plug it in

and made it work.

586

This cost almost $1,000 to do,

but hey, it says Mega Drive.

587

Now that being said, this

was the Sega Genesis or Sega mega drive.

588

Just a footnote on that.

589

They were called Mega

590

Drive in Europe, Genesis in North America,

but it is the same system.

591

And Genesis was a very popular system

by Sega.

592

16 bit.

593

I had one when I was growing up,

so this was a system that was out there

594

very much a competitor to Nintendo and

some of the other things out at the time,

595

and they wanted to upgrade.

596

And this is where Sega started

to get themselves into trouble.

597

And they created this thing called

the Tower of Power, which is basically

598

all these add ons for the Genesis

or Mega Drive, including the Sega

599

CD, the 32 bit upgrade

that we're talking about here.

600

Or you waited and bought a Sega Saturn.

601

And this was one of the problems

because you could buy all this stuff,

602

or they're coming out with a system

that does it all called the Saturn,

603

which is going to be out next.

604

So a lot of people waited,

and we've seen this happen in the past

605

where a company

will announce their product

606

while the current one

is still making money,

607

and then the current one stops selling

because everybody's

608

like, well, we're just going to wait

and upgrade later.

609

And that's kind of what you had here.

610

So I want to put one of these things

together.

611

The Sega CD modules do command a premium,

so I'm trying to find one

612

that's within budget.

613

And then I wonder if the North American

Sega CD will work with a mega drive.

614

I'll let you know when I know.

615

But yeah.

616

So this it was short lived.

617

These components weren't

618

made for a long time

because of the Sega Saturn,

619

which just happens to be

the next one on the list,

620

which came out about two years later,

successor to the Genesis.

621

And they launched it early,

which is a little bit unusual,

622

but because usually these things

come out late.

623

But the problem that this created

is, again, software libraries,

624

it comes down to ecosystem.

And the programmers

625

didn't have their stuff ready

when the console launched.

626

So that was probably number one.

627

Problem number two was Sega

seemed to at that point

628

have lost the ability to do business

in any kind of a meaningful way,

629

because there were

a lot of other problems, too,

630

that happened at the time.

631

Original at E3 in 1995,

when it was announced

632

the retail price was going to be 3.99,

and Sony came out

633

and released their system at $100 less,

which was also a problem.

634

And PlayStation

kind of took their lunch after that.

635

Nintendo remained powerful,

but I don't know.

636

And, you know,

there's a note on this article here

637

that the Saturn wasn't a failure

everywhere.

638

Can did better in Japan,

you know, had a better

639

library there and was good for two games

in arcade conversions.

640

And it wasn't a bad console.

641

The controllers were a little weird.

642

They had these plug in screen things

in the console controller

643

a little bit better than the Wii U did it

later, and I like the hardware,

644

but again, in North America

it just wasn't that, well, you know, done.

645

Now I'm I'm seeing a pattern here.

646

This is all

647

it's like all these failures are happening

within a short period of time.

648

It was there like the big video game

failure era or something like that.

649

Well, okay, the video game crash was 84

and that took out like the legal vision

650

and in television and yeah, but these

are all happening in early 90s, early 90s.

651

And in that time period

you had something else going on.

652

You had the Nintendo

and the Super Nintendo at that point.

653

Right.

654

And you had a situation

where Nintendo wanted to come out

655

with a product

called the Nintendo PlayStation.

656

Now, if you think about that a little bit,

say, has the PlayStation, right?

657

And what happened was this

Nintendo had an agreement with Sony

658

that they were going to manufacture

the CD component, and Nintendo

659

was going to make a cartridge component,

and there are prototypes,

660

and if you have one, you can retire

kind of thing, because these are really

661

a lot of money to buy.

662

But there are a few prototypes out

in the wild of these combined systems.

663

And then Nintendo went behind the scenes

664

with, I believe, Philips

to also get them to make CD drives.

665

So it's kind of

they went around the contract with Sony.

666

It upsets Sony, obviously.

667

So Sony said, well, the heck with you.

668

We're just going to produce our own system

669

and we're going to call it a PlayStation,

and we'll look at where we are today.

670

Obviously, that didn't go over too

well for Nintendo.

671

In fact, it took him out

as the market leader because Sony came out

672

with this product, you know, half on

superior capability but half on spite.

673

It costs less.

674

And it really did not only compete

with Nintendo, but it knocked

675

Atari and Sega out of the marketplace

completely eventually.

676

That's what was happening in that era.

677

Something to remember, too, is

the Super Nintendo was a 32 bit system.

678

The PlayStation was a 32 bit system.

679

Right

680

now, of course, we talk about the Jaguar

being a 64 bit, but at the time, people

681

didn't really understand that difference

between bits and consoles. So

682

Sega and stuff was still running on 16.

683

They boosted it to a 32 bit with the CD

and the

684

and Saturn.

685

But people didn't really understand

that problem.

686

And where Nintendo was stuck with

cartridges.

687

Sony went with CDs

and massively was able to increase

688

their ability to produce massive games.

689

Yeah, yeah, huge games.

690

And Nintendo has done

some weird things like that along the way,

691

because even the Nintendo 64

still held on the cartridges.

692

And it's interesting

because that particular system in Japan

693

had a floppy drive attachment

that was never released here.

694

But you're thinking of another thing

that's happening

695

in these periods

that you want to be able to save games

696

and do other things and update

and whatnot, right?

697

So all of that kind of thing

requires storage on the local system.

698

So again, like Bill,

what you're talking about is number one,

699

people even understanding what

the bit thing was an Atari Jaguar 64 bit.

700

Well, the other problem

they had is a lot of their game library

701

that did exist

were simply ports of their 16 bit games,

702

so it didn't use the capacity

of the hardware.

703

Yeah. You know, so that was the thing.

704

So yeah, the general population of people

buying these things are going well.

705

What's the difference.

Doesn't look different.

706

Yeah.

The capability of a Jaguar is amazing.

707

And some of the homebrew that's coming out

on that parallel, some of the, you know,

708

Triple-A games you see on the PC today

because it had that capability.

709

It's just Atari never marketed it. Right.

710

And I think in some cases

711

you saw the same thing with Sega and

dealing with some of this kind of stuff.

712

And you look at today

the average computer is 64

713

bit 2026

because it's all kinds of other things.

714

It's not just

715

the bit capacity of a processor

that determine what you can and cannot do.

716

There's all kinds of things

that work around that,

717

where you can have a 16 bit console

that's superior to a 32

718

bit console because of the engineering

and other stuff like that.

719

But yeah,

720

Bill, exactly like what you're saying

there is you're talking about something

721

where it wasn't marketed properly,

people didn't know the difference.

722

And frankly, the product you got on a

PlayStation was better than

723

some of these other things that had maybe

better capacity at a raw level.

724

And I'm not going to say

725

that the first PlayStations

didn't have some serious problems.

726

They were had performance.

727

They were very slow to load,

they were underpowered.

728

But by the time PlayStation

one phased out,

729

they were a superior console to anything

else.

730

Yeah. And it's just optical

media is slower.

731

It doesn't matter what you're dealing with

732

even in 2026,

if you look at something like a switch

733

that takes a form of a cartridge, it's

basically kind of an SD card,

734

but it's still a physical,

solid state thing versus any system

735

that uses either physical media

or where you have to download.

736

There is a huge difference.

737

I mean,

it is definitely still notable to today.

738

I know I picked up a PlayStation

two system at a garage sale recently,

739

and I kind of like it

because it's got some of the arcade games

740

that I like on it, like Paper Boy

and some of those that are done

741

where you actually do have the true arcade

version on the local machine,

742

that thing runs off DVDs, but even loading

a disc up in it is 10 to 15 seconds.

743

And, you know,

so you definitely see it from there.

744

And the PlayStation two didn't

have things like a hard drive or anything.

745

Yet you have these little storage

module things that go in it

746

for saving your games,

but it's not like now we're after you do

747

the initial install,

748

it is installed to a local storage drive

and then it runs faster because of that.

749

But it's still slower than cartridge.

750

Yeah.

751

So all right,

next on the list is one that we just got.

752

And we're going to review here

later in the year.

753

And that is the Nintendo Virtual Boy.

754

Oh boy.

755

It's been joked that this should have come

with a bottle

756

of Etcetera and Migraine trying it out.

757

I kind of agree with that assessment Bill.

758

You know what.

759

Tell us a little bit about what this was.

760

Well, it was an attempt at virtualized

761

3D effects using a red and black screen

762

inside of a headset

that weighed about a ton. And.

763

As you as it said, you had the stationary

and you had to basically

764

put it on a tripod and stick your face

into it, play it with this controller.

765

That was a little bit

more complicated than the 64, I believe.

766

Yeah, and had a small library.

767

But the problem was,

768

is that the vector graphics

and all of that that was inside of it

769

hurt your eyes so much that it was cause

headaches after about 20 minutes.

770

Yeah, yeah.

771

You're lucky if you got to 20 minutes

772

and looking at this, remember

hearing about this stuff?

773

Yeah. Just when you think of today.

774

Okay, so you do a VR headset

like the Oculus or a system like that.

775

There's a couple of them out there,

776

and it's this lightweight thing

that you strapped your head

777

and you can wear it,

and it's pretty easy to use.

778

Well this thing was so heavy

779

that you couldn't strap it to your head,

so it's on a stand.

780

So you're sitting at a table or something.

781

And for some reason the stands

not adjustable a little bit,

782

but not like in a way

that would be meaningful.

783

So you're having a hunch down or

784

put it on books or something

to get it at a height.

785

And then like you said, Bill,

786

you lean into it

and you've got the controller and yeah,

787

it's black and red,

788

and there are certain people

on this planet that will know who they are

789

that may have worked with red grid things

in the military.

790

It's very similar to that, except the red

grid military one was easier to use.

791

It's pretty intense, and it's too bad

because the concepts kind of cool.

792

But the implementation of this

is definitely if you sell your hardware

793

and it creates headaches, that

might not be the best marketing technique.

794

Yeah, well, red is such a weird color

to use because of how often

795

you have red color blindness. Yeah,

796

yeah, it's a weird color to use anyway.

797

It's very hard as far as things go. Go.

798

We're not going to dive

into the psychology here of it,

799

but there is psychology

on the call of red versus other things.

800

If they'd gone monochrome with blue

or green or white monochrome,

801

which might have made more sense,

you know, it gave it a more Tron

802

look by using black and white and gray.

803

That probably would have worked better.

804

There were a few red monochrome monitors

805

out over the years,

and there were the amber ones too.

806

The amber was okay. Red.

807

There was a reason why not a lot of

those were made.

808

Oh, there was green too.

809

Yeah, green.

810

Green were popular.

811

Green was the most popular, I think. Yeah.

812

Anyway. All right, next one on the list.

813

And this was one that I really didn't know

that much about.

814

Is Apple actually ventured into video game

815

consoles for a little while, 1996,

with a thing called the Pippin.

816

And again, it's Apple, so it has to cost

817

more $599 and $1,996.

818

So is is this Bandai the reference

to the people who make the toys?

819

Bandai was the company.

820

Yes, Bandai is a toy company.

So they were involved.

821

Yeah, okay.

822

That kind of stuff.

823

It competed against PlayStation,

then 10 to 64 in the Sega Saturn.

824

There were a few good games on it,

825

but again, people weren't

sure what it was supposed to be.

826

Computer console, internet appliance,

multimedia machine.

827

And it came from Apple,

which knew how to market computers,

828

although remember Apple

and that period was almost bankrupt,

829

so they were having some problems

with their company too.

830

You don't think of it now.

831

Apple today is very different

from the Apple in those days. And

832

sales were low

833

on the retro market, very collectible

these days.

834

This will command

835

more than it originally sold

for in a lot of cases for a good one.

836

But yeah, your Apple video game console,

837

I can only imagine.

838

Yeah, yeah.

839

And Bandai made beautiful, beautiful toys.

840

I have some Bandai toys

and yeah, those are those are cool.

841

I was surprised to see their name

linked to a video,

842

I guess a lot of things,

and they're a good company in my opinion.

843

I mean, you know,

they're they're out there, but they're not

844

definitely with this whole situation,

there's a big story that goes on this

845

that could be

an entire episode on its own.

846

And if you're interested

847

in deep diving on more of this,

let us know on user Friendly show,

848

because I'd be happy to do it, depending

on what everybody would like to hear.

849

The next step on our list

850

So we're going back a few years,

and this one I think is a bummer.

851

I have one of these. I had it in the time.

852

I really like it.

853

It competed with a Game Boy.

854

It was more expensive,

855

you know, and they complain about things

like the battery life and stuff,

856

but it was a definite improvement

over what the capability of it was.

857

The screen at a bare minimum.

858

One of the things that Atari didn't have

that Nintendo did at

859

that time was franchises like Super Mario

Brothers, Legend of Zelda, and so on.

860

Tetris was another one

they had licensed, interestingly enough,

861

because Atari had had the license

for Tetris in the arcade, but

862

failed to get the license to do it on home

video game consoles.

863

Nintendo picked that up.

864

So very popular game at the time.

865

And if you're going to sell your video

game system, especially if it's one

866

that costs more money,

you have to have games

867

that people want to buy it

for that are exclusive.

868

That ecosystem is very important,

which didn't have the case here.

869

But one of the biggest things

I like about the Lynx over the Game Boy

870

was the Lynx was backlit and it was color.

871

Oh yeah,

color during that time was a big deal.

872

Yeah.

873

And when backlight was a big deal,

I don't know why they didn't do that.

874

I remember you had to have these special

things that would light up the screen.

875

Of course I wouldn't know.

876

I didn't have a Game Boy, but

877

friends of mine did. Did you?

878

Do you remember what?

879

You had to have a battery?

880

Yeah.

881

Well, you had to have it in light

882

because otherwise it was just

it was one of those,

883

like, calculator screens

where it was just black

884

on that metallic

885

brass color. Yes.

886

But you couldn't see,

like you're driving in a car.

887

And if the light's not right,

you can't see the screen.

888

And certainly if you're trying to play it

in the dark, you can't see the screen.

889

Right? So yeah.

890

Yeah, I remember Jeremy had like a,

like a portable

891

like it was almost like a little headlamp

that would shine down on on his games.

892

He had all these weird little things

and he had a little bag

893

with all the games in it

and the Game Boy player

894

and all these little things

that went with it.

895

It was kind of cool.

896

That would have been fun.

897

But yeah, at the time it just didn't.

898

I don't know.

899

And that was one of the reasons

I didn't have a Game

900

Boy was because it was so hard

to see the screen.

901

And, you know, again,

it probably would have been fun to have.

902

And for those that did, I think, enjoy it,

let me know, because maybe I'll try

903

to find a retro version of one of these

if I can find one that works.

904

Part of the problem is

905

these were handheld systems,

which means they were dropped and stuff.

906

So finding a working model of them

I think could be somewhat challenging.

907

I don't know how to check it out.

908

So now another one that I have in

909

We're back to that era.

910

Gretchen,

you're talking about where it seemed like

911

there were a lot of failures

and oh, no, it was.

912

Yeah. 94 yeah. So

913

I how do I explain this?

914

It was incredibly expensive game console.

915

Yeah. There's no other way to put it.

916

I mean, you'd get into this $1,000 plus

and the games themselves were no cheaper.

917

It used a cartridge.

918

So Neo-Geo made and continues

to make arcade stuff.

919

And one of the things

about the Nintendo arcade

920

or the Neo Geo arcade cabinet is it was

basically a cartridge based video system.

921

So when your game in the arcade got old,

you could simply switch the cartridge.

922

They'd send out a kit

923

that was a cartridge,

a new banner for it, Marquis

924

and Side Art, and it would set it up

and then you'd use the same machine again.

925

So what the Geo wanted to do

was bring home this experience

926

where you could play the arcade versions

of their stuff on a home game console,

927

but in order to do that,

you needed incredibly powerful hardware.

928

And this was like the rich person's

game system.

929

And at the time, it was

930

a luxury.

931

And it was interesting to see

because where they made some of these two,

932

you could see that

they were targeting that market.

933

Like there's a special Neo-Geo

that was meant to go in the car.

934

So it was designed to be installed

935

Well, in 1994, you didn't have screens

and all the rest of that in your car.

936

So this was something that was kind of

very unique, you know, and, well,

937

what person would need to have

a video game in their car?

938

Rich people 20, 26.

939

That's actually standard.

940

What was that? Bill? I didn't hear you.

941

Rich people.

942

Rich people. Yes, yes.

943

You know, I yeah.

944

I mean really

945

I mean, you're supposed to be driving

and paying attention to driving.

946

So was it supposed to be

in the back of the car for the kids?

947

Was in the back of the car?

948

I do not believe even in those period,

949

it was safe to play video games

while you drove your car.

950

Although I'm

sure some people tried, so you know.

951

But because yeah, safety is definitely

one of those things you don't have to ask.

952

Travelers will be back on this fall

for when we start doing the safety

953

awareness, and always

a very good interview we get every year.

954

I'm going to have to ask them

about video games in the cars.

955

I'm sure that they've had some stories

956

on their end with that,

but yeah, it definitely was a system.

957

And then it also used CDs,

958

which brought the price down

a little bit from

959

if they had actually used cartridges.

960

But then you also had the loading time

problem like we were talking about

961

earlier.

962

So anyway,

so that gets us through some of the lists.

963

We might do a part two follow up on this

depending on if you want us to or not.

964

So let us know what user friendly

dot show.

965

And before we end for the day,

I would like Gretchen to kind of let's

966

do something a little bit different

because we've had some questions about it.

967

How are things going with your Saturn V

Lego project?

968

Oh gosh, it's really weird.

969

I'm really questioning the instructions

because it'll look like it's

970

telling me to do one thing

and I go ahead and do it,

971

and then later on it's like, no,

no, you know, the pictures are different.

972

So I've been I, I'm

now building it with the expectation

973

I'm going to have to rip it apart again

to make it go correctly.

974

It's, it's it's been frustrating

but I am making progress.

975

I'm on

I think bag seven now on my Saturn five.

976

So I am making progress.

977

And I'm hoping that what I've built isn't

going to have to be ripped apart again.

978

When you finish it,

979

we'll have to put a picture

up on our website because there's a lot of

980

encouragement from our listeners.

981

Good.

982

And and a lot of people.

983

And it looks really cool.

984

Yeah.

985

Well, when it's done, by the way,

you're not the only person

986

that's had some difficulties

putting this one together either.

987

So that's the other thing we've got.

988

So yeah, keep us up to date on that.

989

And until next week this is User Friendly

2.0, keeping you safe on the cutting edge.

990

User Friendly 2.0.

991

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992

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993

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994

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995

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996

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997

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998

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