We had such a good time talking about Hackers a few weeks ago that we're back with that other seminal '90s computer crime movie, Sneakers! Join us for a deep dive into the movie's stellar and surprisingly august cast, the prescient view of information warfare and government power, the joys of the Rube Goldberg heists, that saxophone, some chatter about San Francisco movies in general, and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, your name i...
Dec 12, 2021•53 min•Ep. 117
The holidays are here again, and with them, the need to gift. This week we offer an informal not-a-gift-guide chat about gift giving and receiving, including topics like how to pick thoughtful gifts, trinkets and doodads our community loves, the ever-expanding (and surprisingly erotic) offerings on Etsy, a quick primer on Harbor Freight, the simple joy of a weighted blanket, and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, your name in the cred...
Dec 05, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 116
This week we're thankful for our listeners and the many questions they provided to this Q&A ep, which got us talking about topics including how we research a new tech project before diving in, using VR to desensitize yourself to real motion sickness, the ravages of space on the human body, the .png pronunciation, a deep dive on stuffing recipes, and whether we'll ever daily-drive a Linux desktop or not. All that, plus, a real live chronobiologist (!) weighs in on our recent Daylight Savings ...
Nov 28, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 115
This week Apple announced an effort to begin offering service manuals, replacement parts, and other self-repair services to its customers. Who better to discuss this landmark move than iFixit CEO and right-to-repair advocate Kyle Wiens? Kyle joins us to talk about his DIY repair efforts over the years, what opening up your own iPhone will be like, Microsoft's exploratory moves toward repairability, the legal state of affairs that's driving this sea change, where e-waste actually goes when you di...
Nov 21, 2021•56 min•Ep. 114
We've been holding video game controllers for most of our natural lives, and now we're attempting to put them in a qualitative, ordered list; a sort of "ranking," if you will. In this ep, we go decade by decade, from the NES to today, considering the technical innovations, ergonomics, fit and finish, historical influence, and general usability of our favorite (and not-so-favorite) controllers to arrive at the best of the best. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to...
Nov 14, 2021•1 hr 54 min•Ep. 113
By the time you hear this ep, Daylight Savings Time will have departed for another year, so DST is naturally what we're chatting about this week. We clear up some myths and history about DST's origins, talk about the axial tilt of the planet a bunch, swap tips about time changes and home automation, look at DST's relative safety and economic effects, debate whether society should keep doing this whole thing or not, and uncover the ancient myth of... Manhattanhenge. Episode Links! A cartographer ...
Nov 07, 2021•59 min•Ep. 112
It's the most horrifying Q&A episode we've ever recorded! This month we field Qs about such topics as: how to teach your kids to view Internet content and influencers with a critical eye, our home electronics protocols for going out of town, essential gadgets we just can't bring ourselves to splurge on, listening to podcasts at super speed, and our favorite historical OS transitions. Plus, Will recounts his longtime experience running BartStorage, and Brad reveals his deepest personal secret...
Oct 31, 2021•1 hr 29 min•Ep. 111
Will's daughter recently had her first encounter with a corded telephone, which got us thinking about other technologies that are on the way out or have already vanished from society. In this ep we touch on a wide range of aspects of the old phone system, what things were like before every product had a barcode on it, whether we're trending toward a cashless society or not, how in the heck they processed credit card transactions before the magnetic strip, and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to...
Oct 24, 2021•1 hr 15 min•Ep. 110
It's been nine years since Will's last big house cleanup, and the time has come once again to discuss... THE PURGE (of all his stuff). In the interest of general decluttering, this ep is a rambling consideration of such topics as: What should you do with all your fancy Lego builds? Is it better to hoard stuff, or data? Can you dig a basement under a house that already exists? How many USB cables does a person need, anyway? Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our...
Oct 17, 2021•55 min•Ep. 109
Well, this was one heck of a week. On Monday, Facebook experienced a historic outage of its infrastructure that impacted services used by billions of people. On Tuesday, a new Windows came out. On Wednesday, Twitch disclosed one of the largest data breaches in years, maybe ever. We were duty-bound to talk through our view on all these momentous events, and some of the things we've learned along the way, and that's exactly what we did. If you'd like to jump to any of the individual topics this we...
Oct 10, 2021•1 hr 33 min•Ep. 108
Will Smith, this is your life! Or at least one month of it, specifically November 2009, when you published an issue of Maximum PC that included a review of Windows 7, speculation about ray tracing in video games, a breathless report about absolutely enormous 160GB SSDs, and other historical curiosities. With Windows 11 looming, we thought it would be fun to reach back into the vault and check out some coverage of a previous Windows launch and all the other fun and/or embarrassing stuff that came...
Oct 03, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 107
Our monthly Q&A episode is all over the place in September, addressing such wide-ranging subjects as the fastest Internet we've ever used, surviving bear attacks, why they're so stingy with the USB-C ports, when exactly the week begins and ends, and a housewares block including electric kettles, cleaning bathrooms, letting go of boxes, and a debate about that age old matchup, oatmeal versus grits. Thanks to everyone who wrote in! Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get ac...
Sep 26, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 106
Health science writer and noted swole woman Casey Johnston joins us this week to talk about the convergence of exercise and strength training, food science, mobile tech, and the Internet. What's a healthy way to track your fitness progress without staring at numbers all day? How much commitment does it take to lift weights, really? Is food good? (Hint: probably.) We ponder these questions and more, plus a conversation about the past and present of digital journalism and some thoughts on the inde...
Sep 19, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 105
Bang for the buck! There's no greater feeling than finding that one product that's way, way better than it should be for the price--or modifying it yourself to eke out that extra little bit of worth. In this episode we reminisce about some of the best tech scores we can remember, from venerable overclockers like the Celeron 300A and Duron 600 to huge audio upgrades by Sennheiser, Cambridge Soundworks, and even Radio Shack. From firmware upgrades to Ikea hacks to the Catleap monitor phenomenon, t...
Sep 12, 2021•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 104
This week we're joined by Google's director of open source, Chris DiBona, to talk all things software licensing. Topics include corporate sponsorship of open source developers, how Google maintains license compliance across all its projects, what the ramifications of Oracle's long-running Java lawsuit could have been, why there isn't more open source game development, and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, your name in the credits, an...
Sep 05, 2021•1 hr 17 min•Ep. 103
On this month's Q&A ep, we debut some wild new cold-open technology, and then get on with the business of addressing subjects like the future of movie theaters, putting OnlyFans on the block chain, WinAmp memories, our current thoughts on smart watches, the explosion of new web and mobile tech around 2010 (and our fondness for WebOS), the ease of starting a company on the Internet, the best Star Trek tech that isn't the replicator, and more! Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreo...
Aug 29, 2021•1 hr 18 min•Ep. 102
This week we recorded a grab bag about some disruptive current events going on in various tech spaces. Intel is finally making a real push into the GPU space, and also getting excited about the angstrom. OnlyFans has abruptly shut out the sex workers it built its business on, while placing the blame on moralizing payment processors. And Facebook is attempting to inch toward whatever the hell it thinks the metaverse is with its new VR workplace app. Join us as we attempt to dissect these and othe...
Aug 22, 2021•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 101
Drama alert! Our long-promised scene drama episode (vol. 1) is here to explore community kerfuffles new and old, with conversations about Ubiquiti's no-good-very-bad week, pfSense's self-immolation via buggy Wireguard commit, Linksys' ancient violations of the GPL, illicit binaries, warring office-furniture companies, petty domain hijacking, and why so many of these situations seem to spring up around open-source projects. pfSense's Buffer overruns, license violations, and bad code: FreeBSD 13’s...
Aug 15, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 100
We recently found a Hackers-sized hole in Brad's filmgoing history, so we're killing two birds with one stone this week by making him watch the movie, and then recording an ep about it! Join us for a chat about this campy cult classic as we consider chunky laptops, cornball effects shots, teen-movie clichés, a star-studded cast, the presentation of the '90s hacker ethos, all the things the movie got right and wrong, and the idea that there might just be a little Zero Cool in all of us. #hackthep...
Aug 08, 2021•1 hr 10 min•Ep. 99
Question time is here again, and this month our answers address topics like these: why anyone is still using big ol' ATX, our favorite flea market finds of the past, drop shadows under mouse cursors, extremely frivolous 3D printing projects, the mysteries of random Bluetooth interference, and the puny little billionaires who couldn't even manage to escape low Earth orbit. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, your name in the credits, and othe...
Aug 01, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 98
Ever wonder what it's like to try your hand at small-batch manufacturing overseas? Keyboardio's Jesse Vincent joins us this week to address that very subject in a broad discussion of his company's history, with a focus on the trials and tribulations of getting a hardware startup off the ground, setting up production-line tooling in China, being on the outs with your factory reps, solving IC shortages with FPGAs, finding loose iPhone processors in Shenzhen electronics stalls, and more. You can ch...
Jul 25, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 97
We enjoyed Will's birth-year episode so much a few weeks ago that we're back with a look at the notable events in tech, science, and culture of 1979 now that it's Brad's turn. Slap this tape in your Walkman and listen to us prattle about CompuServe's origins in the life insurance industry, C++, events in nuclear energy (and weapons), the debut of the compact disc, the founding of Pixar and Sierra On-Line, the first Daytona 500 broadcast, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the rings of Jupiter, and m...
Jul 18, 2021•1 hr 24 min•Ep. 96
This week we're joined by Will's friend Ben Brown, longtime online software developer, to talk about the Internet old and new. Topics include Ben's grassroots efforts to resurrect the Finger protocol, rooting around in 1977-era Unix source code, why the tech industry keeps reinventing the same features over and over, reading 'zines over Telnet, the never-ending accumulation and corporate consolidation of content, and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our...
Jul 11, 2021•52 min•Ep. 95
You knew we couldn't resist doing a Windows 11 episode, and indeed we're here to talk about the whole shebang: virtualized security and the controversy around CPU support, the good (better window-snapping!), the bad (bottom-only taskbar!), and the ugly (rounded corners!?) of the new UI, the ol' Trusted Platform Module, Microsoft Store revenue changes, Android apps, and the coming war between Microsoft and Google. NOTES Here's TechRepublic's informative piece on Windows 11 CPU compatibility that ...
Jul 04, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 94
This month's Q&A episode features Qs (from both email and our Discord) that got us chatting about such topics as: the ARPANET, passive-aggressive email signatures, pre-microprocessor computing history, battery management in devices you never use, corporate-mandated brand pronunciations, why video conferencing is merely "good enough," how we've navigated the sharing of our personal lives online over the years, and more! This week's show art courtesy of UCLA Support the Pod! Contribute to the ...
Jun 27, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 93
id Software's Quake came out 25 years ago this week, and it also changed both of our lives. In this episode we wax nostalgic about the astonishing legacy of technical innovations Quake brought to game design, the ways it inspired our fascination with everything from client/server networking to NeXT workstations, the communities and studios that sprung up in its wake, all those endless .plan updates, the perfection that is DM3, and a lot more. Happy birthday, Quake. SHOW NOTES Here are the articl...
Jun 20, 2021•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 92
It's been a big week around these parts--Will helped reveal a new game at E3, and Brad helped launch a new online media property--so we did a potpourri episode touching on a bunch of the technical details of working on these projects, including: Will's embrace of git, how to positively influence Internet behavior, Microsoft's open-source moves, when we might see shipping Unreal Engine 5 games, a search engine that plants trees, and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and ge...
Jun 13, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 91
Reinstalling Windows: no one enjoys it, but everyone has to do it eventually. This week, we spend some time chatting about the ways this timeless ritual has gotten better (or worse) over the years, strategies for making the process as painless as possible, some of the unique things we do to customize a fresh install, and a lot more. Also: tune in for a hands-on report on the new GeForce 3080 Ti (and Will's rapid transformation into a '90s industrial vocalist). SHOW NOTES: Find the dates of your ...
Jun 06, 2021•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 90
If you're looking for our monthly Q&A ep, you've found it! This time around we consider such listener-provided topics as questionable soap-on-soap interactions, discerning frame rate by eye, dot-com-era layoffs, the legacy and contemporary influence of Neuromancer, software broadcast over the radio, and HDMI over, uh, coat hangers? Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the...
May 30, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 89
Spurred by Will's first month with a Chevy Bolt, we present an episode on electric cars and attempt to answer questions such as: How weird is it to drive without braking? Can you check the car's battery health like it's a phone? What's the public charging situation like these days? How many EVs are out there, anyway? Should your car really have the power to text you? SHOW NOTES That wild mechanical thumb from the cold open: https://twitter.com/Rainmaker1973/status/1396003181151272963 Science Mag...
May 23, 2021•1 hr 26 min•Ep. 88
