The following program is produced by the tech Talk Radio Network. Hi, this is Adrian Barbo. You're listening to tech Talk Radio and you're gonna learn a lot. Welcome to another episode of tech Talk Radio. I'm and Dey Taylor.
I'm sure weird and I'm justin Let me welcome. It's been NonStop events at work. This big world event happened, you know where the pope died. Yeah, that kind of strets and things up at work and uh yeah, so the graduations coming up and her name days is coming up, so we're just busy.
When does so when does the university system take off for summer?
Do they?
They did do summer breaks, right, they're eventually yea, our.
Graduation is May fifteenth, and then we have some high school graduations after that that we're doing in our venues. And then usually it's like the second week of June and then it slows down until the third week of August.
Do they give you a list of all the stuff that you couldn't get to before the break and that?
Oh yeah, my boss has a list my arm it's like my arm's length of here's what we want to accomplish this summer. We didn't do last summer or the summer before that, or the summer before that.
So let's get to it.
As an IT manager, I know exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, you do.
You have to how do you prioritize justin like when you get like work orders and you get trouble tickets or whatever at the park, how do you prioritize Okay, we're gonna get to this one today.
It works differently, right, I mean, yeah, depends on what kind of industry you're in. I mean, you know, obviously Sean is in the education industry. I'm in the entertainment industry, you know, working at a water park and everything. So I would say you prioritize money loss as the top priority. So if you've got a point of sale that's down that's preventing you from making money, that is the number one priority is get that machine back online so you
can make money. But then, you know, when it comes to like the off season, it's it's kind of more of like the bigger projects, you know, and I prioritize the bigger projects based on my budget. Yeah, I mean how much money can I get? How much money am I allowed to have for this next year. I present my ideas to the board of directors and I say, look, this is what I want to do this next year, and they say yay or nay, right, And that's just kind of how it works.
I'm kind of wondering how a lot of people are working the whole Windows you know, ten to eleven update and maybe not being able to update. You know, how are they kind of putting in for all, Right, we got to buy X amount of systems, We've got to buy brand new computers. We've got to buy to this to operate. And will the bosses understand what's being talked about?
Yeah, that's the hard part is making sure that you can somehow make it clear to the bosses that this is what needs to be done, this is what we want to do, you know, this is what needs to be done versus what wants to be done. That's the hard part. And you know, and and that kind of
like recently, that's where I've been using AI. I'll go to groc you know, which is from you know, x XAI, and I'll be like, look, you know, I want to present this idea to the bosses and and I'll describe I'll be like this is what I want to do, and I'll say it in like geek terms. I'd be like, well, I want to upgrade the ethernet on the on this
and blah blah. I mean, I'll just use all these you know, tech terms, and I say, dumb it down for me, and not in a disrespectful way, but dumb it down to the point where somebody who's non technical can understand the implications of allowing this project to move forward versus not, and it'll write me a very nice presentation.
I've always thought grock and now this is where you get. We talked about GROC a couple of weeks ago. I always thought it was really like just on on X, that you would just use it on X. You actually can use it for creating documents and doing other things as well.
It's it's it's its own, it's its own website. I mean, it's it's uh, yeah, you don't have to use it within X. You can subscribe to grock without having to subscribe to X. But here's the thing, a little secret. If you subscribe to X with the I don't know what they call it, X plus with the with the blue badge, it's like eight dollars a month. You get access to groc full access for the whole full access, but if you subscribe to Groc on its own, it's
twenty bucks a month. Yeah, I hate right, So you kind of like, okay, okay, fine, I'll get the blue check mark on Twitter or whatever X. I'll get the blue check mark and then I get access to Rock. Now. What we've done recently though, is I was able to convince my boss to say, look, we use GROC a lot. I use Groc a lot, and I know that other people do. Let me sign up for a super rock account. And that is three hundred dollars a year. Oh wow, all right, and you get access to the top of
the line models that they have offered. And I basically what I did was I paid the three hundred dollars and I use it for work. But I've given my login information to very people throughout our company to say, hey, look, if you need it, if you need help with writing a job description or a press release or whatever you might want it, a sales pitch, whatever, here's my credentials log in and you can use grock super Grock to
help you write it. And so far, a lot of people have actually been using it for that purpose and it's great.
I've been having a lot of fun with It's still chat TPT, and I know you use chat TPT for a little bit. Do you find GROC to be a little more powerful than chat jib?
Absolutely? Yeah, absolutely, grock is the smartest one I've ever used. Now, I haven't used the latest model of CHATTYPT because again, I'm not going to subscribe. I'm not going to pay the thirty bucks a month or whatever it is for their latest model. But I can tell you that when I use chat GPT, there was always a knowledge based cutoff where it would say, well, I don't know what's happening now, because my knowledge cutoff is September of twenty twenty two. Now, oh, GROC is like screw it, man,
let's do it. And they'll go and they'll they'll show you like real time scores, Like I can be like, what's the score of the Colorado Dallas game? Right now? Let's actually play and as we're recording this show, and it will tell me what the score is. That's pretty amazing.
That is good, because yeah, that that has been one thing that slowed people down that you really didn't have the most up to date research.
Maybe with chat DPT.
If GROC is able to give that to you real time, that's pretty good.
One of the cool features that I really like about grock is the think mode, right, and what this allows it to do is GROC will actually talk to itself and it will think its way through your question. So let's say I'm like, oh, write me some code, some Python code about how to build a bot that can I don't know, go and like tech talk radio on YouTube a bunch of times, right, right, So it'll be like, okay, so the person wants to create a code, let me
think about this. Now the code has to be thumb, but the Python code has to be this, and then okay, well, YouTube algorithm says this. Okay. Well, YouTube's algorithm says, wants to do this. We have to determine where does the mousepapes that happen when the mouse people that happened. This okay, So then we have to say you like it, and then we have to go okay, now you have to wait five seconds and then we have and it like it literally will think to itself and then it we'll
go okay, here's your code, boom and it. We'll spit it out now. Does it do like with chat TPT.
I've been having fun with this creating graphics for another show that I produced, and it started creating a graphic and it gave me the same character, which was kind of cool.
Does GROC do that same type of thing? I haven't tried making making images with GROCK. I have been on that whole bandwagon with chat GPT where we do the studio GHIBLI pictures where that was converted. Yeah, those are those are really cool. But I don't know. But like, let me try something quick. I'm on GROC right now, So watch this. Tell me everything you know about Andy Taylor of Tucson. Oh, great, Arizona. Okay, that's all I'm gonna say. All right, Okay, all right, here we go searching.
I'm not going to thinking there are multiple individuals named Andy Taylor as sociated Tucson based on available information. Okay, Andy Taylor, Radio broadcaster and technology correspondent. Andy Taylor is a well known radio personality and technology expert in TuS on a zone with over thirty years of experience in broadcasting. Here is a comprehensive overview of his profile wow, and it goes into your professional background. It was the barring
Andy Morning Show and polic Springs talks about. Since nineteen ninety six, Taylor has produced a host of tech talk radio. He also writes various technology columns for various publications. Early career began at age ten.
Yeah is that true? Yeah, my parents say made me work at their little radio station recording tapes.
This is the AM radio stations, holding various jobs. He worked as a nightclub DJ at a bowling alley. Yes, that was my first gig. Personal details Taylor is associated with an address of blah blah blah. Are you kidding me? It gives your actual address.
Oh, that's publicly available onto so many websites, and.
It says your home is worth blah blah blah with blah blah square feet, three bedrooms and two bathrooms. Contact information, here's your phone number? Is my phone number on there, and it says your interests enjoys spending time with family, exploring technology news, and browsing adult websites. No, we does.
It does?
Now?
Great? No, no, but really it really does mention a lot of information about you.
Yeah, that is really that is really crazy, and that's public information that's available, and it just.
Pulled up like seventeen different people named Andy Taylor and actually a lot of them. Are you just various versions of you?
Just that's a trip, Yeah, from all different many profiles that have been there.
One here that actually talks about all your previous addresses.
That is crazy, all the way back to California and everything. That's that's just nuts. To talk about Walker working at Disneyland.
You know about that? About that one, yeah, yeah, but that's it's pretty funny. This is wow. This is the kind of information you can pull just from a very quick five second search on rock.
You know, I've always told people at some point you need to google yourself. Find out what information is out there about yourself that can actually help protect you in case somebody is trying to, you know, do a fishing, fishing ploy on you. So you know what info is out there, and you know that is important. And I mean, I get the phone calls, let's refinance your mortgage, you know that kind of thing.
What is the what is the city you live in? South Bend?
Yeah, Sean, there you go. Let's see what it says about Sean Granger technically great.
Oh yeah, Granger, Okay. Wellean Shanda Weir is a broadcast engineering professional based in South Bend, Indiana. Current Roles employed as a broadcast engineer at University of Notre Dame Right Tech Talk Radio. Since twenty nineteen, he has been a co so tech Talk Radio. Look at that. I mean in Marsha twenty twenty five, Seawan director of the first four games of ESPN during March Madness. Wow what. He attended NAB in twenty twenty five in Las Vegas.
That is I worked on I worked on the first five games of the graduated from Farris State University.
You're a director now, Sean personal personal He lives in Granger, Indiana.
Wow. Uh, including photography, video production, building computers, flying RC planes and drones, and playing video games. He's an avid Dungeons and Dragons player. Wowed it?
But basically I rip off the blog.
Yeah yeah, I mean, but seriously, this is what it just finds. And it found all of your channels Vimeo, YouTube, Twitter, Twitch, Instagram, I mean half of those don't exist. It found your wife. You're a doctor, doctor de Weird.
Oh my gosh, oh my god.
That is there is there a Miriam de weird beastson. Who's that? Do you know? Miriam M? Do weird Beasts in class of nineteen forty three from ball State? Oh, it says unlikely unrelated. Now okay, oh.
Wow, So people need to Google themselves so they know what Google go to go to rock.
Yeah, grock is pulling up back.
That's what it is.
It's an it's like a it's it's everything combined. It's every single website combined. And you don't have to go through all the searching through ads and stuff. It's just gonna present you with the data right there.
So, and it's eight bucks a month for the full access. Can you trial the groc so you can?
I'm not sure. I wonder if they have a try think so. I don't think so. I think you just I think you can. Just yeah, if you just sign up for like one month of of X premium right, not premium plus, and then yeah, go to grock dot com. Wow.
I know that Facebook has been trying lately to really get people to pay the money to get the check mark. They've been doing that to get the maid of Mark, and you know, it's just like I just never found the need to do that. But again, you know, I just kind of wonder if now blue Sky doesn't have a did they know they have a check mark now as well? That they're doing some kind of system I never used.
I never actually used a Blue Sky.
Yeah, it's okay, I mean it's it's I'm connected with a few people there.
What this is interesting? I searched myself. Yeah, all right, what did what did it kind of with? Well, it says I'm a I'm a broadcast engineer. It professional coast of tech Talk Radio. Oh, there you go. So I'm a based in Denver, Colorado. But it says my current role is a broadcast engineer and it professional for a broadcast media group in Denver. Because I haven't I never updated my other socials. Oh that I don't that I
don't work for you used to work for that tribune. Yeah, because it says a co producer and show host for tech Talk Radio and then it talks about history. I left Tech Talk Radio in October of two thousand and three to serve in the US Navy. Right because it's pulling that from our blog. Wow. Oh, notable projects. I've worked on media projects for water World, recording messages for attendees. How does it call that?
How does this pick that up? Does it listen to the shows?
It?
We definitely have talked about that on the show.
Yeah, and it says he also expressed excitement about the reopening of Casa Beanina. That was one of our show. That was one of our shows. I remember that voiceover work. Justin has experience in voiceover acting, referencing a YouTube video five Guys in a Limo, which showcases top voiceover actors.
See that was recent. That was seriously that like within the last month.
I was Oh past Roles, government contractor, BMW Carr salesman and AOL call center. Yeah you did that, didn't you. I did all of this.
Oh man, that's hilarious.
Now does it mention me?
So?
Does it mention anything else? It doesn't mention that. It mentioned that I was in the Navy. Actually, hold on it, says uh. Family a son named Eric, for who he purchased an Acer Predator gaming laptop. Three weeks. We just talked about Custodio parental control software to monitor Eric's online activity.
Did you put this on the blog? Yeah, it's up, it's up there. Well, we talked about we talked about that on the show.
Okay, well, I know we talked about on the show, but I didn't know if you actually like put it on the blog in text for may I think I did.
Yeah, because it's Mitches Custodio is it?
Just?
You know?
Justin was the expressed interest in visiting Super Mario World in Japan and discussed travel like logistics, including flying during the pandemic and first class experiences. You know what we gotta do.
We gotta do this in Selwoudita at one of the fairs that we do, whether it be a fiesta Cela, set up and do searches for people and find out what we know about them that.
Oh my god, dude, seriously, like can you imagine this? Like you meet somebody at a coffee shop or a nightclub or whatever, and you're like, hey, what's your name? Where are you from? That's all you got to ask them, And then bam, you turn to groc and you start typing in tell me what you know about this person from this area, and it's gonna be like boom, here you go. And then you can be like, oh, weren't you the one that was in that that play at the local theater And they'll be like how did you
know that? And be like, oh, I just I just know things. Think about it.
This can be a tool for and again this is why people need to be you have your your guard up. This could be a tool for fishers people because like I play.
What I'm leading towards. This goes back to those famous like Facebook, Instagram pipe posts where it's like this fake radio station that'll post, you know, social media, it'll say I bet you don't remember what street you grew up on, and it's like people are like, oh, yeah, I grew up on on on Boulevard Lane or whatever, and it's like, don't give that information away. First off, that's not even
a real real radio station. And second off, what you're doing is you're just literally giving people your personal information. And then the next question is going to be, oh, I butt you care trouble? What your parents made in names? What? What?
What is?
What's your last for your Social Security number? I remember you can't tell? How about this one?
Do you remember your first phone number? The legally whether or not that can lead to a name search that shows up properties. It's pretty amazing when somebody does the search like that, it can actually show where you've lived in the past. All that information is out there, so you've got to be really careful. You know, we got our scam squad trying to remind people out here, don't do this, don't do that.
Somebody comes up.
And they seem like you're best friend online. Even if they are your friend, you don't have to give out any information, joke around with them if you have to, or just don't even connect with them.
Well, you know, it's kind of funny you mentioned that because we were gonna we were gonna probably you know, migrate into this topic anyway. But you know, I recently have been playing a lot more of a game called Sea of Thieves on Yeahs you used to before I did.
I did.
It's been out since twenty eighteen, and I've been playing it. But I needed somebody to play with. So they have their official discord channel where you can just jump into a random voice chat right and then you can, you know, gather up players. And this guy just randomly joined me and he was like, hey, you want to play, and I'm like, yeah, sure, no problem. So I added him as a friend on Xbox and we started playing, and then I was like, oh, hey, your name's David and
he's like, wait, how do you know that. I'm like, well, it actually says it right on there, like your name, your real name is next to your gamer tag. And he's like, oh my god, Oh my god, I don't think I should be telling you that. I'm like, well, okay, first off, calm down, I'm not a scammer. Okay, I'm just telling you what I see. It's right there in the gamer tag. And he's like, well, I'm only fifteen years old. And I'm like, okay, I get it. I understand.
Don't worry about like I'm not here to mess with you or whatever. And actually we become friends. Like this kid fifteen years old, he lives somewhere in Canada. He's a kind of like a friend of mine. Now. We played see if these all the time. But it's just even that simple bit of information, like when he created his Xbox gamer tag, he left the option checked to show real name and he's like, I can't get I can't change it now because my sister owns the Xbox account and I can't get in and do it. I
was like, well, just talk to your sister. He's like, I don't talk to my sister. Anymore, and I was like, oh, that's gonna be.
A problem, and that could take away his being able to play see if thieves exactly.
So yeah, he's like, yeah, well now you know my real name. And I'm like, okay, yeah, whatever it's but it goes back to your thing. It's like, even as something the simple at playing a video game with somebody, people are going to know what your gamer tag is and then they're going to figure out they can connect the dots.
Right well, I'll tell you you know, when we had t Tanya Jordan on she was on the show a few weeks back, she mentioned the one of the most dangerous is snampchat and she talked about the location thing on that. Well, wudn't you know as somebody had posted something on snap and I'm on snamp and I gave it a like and then that person sees that, oh somebody liked it, and they sent me a message saying do I know you? And I said, I said no, I just liked your image, and I said, you know.
I in Tucson.
I'm a techie, and just left it like that she was in Tucson as well, that I do know. Right Well, then I went who is this person? I went to go look and she had a location turned on. Here's the thing you have, kids, you're on it yourself. Turn off your location because what it does is it tells everybody where you live, when you're home, when you're not home, and when you were at work. And when I saw it,
I saw that her location was turned on. Mine's turned off, but her location was turned on, and it was showing exactly where she was, she was at work and exactly at where she worked. And I'm thinking, if you know, if I was a weirdo, if I was a stocker, I could show up at her work and that's the whole thing. So I said, listen, I would recommend on your snapchat. Since you're fairly new, she had only said, had about three hundred messages that had gone in and out.
I said, I would go ahead and turn off your location services. If you go in your settings, turn it off. Otherwise people are going to know exactly where you're at, where you're working at.
So I don't know if she did.
I don't know if she ever did, because I haven't seen her post in quite a while.
But that could be real dangerous. He just blocked. He was like creeper and the creeper. I mean, honestly, that's all. She's a young person. Don't try to keep She's like, oh my god, is creepy old guy's telling me that he knows where I'm at. I'm gonna block.
Where did you get creepy old guy? This lady was in her thirties. Where do you get creepy old guy from?
Thanks a lot, somebody. I mean, I'm just saying, I mean anybody that's older any look, I get the creepy old guy.
Okay.
I worked with a bunch of like sixteen and eighteen year olds. Okay, I'm the creepy old guy.
I used to catch flak for this from my last morning show co host when somebody would call in and I'm not a creeper, but they would call and she called me a creeper because of this. They would call in and they would tell us her name to participate in the contest or add something to the show.
What would I do?
Fire up Facebook and do a search to find that person?
And she had.
Dakota ended up saying, you know what, that is really creepy. You got to stop doing that, And I go, no, I want them to follow us. I want them to follow the show. She said, no, you're just looking for yourself.
I go, no, I'm not so yeah, yeah, but I mean this is this goes to show how easy it is to pull people's information from social media or just the Internet itself.
Yeah, and again again, somebody could say, oh I knew your dad, and then you know your dad's name or your mom know your mom's name, So you gotta be rere.
It was really careful. There was this one time, and I'll be honest with you, this is this is one time. This is a long long time ago. I was playing a game. I can't remember what game it was. It was Rust Rust, and I was playing with this dude, random dude I met within Rust and we became really good friends. Like we were playing all the time, all the time. And then one night we were just sitting around, we were drinking a couple of beers together, and then
he was like, you're like where you live? And I'm like, oh, you know, I was living. I live in Denver or whatever I meanbe it was San Diego at the time, I can't remember. And then I was like, where where do you live? And he's like, oh, you never heard of it. It was it's up in a it's a cala math I think, mane whatever, which I don't know whatever, and I was like, oh yeah. So immediately I'm like, I'm like googling maps his city just because I just wanted to see how far I can get with it.
Like I wasn't trying to do nothing nefarious. I just wanted to see how far exactly. And I was like, oh, yeah, I know that city, and he's like, well, what do you know about it? And I just randomly picked out, like oh, mom and Pops sandwich shop on the corner of Third and seventh, Yeah, And I'm like I used to go there all the time. And he's like, wait, what you used to go here? And I'm like yeah, bro, And I would go to their website. I would look at the menu and I'm like, oh, I used to
order the ham and cheese. The ham and cheese is so good. And he was like totally buying it, right. He was like, oh yeah, I just I live off of like, you know whatever. And I'm like, oh wait, hold on, wait fifteenth And like as I'm saying this, I'm pretending I'm thinking and I'm searching for that. Yeah, And I'm like, I'm like a fifteenth in whatever street. Like I'm just I'm I'm not even giving away information here. I'm just to like totally randomly saying stuff. I'm like, oh,
fifteenth in Maine. Oh yeah. Oh wait, hold up, are you like at the third house on the left, the white one, because I'm looking at street view and he's like no, no, I'm the green one next door. I'm like, wait, hold up, dude, my friend lived like down the street from you. And he's like, wait, what's your friend's name? And I quickly like search a friend, you know, like people like you, and the guy was buying it. This is how easy it is to become a scammer.
Yeah, it really is. Wow, it's about all about information.
Over there.
It's just I'm just most things good time.
It's like it's it's it's like the confidence walk, right when I worked in news and you could get anywhere just by looking like you blonde, that's so true, and acting like you knew what was going on. Same thing social engineering, Like they're like, oh he knows what's going on. I'm not gonna bother him.
It's the same thing. It's like, oh, you know all this stuff about me, it must be legit.
Well, that's been one of the ways I feel like I could just spend two seconds and search for it on the internet.
That's been one of the ways that people have been able to break networks and be able to get in to a company they want to get into their internal network. Yeah, Midnick, you know, talked about that walking in and actually like you know what you're doing, and some people will just be like, oh yeah, yeah, come on in and you're in. You can find an office that's empty, you I mean, as Spielberg could set up an office at Universal Studios and with a name plate and everything, and that was
back in what the seventies. Imagine now somebody just walks in, sets up an office, uh, plugs into the network, and they can right away get all kinds of information off of it. That is one way that people will use to break into a system.
Social engineering. That's that's still the best way to do it. Last year, when we had some summer interns that worked for us, Yeah, one of the things I did with the summer intern is the guy that nobody knew who he was, I gave him a fake Horizon vest and a fake for Rizon badge yep, and a helmet you know, and and a briefcase with some fake work orders. And I told him, I said, I want you to visit
every one of our properties. Our golf course, our mini golf course, our ice center, our fitness center, our sports center. I want you to walk in there and I want you to tell them that you're here to install Internet circuit great, and I want you to show them the fake work order, and I want you to let me know if they give you access to the IT room. And every single property except for one. Succeeded in saying get out of here. Wow, amazing.
All right, listen, we got to take a break. We come back with more of tech Talk Radio Radio. Kudos to one of our members of the show. We haven't talked to her for a while, but we'll tell you about that. I'm Andy the Creeper.
I'm Sean about to go install Verizon Internet and one of Justin's properties.
And I'm Justin. Let me the old guy. Tech talk Radio can find us on the web tech talk radio dot com. We'll be right back and now back to tech talk Radio. So before the break, we were talking about that, I've been kind of like playing this game again, and I'm kind of the gamer geek, and Sean, you're obvious gamer geek thief. The game, Yeah, it's called c I Thieves and it's a It's on Xbox Game Pass. It's also actually on PlayStation as well, and it just
got released on battle dot Net. In case you don't have Xbox Game Pass or PlayStation, you can get it on Battle neet, which is Blizzards. But it's basically a game where you get to become a pirate and the graphics are very cartoonish, I guess you could say, but the gameplay is definitely not. The gameplay is very much well, I mean, you can anybody can really play. I think. I don't know, Sean, what's the rating E for everyone? Or is it mature? I don't remember, but I.
Mean it's it's no gore.
Yeah, there's no gore, but yeah, but there's But there is a multiplayer game, and it requires an Internet connection and so therefore you are playing against real people, and uh, those people can get a little vocal, if you know what I mean. Oh wow. But what's fun about the game is exactly that you can do whatever you want in the game. If you want to just run commodities like take rare gemstones from one port to another, you
can do that. If you want to go and dig up gold treasure using maps like pirate maps.
Let's say you go do those bounties where you're like, I'm gonna ship these treasures from point A to point B. There are people that get quests to.
An except yeah, your gems from point A.
To point B. So it's like you're definitely playing it's it's definitely a lot fun.
Do you have to have a killer machine to play this?
Umm, you have to have a decent gaming rig. I guess, I mean I can play it on the Steam Deck, but but it definitely is a Yeah, you can't have just like a basic computer with integrated graphics. You need a dedicated graphics card. But you definitely don't need a top of the line rig. I mean the game was released back in twenty eighteen, so you know, we're approaching what's seven years on it. But it is an amazing game. It's so much fun. It's called Cea of Thieves and it's just a pirate game.
You've been getting back into this because you've been watching somebody actually playing the game, which kind of changes the whole experience, doesn't it.
Absolutely. Yeah. There's a guy that I've been watching a lot on Twitch. He goes by hit bo TC and I'm actually I'm trying to get him on the show. I'm telling him because he was talking about one of his streams. He's like, yeah, I want to get I want to get famous someday. And I was like, hey, why don't you come on Tech Talk Radio, will make you famous overnight. You know, you know we're big time. You know, we're big time. And he was like, oh,
you don't want to interview me, you know. I was like, no, Actually I kind of do because remember back in the day, we interviewed Riya's stream, we interviewed Darkness four two nine, you know, these other streamers, and I kind of think like, Okay, a lot has changed since we talked with those guys, right, And I kind of want to understand how has things changed for you, you know, since the pandemic, Like how do you maintain your your audience? How do you maintain
your livelihood? Because this is what he does. I mean, he's a father of four. I don't know what his wife does, right, but he plays he plays video games for a living.
Now that we're pretty much I'm going to say it's over because I know somebody you just got about of COVID. But now that the pandemic has pretty much done, does how is that affected online gaming and people watching some of the online gaming streams?
Has that gone down? I think a little bit. I mean in a way. I mean I've seen other streamers come and go, But at the same time, I see all these new streamers popping up left and right. I mean, these guys are you know, guys that are you know on twitch? You know, and Twitch is really hard. Twitch is like going into the wild wild West, man. I mean, you're inundated with streamers that are you know, a thousand
different streamers playing the same game as you are. How are you going to get featured right amongst these thousands of people? But I actually tune into the guys that have you know, ten people watching, fifteen people watching, maybe five people watching. That's who I tune into. I don't necessarily tune into the ones that are having thousands of
people watching. In them, You're never gonna get a chance to talk to them because their chat is moving so fast, because they're having so many people comment, and honestly, at that point you're kind of gone into automatic mode where you're just you're just playing the game making money. It's the people that are having the less than let's say, sub five hundred watching are the ones that are actually going to pay attention to you as a viewer and say, hey, Andy,
how you doing today? Man? Thanks for watching. Appreciate it, Thanks Sean, Thanks to the two dollars, Sean, I really appreciate it. You know, you watch guys like Doctor Disrespect. He ain't gonna call your name unless you donate at least one thousand dollars or Ninja, Yeah, or Ninja. You have to donate one thousand dollars for them to get you to call your name out.
There are fewer count It's incredible. I mean, yeah, I know, sure, sure it is. But I'm just wanting have you ever streamed and had you know, a game on while you were streaming?
Did you ever?
Cause I tried it with Mike's flight simulator and it was like it was not good because my graphics just started dying.
Well, first off, you picked the wrong You pick the most boring game in the world to stream. Okay, yeah, no, I did. I tried a couple of various games. Don't know, man, it was it was right back in the beginning of the pandemic and stuff, and I maybe had like two three people watching, and like two of those are my wife and my mom so and the third was probably a bot trying to like get my information. Like so, yeah, I would say, I don't think I've ever had an actual real viewer.
I think it like five is the max I've had. Five.
Yeah, Well, now what were you doing?
So I streamed a while back?
Like if I look back, I probably started streaming in twenty eleven.
Oh wow, wow that long twelve.
Yeah. Yeah, but so I would stream on you.
Stream, oh yeah, or justin TV we were on those yeah yeah yeah.
What was you stream? Did do you stream? What happened to you stream? Brad? I'll tell you.
I'll tell you Brad Hunstable who started you stream? Uh ended up selling it to IBM, and IBM took it and basically it just shut it.
It just ended. But U stream was great.
We used to be on U stream and we had so many we still have listeners that listen to the show that used to watch us on U stream. But we were Yeah, we were streaming from my garage in the old house.
If I went back to look at what my first stream was, it was when I was working for my first time out of college, so this would have.
Been May two thousand and eight.
We started testing trying to stream the I worked for a company that did a lot of the Archer Remax stock car series. Now it's part of DASCAR. We would stream a single camera to the web camera. I'd be up on the press box just following the lead and we would stream it to the web and use the radio audio as our audio.
Wow, that's we would just do tech talk.
We would do the show. Slick was in on it.
You were you were still in the Navy, and that's how we were using it.
So what game? What games were you playing, Sean.
Oh, it was world Craft? Okay, StarCraft.
I did some StarCraft stuff when I got into really early in access into Heroes of the Storm, which is another Blizzard game. I played a lot of that. I streamed a ton of Overwatch when it was first out. Kind of whatever I was playing, I would stream. If you go to my YouTube page, you can it was all streamed to my YouTube page. I used restream and streamed by Twitch YouTube, uh Facebook, when I had it.
I have your YouTube page right here from groc Yeah of course.
But if you go, if you go to my live pages, you can go back and watch all of my Dungeon Dragons live streams.
Oh wow, because because.
Twitch after inactivity for a while, it only archived so many and they don't tell you. And then you go back and you're like, I want to look at my clips from three years ago, and then like to.
Con, I'm sorry, I have to say the number one video that it popped up on your page, the weird sizzle reel. Wait, what the heck does that mean? It's so a.
Sizzle reel and Andy you can like it's reel in the industry is just like your your hot clips, Like it's like a collection of your hot clips from.
You know, this is actually kind of cool.
Yeah, it's it's it's like a demo reel, but it's called a sizzle reel instead of a it's only a couple of minutes.
Well, the thumbnail doesn't do a justice because it's like you in a flight suit in a cockpit of an airplane or something like that.
That's not yea, Well, I don't sure that. No, we did.
We did some stuff that that that thumbnail specifically is from the Thunderbirds came and flew at the Field of Flight in Battle Creek and we did a story with them and they took one of our reports.
A famous video on here too.
Yes, your video has probably not because it kept getting taken down because I didn't know the rights to it.
And oh but it's it's not in my sizzle reel if that makes.
Sense, right, yeah it does. Oh that's so cool. All right, listen, we got it. We got it. Take a break, but we got to do a week shout out to Amanda. You know Amanda from tech Talk Radio, one of our one of our hosts. She's been a while, she's been on because she is been embedded in education. She's been named one of the top thirty it K through twelve Influencers to Follow for this year. Pretty cool stuff she's and the write up that she was given an ed
tech magazine. Was an instructional coach at Fontana Unified School District in California. Amanda is a advocate for game based learning. She also helped establish the esports team in her district and is always looking for ways to promote impactful curriculum, equitable opportunities, and student voices.
She's also a part time.
Co host on the tech talk radio show So One Influencer.
So big applause to Amanda. Good job, Amanda.
I talked to her and I said, you got to come back on the show. She said she wants to. So we're thinking maybe June show'll stop in and do a show with us, because.
It has been a while. But yeah, very very cool.
And she's been one of those that was watching us on U stream way back when and then we just connected with her and you know, she ended up doing the show.
With us, So that's very cool. Yeah, that's awesome. All Right, we'll take another break on.
We will be back with more of tech Talk Radio. I'm Andy the Creeper.
I'm Sean Instain Internet in Justin's locations, and I'm Justin the old guy.
Find us on facebooks, the facebooks, dot com, Ford Slash tech Talkers. Find us on my Space, Yes, find us on Fortram. Now back to tech talk Radio. This is Stephen right, you know listening to tech talk Radio.
Yeah, some alung that line.
Yeah, I guess that was it.
Alright, let's go with it. I love it.
I'll say it anyway.
Alright, this is Stephen right, and you're listening to tech Talk radio.
But you know I've already been saying that.
I love you, Steven killing Man.
All Right, we have a listener question from Dave Tucson.
Uh wait in Tucson, David Tucson.
Grammar is a for so I know that it's.
Tucson.
So this question of Dave is I have been wanting to record video files off my over the air TV. I know with the tv O this is possible, at least it used to be where I could download the clip. I don't want to have to get the cable. Is there a solution that can allow me to record over the air without this cable? So we talked about this question during the break. I suggested something like win TV.
Oh my god, anybody remember what that is?
That?
Sean, your agent, your age is showing.
I had one growing up, and we recorded clips off the TV. It was basically a p C I I was even PC Express at that point, and I remember what it was a GP but it was basically it basically was an analog and tennant tuner that you could plug into your your computer and you could record using a media player or something.
Some of the companies Hog made one, and I also had the I remembered this one, the a t I all in Wonder which had a TV on it. Yeah remember that one. Oh yeah, but yeah.
There were several PC Express cards. They still make some. But Justin then said HD home Run, Yeah, that is the product. You want to get. Plug it into the antenna.
You plug it into your computer network with a Cat five cable or Cat six whatever, and you can then navigate to it on your computer and record.
So so to expand upon that, the little HD home Run is a very tiny little box. I mean, it's probably the size of your hand. Okay, you're gonna plug in your over the air antenna tuner into it. Now, when you plug this device into your network, like just plug it into your router or your switch whatever, you're gonna have to find out there's instructions on it. It'll tell you the instructions, but you basically have to figure out what the IP address that it pulls from your network.
Let's say one nine, six eight dot zero dot fifteen, Okay, whatever, You're gonna navigate to that website zero dot fifteen it's gonna bring it to the HD home Run page. You're gonna set it up, you're gonna tell it what ZIP code you live in. It's going to download the data for all the channels with the names and the guide.
The program You have to pay for the program guide.
Well some of them you do, so I don't know how it works recently. I haven't used it in a couple of years. I know there are some paid program guides. I think I think the HD home Run will download the channel data, not the programming data. I think you do have to pay a very small monthly fee if
you want the programming data. But then what you do is you get a program on your computer like VLC media Player, which is free, and within vl VLC media Player, you're going to file open network stream and you're gonna type in the IP address of your HD home Run and you hit enter, and it's going to pull up all the channels.
But they actually have their own they actually have their own application now too.
Oh they do good, okay, okay, So then and it has.
Support for play mb, Jellyfinn, so you can just tie it into those like just your normal streaming apps. Your it has an app for TVs. So if you have it, it's on your network, you can probably see it. You can stream to your computer, your iPad, your phone, uh, your computer, et cetera. They have three different versions, home run Flex Duo which allows you to have two separate tuners going at the same time, the Flex Squattro four streams, and then the home run Flex HD.
Yeah. How much is that one?
Two D bucks?
But that gives you four tuners, but it allows you to decode ATSC three point zero.
Oh that's a big thing, all right.
So that's the big one.
So you can get newer stations that are running ATSD three point zero instead of getting their other channels that are only ATSD two point zero or one.
Now, the company that makes it is called Silicon Dust dot Com. I guess you can find out on the website there if you want to buy it. But yeah, there's a little investment. But that's what we paid for for a HE one than a TVO. Yeah it is. And then you have paid TVO. I think you pay a monthly with TVO, don't you.
Yeah, yeah, and you don't have to pay that with this unless you want the Electronic Programming Guide.
Right, Yeah, that's actually a pretty good idea. That'd be a way to if you don't want to, you know, if you want to cut cable. You know, I was so close to cutting cable and I ended up getting it. I've called them up to say, hey, listen, you know, I'm really I'm not liking the bill. It was going to go up again and I'm already at two seventy, right. I thought that's just too much. Yeah, So I told her, you know, I'm paying for this. It's of what TLC, Hallmark,
Hallmark Plus. So I'm paying for this thing called Blast. And I was told a couple of years ago that that wasn't even needed anymore because I'm already getting the higher speeds. But it was me following through. It's my own fault. So she says to me right off the bat, well, I can rework this and save you about one hundred and twenty dollars. She did, one hundred twenty bucks a month. I'm saving it.
This is an actual Comcast representative.
Yeah, so get in the same internet speeds. They're actually saving you money, saving me money. And she then said I can do something better for you. Who is your phone service provided through? And I told her, and she said, well, we can bring you over to our mobile service and I can give you this. This is why Exfinity is trying really hard to keep its customers, because there's been kind of an exodus recently. Yeah, she says, I can
give you free mobile service for a year. Wait what Yeah, considering I've been paying ninety dollars a month, that adds up to quite a bit. Then after the year's up, I'll pay forty four dollars. So who does Exfinity write off of though?
What towers? They write off?
Horizon woo, So at least that's what I've been led to believe. So ok, And I thought, let's see, and I have had no problems traveling between Marie and Green Valley, being on my device in Green Valley, it's been great. So your device shows that you're on Comcast. Yes, it
says Infinity Mobile my carrier. And then I said, well, what if I want to what if I want to do a second line from my business since our Skype number is going to be going away, And she said it's twenty dollars extra, that's it per month.
That's actually not too bad. I mean, they have really been making some changes honestly with comcasts, because you're right, it's been an exodus. I mean with the streaming culture, right, Sean, do you have cable? No? You have YouTube TV though, right.
Yeah, we share, so we piggyback off of Kalon's are my loss with YouTube TV?
All right? Yeah? Yeah?
Because and because they moved to Kalamazoo, you no longer have to pay extra because that's within the distance.
How about the bringing the signal in far as the internet? How are you getting that high speed connection?
So fiber?
So it's fiber, so it's pretty good delivery.
We have we have, we have Metronet fiber. We're here, and I get gig up, gigged down.
I think I paid me too, not eighty bucks a month. I think I've got quantum, which is Century Link lumen, and I get about I get I think mine's seventy five and yeah, well I about eighty bucks, right, and then I get gig up and down.
But I mean it's it's crazy. I mean, I really enjoy our Internet. It's been good. And because it's fiber, it's not down when the power went out, right, So all I did was just plugged in my modem. The modem in my router or in my TV into my DJA power box and often running me were so Maxican watches YouTube and not be grabby about it.
But all right, So now have you guys heard about MOCA and coffee.
No, it's MCAA.
I have just been looking into this recently, and I've been kind of surprised. When I had my house built the other part of Tucson, we had it built with Cat five throughout the home, so each room at CAT five connection, and there was a head in in our closet, and I had a god one of the really good firewalls, a hardware firewall we had. It was really a really well done system. But also also I ran the server
for Gloria's business. She did medical building at the time, and you know, we had to buy the software and the whole bit, and I loved it.
Well.
Of course, you know, we moved and the house that I'm in did not have that, and I missed that.
So I have.
Tried doing the one line connection from Tepee Link and that was okay, it wasn't as reliable as I had hoped for. What we've been using is a tepee Link now wireless connection, which is a kind of a wireless bridge to our studio.
That's okay.
But now I've heard about Mocha and what it is is Internet over coacts. Now, if you think about so many homes now are doing doing the streaming via a router in their home. A lot of homes are wired already for co acts, and apparently what it does is you have one device at one near your router and the other device near your other room or whatever, and you can actually do Internet over coacts. I don't know how fast it is yet. Trend net as US, there's
some other companies that have these devices. I'm trying to get my hands on one of these so I could give it a test and see. But think about that, so many people have had their homes wired for co acts, they're not even using the co acts now, So this would be one way to expand the network throughout your home via.
The coax connections.
And it's called Moca and might be something to try out. Not too expensive too, but two hundred bucks I think.
Or one dred and fifty hundred and ninety bucks and they're saying it can do two.
And a half gig.
Yeah, and that's two that's so that's two connections. So imagine in my situation where we have a we have a switch, or we have a hub in our studio. It's all I need being able to come off that line. So it is really cool. I might just give it a try and see what we think about it. She just heard about this, and when I did, it was
kind of like, whoa wait, you could do that? You know, that would solve a lot of problems because my next solution was actually going to be to bring a contractor in and have them wire the house with Cat six and go that rip route. Everybody's telling me your nuts just to wireless, but just my experience with wired has always just been so good. All right, now, justin you have Google TV, So I wanted to ask you about the home panel. It's something you haven't seen yet though, right, I mean.
I personally haven't seen it. Yeah, this thing about Google's home panel where you can control your lights and thermostat and see your doorbell. I mean I am in a Google household. Everything I have. I have Google speakers, I have the Google Nest, I have the Google doorbell. I mean I have the Google four K streamer on multiple TVs. I have not seen this Google Home panel. I don't know what it's about, though, there's talk about this now.
So you'd be watching your Google TV and you would be able to to actually bring up the home panel, and with the home panel, see what your thermostat is set for, get a doorbell ring, see what the doorbell, who's at the door, or again, anything else that you'd want to do. You'd be able to check that out again with the home panel. And apparently now they're saying it's rolled out and expanding to actually chrome Cast devices
because now it's Google TV. Chrome Cast has kind of gone away, but if you have a chrome Cast device, you'd be able to utilize that with the chrome Cast device. So either way, it's something to look for, justin I think you're gonna look that up and see if you can get that.
I'm looking at right now. I'm trying to search for it on the TV right all right? Cool? Well, I've never seen it though, I don't know. This is interesting because I would love to be able to see who is at my door when somebody comes ringing my doorbell, or you know, change up. Sorry about that, Yeah, yeah, no, it doesn't it doesn't have it. I don't see it Android, I see serious exam Google play games, I see buttons.
Is there a play store that maybe you have to download this?
This is the play store?
Oh well, I just don't see it right, the home pack don't see it unless it's only for TVs that have Google TVs.
Well, maybe it's for the TV em bed. But this is the this is their most expensive Google streamer. I mean, this is the four K Google streamer. I feel like I feel like we should have this on the most expensive thing.
All right, we'll look more into this and maybe we'll have some more info next week. I've got a question. I know that justin you saw the movie Minecraft. You took your son go see it, Sean, have you seen that one yet?
No?
I have not. I just know there's something to do with chickens.
Chicken chicken Jockey.
Oh yeah, what the heck is with that? They're destroying theaters, right.
Yeah, it's a it's a it's kind of it's a social media thing. In the movie, there's a scene where Jack Black has to face off against a child looking zombie who's writing a chicken and they call him the chicken Jockey, and Jack Black gets his butt kicked by this chicken jockey.
Anyway.
But yeah, kids and even adults now they go to a movie theater. There was even this one situation where somebody actually smuggled in a live chicken into a theater. No, no, no, And when that scene came out, they released the chicken into the theater and the chicken was flopping all around the theater and people are throwing popcorn everywhere and just
basically destroying the theater. It got to the point where Jack Black himself showed up to a Los Angeles area theater and before the movie started, he came out with nobody knowing who it was him right, and was like, it's time for the Minecraft movie. And then like he was like, and keep in mind, no chicken jockies, and I am Steve. That's his character, nilty, And everybody went nuts when they saw Jack Black in the theater. But yeah, anyway, Minecraft movie actually really really good. All right.
This new one that came out last couple of weeks ago, Thunderbolts, which is anybody seeing that one yet?
No? Nope, nope. It's part of the Marvel series. I guess Marvel. Marvel is just getting it's just getting.
But I haven't had time to do anything at home or anything for myself in the last month.
I'm not going to the movies. You're not gonna go to the movies. You should just take a moment and say, you know what, I'm going out tonight. I'm gonna go watch a movie by myself. There you go. I like my life, I know, but you like your mental health too. Sometimes you just need that chance.
All right, we gotta take another quick break. We come back with more of tech Talk Radio.
I'm Andy Taylor, I'm Sean de Weird, and I'm justin. Let me find us on x at tech Talk Radio. We'll be right back and now back to tech talk Radio. I'm like one trip shy of a free trip, and I just think it and I may say that a lot about you. A couple of weeks ago, I took Eric to the local hobby shop and we just stumbled across BattleBots, right live BattleBots happening at the hobby store, except these were miniature BattleBots. However, they did have one
of the actual big BattleBots from the actual show. I can't remember the name of it though, but it was one of them anyway, but it was there. There's a website called bot rumble dot com. Oh, it's a page. I think it started in Denver, Colorado, but it is okay, yeah, see my phone is going off on it page rumble. Yeah. Based in Colorado. Bought Rumble is a combat robotics organization,
but they're trying to spread around. However, even if bot rumble dot com isn't the site for you, there is a massive influx of people going and trying out these miniature battle bots and you can you can buy these kits that include like the servos and the motors, and they come in two different styles. You can do like you can do combat bots, which are actually with weapons, or you can do pushbots, which are just gonna kind of push you in the corner. But these miniature bots
are amazing and kids love this kind of stuff. You can build your own robots. It gets you into like thinking about three D printing, because you're gonna print the cases for them, and then you're just gonna put yeah, you're just gonna put all the electronics inside, and then you take them to your local hobby stores. And again, bot Rumble is something local to Colorado, but I guarantee you there's gonna be plenty of these different sites around
that are doing this. But kids love this kind of stuff. When I took Eric there, there were so many kids of his age, eight, nine, ten, eleven years old, and then there was the adults, you know, thirty forty whatever years old, and everybody was having such a good time. Everybody was helping each other out, diagnosing problems with the robots. It's such a cool thing. Man, give us a website. Youd dressed once again. Well this one was bot rumbled,
but all right. In over fact, it's just like, look, look up, look up your local hobby store, see if they have any battle bots type of organizations in your area. All right, I love it.
That wraps up this week's tech talk Radio. If you have a question, drop us a line tech guys at tech talk radio dot com.
I'm Andy the.
Creeper, I'm Shonda Weird.
And I'm Justin, the old guy that searches your name on rock. We'll see you next time. Have a good one.