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Episode #14

You Will Own Nothing

September 5, 2026

Apple's M5/M6 hardware drops, self-hosted music stacks, the variety of affordable IP KVMs, and Sony's digital ownership lawsuit (and footgun)

#home-audio#plexamp#navidrome#sonos#apollo cast-1#sendspin#jetkvm#pikvm#sony#digital-ownership#playstation#valve#game preservation
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Hosts
Adam Adam Alex Alex Geoff Geoff Stephen Stephen
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You Will Own Nothing
Duration 1:03:28
7 chapters

What we cover

  • Apple’s new Mac Mini with M5 Pro and M6 chip, and the Mac Studio with M5 Ultra that can hit $18,000 (and is it worth that lofty price).
  • The state of self-hosted music: PlexAmp goes free, Alex’s Navidrome stack, whether Sonos is worth it, and the Apollo CAST-1 for whole-home audio.
  • A roundup of favorite IP KVMs (JetKVM, GL.iNet Comet PoE, PiKVM, TinyPilot) versus built-in IPMI/iDRAC for remote server management.
  • Sony’s latest self-inflicted mess: an AB 2426 lawsuit over “you’re only buying a license,” and the bigger ownership-versus-licensing fight, the Don’t Kill Games movement, and Valve’s delisting approach.

First up, Alex breaks down Apple’s newly announced Mac Mini with its first M6 chip and the eye-wateringly expensive Mac Studio refresh and whether anyone actually wants or needs it.

Next, we talk about PlexAmp finally going free for everyone, though no one is sure what actually changed under the hood. That leads Alex into a rundown of the self-hosted music stack he’s been running instead. From there, the conversation turns to whole-home audio, with Geoff and Adam defending Sonos against Alex and Stephen’s high-end audiophile skepticism, and Geoff introducing Apollo Automation’s new $30 CAST-1 device, which uses ESPHome and SendSpin through Music Assistant to bring whole-home streaming to any speaker.

After that, the crew compares favorite IP KVMs, including JetKVM, GL.iNet’s Comet PoE, PiKVM, and TinyPilot, against built-in board management like iDRAC and IPMI for remotely managing servers and workstations.

Then Geoff walks through Sony’s latest self-inflicted mess: a lawsuit over California’s AB 2426 disclosure law after Sony argued a “reasonable customer” should already know digital purchases are just licenses. That spirals into a broader debate about ownership versus licensing, the Don’t Kill Games movement, Valve’s more consumer-friendly delisting approach, and whether the pricey Steam Machine is worth the convenience tax. Alex also shares a fun open-source discovery of a remake of a beloved game, Theme Hospital.

Plus a bonus post show where the gang argues over Steam Deck versus Switch portability, Stephen’s fight to get Plex working in Game Mode on his Steam Machine, and cheap Chinese emulation handhelds like the R36S, Odin, and Aya Neo.

Tags: Mac Mini, Mac Studio, Apple silicon, PlexAmp, Navidrome, self-hosted music, Sonos, home audio, Apollo Automation Cast 1, ESPHome, IP KVMs, JetKVM, IPMI, Sony, digital licensing, Steam Machine, CorsixTH, Theme Hospital, Steam Deck, retro handhelds.

Transcript

Alex: So what did we all make of the new Mac Mini announcement and the Mac Studio last week? Anyone buying one? 00:00

Stephen: Who cares about Mac things, honestly? 00:05

Adam: Oh my God, this guy, he’s so fricking Linux pilled. 00:07

Alex: So Apple have announced a new Mac Mini with an M5 Pro chip in it, an M6 chip, the first one in their lineup to get the M6. They also refreshed the Mac Studio as well. And what’s interesting about that one is not only do you have the M5 Max, you’ve also now got the M5 Ultra, if your pocketbook isn’t. extends that far. If you put the minerals inside this Mac Studio, you can very easily send it north of 10,000 US. 00:12

Geoff: Is this one that has like 32 terabytes of RAM or something absolutely stupid? 00:45

Alex: Not quite that stupid, but it’s pretty stupid, yeah. So, like, if I’m on the configurator right now, 36-core CPU, 80-core GPU adds $1,300 to the base price of $5,500. So I’m already at 68. Then I add 256 gigs of RAM. That adds $4,000. 00:50

Alex: that’s the most right now it says 512 memory coming for the m5 ultra in late october so god only knows what that’s going to cost but i’m now at ten thousand eight hundred dollars and i haven’t even added storage yet i can add up to 16 terabytes for another seven and a half thousand dollars Which takes my meager Mac Studio to $18,299 before tax. Ugh. 01:13

Geoff: I was going to say who’s going to buy this, but we all know who’s going to buy it. So, wow. Good on you, Apple. Go John Ternus. Go make some hardware. 01:45

Alex: Well, it does say shipping lead time 12 to 14 weeks in fairness. Nobody’s gonna, I mean, I say nobody, some research lab somewhere is gonna buy that one. But the one I’m actually interested in is the new Mac mini. 01:55

Adam: That seems to be the one that’s getting most of the attention that I’m seeing online too. 02:08

Alex: They’re just so cute. So cool. Aren’t 02:12

Stephen: Uh-huh. 02:15

Alex: they? I mean, so you do end up in this weird crossover at sort of $1,500 to $2,000-ish when you’ve put a few little things. Once you upgrade one or two things on this mini, like you put 10 gig ethernet in there or you put a little bit more memory in there, you end up in this uncanny valley where it’s basically the same price to get the entry-level Mac Studio. And you get the better cooling and all that kind of stuff. I mean, I kind of want one for this desk because I’ve got an M3 Max 14-inch in front of me. And it’s right now sat at 75 Celsius as we record. So when it’s doing video conferencing, it just likes to get a little bit toasty. So I don’t know. The Mac Mini looks quite appealing to me. 02:15

Stephen: Apple’s so good at pricing things so that like really it’s just a tiny bit more to get the better thing. Like they do it so perfectly. It’s textbooks. 02:55

Alex: It’s almost as good as airlines. Like if I want to fly from Raleigh to London, it’s like $1,500 round trip. And I think, oh, I could do better than that. I can book a single ticket from JFK for $800, $900, whatever it is. And then I look at how much a single flight from here to New York would be, and it’s $300 or $400. And I’m like, I may as well just fly direct. 03:04

Geoff: They have done market research at the wazoo. 03:26

Alex: Yes, indeed they have. 03:29

Stephen: I think we should probably talk a bit about something that I don’t think we’ve actually talked about on this show before. And that’s home audio. Alex is a bit of a fan of a good set of speakers. In fact, he can, yeah, right there. 03:31

Alex: Yep. 03:44

Stephen: And for everyone that is watching the video, he’s got a set of Kef LS50, but not the meta version. 03:45

Alex: No, these are the actual original LS50s from 2015. And I felt zero desire to upgrade them in that whole time because they’re just so good. 03:51

Stephen: Yeah, that’s fair. That’s fair. The metas are way better and you definitely should be buying them. But that’s not the point. They’re an extremely expensive, well, for most people, set of bookshelves. If you’re coming from, you know, the back in the days where you used to buy a Logitech set of speakers, plump them on your desk, hook them to your computer, and you had that killer looking subwoofer that actually wasn’t a subwoofer at all because it was just a fake thing at the front and it had a tiny speaker inside. But I digress. 04:00

Geoff: For the record, I feel attacked, sir. 04:28

Stephen: No, no, it’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. So yeah, there’s been some changes in the audio world, but first, maybe not a home audio thing, but PlexAmp finally got a huge update that I’m perplexed. on 04:31

Adam: oh 04:47

Stephen: um 04:48

Adam: every time 04:49

Stephen: every time right a certified dad um so i read these these release notes right and i’m going through it i’m like yes yes they’ve they really have rewritten so much here and i got to the end and i’m like wait what’s actually new and then i promptly joined the beta and got the latest version and looked at it and went What is new? And so I hope one of you looked through that and maybe you do more programming things than I do. But I’m hoping one of you can explain what they actually changed that I would actually care about. And there was a lot of actuallys in those sentences. But what changed? Why do I care? And why did it take so long to get the next update? 04:50

Alex: Well, actually, PlexAmp is now free for all users. They still have Plex Pass. They still put things like Sonic Sage, Guest DJ, Headless PlexAmp. That’s still behind Plex Pass, Lyrics 2. But it’s now free for everybody, which I think is nice. 05:36

Geoff: I wasn’t a big Plex user, but I also never really saw… I know people rave about PlexAmp, but it was not really my thing. 05:53

Alex: So I think for me, when you’re trying to look at replacing the elephant, the juggernaut in the space of Spotify, you need a few things. You need discovery. You need some kind of smarts for the player to be able to link sonically your library together so you don’t end up with Rammstein next to Debussy, for example. Although I wouldn’t mind that, but sometimes you just want a heavy playlist. And so that’s what some of these features do also the headless PlexAmp on a Raspberry Pi feature That’s pretty nice. You know you just plug that into any set of powered speakers and it becomes a network streamer So the the thing that it lacks really just a coherent experience with Spotify you’ve got Spotify connect with PlexAmp you don’t even really have the like remote control functionality between different things which is kind of a pain but Yeah, I’m struggling, Steve, and I’m looking at the release notes, and I don’t really see anything terribly new in there, despite all the fanfare. 05:59

Stephen: I was hoping, at the very least, it would be able to do some sort of auto-creation of playlists that make sense. But I was just fiddling with it before the show here. 06:57

Alex: Were 07:10

Stephen: And 07:10

Alex: you now? 07:10

Stephen: just like you said, it jumps from one genre to the next. It’s not like I wanted to do a trance sort of playlist. It just decided to… go off and do Rammstein, trance, 07:11

Stephen: some sort of Celtic music that I didn’t remember that I had. And I’m just like, well, it’s nice. Yeah, I haven’t heard this stuff in a while, but it’s not really something that I would want to listen to. It’s just really kind of annoying, right? For me, PlexAmp, PlexAmp works really, really well, and it looks nice, but it’s missing the features I need to move off of something like Spotify. 07:26

Alex: Now, as many of you know, I dumped Plex pretty publicly in June, and I haven’t felt the need to spin it back up at all. I recently just took a two-week trip to California for Tailscale up and to do the Unraid onboarding. And I haven’t missed it at all, even whilst traveling. Just Tailscale lets me connect back home, and I’m not a paid shill anymore. It just genuinely actually does the thing I need it to do. But what I found myself doing for music was spinning up something called Navidrome. I’m sure 07:49

Geoff: Yeah. 08:19

Alex: you’re familiar with Navidrome. But I was missing a few of the discovery, the things I mentioned a moment ago. And so for daily mixes, I’ve been trialing this thing called NaviBeat mixes that can generate multiple playlists entirely from your library. So to do things like the time of day mix, the discovery, things you’ve been on heavy rotation, that kind of thing. And we’ll link all of this in the show notes, of course, so don’t worry. But then the other thing I found I was missing was that kind of like Sonic Sage thing that we were just talking about. Like I want my EDM mood. I know what genre I’m in the mood for. And I found this Navidrome plugin called Audio Muse AI, which analyzes the actual audio locally. and then analyzes every track in your library and kind of generates, it’s pretty good, it’s not perfect, but it’s certainly better than nothing, generates this 08:20

Adam: Oh yeah. 09:09

Alex: artist radio instant mix kind of vibe based on certain sonic signatures that it picks up in your library. And then the final piece is the kind of history for longer term things like Discover Weekly and that kind of stuff. So I’ve been using this thing called ListenBrains, which allows me to do, remember the last FM scrobbling thing that you could do where you could basically say, 09:09

Geoff: Yeah. 09:32

Alex: here’s all the music I’ve listened to today, and it would just automatically upload your Subsonic listening history as you went. That’s where ListenBrainz came in. And then the final piece is something called Explo, E-X-P-L-O. And that’s the glue, really, that kind of brings it all together. It reads the ListenBrainz recommendations and obtains kind of like the matching tracks from its… I’m not even sure how it works, to be honest, but I know it works really well behind the scenes. And it ports the stuff into your library and kind of creates more playlists for you to go through. And I’ve been really enjoying that for the last couple of weeks whilst I’ve been on the road. 09:32

Stephen: I think we actually need you to make a YouTube video describing all of these features and how to set them up. 10:13

Geoff: Second. 10:21

Alex: coming to a YouTube channel near you at some point when I’ve had a moment for my ass to hit the ground. We’re recording this already two days late, so thank you, gents, for bearing with me. But the last two weeks for me have just been nuts. Yeah, you probably know why if you’re listening to this, but it’s been a busy one, but I will get to a video about it. 10:22

Stephen: So do any of you have a Spotify speaker or 10:44

Adam: I 10:49

Stephen: Sonos? 10:49

Adam: do not. 10:49

Stephen: Nope. It’s a Spotify speaker, a Sonos speaker. You can use Spotify on it. Do any of you have a Sonos speaker in your house? 10:49

Geoff: Yes, I have several. 10:56

Adam: I. Hmm. 10:58

Stephen: Ooh. 10:59

Alex: I’ve always refused to buy into a proprietary audio ecosystem because it’s been one of those technologies that I’ve been like, I shouldn’t have to pay a tax for this. 11:00

Geoff: Yes, 11:11

Stephen: Mm-hmm. 11:11

Geoff: but hear me out on this one. So I was the same mindset as you originally, because when we moved into this house, I wanted to have audio, and my wife refused to let me put in, you know, we built the house. I could have had conduit everywhere and put in, you know, a whole home audio system, and she says, no wires. I’m like, okay. So I had to go something wireless. So I went with the Denon Heo system, which, again, little proprietary, but open-ish enough, you know, more open than Sonos. It was absolutely garbage. I could never get my phone to reliably connect to it. I never used them. I got tired of it, and so I got Sonos speakers in here, and they work out of the box locally with Home Assistant. I’ve never had an issue with them on Home Assistant. Music Assistant works with it. Again, locally, not a problem. I honestly, I know there was the whole app snafu a year or so ago. I rarely use the app, so I didn’t even really ever notice. So yes, I know you’re paying a tax. And I think we’re going to talk in a minute about some other solutions that you can use other than the Sonos that I’m curious about. But for being, you know, proprietary and all that, they’re still fairly open with a local API. So I haven’t really felt that I’ve been locked into these things. 11:12

Adam: I’m also gonna be a Sonos apologist real quick. So I used to work at Circuit City and I had all of the, I had a really nice Onkyo amp at the time. I went with like the tower speakers, the whole setup, right? You get the discount. So I bought all the toys. But, and that was great for a long while, not so great for the multiple moves between houses that I went through to have to rewire all this stuff and whatnot. And on one of my final houses in California, we switched over to a projector versus a standard television. And it was so nice to have the Sonos soundbar up front rather than having to run all this cabling and deal with where do I put my receiver at this point? Up in front of everything? Do I try to put it behind, et cetera, et cetera? It was so great to just have a package deal and just have this soundbar that wirelessly connected back to the projector. Bada bing, bada boom. Just a wonderful experience, honestly. So from a, would you call that a convenience perspective? Or what would you call that just from the perspective of different configurations as you’re moving and trying different things? Sonos is pretty kick-ass for that. 12:27

Geoff: So you guys were poo-pooing Sonos. What do you guys use for your whole home audio? 13:46

Stephen: no this is an awkward conversation um i don’t do whole home audio um i just have a two channel audio system that i that i use and we won’t get into into those things but i will say that uh your wireless thing can be very helpful uh and even in the high-end audio That world has really opened up to the idea of less cables. And so, for example, the KEF speakers that Alex has there, there is a LS50 wireless. And I think they have a couple of iterations now. And there’s even a floor standing one that’s called an LS60 wireless. um many many dollars will be spent but the thing is is that uh they have amplifiers and everything else built into them i suppose the sonos do too except for one sounds like a tin can and one sounds like full full audio 13:51

Alex: It’s always been an issue for me, too, is the audio quality. I know what really good audio sounds like, and there’s no way you’ll get it out of something the size of a shoebox. It’s just not possible. 14:45

Stephen: The only thing I can say about the Sonos and I, I don’t even think they make them anymore, but they’re the, just like the, the little can 14:57

Geoff: Yeah, 15:03

Stephen: sized 15:03

Geoff: they make them. 15:03

Stephen: ones. 15:03

Geoff: That’s what I have. I have three of them. 15:04

Stephen: I think they’re okay for if you’re in like an office setting and you just needed like a couple of speakers here and there that are never turned up past like 25% volume. It’s just kind of background sound. I think that’s okay. But if you ever want life in your audio, it’s just not doing it for me. And in fairness, before someone says, well, have you ever tried doing a stereo pair? I had a set of the, I think they were called the fives or whatever they were called. um and i had them set up as a full stereo pair and i even had the the really expensive subwoofer that is pretty embarrassing and um it just it doesn’t hold a candle to even like the ls50s that are behind that are behind alex they just they just don’t now alex there has it has to have a pretty decent amplifier to to push those granted and so he has a If he had the wireless version of that, I think both of you would find that that’s a perfectly fine amount of cables. Like it has a power cord that goes to one and technically you can go to the second speaker wirelessly or with like an Ethernet cable. But yeah, I don’t know. I guess I’m just too experienced with the higher end, quote unquote, higher end audio that things bother me when they sound tinny. Yeah, that’s just it for me. 15:07

Geoff: Well, 16:27

Adam: Do you have a suggestion for something that would work for, so you’re mentioning like there’s the wireless option for things like that. I would love to understand if there’s a great wireless surround sound option besides Sonos and I’m just missing something that’s way better from a quality perspective. 16:27

Geoff: Funny you should mention that, Adam. So I stumbled across this on Reddit the other day. Apollo Automation just released what they’re calling the Cast 1, which is basically their version of a Chromecast, but it runs on ESPHome. And 16:42

Adam: Mm-hmm. 16:59

Geoff: it is going to use SendSpin, which is the Open Home Foundation’s version of Snapcast, to handle all the audio stuff with the syncing and everything. So you buy these. They’re $30. It’s got a DAC. It’s got a 3.5-millimeter jack coming out of it. You can plug it into basically any existing speakers you have in your house, and you could have whole home audio. I’m tempted to buy like five of them. 16:59

Adam: What would you do for the surround sound like the routing of all that you just have to have a receiver still 17:26

Geoff: No, 17:30

Adam: somewhere, correct? 17:30

Geoff: no. It can power the speakers. I think. I don’t know. You guys tell me if I’m crazy on that one, but I think it can power 17:31

Alex: Yeah, 17:37

Geoff: the speakers. 17:37

Alex: I mean, I don’t know how it would handle the codecs, specifically 17:38

Adam: That’s what 17:41

Alex: in 17:42

Adam: I’m 17:42

Alex: decoding 17:42

Adam: wondering. 17:42

Alex: of surround sound stuff. I think what this is more designed for is, well, just filling a space with sound. It’s not 17:43

Geoff: Huh. 17:52

Alex: really designed for making a helicopter fly over your head or something. I don’t think I could be wrong. certainly chromecast audio was originally designed to just send more than one stream of music to a remote place now what will make or break this for me and by the way send spin is wonderful it’s part of the whole home assistant nebu casa universe chef’s kiss to those guys thank you for doing what you’re doing the thing that will make or break this for me is like the user experience When 17:52

Geoff: Yeah 18:22

Alex: I use AirPlay, which is admittedly what I do right now and it kind of stinks because it streams direct from the phone and if there’s any kind of interference between 18:22

Stephen: Gross. 18:29

Alex: the phone and the device, it cuts out and it’s really annoying. With this Cast One device, I’m hoping it will do what the Chromecasts do and get the remote URL into the devices themselves 18:30

Geoff: Yes 18:43

Alex: and not have a dependency on my local device having reliable connectivity at all times 18:43

Geoff: Yes 18:48

Alex: wherever I am in the house. To the network with enough latency that it doesn’t buffer or anything like that. So 18:48

Geoff: Yeah, it’s going to use Music Assistant as the back end. So if you use Music Assistant, it’ll basically handle the streaming for you 18:54

Alex: There 19:02

Geoff: to your 19:02

Alex: you 19:02

Geoff: speakers. 19:02

Alex: go, there you go And here’s to hoping it also plugs into that Navidrome ecosystem. I just talked about too. This is this 19:02

Geoff: It 19:09

Alex: is 19:09

Geoff: will. 19:09

Alex: the thing we’re self hosting 19:09

Geoff: It does. 19:10

Alex: ah 19:10

Geoff: It does. 19:10

Alex: Wicked, okay great 19:12

Adam: If it does the codec, sold. But yeah, I need the helicopter flying over my head still, 19:14

Alex: I 19:19

Adam: guys. 19:20

Alex: suspect 19:20

Adam: Okay. 19:20

Alex: these things, 19:20

Stephen: Yeah. 19:20

Alex: they’re priced at $30 each. I suspect there probably isn’t enough overhead for a Dolby license in there, but I could 19:21

Geoff: Probably 19:28

Alex: be wrong. 19:28

Geoff: not for not 19:29

Alex: I could 19:29

Geoff: for 19:29

Alex: be 19:29

Geoff: not 19:29

Alex: wrong. 19:29

Geoff: for Dolby. No, probably not. Adam, you had questions about you were talking about IP KVMs on our discord a couple of weeks ago or a couple of days ago with us, you know, talking about which ones we have. But you have questions because I’ve got one. I know Alex has got one. I’m assuming Steven probably has a couple lying around. So. 19:30

Adam: What’s old is new again, my friends. And I was just kind of waxing poetic about the fact that I installed a clean internal boot for Unraid on my little Franken-NAS. And it’s been so long since I’ve done that via an IPMI out-of-band management interface. For some reason, I’ve used them for remote control purposes, all kinds. But 19:47

Geoff: Amen. 20:09

Adam: I haven’t done an install on the Pi KVM via like its internal storage via an ISO. So I was just like, oh my God, I love this. It became novel again. And I was just like, oh, it’s just kind of looking around at the landscape of these KVMs. And there are so many inexpensive options these days out there. And one of our coworkers actually had posted that he got a Glinect Comet X. which looks really dang compelling actually. It has four 20:10

Geoff: Oh, yeah. 20:42

Adam: HDMI and USB ports on it built into the singular unit. They’re rack-mountable. And he also had a really interesting little, it looked like a Chromecast actually, with this little puck that was for individual device KVMs. So you could put it on, I guess, a laptop or mobile devices even is what he was talking about. And so this got me thinking and made me start looking around. Like what are people using these days? Pi KVM was the bee’s knees when it first was released and pretty novel at that price point for everything it enabled. But these days there’s just, it is a very busy landscape. 20:44

Alex: A bit of a caveat on the Pi KVM, because 21:20

Adam: Hmm. 21:23

Alex: if you had just a Raspberry Pi 4 and the camera module, you could do it for maybe $60, $70, something like that. HDMI CSI camera module, not the actual Raspberry Pi camera module, just to be clear. You could do it for cheap. But then the Pi KVM project productized it, and it became this $400 21:23

Geoff: Yeah. 21:47

Alex: thing that was just… 21:47

Stephen: Mm-hmm. 21:49

Alex: Not in the spirit in my mind of the original kind of like hacker vibes of it. Yeah, fine. It costs money to put a product together, not complaining about the price. I’m just saying it became a very different proposition at 400 versus less than 100. The Nano KVM came along shortly after at like 30 or $40, which is the size of like a tiny little, it’s probably about the size of about four dice put together. In fact, I’ve got one in the drawer behind me. I don’t use it because there was this whole furore about the firmware being open and then closed and then open and then who knows, blah, blah, blah, China, whatever, China bad. So the Nano KVM kind of sat in a drawer, but the one for me that stuck is the Jett KVM. I love, I have like three of these things throughout the house. Really like my Jett KVMs. 21:50

Geoff: i remember 22:41

Adam: And. 22:41

Geoff: i remember when you were possibly you had that big sale and people were like asking can we get your you know can you get your check kvm and you’re like over my cold dead 22:42

Alex: No. 22:48

Geoff: body 22:48

Alex: I mean, they’re basically… 22:51

Adam: I bought his HDMI switch from his old Pi KVM 22:51

Alex: You did. 22:56

Adam: at said sale, which is interesting. I’ve still not even hooked it up properly. But tell me, why is Jett KVM your go-to? That’s what I want to know. Is it the form factor and the cool little touchscreen 22:57

Alex: Yeah, 23:12

Adam: or what is it? 23:12Alex: I mean, so I actually have another favorite in this space, and it’s the GL.iNet Comet, not the Comet X you just referred to, but they make another one called the Comet PoE. And that one for me, they sent me a review for the Tailscale channel, which is now actually sat at my mother-in-law’s house in England doing remote duties over there. And it’s just powered over PoE, so it’s one less power adapter. The GL.iNet interface is okay. The one I prefer the most, like of all these interfaces, is the Pi-KVM, actually, even though it’s expensive. Again, I got a cheaper review unit from cloudfree.shop, I think it was, during the self-hosted podcast era, complete with the four-port switcher option that it had. So I actually did a studio, like a rack tour a couple of weeks ago, on my YouTube if you’re curious to see what that looks like. But it looks like an octopus got drunk and got in a fight and there’s just a bunch of cables all over the place and it’s not a very pretty thing. The Jet KVM though, it’s like the gentleman’s IP KVM. It’s like, it’s the size of an Apple Watch, right? So 23:12

Geoff: Yeah. 24:14

Alex: first 24:14

Geoff: Hmm. 24:14

Alex: of all, it’s tiny. It has like a little chin behind it, I suppose. And the interface is good. You have an Ethernet port on the back. It doesn’t do PoE. I wish it did. And then it would be perfect. Well, two things to make it perfect. One, PoE. Number two, it takes a micro or a mini HDMI, I forget which, on the back. If they’d just made the device… five millimeters taller they could have fit a real hdmi port in there and i wouldn’t need these stupid adapter cables that i have hanging off the back of all of them other than that jet kvm perfect device 24:14

Geoff: Yeah, I have the GL.iNet Comet. I got one of the first ones when they first came out. And then I actually went out and got the ATX adapter that you can have. So that way I can actually remote power start 24:51

Alex: yeah 25:01

Geoff: all that. That also is a game changer. Again, I haven’t used it all that much because I haven’t had to. And I’m going to knock on all the wood right now. Yeah. But the few times I have, it has been absolutely game changer to be able to go in. And yeah, I agree with you, Alex. The interface is fine. It’s nothing magical. But it’s functional. It works. And I can get into things when things are not responding. And I need some kind of interface that is not tied to my internet connection. Well, not tied to the device’s internet connection. 25:02

Alex: It actually occurs to me I have in a box to my left in the closet one of the Tiny Pilot KVM devices as well, the Tiny Pilot Pro or something. 25:33

Geoff: Yeah. 25:43

Alex: I’ve been meaning to review that on the channel because he sent it to me like six months ago for a while now. So I’ll add that to my list of my backlogs for you, Stephen, and then publish it at some point in the future maybe. Okay. 25:44

Stephen: that would be great yeah 25:57

Alex: Okay. 25:58

Geoff: But Mr. Stephen, 25:59

Adam: Ever? 26:00

Geoff: I’m assuming you have to have some kind of, or do you just rely on KVM built into the boards? 26:00

Stephen: yeah so the only reason i have uh a Pi-KVM and i and i bought the the official one with the nice metal case 26:06

Alex: Here 26:14

Stephen: and 26:14

Alex: it 26:14

Stephen: whatnot 26:14

Alex: comes. 26:14

Stephen: No, no, I’m not going to poo-poo on your situation. I have one because I don’t really like having to go back to the work desk to work on whatever machine that I’m setting up for a client or whatever. So I just hook it to that, and then I can sit at my desk and just use the IP, get into it, and do what I need to. If I’m going to do something in a rack, it’s through an IPMI, so like an iDRAC or something like that off of a Dell server. Uh, honestly, I don’t really have desktop things in my racks. 26:16

Alex: For me, besides the obvious application of these devices, of leaving them in the rack next to a server, It means you can use consumer-grade hardware now to do what was ostensibly a server-grade hardware job. And with the prices of everything these days, that’s a real godsend. But I also now don’t have on my workbench, I don’t have a keyboard and a mouse and a monitor anymore. I literally just have my laptop wherever I am, and then I can get that same experience in high fidelity across the network. So for me, it’s replaced having the kind of crash cart monitor and keyboard and mouse just out all the time. And that’s my favorite use case for them when I’m filming or something like that. It’s just so good. 26:51

Adam: I like the continuity of interface too. Like you can basically, I really like how this interface works and I can just expand that to the entirety of my, my lab versus, oh, I went with gigabyte on this board. So now I have to deal with this interface 27:35

Alex: Do you remember how 27:48

Adam: and. 27:49

Alex: jank some of that Java crap used to be on some of these? 27:49

Adam: Oh 27:52

Geoff: Oh, 27:52

Adam: my 27:52

Geoff: God. 27:52

Adam: God. 27:53

Geoff: I never dealt with it, but I’ve heard horror. I mean, 27:53

Alex: It 27:55

Geoff: just 27:55

Alex: was so 27:55

Geoff: anything 27:55

Alex: bad. 27:56

Geoff: with Java, 27:56

Alex: It 27:56

Geoff: I’m just like, oh, God, why? 27:56

Alex: was so 27:58

Adam: My 27:59

Alex: bad. 27:59

Adam: iLO days, man, the nightmare still of the Java interfaces on these things and the old antiquated versions of Java that you had to have on your machine in order to 27:59

Alex: Yeah. 28:07

Adam: run these pieces of garbage. 28:08

Alex: I actually had, 28:09

Adam: Hmm. 28:10

Alex: the reason I have the Comet PoE in England, that server has an IPMI built into it. It’s an Azeroth rack motherboard. But when I went back at Christmas, it just stopped working. No idea why. The motherboard’s fine. The computer boots up fine. But the onboard IPMI is dead. And so I had to find a way to access it remotely that way. They aren’t 28:11

Adam: Now, 28:35

Alex: perfect. 28:35

Adam: no. But the onboard IPMI also, one of the benefits is that you get all the sensors that are built into it also. And if you’re really keen on monitoring your system and getting alerts and stuff, you can tie into those sensor nodes on the built-in IPMI. But typically, I just hate the interfaces on them. Some of the more modern newer ones are not terrible. And when we were talking about price, you know, whoa, I can go with the consumer level board. Some of the workstation boards that are out there these days are really pretty close on the price and they come with those out of band management and 2.5 gig on the board. 28:37

Alex: But they also use a lot of 29:14

Adam: So 29:15

Alex: power doing it. Like an IPMI can sit 29:15

Adam: that’s 29:17

Alex: there 29:18

Adam: fair. 29:18

Alex: and use 10 or 20 watts, like a built-in iDRAC or whatever, doing nothing. 29:18

Adam: Yep. 29:22

Alex: Before you’ve even turned the computer on, it’s pulling 20 watts. And you’re like, what are you doing in there? Yeah. 29:23

Adam: Totally 29:28

Stephen: Okay. 29:29

Adam: correct. 29:29

Stephen: But can you update the firmware on your BIOS and everything else remotely over the internet? 29:30

Alex: I’m 29:36

Geoff: With 29:36

Alex: not doing 29:36

Geoff: the 29:37

Alex: that. 29:37

Geoff: Comet 29:37

Alex: I’m just not 29:37

Geoff: ones? 29:38

Alex: going to do that. 29:38

Stephen: No, but I mean, I do. So that’s the whole thing, right? And so I do agree that I think that these tools are very handy, especially the way that Alex uses it throughout this house and whatnot. That’s super awesome. But if there’s a latest patch that came out for a BIOS that I need to deploy across like four servers, I just go into the iDRAC and I just tell it, pull it off of Dell’s website. It pulls it through. it does the whole update it reboots the server does all the checks and whatnot and brings it back it’s not just um it’s not just my ability to you know have a remote console right i i have all of the hardware checking in and telling me what’s going on if a fan inside of a server failed uh if a NIC died i can configure all the raid not that i do a ton of raid but if you wanted to do raid it’s all in the same management and everything else and so it’s a bit more robust when you’re 29:39

Adam: Mm-hmm. 30:32

Stephen: doing something like that. I will say that any of the kind of like consumer rack stuff, like the entry level, anytime I’ve experienced any of their out of band management, it’s not the same quality as one of the higher end stuff. Like I just keep choosing iDRAC because I use Dell servers, but it’s not the same. And I’ve always found Super Micro ones. They’re kind of frustrating. Um, the latest version, not so bad, but I don’t know. I don’t get along well with them. Yeah. 30:32

Adam: So I have not, honestly, it’s not been a 31:06

Adam: purchasing decision for me for so long as far as my home lab equipment. And I know that you’re using this for a different reason, but for your business. And that totally makes sense to me. But one thing that I do, another additional to what you were saying is that when they are, it can be a great tool when you have the built-in IPMI and it’s a robust system for troubleshooting issues as well. Not just from like the alerting, oh, I have a failed fan. But there is some really good information that you can glean from the logs from a good IPMI interface. 31:10

Stephen: yeah temperature stuff for example very very handy like you know why did that box go down well the os doesn’t know but you know if you look at your your log as you can see for some reason 31:45

Geoff: Mm-hmm. 31:54

Stephen: cpu started getting quite hot or something to that effect right 31:55

Adam: Voltage 31:58

Stephen: it gives you 31:58

Adam: stuff, too. Mm-hmm. 31:58

Stephen: yeah voltage stuff yeah absolutely 31:59

Alex: Now it’s time for a quick bit of housekeeping. You can find everything we do over at bitflip.show. We’re also on Mastodon at bitflipshow. We’ll put links to all of this stuff in the description, of course, down below. This isn’t YouTube. It’s a podcast. They’ll be in the show notes. There you go. That one’s better. So if you want to get in touch with us, you can send us an email at contact at bitflip.show. We genuinely do read every one. And if you enjoy the show and fancy supporting what we’re doing, you can head over to bitflip.show slash support. Finally, a huge thank you to our Terabyte supporters, Maurizio, who sometimes goes by badneckmask on our Discord, and Alex Taylor. Those two suggest quite a lot of the topics that we talk about in these episodes, and we’ve got our own little private… members only chat that we chat with them throughout the weeks as well so huge thank you to those guys for supporting the show we really appreciate you helping us keep this thing going all right back to it who’s next up in the show what are we talking about next 32:02

Geoff: I was going to talk about Sony because Sony has shot themselves in the foot for like the 80 billionth time when it comes 32:59

Alex: again 33:06

Geoff: to ownership again. So for those who just don’t know, I’ll give you a quick recap. They have, you know, taken stuff away from you that you bought through their, you know, digital store, like movies and TV shows. Just a couple of weeks ago, they announced that they were going to get rid of, they’re going to stop selling PlayStation 5, you know, physical discs starting at the end of next year. And then I stumbled across this one. So California, a couple of years ago, passed a law, AB 2426, which requires if you’re buying something online, the company has to say whether you’re buying, you know, what are you buying? Are you buying just a license? Are you actually buying something? You have to actually spell it out. And so some customers sued Sony over, you know, violate, alleging a violation of this law, saying that they didn’t, you know, adequately describe that, you know, when they, because it said complete purchase, but then it said, you know, be aware you’re, you know, what exactly, I wrote this written down. It says that you are buying, purchasing something and, hang on, sorry, you’re further acknowledged that your purchase 33:06

Alex: Hold on, 34:10

Geoff: of 34:10

Alex: give 34:10

Geoff: this 34:10

Alex: me 34:10

Geoff: digital 34:10

Alex: a clean 34:10

Geoff: purchase 34:11

Alex: pickup on that, would 34:11

Geoff: Yeah. 34:12

Alex: you? 34:12

Geoff: Yes. So here’s the text of what it says. It says, by selecting confirm purchase, you agree to complete the purchase in accordance with the PlayStation terms of service before using this content. You further acknowledge that your purchase of this digital product amounts to a license subject to the software product license agreement. Now, I know that probably still sounds legalish, but you can see the words you’re getting a license. So 34:12

Adam: Mm-hmm. 34:34

Geoff: Sony rightfully says, hey, it says very clearly you’re buying a license. If they had stopped there, I think they would be fine. However, they kept going and they said, a reasonable customer of course is going to understand when you’re buying something online, you’re only getting a license. To which the internet said, really? 34:35

Alex: Well, a reasonable company wouldn’t try and bait and switch you when you’ve given them your hard-earned dollar. Also, would they? So, screw you, Sony, again. 34:59

Geoff: Well, and the other thing is that same argument, because they try to make the argument of, well, if it worked that way, customer one buys, you know, the digital good. Customer two couldn’t possibly buy the same good because the customer one already bought it. I’m like, that same logic applies to physical disks. Like if customer one bought the physical disk and there was only one copy, then yeah, I couldn’t get, no, I’ll just buy a second disk. You make multiple disks. Yeah. 35:08

Alex: So is a physical disk just a license? 35:34

Geoff: yes legally 35:38

Alex: Technically, yes. 35:39

Geoff: yes legally yes when you are buying it basically you and you insert it in whatever your player you are saying i have a license my disc is my license to that product or 35:40

Alex: So 35:50

Geoff: thing 35:50

Alex: if owning, what’s the phrase? If owning… 35:51

Geoff: if owning isn’t if owning is if buying isn’t owning piracy isn’t stealing 35:54

Alex: Yes, exactly. 36:00

Stephen: Right. 36:01

Adam: Mmm. 36:01

Stephen: But this all came from like Windows 95 and stuff, right? 36:02

Alex: What do you mean? 36:06

Stephen: Like that’s where this all started 36:07

Alex: Tell me. 36:08

Stephen: because, um, you didn’t buy the OS. Microsoft was clever and said, you’re buying a license to use our operating system. And so that’s what caused all of this, I should think. Right. I 36:09

Alex: It’s 36:23

Stephen: mean. 36:23

Alex: the same true of every iPhone and every MacBook and every 36:23

Stephen: Yeah, but that all 36:28

Alex: computer 36:28

Stephen: came after, 36:28

Alex: made since. 36:29

Stephen: right? I guess Mac has started giving away their OS as long as you bought their machine. But I suppose if you looked in the fine print, you probably don’t own that OS either. You probably just have a license that came with the machine, 36:29

Geoff: More than likely. 36:42

Stephen: more than likely. But before, like mainstream Windows, I’m pretty sure you were actually buying copies of those old games. I don’t think that 36:44

Alex: Yeah. 36:53

Stephen: it was just 36:53

Geoff: I mean, 36:54

Stephen: a license to use it. 36:55

Geoff: no, but I mean, I’m saying that legally the idea is the same like that. That’s kind of. 36:56

Stephen: Oh, 100%. 36:59

Geoff: Yeah. 37:00

Stephen: Yeah. And I’m agreeing with you 100%. I’m just saying, I think let’s just all blame Bill Gates. 37:00

Alex: So a couple of weeks ago, just 10 minutes from my house, I got the chance to go and listen to Louis Rossmann, you know, the angriest man on the internet, talk about owning your own stuff. It’s not the word he uses. But Steve from Gamers Nexus was there. Wendell was there. It was good to hang out with those guys as well. But essentially, this stuff, it just grinds my gears. Like the whole floppy camera stuff, I know it’s not really related, but it’s in that same like digital platform. privacy realm of things that shouldn’t be happening it’s not what the internet was invented for it wasn’t to like the enrichment of corporations it was supposed to be for the betterment of humanity and it’s one of the reasons I think self-hosting is so important honestly because by me having a file on my server How I got it is not a relevant thing to talk about right now. But if the file is there, it’s mine forever. And they ain’t going to revoke a license. I mean, if the hard drive fails, fine. Whatever. Different story. But the transaction should be an absolute thing that happens. Like, it should be like going to the store and buying a chocolate bar. Like, I buy my disc, I consume my candy, and it’s done. I consume my movie, whatever, game, video game, whatever. It’s not like I can re-consume a chocolate bar. It was a bad example, but maybe you get my point. I don’t think of anything else in my life as buying a license. I’m buying a thing. So why on earth do you get to set this mythical version of the rules that only benefits one side of this equation? 37:06

Geoff: Can 38:38

Alex: As 38:38

Geoff: I 38:38

Alex: a 38:38

Geoff: give 38:38

Alex: consumer, 38:38

Geoff: you the legal reason? 38:38

Alex: I’m going to vote with my feet and put both my fingers in the air and tell you where to go, you know? 38:40

Geoff: I know, but there’s unfortunately a legal reason why. 38:45

Alex: Oh, come on then, Mr. 38:48

Stephen: Mm-hmm. 38:49

Alex: Lawyer. Tell me why. 38:49

Geoff: Because with a disc, you only have one disc. With a digital copy, you could make a billion copies. So that’s the unfortunate reality. If we could find some way of… not DRM but something like DRM that would actually you know prevent infinite copies of things then i think we would be 38:51

Alex: Does it matter? 39:14

Geoff: legally 39:16

Alex: The 39:16

Geoff: yes 39:17

Alex: people paying for a Blu-ray disc, what percentage of those, I’d love to know some genuine studies, are they more likely to pirate or less likely? 39:18

Geoff: so 39:31

Alex: It doesn’t count as a lost sale, certainly. 39:31

Geoff: So actually, the Chord Killers podcast, which is Brian Brushwood and Tom Merritt, they have this phrase that I really like. It’s the convenience trumps fidelity. And the idea 39:34

Adam: Mm. 39:44

Geoff: basically being of streaming one because streaming was a hell of a lot more convenient than buying a Blu-ray disc. And I think the same is kind of true in the digital world. Yes, I understand. I don’t necessarily like the idea of Sony taking things away, which is actually why I like the way Valve does it, where if Valve stops selling something because, you know, either its license expired, the company no longer can make the game, whatever, it gets delisted from the store so you can’t buy it anymore. But if you had a copy, you can still download and play it. I wish companies would do that with their licensing where they say, OK, we’re getting a license to sell this product for X number of years. But if this license still expires, whoever bought it still has the right to stream it from us or has the right to move it to whatever new service is going to have it. If we had that, I think a lot of the problems would go away. And maybe the solution is. We’ve got to have legislation that dictates that because I don’t know if the corporations are going to do it. I mean, Valve clearly did, but Valve 39:44

Alex: Well, 40:45

Geoff: seems to be off on an 40:45

Alex: that’s 40:46

Geoff: island. 40:46

Alex: just it. If Valve can do it, it shows it’s possible. 40:46

Adam: Now, to be fair, I’ve been off consoles for a very long time because I just, in my mind, I’m like, wait, how am I going to make this make sense to spend all this money on a thing that just plays games? On the flip side of that, I’m like, ooh, I could buy this very expensive computer that can play games, but it can also do this other thing. So therefore, it makes sense and I can go to sleep at night. 40:51

Alex: But the trouble with the Steam Machine is it sits in this weird middle ground. Like it’s not good enough to be a genuine gaming behemoth. And it’s only a little bit better than the Steam Deck. So it kind of sits in the middle between like a gaming machine and a portable in this kind of weird, like, it’s not even as good as a PS5 Pro, so I’m told. 41:13

Geoff: Again, I think the idea is convenience trumps fidelity. Valve making it so that way it is seamless with HDMI, CEC, and all the other stuff that they have done to make it the you sit down, you push a button, and you can play. Yes, you could hook up an HTPC, but you’re going to have to figure out some button to turn it on and to get to the right input and all the other stuff. Valve making it easy is worth a little bit to me of a convenience tax. 41:35

Alex: Yeah, but it’s 11, like 11, 1200 bucks 42:00

Geoff: Thank 42:03

Alex: price of entry. That’s the trouble. 42:03

Geoff: you, Ramageddon, for that one. I 42:04

Alex: Yeah. 42:06

Geoff: think that’s the real 42:06

Adam: Yeah, that’s 42:07

Geoff: issue. 42:07

Adam: not their fault. 42:07

Stephen: That’s not their 42:08

Geoff: No. 42:08

Stephen: fault, right? Yeah. 42:09

Alex: No, but as a consumer, like my pockets are only so deep, you know? 42:09

Adam: Yeah, but you can support them just through their normal store. You have a nice, beefy 42:15

Alex: I have 42:18

Adam: PC already, 42:18

Alex: already 42:19

Adam: so… 42:19

Alex: got quite the pile of shame. And then what do 42:19

Adam: Yeah. 42:22

Alex: I choose to load up of an evening? OpenTTD. 42:22

Adam: Factorio. 42:25

Alex: Factorio. Yeah, always the same three games. 42:26

Adam: Yeah. I mean, I just think this is sad because it’s just another kind of like nail in the coffin for where everything is going and it’s not unique to Sony. It’s not unique to any one specific player. Vote with your dollars. Yeah, support things that allow you to download said software if they’re gonna kill it, like Jeff was saying. One of the things that I wish, and I do think it’s gonna have to be legislation ultimately if there’s gonna be something that’s more ubiquitous. But another aspect is also for all the games that have server components. And 42:32

Geoff: Oh, yeah. 43:07

Adam: the vast majority are not like open sourcing the server components so that you can continue to play that. And it’s just such a shame. Um, there’s some really wonderful things, you know, and I think a lot of people look at games as art and, um, the software conservancy, um, that’s out there is, is I think trying to push for these sorts of things and hopefully it gets some more like financial backing in that as well. But, um, yeah, so I don’t know what the solution is ultimately. 43:08

Stephen: There’s the don’t kill games movement thing, right? Is that what you’re talking about? 43:40

Geoff: I think 43:45

Adam: I 43:46

Geoff: different 43:46

Adam: think so. 43:46

Geoff: movement, but I think it’s the same idea. I think they’re two different efforts, but they’re 43:46

Stephen: Yeah. 43:50

Geoff: doing the same thing. 43:50Stephen: Do you really think that every game that is just basically an online game when it, when it kind of goes end of life, the company should be held responsible to open source or make the server available? 43:53

Adam: I think so. If you bought the game, why 44:05

Stephen: I 44:09

Adam: not? 44:09

Stephen: mean, 44:09

Adam: Mm-hmm. 44:10

Stephen: the game was always online, and they were very upfront with it’s an online game. Servers go away like they do. I think maybe there should be a default amount of time that they have to maintain them unless they are going to opt to make it available 44:11

Alex: But 44:34

Stephen: to whomever. 44:34

Alex: there is a default amount of time it’s left available. And it’s governed by capitalism. 44:35

Stephen: Well, sure. But if they said 10 years, 10 years is the standard, and you knew that going in, you couldn’t 44:41

Alex: Okay, 44:48

Stephen: complain when it 44:48

Alex: and 44:48

Stephen: goes 44:48

Alex: what happens 44:48

Stephen: away. 44:48

Alex: when the next rampocalypse comes 44:49

Geoff: Yeah. 44:50

Alex: and their server costs triple in that 10-year time? I’m just playing devil’s advocate. I agree with you, to be clear, but it’s not really a feasible thing, I don’t think. What should be more 44:50

Stephen: Right. 45:01

Alex: feasible is that there should be some kind of like an end-of-lifing situation, not only for game servers and what have you, but also for physical devices like… We’ve just got to stop this e-waste nonsense of making trash that’s basically dead within six months because some cloud service disappeared. 45:01

Adam: But for the server, I’m not talking about you don’t have to open source the entirety of your game, fine. But just the server component, and maybe it’s not even open source, but make it freely available so that people can host it themselves. The open source part would be really nice because then you could update and patch things and whatnot, which would be really, really 45:21

Alex: I 45:41

Adam: nice. 45:41

Alex: did come across 45:41

Adam: Hmm. 45:42

Alex: a new open source version of Theme Hospital last night. 45:42

Stephen: I’m sorry, what? 45:47

Alex: An open source version of Theme Hospital. 45:48

Geoff: Never heard of this. 45:51

Stephen: Yeah, 45:51

Geoff: Okay. 45:51

Stephen: no, I definitely did hear what you said. I just, I just don’t think I’m 45:52

Alex: It’s called 45:55

Stephen: picturing the same thing that you are talking 45:56

Alex: It’s called 45:58

Stephen: about. 45:58

Alex: CorsixTH. I’ll put a link to it in the show notes. Basically, my wife is annoyed with Sega because they have abandoned Two Point Hospital, one of her favorite games, which is basically a modern day remake of Theme Hospital. Wonderful engine, wonderful mechanics, all the rest of it. And they’ve just left it. And so she was like, I just want more scenarios, more things to do. And then I saw a YouTube video about this thing, CorsixTH. It looks great. I haven’t played it yet, but it looks good. 45:59

Stephen: Oh, I was expecting a lot more things with like pleather and, and stuff. Okay. This is a very different thing. It looks like a fun little game. 46:30

Adam: Wow. 46:40

Geoff: I mean, I… 46:41

Alex: Okay, 46:41

Adam: I want to see. 46:41

Alex: and with that, we’re going to wrap up the episode. Thank you very much for listening, everybody. We appreciate you very much. If you want to get in touch with us, remember contact at bitflip.show. Until next time, I’ve been Alex. 46:42

Adam: I’ve been Adam. 46:54

Geoff: I’ve been Geoff. 46:55

Stephen: And I’ve been Steven. 46:56

Alex: Au revoir. 46:57

Alex: Lovely. What the f*** was that ending, Stephen? 47:02

Stephen: Are you kidding? You said theme hospital and I’m like, 47:06

Geoff: Yeah, it was a little strange. 47:09

Stephen: sorry, what? 47:10

Geoff: It was a little 47:10

Adam: You 47:11

Geoff: strange. 47:11

Adam: know who your 47:11

Stephen: I’m 47:11

Adam: co-host 47:11

Stephen: sorry. 47:12

Adam: is. I 47:12

Stephen: We have to stay warm in the winters up here, man. 47:13

Adam: gotta be careful with Steven. 47:15

Alex: Am I just missing something? Theme Hospital is just a game. 47:17

Geoff: Never heard of it. I have never heard of it in 47:20

Adam: No, 47:22

Geoff: my 47:22

Adam: I’m 47:22

Geoff: life. 47:22

Alex: What? 47:22

Adam: not either. No, 47:22

Stephen: No, I’m serious. I’ve never 47:24

Geoff: This 47:25

Stephen: heard 47:25

Geoff: must 47:25

Stephen: of 47:25

Geoff: be, 47:25

Stephen: this in 47:25

Geoff: maybe 47:25

Stephen: my 47:25

Geoff: it’s 47:26

Stephen: life. 47:26

Geoff: a, 47:26

Stephen: I had to look 47:26

Geoff: isn’t 47:26

Stephen: it up. 47:26

Geoff: this like Oregon Trail for like the British? Is that kind of what it is? 47:26

Alex: What? 47:29

Adam: for real. 47:31

Alex: You played Theme Park, right? 47:34

Geoff: I play like Dino 47:38

Adam: Oh, it’s 47:38

Geoff: Park 47:38

Adam: Oregon 47:38

Geoff: Tycoon. 47:39

Adam: trail for 47:39

Geoff: Yeah. 47:39

Adam: the British. 47:39

Alex: oh my god you guys you’ve heard of Transport Tycoon right 47:40

Stephen: Yep. Yeah. 47:45

Adam: Yes. 47:46

Stephen: I’ve 47:46

Alex: Roller 47:46

Stephen: heard of 47:46

Geoff: Yeah, 47:46

Alex: Coaster 47:46

Stephen: it. I haven’t 47:46

Geoff: exactly. 47:46

Alex: Tycoon 47:47

Stephen: played it, 47:47

Adam: Yeah. 47:47

Stephen: but yeah. 47:47

Geoff: Yeah. 47:47

Stephen: Yes. We’ve heard of that. 47:48

Alex: its 47:49

Stephen: Yes. 47:49

Alex: ugly stepsister was Theme Park and the engine they used for that was developed for Theme Hospital which as you can imagine is 47:49

Adam: Hmm. 47:57

Alex: a a way of building a hospital and, and the patients that come in have really stupid diseases, like frying pan on head itis and, uh, you know, really, really stupid, stupid stuff. I hope we’re all still recording by the way. 47:57

Geoff: We are. 48:12

Stephen: Oh, 48:13

Geoff: This 48:13

Stephen: I 48:13

Geoff: is going 48:13

Stephen: am. 48:13

Geoff: to be a 48:14

Stephen: Yeah. 48:14

Geoff: lot of fun. 48:14

Alex: I can’t believe you’ve never heard of Theme Hospital. My dudes, my dudes, here’s my gift to you this evening. Go play this for 20 minutes. You’ll have fun. It’s a really great game. Uh, 48:14

Stephen: It’s $2.99 on GOG.com. 48:26

Alex: worth it I will buy it for you 48:29

Geoff: Interesting. I’m looking at this now. Okay. 48:31

Adam: I have so 48:36

Stephen: Yeah. 48:36

Adam: many 48:36

Stephen: See, 48:36

Adam: games 48:36

Stephen: I was 48:36

Adam: I 48:37

Stephen: expecting 48:37

Adam: haven’t played. 48:37

Stephen: something that you would type into like a hub website. 48:37

Alex: no my god 48:41

Geoff: Okay. 48:43

Alex: you guys what are you talking about 48:43

Geoff: So 48:45

Stephen: Theme hospital, like. 48:45

Geoff: this looks like Dino Park Tycoon to me. I can see the… Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Never saw this at all. 48:47

Adam: I really want to see Steven’s Steam library now. 48:56

Stephen: Okay, in fairness, if you go to the GOG.com website and search for Theme Hospital, the image, like the logo box art looking 48:59

Geoff: Yes, 49:10

Stephen: thing on the 49:10

Geoff: yes, 49:11

Stephen: site, 49:11

Geoff: it’s like a 49:11

Stephen: does lend itself to a female nurse touching a doctor. 49:12

Geoff: and a dog looking doctor too, which is yes. 49:17

Stephen: Granted, but… 49:20

Alex: I was nine years old when this game came out. Such thoughts 49:24

Adam: Oh 49:27

Alex: hadn’t 49:27

Adam: man, 49:27

Alex: been 49:27

Adam: you’re 49:27

Alex: invented, 49:27

Adam: ruining me. 49:28

Alex: right? The internet was still a pure place in 1997, I think. 49:29

Stephen: no it wasn’t you 49:34

Adam: Right. 49:35

Stephen: were playing you were playing Duke 3D and you were going up to the the strip club and you’re like shake 49:35

Alex: No, 49:40

Stephen: it baby like that that was happening 49:40

Alex: I was playing a lot of Transport Tycoon at that age, honestly. Transport Tycoon Deluxe. 49:42

Geoff: I was a StarCraft. 49:48

Stephen: we had we had very we had very different 49:48

Alex: I 49:51

Stephen: upbringings 49:51

Alex: actually think Roller 49:51

Stephen: i think 49:51

Alex: Coaster Tycoon was 1997 as well. 49:51

Geoff: It looks that same genre, the same, you know, art style, like not art style, but, you 49:55

Alex: 99. 50:00

Geoff: know. 50:00

Alex: Good lord, I was late. 50:01

Adam: How old were you? I’m sorry, 99? 50:03

Alex: 99, I was 11. 50:06

Adam: I hate you guys. 50:08

Geoff: I was 99, I was 12. 50:10

Alex: There was a new Roller Coaster Tycoon announced this week. Did you see this? Wonderlands. It 50:12

Geoff: No. 50:17

Alex: looks like shit, but it’s using the same franchise, so. 50:17

Geoff: Interesting. I don’t know. What caught my eye is I kind of want to buy the new 007 game, apparently. It’s on sale right now on Steam, and I’m like, I told myself I was not going to buy more games, but damn it, it looks good. 50:25

Adam: It does. 50:38

Alex: The world is opening up beneath our feet, I tell you what. Like, all of these open source clones and things. Like, over the years, I have played the snot out of OpenTTD, but I’ve always wished it could do a few things, like copy and paste. And I told my agent last night, I wish 50:38

Geoff: Yeah. 50:53

Alex: it had copy and paste. And an hour later, it did. And it’s like, oh, my God, this is it. This is so cool. I hate it, but I also love it. Do 50:53

Stephen: I don’t… 51:04

Alex: you know what I mean? 51:04

Stephen: I don’t know what to play on this. I’ve just been making emulators work. 51:06

Alex: I could write you a little tiny violin app and you could play that. 51:11

Stephen: No, I’m not… 51:16

Adam: I’ll buy it off you. Send it to me. 51:17

Alex: Yeah, I’ll 51:18

Stephen: Not… 51:19

Alex: pay him a penny more. 51:19

Stephen: Not anymore. No, but like, I want to play things on here out of the Steam library, but like, I think I really mainly bought this because I wanted to get rid of… the the Apple TV and whatnot and um the Switch 2 that i have and i wanted to give the middle finger to Nintendo 51:21

Geoff: Yeah 51:42

Stephen: because i hate them now 51:42

Alex: Good. 51:43

Stephen: um 51:44

Alex: They deserve 51:45

Stephen: for 51:45

Alex: it just as 51:45

Stephen: reasons 51:45

Alex: much as Sony do. 51:46

Stephen: for the exact reasons 51:48

Alex: Yep. 51:48

Stephen: that we were discussing 51:49

Geoff: Yeah 51:49

Stephen: um and so that’s why i bought this because it is a fantastic emulation machine 51:50

Geoff: Yeah 51:55

Alex: Alright, I 51:55

Stephen: like 51:56

Alex: might buy one for 51:56

Stephen: like that’s that’s why i bought it strictly for the emulation but i actually don’t know what i would want to play in my steam library because everything uses a mouse and a keyboard that i would care to play on there 51:57

Adam: Hmm. 52:09

Stephen: and so 52:10

Geoff: The touchpads are actually pretty good. I’ve been playing Satisfactory, which was designed as a mouse and keyboard game, and it’s not bad. 52:10

Stephen: yeah i like them and i think they’re genuinely great like no other console is doing these fun little pad things right and then you can feel when it’s actually tracking and that’s that’s lovely um but i’m just not playing something like StarCraft 52:18

Geoff: Oh, fair. 52:32

Stephen: with 52:33

Adam: Oh, 52:33

Stephen: those 52:33

Adam: hell 52:33

Stephen: pads 52:33

Adam: no. 52:33

Geoff: Fair. Yeah. 52:33

Stephen: like i’m just not doing it 52:34

Geoff: Yeah, I wouldn’t either. 52:35

Stephen: because you have to be quick right 52:37

Geoff: Yes. 52:38

Adam: Mm hmm. 52:38

Geoff: Yes. 52:39

Stephen: if i was playing maybe like a Sim City or something like that i suppose i could just like oh i overshot that building i could just come back a little bit and that’s fine but um yeah so i don’t know 52:40

Adam: We got 52:50

Stephen: but 52:50

Adam: to spin up some Deep Rock Galactic. We should have our own little Bitflip team. 52:50

Stephen: Have you made it do the Wilhelm scream? 52:56

Geoff: Yes. Well, 52:57

Stephen: That’s the best thing about this 52:59

Alex: Once 53:01

Stephen: controller. 53:01

Alex: you learn about the Wilhelm scream, you hear it everywhere, don’t you? 53:01

Stephen: Yes, I hear it about as much as your microphone getting loud again. I’m 53:07

Geoff: he just got too close. 53:12

Adam: What? 53:12

Stephen: not. 53:13

Geoff: He got too close to it, gentlemen. 53:13

Stephen: Maybe 53:15

Alex: Maybe 53:15

Stephen: you think 53:15

Alex: I 53:15

Stephen: so? 53:15

Alex: did. 53:15

Stephen: I don’t know. No, yeah, that’s not bad. 53:15

Adam: I think he did. 53:18

Stephen: I have PTSD from it now. 53:19

Geoff: Yeah, well, I was playing the hell out of Satisfactory before I started drywalling my basement and had to take my OLED down so that we didn’t get covered in drywall dust, which got freaking everywhere. So as 53:21

Stephen: I don’t think I’ll do 53:33

Geoff: soon 53:33

Stephen: it. 53:33

Geoff: as I get everything painted and carpeted, which will hopefully be in the next month or so, I can get back to playing because I would really like to start playing games again. 53:33

Adam: Where do you play on your couch upstairs? We’ve probably asked this before, but 53:43

Geoff: So right now I’m sitting at my gaming PC technically, 53:46

Adam: okay. 53:50

Geoff: but I don’t actually play down here. I usually have been playing on my Steam Deck or I play on my upstairs station at my office. But I’m trying to get myself to play more in the basement on the TV just because it’s such a nice – again, I have my Steam controller hooked up there. I have a nice big TV, a comfy couch, kind of doing a little bit of what Alex was saying like episode two ago where it’s like the separation of work and, you know, home trying to 53:51

Adam: That 54:17

Geoff: do that a little bit. Which, by the way, I really actually I 54:18

Adam: makes 54:22

Stephen: mm-hmm 54:22

Geoff: really 54:22

Adam: sense. 54:22

Geoff: actually enjoyed the work from home thing, by the way. That was an interesting discussion. 54:22

Stephen: Have any of you on, this applies to the Steam Deck as well, have any of you just been able to get like PlexAmp to just install and work? Or do you like have to do this weird thing where you go into the desktop mode, install it as an app image or like a Flatpak, and then apply it so that it shows up in the game mode 54:28

Geoff: Have to 54:51

Stephen: and 54:52

Geoff: do 54:52

Stephen: then 54:52

Geoff: that. 54:52

Stephen: it doesn’t pick up the controller anyway And I can’t use PlexAmp because this doesn’t work in PlexAmp and I can’t figure out the stupid setting to make that work. 54:52

Geoff: Welcome to, 55:02

Stephen: Is that a thing? 55:02

Geoff: welcome to Linux. 55:03

Stephen: okay 55:04

Geoff: Welcome to Linux. 55:05

Stephen: if i and i get that but like they’re so close to just destroying anything like an Apple TV or like you know the Android boxes like if if that just worked as well as an Android box or whatever to just install the app for PlexAmp and whatnot and my child could just walk up and press the same buttons and it would just bloody well work this would be the best set top box ever 55:05

Adam: How are you installing it? You said desktop mode, but 55:33

Stephen: You have 55:36

Adam: more 55:36

Stephen: to go 55:36

Adam: detail. 55:36

Stephen: into the desktop mode and then you have to install a Flatpak, 55:36

Geoff: Yep. 55:39

Adam: okay 55:41

Stephen: which is like the PlexAmp thing. And then you tell it, show this up in the game mode. 55:41

Geoff: Yep. 55:47

Stephen: And then it shows up as what would look like a game kind of 55:48

Adam: mm-hmm 55:51

Stephen: icon thing, but it’s at the far right, which is bloody annoying. But it doesn’t have the nice icon for some godfucked reason. Yeah, 55:51

Geoff: Yep, you have to fix that. 56:00

Adam: Well, 56:02

Stephen: of 56:03

Adam: I 56:03

Stephen: course 56:03

Adam: think 56:03

Stephen: you do. 56:03

Adam: there might be an alt path is what I was thinking, because there was a bunch of hoops you used to have to jump through. And it’s not like the easiest thing to do. But Game Pass, Microsoft Game Pass, you could actually play on Steam previously. And it was via like a Flatpak of Edge that you get on the Steam Deck. 56:04

Geoff: Same 56:19

Adam: And then you can do 56:20

Geoff: idea. 56:21

Adam: a 56:21

Geoff: Same idea. 56:21

Adam: shortcut. OK, 56:22

Stephen: Yeah, 56:24

Adam: but it might work better. I don’t know. 56:24

Stephen: I just think that stuff like that, because they’re producing a box and they’re producing a handheld, if they just had those apps on their store, the world would be wonderful. 56:26

Geoff: That’s actually not a terrible idea. It’d be nice to have, like, Moonlight easily installed as well, or… 56:38

Stephen: Yeah, 56:44

Adam: Alex, are you 56:44

Stephen: right. 56:44

Adam: hearing this? Are you paying attention to this conversation? Okay. 56:44

Alex: We couldn’t possibly comment though, right? 56:49

Stephen: You 56:52

Alex: No. 56:52

Stephen: had a Deck? Have a Deck? Have had? Sold? 56:53

Alex: I’ve made 56:56

Stephen: Bought 56:56

Alex: good 56:57

Stephen: again? 56:57

Alex: use 56:57

Stephen: I 56:57

Adam: I… 56:57

Alex: of my Deck over the years, thank you. 56:57

Adam: I had the Deck I sold. I actually didn’t sell it. I gave it to my nephew, but because I never you, man, I buy these things. And then I just, I’m like, okay, I’m going to load all kinds of different distributions on it and use it as a computer. I’m never 57:00

Stephen: had the 57:13

Adam: using 57:13

Stephen: smoked 57:13

Adam: the damn 57:14

Stephen: one. 57:14

Adam: thing 57:14

Stephen: I 57:14

Adam: is, Oh, did 57:14

Alex: The 57:16

Adam: you? 57:16

Alex: Deck’s just 57:16

Adam: Oh, 57:16

Alex: a bit too 57:16

Stephen: did, 57:17

Alex: big 57:17

Stephen: yeah, and I sold that. 57:17

Alex: for carrying. This 57:18

Stephen: Must 57:20

Alex: past 57:20

Stephen: be nice. 57:20

Alex: two weeks would have been a perfect time to take a Steam Deck with me. I was on a flight for five hours. I was in a hotel room for hours on end. What? 57:20

Adam: Uh, nothing. Just 57:30

Stephen: Your 57:32

Adam: Steven, 57:32

Stephen: Deck, it’s 57:32

Adam: you 57:32

Stephen: too 57:32

Adam: left 57:32

Stephen: big. 57:33

Adam: it so 57:33

Stephen: I said it must 57:33

Adam: open 57:33

Stephen: be nice. 57:34

Adam: for carrying specifically. 57:36

Stephen: For carrying, it’s a monster, right? Like, it’s really hard to carry. 57:38

Geoff: Oh God. 57:43

Alex: Well, I hope the patrons are enjoying this shit show of a post show. 57:47

Adam: Man, 57:52

Stephen: This is fantastic. 57:52

Adam: if you leave the 57:52

Stephen: I 57:53

Adam: door 57:53

Stephen: love this. 57:53

Adam: that wide open, what do you think’s going to happen? I’m sorry. Like 57:53

Alex: I expect 57:57

Adam: I saw 57:57

Alex: I’m working 57:57

Adam: that coming. 57:58

Alex: with consummate professionals who can keep their in their pants, but apparently not. 57:58

Adam: Oh, no. 58:03

Geoff: Not, not, not. 58:03

Adam: Not after hours on Friday, bro. 58:04

Stephen: No, no, man. This is… 58:06

Adam: Hmm. Hmm. 58:07

Stephen: No. Mm-mm. 58:08

Alex: Well, 58:09

Stephen: No. 58:09

Alex: anyway, back to my point, it’s just it’s just a bit too big to fit into a backpack 58:09

Stephen: It is. 58:15

Alex: comfortably. 58:15

Geoff: Yeah. 58:16

Alex: OK. 58:16

Stephen: It is. I absolutely prefer to hold, like, the Switch. 58:17

Geoff: Yeah. 58:21

Stephen: And I understand that I don’t get these little pads and whatnot on a Switch, but, like… It’s just smaller. I can put it in a bag and I can take it away and I don’t, I don’t pull it out. And it feels like this like ancient tablet from Egypt that actually has hieroglyphs on it. And there’s actually a, what’s that tablet called? Oh, bloody hell. What’s the one that they use to be able to tell, like translate all of that language? 58:21

Geoff: The Rosetta Stone. Yeah. I don’t 58:47

Stephen: Rosetta Stone. Yeah. So it’s not like I’m pulling the Rosetta Stone out of my, you know, backpack or backpack. 58:49

Adam: I think… 58:57

Geoff: know. I like the idea of the Deck. I think Acer is coming out with like a… You guys remember the Logitech… It was like the Logitech thing you basically could stream games to. All it was was basically 58:57

Adam: Yes. 59:10

GeStephen**: technically it’s a longer commute because they stop at each place but if i had to do that because it’s far safer and less stress something like the steam deck would be perfectly fine right because like i’m sitting there for like two hours every single day there and then two hours back and then it makes sense but um yeah i don’t know it is too large for for what i was using it for i felt like a 1:00:12

Alex: I used to do 1:00:33

Stephen: bit 1:00:34

Alex: that. 1:00:34

Stephen: of a tool anytime i’d pull it out 1:00:34

Alex: I used to do that, Stephen. I used to do that once a week, going from Norwich to London. Two hours each way. 1:00:35

Stephen: yep 1:00:42

Alex: I hated it 1:00:42

Stephen: but that’s 1:00:43

Alex: so 1:00:43

Stephen: like 1:00:43

Alex: much. 1:00:43

Stephen: once a week and it i 1:00:43

Alex: It’s still enough, though, I tell you. 1:00:45

Geoff: I mean, I, 1:00:47

Alex: It was every 1:00:47

Stephen: have 1:00:47

Alex: Wednesday 1:00:47

Stephen: no doubt 1:00:48

Alex: I used to go. And then sometimes I’d spend the night because I’m like, this is just, I’m not coming all this way. Yeah. 1:00:48

Stephen: no 1:00:55

Alex: I was very glad 1:00:55

Stephen: have you guys seen 1:00:56

Alex: to 1:00:57

Stephen: have 1:00:57

Alex: move to London 1:00:57

Stephen: you 1:00:58

Alex: in the end. 1:00:59

Stephen: have you seen these little android um they’re literally just made for um ripping off game boy advances and stuff like this um but they’re just little android things that look like a kind of like a mini version of of the switch 1:00:59

Geoff: Like 1:01:11

Alex: No. 1:01:11

Geoff: the 1:01:12

Stephen: and 1:01:12

Geoff: Ambaric 1:01:12

Stephen: it’s 1:01:13

Geoff: stuff? 1:01:13

Stephen: the emulator it’s the emulator stuff that’s coming straight out of china but like doesn’t suck and so you spend like 150 dollars and you get like a nice screen and android experience and all of the emulators built into it already 1:01:13

Adam: Isn’t one called the Odin, I think, 1:01:27

Geoff: That’s the Aya 1:01:29

Adam: if I remember 1:01:29

Stephen: there’s 1:01:29

Geoff: Neo. 1:01:30

Adam: correctly? 1:01:30

Stephen: so many 1:01:30

Geoff: I 1:01:30

Stephen: now 1:01:30

Geoff: think 1:01:30

Alex: Odin’s 1:01:30

Geoff: Aya… 1:01:30

Alex: Raven. 1:01:31

Geoff: yeah i and the uh i and neo has one that got my i have a little again self-hosted i think if it was you alex or if it was chris had the uh RG36S 1:01:32

Alex: Oh, the RG36S. Yes, that 1:01:42

Geoff: yeah 1:01:44

Alex: was me. Yeah. 1:01:44

Geoff: yeah that i i still have mine i played pokemon on it that was a hell of a lot of fun 1:01:44

Alex: Yeah. And the screen on that thing, it was way better 1:01:48

Geoff: yeah 1:01:50

Alex: than it had any right to be for that price. 1:01:50

Geoff: yeah absolutely 1:01:52

Alex: Yeah. Great little thing. Like, Ella loves it. She can’t quite operate it yet, but she’s getting there. You know, like, 1:01:53

Adam: Hmm. 1:01:59

Alex: give it maybe another year and she’ll have it. 1:02:00

Geoff: Yeah. Yeah. I’ve yet to introduce myself to Pokemon. He keeps asking for a switch too. And I’m like, not doing it, not doing it. 1:02:03

Stephen: Yeah, because… Okay. It was the end of the road for my Switch when I wanted to buy Advanced Wars, whatever the version for Switch 2 that just came out, which is really just the classic Nintendo thing. We’re just going to remake the games we’ve always done. And so it’s like releasing the first version and the second version of Advanced Wars. And it’s literally just like this little pixelated game that’s kind of like a role-based thing, kind of like Risk, I suppose. But… They want, in Canadian funds, like $100 for this. It’s a Game Boy game. With slightly better graphics. But it’s a Game Boy game they’ve released a million times. $100. 1:02:13

Adam: What? 1:02:59

Stephen: I can’t. Because something on Steam that’s equally of quality is like $40. When it came out brand new. Like just fresh release. And I’d be okay with like $40. But $100… I guess the cartridge is made of 1:03:01

Geoff: let 1:03:16

Stephen: unobtainium. 1:03:16

Adam: Gold. 1:03:17

Geoff: gold 1:03:17

Stephen: I don’t know. 1:03:17

Geoff: yeah yeah no i don’t know but anyway 1:03:18

Alex: It must be Pokemon Platinum Edition or something. 1:03:20

Geoff: oh that’d be that’d be something 1:03:23

Stephen: Absolutely. 1:03:24

Geoff: you know lining lining nintendo’s pocketbooks well 1:03:25

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