What's up in your net? And welcome back to the gadget of podcast. I'm seen your editor to into hardware this week, joined by poca producer ben element habita. We are here a lot. A lot can change in the week, apparently a for us to engage IT and for us in america.
So um if we are a little um you know not as funny as we put this because we're reeling from the result of the election and please bear with us um but hey, there's a new stuff happening. There's news. I don't know how this happened been, but apparently three of the biggest um actually four of the biggest devices are to come this year, all review and bargoed uh within the same week. So I ended up a few days .
after election day.
two days after election day. But also like really think I can think so in the substance. We're gona be talking about the placation five pro, which I spent the weekend with, spend a lot of time with first spider man, two apples and four max in particular the mac mini and the two macbook prose.
Thankfully, mr. Steve and over in france um our wonderful correspondent there is doing the imac reviews. So we were able to get that one out there. Um so yeah, that's what we will be talking about and a little bit about you know the say the world and what we've thinking.
As always, folks, if you're enjoying the show, please have grape to the itunes to a pocketful of choice, sleep as a review and ninety drop us an email at podcast and gadgets com and that we typically do life things around ten forty five eastern on thursdays. We didn't do IT this week because i've feared the pressure of an audience when all of this is so fresh, I would have just destroyed me so that that is what's happening there but yeah then I hope you're okay. Um you know the day after the election I was reeling.
I had this conversation with my daughter then, where my daughter Sophia, who was six years old, was we were like, okay, SHE should not know who come on with Harris. SHE should know like what is happening and why this is potentially a monumental and his try changing election for amErica didn't go out that way. So SHE know who come on. Harris was, SHE is heard sound.
So the way that you were explaining to her was like, hey, commoner. Harris has like a similar ethnic background to us. And okay, here also.
woman can be president, and lady president could be a thing that he could put all of that rapped together. It's and that wrapped together. H, anyway, I have not like been anti trump t to hear, but he is just SHE is heard him on the news. He has heard words he said and he was he was like, that guy, why? Why is that guy running for present or why people going from so to explain to her that down trump one um SHE said, well, I guess i'll have to do IT then so that that was an immediate response like not not even prompted by me from .
the mouths of kids, oh my god. But also some of .
her friends in town to like some the little SHE goes to school with the same response that they are parents apparently like all unprompted. So who knows what this is gonna trigger but yeah folks, we're going to have a longer discussion about what this means about trump two point o and another trump um no term and what that means .
for tech because he has .
been so body buddy with elon musk. IT actually doesn't intersect a lot with the tech world. And we can talk about about like what yellow musk means there two.
We also talk about science deficit ionic two and the the whole thing about arf k unior being in charge of the F, D, A. And he's already threatening to like d regularly, a large swaths stuff that is kind of within our wheel house when he comes to like science. So that's terrifying.
There's just a lot of terrifying things going on, but we're just we're just going to focus on the get just focus for now. Um I want to talk about the play session fie pro, which is a very curious thing. And also I guess um there's SONY don't don't launch a major product right the day after the election because you do not know how people going to be feeling or what they are going to be doing.
Yeah maybe some people distressed by the thing, but yeah, this is a seven hundred dollar game console. Um we had talked a bit about when I was announced and I think thoughts but then like I don't if you saw review or saw you know other cover, do the thing. What are your initial thoughts in the P. S. Five Prices that .
something you would want to get? I mean, when we were talking about a few weeks ago with I was like, oh my god, this is something that I might actually buy because right now I have A P S five under my desk. I have a combined work and play, uh, situation where the P S five is connected to the same screen that I use for, like, all of my work stuff. Also, that is my best for case screen.
Do you have a TV or you one of those, one of those works with .
no TV at all? I don't .
have a TV right there you go. That's why.
But okay, okay. But this P S five is something that i'm borrowing from my girlfriend OK um and I was like, O, I really want to play hell divers and wow all of a sudden I don't really want to play hell diver and demos I know but when just was talking about the P S five pro I was like, okay, well, eventually i'm going to have to get my own PS five and this seems really good this seems like a great platform on which to play a control .
yet again all .
the universe um and but I was also like I cannot justify this IT is really hard justified because it's so expensive I also think that it's interesting that you position this article as a superpowered seven hundred dollar council for gamers who won't that he were there by A P C. I think tell me more about that.
So i've been a PC gamer for a while, especially since I am the one who has to test out our video cards and stuff like that. So just by nature of my job, I end up put these things, and I have try folks to send these things back to in video, and they literally do not respond to my emails.
I think because if people started sending the review gear back to them, they would have to deal with IT, just like I have to deal with because I have a closet full of old gear that I can do anything with right now. So anyway, I have video cards. That's why I ve just been leaning on PC gaming more.
We've talked about how the councils that have essentially just become pcs. You know they're running AMD hardware. They are running AMD GPU. Um they have a lot of the same graphical features as PC releases.
So they hold notion of releasing a game across PC and councils is much more of a reality now something even SONY has started doing. Um but the reason you go for PC is that you get at a minimum sixty F P S gaming, guaranteed usually a decent resolutions too. So even a middle video card will get you like fourteen forty p at fps.
And the thing about the play station five in the x box series x in this entire council generations that they existed within the world of compromise. Um you on spider man to allow the major games usually have two different modes. They have a fidelity mode which is typically trying render at fork or close to fork with like great tracing and the good stuff but at thirty fps, which to my eyes now looks like trash.
I'm sorry. Like unless i'm playing on an intendo switch where i'm like OK, you are somehow running on a chip from like twenty sixteen um yet tears of the kingdom still visually looks incredible. I I can I can stomach a short or a low ferry there.
I cannot do that on something like spider man where I know SONY had hundreds of millions of dollars to like produced game, and I know there is hard capable of running this game in sixty F P S. So this compromise is the less sive thing with the P S 5 pro。 That's pretty much IT.
There's a promo and spiderman to and a lot of these supported games, which is just hey, you want you want six fps great. Do you want allow those action features great. Do you want close to fork rendering um which they do with the thing called the playstation super sampling thing we just call IT pizza.
But it's upscaling a lower resolution to to look like fork using AI, similar to medias dsc, if you want all of those things now you can finally get IT. IT just cost you seven hundred dollars. The thing is, if you had a gaming PC over the last decade, you've had like this capability for a long time too. So I feel like it's this is not a major selling point or account. I think even PC gers want wanted get unless they want to be first to those SONY exclusives. Um but for everybody else, if you just want to sit down on your in front of your count, you don't want to deal steam or doping drivers or whatever we need, just want a really powerful council that can make your nice T V look good um you know to give you the full glory of spider man then that's why that's why i'm saying this is precisely the council for the people who want fidelity but do not want to deal with domestic gaming PC.
So what would you say to the idea that maybe this is proof that game councils are the thing for kids? You just buy IT its self contained, you don't need to worry about upgrading IT or maintaining IT all that much. And like maybe this is the best option to like get a kid into four case if .
I think you're grossly over estimating the capabilities of adults in this situation. So no, I don't referable kids will not be buying a seven hundred dollar or parent .
will not buy a seven hundred dollar puzzle in most IT was .
already a stretched to be like, mom, can you get me the play station five, which is close to five hundred dollars?
That was already five years for five hundred.
And that was a tough to, I don't think IT. No, not necessarily for kids, but it's for most people who do not want to deal with the guard. Like the annoyance of PC gaming. Just yesterday, I started trying to play .
because PC gaming is an enthusiast thing, and that leads to a bunch of other enthusiasts things. You know, building a PC is a enthusiasts activity in its own right.
even if you buy A P, C, even even of the box. PC gaming is more annoying because you're dealing with multiple store friends.
Just as yesterday, I want to start playing dragon age, the billboard, right? What's that thing? IT spent maybe five to ten minutes processing the what you all the textures IT does, like a texture pre packaging thing before you launch a game for the first time that took bong time and then I had okay was like, okay um I am ready to play now my game controller was not for some reason not parent correctly to my PC so as like, okay um I guess I have to go find another controller.
I guess I have to go make sure it's charge. I got to add to blue tooth. Oh no. H the blue tooth is not good.
I guess I got to go find the receiver to plugged into the blue tooth, relied into a USB. So I have Better reception for this. Like it's a whole thing.
Thirty minutes later, after I said them to start playing, I could actually start playing here. And that would not happen on the police station. Five, you know, you will wait to install the game and download ad IT, but that whole process, that comedy of errors, would not be a thing.
I do IT because I wanted be like, I want to play a lot of games at the best quality possible. Right now I have an R T X forty eighty super in this computer that's a killer s GPU. But like I could, I could do for kate gaming and crazy retracing features.
But you have to stomach all these annoying set up things. So anyway, that is the set up for the placation play station five pro. I really like IT as a machine for this specific audience, but I was very clear my review that IT is not something for everybody. IT is not a replacement for replacing five.
If you can find, if you don't, if you have like an older TV or you do not care as much about the whole six c fps getting all the graphical flourish thing, get a dorma play station five get one used even because you can party get a decent deal on IT Jessica content also um contribute to this review and SHE put down some thoughts on some of the games to what wifi speeds things like that too and I think we both came down with the with the takeaway that this is a really good system for the people who were like play station die hard to want to play the last of us part two in the best possible way, spider man, to in the best possible way. Spider man two was a game I never, I felt like maybe five hours with IT when I came out. But now just like i'm ogling this game.
But because it's like i'm i'm back in new york, I see reflections off of buildings. The water is reflected, perfect. Moving, swinging around the city is just beautiful.
I am like, and this one goes into the other birds too. Sounds like i'm just gliding around queens, looking at potential neighbors. Od, where I like to move back to eventually, the real humbard for me is that i'm playing games on my projector, folks.
That's just how my basement ssed set up. So I am playing spider man to you at one hundred and twenty inches in the fork with all the beautiful stuff and its incredible experience. So for me, that's where seven hundred dollars they think for gamers who care about that is totally worth that prize for most other people now.
And yeah, if if it's the start of my review is essentially if you're happier with your P S. Five, if you think seven hundred dollars is too much, do not buy. The thing seems pretty simple to me. Yeah yeah.
So IT is a set IT and forget IT or buy IT and no, not worry about upgrading IT or anything situation. But if you are already very happy with P S. Five then I don't know. Also i'm looking at the list of games that are enhanced like on P S five pro launch day, and it's basically anything that you could imagine. You know it's the big games i'm seeing alan wake.
I'm seeing the most recent assets creed game i'm seeing um yes, all the spider man but also like all of this all of the all the sports games to madam and two k and all of that stuff. And so i'd also be interested to see how much IT grows um because the last time we were talking about the P S five pro, I was asking like okay, how long is the lifespan of this going to be before p six comes in? So i'd be really interested in seeing how much this list grows between now and when the first rumblings of the PS six come out. I think now that this exists.
ban, like here's the thing, SONY, and allow these third parties are also putting their games to pcs. So IT is is basically not that much more work to just target a slightly higher power machine now that they know this exists and they can support IT within the whole place station pipeline. So I think will for big budget games, they're certainly going to do IT. Um it's going to be a big calling card for that. So when he wants more people to buy these things, this system probably has like three years maybe to be the leading police station until we hear more about the play .
station six or something like that's pretty good at the time.
If you've held off and you've not bought a places from five of your own yet and you were intrigued, um this is a good machine. You know IT is actually smaller physically than the original play station five. Um it's a little denser too because it's using like a newer processing, uh neurochemical.
So all that stuff like it's just a less annoying machine and a lot less compromise. There is still some compromise though because it's not as fast as like like A R T X forty, seventy. I don't think it's as fast as something like that because even spider man two has a pro felt mode.
They're like all you want more ray tracing. We got you. We got all the retracing, uh, how do how do you like thirty F P S. Again though, how do you are you are you okay with that?
Um the compromise is still there that exists in PC gaming to if you're trying to like eat out power from an older video card, you're always making those choices. So that's just the way IT is. But as a as a Normal machine, think it's pretty good as a as a console for gamers who need that everything .
yeah and especially if you're coming from the console world where thirty fps is still more common, you don't really miss what you've always known. So if you go to a friend's house or something and you see the sixty fps performance, you might be like, wow, okay, that's amazing. But I think a lot remember all of the fun that you had with your earth thirty F P S thing and think about your bank .
and you can still do six F P S just with like less deli. And I think for most people you could still place. So I grand to and and looks pretty gone in the norm.
Place station five, I still play in performance mode, but you lose all those reflections. You lose like a lab and nice touches that make you feel like, wow, this is the next generation machine. So do with that what you will check out the view by me and just iconic over in gazet. Let's talk about this max. And um because .
IT just keeps coming, just keeps coming guys.
I have written maybe ten thousand worries like all them were in their views, but i've written a lot of words since last saturday. So IT was a really this week as a weird head space for me because it's sort of like we're barreling towards this election, which is very consequential. Still work and still work and still typing. I don't get to see my kids like a lot this weekend because I need to spend time with these things. Um okay.
election day, which just means that you were like stuck in your own basement and you could probably hear them going like .
yeah like .
running around upstairs .
my life but also election is happening. I'm like still get the right. You'll get to do stuff. Oh, those numbers do not look good. H late on election night. Um okay, i'm still writing uh, there's this is a crazy week then pretty sure I will remember is just like how how weird that is. But the new apple maps, uh, the max with the m four chips are here.
Uh, specifically, I reviewed the mac mini with an m approach and the two macbook prose, the fourteen and the sixteen, the fourteen and had a base and fourth chip, the sixty inched and in four per ship as well. A little disputed by that because last year apple sentence the in four the m three max chip on the sixteen internet pro. And that thing like just to see the wide swath of power that those chips cover, that was a really interesting thing to see.
We didn't get them for a max system this year. That's a shame. I'm just going to like project forward from like what I think that'll be.
But I will say extrapolated, extrapolating um and we you can go see if you go look at gig benches um benchmark comparison sites in other places, there are publicly available benchMarks to see. Half access machines are let me just say, these ships are are something like the m for. The base m for is pretty nice, up great over the m three and certain over the m one of the m two.
And I really like the base fourteen and macbook pro because it's still sixteen hundred dollars, but now comes with uh, sixty gig of its form. Now has actually three U S, B, C porters. Last year, IT was just two on one side. So IT is a lot less compromise. Then the last model was.
yeah did you say that the base was the same Price now even though IT has sixteen gigs of RAM wear, otherwise IT would have been .
more expensive. Yeah you like that you were here. We just talked about that that that is the new um .
just surprised because like why were they trying to .
extract the other two hundred dollars from tell ready to extract more money for you from you you want to upgrade that RAM. The maxi in particular, like the ramp. Great Prices are just what anyway everything comes with inking about standard.
They did not increase the base Prices um of those machine. So I think that's pretty useful. Um I think these are fast chips, but the m for project in particular on the next meeting in the mac book pro sixteen for me um is kind of astonishing.
IT is so fast. IT is faster. India six and synapse ch twenty twenty four IT is faster than the m three max was last year.
IT is fast ek bench scores that the gulf between was super high was like twenty two thousand eight hundred and fifty points in both the mac many and are very so much for that in the sixteen. That is an incredibly high number ban because the base and four model got like a fourteen, got like fourteen thousand points. Most computers we tested this year typically get multiple reared scores around eleven to twelve.
The m four pro is so fast, IT is as fast as like two laptops put together, a two modern laptops put together, like that's just insanity. And also apples cores, like their cp cores, even the single thread at benchMarks are way, way higher than everybody else. So that's this is just kind of how they grow these chips.
You know the m four and m four pro they just have more cores um then the base and for the information as more course as more G P course, the m for process is insanely, insanely best. So on the mac mitty, that means um if you spend the extra money for that version I believe is twelve ninety nine ah for thirteen ninety nine that's the mac mini. The mac mini starts at five ninety nine with the base in four but for thirty nine nine IT is a full on work station and much more powerful to p in everything .
where we can say IT seems to me like apple has really hit stride maybe with the m three, but seems definite with the m four because remember, IT was just a few years ago that they said, okay, we're moving to this completely different ARM based design. IT also came out pretty slow only because I think IT was there were some growing pains with the ARM based design, but also IT was the pandemic, and IT was just difficult to fabricate.
They announced this yet. I think building was a hard thing. But when they launched that in late twenty twenty, when I ve read the thirteen and macbook air, the thirteenth macbook pro and the macbook per the macbook are um with the m one insanely best in the macbook are had no fan and like they were delivering speeds beyond laptops and intel systems that we were seeing up until that point.
Apple just continuing to grow that I want to say about the that many we've talked about this like this thing is adorable. IT is very, very small, measures five inches by five inches across the just two inches tall. IT looks more like an oversize apple T V for k then IT doesn't like I put, I took pictures of them side by side.
Um the the very similar design wise. The only difference is the magni has a middle case and the apple TV has a very plastic y shiny case, but a very similar thing, the U. S, B, C. Ports of print, which is something .
we complained .
about last time, finally, finally had the front.
I lain amazing that a mac mini has a headphone jack. When you haven't had a headphone jack on any iphone in for years.
I mean the max have not dumped to ethon jx ia um other people have, dell has um but apple has not. Even on the macbook are right so well.
And if you think about IT in the context of like all this is supposed to be the machine for, like, creative professionals, creative professionals such as myself use wired headphones. Now I would say that, like, I use wired headphones only when i'm out, because right now i'm plugged into an audio interface. Headphones are plugged into the audio interface, which then plug in the U. U, S, S.
which is also the thing I saw. Some people complain, well, well, if you have speakers and your speaker, cable has to be up front, right? And i'm thinking now, actually the video editors or audio editors who really need speakers are going to have studio monitors logging into audio in your face or something that just plugs into USB c port on the back.
There are also USB speakers I think that mac people have really liked. So I don't think you would really need the headphone jack for speakers. Is my thinking.
I don't think most mac users with, but anyway, this thing is super, super tiny, super cool. The only thing is you know physics um you make a super hot if you turn on the high performance mode. When I was running the snipers, ch mult threated benchmark IT sounded like IT was ready to take off.
IT sounded like IT was a little drone. Because there's a big fan at the bottom that sucks in all the cool air. That's just something you'll you'll have to get used to. I'll also say that is maybe the different training factor between going for this and going for mac studio, which I believe costs nineteen ninety nine. Um you I also wonder if there .
are going to be any third party things you like. Everybody I know has a pad that they put the gaming laptop on that has its own fans as well. To help with .
me refuel.
I would there be something that you put your information mini on?
No, like because those are laptops and because you can just like those have trouble sucking in air, this thing has sort of a come toward base, is sitting on a little bit of the fan base and IT has big fan. The problem is the some workloads or just really, really powerful.
And I think if that is the case for you, if you think you'll be stretching at uh, a lot of time, A A lot of times like daily in a shared to office or something where it'll be annoyed, then you probably need a max studio. If you are a super high and video editor, that's just the way. But if you're just editing on the weekends or you're mainly photograph her who occasionally does videos, I think this is perfectly fine for most people.
So that's the max uh, the mac mini. It's great for five ninety nine also comes to a sixteen. A bit of RAM like just what a wonderful little test tub that would be, I think for a lot of people. Like then you you said you were considering IT.
right? Even the bed I was considering IT because what not the base model but the m for pro again, because I just want to future proof as much as possible.
I don't even think you need the m for proof. This is the thing like the M P trip is still really, really it's pretty good. As I told you the single thread, it's still pretty good so that most of the work you're doing, the m four score I got on the macbook uo thirteen eight or thirteen eight is still faster than most other laptops this year.
It's actually yeah it's still it's faster than every other system this year. The second faster multicenter the geek ben score I saw this year before I started testing these was the um was the surface laptop seven with the snap dragon execute. And we talked about like what what good performers that chip was. Um you would be fine with the base m four is the .
thing the thing I really want to see that is so specific to me is a comparison between maybe an m one pro because that's one i'm using right now and A M four or m four pro. Hopefully both on the specific tasks that I frequently asked them to do, which is like isotope rx, like spectral d noise or something, all of the stuff that makes the podcast sound just a little bit Better.
You know, if you've ever recorded something um off of you just weight off of mike or on voice memo or something, you'll hear just like a little bit of fuzz in the background that's called a noise floor. And so all of the stuff that I am doing at the very beginning as i'm starting to edit the show, is stuff to remove the noise floor, remove um homes that are in the like background. Dev, I have to say for you, there are a good number of homes just because you're in the basement public near the machinery of your whole house.
No, no, it's prety pretty hearing. I am that that our camera has a fan like the camera is, but .
ever, yes. So doing a lot of like noise, flour removing, hum removing. And I remember how drastically different IT was between the twenty twelve. Yes, IT was a very old chip, twenty twelve intel chip I was using versus this m one that was a tennis difference.
And I know for a fact, because some of the processes I was doing in this audio cleanup were ten minutes, and they went down to one minute or so. What I would really like to see what i'm hoping like, hey, isotope, the company just make a youtube video comparing the render times between these different chips. I would love IT, and I bet at least like a hundred thousand other music and general audio workers would also love, just so we can compare and see. Okay, you know, maybe we might want to upgrade. Are these .
things GPU bound? Or are they using mp? Like do you know what is powering voters if IT is gp stuff? I think you'll see a big benefit here too, if you just type in like m one proverbs, mac m one benchMarks, you'll see you'll get to like the geek bench comparisons and things like lad to to give you a sense of how that would be. Think cna bench is probably good one for you because that's a very encoding heavy that would just tapping to both the CPU, the GPU anyway. Yeah I think actually .
speaking of the cinematic score, you said that the m for pros graphics were in line with nvidia's rt x forty seventy. That's a graphic s card that came out last year.
That's pretty great. I forget if it's last year, but the laptop version of that card.
But still I went out and look because I was really curious when the forty seventy came out and IT was released on April thirteen.
twenty year ago. Um but yeah, that was last year. And I think that's pretty impressive for because these graphics cores are tied to a little mobile chip and the videos, graphics cards, even in laptops, are still in like a big dedicated chunky spot like they are dragging a lot of power.
You're doing a lot of work. IT is impressive like what apple is been able to compliment here. I would say anyway for you been um and if you you got a base mac many I think you'd be fine.
I think IT would do similar work and onely Better work when IT comes to like some the AI processing. Mac whisper raided some of those comparisons. Definitely notice some big, uh, big gains over the m three chip and the m four.
So this is just a great computer. Mac, many, you could put this anywhere. You can make a little server. You can make a little family computer if you already have a monitor, keyboards and mouse, kind of a no brainer.
And it's also kind of weird, have there were just like no good windows alternative to this? I know they exist. I saw the hp mini that people were talking about.
That is a business computer that that is for IT workers. You know like they are not really microsoft after other people are really, really helping up all. Here's a cute little windows PC.
You can plug your monitor into. No, it's all lap, it's all laptops and all surfaces for them. The macbook proves nothing special there, like nothing majorly different but the same thing with these chips.
Um the m for is pretty good. The m four pro on the sixteen makeup pro, so free best if you have been holding off on upgrading to new mac. Um if you have an m one system, if you have a frequent intel system, this isn't unseemly.
Good time to upgrade because you'll notice the differently, just hugely powerful stuff. Um the macros are also slightly brighter. Uh for S D color they give to one thousand its sound for sd you know of the color range.
Uh, I also noticed outside induct sunlight they looked a little clear. He was just easier to see what was going on to. So i'm a big fan. We like the the camera is Better. The web cama is now twelve metafictional shooter and supports center stage IT supports that we are desk few thing where you can tilt IT down and it'll show what's in your hand, which is great for showing up stuff on, you know, live streams in podcast. That future works now to.
I imagine that that would be really useful when making review videos of something small. IT could be the first thing that came to mind was the rabbit r one. Even though the tech behind IT wasn't that great. IT is a very cute to that.
I mean, listen, you could just hold your phone over the thing you know. But when you're doing a live stream where you can't like be juggling a camera, then it's helpful to have something like that. So we like the macbook scored them really high um that I think the main thing that I noticed that my mean problem is that the upgrading Prices, especially for the mac, many are just wild.
If you want thirty two gigabytes of RAM instead of sixty gig bites, you have to spend an extra four hundred dollars thirty two like thirty two gig a bites of ramp does not cost four hundred dollars, folks, even four laptops. But it's expensive because apple has to build them into its chip. So its buying specialize modules. Uh, if you want to get a one terror S S D instead of two fifty six kicked by SSD another four hundred dollars, a one terrible d evm e thing, like you can buy that for under hundred dollars right now and they don't need like, they don't need like and .
that might be the argument. Like you just have another thing sitting on top of the mac uh well, I was thinking about doing this for a mac meeting.
You could just have an external storage thing um it's kind of have seen what apple does hear sometimes. Um I will say IT is nice that the road chips and the max chips have thunder five support now too, which is much faster than thunderbird and four. So there's that you you could get a really fast external closure and plugging hard drives there.
So something i'm curious about with these new macbook prose is you said that the screen is brighter. Did you try to turn off all the lights in your little basement office and just turn that thing all the way up and see how bright IT really seem to your eyes because it's supposed to be able to fight sunlight.
right? I'm surrounded by bright ice screens all the time so that actually like the four k modern looking at, I think max is out like twelve hundred, five hundred minutes maybe sometimes, uh, in HDR, going in some is the best way to do IT or going to a really brightly later room because your eyes, if you're doing a fully dark grim, your eyes will just be contracting so much when IT starts to get right that it's really hard to tell the difference between different bright screens.
Um but I I certainly felt like I was outside in my backyard working in direct sunlight and I could read a little bit Better. I could see the images more clearly. That's releasable.
You often are when you dial into all of our like show planning meetings, about ninety percent of the time you are .
sitting out on your dead, which a downsides to living in georgia, especially now. But IT is, it's gonna be eighty degrees today and is november seven. So I take advantage that IT was a .
alarmingly close to eighty degrees in new york.
Yeah, that is a bigger problem. If IT is a much bigger problem, and I worry about the state in new york, I worry about like we would love to resettle in new york city at some point, likely queens and zoo. And everywhere else is they are listing the climate warning like that, hey, flood warning, flood zone.
Yeah, be careful. That's actually really good thing because a lot of properties around new york are in flood's zones. But it's something to consider.
Um only the topography of the new york city area is uh just all crazy. Some of IT is deep and flood zones and some of IT is like eighty or more feet above c level. Lets wild, just just wild.
I believe IT was the the most recent kim sani Robinson book that was the ministry of the future. I think IT was that one, but that was one with the submerged in new york city, right? Or he he did another one.
I forget one of those had to real I was basically set any water logs emerged new york city and you know, just like the way he he kind of mapped IT. I was like, get below prospect park a stall underwater, like naming the streets like ocean parkway or everything. Um really okay, actually an ocean he leads into an ocean. People forget this. So anyway, where were we? They know something .
we were talking about the weather. But to .
get to it's a good year for the mac mini. Um I didn't really dive to watch into the apple intelligence features because they're just kind of there. It's nice. Um I did a lot of whisper sink transcription, uh, because I need to do that for pat cash occasionally. And it's certainly Better on the import chips. But also, I think a lot of people will just be recording meetings or something or their own voice memo, and that's the sort of transcription they'll be dealing with. So for in all these respects, the neural engine and the transcribing capp abilities are also pretty good.
So yeah, maybe i'll try and transcribe an hour or so long episode of the engaging podcast with my m1 pro。 And i'll reported to you, we can figure out, uh, how much faster the m2, M4 pro S I have .
a file like a single file have been using to do like a consequent yeah, no, send to me. Send you that particular one bend but also IT depends on the model you choose, you know and also I learned that apparently so I paid for whispers sink, which is a great mac APP that gets you to all the with the the l ms um you know the opening I L L ms I believe for fruit ing transcribe pt work and you can choose between large, small, whatever, the bigger you know, the longer the the transcription takes.
Because it's doing a lot of that big sort of like data, it's doing a lot of data sorting. Um and what i've learned is that there is another reversion of whisper sink on my APP store that is fully subscription based and obviously feels like a little bit of a scm. Because you're paying them like thirty euros, it's in euros. You can pay them sixty years old for a lifetime thing or thirty eos annually. You're something if you go to their website and just buy mac whisper, it's the same thing.
There's no subscription and it's just a wrapper for a OpenAI yeah right.
I mean, that's really all IT is too. But IT is just well to mean that this APP can exist. That is a subscription thing that will constantly be taking money from some people, but go to their website and you can spy IT like a piece software that you own. That's just wild me. So anyway, whispers, think is good, but watch up for that APP store version, folks.
Let's move on to some other news. You want to shed out something then?
yeah. So a lot of other stuff in the world is up in the air. But one thing that I did want to talk about was the new york times. Tech workers have been on strike since monday.
the four.
that's right. Monday the fourth. Right before election day, people were saying, actually there was A, I think, simple article talking about like, wow, the new york times, tech workers are going on strike right before the needle is .
really they really that needle was the ban of existence .
night yeah I think that the needle might run on a mac pro or something and this might be like an an old mac pro too. I remember seeing a picture of the actual like computer that ran the need um and I know that people online, this was back when twitter was more usable a few years ago. People were commenting under that tweet just like really shaking their fists at that one computer because of how much psychic damage that machine .
did to that a lot of .
emotional damage anyway. We've got um the new york times tech workers are on strike because they said they wanted to unionize. They announced IT two years ago. The new york times leadership has not recognized union that has not like agreed to um terms of like a union contract. So they are going on strike and they've asked people to not cross the cricket line clicking.
But it's very important because what does the new york times tech guilt dee IT does? What do IT does connections IT does all the near times games and the new york times cooking APP. That is the way a lot of people I know interact with the new york times.
Most often they might not be huge, huge news hounds, but they have an europe subscription for these extra fun things. And a lot of people I know are also they're really concerned about making sure that um like workers get their due. So they're like, oh my god, i'm letting my very long connections or world all streak go because I don't want across .
really does .
a line yes yeah but now you can do something else because the new york workers have released their own games that you can play while they're striking. You can have fun. You can support them. There are also links to their go fund me to support the workers while they're striking. I think it's a good like midway point.
Also wanted to shout out another couple of games that i've heard people talk about in the same breath as like all the europe games um I know some people like to play redco, which is wikipedia articles and there's just a bunch of reduction words you have to like guess the words to eventually guess the article. I think that that's really cool. That could be fun, but it's definitely hard because i'm looking at one of the games now and i'm seeing you know fifty or more words reacted.
So you have to be really good at um inferred what those might be from context clues. So in addition to reductant, I also heard a about this other game called metadata which is guessing a specific animal based on like pillow genetic um rankings. So you have to really know your tax ono omy and you know you have to guess if it's A U carrio or pro carrio or whatever and then eventually you'll get all the way down to like, hey, it's a garden snake or it's a silver back gorilla or something. So if you like, did a bunch of biology in school and you're looking for a similar game that also doesn't have you crossing the neurotic picket line. Check IT that out?
Maybe god, check out. I, yeah, I don't know, my wife place connection. So occasionally SHE will throw an idea to me and I help her if I figure IT out.
But i'm just snow cut and not super compelled. The I love the, uh, sort of ecosystem that has popped up around these. I know for cinema fans and movie lovers over different ones, framed, framed WTF. So this was all fun. I love the ideas.
Just they get everyone word first came out to, I would start playing with everybody else and I just got super annoyed and frustrated with how brutal IT could be at times because the whole catch of world was used to start guessing, to start getting in the word hope. H hope that works out. Let's move on to our picks of the week.
I just want to shout out a thing that has helped keep me saying a little bit. I forget to I want this last week. No, you did.
okay. So the second season of the diplomat, the wonderful netflix series is out. Um IT is fantastic. Starts Carry rustle and refusal to the most beautiful people alive, at least to me.
Bad of woman who sort of a career diplomats um is have to be the you know the america's chief diplomat for the U K. But also the supply is they want her to be vice president so this is sort of like a trial run to see if you can even handle such a big role. I really love the first season.
It's really smart and shows about smart people doing smart things really well. So it's very arent sorkin's um very west wing ash the crater debera on is right on the west wing but SHE also reached right on graze enemy. So there's a lot of funds options to the show to you that you wouldn't expect.
It's also set entirely in the U. K. So you have a lot of scenes and just like gorgeous, you know, matters and sometimes castles, IT is a good looking show.
It's a really well and show. It's a show about people like trying to do their best to keep democracy alive and keep our society together and could be a little fun. And so be times to season two things that seems relevant.
Season two, as elson, Jenny C. J. Crack herself from the west wing, and SHE is playing the vice president.
The current vice president is IT is delicious. I had a lot the fun with this. I just finished the second reason yesterday, and that ends in such a way that I scream out loud.
And for a half second, I forgot about the world we were living in. And I think that that alone, that alone does IT. But the show knows how to do those episodes.
Cliff hangers, there are only six episodes in the second season, I think, because a production issues and what not um but man is a good, the diplomat is so good if you want to feel good about not really good about politics because a lot of IT is also about how terrible amErica and the U. K. Can be when IT comes to foreign relations but just about people trying to do good in the world. Um I think it's really, really compelling.
You have anything then? Yeah and i've probably mentioned that before, but I am thinking a lot about the works of Becky chAmbers, especially thinking about the monkey robot series. IT is really good. Solar punk is talking about a much Better world where we're living in closer harmony with nature but also you still have you know all the modern comforts of your phones, computers and laptops um and that's what i'm looking toward right now that's making me feel Better about the world.
Um oh, I also did retune housecoat the message and also a good time, good time for that because I think there is a lot super relevant to everything.
So there was a lot that was focused on, like the section about gaza. Tell me more about that book in general though.
I mean, in general, the book is about his experience going to going to africa signal, but going to africa for the first time, kind of tracing the roots of the beginnings of slavery, tracing his own connection to to africa itself and then also to to america. You know, I think I was near chicago as well.
Um his work traces a lot of roots about american american history and IT sort of influence on the world, but also the things that drive us as a country. I think it's really entitled, unflinching, especially when IT comes to the gaza stuff. And I think just really, really necessary.
So IT has also been wild to see him like go to do news and interviews where somebody he's responding to his books and he just laughs and like, that's the most racist thing i've ever heard. And that just, that's great. That is a review of my book.
Anyway, I really enjoyed IT. I also, I listen to the audio book, actually. So he is reading the audio book. I love the sound of his voice in the way he reads his own text.
I'm getting more and more antibiotic ooks because I think a lot of podcasts of just listen sometimes we just get tired of listen to people you know banter around the microphone and they don't actually know they're talking about. Trust me folks, I am aware of IT. I do a lot of podcasting but also try to be really, really cognition of that fact um but what .
I actually saw something recently about how the podcast subtly accidentally invents audio books yes, there is a self post to the podcast of reddit that's like I wish that there was a podcast that was just like one .
person twenty .
something yeah yeah for like you know that would really help me like while i'm doing the dishes or be a great thing, fall asleep too because like different speakers like might make me up or something but hey guys, you want audio .
box you want I have been I think i'm still listen to the power brokers audio but that things like seventy .
to eighty hours long. Yes, that is too full work .
with IT is I used to be not super into audio books because what I realized I was listening to, like books or narrative audio books in my brain, because of the way realized my brain just cannot follow the story as well. But if it's sort of like non fiction or somebody talking about news or something like that or scientific concepts, I can follow IT more and like the way I follow pocket.
So I have been doing sorry of like drip feeding actual knowledge into my brain because I can always make time to read full books. Um I ve been doing the audible thing, unfortunately, because they have a corner, they have basically napoli's ed entire audio book industry. But IT is worth IT to get access to some other information.
I'm doing the subscription good stuff and I I read the message ever how we can. I still call IT reading. I could say i'm listening to an audio book, but I have still consumed that book and information in IT.
But certainly when I read like when I read a fiction book, like my the way processing, which is different. So I have bought jeff under mrs. book.
He is most recent one which goes back to the world of anio lation. Like reading his language is one thing because hearing that spoken lad would be even harder to process. They think so.
Anyway, that's what's up with me. I hope folks out there um you know things are tough right now. Find the things that help you, that help keep you from the sparing too much.
That's if for our episode, thank you for listening. Our theme music is by game composer dale north. Our ultra music is by our former managing antero, brian. This podcast is produced by me, ban elvin. You can find divin dra online at i'm .
online at diviner a pretty everywhere, but i'm trying to spend more time on blue sky now that officially twitter is it's just getting harder and harder to see what's going on there because i'm just getting a lot of magazine. Now we must is link that that through. I don't know. He doesn't run tenners ship. They am at the venerate most places find me blue sky.
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Thanks, books. We're out.