LOST and Found

Introduction and Podcast Updates

[00:00:00]

[00:00:04] Christina: You’re listening to Overtired. I’m Christina Warren. I am joined, as always, by Brett Terpstra. Jeff Severns Guntzel is not with us this week, although we will have him back soon. Brett, what’s going on? We are, we are two weeks in a row. Our podcast is Acting Like a Normal Podcast.

[00:00:20] Christina: How are you?

[00:00:21] Brett: Right, like, and we have sponsors lined up for the foreseeable future, by which I mean like a month, but like this could be, this could be for some period of time, a regular podcast, um, which, you know, we’ve. How long have we been doing this?

[00:00:41] Christina: Like, like 11 or 12 years.

[00:00:44] Brett: Yeah. With, with some extended breaks in there, but, but every once in a while we get into a groove.

[00:00:52] Christina: Hey, look, we were in a, we were on a groove for like two years. We were like on a really good place. We were like in a really good place, but no, we’re, we’re in a groove. Um, [00:01:00] and, uh, and it’s awesome that we have sponsors and we hope we can be more consistent. Um, I don’t know.

[00:01:06] Christina: It’s, it’s good for me to have like routine. So, um, I’m, I’m, I’m glad to be back and recording with you.

Exciting Book Interview Announcement

[00:01:13] Brett: I’m really excited next week. So I, here’s the story and, and I won’t tell the whole story next week because I’ll tell it this week, but I am on these lists for like Penguin and random house, and they send me galley copies of books as if. I’m like a bookstore or a book reviewer or something. And I don’t know how I got on these lists, but yeah, I’ll take free books.

[00:01:40] Brett: I’ll take free, like pre press books. That’s cool. Um, and I got this one called two truths and a lie, and it’s a cyberpunk. Like Gibson ask, not like modern cyberpunk. It’s like Gibson, like Mona Lisa overdrive era, [00:02:00] Gibson style, cyberpunk. And, um, and it’s all, it plays with the idea of like memory and data as currency.

[00:02:09] Brett: And, um, it’s like a queer love story at its heart. And I, I loved it. I loved it. And the agent that sent me the book, um, got, got us an interview with the author. So next week we’ll get to talk to them. And I don’t know if you guys, like you guys got copies, but you’re under no pressure to read them. Cause I’ve read the whole thing twice.

[00:02:34] Brett: So like I can lead the interview, but if you have, like, if you’ve read any of it. Then, then you can chime in on, on plot points and whatnot.

[00:02:44] Christina: Um, so as of this, as of the, the time that, um, uh, we are recording this, I’ve read about half of it and I really actually enjoyed it. So I will, I will have read the whole thing, uh, by next week. Um, Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I, look, I, [00:03:00] I, um, I sometimes get sent things randomly, um, I, I used to be on lists, but I haven’t been in a while, and I don’t know how you got on the list, but I’m, like, jealous of, of you for it, um, but one of those things, like, A, if someone’s going to go out of the way, if we’re going to have an author on, I really do try to do the homework and do the assignment, um, first of all, but, but, but B, like, I was actually, like, when you first told us about it, I was like, huh, this actually sounds like something that, and I’m not a huge fiction reader, but I was like, of the fiction, this is the sort of thing that I would, yeah.

[00:03:32] Christina: Read anyway, and so, um, I, I’ve, I’ve really, I’ve really liked it, so, I’m excited to talk to the author about it,

[00:03:40] Brett: it’s good. It’s gritty. The, it was, I think it’s set in LA. It’s underwater. It’s, it’s sinking into the ocean. It’s fun.

[00:03:50] Christina: for sure.

[00:03:50] Brett: It’s dark and, and scary and gritty and fun. Um, all right.

Mental Health Corner: Sleep Struggles

[00:03:57] Brett: So mental health corner. [00:04:00] Um, I, I think it’s perfectly apropos to mention that I am once again getting super shitty sleep, and I don’t know why I’m up to 200 milligrams of trazodone in addition to 1500 milligrams of uh, Gabapentin, and it still only keeps me down for about five or six hours.

[00:04:25] Brett: And that’s some heavy sedation that I’m just like waking up from.

[00:04:30] Christina: Yeah, yeah, no, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s intense, and then, so, how, how are things going with, like, the Mania stuff?

[00:04:38] Brett: Uh, so here, okay. So the, the trick with trazodone is trazodone has antidepressant properties. Meaning if I were actually manic trazodone would have made me sleep less, but trazodone made me sleep a little bit more. Um, I can’t go any higher for fear [00:05:00] of triggering a manic episode, but my psychiatrist is pretty convinced that whatever is going on now is your more classic insomnia and not mania.

[00:05:12] Brett: So I, I tend to agree. Like I’m not. Well, I am getting up and coding in the early hours of the morning. It’s mostly just because I can’t sleep. Um, and I need something to do with myself and I, I don’t have other outlets, so I code, but it’s not like manic coding. I’m not, I’m not putting out huge new projects every week.

[00:05:39] Brett: I’m just, uh,

[00:05:40] Christina: You’re just tired.

[00:05:42] Brett: Yeah.

[00:05:43] Christina: So how do you feel about that? Like, like, like, like, I know that this mental health corner and not a Christina question hour, but I, I’m, I’m going to like ask questions. So how does that make you feel? Because I know that that’s always been something that you’ve, you’ve been able to get like the productivity that you’ve gotten out of your mania has in [00:06:00] some ways, I think been like, uh, um,

[00:06:04] Brett: Essential to my career. Yes,

[00:06:06] Christina: Well, I was going to say an asset in some ways, but also something like you’ve just come to kind of like learn to like deal with your, your, your life around stuff like that and like, and figure out how to handle it. So when you have the insomnia, which is not accompanied by mania, which is my life, to be honest with you, a lot of the times, not, not lately, but, but historically. How, how, how does, how do you handle that from a mental health perspective? How do you handle that from like a, do I feel, you know, like I’m doing in a perspective, like how, how does that work for you?

[00:06:33] Brett: that is a really good question. Um, I, I don’t, I, I don’t like not sleeping either way. Um, when I’m manic and I’m producing like crazy new things that I it. Hadn’t even thought of two days before and then I have an idea and it just spills out and I bring it to, to like fruition like that’s a great feeling even on zero hours of sleep, [00:07:00] but consistently getting like four to six hours of sleep every night for a period of time just wears me down and slows down like I can’t concentrate.

[00:07:14] Brett: And if I do hyper focus, it’s not like manic hyper focus, it’s, it’s like slow, slow hyper focus. And, and I don’t, I don’t, I don’t care for it. I don’t cotton to it at all. Um, I, I would rather, I would rather deal with three to five days of mania and, and boost my productivity than this like extended drag that I’m going through right now.

[00:07:46] Christina: no. I mean, I think that makes sense. And that, that’s kind of why I asked because, um, and certainly, and, and, and I, I hope that this is, uh, Interpreted the way that it’s intended because I, I don’t mean that I’m, I’m envious of the, the, the mania or, or [00:08:00] the, or the bipolar. Cause I’m definitely not. Um, but, but I have always been slightly envious of like when before now, like that when you’ve had like insomnia, like you’ve actually been able to be like hyperproductive, whereas my insomnia, like is not, um, sometimes I can.

[00:08:16] Christina: I mean, okay. I can use that to read a lot. Um, and I guess I can get some productivity out of that sort of, it depends on what I’m reading, but a lot of times I’m not reading anything of necessarily a value, right? And sometimes it’s not even that sometimes it’s just like, you’re literally, at least for me, I’m literally just like laying there or worse.

[00:08:36] Christina: I’m just like dicking around on the internet and I’m not able to do on my phone. I’m not able to do really get anything of value done. And it sucks.

[00:08:44] Brett: here’s the more existential question behind all of this. Um, when you say of value, do you mean of value as far as your career and kind of a capitalist mentality goes?

[00:08:58] Christina: Um, yes and [00:09:00] no. So yeah, that is definitely part of it. But then there’s also a thing where I’m like, I’m not even necessarily reading like, like what I would call quality literature. Like, you know what I mean? Like, or, or quality anything like I’m going down rabbit holes

[00:09:13] Brett: of like filling time really

[00:09:15] Christina: I’m, I’m going to rabbit holes of internet bullshit that might make for a good anecdote on a podcast episode at some point, because someone needs to know the history of something bizarre and people like, how the hell do you know this?

[00:09:26] Christina: And this is how I know this. It does happen quite a lot and people always ask like, how do you know all this shit? Well, the real answer is that, you know, I have a really good memory, but the, the, the, the real answer is, you know, if I have four hours to kill in a night and I’m just, and I’m not able to sleep, I’m reading stupid shit on the internet or watching stupid videos.

[00:09:46] Christina: And so, And like it to me, I’m like, okay, well, why don’t you watch good television shows? Why don’t you read good like literature? Right. Or, or, or whatever. Um, to say nothing of like doing things for the capitalistic [00:10:00] pursuit, but like, even like in an artistic pursuit, like I, I can’t defend it, you know, but, but, but, but, but part of it is because like, I’m in like this, like. Sometimes, you know, you just can’t sleep and maybe I can like, find my way to like, you know, play games or do something else and, and, and have fun, but sometimes like you’re in this kind of like a few way state where I’m like, I’m not awake and alert enough to do anything that or to focus on anything that would be.

[00:10:24] Christina: Like, good. Um, but I’m, I’m, you know, too, you know, I’m too tired to do that but I’m not tired enough to sleep so I’m just

[00:10:32] Brett: yeah, so you consume trash yeah, I

[00:10:36] Christina: So, yeah.

Media Consumption and Mental Health

[00:10:37] Brett: like I don’t I don’t watch TV in the wee hours of the morning, but When I’m up at three by like seven at night, I’m a vegetable and like I’ll turn on the TV and I just watched all of 30 rock, um, beginning to end in the course of like two weeks. And yeah, it’s funny. It’s, [00:11:00] it’s witty.

[00:11:00] Brett: It’s, It’s essentially garbage. Like it’s all in all, it’s a pretty vapid show.

[00:11:09] Christina: Yeah, I mean

[00:11:10] Brett: I love it. I’m not, I’m not dissing it. Like it was, it was fun. And as soon as it was over, I missed it. And like every night I’m like, Oh, I miss 30 rock. Cause that, it takes me, it takes me about a week to get over finishing a show.

[00:11:26] Brett: Just like finishing a book. Um, takes me a week to like, let go of. That kind of comfort zone I had hit with whatever media I was consuming. Um, but I’ve started lost and this is still mental health corner, but I’ve started, like I found lost infinitely frustrating and very disappointing the first time I saw it.

[00:11:51] Christina: Yeah. Now,

[00:11:51] Brett: I haven’t.

[00:11:53] Christina: did, did you watch it? Was that like 20 years ago?

[00:11:55] Brett: When it was on,

[00:11:56] Christina: Okay. Okay.

[00:11:57] Brett: And, and I haven’t watched [00:12:00] it since then. Um, so now I’m going at it with like, fresh eyes, and I assume I’m still gonna be disappointed. I am, I am prepared for that.

[00:12:11] Christina: Yeah.

[00:12:12] Brett: I do remember it being a really fun ride up until then.

[00:12:16] Christina: well, uh, and, and, and, and I know this is still a mental health corner, but like this is, this is sort of interesting. So show that I’ve been watching, um, a lot that, that came back a few weeks ago. Is, and I don’t know, I can’t remember if we’ve talked about it or not, is uh, is Yellow Jackets.

[00:12:30] Christina: Um,

[00:12:31] Brett: yeah, we have talked about it. I haven’t seen it though.

[00:12:34] Christina: Okay, so it’s back, um, on Paramount and like the, the first five episodes have aired, so like half the season has aired. And some people are pretty meh on it, and some people like it. I like this season so far more than I liked season two, but, But I, I’ve had to go into this show, especially like there was, because of the writer’s strike and the actor’s strike, there was like, it’s basically been two years since it’s been on.

[00:12:57] Christina: And so, like, a lot of fans have had a [00:13:00] lot of time, uh, to think about the show, and it’s very clear in my opinion. That the fans have put a lot more thought into the show than the writers have and I don’t mean that as a slight against the writers, but the writers made the disservice, I think, of telling everybody, well, it’s kind of like Lost, but, but unlike Lost, we have a whole five year game plan.

[00:13:21] Christina: We have everything figured out. And as soon as they said that the first season, I was like, you’re fucking liars. fucking liars because that’s exactly what Lost said. That is, that is exactly what Damon Lindelof said and J. J. Abrams. They’re like, we had the whole thing planned out. They did not have it planned out, reader.

[00:13:36] Christina: They did not. And so, uh, I, uh, I, I already was a little bit hesitant on that. And then the decisions they’re making on Yellowjacket, some of them I think are, are good. Some of them are, are questionable. But, but it’s, it’s having kind of those Lost vibes to the point where I’m like, okay, this could go either way.

[00:13:54] Christina: But, and I really wanted to get a fourth season, but I already feel like the, the, the feedback from [00:14:00] some of the normies on Reddit, um, not the lesbians on Twitter, um, to very different demographics. The lesbians on Twitter are having the time of their lives. The normies on Reddit are not. Um, but like, and, and, and, and the, the, the people in Tik Tok have never watched television before and don’t understand, um, you know, the, the whole point of an antihero, I digress, but like, but like, but it’s definitely getting into that lost vein where you’re like, okay, the right is really good.

[00:14:24] Christina: But I’m, I’m having almost like lost PTSD because I’m like, yeah, it’s really good until it’s not. Game of Thrones was kind of like that too, right? Like, like Game of Thrones was, was I think in some ways even more disappointing than Lost because like it was going so well for so long and then we were just like, what the fuck, you guys?

[00:14:40] Brett: Right. Um, my side project, I watched the first couple episodes of lost and then thought, what happened to these actors? Um, and I started like, I am D being and obviously, eventually, and Lily went on to like, be the wasp in Ant Man and the Wasp. [00:15:00] Um, uh, Sawyer went on to He has an, I think it’s on HBO,

[00:15:06] Christina: Mm hmm.

[00:15:07] Brett: uh, something called, well, he did colony

[00:15:10] Christina: Yeah.

[00:15:10] Brett: And Hurley is now in an HBO show called the bookie.

[00:15:17] Christina: Yeah. Um, Jack has had some legal problems, like, well, they’ve all had

[00:15:21] Brett: Really?

[00:15:22] Christina: I, I don’t think anything was proven, but he has not in May 2012, his lo this is from Wikipedia, so I’m just reading from Wikipedia here. His Lost co star Dominic Monaghan tweeted about Fox, he beats women, not isolated incidents, often.

[00:15:36] Brett: Jesus Christ. Okay.

[00:15:38] Christina: Uh, so,

[00:15:39] Brett: going to taint my viewing of this show.

[00:15:42] Christina: I mean, and who knows, he was never charged with anything, and, and, uh, but he has not done anything since, uh, well, he was in six episodes of a thing called Caught, but like, basically, this is why he hasn’t done

[00:15:55] Brett: caught to my list because caught looked, caught looked interesting and I had never [00:16:00] heard of it when I was. It’s filtering through these IMDB

[00:16:02] Christina: I’ve never heard of a side. This is Australian. Um,

[00:16:06] Brett: is a woman beater, I don’t feel a need to follow his

[00:16:09] Christina: I mean, I don’t know if he’s a woman beater or not. I know that these are allegations, so I, these are allegations, so, so, you’d never, like, you know, I don’t know. I don’t know. Um,

[00:16:21] Brett: will quote unquote do my own research,

[00:16:24] Christina: yeah, do, yeah, but, but I was gonna say,

[00:16:25] Brett: does taint things.

[00:16:26] Christina: well, I mean, look, that whole cast, if you were, I don’t, if you probably don’t remember this, um, but, because you didn’t care about things like this, but I did, like, when it was airing, because they filmed on Hawaii.

[00:16:37] Christina: And all those actors got fucking shit faced all the time and got popped for DUIs. And like, like there was like one season, like, like four of them got arrested. Like Michelle Rodriguez, I got like, I think she had to actually do jail time, like in Los Angeles for like a day. And then they like released her because they were like, I think that she was too popular, frankly, um, in, in like the, the, the, the county jail in LA, they were like, [00:17:00] this isn’t going to work.

[00:17:01] Christina: But, um, but honestly, the, that’s the one from Lost who’s had like the, Most successful career has been, uh, Michelle Rodriguez, right? Like it was without a doubt.

[00:17:11] Brett: she was even on it. She’s not there at the beginning.

[00:17:13] Christina: she’s not. She comes in in season two and she’s not in it the whole time. Um, and I would say, um, um, uh, what’s his face? Um, uh, uh, he’s, uh, he’s Nigerian.

[00:17:23] Christina: Um, I believe, um, uh, uh, well, he’s English, but, but I think like, but his name is, is, is, is Nigerian. Um, he was, uh, uh, Mr. Echo. Um, he’s

[00:17:34] Brett: don’t. Yeah. I haven’t gotten that far. I don’t remember this.

[00:17:37] Christina: Yeah, he was in a lot of, yeah, because there were multiple members, uh, from the, the, the series Oz who were actors on it. And, and those, and those people have. All gone on to like continue to work, but, but, uh, but yeah, but that’s, that’s a fun thing for your, where are they now?

[00:17:53] Brett: While we’re on a slight media diversion

[00:17:56] Christina: Yes.

[00:17:58] Brett: are you watching Severance?

[00:17:59] Christina: [00:18:00] Yes.

[00:18:01] Brett: Do you think that they have figured out where they’re going?

[00:18:09] Christina: Yes. I, I, I feel

[00:18:11] Brett: need, I need them to

[00:18:12] Christina: I, I, I, I actually, I, okay, I know this seems weird. I feel like I trust Ben Stiller.

[00:18:19] Brett: That’s not weird. Ben Stiller’s actually kind of weirdly a genius.

[00:18:25] Christina: Yeah, no, he, he, he really is like, he’s, he’s a good

[00:18:28] Brett: I mean, I say weirdly because we’re talking about Zoolander

[00:18:32] Christina: Right, but we are, but, but also like, I think he, he hits like kind of highbrow, lowbrow, but also like he did like, he directed Reality Bites, which, No one remembers, right, um, that he was the one who directed that. The Ben Stiller Show was fantastic. Cable Guy was a weird movie. And it was probably not the right movie to come out of that time because that was when Jim Carrey was peak Jim Carrey and then you release this really weird, black, dark comedy that is not at all what you expect from a Jim [00:19:00] Carrey movie in 1997 and it, and it doesn’t do super well, but it’s an interesting film, right?

[00:19:04] Christina: Like, uh, Zoolander is Ridiculous like other things ridiculous, but then you have like Tropic Thunder, which is one of the best movies

[00:19:12] Brett: yeah. I just watched Tropic Thunder a couple weeks ago. It

[00:19:15] Christina: one of the best movies of of of of the 20 of the 21st century. I will fucking say it genuinely I think Tropic Thunder is one. I think Robert Downey jr’s performance.

[00:19:24] Christina: I think Tom Cruise’s performance Like I think the whole thing like works so he’s a weirdo he’s funny, but he’s also like very like smart and cerebral and So, I don’t know, I, I, weirdly, I, I feel like I trust, I trust, um, Ben

[00:19:40] Brett: No, I really want to believe that. Um, Like, it keeps, they’re asking a lot of questions still, the way Lost was, like, Lost was just constantly asking questions, and then occasionally answering one, um, and I feel like Severance is asking a lot of questions, like, [00:20:00] fucking goats, right? Like, Or is this ever going to make sense?

[00:20:04] Brett: Are we going to, is this going to be a polar bear situation? Um, like, are we gonna, are we going to get some kind of satisfaction on the goats? Um, like just things like that worry me, but like the fact that they, they do have like a great set of writers. Um. And while every episode tends to be directed by someone different, um, they do seem to be following a script, uh, you know, to some extent.

[00:20:36] Christina: Well, I, I, well, here’s, here’s what’s interesting, um, and, uh, uh, ah, fuck it, I’ll use this as part of my mental health corner because I’ve been self, um, medicating with, like, media. Um, so, on Fridays, Separants and Yellow Jackets come out, and, and, like, I enjoy them both, but, like, Yellow Jackets, The first season I would have put in the closer to like prestige TV category and I would have [00:21:00] been like this is a show that like is kind of a bonkers premise.

[00:21:03] Christina: And so the premise for anybody who is unfamiliar is that in 1996, like a, uh, like a high school girls soccer team is on their way to from New Jersey is on their way to the national competition in Seattle and they’re playing crashes. In the middle of the Canadian wilderness, and they have to deal with it.

[00:21:21] Christina: And it’s kind of like a female Lord of the flies. And then at the same time, 25 years later in 2021, um, which now it’s 2025, but like that timeline has progressed much more slowly. So we don’t really know what year it is and in the future, but 25 years later. Some of the, the survivors are like living their lives and are trying to, to deal with things when, when people come back and are like reminding us, it’s like, this is what you did and any, and then more, more things to reveal and kind of like a, a, a dual timeline perspective.

[00:21:50] Christina: And the first season I thought was. Just, and I still stand by, I thought it was like incredible television, like incredibly, incredibly well done. And, and I would put it like in the, the [00:22:00] prestige, light prestige category, right? Like, not the highs of like the mid 2010s TV, but like certainly really, really good.

[00:22:07] Christina: Like, like not succession, but like a step above what else was on. And it was nominated for a number of Emmys and, and whatnot. Season 2 comes out. And I felt like they listened to Reddit too much and made some alterations and I didn’t really like some of the changes they made. I didn’t hate it. I, I, I, at all.

[00:22:24] Christina: Um, but, um, you know, I think that there were, there were definitely signs at that point that I was like, you did not plan out the things that you’d planned out. Like, it was very clear to me that they, you know, ret, they, they, they retconned certain things. Like, they hadn’t thought about stuff as much as, as other shows maybe, you know, do.

[00:22:41] Christina: And then season three, you know, coming back after like kind of a two year hiatus. Um, the, the, I still enjoy the show, but at this point it’s much more camp for me. Um, well, at least the, the, the modern timeline is that the, um, the, the, what’s happening to like the girls, like in the woods, like I still, I feel like that at this point, I feel like it’s two different shows, [00:23:00] but anyway, my point on this is, is that severance to me feels like, you know, white Lotus succession, like prior, like, like, like high end, like good prestige television.

[00:23:10] Christina: Like

[00:23:10] Brett: Or even like Breaking

[00:23:11] Christina: Breaking Bad, well, completely, right? Breaking Bad, Mad Men, like, like, like, you know, The Sopranos, like, you know, when you think of, like, high quality television, like, Severance, I think, is gonna win every single Emmy this year, like, it is not even gonna be close, it’s gonna showgun the whole fucking thing.

[00:23:25] Christina: Oh, yeah, it’s been crazy, right? The, the cinematography, like, every aspect of the show, like, it is, this is, this is the new succession in terms of, like, just, everybody else needs to just go home, because what are you even doing, right? And it’s not that there aren’t other good shows, it’s just, like, Nothing else is going to even compete with this.

[00:23:41] Christina: Right. So, um, whereas like yellow jackets, it’s like fallen to me to be more like, I really love it, but it’s like, it’s like my trash, like a little bit like, like, like, like kind of fun. And it’s not trash. It’s just not that, that level. Right. Whereas I think at least right now, and [00:24:00] it could falter, but I feel like, you know, season two severs has really stepped things up.

[00:24:05] Christina: And as long as they don’t, um, Like, I don’t know. I think that if they keep it to, I think that if they have like a set idea of, of what they’re going to do and they stick to it and they don’t try to overextend the arc of the show. That’s my only fear, right? Is that Apple or somebody is going to be like, Oh, let’s do more seasons of this.

[00:24:28] Christina: And it’s like, no, you got it. You got to end things up. Right? Like, I know this is like the

[00:24:33] Brett: it’s a show that has much like, like Breaking Bad or, or any of these,

[00:24:39] Christina: succession. Yeah. Like it has an

[00:24:41] Brett: like, yeah, they have, uh, they have an arc and, and the arc ends. And if you try, if you try to extend it beyond that, then you’re in no man’s territory and you end up with, uh, Um, and yeah, I really I want to see it come. I wanted to be satisfied.

[00:24:59] Brett: I want [00:25:00] whatever happens. I don’t know, season three, four or five if it makes it that long. Um, or if or if the arc takes that

[00:25:08] Christina: Yeah, but if it takes that

[00:25:09] Brett: I just wanted to be satisfied.

[00:25:11] Christina: no and and that’s what I’m hoping I’m hoping that like the people making it will do like Because and honestly, I think that’s what Breaking Bad did really well, like they had an arc, um, and, and I think that that was when Succession did amazingly, like they had four seasons, and you know that HBO wanted that, you know that they wanted that to go longer, um, because it won every award, and it was, you know, a huge water cooler kind of show, everybody was talking about it, it was really good, uh, and they were like, no, this, this is how this ends, and it, and it ended Perfectly.

[00:25:41] Christina: Um, and, and that’s so satisfying. So I would rather have less, like, if you’re not going to be able to do it right, like with the show, like severance, right? Like, um, and, and it’s interesting because, uh, we talked about this, um, uh, over the weekend, like the, like the, the, the New York times like did like this big, you know, kind of profile of like the, the, the bell [00:26:00] labs buildings, you know, that they like based, you know, a lot of, a lot of the, the looks on and whatnot.

[00:26:05] Christina: And like, it’s. You know, it’s definitely like, it’s the most streamed show I think of, of this, um, this year right now, like it’s, it’s a huge hit. So I hope that, I hope that they have it more under control than, I mean, look, Lost, in fairness to them, they had to do 22 episodes. And, and, and, and ABC was just like pushing the mystery and it was kind of like, um, You know, it was, it was unfortunate because it was originally compared to Twin Peaks, uh, which is the original, like, Burn, you know, F.

[00:26:37] Christina: A. S. T. and Burnout mystery show. And Twin Peaks had the same problem, from what I recall. I was much too young when it originally aired, but like, it was this Genuinely like global fucking phenomenon and only lasted two seasons because David Lynch didn’t really have maybe it all figured out I think he did like he eventually got it right when they had the movie and then really I think where it crystallized was the, [00:27:00] the, um, Twin Peaks Return the Showtime series, which I thought was like a really Great, like come back in a way.

[00:27:07] Christina: Cause I was like, okay, you, you tied everything up and you actually did like make this whole thing work, but most people don’t have, you know, 25 years to, to, to, to, to get through that. Right. So, so, you know, anyway.

[00:27:25] Brett: All right. Well, that’s my mental health. Is that your mental

[00:27:28] Christina: Yeah. Honestly, honestly, I think that’s also my mental health. Cause I’ve been, I don’t really have anything to add since the last time we talked. Um, except, uh, yeah, I’ve been like self caring with, with, with media. So, um, there we go.

[00:27:40] Brett: Yeah. I, I feel like that’s, that me too. Um, do

Sponsor: Incogni

[00:27:44] Christina: actually, on that note, I was going to say, um, since we mentioned we have sponsors, can we go ahead and do our first, uh, sponsor

[00:27:49] Brett: I was just going to ask you if you would like to do the incogni read.

[00:27:53] Christina: Absolutely. This episode is sponsored by Incogni, a cutting edge service designed to safeguard your personal [00:28:00] data. So did you know that data brokers collect and sell your sensitive personal information? Because they do. That’s one of the reasons why you get phone calls and, and, you know, from, from, uh, random numbers and, and requests from people who know things that they shouldn’t.

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[00:29:10] Christina: Trying to submit, um, you know, these, these claims to data brokers. This is way easier. And I’ve been impressed with like how much stuff they found and how much they’ve been able to clear out. And like, this is very good. Uh, and I know Brett mentioned, uh, last time that like you’ve received fewer spam calls.

[00:29:28] Christina: I have too. Um, and, and I, and I don’t, you know, I don’t know if that’s because, uh, I’ve been, you know, like Verizon or somebody has some sort of list or what, but like. I don’t know how to end up like long term data to say it’s incognito, but it’s definitely decreased, which is really good because that’s one of the main things that happens.

[00:29:46] Christina: It gets your phone number and I’ve had the same phone number for over 20 years. And so. You know, it’s associated with me. And so, you know, uh, the, the, the fewer like random calls, like you had, you owe something to the IRS or you, [00:30:00] you know, have like this outstanding car loan or, or whatever you get the better, because those things can really prey on people.

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Tech Updates: Mark and Envy Ultra

[00:31:03] Brett: Very well done. Nice job. Um, I’m going to save our second, um, our second sponsor for closer to our gratitude segment because it’s going to tie in really well there. Um, so. Real quick, this doesn’t have to be a big segment. I, I put out a new version of Mark this week, which is the first time in it’s, it’s been at least a year since I’ve released an update.

[00:31:33] Brett: And I finally, I put out a version that can now, so one of the big requests was incorporating mermaid, uh, mermaid. js, which lets you write diagrams in Markdown

[00:31:48] Christina: and, and that’s been supported by, by, uh, the official GitHub flavored Markdown on GitHub for, I think, two years now. Yeah.

[00:31:54] Brett: yeah. So, so instead of just adding mermaid, I decided to [00:32:00] add, um, the capability to. Add your own javascripts from a CDN from a local file or from just embedded raw text in, uh, an entry field. And so, and then you can add hooks that will update whatever library you add. It can update it every time the page refreshes because Mark doesn’t do a page.

[00:32:28] Brett: Full page refresh. Uh, when it detects a change in the file, it only updates the part of the page, a part of the display that was actually modified. Um, so this, this allows you to add something like mermaid and then have it automatically update every time you make a change to the file. Um, and it’s going to open the door to solving dozen support requests in one fell swoop.

[00:32:55] Brett: And then the other request that I. Just, I don’t [00:33:00] know why this is such a big deal now, but there’s this. I think it’s from Common Mark, this syntax where you put two equal signs on either side of a block of text and it highlights it. Um, and it works in bear. It works. I think it works in obsidian. Um, it, it just became this like accepted standard.

[00:33:23] Brett: And suddenly I was getting all of these customer complaints that like, I just wasted 14 because all I needed to do is display my highlight. And, and I’m like, this isn’t part of markdown. Uh, like this isn’t, this isn’t part of any official spec. So cut me some slack, but I went ahead and I just figured out, I added support for equals equals marks and.

[00:33:53] Brett: Tilde tilde, um, deletion and single tilde [00:34:00] underscores the single tilde underscores you can enable separately because those conflict with multi markdown subscript.

[00:34:08] Christina: right. That’s what I was recall. That’s what I was remembering. Cause I remember like multi Markdown, like does yeah. Subscript differently.

[00:34:14] Brett: yeah, so, so you have the option to override multi markdown handling of tildes, um,

[00:34:22] Christina: This is why this is, well, that’s awesome. I was going to say, so. Like, I know that like, cause like, cause it’s common Mark, even are people even actively still like adding to that spec or, or was this one of those things that just a lot of people, I looked, it looks like the last time they updated anything on the spec was 2024, but, um, or, or, but, or, or what you, or, or, or what you are seeing is that like, yeah, somebody somewhere added some sort of.

[00:34:51] Christina: Common thing, um, whether it was part of a spec or not and becomes adopted and then because it’s not part of any of the official forks, like it’s hard for, you [00:35:00] know, people like yourself, if you are supporting a flavor of something to be like, okay, well, I don’t even know that I’m supposed to do this.

[00:35:07] Brett: the beauty of marked is. Okay, so it’s a huge glaring hole and benefit at the same time that mark can work with whatever processor you want it to, um, it has. Multi Markdown and GitHub Flavor Markdown built in, but you can extend that to work with Common Mark. I’ve written custom processors that handle all of Bear’s syntax.

[00:35:37] Brett: Um, uh, Obsidian callout formatting. Like you can make it work with all of that if you’re willing to kind of get into the. nitty gritty a little bit. Um, and I don’t, I, I don’t know where all of these people who want the equals equals highlighting necessarily are coming [00:36:00] from, or if they’re even coming from like the same place.

[00:36:04] Brett: I do know, like I’ve been really into Devon think lately and you can highlight texts in Devon think using. Critic markup syntax for highlights, which is curly bracket or equals equals and then equals equals curly bracket. Um, and that will give you like a markdown annotation, which is, it’s perfect. It’s great.

[00:36:28] Brett: I love it. Um, but it’s. It’s different. Like everyone seems to have a different implementation. I wish critic markup had gotten more widely used personally,

[00:36:41] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. I was gonna say it’s hard because like, I mean, and this is, I mean, I guess this was the initial idea behind, you know, Common Mark, which, which I think was, was kind of hurt by its, uh, initial, uh, name, um, and, uh, and, and, and that whole thing, um, which we don’t need to [00:37:00] relitigate, um, which was a bad move, but like, it, it, it is one of those things where like, You know, you had this, this syntax, which was, it was just incredibly popular and, and like so successful because of its simplicity, because it was literally designed for one thing.

[00:37:13] Christina: And then as everybody has started to expand into areas, like if we’re being honest, like highlighting is not really a thing that you should necessarily be wanting from. A tool called Markdown. Right. But like, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have a different thing that uses a similar spec that could do that.

[00:37:29] Christina: Right. But like, as everybody’s extended this stuff, it makes it really hard for people like you who are trying to adhere to a spec. And, and, and yeah, you can bring your own processor. But even in that case, like you would need to know, like, for something like highlighting or something, which is different, you would need to like, have a way of rendering that.

[00:37:44] Christina: Um, beyond just like whatever, you know, processor they’re, they’re, they’re using so that you can display it, you know, correctly in the app. Like you, you need to still be aware of like, okay, well, what, what, what things are out there and is there something else [00:38:00] I need to support? But that’s awesome that you, that you brought it.

[00:38:02] Christina: Um, and, uh. And the bring your own JavaScript, uh, thing, um, seems really cool too.

[00:38:09] Brett: It, it, it should prove useful. Um, I don’t think. I don’t think the vast majority of Mark users will need it, but man, if I lose my job, I’m switching Mark to subscription. Um, and I’ll lose a lot of customers. Um, I have, I have customers that I’ve had for 15 years now, um, that have never paid a dime after their initial purchase back when Mark costs like 4

[00:38:36] Christina: Right. No, totally.

[00:38:37] Brett: I still support them and I’ll lose a bunch of them if I switch to subscription, but I think there’s.

[00:38:43] Brett: It still makes a couple grand a month, um, in sales. And I think if I could turn that into more recurring revenue, I could, I

[00:38:52] Christina: I, I, I, I think if you could do like a three or four dollar a month subscription, you know? Um, as well as an annual plan that might be like a [00:39:00] discounted thing, like, I, I

[00:39:01] Brett: Three dollars, 3 a month. If I, if I got 20 percent of my current user base to switch to 3 a month, I could, I could actually probably quit my job. I

[00:39:14] Christina: I feel like,

[00:39:15] Brett: cut back, but I could survive.

[00:39:17] Christina: right, but, but, but I feel like, well, and not only that, but you might even be able to like dedicate like more resources towards upkeep, right? Like if you were able to do it that way, like if that became like

[00:39:27] Brett: Well, and that like with envy ultra, we’re definitely going subscription. Um, like that’s been built in from

[00:39:35] Christina: From the beginning. Yes.

[00:39:36] Brett: and that’s part of what’s holding up release right now is getting fucking store kit version one to function properly, um,

[00:39:45] Christina: are going to go in the app store.

[00:39:47] Brett: Yeah, our, our initial release will be app store and then hopefully soon followed by a direct, uh, probably.

[00:39:57] Brett: Well, so set up is [00:40:00] working on a store where they can sell individual licenses that don’t require a set up subscription. Uh, so they’re looking at kind of taking a piece of the pie from paddle, uh, from, uh, spring, whatever. What’s it? Something spring?

[00:40:20] Christina: Yeah. Yeah. Something spring. Yeah. I, I, I know what you’re talking about. Um, uh, yeah. I guess it.

[00:40:26] Brett: All these, yeah, all these, like,

[00:40:28] Christina: Koji’s dead. Uh, uh, it’s, it’s

[00:40:31] Brett: Koji something else now.

[00:40:33] Christina: um, yeah. Um, but that, that, that is now that domain is now, uh, um, search engine, but it was, or it was cakey,

[00:40:40] Brett: Okay, that’s what I was

[00:40:41] Christina: but, yeah, but yeah, now, now it’s a search engine.

[00:40:43] Christina: They just bought the domain, but yeah, that’s dead. Digital river got, um, uh, shut down spring. I know what you’re talking about, but like paddle is obviously one of the big ones for, um, uh, and then what’s the other one other than paddle? Um,

[00:40:59] Brett: I, [00:41:00] I’m blanking on

[00:41:01] Christina: I am too because I can,

[00:41:02] Brett: one that’s been around longer than paddle.

[00:41:04] Christina: Yeah. I was going to say, cause it’s one that I have like a ton of, uh, um, stuff with. Um, so yeah.

[00:41:11] Brett: Yeah.

Exploring Setapp’s Developer-Centric Approach

[00:41:11] Brett: So set up is looking to take a piece of that pie. Um, and honestly, if they, they’ve been like, they’ve had zoom calls with every developer on set up to talk about what they would want to see from that kind of store. And they’re taking all of that feedback and trying to make something that is actually good for developers, uh, which is pretty exciting.

[00:41:37] Brett: Um, not that paddle is bad. I, I have, I have enjoyed using paddle and I like purchasing through paddle. Like it’s very seamless. It works great. Um, all of my licenses are easy to retrieve. Um, I enjoy paddle, but if. If set up can do the same thing and I also want to sell through set up, [00:42:00] then it becomes my one stop shop and that’s where I’m going to, that’s where I’m going to publish software.

[00:42:06] Christina: And it was fast spring. It was fast spring. We

[00:42:08] Brett: fast spring. Yeah, that’s that, that was, that was the one.

Subscription Models and Lifetime Licenses

[00:42:12] Brett: Um, so anyway, like I definitely with, uh, NB ultra subscription for sure. We’re looking at, you know, basically. 36 a year, um, for a full license. And then, uh, uh, an unlock price that is equivalent to maybe three to five years worth of free updates. Um, and we’re going to call it a lifetime license, but.

[00:42:41] Brett: You know, after five years, we might release a whole, like major upgrade that requires payment. Well, you know, the way software used to work.

[00:42:51] Christina: Yeah, exactly. The way, the way it used to be. Um, and, and gumroad, gumroad was the one I was trying to

[00:42:55] Brett: Yes. Yes. Okay. Gumroad is not as old as paddle,[00:43:00]

[00:43:00] Christina: I was going to say gumroad is no, is newer than paddle, but it’s been, I I’ve used that one more in recent years and I use at least as an end user, I have more

[00:43:07] Brett: what I like about Gumroad is they make it really easy to do pay what you want or pay what you can kind of pricing. Um, and I like when I go to buy a piece of software that the developer has said, this is. 3, but they give me an empty field and, and I can say, no, this is where five bucks, this is where six bucks,

[00:43:30] Christina: and I’ve definitely done that.

[00:43:32] Brett: Yeah. Me too. Like I almost always up upsell myself on those because I can afford it. And, and I know what it’s like to put out a truly useful piece of software that gets undervalued and, or undervalues their own.

[00:43:50] Christina: Mm hmm. Totally.

[00:43:52] Brett: I’ll help

[00:43:52] Christina: Yeah. No, I, I, no, I, I vibe with that too. So yeah, I’m glad that Setapp is, is getting into that, um, space because I think, [00:44:00] A, that’s a great opportunity for them. I think the subscription stuff is great, but There are times when you’re like, no, actually I would like to be able to just buy this, you know, like outright.

[00:44:08] Christina: And maybe you’re in instances where, um, a subscription doesn’t work. Like if you’re on a corporate laptop or something, maybe they don’t, you know, they, maybe they have requirements about how licenses work. You know what I mean? They’re, they’re just all kinds of options there. And, um, it does make sense too, since they’ve have the setup app store, uh, in the EU.

[00:44:25] Christina: Um, I don’t know what the status of that is now, but I know that they were working on having their own app store, um, for iOS and in the EU. And so, you know, if they’re already having to invest in that kind of infrastructure, you might as well expand it.

[00:44:40] Brett: Oh, like a sideloaded app

[00:44:42] Christina: Yeah, yeah, I know that that’s, I know they were, I don’t know

[00:44:46] Brett: right now,

[00:44:46] Christina: them or not, but I

[00:44:47] Brett: they

[00:44:47] Christina: I know they were looking at it.

[00:44:49] Brett: they, if you have a setup subscription and an app on setup has an iOS companion,

[00:44:56] Christina: correct. No, what I’m talking about. Yes, no, yes, that [00:45:00] that’s not what I’m talking about. Um, and I don’t know what the status of this is, but I know that last year when, um, the EU announced that like Apple would have to accept third party app stores that set up was like, we will make a third party app store in the EU that will have.

[00:45:14] Christina: You know, um, apps that you might not be able to get otherwise, or apps that people might want to sell through an alternative way, similar to, to what the, the, the Delta guys have done, um, with, uh, with their, um, app store for, for, for, for the Delta emulator. Um, although that is available officially in the app store as well, but, but there are other apps that, that aren’t, and so.

[00:45:34] Christina: If I, what I’m assuming, and I have no, you know, knowledge around this, but I would assume that if they were going to take on the undertaking of being like, okay, we have to have this much money that’s required by the DMA to have this, you know, um, uh, you know, uh, marketplace, if we have to go through all this process of building out our infrastructure to do individual sales and to do this stuff for the EU, we might as well make some tweaks and make, uh, you know, a paddle gumroad, [00:46:00] you know, uh, you know, um, uh, you know, Whatever.

[00:46:04] Christina: Um, exactly. So, so you can sell individual licenses, um, to, um, outside of mobile, you know, cause if you’re already building it out, you might as well, um, get, get some bank for your buck if you’re doing all of that,

[00:46:17] Brett: Right.

[00:46:17] Christina: I don’t know. Um, okay. Uh, uh, do you want to, can we talk about some new computers?

[00:46:24] Brett: Yes, let’s.

[00:46:26] Christina: Okay.

New Mac Announcements and Benchmarks

[00:46:27] Christina: So the new Macs, uh, we’ve got some new Mac updates, um, this week.

[00:46:30] Christina: We also got, um, uh, framework announced a bunch of stuff, uh, week before last, but let’s talk about the Macs first. So you, you have a, uh, an M4 Mac pro now, right?

[00:46:40] Brett: I have an M4 MacBook Pro, and I still have an M1 Studio, and I’ve been waiting for the studio update, and I, I, are there benchmarks out between the M3 Ultra and the M4 Max

[00:46:59] Christina: [00:47:00] Um, there are no, no, because the, the, uh, the, so, um, they announced the new Macs, um, a new Mac book air and, um, uh, the new Mac studio, uh, were both announced, uh, this week and they will be available starting on the 12th. So reviews will probably. Be out on Monday or Tuesday is my guess. And so we’ll start to see benchmarks then, but no, they don’t.

[00:47:22] Christina: Other than like some synthetic stuff that Apple put in the press releases, we don’t have any comparisons between the M4 Max and the M3 Ultra.

[00:47:30] Brett: the M3 Ultra is priced higher than the M4 Max,

[00:47:35] Christina: Yes.

[00:47:36] Brett: so I have

[00:47:37] Christina: Right. So, so from what I, what I understand is, is how they describe the process. It’s better

[00:47:45] Brett: Okay.

[00:47:46] Christina: is, is how they’re sharing it. So, so how, how, how they’re describing it, I think, is that they’re saying that the M3 ultra is two M3 maxes stuck together. And so that will have like higher throughput. That’s how you can get 512 gigabytes of, of, um, unified [00:48:00] memory.

[00:48:00] Christina: And do some other things. Um, it, it’s still on the older three nanometer process, but it’s still in three nanometer process. And the way that it was described, I think to people like Jason Snell and John Gruber, and I hope that I’m not misrepresenting this, but from the impression that I got based on, on their write ups was that what Apple basically said was that they kind of work on some of these chips in parallel.

[00:48:22] Christina: Um, you know, I guess like processes. And so one team’s working on one thing, one’s working on another. So the M4 Max for most people is probably. Enough, but the M three ULTRA is going to be even beyond that because it’s basically I know, I

[00:48:41] Brett: from a branding

[00:48:42] Christina: And, and why

[00:48:43] Brett: should be slower than

[00:48:44] Christina: about it.

[00:48:44] Christina: 'cause it’s not like it. I agree with you. I agree with you. But what I, what I, but, but, but if, but if you have, if the way that it’s working is that, okay, the, the two ultras are, are two of the max chips. Attach [00:49:00] like in their, in their, their chiplet kind of thing, similar to what, how AMD does their Zen processor. That’s basically what they’re doing is attaching two of them together.

[00:49:07] Christina: If that’s what they’re doing, then yeah, no matter what, you know, unless you made like Titanic, um, improvements. From M3 to M4, which, which you didn’t, you know, then, then two is still going to be better than one. Um, but, um, so, so for instance, the comparison, uh, on the Mac studio, uh, page is, and some of this could just be down to binning.

[00:49:31] Christina: It could be down how to inspect the chips, obviously. Um, and, and there’s some, uh, I guess, uh, thought, uh, that maybe the M4 ultra will be. What they’ll use for the Mac Pro, maybe that’ll be the one thing that will get people to stupidly buy a Mac, Apple Silicon Mac Pro, which zero people in the universe need.

[00:49:51] Christina: But the, um, the, the, the, the comparison is that the Apple M4 Max chip. We’ll have 14 core CPU, 10 performance cores [00:50:00] for efficiency, and then a 32 core GPU. And I think that can be extended beyond that, but whereas where the M3 Ultra starts, it’s a 28 core CPU with 20 performance and 8 efficiency. So it’s twice the number of cores and then a 60 core GPU.

[00:50:14] Christina: So, and then, and then the neural, the neural engine is double as well. And then the big thing is the memory bandwidth goes from 4 to 10 gigabytes. Uh, per second memory bandwidth to 819. So you’re, you’re literally are talking even if you know, it’s, it’s almost exactly. And so you can configure these all the way up to, um, uh, you know, uh, 32 core, um, 80 core GPU, um, uh, for, for the ultra versus 16 core, 40 core GPU on the max.

[00:50:41] Christina: So it’s, it’s double. Um, but, um, you know, it, it also costs. Twice as much. So, uh, I agree with you though, from a brainy perspective, it’s nuts. It’s like,

[00:50:53] Brett: So.

[00:50:54] Christina: no one’s going to know. But, but, uh, I’m looking forward to the benchmarks because these look like these will be good machines.

[00:50:59] Brett: Yeah, [00:51:00] I, I can get 800, uh, trade in for my M1 studio. Um, and even with that, I can’t justify, in addition to my M four MacBook Pro, I can’t justify buying another $4,000 machine right now. So my thing is, if, if we get NV Ultra out. And it makes some decent money for me, then I’ll buy a, a new studio, but for right now, for right now, the combination of an M one studio and an M four MacBook pro, I have, I have everything I need.

[00:51:38] Brett: I shouldn’t, I shouldn’t even be looking, but I priced it

[00:51:41] Christina: I was gonna say I think you’re perfect. No. Yeah, and I was looking too because in my mind I was like, so I have like my my 2020 iMac which has 128 gigs of RAM and it’s like was a you know, an i9 and and you know a big Graphics card and it still performs really well, but and I’m [00:52:00] not like Needing to even upgrade it, but, you know, it is still an Intel machine and like Apple’s going to cut support for it.

[00:52:06] Christina: Maybe even this year, right? Like I, I don’t know when, and so then I’m going to be stuck in this position where I’m like, okay, well, do I, you know, spend a couple hundred dollars and try to turn it into a second studio display, um, by getting like a, a board from AliExpress and like opening up the back of it and, and attempting to Frankenstein the whole thing so I can try to save the.

[00:52:27] Christina: The display and, and, and reuse that. Cause Apple’s only going to give me like, they’re not going to give me any money for this computer. Um, certainly not what it’s worth. Do I stick, do we keep it around, you know, as like a, a Linux kind of machine or something like, like, what, what do I do with this? But I was looking, I was like, okay, well, if I wanted to get a desktop and I don’t really need one right now, I have an M three max and then I have an M four pro for work, but if I wanted a desktop, I’m like, okay, well, you know.

[00:52:53] Christina: How much do I want to spend? Because, uh, the, the ultra is probably more processing power than I need, [00:53:00] but at the same time, I don’t really want to spend, like, I priced out, it’d be like, you know, 3, 500 to get an M4 Max studio the way I would want it versus like a couple hundred more to get the, the base level ultra, which would have.

[00:53:14] Christina: Not 128 gigs of RAM, but I have 96, but it would be up there. But I’d be basically looking at spending about four grand on the machine that I would want to configure the way I would want it before tax. And then I have to figure out a fricking display. So, you know, which, um, which, which means that I’m, it’s.

[00:53:32] Christina: Which makes me just miss the 27 inch iMac, but I’m, I’m, I’m looking, I don’t really need anything right now. I’m, I’m waiting for, for the benchmarks just to see. From me and what’s interesting is that my use case with this and it’s, and it, it’s interesting to me that Apple still hasn’t leaned into this because this is obviously the core market for this product.

[00:53:49] Christina: Is like local a, um, LLM stuff like, like that’s, that’s where you get the benefit from this much memory. Like that, the only people who are going to benefit from 512 gigabytes of [00:54:00] unified memory are people who are doing local LLMs. This is not a thing for, for, you know, even like, cause honestly, if you’re.

[00:54:07] Christina: Having better integrated, like graphics things, like still for a lot of visual effects houses, maybe Pixar and people like that could use some of these things, but, but everybody else, but I think they’re using like a custom version of Linux for most of, for render man, most of those people are gonna be better off with just like.

[00:54:22] Christina: You know, customized GPUs and workstations. So I feel like the main market for this would be like local LLM development. And that would certainly be what I would be interested in playing with him on, right. It would be doing that. So I, it’s weird to me that they, they haven’t at least so far, like leaned into that in, in their outreach for their marketing.

[00:54:43] Christina: Cause I’m like, This is what this is like. This is competing in essence with like the, the, um, the thing that a and b showed off at CES, um, and, and some other stuff.

Framework’s New Desktop and Laptop Innovations

[00:54:54] Christina: Um, and speaking of that, um, framework, uh, which, uh, disclosure, I, I did invest. [00:55:00] In their, uh, community funding round. So I, I, I, you know, I’m in a very minority investor, uh, but like, I, I don’t know anything, you know, beforehand or whatnot, they had an event two weeks ago where they announced some updates to the framework 13 for, for 2025.

[00:55:17] Christina: Um, they also showed off, um, it’s coming soon. This framework 12 laptop, which is like a two in one that is. It’s apparently going to be very price, um, uh, like price very well and designed, uh, I think probably for like schools and fleets is it’s what it looks like the kind of the goal is, and I’m looking forward to that because that’d be a great machine to recommend to people who, you know, don’t have MacBook Air money, but.

[00:55:41] Christina: Um, need, you know, something reliable and, and repairable, but the big thing that they announced and I did preorder one, um, was this thing called the framework desktop and it’s, it’s kind of a mini PC, um, but it is, um, based on, uh, a new, uh, system on a chip from AMD called, uh, the [00:56:00] codename is the Strix Halo.

[00:56:01] Christina: And that is actually a laptop chip, but what they are doing is they are combining it. They’re putting it in a desktop housing. So it’ll have more, uh, cooling and, and, and more dedicated power and hopefully get more performance out of it. And, um, the, the. So it has a built in GPU, built in, you know, um, uh, CPU, um, integrated memory, um, uh, networking.

[00:56:25] Christina: The downside of this means that whereas with most framework prop products, you know, you can upgrade everything. They worked with AMD on this and they were like, can we upgrade the RAM? Can we make the RAM upgradable? And, and they just weren’t able to make it work. AMD did actually investigate it and, and they’re open to that potentially, I guess, maybe, maybe for future revisions, but the way that the whole thing was designed, they were not able to, You would only get some of the benefits of, of the memory if it was actually integrated and soldered in.

[00:56:50] Christina: So that, that sucks from that perspective, but I feel like that’s an even trade off that that’s just a design of the chip and they decided to go forward with it anyway. You can still put in some add [00:57:00] in cards that doesn’t have full PCI, like that doesn’t have a bunch of PCI express lanes, but you can, you know, put in two M.

[00:57:05] Christina: 2 SSDs of your own. Um, unlike what you can do, you know, on a Mac studio or a Mac mini. Um, and, and they, um, they said the integrated graphics is probably about equal to like a 40, 60 mobile processor. So it can do decent enough, you know, graphics. But the real thing is that these chips have been, um. Really, I think, uh, set for, for doing like local LLM type of work, machine learning and, and whatnot.

[00:57:32] Christina: And so, um, but here, here’s where it gets interesting. This is the pricing. So the completely maxed out model with, um, uh, so it has three gigahertz base clock. Um, and, and so this is 16 core 32 threat, uh, threads has integrated graphics. It has 128 gigs of, of, um, memory for 2, 000.

[00:57:54] Brett: Wow.

[00:57:55] Christina: So, um, I pre ordered one. I am sure that the, that [00:58:00] the Mac studio will trounce it, but I’m very, I would equally convinced that I bet that if you, they’ve, they’ve designed these things.

[00:58:11] Christina: So you could conceivably have like a rack of them working together. So I bet if you had two of those, I don’t know if, if, if two of them together would be trounced. You see what I’m saying? So, um, I dunno, I, I pre ordered one. Um, it’ll be out like Q3, um, uh, So, so, you know, summer, I guess, um, we’ll see, but, um, you know, like I’m, I’m sure the Apple Silicon is significantly ahead of where AMD is, but that’s another thing I think for folks, at least if you’re looking for LLM sort of stuff.

[00:58:41] Christina: Um, the, the, the framework desktop and other companies are also going to be, um, apparently making mini PCs based also based off of this, uh, AMD chip set. And, and I think that’s, that’s interesting for, for local work. So, cause for me, 2, 000, like I was, I, I, I did the pre order, you only had to put like a hundred dollars down.

[00:58:59] Christina: I was like. [00:59:00] That’s cool. I’ll bring my own storage. And, you know, I got like the type of fan I wanted and, and you can customize some, some cute stuff like for, for the, the way they’ve made like kind of the, the, the mini case, like only four and a half liters. So it’s bigger than a Mac mini or a Mac studio, but it’s, it’s still pretty tiny.

[00:59:15] Christina: Like that’s the, the, that, that, that’s fine for, for a local machine. And then of course, like the following week, the Mac studios are announced and I’m like, damn, well, that would be a really good local LLM machine, but, but, but, but. 128 gigs of RAM, which is going to matter a lot more. Um, at least for me and for my purposes, if I’m running Olama anyway, I kind of don’t care as much about the operating system.

[00:59:37] Christina: Um, I mean, like, obviously I love Mac OS, but if, if what I’m doing is doing local model stuff and it kind of doesn’t matter, then, you know, I feel like even if the, the cores on Apple are going to be better, that RAM is what you really want. And, you know, 120 gigs of RAM for, for two grand. I’m like, okay, well, that, that might be [01:00:00] the, the

[01:00:00] Brett: Yeah. Well, I look forward to your review when you get the actual machine. We’ll do a follow up

[01:00:07] Christina: We’ll do a follow up. Um, speaking of follow up, and I know we’ve been going for a while. We probably need to go to Graphitude, but I did want to hear an update. Cause you got your, your 8 bit, um,

[01:00:14] Brett: I

[01:00:14] Christina: hand machine. How, how is that?

Retro Gaming and Emulation Challenges

[01:00:17] Brett: I forgot how hard, like, Super Nintendo games are. Um,

[01:00:24] Christina: And they’re, and they’re better than Nintendo games.

[01:00:26] Brett: right. But still, like, even like just Super Mario Brothers, like. I’m so much I’m I’m so used to way more responsive machines. Um, and. It’s a, it’s a little frustrating, but like playing, there’s some cool variations of Tetris on it that are fun.

[01:00:48] Brett: Um, I got into a motocross game. There’s thousands of games on this. It was, we’re talking about the all eight bit. Um, I can’t remember what they call it, [01:01:00] but it’s like a game station. Um, it’s an emulator that has at least 15 different consoles. Built in from like Commodore 64

[01:01:12] Christina: Somebody took retro through, through like,

[01:01:15] Brett: through PlayStation.

[01:01:16] Brett: Yeah. And, and like, it’s missing some key, like I really wanted super Mario cart for Nintendo 64 and that’s not on there. And I don’t know why that’s not on there.

[01:01:31] Christina: Yeah. Uh, and it’s weird 'cause like all these games, obviously, like this is not like a, a legal thing. If you, if, if you can bring your own ROMs, I can get you the, the rom for that.

[01:01:43] Brett: Yeah. I need, it has USB ports. I imagine. I can hack it a little

[01:01:48] Christina: Oh, I’m sure you can. I’m sure I’m, I’m sure, I’m sure that it’s just running retro arch under the hood. I, I have, I don’t know that definitively, but I would be shocked if it were not literally just somebody packaging, you know, a cheap, you know, um, uh, you [01:02:00] know, R-M-S-O-C with, um, a retro arch and, and a bunch of Ros they downloaded off the internet right.

[01:02:05] Christina: So I, I, I have, I have ROMs, um,

[01:02:08] Brett: it was like a hundred bucks, so

[01:02:10] Christina: but absolutely

[01:02:11] Brett: it’s, it’s nothing fancy.

[01:02:13] Christina: no, no. Well, but, but, but I’m saying there was a lot of, there are a lot of these types of devices out there. And so I, I can, I can help you with that. Um, at least getting stuff. Um, yeah, but, uh, yeah, cause it’s interesting. Nintendo 64 games have been really hard to emulate well, because.

[01:02:30] Christina: Of how custom that processor was and it took people a really long time to do it when some of the, and then there was kind of this conundrum because there was this big Nintendo hack a few years ago at a bunch of the internals and schematics and stuff of the 64 were part of that hack. But the thing is, is that if you’re going to do like a clean room or burst engineering thing, then you can’t look at that stuff.

[01:02:49] Christina: And it’s unclear if some of the people who worked on some of these cores for some of these different things did look at that or not. I think some might have, but I think a lot of them probably kept to their principles and were like. No, we’re [01:03:00] doing a clean room reverse engineering, but it was a really big breakthrough.

[01:03:03] Christina: We were talking about the, the Mr. FPGA thing last week. And to be clear, that is not what your system is. Your system is just straight up emulating, but they made a big breakthrough, the Mr. Project last year, and then analog, um, followed around the same time where they were able to reprogram. The Nintendo 64 schematics and there are still a few things with shaders and some stuff that they had to make some modifications to, but that was like a massive breakthrough because that that has been one of the hardest systems to emulate, um, and because it was so custom and because it was powerful enough at the time.

[01:03:39] Christina: Um, and so, uh, like I remember, you know, in like a Raspberry Pi three or something. You know, uh, barely being able to play like, um, you know, Donkey, Diddy Kong Racing and like Mario Kart 64, like on, on those types of consoles. Now that was like eight years ago. It’s improved a lot since then, but, [01:04:00] but emulating, um, the N64 has been a challenge.

[01:04:04] Christina: So, um, it’s cool that we’re now at that point where like they can even just throw those games on, you know, these, these hundred dollar, you know, boxes.

[01:04:13] Brett: What’s wild is my memory of how Good Nintendo 64 graphics look of just being wowed and amazed at, Oh my God, look at, look at this technology. It’s amazing. And now I see it and I’m like, holy shit. This is, this looks like Atari to me now.

[01:04:34] Christina: Right. Well, part of that is because you’re looking at it on a, on an LCD.

[01:04:39] Brett: Okay,

[01:04:40] Christina: No, for real, for real. If you look at it on a CRT, it looks much better because they, that was, yes, yes,

[01:04:47] Brett: Because it was designed for

[01:04:48] Christina: It was designed for that. It was designed for that, and they did things with certain comb filters and whatnot to really make things look smoother and to make it look less blocky and less pixelated.

[01:04:57] Christina: And you don’t get that when you have an LCD. If [01:05:00] anything, it sometimes makes it worse because they can higher res the pixels, which you would think would be a good thing. Oh, I can play this in 4K. I’m like, no, you don’t want to see this in 4K because it was designed to be viewed in, in, you know, um, you know, 480, um, you know, really 320, whatever.

[01:05:15] Christina: Um, and, uh, you know, have kind of, you know, filters over it to, to give the sense of motion and all of that. And if that’s up but leveled, all you see are, are the blocks. PlayStation games are even worse because those didn’t even look that good other than rendered scenes. PlayStation games did not look that good to begin with, but play, but Nintendo 64 stuff did, but yeah, it’s, I had the exact same like realization when I, when I played.

[01:05:40] Christina: Um, like on a, on a, you know, um, LCD for the first time. And I was like, Oh, okay. But, but, and I don’t, I don’t know if you’re, I don’t know if your system will let you do this or not. If it is based on RetroArch, then, then you can, but there are people who’ve created shader packs and other types of things to improve.

[01:05:58] Christina: The, the looks [01:06:00] of, um, of how that stuff works on, um, on LCDs. So, um, I was going to say, that’s the thing you can do next time. You’re you’re up really late with insomnia. Just, just go down the Nintendo 64 emulation rabbit hole. Cause I don’t know if you can tell Brett, but I’ve been through that a few times myself.

Sponsor: Rogue Amoeba

[01:06:17] Brett: It sounds like it. All right. Well, I’m going to do sponsor number two, which they might complain about being so late in the episode, but they’re going to get their money’s worth out of this because. It’s going to be, you’ll see, you’ll see, it’s going to be worth it. It’s going to be amazing. Uh, this episode is sponsored by Rogue Amoeba makers of powerful audio software for the Mac.

[01:06:43] Brett: Christina and I are both big fans of Rogue Amoeba. They have been developing audio focused app for the Mac for over 20 years, going all the way back to OS 10. 2, which is Jaguar. In case, you know, you’ve

[01:06:56] Christina: Yep. The first, well, it was the first good one. Let’s be clear on [01:07:00] that. It was the first good OS 10.

[01:07:02] Brett: And, uh, Rogamiba’s latest versions, make it a snap to get started with no need to even restart your Mac, which was a thing for a little bit because their software ties in at a low enough level to your audio system that when system integrity protection became a thing, uh, there, there were some workarounds, but these days.

[01:07:28] Brett: Rogamiba’s apps don’t even require a restart of your machine. I personally love SoundSource and Loopback, and I use them all the time. SoundSource puts per audio app controls, uh, audio controls, including the ability to apply effects, right in your menu bar. And Loopback is an amazing app for routing signals and working with multiple audio devices.

[01:07:51] Brett: And I would be remiss, of course, not to praise audio hijack, uh, the all purpose tool for recording and routing audio on your Mac. Uh, it [01:08:00] can do just about anything with application, audio, or microphone input, and it has a ton of automation possibilities. We’ll be talking a bit more about it in a second.

[01:08:09] Brett: You can learn more about all of Rogue Amoeba’s software at macaudio. com slash overtired. That’s Mac audio. com slash overtired. Listeners of overtired can save 20 percent off any purchase through the end of May with the coupon overtired. Just go to Mac audio. com slash overtired and use the coupon overtired, which brings us to craft attitude.

[01:08:38] Christina: Yes. Yes. And we figured like this’d be a great time. And like, genuinely, this is a pick of mine because I wanted to talk about this, this feature, which, which came out, um, a couple of weeks ago. Um, anyway, um, but speaking of, uh, my, my, my gratitude this week is actually audio hijack, uh, which is a fantastic, fantastic application that, [01:09:00] uh, I’ve been using God, I think basically as long as I’ve been like full timing, uh, A Mac, which is, which is 18 or 19 years at this point.

[01:09:08] Christina: So, um, you know, it, it’s, uh, I, I, uh, we, we use a different recording process for overtired at this point. Um, but if I’m doing, you need to do backup recordings or if I’m doing recordings with other people, or especially when you need to bring in lots of different audio sources, like audio, audio hijack is just an amazing tool.

[01:09:27] Christina: Um, along with like loop loopback and sound source, as you mentioned, but one of the things that’s great about it. As you can record from any source and, um, uh, you know, you can build in these, these, these blocks to kind of automate these processes. So I can be like, okay, I have my zoom audio coming in here and I have, you know, maybe audio from, um, like if, if I’m wanting to play back, uh, you know, with, for a soundboard or something, I can have that come in here and I can also separate the channels if I’m talking to multiple people and I can have them routed to these devices, but.

[01:09:57] Christina: Um, one of the other things that they introduced, [01:10:00] and they, they first rolled this out, uh, in beta back in like, I think like 2023, it’s like a year and a half ago, um, is a, a, ability to transcribe the audio that you’re recording, and it does this live, and the way, the way it does this is it uses Whisper, which is, um, opening eyes, open source, and, and actually open source, um, a local, Model for doing transcriptions or for doing a voice to text rather.

[01:10:25] Christina: Um, and, and you and I have talked about whisper, um, a bunch of the past, cause it’s fantastic. It works really, really well in a bunch of different languages. And so they’ve got that built into, um, a block. So while you’re recording your podcast or your radio interview or whatever the case may be, you can have this transcribed block.

[01:10:44] Christina: Plugged into audio hijack. And while you’re recording, it’s also going through the process of transcribing and doing that in real time and creating that nicely for you. So by the time you’re done, that’s one less thing you’ve got to run your audio through, right? Like you could [01:11:00] conceivably record your audio and then just feed it into, you know, a prog, a program like Mac whisper, or use like a command line, um, you know, whisper CPP or whatever, uh, to, to.

[01:11:10] Christina: Transcribe, but like the fact that you can do it in real time, um, while you’re recording, I think is just. Freaking awesome. And, and it’s just such a, such a cool feature.

[01:11:22] Brett: Yeah. It’s super cool. I, I love audio hijack. I love any app that, that brings like node based editing where you can like drag blocks around on a workspace and like. Connect different outputs to different inputs and like, see it all visually. That was kind of the breakthrough thing for me with, uh, audio hijack and like all of systematic, my older podcasts that is now in retirement, but all of that was recorded with audio hijack.

[01:11:57] Brett: Um, bringing in like I could split [01:12:00] my Skype conversations into two different tracks. So to make for easy editing and, and EQing, uh, go ahead

[01:12:11] Christina: No, I was going to

[01:12:11] Brett: you’re doing an interview, when you’re doing an interview podcast and you never can predict what the other person is going to have for a microphone, having separate tracks is crucial.

[01:12:23] Christina: no, it is crucial. And that’s the thing, right? Is that, is that we know we, we used, you know, programs like back when Skype was, um, Uh, thing and, and RIP Skype, Microsoft announced that they are killing Skype in May. Um, pour one out. Like I use that, like that, that sound will be in my head for forever. And like, and, um, and I used to use e cams, um, uh, you know, call recorder, uh, primarily for that, cause it was so easy, but for anything that was more complicated, especially I had multiple.

[01:12:50] Christina: People on like the, the, the thing you would use would be like audio hijack. And to my mind, there’s still nothing like audio hijack. Like even when, um, like when I was [01:13:00] doing rocket, like, uh, we had a few kind of bonus episodes and like one of actually our final bonus episode that we did for the show, Simone and I watched the movie her together, and I would not have been able to do that without audio hijack because I was able to bring in the audio from the movie.

[01:13:14] Christina: So we were both watching like at the same time. And I was able to bring in the audio from the movie and have that at a lower level and then record our audio tracks separately from zoom so that, and then adjust the levels independently. And then when I was able to edit, when I edited it in a Descript, actually, which was, was great for, for that purpose, I was, I just didn’t have Descript run on the, the, her, um, part, because I was like, I’m not, I’m not having to transcribe that part of it.

[01:13:38] Christina: I had to transcribe our other things. I was able to, you know, adjust the timeline and then, you know, um, lower, um, in, in, um, My editing things, you know, make the volume lower, but this was all stuff like I couldn’t have done. Without something like audio hijack. Like I, it just, it would not have been possible.

[01:13:55] Christina: Like it really is, you know, your software ultimate, you know, like, [01:14:00] uh, what’s, what’s the term, I guess, like recording deck or mixer or whatever. Right. Like obviously having a, um, um, a separate, like, um, hardware mixer is great too. But, and it works with that, but like, this is a way that you can do so many things.

[01:14:14] Christina: And, um, I, uh, I like you, like, I think the way that they visually lay out how the bricks work, like the blocks look like, that just helps my mind, like, feel like, Oh, okay, now I know what’s going on. And I think it’s brilliant, but yeah, so, so, so my, my, my pick is, is audio hijack. Um, and, uh, and I. But I’m a huge fan of all, all of their products and have been a Brogan Viva fan, like for like, they’re one of the original to me, like Mac ass Mac, you know, companies.

[01:14:43] Brett: Yep, for sure. And, and I, my secondary pick for today would be loopback. Um, it has a more limited audience. Uh, but if you have say, like I have these complete audio [01:15:00] interfaces that I use that have six different outputs or six different inputs and four different outputs and. Um, with loopback, I can control, I can say, take the input from one and two and route it through my, my Bluetooth output, and then pass that through two outputs, four and six, and, and I can do, I can make like crazy, uh, echo.

[01:15:31] Brett: I have, I have all kinds of my echo and my, um, HomePods. Like route through my complete audio and yeah, loopback, loopback makes these really complex scenarios workable, but go ahead. You’re going to

[01:15:50] Christina: Uh, I was just gonna say, it’s especially good for anybody if like you’re using OBS a lot.

[01:15:55] Brett: Oh, sure.

[01:15:55] Christina: if you’re streaming, if you’re using OBS, something like Loopback, Sound Source too, but Loopback especially, it’d [01:16:00] be really, really useful if you’re, you know, dealing with like, I have my streaming machine and I have my broadcast machine, like.

[01:16:08] Brett: But my actual pick for today, and I may have mentioned this before.

Battery Management with Al Dente Pro

[01:16:12] Brett: I have a terrible memory, but al dente pro.

[01:16:16] Christina: it’s great. I don’t think we’ve mentioned it before, but I’ve used it. It’s great.

[01:16:20] Brett: So what it does is for your laptop, for your Mac laptop, it can set in its most basic form, it can set a cap on how much charge your battery will accept. So that if your laptop is usually plugged in, you can set, say a 70 percent cap so that it’ll never charge to a hundred percent, which is. Bad for the battery to leave it plugged in at a

[01:16:51] Christina: charged at 100%.

[01:16:52] Brett: period.

[01:16:53] Brett: So like my MacBook pro is always at 70%. And then when it unplugs, it [01:17:00] drains, and then it charges back up to 70%. I have the option to cap it up or. Top it off like you can hit top it off and it’ll charge it to 100 so you can go out. You know, you’re going on a trip, you’re going to the coffee house, whatever.

[01:17:14] Brett: You can top it up before you go, but then the next time you charge, it’ll only go to 70%. It can discharge even while your MacBook is plugged in. So then you can have, uh, like weekly calibrations where it’ll. Discharge to 15 percent recharge to 100 percent and then discharge to your preferred level. Um, and it can display your actual battery, uh,

[01:17:46] Christina: Capacity. Yeah. Yes.

[01:17:48] Brett: Yeah, it can display your capacity so I can show you like your degradation of life over time, but it can also there’s a hardware reading. Of what your battery is [01:18:00] actually charged to that is not the same as what the typical battery output in the menu bar will tell you

[01:18:08] Christina: Right.

[01:18:10] Brett: and it’s. It’s interesting, but also very useful to know what the actual battery charges.

[01:18:17] Christina: No, it really is. Yeah. I like

[01:18:19] Brett: and it’s on set up. If you’re a setup subscriber, this is a no brainer. If you have a laptop, it’s useless on a desktop machine, but if you have a laptop, highly recommended

[01:18:31] Christina: Yeah. No, I’m a big fan. Um, so, um, and, and I think that it’s, it’s a, it’s like 25 I think for a lifetime license or, um, uh, like they do have like a subscription, but if the subscription, you might as well just get set up in my opinion, um, and get a bunch of other apps too. But, um, it’s a great app. I started using it.

[01:18:49] Christina: I think I heard about it and then it came to set up and, um, Like, uh, just, I guess for, for background, why people would want this. If you do have your laptop charged, plugged in a [01:19:00] lot, the, the battery health goes down significantly and, and you can wear down the batteries and, and battery replacements, although Apple will do them, you know, it’s a weird thing, like under Apple care, the.

[01:19:12] Christina: The, they won’t do it if it’s under 80%, even if you pay them. Um, and, and, and it can be really difficult to, to, to even go in and be like, I want a battery replacement. They’re like, my battery is only doing 85%. They’ll be like, oh, well, we think it’s fine. I’m like, no, but I know that this, you know, the way the battery degregate.

[01:19:28] Christina: Degradation works is that it’s, it’s incremental. Like it’s faster rather. Um, I can’t think of the right term. So like, once you get to that point where you’re like in the eighties, like, especially if you’re like in the low eighties exponential, thank you. It will. Super, super, you know, um, degrade much, much faster and, um, and like, but the thing is, is I don’t know how many people are going to go through like the, the cycle themselves of, okay, discharging to 15 percent then charging up and whatnot.

[01:19:59] Christina: Like I used to [01:20:00] try to do those calibration things with things like coconut battery and whatnot. But what’s great is, is with Al dente is that it will stop the charging. Apple has some of this built into macOS now, and it’s pretty good. Like in terms of being able to be like, okay, we won’t charge all the way and we’ll do like smarter charging, but it’s not as robust as this.

[01:20:18] Christina: And, and this also works. Um, you know, I think it works with Apple, uh, with Intel max too. Um, I’m not sure, but it, yeah. So, so it’ll work with, with older machines too, which is really good. Um, and it’s interesting. Windows machines have had some features like this for a while, where with certain types of, uh, like utilities, you could kind of, or with, with certain BIOS, um, uh, features, it’s a popular BIOS feature.

[01:20:43] Christina: You can be like, I’m going to manually have this set to only charge to 8%. What I like about this better in some regards, it’s like you said, that top up feature, because there are times where like. I have, I, I similarly for my personal machine, like I have it set to charge to 80 percent just like, uh, like [01:21:00] you have yours is having to have mine to 80, but because it’s a 14 inch, you know, if I’m going out, depending on what I’m doing, I don’t want to be in that scenario where I only have 80 percent power so I can just like top it up.

[01:21:12] Christina: And, and then, you know, I’m, I feel confident that my, my battery is going to last a really long time. And so you’re not losing out on anything in that regard, your battery staying healthy or longer, it’ll do the automatic. Like I just love to have the set calibration thing every week. Cause I’m like, okay, you know, I spent a lot of money on this laptop.

[01:21:30] Christina: I don’t want to have to deal with. You know, getting the battery replaced. And I don’t want to deal with a scenario where I’m like three years and I’m like, this laptop is a great, but his battery sucks and Apple makes it really difficult to repair or replace. So

[01:21:41] Brett: El Tente even controls your, the light on the plug. So like when it’s, when it’s, um, discharging while you’re plugged in it, like it flashes orange and then when it hits your cap, which for me is 70%, it [01:22:00] turns green to show it’s fully charged, even though it’s not. I like that.

[01:22:04] Christina: I like that too. And I don’t know how they’ve been able to like do all the low level stuff they’ve done. Cause I know that Apple really probably doesn’t want people doing some of that stuff, but, but they’ve done a great job with it. So like, I’m, I’m a, I’m a big fan.

Conclusion and Final Thoughts

[01:22:17] Brett: Alright, well, thank you, Incogni, thank you, um, Rogamiba for keeping us on the air, it’s been a pleasure, you good with, you good with wrapping up here,

[01:22:32] Christina: Yeah. I’m great with, with, with wrapping up here. This is fantastic.

[01:22:36] Brett: Alright, get some sleep.

[01:22:37] Christina: Get some sleep.