Brad & Will Made a Tech Pod.

There's... a lot going on lately, so we're rounding up some of that news this week, starting with Discord's forthcoming age verification policy rolling out globally, with cursory discussion of some of the alternative platforms starting to assert themselves out there. We also touch on the targeting and compromise of Notepad++ by state-level actors, and the latest effects of the computing supply crisis on hard drives, the Steam Machine, and the PlayStation 6. Lastly, we talk about the bizarre case of the autonomous AI agent that started a flame war against an open source maintainer that... well, you really need to just hear/read about that one yourself. Discord's age verification announcement: https://discord.com/press-releases/discord-launches-teen-by-default-settings-globally Notepad++ compromised: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/news/hijacked-incident-info-update/ An AI Agent Published a Hit Piece on Me: https://theshamblog.com/an-ai-agent-published-a-hit-piece-on-me/ (Much more has emerged about the AI agent story since we recorded, including contact with the agent's operator, all described at the link above.) Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

Magnets have been replacing potentiometers in a variety of places for a while now, especially as Hall effect and TMR joysticks have started popping up in fancy game controllers. Now magnetic switches are becoming more common in mice and mechanical keyboards, and Will has spent some time with new products in both of those categories, so we figured it was a good time to lay out how these kinds of switches work, how resistant to wear and electrical "bouncing" they are, what the heck a transducer is, whether there's quantum mechanics involved or not, and what effect these new switches are going to have on the input devices of the future.Show notes for this episode: https://tinyurl.com/techpod-326-mag-switches Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

It's been a while since we did a deep dive on our home networking and server infrastructure (what some might call a "homelab"), so it's time for the 2026 check-in to run down what we're working with these days. By request, we spend a big chunk of the episode on Brad's plain Linux NAS/server, detailing components like Samba, Docker (or Podman), and Sanoid that you'd need to set up yourself to replicate the functionality of something like TrueNAS or Unraid. We also survey Will's more granular approach, once again pine longingly after Wildcat Lake, and more.Show notes with all the hardware and software we mentioned: https://tinyurl.com/techpod-325-homelab-update Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

After two months of accumulated Qs, we felt we still had plenty of As to dispense, so we're wheeling back around to a supplemental questions episode this week, touching on such topics as generating negative mileage in an EV, what the iOS low battery mode actually does, tiny network racks for your desk, a shocking amount of discussion about shells like zsh, fish, PowerShell and Nushell, the whereabouts of Intel's successor to the Alder Lake-N... and, for that matter, why (nearly) everything at Intel is a Lake. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

The questions piled up over the holidays and now it's time to answer them in this, the first Q&A of 2026. This month we touch on topics like the splendor Gateway 2000's cow boxes, the mystery of the ENIAC, whether a shed qualifies as off-site backup, what the heck volt-amps are (and how calculus is involved), the glory days of multi-user computing, what tech today's kids will be nostalgic for in 20 years, using LLMs for troubleshooting and command line assistance, and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

We get into the nitty gritty this week with a grab bag of home computing projects that's really more like a set of cautionary tales. Will discovers the perils of hanging your entire household's Internet access on a couple of older, neglected Raspberry Pis. Brad learns some harsh lessons about the power draw of a space heater and not maintaining the automation settings on your UPS. And, well, our third topic is about using an Xbox Series X or S as a Moonlight client, which is actually pretty great so far. We suppose one out of three isn't bad? Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

Another new year means another CES means another roundup of CES news. This year we cover all the announcements from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia (or at least one of those), plus some legitimately exciting stuff like smart Legos, the first vehicle shipping with a solid state battery, computers in keyboards, Stream Decks in keyboards, big-name repairable laptops, what appears to be a real-life Star Wars vibroblade, all the things like memory inflation and tariffs that nobody was talking about at the show, and more.Notes and links for this episode: https://tinyurl.com/techpod-321-ces-2025 Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

We're back to start the new year with the second and final installment of our ranking of startup sounds. To close out the tier list we consider later consoles like the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3, more recent Windowses that we didn't even realize had startup sounds, most of the handhelds from Nintendo and Sony, and even some offbeat entries like Analogue's FPGA consoles and older operating systems like BeOS and OS/2. It's an aural extravaganza!The final tier list: https://tiny.cc/tp320-sounds Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

As is tradition (?) around here, over the holidays we're doing another extended ranking, and this year it's a two-part tier list of... every startup sound we could find across video game consoles, handhelds, and computer operating systems. Where does a startup sound end and menu music begin? Is it possible for a sound to sound the way that khakis look? Just how dank is the Dreamcast sound, anyway? We explore those and other questions in this part one of two!The tier list as of the end of this episode: https://tinyurl.com/tp319-sound-tiers-684jfsdi Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

As the end of the year rolls up on us, we attempt a little personalized year-in-review, looking back at 2025 without dwelling on the various tech crises we've already talked about ad nauseam. Instead we focus on things we thought were cool or uplifting this year, including Will's ongoing Linux desktop adventures, the inevitability of electric cars (and bicycles), when it's worth it to buy the good earbuds, convenience improvements in screen protectors, rediscovering the joy of CRTs and nerdy community, plus some listener nominations and a couple of Andy Rooney-esque rants for good measure.Linux Unplugged podcast on bcachefs: https://linuxunplugged.com/644Switch 2 grips Will mentioned: https://amzn.to/48IpFXE Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

It's briskly, unusually cold here in the Bay Area this year, so what better time to crack open another tray of cold opens for your bite-size listening pleasure. This time we discuss such micro-topics as what happens when the building fire alarm gets too old, the joy of a temperature-controlled bed, remotes that nag too much, yet another way Windows 11 is worsening, when good naps go bad, the mystery that is NixOS, and more.The possible future Windows 11 GUI we mentioned: https://mastodon.online/@grumpy_website/115673036992705122 Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

Things are getting so dire in the PC-building space that we had to revisit the subject again this week, primarily to discuss the sudden and shocking end of longtime RAM and SSD maker Crucial, with a deeper dive into the way the memory supply chain works and a glimpse into a very dark future where building your own PC might be out of reach for many. We also dig into some new reporting about the Steam Machine's HDMI output, and why open gaming platforms are going to be in conflict with proprietary HDMI standards going forward. Plus, the latest AI nonsense (and how to work around it) in Firefox and Google News.NOTE: We're working on freeing ourselves from the need for Adobe products, so bear with us if the podcast sounds a little different this week. Feedback welcome!Crucial press release: https://investors.micron.com/news-releases/news-release-details/micron-announces-exit-crucial-consumer-businessGamersNexus video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9A-eeJP0J7cSteam Machine and HDMI 2.1: https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2025/12/why-wont-steam-machine-support-hdmi-2-1-digging-in-on-the-display-standard-drama/Disable Firefox AI features: https://flamedfury.com/posts/disable-ai-in-firefox/The Verge on Google News AI headlines: https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificial-intelligence/838354/googles-ai-news-bot-is-still-confused-but-no-longer-replacing-our-headlines Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

The end of November brings a fresh crop of your questions, this month addressing subjects like getting lost in a corporation's Kafka-esque support infrastructure, video game voice chatting with Internet celebrities, how often to change your CPU paste, consumer tech that we think has plateaued, trenching Ethernet cable for an intra-yard network, the very cool concept of all-sky cameras, the glory of text expansion, and a bunch of other topics! Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

It's a news roundup this week, with a ton of recent goings on to discuss, including the sudden explosion in RAM prices (and a similar looming problem with SSDs), Microsoft announcing plans to shove AI agents directly into the Windows taskbar, Google killing off first-gen Nest thermostats (with some open options for resuscitating them), and ongoing changes in compatibility for third-party Switch 2 docks. Plus, with Thanksgiving coming up in the U.S., we dig into another round of tech we're thankful for.RAM/SSD price news: https://www.pcmag.com/news/ssd-storage-prices-to-climb-as-ai-demand-meets-tight-nand-supplyAgentic Windows impressions: https://www.theverge.com/report/822443/microsoft-windows-copilot-vision-ai-assistant-pc-voice-controls-impressionsNo Longer Evil: https://nolongerevil.com/Sett Thermostat: https://sett.homes/Switch 2 dock news: https://kotaku.com/nintendo-just-blocked-third-party-switch-2-docks-and-it-sucks-2000644081 Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

It seems like this week's big salvo of Valve hardware announcements is all anyone's talking about right now, particularly the Steam Machine, and who better to fill in a bunch of hands-on details with that li'l box, plus the new Steam Frame VR headset and refreshed Steam Controller, than our old friend Norm Chan of Tested.com, who went up to Valve to see it all. If you want to hear about everything from the Steam Machine's performance and potential price to the Frame's x86 emulation and foveated remote streaming, plus a ton of stuff in between, listen to this podcast!Tested's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@tested Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

Online game design veteran Raph Koster recently posted a new piece about how he thinks about game design, which got us talking about the history of online multiplayer, so then we figured, why not talk about that subject in a (slightly) more comprehensive way on this podcast? So that's what we did this week, dipping into topics like pre-TCP/IP network gaming, the early video game consoles' various half-baked online solutions, how Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies were both way ahead of their time, how much the infrastructure has evolved for facilitating multiplayer -- and how expected it is as a feature these days -- and plenty more.Koster's new piece: https://www.raphkoster.com/2025/11/03/game-design-is-simple-actually/PC Gamer's Everquest history: https://www.pcgamer.com/breaking-the-internet-the-story-of-everquest-the-mmo-that-changed-everything/Dreamcast online functionality and Sega.net history (with links to similar pages for PS2, GameCube etc. at the bottom): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamcast_online_functionality Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

PC World's Adam Patrick Murray stops by this week to discuss the trip he and Will recently took to visit Intel's new 18A chip fabrication facility in Arizona. Settle in for a wide-ranging chat about the upcoming Panther Lake architecture, why Intel won't have a new desktop part for a while longer, the future of next-gen chiplet interconnects, the difficulty of scheduling between big and little cores, suiting up to enter the fab, 30mph FOUPs whizzing around overhead, EUV machines the size of multiple school buses, getting served beer by tiny horses (??), and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

It's that time again for more of your questions, and this month we discuss medical equipment conducting secret data collection, dangerously fast CD-ROMs, what we'd want in a brand new operating system (assuming we'd even want one), open source software made by big-box retail chains, OLED vs. LCD TVs, impassioned views on McMaster-Carr, whether or not to invest the effort to digitize all your documents, the difficulty of preserving online content for coffee table books, and more. Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

A bunch of products and services seem to be going end-of-life all at once right now, so we did a round-up of some notable ones this week. Believe it or not, the venerable TiVo line of set-top TV recorders was still in service right up until this past week, so we pay tribute to this product that changed everything in the television space (and apparently the open source licensing space). Of course, we also have to do a check-in with Windows 10 now that its EOL date has come and gone, and the options for extended support have become clearer. Lastly, we wrap up with some tidbits about the rapid disappearance of the BD-ROM drive from retail, the end of AOL's dial-up service, and more.Windows 10 ESU: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/extended-security-updatesWindows LTSC FAQ: https://massgrave.dev/windows_ltsc_linksTiVo is done: https://cordcuttersnews.com/tivo-stops-selling-dvrs-marking-the-end-of-an-era/Pioneer sells off its BD-ROM business: https://www.techpowerup.com/336803/pioneer-has-ended-production-of-computer-blu-ray-drives-transfers-pddm-business-to-shanxi-group Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

It's been a bit since we did a roundup of tools and tricks that are making our tech lives a little easier, so we're doing that again this week! Will talks about USB-C-to-SATA adapters that can power 3.5" hard drives, Switch 2 grips that actually work, a long term stress test of the under-desk hanging PC, and radical innovations in nanotape technology. Meanwhile, Brad tries out high-endurance SD cards that will hopefully be the last storage you'll need to buy for your Raspberry Pi, plus the unexpected homebrew driver resurrecting Windows Mixed Reality headsets, a much-improved experience with the PlayStation VR2 on PC, and more.Reverse-engineering the Sandisk high-endurance Micro SD card: https://ripitapart.com/2020/07/16/reverse-engineering-and-analysis-of-sandisk-high-endurance-microsdxc-card/Oasis driver for Windows Mixed Reality headsets: https://store.steampowered.com/app/3824490/Oasis_Driver_for_Windows_Mixed_Reality/ Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod