June 20, 2024 • 61 mins
Larry Hryb, aka Major Nelson, joins the Uncast Show to discuss his background in tech and gaming and his career at Microsoft on the Xbox team working on Xbox Live, Xbox 360, Kinect, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and much more.
Larry is also a fellow Unraider and discusses how he found Unraid, his main use cases, and other tech and homelab interests.
Later, Larry discusses his departure from Microsoft after 23 years, what he's up to now, and his new role as Director of Community at Unity.
We hope you enjoy this very special Uncast Show. Thanks for listening and watching.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of
the Uncar Show.
Now I'm incredibly excitedabout our guest today, someone
who needs no introduction in theworld of gaming.
Joining us is Larry Hurd, alsoknown as Major Nelson.
He's a legendary figure in theXbox community and a driving
force behind many of theinnovations we've seen in gaming
(00:33):
.
Larry's been a pivotal voicefor gamers around the globe and
it's an honor to have him on theshow.
Welcome, larry, and thank youvery much for taking the time to
be here.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Ed, thank you for that wonderful introduction.
I have to tell you I'm actuallymore excited to talk to you
because we're going to talk,obviously, a lot about my
background and we're going totalk about Unraid.
But you're one of the mainreasons that I chose Unraid and
we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh well, thank you, Larry.
I'm genuinely touched by yousaying that it's incredibly
encouraging to have someone ofyour caliber actually watching
my videos, so thank you so muchfor the support.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I really, really appreciate it.
So currently you're living, Ibelieve, in Washington State at
the moment.
That's correct.
I live right outside Seattle,but originally you hail from
Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
yes, that's correct.
Yeah, you did your research.
I grew up in New England andthat's where I or you know you
live in old England, I lived inNew.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
England and you attended Syracuse University in
New York, where you earned adegree in television, radio and
film production.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's right.
I attended Syracuse University,which is in upstate New York.
I mean, everybody thinks NewYork is New York City, but there
certainly is massive.
It's like saying London isEngland.
It's not the case, it's just alittle part of it.
New York City is a small part.
But yeah, I went to school inupstate New York and went to the
Newhouse School of PublicCommunications where I learned
basically how to do things likethis.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Right, and your first job, I believe, was in Westport
, connecticut, where you were aDJ for that radio station.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
That's actually not right, I actually worked for a
station in Hartford Connecticut.
Well, there's two things.
When I left Syracuse I startedworking for a cable company
doing the local cablecommercials, the video
commercials.
So you know, I don't know ifthey had them over there in
England or in other parts, butin America it was always like
you'd be watching something.
(02:28):
And then there'd be this localcommercial of hi, I'm Ed from
Ed's Used Cars, come on down andbuy my used cars.
So I used to write and produceand edit and air those
commercials.
So I did that for a little bitbefore I went into radio for a
station in Hartford Connecticutcalled WKSS Kiss 95.7, which
wasa hot hit radio station.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I used to play the hits at Awesome Cool and, if my
research is correct, you alsoworked for Clear Channels
Communication before moving toMicrosoft.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
That's correct.
And that station that I workedat in Connecticut was in the
middle of the 90s, when therewas a lot of independent 90s,
before you know when there was alot of independent owners.
And then Clear Channel, whichis a big company in the United
States, came in and startedbuying up all these stations in
all the different markets.
So I worked for them.
But one of the early things wedid, ed, there's two projects
that I worked on that werereally early.
(03:20):
One of them was and this isgoing to blow people's mind, but
we were streaming our radiostation.
So I used to have a 286computer that would encode it
with RealPlayer and send it outover this thing called the
internet to people with 288 or56k modems Don't bother me with
the 1200 bot and we did that.
And then the other thing was Ihelped build a system to
(03:42):
automate basically the music andbring digital into the studio,
because at that point it was allanalog, you know cartridges and
records and things like that,but I helped digitize it.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So I assume that's how that kind of led on to you
joining Microsoft for MSN Music.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Precisely they came and tapped me.
Microsoft for MSN Music.
Precisely they came and tappedme.
Well, actually I had a sidehustle when I was working in
radio running communities whenand Ed, I'm going to date myself
when Windows 95 launched.
So when Windows 95 launchedthey used to have this thing
called MSN, which was kind oflike an AOL or a CompuServe or
it service, and I was, my wifeand I had a company and we were
(04:26):
running community services forthose for MSN, for part of MSN,
you know running.
So that was kind of where I gotstarted.
So I was doing radio during theday and working, you know, for
Microsoft as a contractor inConnecticut.
And then when they, in theearly 2000, they came and said
and said, hey, we're going tolaunch a music service.
You seem to know a lot aboutthis stuff.
(04:47):
Would you come join us?
Now, you have to remember it.
This is before spotify, beforeitunes, before everything, um.
So it was one of the very firststreaming uh services online.
So I helped launch that wow,that's amazing.
Um, and then from there, youobviously everyone knows you
joined xbox live yeah, yeah,what happened was is I was, you
(05:11):
know, working in this, you know,microsoft at that point was we
only had about 20 000 people oncampus at that point.
I think it's something like 200.
When I left, 200 000.
But the next set of officesright next to mine, ed, were the
Xbox team and they were workingon, obviously, xbox and Xbox
Live.
And I looked over and I waslike I got to get in on that
(05:31):
Because I'm a gamer.
I love games.
I mean, I grew up with theAtari 2600 and Super Nintendo
and all the rest of those.
So I was like I got to get overthere, so I knew some folks and
then when they launched XboxLive, they came and said, hey,
you understand community, willyou help us manage the community
?
And I said absolutely.
So I went over there and itjust was one of the best
(05:52):
decisions I ever made.
I just I had such a great timebecause I'm a gamer.
So being able to build theplatform ed, it's a dream oh,
that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So, um, larry, can you share some kind of key
moments in the development ofXbox Live that you're a part of?
How did those milestones shapethe platform how we know it
today?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, I mean it's it's, it's shaped us.
There's a lot of key milestones.
I mean one.
When I joined the team, xboxLive had just launched.
So you have to remember, xboxlaunched in 2000, xbox Live in
2001.
Xbox launched in 2000, xboxLive in 2001.
And we had, in the back of theXbox was a network port which in
2000 was like what is thisthing?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Before that it was just modem ports, Like the
Dreamcast had a modem port andthe Xbox, and wasn't it one of
the guys on the development team?
He really pushed for having anEthernet port and there was a
bit of pushback saying it wasn'tneeded because people modems
will be around for a whilenobody has internet in their
house.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
You know, like always on internet broadband and
absolutely so.
We basically had to convince,not not just the microsoft that
I wasn't involved in that part.
I knew to other people thatwere involved with that part,
but like, hey, let us put it inthere because it's going to cost
extra money, even thoughcustomers can't use it for a
year.
It was one of the rare timeswhere customers believed a
(07:11):
company that said trust us,we're going to build it.
And we did it.
And so a year later we lit itup and then everything just
happened.
At that point we had thosemagical multiplayer experiences
being able to hear your friendsplay playing Splinter Cell and
being able to hear your friendsplay, you know, playing Splinter
Cell, and being able to whisperin somebody's ear and say you
know anyway.
So it was a lot of fun in thoseearly days.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And weren't you the first service to have a friends
list as well?
So you know.
So everyone copied that lateron.
Yeah, there's a couple.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
There's a lot of firsts that we did with Xbox.
You know, when I say Xbox, Imean Xbox, xbox 360, and so
forth, xbox Live One of them wasalways on.
You talked about the broadbandconnection, this persistent
friends list, this dashboardconcept where when you take the
disc out, there's some things todo, you can have your friends
list and things along thoselines.
(07:59):
We had all that.
But then we also realized therewas a lot of really cool things
we could do, and that's when Ijoined the team.
We were already planning forXbox 360, which wouldn't launch
for another three or four years,depending upon what region you
were in.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And you know, just speaking of your kind of like
journey going back to that, yeah, I'd just like to ask you right
now you know, how did the majorNelson Monica come about and
what inspired you to choose thatname for your kind of gaming
name?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
that was.
So it was such a weird thingand I never knew that it would
become what it became today.
And what happened was is youknow when I, when I, got hired
on the xbox team to runcommunity, they're like hey,
we're going to want you tointeract with the community, so
you need a gamer tag that peoplecan talk to you about.
Okay, well, I already had aprivate gamertag, but I was like
okay so, and I came home onenight and back in the early
(08:48):
2000s, there was this thingcalled tivo, where tivo would
recommend things.
Basically, it was one of theearly.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It was not even ai, it was just like it was just a
suggestion engine sorry tointerrupt, larry, but, um, being
from the uk, I'm not sure whattivo is.
Is that like a recording devicefor broadcast TV, was it?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, it was essentially a smart digital
recorder but in addition to justbeing a standard DVR where you
could pause, rewind, record andso forth, it had a layer of
smarts on top of it which waslike, oh, if you'd like to show
you, there was a thumbs-upbutton on the remote and it
would recommend other things.
So I came home and it hadrecommended and recorded the
(09:29):
show called I Dream of Jeannie,which was from the 60s, and I
started watching it and therewas an astronaut named Major
Nelson.
I was first.
The actor's name was LarryHagman and I was like, oh,
that's kind of cool, he's anastronaut, he lives on the beach
, he's got.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I was like, yeah, that perfect Major Nelson next
and that was it.
It was no more, no more or lessthought put into it than that.
Yeah, oh, awesome, that's.
That's an interesting story.
So thank you.
And just I'd like to sort ofswitch gears into developing
games consoles.
I wondered can you take usbehind the scenes of kind of
developing major Xboxboxconsoles like you know, the 360,
the xbox one, series x and f?
What was some of the mostinteresting and kind of
(10:09):
surprising stories you know inthe development periods that you
can remember, you know?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
the.
There's so many.
But you know, when I thinkabout the story arc of xbox, you
know, I talked a little bit amoment ago about xbox live being
the foundation, and that wasalways our.
That was the foundation to havepeople connected, and that
connectivity allowed you adifferent thing, a series of
different things to do.
You know, for the first timeyou could log in, see your
friends list and I could see Edwas playing Splinter Cell or
(10:35):
Halo and I could invite you intomy game of something else.
Or we could even talk and youwere in your game and I'm in my
game.
We're doing two separate things, so that was part of it.
The other part that we broughtand a lot of people forget this
is that Xbox 360 was one of thevery first purpose-based
consoles that had a marketplace,and what I mean is you could
download digital games, whichSteam had started doing early in
(10:58):
2000, but nobody else hadreally mastered it.
But now we were doing it to amanaged device, in other words,
a device that was single-use andspecific.
It wasn't open like a PC, butit was specifically for gaming.
So shipping a digital platformor a digital marketplace on that
was a huge moment, and then asa result, one of the other
(11:18):
things we came up with was theAchievement System, which I was
part of the team that helped.
So every time you got a littleIn like I think I've got one
here and you get something thatsound so we all know what that
is.
So it was.
You know it was great to beable to work on that because we
had this always connected line.
When you unlocked anachievement, your friends would
(11:38):
see that you I unlocked thisachievement.
So it was kind of this weirdsocial, cool social effect where
I could see what you were doingto a certain degree.
So that was a lot of fun.
But creating the consoles wasjust a magical moment.
I was involved creating so manyconsoles and the through line is
just great games.
At the end of the day, nobodycares passionately about a piece
of plastic.
(11:59):
They care about the greatgaming experiences they have.
But we had a lot of challengeswith Xbox 360, shipping that
globally.
It was the first time we scaledout and did it in so many
markets.
We had some challenges thereand we took a lot of the
learnings and we brought theminto Xbox One and then Kinect.
A lot of people remember Kinect, which we thought was the
future at that point and it justdidn't get the uptake and
(12:22):
adoption that we.
We thought it was going to begood.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Go ahead, adam sorry why do you think um, like motion
gaming, like isn't a thinganymore?
Do you think kind of vr killedthat, or I.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You know, I think there was, there's, there's a
sense of that.
I mean the with the we.
I remember I was at the, theannouncement of the wii u in
japan, uh, and I rememberlooking at that and going, oh,
wow, okay, how okay, how's thatgoing to work?
Or the Wii, I should say and itwas.
Nintendo did an amazing jobexecuting because they have such
a fantastic stable ofintellectual property with Mario
(12:57):
and Zelda and so forth, andthey also did some really cool
things with, you know, wiiSports.
On the Xbox side, I just didn'tthink we had enough titles that
really leaned into it.
We had one of my favoritedevelopment houses is over there
in England and that's Rare, andRare did a great job with
Kinect Sports, which was amazing.
(13:18):
But beyond that, beyond thosefirst-party games when I say
first-party, that's a term thatwe use in gaming, for as a
console developer, developer, wealso develop the game, because
the goal of first-party games,that is to showcase the platform
, things you can do on thisplatform they can't do anywhere
else, and we see that time andtime again with.
Sony does it with some of theirfirst party games, certainly
nintendo does it with some oftheir games and xbox did it as
(13:40):
well.
Um so there's a lot of thingsthat um that we did, but a lot
of the gamers really just wantedto shoot stuff and circling
back to the 360 um.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Is it true that um, for gears of war, um epic games,
asked microsoft to up the ramfrom 256?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
yeah to 500.
I mean, I wasn't in thatmeeting, but that's a legendary
story that I have since you know, know, I've since heard is
proved, and that was the head ofthe team.
They needed more, which doesn'tyou know?
I don't remember.
You know to your point itwasn't a lot of VRAM, but back
in the day it was a lot of VRAM.
And when you're writing gamesfor a console, we call writing
(14:20):
to the metal.
In other words, you don't havereally an operating system in
the way you kind of do, butyou're writing, you can unlock
the full potential of the entireplatform by writing directly to
the metal and really gettingsome low-level APIs that get
right in there and can unlockthe maximum power of the console
.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, so if that hadn't been the case, then the
Xbox wouldn't have had thecapabilities.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Maybe that it does today, yeah, yeah, it's possible
.
Then it would have been a veryit's possible.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That would have been a very different um future gears
of war must be one of myfavorite all-time games.
I do, I do love that game.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I'll let cliff blizinski I still talk to cliff
who was one of the designdirectors on and, of course, rod
ferguson, who's working ondiablo.
I'll let them know that.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Ed, Wasn't there a bit of pushback from the Lancer
from the chainsaw in the demo?
They didn't want to put thatbit in, but Bill Gates liked it.
I saw a clip of Bill sayingthat that was pretty cool.
The chainsaw yeah, there was alot.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What you're referring to is you're referring to a
weapon that is incrediblyviolent and, if you remember
correctly, what you're referringto is you're referring to a
weapon that is incrediblyviolent and, and you know, if
you remember correctly, even onpart of the screen you would get
, you know, blood effects ontothe, onto your, you know.
So it was very, very visceraland I know there was a lot of
concern about Ooh, is this goingto be too far?
Yeah, you know, you know that'sa conversation that
(15:41):
consistently happens in thisindustry, because you know
violence is such a worldwideissue in real life and you know
how much of it do we really needin video games?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, because even the older games kind of like the
very first Killer Instinct.
There was big debates about howterrible that was.
So that was a lot further downthe road in that department,
really, wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, and now we're dealing with.
You know, when we went into theXbox 360, it was now in.
We made the transition fromwhat we call the SD era to the
HD era.
So now it was now 16 by 9 andglorious 720p.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So you know, let's dive into a bit of fun.
I'd like to ask some of yourpersonal favorites.
So over the years, Microsoft,Xbox have made some pretty
awesome consoles and I'd say, doyou have a favorite out of all
of them?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, without a doubt , it's the Xbox 360, for a
couple of reasons.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
You know I was involved so intimately in that
production.
It was a smaller team back then.
I remember taking our consoleshome and plugging them in before
anybody else had them andtesting the different versions
of the hardware.
And then also that generationhad a specific beginning and end
, and so that one will alwayshave a place in my heart because
(16:54):
of not just my involvement withit, but some of my favorite
gaming moments came out of that,and I'm talking about Halo, I'm
talking about Bioshock, I'mtalking about Grand Theft Auto,
about Bioshock.
I'm talking about, you know,grand Theft Auto.
So there's so many amazinggaming experiences and you know
it was just.
It was such a pleasure and aprivilege to be part of that
(17:14):
generation.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, the 360 was an awesome one of my.
I think the 360 and theoriginal are my favorite.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
But I do like the Series s as well.
Um, that's my current consoleit's a little guy it's, but it's
got a lot of power in it.
It is like my son's got the thex and he always says it's
better.
But I like that little s it'snice and compact.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You want to know why and you could probably play it
on.
You could probably have it inyour office under your monitor.
You could just play it rightthere in your office you're 100,
correct there, larry.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
So, um, moving on to games, I know you've mentioned
before in um podcasts and thingskind of like.
You've got a few favorites, butwhat I'd like to do is I'm
going to kind of put you on thespot and ask you if you could
choose your top five xbox games.
Um, what would they be?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
halo one for a lot of different reasons.
Halo two because I was involvedin that production.
Bioshock is one that I justabsolutely adored, uh.
Grand theft auto because ofwhat they were able to unlock
with it.
And then, probably, you know,red dead, red dead, uh.
Redemption is such a amazing Imean, nobody tells stories but
almost better than rockstar inthe way they execute technically
(18:26):
, uh, and emotionally.
More importantly, in the gameis is unrivaled yeah, yeah, I've
.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I've got to agree with you with halo as well,
being up there, that I think myfavorite ever games has got to
be half.
This isn't the next one halflife one, half life two,
half-life 1, half-life 2, halo,halo 2, and Gears of War
Probably my favorite all-timegames ever.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I'll tell you.
There's a couple more I want toadd in there, because you said
you can't limit me to 5-ed.
You can't do it.
You know I look at things likePortal.
Oh yeah, you know, portal wasjust when the first moment you
start understanding the gamemechanics, your mind's like boom
.
Another one that I reallyenjoyed and I know if they
haven't done the re-release, Ithink they're about to do the
(19:10):
anniversary release is Braid.
Braid is such an amazing game.
I've never played that.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I've never played that.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Ed, you need to go back and play it.
Play it on PC, Play it whereveryou can, but it is such a
mind-blowing game in terms ofthe mechanics and how it works
and the ending it's just.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
It's so delightful, oh wow, I'll give that a shot.
I'll definitely have to checkthat one out there, larry.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, I think it's coming up.
I think it's got an anniversaryre-release coming up soon, cool
.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Obviously, you have a lot of involvement with the
community, so I'd like to sayhow?
How important has the communityinteraction and feedback been
in shaping the development andevolution of Xbox?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's been critical, Ed.
I mean, you know, when I joinedthe team, there wasn't really
anybody talking to the communityand engaging with them on a
regular basis, and once I joinedthe team, I started taking this
feedback and bringing it in,and a lot of the features we did
with Xbox Xbox 360, Xbox Live,upwards and beyond have all been
directly from the community.
(20:06):
I helped develop a communityprogram where people it was
called the Insiders, which nowhas gone over to Windows, and
that was where we found out whatmattered to our customers and
they helped us stack, rank andhere's what's important upvote
and downvote and help us definewhat the roadmap looks like.
So the community has beenincredibly important to helping
(20:30):
uh, helping us buff out whatwhat xbox is in terms of some of
the feature set what examplesof feature sets would you say
that user feedback have directlyinfluenced?
oh boy, there's one.
It's funny.
There's one that just shippedlast week that I actually had a
(20:56):
bug log for seven years, whichis now with your Xbox.
You can take it, it'll rememberdifferent wireless networks fit
and finish things like thatthat we really, you know dark.
Dark mode is one that peoplelet dark and light mode is one
that obviously everyone does.
It now, um, but things likethat are exactly direct feedback
from the community staying inthe key of community.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
You've had many memorable moments interacting
with fans on like major nationradio and the xbox podcast.
Can you share a few standoutexperiences or stories that
really resonate with you?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
well, you know it's when I started doing the podcast
.
Uh, what became the officialxbox podcast?
I started doing in 2005, ed,when nobody understood podcasts,
and I was like and to yourpoint, you know, to our
conversation earlier, I spent adecade in radio.
I'm like, I know what this is.
This is just radio with thepeople download, listen to.
So I started doing it beforeanybody really paid attention at
(21:46):
xbox um, and that you know, Ididn't get.
I didn't go up and say, oh, I'mgonna do this, I just did it,
and that was part of the fun ofearly xbox is.
Sometimes we just did stuffbecause it was the right thing
to do, um, but I mean takingtaking the show and going to
doing it from japan or doing itfrom gamescom in europe, or
coming over to UK or going toone of the PAX gaming festivals
(22:09):
here in the United States andAustralia was always a lot of
fun, but I just my favorite part, though, is meeting gamers,
because everybody has a favoritegame.
Everybody has their own gamingstory to tell, whether how they
got into games or what theirfavorite controller is or what
their favorite game is.
So I just it's.
It's kind of like this, thisuniversal thing that combines
(22:32):
everybody, at least us as nerds,right yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
um, I'd like, I'd like to kind of like just switch
gears away from the tech and,yeah, ask a question that maybe
you know, some people don't know, I believe.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
I recently learned you had asilent role in the 1996 movie
Sleepers, starring Kevin Baconand Brad Pitt.
(22:57):
You, I wondered?
No, you're absolutely right, Idid yeah um, how, how did how
did that come about and what wasthe experience like?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
so, this, you're right.
So what happened was is by theway, let's talk for a minute,
because you've, we've all seenthe, you know, seven, six
degrees of kevin bacon, right?
You've heard of that, right,dad?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
um, I'm gonna have to say now I'm sorry, I haven't no
.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
So there's this kind of this meme that's been around
for many, many years, wherewhere Kevin Bacon has worked in
so many movies that you canconnect Like within six steps,
you can connect back to Kevin.
The good news is you are nowtwo steps away from Kevin Bacon,
because I was in a movie withKevin Bacon, but in any event,
this was in the mid-90s.
I was working in radio and thisproduction company came to the
(23:43):
radio station.
I was working in radio and thisproduction company came to the
radio station.
I was running marketing andcommunications for the radio
station.
I said, hey, we're doing thismovie with Kevin Bacon and
Robert De Niro and a bunch ofactors.
Would you help us cast it?
And so I went out and I had ameeting with the casting
director and he looked at me andsaid you're perfect, we want to
have you in it too.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Me, okay.
So I remember we went out.
It was like it was like a.
It was a very cold november inconnecticut.
It was about a week beforethanksgiving.
We shot this scene.
It's a pivotal, pivotal footballscene at an abandoned, you know
, with a reason to shoot a.
Uh, it was a.
I think it was a children'shospital or children's school in
rural connecticut and um, I, Igot there and they fitted me up
(24:27):
with an outfit because I was toplay a guard, because it was in
a boy's school.
And I got there and I gotfitted with my cap and my outfit
.
They're like well, what rolewould you like to be?
And I looked at it.
I looked at the set.
It was out on a soccer field or, I'm sorry, football field,
american football field and Irealized I'm just going to look
like everybody else on the field.
(24:49):
So I said I'd like to be at thescore table because there's
only one person keeping score.
So anytime you see thescorekeeper, you knew it was me.
So if you go in there and Ispent all day shooting the scene
, which I think it was two daysactually, and that's all I did
was sit at the table- and sit atthis so anytime there's a very
it's like.
Seriously, it's about fourframes of me.
(25:11):
As the camera pans by, you'llsee me sitting in a hat with a
table and a little clock on it.
I'm just sitting there and Isat there was freezing for hours
.
Oh, man.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Oh, that's awesome and I'm gonna have to ask is
that your only ever movieappearance or have you?
Have you appeared in any others?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I'm trying to think, I think, that is it.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yes, that is it for now for now Okay, but we don't
know in the future.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, who knows, in the future I may get into
Hollywood, may come knocking, Idon't know.
Anyway, have you been in amovie yet?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Um, I haven't.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I haven't, I haven't, no, no not yet.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Not yet and any film producers out there see this I'm
available anyway.
Switching gears, larry.
Um, if we can move on to unraid, yeah, obviously many of the
audience.
They love their home serversand they're running Unraid and
we'd love to hear about yourexperiences with it.
So I just wondered can youstart by explaining how you
(26:09):
discovered Unraid and what drewyou to use it for your home
server setup?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, what happened was it's an interesting story I
had an old I think it was a QNAPNAS and I was outgrowing it and
I was like I started to reallyget into Docker and the
management and I have.
I wanted a bunch of smart homestuff plus, and you can see Plex
behind me.
I was like I have all theseDVDs because I had collected
(26:36):
over 20 years, because DVDs werebig in the 90s and early 2000s.
I want to have them digital.
So I was like, what do I do?
The QNAP wasn't working.
And then I was doing somesearch.
There was a couple of differentoptions out there and then I
saw Unraid.
I'm like, wait a minute, I canuse my own hardware, any
hardware, because I had so muchhardware, probably like you, ed,
I can't even imagine what yourworkshop looks like.
(26:57):
And then I was like, well, letme figure this out.
So I had an old gaming PC and Ijust stood it up with with, with
Unraid, you know, I built the,built the USB stick, dropped it
in and I was like this isamazing and I threw some more
hard drives in it and startedbuilding out and kind of.
But it was this big.
I mean it was a big old schoolgaming PC and then I started,
(27:21):
you know, moving my Plex contentonto it, or my digital content
that I had ripped and some of mymusic, because there's music
that I enjoy that isn'tavailable on any streaming
service.
So I put that on there.
And then I was like, wow, I'vegot some home automation stuff I
want to do.
So I put on Home Assistant andscripted and then I was like, oh
, let me put AdGuard on there.
(27:42):
It just started ballooningbecause you could do so much
with Unraid.
And then I realized I looked atmy energy bill one month ahead
and I was like where's all mywhat's going on here?
So about two years ago I'vebeen on Plex excuse me, I've
been on Unraid for about fouryears now.
About two years ago I was likeyou know what?
I'm going to build?
A new server and that newserver, the profile is going to
(28:03):
be low energy, low heat.
So I ended up building all theparts, or getting all the parts,
and I built it during one ofthe summers of COVID and I had
the neighborhood kids overbecause a lot of it, they all
wanted to learn how to build aPC.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Which that's all a server is.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
So I sent an email out to their parents and said,
hey, I'm going to let the kidsknow.
If they want to learn how tobuild a PC, I'll be doing it in
my garage.
So for about four or fivenights the four or five kids
came over in the garage and webuilt.
I said okay, I laid all theparts out and I started
explaining here's the GPU,here's the CPU, here's the RAM,
(28:42):
here's the storage, here's thepower supply, here's all the
cable.
You know, just kind of puteverything out, and then every
night we would start assemblingit piece by piece and building
it up accordingly.
And then at the end was that ofcourse, of course.
I mean, I don't have to tellyou how it ends, ed.
I turn it on and it doesn'tboot.
So then I got to go unwind andit was actually one of the I'd
let the a lot of the kids do theinstall.
(29:03):
One of the ram uh slot was insideways so we just kind of put
it down, booted up.
Everything was great.
So it's been running two yearssince in my garage and I I love
it.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Uh, I feel your pain.
When you build something, youturn it on.
It doesn't work.
So many times I've built like acomputer, put it all in, I
think, to myself, before Iactually fit it all.
In the case, let's just test itand see if it works and I think
it'll be all right.
It'll be all right every time Ithink that it never works on
the case yeah but yeah, so youknow it's, so it's it's.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
it's one of those things where I just I'm such a
fan of oh, I'm gonna try thisnow.
Click download the docker.
And the funny part is I got acouple of friends on it.
One of my good friends our kidsgo to school together.
He had a QNAP as well and I'mlike you have to download Unraid
.
He said, well, I got this oldPC, I'm like you have to
(29:55):
download Unraid, just try it out.
There's a demo, it's reallyeasy.
So he downloads it.
He calls me back like two dayslater.
He's like I downloaded it.
I can't figure it out.
I said, nick, go do a websearch.
Here's Space Invader videos.
Go watch them.
And he didn't listen to me andhe's tried to do it by himself.
And then two days later he'slike.
I watched Space Invader videos.
(30:16):
He made it so clear, so thankyou.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Thank you.
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
But wow, that's amazing.
But you know, seriously, yourvideos actually helped me as
well when I wanted to set up Ithink it was what was before
tail scale.
I think we're just doing a vpn.
You had a whole series of howto set up the vpn and do that,
so I learned how to do that.
Now I'm running tail scale,which is way easier it's just so
great tail scale yeah so, um.
So there's that, and you always,it seems like whenever I have a
unraid challenge, that I wantto learn about your video's
(30:45):
right there, and so I want tothank you On behalf of the
Unraid community.
I want to thank you for all thework you put into your videos,
because they're so clear, andwhat I love about your style,
that is, you assume we knownothing, or just enough to be
dangerous, because you're alwaystelling us, hey, do this, don't
do that, because this willhappen.
So I want to thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh, larry, you've made my day saying that to me
Someone of your caliberappreciating my videos.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
It blows me away, it's fantastic and you're such
an industry resource and alegend on YouTube, so you keep
doing the great work.
So that's why, when you reachedout to me and said come on the
show, I'm like I got to do it.
I got ed.
What what you and and unraidhave meant to me and my family,
um, so it's been.
It's been such a delight to beable to have this stable server
and, like I said, it's beenrunning for two years and I have
(31:35):
no problems.
It keeps the.
I mean I I should log into itright now, actually, and I'll
tell you what it's probablyconsuming like 50 watts right
now because it's, like I say,designed for low power.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So what components are you using?
What CPU?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
You know what I'm going to log in right now,
because I had that available andunfortunately it logged me out.
The one thing I do have to askyou, Ed I have my array
encrypted and I need to figureout how.
It's an extra step at thebeginning.
Do you think it's worth it?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I think it's very worth having the array encrypted
.
The reason being is if you buya new drive and, say, a month
down the road it fails and youRMA it back.
When you're RMAing it back, youknow that because the data's
encrypted, no one's going to beable to see it.
So yeah, I don't encrypt minebecause I've got kind of super
(32:31):
secret information on it.
But um, right, if I said, if Isend the drive back, it's just
an added piece of mind yeah, Ijust know that.
You know, I haven't had to zeroit, it's just encrypted.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
So so that's my main reason to answer your question.
I this, so this is interesting.
I know some people are going tolaugh at me, but when I you
talked, I talked about thereasons of what my design goals
were low power, low heat.
I'm running an intel core i3 10, 105 cpu with 3.7 gigahertz oh
yeah, nice.
So I wanted to make sure it hadquick sync so I could do the
transcoding.
(33:02):
Yeah, which is, by the way,that the way that is an
underestimated.
I know that you talk about it.
It's an amazing feature, but alot of people really don't think
about it as well they should.
I've got 32 gigs of RAM and Ithink I've got.
I don't have it in Because I'mlooking at the system
information on Unraid they.
I think I've got.
Actually, I can look at itright here and I wish I should
share my screen, but I'm notgoing to.
(33:22):
I am dealing with.
I've got two six terabytedrives and then one 10 terabyte
parity drive, nice, cool, so,and it's sitting at 59% full and
I've got.
Probably I can't even imagine Idon't rip into MKVs, I kind of
try to use H.64 or H.265 um, soI've got quite a few movies on
(33:48):
there and a lot of tv shows andsome videos that I've done and
things like that.
So it's a.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
It's a nice archive yeah, so basically you're using
your server mainly for me media.
Do you run any game servers?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
so you know I've, you know you've so it's interesting
you say that no, and here's whyI specifically chose not to
have a GPU on this device,because of its low heat and low
power.
I think I'm going to buildanother server that's going to
have a GPU, because I want toexperiment with some of that
stuff that you talk about allthe time on your channel,
(34:17):
because I keep looking at itlongingly, going, ooh, I want to
do that, I want to do that, butI just don't have this
particular rig is not?
I know that if I set it up, itwould kind of be disappointing.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, and you say you're a home assistant fan as
well.
Yeah, I've got.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
I'm going to go over here and take a look at my
dockers.
I've got running, I've gotBenhex, I've got Firefox
Portainer.
Homebridge scripted uh engineproxy um adguard cloudflare got
vault warden.
I'm doing a self-hosting onvault warden.
I've got crafty 4 on herebecause minecraft uh, you know,
you worked.
I worked actually worked onminecraft when I was at
(34:53):
microsoft, so it's nice to beable to do that, and I've got a
couple of other things on herethat I'm experimenting with,
like a youtube downloader, andthen of course, I have plex and
and things along those lines,wow.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So that's quite a lot of things you're running there,
larry.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Am I a power user?
I don't think I am Ed.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I think that's a fair amount of things running there.
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, no, it's really good, and I've got it hooked
into a UPS.
In fact, I'm looking right now.
It's taking 74 watts is whatit's taking in and I've got it
hooked to a UPS and the UPSautomatically does the power
down.
What am I using for the UPS?
I think I'm using Nut insteadof the onboard stuff.
I'm using Nut instead.
But it's been great.
I have all the.
(35:33):
I have Plexstream, tailscale,the unassigned devices, intel
GPU top.
I'm looking at my plugins rightnow.
So yeah, I go deep on it.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
So I'm going to ask you a slightly different
question.
Is there anything you wishUnraid could do that it doesn't,
and are there any aspects ofUnraid that you find challenging
or maybe less favorable?
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I think they've answered a lot of my problems
with the Unraid Connect, becausethat was always the problem is
oh my God, if my server goesdown and I'm out of the house,
how can I bring it back up?
And I you know, because then ifit's not running, it's not
running tail scale.
So I think unraid connect solvea like I would say 75 to 85 of
the not problems but some of thedesires.
(36:15):
And when I leave my house now Ifeel much more safe that if my
wife calls me when I'm overseasthat she's like, oh, what's
going on and I can can tailscalein look at it.
But to be honest with you, a lotof that worry is unfounded
because I've never had a problem.
That's the funny part about it.
I was always worried about it,but I'm like, wait a minute,
it's not really a problem.
(36:36):
Like I've never had any corruptissues.
The only thing it did do oncewas when it it powered itself
off.
I it was my fault, it was usererror.
Most of the problems on theserver are user error and I went
out and I accidentally shut itoff and it did a hard shutdown.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
I had to do the the parody dance for a few days, I
mean it came back fine let me,I'm gonna switch gears again and
I hope you like my pun gears,um, I love it.
Um.
So I'd like to do a littlesection, um in my podcast that I
call quickfire questions.
They're basically some shortrapid fire questions, so we'll
(37:13):
do that, then go on to kind oftalking, some nerd and game talk
, um.
So my first question you kindof answered this already, but
I'm going to ask you again.
Anyway, halo or gears ofars ofWar?
Halo Single or multiplayer.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Oh, good question.
It's kind of hard to describebecause both serve very specific
purposes.
If you have kids, single playeris great.
Pause, go talk to your family,come back on pause.
Multiplayer is great for thesocial elements.
I got to say both PC or consolegaming.
Um, pc or console gaming, youknow um, as somebody who's
(37:48):
developed a bunch of consoles,they're.
If you are, if you just want toplay games and sit down and not
have to deal with updates, gowith pc or, excuse me, go with
console.
If you want to have, you know,collect all your millions of
steam games you bought for 4.99on sale.
Obviously pc is the way to goyeah and vr or ar oh, um, I
haven't seen a killer app foreither yet, ed.
(38:10):
That's the problem.
I mean, I worked a little biton hololens, which is ar, and
I'm gonna hope I'm gonna begetting an apple vision pro in a
few weeks.
Um, I think ar, because itallows me at least to interact
with the environment.
Vr is so closed off.
I've done v VR.
I love VR, but for me, I justlike the edge of AR just a hair
better.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And what did you think of Half-Life, alyx?
Have you tried that?
Speaker 2 (38:33):
I haven't had a chance yet.
I know some friends that workedon it, but I haven't had a
chance to try it yet.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I think you might change your mind with VR games.
When you play that one maybe.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, I mean that's the beauty of some of the.
I have a lot of friends thatwork at Valve on things like
that, so I've been texting withthem and I do need to check it
out.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
And what scares you more in a horror game zombies or
clowns Clowns?
You know why I asked you thatquestion.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Because it's well-documented that I'm
frightened of clowns.
Now here's another little bit,ed, that a lot of people don't
know.
When I was in primary schoolhigh school as we call it in the
US I tried out for clown school.
Oh, really, yeah, it was.
I'll never forget it.
A friend of mine came and theRingling Brothers of Barnum
(39:18):
Bailey Circus, which was the bigcircus at that time, was in
Hartford doing a.
They had open auditions forclowns and a friend of mine came
to me when I was in high schooland said, hey, let's do it.
And I was like okay, we're notgoing to school today, we're
going to go play.
Yeah, let's go.
And I went out and tried outand it was.
(39:39):
Obviously I wasn't chosen,thank God, because it was
frightening and that was.
I'm glad.
I'm not a carny.
I'll just say that Carnies aregreat.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
I have nothing against them, but that's not the
lifestyle for me.
Most relaxing activity playinggames or watching movies.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Probably playing games with my seven-year-old
daughter and my wife as well.
Because when I watch because I,you know, you started.
My background is television,radio, film production and, of
course, I worked in gameproduction when I'm playing a
game, I'm always dissecting itwith like why are they doing
that?
Or when I'm watching a movie,I'm like why are they using that
shot?
Or what's going on here?
So my, my professional mind isalways going.
(40:14):
So being able to sit at thetable and play a nice board game
with my family is is, to me, ismuch more relaxing, because
it's just about us being presentat the hands of the roll of the
dice.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, and what is your most anticipated game
release currently?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
I think we've got.
You know, we talked about GTAcoming up.
Xbox had a showcase which, forthe first time in 15 years I
wasn't involved with a couple ofweeks ago.
I saw some great games comingout of there, probably like a
GTA.
Or we saw the Gears of War, theGears of War tees, which I know
you saw.
So I'm really looking forwardto that, only because I like to
(40:53):
see what my friends are doingand a lot of my friends work on
those games.
So it's fun there.
You know I love, I just love.
You know, and as we record this,I recently started at Unity.
So I'm now the head director ofcommunity at Unity, which is
amazing because, you know, unityis not just one platform, it's,
(41:14):
I mean, it's not just onegaming platform, it's all the
platforms.
So I get to work on Xbox andSwitch and PlayStation and AR
and VR and Apple Vision Pro,whatever mobile.
So I'm just so excited to beable to branch out and work on
all those different things.
So there's so many games outthere that I'm excited about but
are all different platforms.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Wow, and same question, but for a TV show or
movie, anything you're lookingforward to.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
I wish I did, but I'm so disappointed with the
quality of films right now.
I've talked about you know it's.
I've talked about this publicly, so this is not a surprise.
I'm not a fan of superheromovies never have.
You know.
I didn't grow up with a comicbook in my comic book store in
my town, so that I don't have anemotional connect.
They're fine, but I love a goodstory.
Um, there's a movie that cameout last year that won some won
(42:01):
some awards, called theoutsidersutsiders.
I'm sorry, the Over, what wasit?
Holdovers.
That was the Paul Giamatti film.
Love that movie because it tookplace in an area that I grew up
in.
But I also just love a greatstory, ed, and so I'm really
into that type of thing.
I mean, I love Ted Lassobecause of the story and the
characters and hopefully we'llget another season of that, who
(42:24):
knows.
I just love going back andrevisiting.
I watch Breaking Bad all thetime.
I've got the DVD set becausethat's just masterful
storytelling and acting.
I was just watching one of theepisodes last night.
So I love anything that has areally great story.
Effects to me, aren't?
They don't do it for me becauseI know that it's not real.
I want to see real humanemotions, great acting and great
(42:45):
storytelling.
That's what I, that's what Iyearn for.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, I a hundred percent agree with you there,
larry.
Um, anyway, my last quick firequestion.
It's one that I ask everyone.
Um, it's my favorite one.
If you could go um traveling intime, would you choose to go
back in time or forward in time,so traveling?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
in time.
Would you choose to go back intime or forward in time?
That is an excellent question.
You know, I would probably goback in time so that I could
relive all the wonderful timeswith my family again and maybe
make slight corrections to dothings a little bit better.
You know, the future is going tohappen and the last thing I
want my daughter to do is togrow up faster.
So I just think I would like togo back in time, Not because I
(43:26):
yearn for that, but becausethere's some things you know I
could make better decisionsperhaps.
Yeah, I guess I think I wouldgo back in time.
Nice, I have a question for you, Ed.
Sure, what's your favorite StarWars movie?
I see Han back there.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
My favorite Star Wars movie.
I would say is a new hope.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Um that did you see it originally in the theater I
did yeah I did too yeah, so soyou're one of the few people
that I can talk to.
I mean, there's certainly a lotof people, but there was
something magical.
I remember my mom bringing mysister and I to that and the
crawl happens and then thedestroyer comes in over the
screen and you realize, oh mygod, life has changed right in
(44:12):
terms of the what you wereseeing on screen.
So I, for me, I completelyagree, and I've had a chance to
meet, uh, mark hamill and andchat with him frequently, both
in in real life and on twitter.
Um so, twitter, so that onewill always hold a special place
for me.
So I'm with you on that.
Yeah, yes, I did like Rogue Onebecause a friend of mine, Gary
Widow who's a friend of mine,was one of the screenplay
(44:35):
writers and one of the storywriters, so the fact that I have
some even remote kind ofconnection to the Star Wars
universe makes me giddy as anerd.
Rogue One was an awesome out ofall to.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
The star wars universe makes me giddy as a
nerd rogue.
One was an awesome.
Out of all of the new movies ofstar wars, it's by far the best
one, I mean come on, I mean,this is not a spoiler, I hope.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
But that last scene where vader in the hallway
you're like because vader, youknow, over the years was kind of
like less and less scary.
But that moment you're like, ohmy god and I'm assuming you've
watched andor- yeah, loved itloved it.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
I'm a big fan of andy circus's hair.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I wish I had his hair I wish I had any hair yeah, I
loved andor.
I thought it was great.
My concern with the universe,though and I tend to say this to
a couple friends is I hope theyjust and I I think they've said
this they're going to tap thebrakes a little bit because
there's just so much going on inthe universe and they're
they're reinventing storiessometimes.
(45:33):
You know, there's some thingsthat don't need backstories,
gang, you know just let's enjoyit.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
So, um, we all know you're a huge tech enthusiast,
yeah, um, I wonder, can youshare some of your current tech
interests, any kind of newgadgets or technology that have
maybe caught your eye recently?
Yeah, I mean I'm.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
We talked a little bit about what I'm running from
home.
So I love home automation stuff, you know.
So I've got some digital lockson my house and trying to get
things lined up based onpresence.
When I come home, the garagedoor opens and things like that.
So I'm just starting to refinea lot of those areas and to me,
ed, this is such a homeautomation is such a mess.
(46:10):
We've got matter, we've gotthread, we've got I mean you
look, I mean sure I'm sureyou're like me you look on your
phone and you've got a wholefolder, if not more, filled
where it is.
I mean, look at all those appsI have.
That's, if not more, where itis.
I mean, look at all those appsI have.
There's a whole section of them.
That drives me crazy.
I wish we could somehow get itfocused.
(46:32):
So the home automation area issomething that I'm interested in
Bringing up my own Minecraftserver, because my daughter will
eventually be playing Minecraft.
I want to get ready for that.
But that's really what it's allabout.
But I'm more right now aboutsimplifying.
So how can I do?
I need four screens.
No, maybe I could buy with two.
I mean, it's always great tohave more, but it's also more
(46:53):
opportunity for powerconsumption, things to go wrong,
et cetera, et cetera.
So I run a multi-platformenvironment.
I've got right now I'm onWindows because that's where I
do some of my gaming, inaddition to my console back
there.
But I have two or three Macs inmy house and I know you do the
same thing, depending upon whatthe tool is and you and I are
(47:14):
blessed because we can operatein multiple operating systems,
sometimes even Linux.
So it's great to be able to dothat, but I'm finding the next
thing to learn.
It's great to be able to dothat, but I'm just I'm finding
the next thing to learn.
And just when I joined Unity,I'm now starting to learn.
You know, I've downloaded theengine.
Can I build a little thing?
And my daughter and I build aproject where, you know, the
character walks across thescreen, turns and maybe the
(47:36):
lights change, I don't know.
Something simple just to gether to understand coding and for
me to work to understand someof the product I'm working on.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Something I didn't know is that it's actually used
in the automotive industry andand in construction as well.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
I had no idea.
Yeah, it's.
It's fascinating, becausethat's one of the things that
excites me about it is we youand I grew up with controllers
or, this case, joysticks in ourhand right.
Just to go back a little bit.
This is the classic, the newclassic, atari, and we're
(48:13):
familiar with operating in 3Dspaces and the world at large.
You know, the audience that'sout there is growing, has grown
up with gaming, so they aredemanding 3D environments and
experiences, whether it's in acar or elsewhere.
That is like a game.
They want that map, they wantto go into the map and rotate
the map and zoom in and zoom out, just do the things that we as
(48:36):
gamers have been doing in gamesfor 20 plus years.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
So now it's kind of coming into the mainstream and
that's something I'm reallyexcited about I think it is so
cool as well, like, um, howthey're kind of using it for
construction to overlay what abuilding could look like on top
of the existing.
Well, it's not only that.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Ed.
But you're like, oh hey, whatis it?
Let's simulate the airflow andshow the airflow in the building
and oh, maybe we can move thisvent over here.
So there's things that canhappen virtually and digitally
before you even put down thefirst brick.
So I love that part.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I am so excited about that part yeah, it really is
amazing anyway, so sorry to kindof go off the order of what
we're speaking about things with, but, um, I just wanted to
start with gaming.
Um, has anything caught youreye lately?
I read a tweet that you'replaying ghost of Toshima on PC.
Yes, I played it on PS4, butnot PC.
(49:33):
How are you finding?
Speaker 2 (49:35):
it.
Oh, it is just delightful.
I mean, there's something Ieven said this when I was at
Xbox there's something about theSony games, both visually and
technically and emotionally,that really connect you, and
they're masters in creatingthose single-player experiences.
So I am just it's kind of likeRed Dead for ninjas.
(49:55):
I really, really like it.
The game is beautiful, runsgreat on my PC and it's
phenomenal.
So I really love that.
And I love the fact that when Iplay it, I've got 13 million
people on xbox live that followme.
They see me playing it andthey'll text me or they'll
message me.
Hey, how do you like it?
Or what's this game all about?
So I really, really, reallyenjoy it and you know.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Talking of gaming again, I think I know the answer
to this question from seeingthe joystick a moment ago.
But are you a retro gaming fan?
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I am.
I am, you know, one of my, oneof my, in fact.
My daughter, who I talked abouta little bit ago, is almost
seven years old.
She's never played a game and,you know, because we're focused
on making her a great humanfirst, and eventually she's
going to come in here and we'regoing to I'm going to introduce
her to well, not that this iswhat the atari joystick look
like, but you know to the simplegame of Pong and just kind of
(50:47):
move on through there.
I one of my guilty pleasures.
I love Super Mario World.
I could play that over and I'veplayed it over and over over
years, so I just love that game.
So yeah, I am a retro gamer toa certain degree.
Some games like that aretimeless.
There's other games that you goback and go oh, it didn't age
(51:09):
real well but there's some gameslike that that just are picture
perfect, both from apresentation standpoint.
But also, now that I've workedin this games industry, I
appreciate the wizards ofNintendo and how they did that
in 100K or 800K or whatever.
It was something ridiculousthat they were able to squeeze
out that power from that consoleit is amazing.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
And talking of super mario world, I saw I was
watching some youtube video theother day of um where the actual
mario kind of tune came from.
It's kind of taken from some.
I think it's from some 70sdisco oh, it would be surprised
like I.
I was really.
It just sounds so similar.
I wish I could remember what itwas called, but I'll have to go
(51:51):
look for that.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
But yeah, I mean there's, it's, it's and it's
also, I mean the characters aregreat.
Everything about that game isis is a snapshot of gaming
perfection.
I'll just say that engineeringand perfection.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
So, beyond gaming me, is there any kind of specific
technology trends that you'reexcited about right now?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
well, I mean the thing we have.
We've.
We're now an hour into thisconversation.
We haven't talked about ai noyeah, um, and I'm, you know, I
worked on ai when I was atmicrosoft and understood, you
know, in terms of what it wasand what it's doing, and I'm
curious to see what's going tohappen.
How do you?
Do you use ai at all?
Speaker 1 (52:25):
right now.
Um, yeah, sometimes, yeah, yeah, I like the google.
Um what's it called notes lm?
I find that useful.
Chat gpt, obviously.
Um, yeah, my wife gets annoyedwith chat gpt.
Um, she, she says a googlesearch is easier well, it's
interesting because a googlesearch is easier.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
But then you've got all these like is this sponsored
link or not sponsored?
So for nerds like us, we justwant to get to the facts, right,
yeah, um, I, I, I.
It's gonna be interesting tosee what ai does.
Um, you know, we're using it alittle bit in the unity engine
that we announced last year andI again, I don't know that much
about it, I'm starting to learnabout it.
I use it like chat gpt and likethe bing chat, uh, to create um
(53:06):
thumbnails for custom playlists.
I do on my spotify and it'sjust, you know, play make me a
for this type and it just doessomething funny.
So I'm not really a hardcoreuser yet.
Uh, because even when itrewrites things as somebody
who's been writing for a longtime, it's I'm like that feels
ai like so there's a certain.
There's a certain thing aboutwhen it comes out as an AI that
(53:28):
just in its raw feed needs tostill have human eyes, work it
and edit it.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
A lot of times I use it to help make.
If you've looked at my videos,my thumbnails have changed a lot
since AI have come out.
Because I'll ask ChatGPT tohelp me make a thumbnail.
Is I'll ask um chat gpt to helpme make a thumbnail, but
sometimes it will take a longtime to try and explain exactly
what I want and it will kind ofdo some very strange things and
it has so much difficulty withwords right like the actual
(53:56):
words, it's, it's like oh yeah,it can't spell things at all no,
you never want to have a wordin the image.
No, don't do that no, thatthat's kind of terrible anyway.
Um.
So life after microsoft, if wecan talk about that um.
As people know, you recently,um, departed from microsoft.
(54:17):
Um, what prompted you to leaveafter such an impactful career
over there?
Speaker 2 (54:22):
I'll tell you it was a couple things.
Um, it was 23 years, ed, whichwhen I tell people I work for
the same company for 23 years,I'm like wait, what?
They can't get their headaround it.
And I realized I love thecompany.
I'm going to be serving on theexecutive board for the alumni
microsoft alumni association, um, next month.
And what I noticed was is I, Iwas starting to get, I was
(54:47):
starting to calcify, I wanted tolearn more and I love I worked
some of the smartest peoplethere.
But the games industry issomething I'll always love.
But I wanted to go out andcreate more impact elsewhere.
And when I you know, after Ileft Microsoft last year, my mom
passed away and so I had tospend some time with family
managing that.
And that's when I saw Unity.
(55:09):
I was like wait a minute, Ilove platforms.
Unraid's a platform, unity is aplatform, xbox was a platform.
I love platform work becauseit's so empowering for partners
and end users.
So I just realized I was likeyou know what?
Now's the time I was working onthe Activision Blizzard King
deal and that wasn't closing yet, it was still a few months away
.
I was like you know what?
Now's the time I was working onthe Activision Blizzard King
(55:29):
deal and that wasn't closing yet.
It was still a few months away.
I was hoping it was going toclose by the time I left, but it
was like.
You know what I said it's time.
It's time for me to go on andtry something new.
I could be comfortable and sitback and rest for the rest of my
career, but I didn't want to dothat.
I still have a few more lapsleft in me, ed.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
So you know, with your role as director of
community at Unity, what doesyour role actually entail for
people that don't know.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Well, as you and I talk about this, it's like my
first or second day, so it's youknow I'm going to be managing
and helping grow the communityof users for Unity and making
sure that their feedback gets tothe right folks on the
engineering side to help createthe better product.
What I did at Xbox the rolethat I defined at Xbox many
years ago, but it's now acrossan entire platform and ecosystem
(56:18):
, so I'm just excited to go inthere and be able to work with.
I love work, always love workwith developers.
They're such an amazingcreative bunch, especially
independent developers.
Because they're such an amazingcreative bunch especially
independent developers becausethey're the ones that aren't
make copy paste every year.
You know they're making thesame franchise, they're doing
something different, they'reinnovating.
A lot of them are innovating.
So being able to work with themagain is what really excites me
, and being able to harness thecommunity of the platform is
(56:42):
something that really superexcites me.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
Yeah, so so, larry, you left microsoft in.
When was it september, or?
Correct september september 23so you've had like a little bit
of time off.
What have you been doing inbetween then and unity?
Um, have you been kind ofpursuing hobbies?
Um, I did hear you took on arole with midwest games as an
advisor to the communicationsteam.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
Yep, Yep, I've been an advisor for some companies,
public and private.
I've spent a lot of time withmy family, which I know it
sounds like such a cop-out, butit's like you know.
Being able to spend thisbeautiful time with my daughter
and my wife has been amazing.
So, really, I've just beenlearning.
I've been doing a lot oflearning.
I'm reading a lot of books, I'mtrying to become better and I
(57:30):
like to do meditating, so I'mtrying to.
Meditating is really great forclearing the mind out, so doing
things like that um, my techprojects I still like learning.
I started.
I started.
I mean, this is this.
May be this may be anincendiary comment, but I
started learning a lot aboutbitcoin and blockchain.
Oh, yeah so I've been learning alot about that um and what that
(57:50):
means, because I've I thinkblockchain is really interesting
um so that's, that's an areathat I've been spending a lot of
time with, and then I knew Iwas going to be coming to unity,
so I started just preparing forthat and, you know, making sure
I understood the tools and the,the games that use that use,
the use, the platform yeah, um.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
Do you have any upcoming events or appearances
where fans can catch you, anyspecial announcements or
exciting news you want to sharewith us?
Speaker 2 (58:16):
first of all, thank that.
First of all, follow me on x ortwitter, whatever we're calling
it now at major nelson orthreads.
I like to do a lot of things onthreads.
Now I'm not.
I I've got some stuff I'mworking on.
I'm'm not ready to announce yet.
A lot of it obviously will bewith Unity and some of the work
there, and the Unity is reallyfor developers, but it's also a
way for me to meet some fans andconnect them with developers of
their favorite games.
So in September so as you and Iare talking here, it's late
(58:44):
June In September I'm excited toget back into it.
Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yeah, well, you know, congratulations on the new post
and I hope this chapter of yourlife is going to be really
fulfilling and very, veryinteresting.
And just again, so listenerscan stay connected with you
through X Twitter threads, youhave a website as well.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
Yep, you can find me at herbhrybco and that just kind
of goes through some of thethings I've been working on.
You mentioned my, my major, mymajor Nelson, on Twitter and
threads and Instagram.
Those are the main places thatI that I find.
Of course, you'll find thatReddit as well as major Nelson.
So for those of you on Reddit,you can find me there and you
know it's just so exciting to beback in the game here and it
(59:28):
was great to take because Iworked for 20 plus 23 years
straight, ed.
I really didn't take any timeoff.
So to be able to take a fewmonths off there, which went by
like that, it was really a dreamand it was delightful.
But I'm also excited to getback in it and interested to see
where things are going.
But I also want to thank youbecause, like I said at the
beginning, things are going.
But I also want to thank youbecause, like I said at the
(59:50):
beginning, coming on your showand meeting you for the first
time is just such a you're justyou're so delightful and you're
so lovely and the great work youdo and your contributions to
the community for helping peoplelike me build the machine and
understand what Unraid was allabout.
So, on behalf of everybody, Iwant to thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
And on behalf of every gamer on the planet, thank
you for your tirelesscommitment to improving the
gaming world.
We all really, reallyappreciate it.
You know having you do that forus.
Well, larry, I don't want tokeep you any longer because I'm
sure you're super busy,especially with your second day
(01:00:24):
in the new job.
I don't want to take up anymore time.
So thank you so much forsharing your insights and
experiences.
It's been an absolute pleasurehaving you on the show, larry.
Thank you very, very much foryour time.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Well, I thank again.
Thank you, and thank you foreverything and your kind words.
This conversation was, I mean.
I can't believe we did it, forit feels like it was only five
minutes, but it was over an hour.
So I want to thank you and Iwant you also to keep up the
great work and I'd love to comeback on again, maybe sometime in
the future.
Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
We'd love to have you , larry, we'd love to have you.
And to all you guys listening,thank you so much for joining us
today.
Be sure to stay connected withLarry through his social
channels and keep an eye out forhis exciting work at Unity
Technologies.
So until next time, stay nerdyand keep gaming.
Hi everyone and welcome to another episode of
the Uncar Show.
Now I'm incredibly excitedabout our guest today, someone
who needs no introduction in theworld of gaming.
Joining us is Larry Hurd, alsoknown as Major Nelson.
He's a legendary figure in theXbox community and a driving
force behind many of theinnovations we've seen in gaming
(00:33):
.
Larry's been a pivotal voicefor gamers around the globe and
it's an honor to have him on theshow.
Welcome, larry, and thank youvery much for taking the time to
be here.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Ed, thank you for that wonderful introduction.
I have to tell you I'm actuallymore excited to talk to you
because we're going to talk,obviously, a lot about my
background and we're going totalk about Unraid.
But you're one of the mainreasons that I chose Unraid and
we'll talk about that later.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
Oh well, thank you, Larry.
I'm genuinely touched by yousaying that it's incredibly
encouraging to have someone ofyour caliber actually watching
my videos, so thank you so muchfor the support.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
My pleasure.
Speaker 1 (01:08):
I really, really appreciate it.
So currently you're living, Ibelieve, in Washington State at
the moment.
That's correct.
I live right outside Seattle,but originally you hail from
Connecticut.
Speaker 2 (01:21):
yes, that's correct.
Yeah, you did your research.
I grew up in New England andthat's where I or you know you
live in old England, I lived inNew.
Speaker 1 (01:30):
England and you attended Syracuse University in
New York, where you earned adegree in television, radio and
film production.
Speaker 2 (01:40):
That's right.
I attended Syracuse University,which is in upstate New York.
I mean, everybody thinks NewYork is New York City, but there
certainly is massive.
It's like saying London isEngland.
It's not the case, it's just alittle part of it.
New York City is a small part.
But yeah, I went to school inupstate New York and went to the
Newhouse School of PublicCommunications where I learned
basically how to do things likethis.
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Right, and your first job, I believe, was in Westport
, connecticut, where you were aDJ for that radio station.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
That's actually not right, I actually worked for a
station in Hartford Connecticut.
Well, there's two things.
When I left Syracuse I startedworking for a cable company
doing the local cablecommercials, the video
commercials.
So you know, I don't know ifthey had them over there in
England or in other parts, butin America it was always like
you'd be watching something.
(02:28):
And then there'd be this localcommercial of hi, I'm Ed from
Ed's Used Cars, come on down andbuy my used cars.
So I used to write and produceand edit and air those
commercials.
So I did that for a little bitbefore I went into radio for a
station in Hartford Connecticutcalled WKSS Kiss 95.7, which
wasa hot hit radio station.
Speaker 1 (02:48):
I used to play the hits at Awesome Cool and, if my
research is correct, you alsoworked for Clear Channels
Communication before moving toMicrosoft.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
That's correct.
And that station that I workedat in Connecticut was in the
middle of the 90s, when therewas a lot of independent 90s,
before you know when there was alot of independent owners.
And then Clear Channel, whichis a big company in the United
States, came in and startedbuying up all these stations in
all the different markets.
So I worked for them.
But one of the early things wedid, ed, there's two projects
that I worked on that werereally early.
(03:20):
One of them was and this isgoing to blow people's mind, but
we were streaming our radiostation.
So I used to have a 286computer that would encode it
with RealPlayer and send it outover this thing called the
internet to people with 288 or56k modems Don't bother me with
the 1200 bot and we did that.
And then the other thing was Ihelped build a system to
(03:42):
automate basically the music andbring digital into the studio,
because at that point it was allanalog, you know cartridges and
records and things like that,but I helped digitize it.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
So I assume that's how that kind of led on to you
joining Microsoft for MSN Music.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
Precisely they came and tapped me.
Microsoft for MSN Music.
Precisely they came and tappedme.
Well, actually I had a sidehustle when I was working in
radio running communities whenand Ed, I'm going to date myself
when Windows 95 launched.
So when Windows 95 launchedthey used to have this thing
called MSN, which was kind oflike an AOL or a CompuServe or
it service, and I was, my wifeand I had a company and we were
(04:26):
running community services forthose for MSN, for part of MSN,
you know running.
So that was kind of where I gotstarted.
So I was doing radio during theday and working, you know, for
Microsoft as a contractor inConnecticut.
And then when they, in theearly 2000, they came and said
and said, hey, we're going tolaunch a music service.
You seem to know a lot aboutthis stuff.
(04:47):
Would you come join us?
Now, you have to remember it.
This is before spotify, beforeitunes, before everything, um.
So it was one of the very firststreaming uh services online.
So I helped launch that wow,that's amazing.
Um, and then from there, youobviously everyone knows you
joined xbox live yeah, yeah,what happened was is I was, you
(05:11):
know, working in this, you know,microsoft at that point was we
only had about 20 000 people oncampus at that point.
I think it's something like 200.
When I left, 200 000.
But the next set of officesright next to mine, ed, were the
Xbox team and they were workingon, obviously, xbox and Xbox
Live.
And I looked over and I waslike I got to get in on that
(05:31):
Because I'm a gamer.
I love games.
I mean, I grew up with theAtari 2600 and Super Nintendo
and all the rest of those.
So I was like I got to get overthere, so I knew some folks and
then when they launched XboxLive, they came and said, hey,
you understand community, willyou help us manage the community
?
And I said absolutely.
So I went over there and itjust was one of the best
(05:52):
decisions I ever made.
I just I had such a great timebecause I'm a gamer.
So being able to build theplatform ed, it's a dream oh,
that's amazing.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
So, um, larry, can you share some kind of key
moments in the development ofXbox Live that you're a part of?
How did those milestones shapethe platform how we know it
today?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah, I mean it's it's, it's shaped us.
There's a lot of key milestones.
I mean one.
When I joined the team, xboxLive had just launched.
So you have to remember, xboxlaunched in 2000, xbox Live in
2001.
Xbox launched in 2000, xboxLive in 2001.
And we had, in the back of theXbox was a network port which in
2000 was like what is thisthing?
Speaker 1 (06:30):
Before that it was just modem ports, Like the
Dreamcast had a modem port andthe Xbox, and wasn't it one of
the guys on the development team?
He really pushed for having anEthernet port and there was a
bit of pushback saying it wasn'tneeded because people modems
will be around for a whilenobody has internet in their
house.
Speaker 2 (06:49):
You know, like always on internet broadband and
absolutely so.
We basically had to convince,not not just the microsoft that
I wasn't involved in that part.
I knew to other people thatwere involved with that part,
but like, hey, let us put it inthere because it's going to cost
extra money, even thoughcustomers can't use it for a
year.
It was one of the rare timeswhere customers believed a
(07:11):
company that said trust us,we're going to build it.
And we did it.
And so a year later we lit itup and then everything just
happened.
At that point we had thosemagical multiplayer experiences
being able to hear your friendsplay playing Splinter Cell and
being able to hear your friendsplay, you know, playing Splinter
Cell, and being able to whisperin somebody's ear and say you
know anyway.
So it was a lot of fun in thoseearly days.
Speaker 1 (07:31):
And weren't you the first service to have a friends
list as well?
So you know.
So everyone copied that lateron.
Yeah, there's a couple.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
There's a lot of firsts that we did with Xbox.
You know, when I say Xbox, Imean Xbox, xbox 360, and so
forth, xbox Live One of them wasalways on.
You talked about the broadbandconnection, this persistent
friends list, this dashboardconcept where when you take the
disc out, there's some things todo, you can have your friends
list and things along thoselines.
(07:59):
We had all that.
But then we also realized therewas a lot of really cool things
we could do, and that's when Ijoined the team.
We were already planning forXbox 360, which wouldn't launch
for another three or four years,depending upon what region you
were in.
Speaker 1 (08:14):
And you know, just speaking of your kind of like
journey going back to that, yeah, I'd just like to ask you right
now you know, how did the majorNelson Monica come about and
what inspired you to choose thatname for your kind of gaming
name?
Speaker 2 (08:27):
that was.
So it was such a weird thingand I never knew that it would
become what it became today.
And what happened was is youknow when I, when I, got hired
on the xbox team to runcommunity, they're like hey,
we're going to want you tointeract with the community, so
you need a gamer tag that peoplecan talk to you about.
Okay, well, I already had aprivate gamertag, but I was like
okay so, and I came home onenight and back in the early
(08:48):
2000s, there was this thingcalled tivo, where tivo would
recommend things.
Basically, it was one of theearly.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
It was not even ai, it was just like it was just a
suggestion engine sorry tointerrupt, larry, but, um, being
from the uk, I'm not sure whattivo is.
Is that like a recording devicefor broadcast TV, was it?
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Yeah, it was essentially a smart digital
recorder but in addition to justbeing a standard DVR where you
could pause, rewind, record andso forth, it had a layer of
smarts on top of it which waslike, oh, if you'd like to show
you, there was a thumbs-upbutton on the remote and it
would recommend other things.
So I came home and it hadrecommended and recorded the
(09:29):
show called I Dream of Jeannie,which was from the 60s, and I
started watching it and therewas an astronaut named Major
Nelson.
I was first.
The actor's name was LarryHagman and I was like, oh,
that's kind of cool, he's anastronaut, he lives on the beach
, he's got.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I was like, yeah, that perfect Major Nelson next
and that was it.
It was no more, no more or lessthought put into it than that.
Yeah, oh, awesome, that's.
That's an interesting story.
So thank you.
And just I'd like to sort ofswitch gears into developing
games consoles.
I wondered can you take usbehind the scenes of kind of
developing major Xboxboxconsoles like you know, the 360,
the xbox one, series x and f?
What was some of the mostinteresting and kind of
(10:09):
surprising stories you know inthe development periods that you
can remember, you know?
Speaker 2 (10:13):
the.
There's so many.
But you know, when I thinkabout the story arc of xbox, you
know, I talked a little bit amoment ago about xbox live being
the foundation, and that wasalways our.
That was the foundation to havepeople connected, and that
connectivity allowed you adifferent thing, a series of
different things to do.
You know, for the first timeyou could log in, see your
friends list and I could see Edwas playing Splinter Cell or
(10:35):
Halo and I could invite you intomy game of something else.
Or we could even talk and youwere in your game and I'm in my
game.
We're doing two separate things, so that was part of it.
The other part that we broughtand a lot of people forget this
is that Xbox 360 was one of thevery first purpose-based
consoles that had a marketplace,and what I mean is you could
download digital games, whichSteam had started doing early in
(10:58):
2000, but nobody else hadreally mastered it.
But now we were doing it to amanaged device, in other words,
a device that was single-use andspecific.
It wasn't open like a PC, butit was specifically for gaming.
So shipping a digital platformor a digital marketplace on that
was a huge moment, and then asa result, one of the other
(11:18):
things we came up with was theAchievement System, which I was
part of the team that helped.
So every time you got a littleIn like I think I've got one
here and you get something thatsound so we all know what that
is.
So it was.
You know it was great to beable to work on that because we
had this always connected line.
When you unlocked anachievement, your friends would
(11:38):
see that you I unlocked thisachievement.
So it was kind of this weirdsocial, cool social effect where
I could see what you were doingto a certain degree.
So that was a lot of fun.
But creating the consoles wasjust a magical moment.
I was involved creating so manyconsoles and the through line is
just great games.
At the end of the day, nobodycares passionately about a piece
of plastic.
(11:59):
They care about the greatgaming experiences they have.
But we had a lot of challengeswith Xbox 360, shipping that
globally.
It was the first time we scaledout and did it in so many
markets.
We had some challenges thereand we took a lot of the
learnings and we brought theminto Xbox One and then Kinect.
A lot of people remember Kinect, which we thought was the
future at that point and it justdidn't get the uptake and
(12:22):
adoption that we.
We thought it was going to begood.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Go ahead, adam sorry why do you think um, like motion
gaming, like isn't a thinganymore?
Do you think kind of vr killedthat, or I.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
You know, I think there was, there's, there's a
sense of that.
I mean the with the we.
I remember I was at the, theannouncement of the wii u in
japan, uh, and I rememberlooking at that and going, oh,
wow, okay, how okay, how's thatgoing to work?
Or the Wii, I should say and itwas.
Nintendo did an amazing jobexecuting because they have such
a fantastic stable ofintellectual property with Mario
(12:57):
and Zelda and so forth, andthey also did some really cool
things with, you know, wiiSports.
On the Xbox side, I just didn'tthink we had enough titles that
really leaned into it.
We had one of my favoritedevelopment houses is over there
in England and that's Rare, andRare did a great job with
Kinect Sports, which was amazing.
(13:18):
But beyond that, beyond thosefirst-party games when I say
first-party, that's a term thatwe use in gaming, for as a
console developer, developer, wealso develop the game, because
the goal of first-party games,that is to showcase the platform
, things you can do on thisplatform they can't do anywhere
else, and we see that time andtime again with.
Sony does it with some of theirfirst party games, certainly
nintendo does it with some oftheir games and xbox did it as
(13:40):
well.
Um so there's a lot of thingsthat um that we did, but a lot
of the gamers really just wantedto shoot stuff and circling
back to the 360 um.
Speaker 1 (13:52):
Is it true that um, for gears of war, um epic games,
asked microsoft to up the ramfrom 256?
Speaker 2 (13:59):
yeah to 500.
I mean, I wasn't in thatmeeting, but that's a legendary
story that I have since you know, know, I've since heard is
proved, and that was the head ofthe team.
They needed more, which doesn'tyou know?
I don't remember.
You know to your point itwasn't a lot of VRAM, but back
in the day it was a lot of VRAM.
And when you're writing gamesfor a console, we call writing
(14:20):
to the metal.
In other words, you don't havereally an operating system in
the way you kind of do, butyou're writing, you can unlock
the full potential of the entireplatform by writing directly to
the metal and really gettingsome low-level APIs that get
right in there and can unlockthe maximum power of the console
.
Speaker 1 (14:37):
Yeah, so if that hadn't been the case, then the
Xbox wouldn't have had thecapabilities.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Maybe that it does today, yeah, yeah, it's possible
.
Then it would have been a veryit's possible.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
That would have been a very different um future gears
of war must be one of myfavorite all-time games.
I do, I do love that game.
Speaker 2 (14:55):
I'll let cliff blizinski I still talk to cliff
who was one of the designdirectors on and, of course, rod
ferguson, who's working ondiablo.
I'll let them know that.
Speaker 1 (15:03):
Ed, Wasn't there a bit of pushback from the Lancer
from the chainsaw in the demo?
They didn't want to put thatbit in, but Bill Gates liked it.
I saw a clip of Bill sayingthat that was pretty cool.
The chainsaw yeah, there was alot.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
What you're referring to is you're referring to a
weapon that is incrediblyviolent and, if you remember
correctly, what you're referringto is you're referring to a
weapon that is incrediblyviolent and, and you know, if
you remember correctly, even onpart of the screen you would get
, you know, blood effects ontothe, onto your, you know.
So it was very, very visceraland I know there was a lot of
concern about Ooh, is this goingto be too far?
Yeah, you know, you know that'sa conversation that
(15:41):
consistently happens in thisindustry, because you know
violence is such a worldwideissue in real life and you know
how much of it do we really needin video games?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah, because even the older games kind of like the
very first Killer Instinct.
There was big debates about howterrible that was.
So that was a lot further downthe road in that department,
really, wasn't it?
Speaker 2 (16:04):
Yeah, and now we're dealing with.
You know, when we went into theXbox 360, it was now in.
We made the transition fromwhat we call the SD era to the
HD era.
So now it was now 16 by 9 andglorious 720p.
Speaker 1 (16:16):
So you know, let's dive into a bit of fun.
I'd like to ask some of yourpersonal favorites.
So over the years, Microsoft,Xbox have made some pretty
awesome consoles and I'd say, doyou have a favorite out of all
of them?
Speaker 2 (16:30):
Well, without a doubt , it's the Xbox 360, for a
couple of reasons.
Speaker 1 (16:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
You know I was involved so intimately in that
production.
It was a smaller team back then.
I remember taking our consoleshome and plugging them in before
anybody else had them andtesting the different versions
of the hardware.
And then also that generationhad a specific beginning and end
, and so that one will alwayshave a place in my heart because
(16:54):
of not just my involvement withit, but some of my favorite
gaming moments came out of that,and I'm talking about Halo, I'm
talking about Bioshock, I'mtalking about Grand Theft Auto,
about Bioshock.
I'm talking about, you know,grand Theft Auto.
So there's so many amazinggaming experiences and you know
it was just.
It was such a pleasure and aprivilege to be part of that
(17:14):
generation.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah, the 360 was an awesome one of my.
I think the 360 and theoriginal are my favorite.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yes, thank you.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
But I do like the Series s as well.
Um, that's my current consoleit's a little guy it's, but it's
got a lot of power in it.
It is like my son's got the thex and he always says it's
better.
But I like that little s it'snice and compact.
Speaker 2 (17:36):
You want to know why and you could probably play it
on.
You could probably have it inyour office under your monitor.
You could just play it rightthere in your office you're 100,
correct there, larry.
Speaker 1 (17:46):
So, um, moving on to games, I know you've mentioned
before in um podcasts and thingskind of like.
You've got a few favorites, butwhat I'd like to do is I'm
going to kind of put you on thespot and ask you if you could
choose your top five xbox games.
Um, what would they be?
Speaker 2 (18:04):
halo one for a lot of different reasons.
Halo two because I was involvedin that production.
Bioshock is one that I justabsolutely adored, uh.
Grand theft auto because ofwhat they were able to unlock
with it.
And then, probably, you know,red dead, red dead, uh.
Redemption is such a amazing Imean, nobody tells stories but
almost better than rockstar inthe way they execute technically
(18:26):
, uh, and emotionally.
More importantly, in the gameis is unrivaled yeah, yeah, I've
.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
I've got to agree with you with halo as well,
being up there, that I think myfavorite ever games has got to
be half.
This isn't the next one halflife one, half life two,
half-life 1, half-life 2, halo,halo 2, and Gears of War
Probably my favorite all-timegames ever.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
I'll tell you.
There's a couple more I want toadd in there, because you said
you can't limit me to 5-ed.
You can't do it.
You know I look at things likePortal.
Oh yeah, you know, portal wasjust when the first moment you
start understanding the gamemechanics, your mind's like boom
.
Another one that I reallyenjoyed and I know if they
haven't done the re-release, Ithink they're about to do the
(19:10):
anniversary release is Braid.
Braid is such an amazing game.
I've never played that.
Speaker 1 (19:16):
I've never played that.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
Ed, you need to go back and play it.
Play it on PC, Play it whereveryou can, but it is such a
mind-blowing game in terms ofthe mechanics and how it works
and the ending it's just.
Speaker 1 (19:26):
It's so delightful, oh wow, I'll give that a shot.
I'll definitely have to checkthat one out there, larry.
Speaker 2 (19:32):
Yeah, I think it's coming up.
I think it's got an anniversaryre-release coming up soon, cool
.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
Obviously, you have a lot of involvement with the
community, so I'd like to sayhow?
How important has the communityinteraction and feedback been
in shaping the development andevolution of Xbox?
Speaker 2 (19:46):
It's been critical, Ed.
I mean, you know, when I joinedthe team, there wasn't really
anybody talking to the communityand engaging with them on a
regular basis, and once I joinedthe team, I started taking this
feedback and bringing it in,and a lot of the features we did
with Xbox Xbox 360, Xbox Live,upwards and beyond have all been
directly from the community.
(20:06):
I helped develop a communityprogram where people it was
called the Insiders, which nowhas gone over to Windows, and
that was where we found out whatmattered to our customers and
they helped us stack, rank andhere's what's important upvote
and downvote and help us definewhat the roadmap looks like.
So the community has beenincredibly important to helping
(20:30):
uh, helping us buff out whatwhat xbox is in terms of some of
the feature set what examplesof feature sets would you say
that user feedback have directlyinfluenced?
oh boy, there's one.
It's funny.
There's one that just shippedlast week that I actually had a
(20:56):
bug log for seven years, whichis now with your Xbox.
You can take it, it'll rememberdifferent wireless networks fit
and finish things like thatthat we really, you know dark.
Dark mode is one that peoplelet dark and light mode is one
that obviously everyone does.
It now, um, but things likethat are exactly direct feedback
from the community staying inthe key of community.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
You've had many memorable moments interacting
with fans on like major nationradio and the xbox podcast.
Can you share a few standoutexperiences or stories that
really resonate with you?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
well, you know it's when I started doing the podcast
.
Uh, what became the officialxbox podcast?
I started doing in 2005, ed,when nobody understood podcasts,
and I was like and to yourpoint, you know, to our
conversation earlier, I spent adecade in radio.
I'm like, I know what this is.
This is just radio with thepeople download, listen to.
So I started doing it beforeanybody really paid attention at
(21:46):
xbox um, and that you know, Ididn't get.
I didn't go up and say, oh, I'mgonna do this, I just did it,
and that was part of the fun ofearly xbox is.
Sometimes we just did stuffbecause it was the right thing
to do, um, but I mean takingtaking the show and going to
doing it from japan or doing itfrom gamescom in europe, or
coming over to UK or going toone of the PAX gaming festivals
(22:09):
here in the United States andAustralia was always a lot of
fun, but I just my favorite part, though, is meeting gamers,
because everybody has a favoritegame.
Everybody has their own gamingstory to tell, whether how they
got into games or what theirfavorite controller is or what
their favorite game is.
So I just it's.
It's kind of like this, thisuniversal thing that combines
(22:32):
everybody, at least us as nerds,right yeah, yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (22:37):
um, I'd like, I'd like to kind of like just switch
gears away from the tech and,yeah, ask a question that maybe
you know, some people don't know, I believe.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
I recently learned you had asilent role in the 1996 movie
Sleepers, starring Kevin Baconand Brad Pitt.
(22:57):
You, I wondered?
No, you're absolutely right, Idid yeah um, how, how did how
did that come about and what wasthe experience like?
Speaker 2 (23:07):
so, this, you're right.
So what happened was is by theway, let's talk for a minute,
because you've, we've all seenthe, you know, seven, six
degrees of kevin bacon, right?
You've heard of that, right,dad?
Speaker 1 (23:19):
um, I'm gonna have to say now I'm sorry, I haven't no
.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
So there's this kind of this meme that's been around
for many, many years, wherewhere Kevin Bacon has worked in
so many movies that you canconnect Like within six steps,
you can connect back to Kevin.
The good news is you are nowtwo steps away from Kevin Bacon,
because I was in a movie withKevin Bacon, but in any event,
this was in the mid-90s.
I was working in radio and thisproduction company came to the
(23:43):
radio station.
I was working in radio and thisproduction company came to the
radio station.
I was running marketing andcommunications for the radio
station.
I said, hey, we're doing thismovie with Kevin Bacon and
Robert De Niro and a bunch ofactors.
Would you help us cast it?
And so I went out and I had ameeting with the casting
director and he looked at me andsaid you're perfect, we want to
have you in it too.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (24:01):
Me, okay.
So I remember we went out.
It was like it was like a.
It was a very cold november inconnecticut.
It was about a week beforethanksgiving.
We shot this scene.
It's a pivotal, pivotal footballscene at an abandoned, you know
, with a reason to shoot a.
Uh, it was a.
I think it was a children'shospital or children's school in
rural connecticut and um, I, Igot there and they fitted me up
(24:27):
with an outfit because I was toplay a guard, because it was in
a boy's school.
And I got there and I gotfitted with my cap and my outfit
.
They're like well, what rolewould you like to be?
And I looked at it.
I looked at the set.
It was out on a soccer field or, I'm sorry, football field,
american football field and Irealized I'm just going to look
like everybody else on the field.
(24:49):
So I said I'd like to be at thescore table because there's
only one person keeping score.
So anytime you see thescorekeeper, you knew it was me.
So if you go in there and Ispent all day shooting the scene
, which I think it was two daysactually, and that's all I did
was sit at the table- and sit atthis so anytime there's a very
it's like.
Seriously, it's about fourframes of me.
(25:11):
As the camera pans by, you'llsee me sitting in a hat with a
table and a little clock on it.
I'm just sitting there and Isat there was freezing for hours
.
Oh, man.
Speaker 1 (25:20):
Oh, that's awesome and I'm gonna have to ask is
that your only ever movieappearance or have you?
Have you appeared in any others?
Speaker 2 (25:28):
I'm trying to think, I think, that is it.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Yes, that is it for now for now Okay, but we don't
know in the future.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
Yeah, who knows, in the future I may get into
Hollywood, may come knocking, Idon't know.
Anyway, have you been in amovie yet?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Um, I haven't.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
I haven't, I haven't, no, no not yet.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Not yet and any film producers out there see this I'm
available anyway.
Switching gears, larry.
Um, if we can move on to unraid, yeah, obviously many of the
audience.
They love their home serversand they're running Unraid and
we'd love to hear about yourexperiences with it.
So I just wondered can youstart by explaining how you
(26:09):
discovered Unraid and what drewyou to use it for your home
server setup?
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, what happened was it's an interesting story I
had an old I think it was a QNAPNAS and I was outgrowing it and
I was like I started to reallyget into Docker and the
management and I have.
I wanted a bunch of smart homestuff plus, and you can see Plex
behind me.
I was like I have all theseDVDs because I had collected
(26:36):
over 20 years, because DVDs werebig in the 90s and early 2000s.
I want to have them digital.
So I was like, what do I do?
The QNAP wasn't working.
And then I was doing somesearch.
There was a couple of differentoptions out there and then I
saw Unraid.
I'm like, wait a minute, I canuse my own hardware, any
hardware, because I had so muchhardware, probably like you, ed,
I can't even imagine what yourworkshop looks like.
(26:57):
And then I was like, well, letme figure this out.
So I had an old gaming PC and Ijust stood it up with with, with
Unraid, you know, I built the,built the USB stick, dropped it
in and I was like this isamazing and I threw some more
hard drives in it and startedbuilding out and kind of.
But it was this big.
I mean it was a big old schoolgaming PC and then I started,
(27:21):
you know, moving my Plex contentonto it, or my digital content
that I had ripped and some of mymusic, because there's music
that I enjoy that isn'tavailable on any streaming
service.
So I put that on there.
And then I was like, wow, I'vegot some home automation stuff I
want to do.
So I put on Home Assistant andscripted and then I was like, oh
, let me put AdGuard on there.
(27:42):
It just started ballooningbecause you could do so much
with Unraid.
And then I realized I looked atmy energy bill one month ahead
and I was like where's all mywhat's going on here?
So about two years ago I'vebeen on Plex excuse me, I've
been on Unraid for about fouryears now.
About two years ago I was likeyou know what?
I'm going to build?
A new server and that newserver, the profile is going to
(28:03):
be low energy, low heat.
So I ended up building all theparts, or getting all the parts,
and I built it during one ofthe summers of COVID and I had
the neighborhood kids overbecause a lot of it, they all
wanted to learn how to build aPC.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:19):
Which that's all a server is.
Speaker 2 (28:21):
So I sent an email out to their parents and said,
hey, I'm going to let the kidsknow.
If they want to learn how tobuild a PC, I'll be doing it in
my garage.
So for about four or fivenights the four or five kids
came over in the garage and webuilt.
I said okay, I laid all theparts out and I started
explaining here's the GPU,here's the CPU, here's the RAM,
(28:42):
here's the storage, here's thepower supply, here's all the
cable.
You know, just kind of puteverything out, and then every
night we would start assemblingit piece by piece and building
it up accordingly.
And then at the end was that ofcourse, of course.
I mean, I don't have to tellyou how it ends, ed.
I turn it on and it doesn'tboot.
So then I got to go unwind andit was actually one of the I'd
let the a lot of the kids do theinstall.
(29:03):
One of the ram uh slot was insideways so we just kind of put
it down, booted up.
Everything was great.
So it's been running two yearssince in my garage and I I love
it.
Speaker 1 (29:14):
Uh, I feel your pain.
When you build something, youturn it on.
It doesn't work.
So many times I've built like acomputer, put it all in, I
think, to myself, before Iactually fit it all.
In the case, let's just test itand see if it works and I think
it'll be all right.
It'll be all right every time Ithink that it never works on
the case yeah but yeah, so youknow it's, so it's it's.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
it's one of those things where I just I'm such a
fan of oh, I'm gonna try thisnow.
Click download the docker.
And the funny part is I got acouple of friends on it.
One of my good friends our kidsgo to school together.
He had a QNAP as well and I'mlike you have to download Unraid
.
He said, well, I got this oldPC, I'm like you have to
(29:55):
download Unraid, just try it out.
There's a demo, it's reallyeasy.
So he downloads it.
He calls me back like two dayslater.
He's like I downloaded it.
I can't figure it out.
I said, nick, go do a websearch.
Here's Space Invader videos.
Go watch them.
And he didn't listen to me andhe's tried to do it by himself.
And then two days later he'slike.
I watched Space Invader videos.
(30:16):
He made it so clear, so thankyou.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
Thank you.
Wow, that's amazing.
Speaker 2 (30:25):
But wow, that's amazing.
But you know, seriously, yourvideos actually helped me as
well when I wanted to set up Ithink it was what was before
tail scale.
I think we're just doing a vpn.
You had a whole series of howto set up the vpn and do that,
so I learned how to do that.
Now I'm running tail scale,which is way easier it's just so
great tail scale yeah so, um.
So there's that, and you always,it seems like whenever I have a
unraid challenge, that I wantto learn about your video's
(30:45):
right there, and so I want tothank you On behalf of the
Unraid community.
I want to thank you for all thework you put into your videos,
because they're so clear, andwhat I love about your style,
that is, you assume we knownothing, or just enough to be
dangerous, because you're alwaystelling us, hey, do this, don't
do that, because this willhappen.
So I want to thank you.
Speaker 1 (31:04):
Oh, larry, you've made my day saying that to me
Someone of your caliberappreciating my videos.
Speaker 2 (31:13):
It blows me away, it's fantastic and you're such
an industry resource and alegend on YouTube, so you keep
doing the great work.
So that's why, when you reachedout to me and said come on the
show, I'm like I got to do it.
I got ed.
What what you and and unraidhave meant to me and my family,
um, so it's been.
It's been such a delight to beable to have this stable server
and, like I said, it's beenrunning for two years and I have
(31:35):
no problems.
It keeps the.
I mean I I should log into itright now, actually, and I'll
tell you what it's probablyconsuming like 50 watts right
now because it's, like I say,designed for low power.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
So what components are you using?
What CPU?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
You know what I'm going to log in right now,
because I had that available andunfortunately it logged me out.
The one thing I do have to askyou, Ed I have my array
encrypted and I need to figureout how.
It's an extra step at thebeginning.
Do you think it's worth it?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
I think it's very worth having the array encrypted
.
The reason being is if you buya new drive and, say, a month
down the road it fails and youRMA it back.
When you're RMAing it back, youknow that because the data's
encrypted, no one's going to beable to see it.
So yeah, I don't encrypt minebecause I've got kind of super
(32:31):
secret information on it.
But um, right, if I said, if Isend the drive back, it's just
an added piece of mind yeah, Ijust know that.
You know, I haven't had to zeroit, it's just encrypted.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
So so that's my main reason to answer your question.
I this, so this is interesting.
I know some people are going tolaugh at me, but when I you
talked, I talked about thereasons of what my design goals
were low power, low heat.
I'm running an intel core i3 10, 105 cpu with 3.7 gigahertz oh
yeah, nice.
So I wanted to make sure it hadquick sync so I could do the
transcoding.
(33:02):
Yeah, which is, by the way,that the way that is an
underestimated.
I know that you talk about it.
It's an amazing feature, but alot of people really don't think
about it as well they should.
I've got 32 gigs of RAM and Ithink I've got.
I don't have it in Because I'mlooking at the system
information on Unraid they.
I think I've got.
Actually, I can look at itright here and I wish I should
share my screen, but I'm notgoing to.
(33:22):
I am dealing with.
I've got two six terabytedrives and then one 10 terabyte
parity drive, nice, cool, so,and it's sitting at 59% full and
I've got.
Probably I can't even imagine Idon't rip into MKVs, I kind of
try to use H.64 or H.265 um, soI've got quite a few movies on
(33:48):
there and a lot of tv shows andsome videos that I've done and
things like that.
So it's a.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
It's a nice archive yeah, so basically you're using
your server mainly for me media.
Do you run any game servers?
Speaker 2 (33:57):
so you know I've, you know you've so it's interesting
you say that no, and here's whyI specifically chose not to
have a GPU on this device,because of its low heat and low
power.
I think I'm going to buildanother server that's going to
have a GPU, because I want toexperiment with some of that
stuff that you talk about allthe time on your channel,
(34:17):
because I keep looking at itlongingly, going, ooh, I want to
do that, I want to do that, butI just don't have this
particular rig is not?
I know that if I set it up, itwould kind of be disappointing.
Speaker 1 (34:27):
Yeah, and you say you're a home assistant fan as
well.
Yeah, I've got.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
I'm going to go over here and take a look at my
dockers.
I've got running, I've gotBenhex, I've got Firefox
Portainer.
Homebridge scripted uh engineproxy um adguard cloudflare got
vault warden.
I'm doing a self-hosting onvault warden.
I've got crafty 4 on herebecause minecraft uh, you know,
you worked.
I worked actually worked onminecraft when I was at
(34:53):
microsoft, so it's nice to beable to do that, and I've got a
couple of other things on herethat I'm experimenting with,
like a youtube downloader, andthen of course, I have plex and
and things along those lines,wow.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So that's quite a lot of things you're running there,
larry.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
Am I a power user?
I don't think I am Ed.
Speaker 1 (35:09):
I think that's a fair amount of things running there.
Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 2 (35:13):
Yeah, no, it's really good, and I've got it hooked
into a UPS.
In fact, I'm looking right now.
It's taking 74 watts is whatit's taking in and I've got it
hooked to a UPS and the UPSautomatically does the power
down.
What am I using for the UPS?
I think I'm using Nut insteadof the onboard stuff.
I'm using Nut instead.
But it's been great.
I have all the.
(35:33):
I have Plexstream, tailscale,the unassigned devices, intel
GPU top.
I'm looking at my plugins rightnow.
So yeah, I go deep on it.
Speaker 1 (35:40):
So I'm going to ask you a slightly different
question.
Is there anything you wishUnraid could do that it doesn't,
and are there any aspects ofUnraid that you find challenging
or maybe less favorable?
Speaker 2 (35:52):
I think they've answered a lot of my problems
with the Unraid Connect, becausethat was always the problem is
oh my God, if my server goesdown and I'm out of the house,
how can I bring it back up?
And I you know, because then ifit's not running, it's not
running tail scale.
So I think unraid connect solvea like I would say 75 to 85 of
the not problems but some of thedesires.
(36:15):
And when I leave my house now Ifeel much more safe that if my
wife calls me when I'm overseasthat she's like, oh, what's
going on and I can can tailscalein look at it.
But to be honest with you, a lotof that worry is unfounded
because I've never had a problem.
That's the funny part about it.
I was always worried about it,but I'm like, wait a minute,
it's not really a problem.
(36:36):
Like I've never had any corruptissues.
The only thing it did do oncewas when it it powered itself
off.
I it was my fault, it was usererror.
Most of the problems on theserver are user error and I went
out and I accidentally shut itoff and it did a hard shutdown.
Speaker 1 (36:50):
I had to do the the parody dance for a few days, I
mean it came back fine let me,I'm gonna switch gears again and
I hope you like my pun gears,um, I love it.
Um.
So I'd like to do a littlesection, um in my podcast that I
call quickfire questions.
They're basically some shortrapid fire questions, so we'll
(37:13):
do that, then go on to kind oftalking, some nerd and game talk
, um.
So my first question you kindof answered this already, but
I'm going to ask you again.
Anyway, halo or gears ofars ofWar?
Halo Single or multiplayer.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
Oh, good question.
It's kind of hard to describebecause both serve very specific
purposes.
If you have kids, single playeris great.
Pause, go talk to your family,come back on pause.
Multiplayer is great for thesocial elements.
I got to say both PC or consolegaming.
Um, pc or console gaming, youknow um, as somebody who's
(37:48):
developed a bunch of consoles,they're.
If you are, if you just want toplay games and sit down and not
have to deal with updates, gowith pc or, excuse me, go with
console.
If you want to have, you know,collect all your millions of
steam games you bought for 4.99on sale.
Obviously pc is the way to goyeah and vr or ar oh, um, I
haven't seen a killer app foreither yet, ed.
(38:10):
That's the problem.
I mean, I worked a little biton hololens, which is ar, and
I'm gonna hope I'm gonna begetting an apple vision pro in a
few weeks.
Um, I think ar, because itallows me at least to interact
with the environment.
Vr is so closed off.
I've done v VR.
I love VR, but for me, I justlike the edge of AR just a hair
better.
Speaker 1 (38:28):
And what did you think of Half-Life, alyx?
Have you tried that?
Speaker 2 (38:33):
I haven't had a chance yet.
I know some friends that workedon it, but I haven't had a
chance to try it yet.
Speaker 1 (38:38):
I think you might change your mind with VR games.
When you play that one maybe.
Speaker 2 (38:40):
Yeah, I mean that's the beauty of some of the.
I have a lot of friends thatwork at Valve on things like
that, so I've been texting withthem and I do need to check it
out.
Speaker 1 (38:49):
And what scares you more in a horror game zombies or
clowns Clowns?
You know why I asked you thatquestion.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
Because it's well-documented that I'm
frightened of clowns.
Now here's another little bit,ed, that a lot of people don't
know.
When I was in primary schoolhigh school as we call it in the
US I tried out for clown school.
Oh, really, yeah, it was.
I'll never forget it.
A friend of mine came and theRingling Brothers of Barnum
(39:18):
Bailey Circus, which was the bigcircus at that time, was in
Hartford doing a.
They had open auditions forclowns and a friend of mine came
to me when I was in high schooland said, hey, let's do it.
And I was like okay, we're notgoing to school today, we're
going to go play.
Yeah, let's go.
And I went out and tried outand it was.
(39:39):
Obviously I wasn't chosen,thank God, because it was
frightening and that was.
I'm glad.
I'm not a carny.
I'll just say that Carnies aregreat.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
I have nothing against them, but that's not the
lifestyle for me.
Most relaxing activity playinggames or watching movies.
Speaker 2 (39:50):
Probably playing games with my seven-year-old
daughter and my wife as well.
Because when I watch because I,you know, you started.
My background is television,radio, film production and, of
course, I worked in gameproduction when I'm playing a
game, I'm always dissecting itwith like why are they doing
that?
Or when I'm watching a movie,I'm like why are they using that
shot?
Or what's going on here?
So my, my professional mind isalways going.
(40:14):
So being able to sit at thetable and play a nice board game
with my family is is, to me, ismuch more relaxing, because
it's just about us being presentat the hands of the roll of the
dice.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, and what is your most anticipated game
release currently?
Speaker 2 (40:31):
I think we've got.
You know, we talked about GTAcoming up.
Xbox had a showcase which, forthe first time in 15 years I
wasn't involved with a couple ofweeks ago.
I saw some great games comingout of there, probably like a
GTA.
Or we saw the Gears of War, theGears of War tees, which I know
you saw.
So I'm really looking forwardto that, only because I like to
(40:53):
see what my friends are doingand a lot of my friends work on
those games.
So it's fun there.
You know I love, I just love.
You know, and as we record this,I recently started at Unity.
So I'm now the head director ofcommunity at Unity, which is
amazing because, you know, unityis not just one platform, it's,
(41:14):
I mean, it's not just onegaming platform, it's all the
platforms.
So I get to work on Xbox andSwitch and PlayStation and AR
and VR and Apple Vision Pro,whatever mobile.
So I'm just so excited to beable to branch out and work on
all those different things.
So there's so many games outthere that I'm excited about but
are all different platforms.
Speaker 1 (41:32):
Wow, and same question, but for a TV show or
movie, anything you're lookingforward to.
Speaker 2 (41:38):
I wish I did, but I'm so disappointed with the
quality of films right now.
I've talked about you know it's.
I've talked about this publicly, so this is not a surprise.
I'm not a fan of superheromovies never have.
You know.
I didn't grow up with a comicbook in my comic book store in
my town, so that I don't have anemotional connect.
They're fine, but I love a goodstory.
Um, there's a movie that cameout last year that won some won
(42:01):
some awards, called theoutsidersutsiders.
I'm sorry, the Over, what wasit?
Holdovers.
That was the Paul Giamatti film.
Love that movie because it tookplace in an area that I grew up
in.
But I also just love a greatstory, ed, and so I'm really
into that type of thing.
I mean, I love Ted Lassobecause of the story and the
characters and hopefully we'llget another season of that, who
(42:24):
knows.
I just love going back andrevisiting.
I watch Breaking Bad all thetime.
I've got the DVD set becausethat's just masterful
storytelling and acting.
I was just watching one of theepisodes last night.
So I love anything that has areally great story.
Effects to me, aren't?
They don't do it for me becauseI know that it's not real.
I want to see real humanemotions, great acting and great
(42:45):
storytelling.
That's what I, that's what Iyearn for.
Speaker 1 (42:49):
Yeah, I a hundred percent agree with you there,
larry.
Um, anyway, my last quick firequestion.
It's one that I ask everyone.
Um, it's my favorite one.
If you could go um traveling intime, would you choose to go
back in time or forward in time,so traveling?
Speaker 2 (43:05):
in time.
Would you choose to go back intime or forward in time?
That is an excellent question.
You know, I would probably goback in time so that I could
relive all the wonderful timeswith my family again and maybe
make slight corrections to dothings a little bit better.
You know, the future is going tohappen and the last thing I
want my daughter to do is togrow up faster.
So I just think I would like togo back in time, Not because I
(43:26):
yearn for that, but becausethere's some things you know I
could make better decisionsperhaps.
Yeah, I guess I think I wouldgo back in time.
Nice, I have a question for you, Ed.
Sure, what's your favorite StarWars movie?
I see Han back there.
Speaker 1 (43:41):
My favorite Star Wars movie.
I would say is a new hope.
Speaker 2 (43:47):
Um that did you see it originally in the theater I
did yeah I did too yeah, so soyou're one of the few people
that I can talk to.
I mean, there's certainly a lotof people, but there was
something magical.
I remember my mom bringing mysister and I to that and the
crawl happens and then thedestroyer comes in over the
screen and you realize, oh mygod, life has changed right in
(44:12):
terms of the what you wereseeing on screen.
So I, for me, I completelyagree, and I've had a chance to
meet, uh, mark hamill and andchat with him frequently, both
in in real life and on twitter.
Um so, twitter, so that onewill always hold a special place
for me.
So I'm with you on that.
Yeah, yes, I did like Rogue Onebecause a friend of mine, Gary
Widow who's a friend of mine,was one of the screenplay
(44:35):
writers and one of the storywriters, so the fact that I have
some even remote kind ofconnection to the Star Wars
universe makes me giddy as anerd.
Rogue One was an awesome out ofall to.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
The star wars universe makes me giddy as a
nerd rogue.
One was an awesome.
Out of all of the new movies ofstar wars, it's by far the best
one, I mean come on, I mean,this is not a spoiler, I hope.
Speaker 2 (44:53):
But that last scene where vader in the hallway
you're like because vader, youknow, over the years was kind of
like less and less scary.
But that moment you're like, ohmy god and I'm assuming you've
watched andor- yeah, loved itloved it.
Speaker 1 (45:10):
I'm a big fan of andy circus's hair.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
I wish I had his hair I wish I had any hair yeah, I
loved andor.
I thought it was great.
My concern with the universe,though and I tend to say this to
a couple friends is I hope theyjust and I I think they've said
this they're going to tap thebrakes a little bit because
there's just so much going on inthe universe and they're
they're reinventing storiessometimes.
(45:33):
You know, there's some thingsthat don't need backstories,
gang, you know just let's enjoyit.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
So, um, we all know you're a huge tech enthusiast,
yeah, um, I wonder, can youshare some of your current tech
interests, any kind of newgadgets or technology that have
maybe caught your eye recently?
Yeah, I mean I'm.
Speaker 2 (45:50):
We talked a little bit about what I'm running from
home.
So I love home automation stuff, you know.
So I've got some digital lockson my house and trying to get
things lined up based onpresence.
When I come home, the garagedoor opens and things like that.
So I'm just starting to refinea lot of those areas and to me,
ed, this is such a homeautomation is such a mess.
(46:10):
We've got matter, we've gotthread, we've got I mean you
look, I mean sure I'm sureyou're like me you look on your
phone and you've got a wholefolder, if not more, filled
where it is.
I mean, look at all those appsI have.
That's, if not more, where itis.
I mean, look at all those appsI have.
There's a whole section of them.
That drives me crazy.
I wish we could somehow get itfocused.
(46:32):
So the home automation area issomething that I'm interested in
Bringing up my own Minecraftserver, because my daughter will
eventually be playing Minecraft.
I want to get ready for that.
But that's really what it's allabout.
But I'm more right now aboutsimplifying.
So how can I do?
I need four screens.
No, maybe I could buy with two.
I mean, it's always great tohave more, but it's also more
(46:53):
opportunity for powerconsumption, things to go wrong,
et cetera, et cetera.
So I run a multi-platformenvironment.
I've got right now I'm onWindows because that's where I
do some of my gaming, inaddition to my console back
there.
But I have two or three Macs inmy house and I know you do the
same thing, depending upon whatthe tool is and you and I are
(47:14):
blessed because we can operatein multiple operating systems,
sometimes even Linux.
So it's great to be able to dothat, but I'm finding the next
thing to learn.
It's great to be able to dothat, but I'm just I'm finding
the next thing to learn.
And just when I joined Unity,I'm now starting to learn.
You know, I've downloaded theengine.
Can I build a little thing?
And my daughter and I build aproject where, you know, the
character walks across thescreen, turns and maybe the
(47:36):
lights change, I don't know.
Something simple just to gether to understand coding and for
me to work to understand someof the product I'm working on.
Speaker 1 (47:43):
Something I didn't know is that it's actually used
in the automotive industry andand in construction as well.
Speaker 2 (47:50):
I had no idea.
Yeah, it's.
It's fascinating, becausethat's one of the things that
excites me about it is we youand I grew up with controllers
or, this case, joysticks in ourhand right.
Just to go back a little bit.
This is the classic, the newclassic, atari, and we're
(48:13):
familiar with operating in 3Dspaces and the world at large.
You know, the audience that'sout there is growing, has grown
up with gaming, so they aredemanding 3D environments and
experiences, whether it's in acar or elsewhere.
That is like a game.
They want that map, they wantto go into the map and rotate
the map and zoom in and zoom out, just do the things that we as
(48:36):
gamers have been doing in gamesfor 20 plus years.
Speaker 1 (48:39):
So now it's kind of coming into the mainstream and
that's something I'm reallyexcited about I think it is so
cool as well, like, um, howthey're kind of using it for
construction to overlay what abuilding could look like on top
of the existing.
Well, it's not only that.
Speaker 2 (48:55):
Ed.
But you're like, oh hey, whatis it?
Let's simulate the airflow andshow the airflow in the building
and oh, maybe we can move thisvent over here.
So there's things that canhappen virtually and digitally
before you even put down thefirst brick.
So I love that part.
Speaker 1 (49:10):
I am so excited about that part yeah, it really is
amazing anyway, so sorry to kindof go off the order of what
we're speaking about things with, but, um, I just wanted to
start with gaming.
Um, has anything caught youreye lately?
I read a tweet that you'replaying ghost of Toshima on PC.
Yes, I played it on PS4, butnot PC.
(49:33):
How are you finding?
Speaker 2 (49:35):
it.
Oh, it is just delightful.
I mean, there's something Ieven said this when I was at
Xbox there's something about theSony games, both visually and
technically and emotionally,that really connect you, and
they're masters in creatingthose single-player experiences.
So I am just it's kind of likeRed Dead for ninjas.
(49:55):
I really, really like it.
The game is beautiful, runsgreat on my PC and it's
phenomenal.
So I really love that.
And I love the fact that when Iplay it, I've got 13 million
people on xbox live that followme.
They see me playing it andthey'll text me or they'll
message me.
Hey, how do you like it?
Or what's this game all about?
So I really, really, reallyenjoy it and you know.
Speaker 1 (50:17):
Talking of gaming again, I think I know the answer
to this question from seeingthe joystick a moment ago.
But are you a retro gaming fan?
Speaker 2 (50:25):
I am.
I am, you know, one of my, oneof my, in fact.
My daughter, who I talked abouta little bit ago, is almost
seven years old.
She's never played a game and,you know, because we're focused
on making her a great humanfirst, and eventually she's
going to come in here and we'regoing to I'm going to introduce
her to well, not that this iswhat the atari joystick look
like, but you know to the simplegame of Pong and just kind of
(50:47):
move on through there.
I one of my guilty pleasures.
I love Super Mario World.
I could play that over and I'veplayed it over and over over
years, so I just love that game.
So yeah, I am a retro gamer toa certain degree.
Some games like that aretimeless.
There's other games that you goback and go oh, it didn't age
(51:09):
real well but there's some gameslike that that just are picture
perfect, both from apresentation standpoint.
But also, now that I've workedin this games industry, I
appreciate the wizards ofNintendo and how they did that
in 100K or 800K or whatever.
It was something ridiculousthat they were able to squeeze
out that power from that consoleit is amazing.
Speaker 1 (51:30):
And talking of super mario world, I saw I was
watching some youtube video theother day of um where the actual
mario kind of tune came from.
It's kind of taken from some.
I think it's from some 70sdisco oh, it would be surprised
like I.
I was really.
It just sounds so similar.
I wish I could remember what itwas called, but I'll have to go
(51:51):
look for that.
Speaker 2 (51:51):
But yeah, I mean there's, it's, it's and it's
also, I mean the characters aregreat.
Everything about that game isis is a snapshot of gaming
perfection.
I'll just say that engineeringand perfection.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
So, beyond gaming me, is there any kind of specific
technology trends that you'reexcited about right now?
Speaker 2 (52:08):
well, I mean the thing we have.
We've.
We're now an hour into thisconversation.
We haven't talked about ai noyeah, um, and I'm, you know, I
worked on ai when I was atmicrosoft and understood, you
know, in terms of what it wasand what it's doing, and I'm
curious to see what's going tohappen.
How do you?
Do you use ai at all?
Speaker 1 (52:25):
right now.
Um, yeah, sometimes, yeah, yeah, I like the google.
Um what's it called notes lm?
I find that useful.
Chat gpt, obviously.
Um, yeah, my wife gets annoyedwith chat gpt.
Um, she, she says a googlesearch is easier well, it's
interesting because a googlesearch is easier.
Speaker 2 (52:43):
But then you've got all these like is this sponsored
link or not sponsored?
So for nerds like us, we justwant to get to the facts, right,
yeah, um, I, I, I.
It's gonna be interesting tosee what ai does.
Um, you know, we're using it alittle bit in the unity engine
that we announced last year andI again, I don't know that much
about it, I'm starting to learnabout it.
I use it like chat gpt and likethe bing chat, uh, to create um
(53:06):
thumbnails for custom playlists.
I do on my spotify and it'sjust, you know, play make me a
for this type and it just doessomething funny.
So I'm not really a hardcoreuser yet.
Uh, because even when itrewrites things as somebody
who's been writing for a longtime, it's I'm like that feels
ai like so there's a certain.
There's a certain thing aboutwhen it comes out as an AI that
(53:28):
just in its raw feed needs tostill have human eyes, work it
and edit it.
Speaker 1 (53:35):
A lot of times I use it to help make.
If you've looked at my videos,my thumbnails have changed a lot
since AI have come out.
Because I'll ask ChatGPT tohelp me make a thumbnail.
Is I'll ask um chat gpt to helpme make a thumbnail, but
sometimes it will take a longtime to try and explain exactly
what I want and it will kind ofdo some very strange things and
it has so much difficulty withwords right like the actual
(53:56):
words, it's, it's like oh yeah,it can't spell things at all no,
you never want to have a wordin the image.
No, don't do that no, thatthat's kind of terrible anyway.
Um.
So life after microsoft, if wecan talk about that um.
As people know, you recently,um, departed from microsoft.
(54:17):
Um, what prompted you to leaveafter such an impactful career
over there?
Speaker 2 (54:22):
I'll tell you it was a couple things.
Um, it was 23 years, ed, whichwhen I tell people I work for
the same company for 23 years,I'm like wait, what?
They can't get their headaround it.
And I realized I love thecompany.
I'm going to be serving on theexecutive board for the alumni
microsoft alumni association, um, next month.
And what I noticed was is I, Iwas starting to get, I was
(54:47):
starting to calcify, I wanted tolearn more and I love I worked
some of the smartest peoplethere.
But the games industry issomething I'll always love.
But I wanted to go out andcreate more impact elsewhere.
And when I you know, after Ileft Microsoft last year, my mom
passed away and so I had tospend some time with family
managing that.
And that's when I saw Unity.
(55:09):
I was like wait a minute, Ilove platforms.
Unraid's a platform, unity is aplatform, xbox was a platform.
I love platform work becauseit's so empowering for partners
and end users.
So I just realized I was likeyou know what?
Now's the time I was working onthe Activision Blizzard King
deal and that wasn't closing yet, it was still a few months away
.
I was like you know what?
Now's the time I was working onthe Activision Blizzard King
(55:29):
deal and that wasn't closing yet.
It was still a few months away.
I was hoping it was going toclose by the time I left, but it
was like.
You know what I said it's time.
It's time for me to go on andtry something new.
I could be comfortable and sitback and rest for the rest of my
career, but I didn't want to dothat.
I still have a few more lapsleft in me, ed.
Speaker 1 (55:47):
So you know, with your role as director of
community at Unity, what doesyour role actually entail for
people that don't know.
Speaker 2 (55:56):
Well, as you and I talk about this, it's like my
first or second day, so it's youknow I'm going to be managing
and helping grow the communityof users for Unity and making
sure that their feedback gets tothe right folks on the
engineering side to help createthe better product.
What I did at Xbox the rolethat I defined at Xbox many
years ago, but it's now acrossan entire platform and ecosystem
(56:18):
, so I'm just excited to go inthere and be able to work with.
I love work, always love workwith developers.
They're such an amazingcreative bunch, especially
independent developers.
Because they're such an amazingcreative bunch especially
independent developers becausethey're the ones that aren't
make copy paste every year.
You know they're making thesame franchise, they're doing
something different, they'reinnovating.
A lot of them are innovating.
So being able to work with themagain is what really excites me
, and being able to harness thecommunity of the platform is
(56:42):
something that really superexcites me.
Speaker 1 (56:44):
Yeah, so so, larry, you left microsoft in.
When was it september, or?
Correct september september 23so you've had like a little bit
of time off.
What have you been doing inbetween then and unity?
Um, have you been kind ofpursuing hobbies?
Um, I did hear you took on arole with midwest games as an
advisor to the communicationsteam.
Speaker 2 (57:05):
Yep, Yep, I've been an advisor for some companies,
public and private.
I've spent a lot of time withmy family, which I know it
sounds like such a cop-out, butit's like you know.
Being able to spend thisbeautiful time with my daughter
and my wife has been amazing.
So, really, I've just beenlearning.
I've been doing a lot oflearning.
I'm reading a lot of books, I'mtrying to become better and I
(57:30):
like to do meditating, so I'mtrying to.
Meditating is really great forclearing the mind out, so doing
things like that um, my techprojects I still like learning.
I started.
I started.
I mean, this is this.
May be this may be anincendiary comment, but I
started learning a lot aboutbitcoin and blockchain.
Oh, yeah so I've been learning alot about that um and what that
(57:50):
means, because I've I thinkblockchain is really interesting
um so that's, that's an areathat I've been spending a lot of
time with, and then I knew Iwas going to be coming to unity,
so I started just preparing forthat and, you know, making sure
I understood the tools and the,the games that use that use,
the use, the platform yeah, um.
Speaker 1 (58:09):
Do you have any upcoming events or appearances
where fans can catch you, anyspecial announcements or
exciting news you want to sharewith us?
Speaker 2 (58:16):
first of all, thank that.
First of all, follow me on x ortwitter, whatever we're calling
it now at major nelson orthreads.
I like to do a lot of things onthreads.
Now I'm not.
I I've got some stuff I'mworking on.
I'm'm not ready to announce yet.
A lot of it obviously will bewith Unity and some of the work
there, and the Unity is reallyfor developers, but it's also a
way for me to meet some fans andconnect them with developers of
their favorite games.
So in September so as you and Iare talking here, it's late
(58:44):
June In September I'm excited toget back into it.
Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yeah, well, you know, congratulations on the new post
and I hope this chapter of yourlife is going to be really
fulfilling and very, veryinteresting.
And just again, so listenerscan stay connected with you
through X Twitter threads, youhave a website as well.
Speaker 2 (59:05):
Yep, you can find me at herbhrybco and that just kind
of goes through some of thethings I've been working on.
You mentioned my, my major, mymajor Nelson, on Twitter and
threads and Instagram.
Those are the main places thatI that I find.
Of course, you'll find thatReddit as well as major Nelson.
So for those of you on Reddit,you can find me there and you
know it's just so exciting to beback in the game here and it
(59:28):
was great to take because Iworked for 20 plus 23 years
straight, ed.
I really didn't take any timeoff.
So to be able to take a fewmonths off there, which went by
like that, it was really a dreamand it was delightful.
But I'm also excited to getback in it and interested to see
where things are going.
But I also want to thank youbecause, like I said at the
beginning, things are going.
But I also want to thank youbecause, like I said at the
(59:50):
beginning, coming on your showand meeting you for the first
time is just such a you're justyou're so delightful and you're
so lovely and the great work youdo and your contributions to
the community for helping peoplelike me build the machine and
understand what Unraid was allabout.
So, on behalf of everybody, Iwant to thank you for that.
Speaker 1 (01:00:04):
And on behalf of every gamer on the planet, thank
you for your tirelesscommitment to improving the
gaming world.
We all really, reallyappreciate it.
You know having you do that forus.
Well, larry, I don't want tokeep you any longer because I'm
sure you're super busy,especially with your second day
(01:00:24):
in the new job.
I don't want to take up anymore time.
So thank you so much forsharing your insights and
experiences.
It's been an absolute pleasurehaving you on the show, larry.
Thank you very, very much foryour time.
Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Well, I thank again.
Thank you, and thank you foreverything and your kind words.
This conversation was, I mean.
I can't believe we did it, forit feels like it was only five
minutes, but it was over an hour.
So I want to thank you and Iwant you also to keep up the
great work and I'd love to comeback on again, maybe sometime in
the future.
Speaker 1 (01:00:50):
We'd love to have you , larry, we'd love to have you.
And to all you guys listening,thank you so much for joining us
today.
Be sure to stay connected withLarry through his social
channels and keep an eye out forhis exciting work at Unity
Technologies.
So until next time, stay nerdyand keep gaming.
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