November 8, 2025 • 49 mins
Pick your side... Horde or Alliance, er um, I mean Android or Apple! Today, we dive into the two phone platforms and make a decision on which one is better. In our second segment, The Vault host, James Sherwood, brings us Borderlands 4! Bill shares his experience at this year's SNAFU convention.
William Sikkens, Bill Snodgrass, Gretchen Winkler
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:10):
Welcome to We Are Technology’sUser friendly.
2.0 with host Bill Sikkens,
technology architect.
And this is user friendly 2.0 as alwaysI am your host milliseconds.
Joining me my co-host Bill and Gretchen,welcome to This Week show love.
There
(00:31):
I got to ask the questionthat's on everybody's mind.
Probably not, but on my mind.
How is your Halloween?
And pretty well,
it was busy.
Lots of, kids, but I didn'tanswer the door because I took the cheater
method and put them all out thereand let the camera watch them.
(00:52):
Did they steal your ball? No.
I've never had someone steal the ballor the or the bag.
I've put a bag out before.
And I usually give instructions,you know.
Happy Halloween, please take one.
You know.
So the neighbor here,the reason I bring it up, the neighbor
by where I lived in that she is elderly,didn't want to answer the door.
(01:12):
Came out next morning to find the candy,the bowl and the table
that was sitting on her. Gone.
Really? She's.
They took the table.
They took the table.
And she's just like, okay, whatever.
But, okay.
Outside of that,we're now through Halloween
to start the timeto start thinking about Thanksgiving.
If you can believe it, we'regoing to be covering some stuff, including
(01:34):
kitchen gadgets, for Thanksgiving herein a couple of weeks.
And you know, from that.
And it's amazing to see all the new stuffthat's out there.
I would say about 90% ofit is kind of kitsch.
You want to avoid it, but there are somecool things we'll be getting into that.
But this week, after the news, we're goingto be taking on Android versus iPhone.
Which one is better?
And I can hear peopletyping the comments now.
(01:56):
And the man,
what Italk about a little later in the show.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's go ahead and get through our news.What do we have this week.
All right.
Coming to you now from steam malware.
So explain this to me I want that game.
You know.
(02:16):
Are you destroying the malwarewith the game.
That'd be cool.
Yeah. That would be.That would probably be okay.
You know.
But it's interesting to see thisbecause it's
kind of they're badguys are trying these things everywhere.
And they put up a game on steam.
Obviously,that's what you would do there.
And we it it's actually windows malware.
So, you know, the idea of this happening,I can't say it comes to me
(02:40):
as a shock, mainly because, I think it's more into
what I would have to sayis that just this hasn't happened before.
The scheme, the way it's set up is indie
publishers are really anyonebut any publishers mainly publish games.
You know, it's a really cool site.
And anybody that's a gamer that doesvideo games probably heard of it.
If not use it.
(03:01):
And from that standpoint,it's a good resource to have.
But it is also knownthat the duration of the software
going up therewasn't necessarily looked at that closely.
So a hacker decided to exploit thisand threw up
some software that was malware for windowsand got a number of downloads.
(03:22):
And then before it got caught,
they've added it to Windows Defenderand it's now to block it as has steam.
But there's something to think about,
you know,
and especially on windows computersbecause that's where most of the malware
is pointed.
It does exist for Apple and, you know,Android, iPhone and all that too.
But the primarily you see it on windows.
And one thing that you can do, especiallyif you're getting software from a site
(03:47):
that, is even known, like steam,or certainly one that's not so
well known, is there's a way to set upa sandbox in your windows environment
and then run it there, see if it's okay,but it's blocked from everything else,
and that kind of thingis probably a good idea.
It's an extra step,
but certainly can save you a lot of hassleof having to reload or the encryption
computer or somethingwhen, you get malware and now you can't
(04:09):
get access to your stuff,you know, you are going to get a question,
how do I find a sandbox
location on my computer from you?
Well, it could, but I bet yousome of the, listeners are going.
What?
I tell you what,
I think you're absolutely accuratein that, And I think it's a valid thing.
No. Anticipate.So let's do this next week.
(04:30):
We're going to be doing our full Q&A.
Let's make surewe have that question in the queue.
All right.
New Robert Downey Junior Doctor Doom suit
HD photos reveal two exciting details.
Yes, I think the suit is cool.
If you haven't seen a picture of this,check it out.
It's it's, somebody really did a nice jobon the costume.
(04:51):
And one of the concerns, you know,
Robert Downey Junior,of course, played Iron Man,
and he's coming back into the sameuniverse as a different character.
But from looking at thisin the way that they're doing it,
I think, I think it's going to work.
And then the other thing
is, is the, two interesting thingsthat you're talking about.
There are the logos on his suit.
One is Thor's hammer,and the other one is Captain America.
(05:13):
So it's just kind of a shout out to that,too, which is which is a cool thing.
And, you know,to see how that all ties together.
But I just I really have to say,I like the way they get to see suit.
It just looks cool.I wouldn't mind to see like that.
Just to wear to work,I've got to see it then.
Yeah?
Yeah.
All right.
NASA's supersonic jet finally takes off
(05:36):
for its first super fast,
super quiet flight.
Yeah. So it's interesting.
Some may remember the Concorde,
which was, supersonic jet that did
passenger service was taken out of usejust mainly because of maintenance costs
and that type of thing.
But, the idea of a supersonic aircraftis really nothing new.
(05:59):
But what's cool about this oneis there's no sonic boom after quiet on,
so it's able to enter the, or,bypass the sound barrier
and not have the big bang that you hear.
So just for the record, that's 767mph,give or take, when you hit that.
So, again, interesting technology.
(06:20):
You know, the one thingI have to ask about this kind of stuff
is are they planning to bring backsupersonic aviation?
It wasn't that it was unsafe.
It was just the maintenance
of these type of planes and stuffmade it not worthwhile to compete.
But it'd be kind of fun
if you could fly to, you know,to Europe in an hour or something.
A little longer thanthe app itself. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:41):
I thought that was usually, Sorry.
I thought there were other reasonswhy the, the supersonic plane went away.
Yeah.
There are,and if we had more time, we dig into it.
But the main thing was actually the cost.
Oh, okay.
I'm sorry, Bill, I that's okay.
NASA's Voyager spacecraft finds a blazing
(07:03):
wall of fireat the edge of the solar system.
Oh, I don't get why this is unusual.
It makes sense that we'd have a firewall.
We do for everything else.
I keep thinking bad guys breaches,you know?
Yeah.
No, no.
Yeah, that's the other thing that me.
Yeah, yeah.
And so this is kind of interesting.
So NASA's Voyager
(07:24):
one and two have gone out furtherthan any other human made object.
They're both out in interstellarspace now,
and they're both still operatingand beaming back information.
And this wall of fireis kind of interesting because
technically, it'stens of thousands of degrees Kelvin.
And justI thought, you know, that's very hot.
(07:45):
But thequestion that comes out of all of this
is, well, if Voyager's going through that,wouldn't it burn up the spacecraft?
And the answer is no, becauseof the amount of space that's out there.
All the molecules are excitedto that temperature.
It's not dense enough to actually damagethe spacecraft with the heat that exists.
And it's an interesting wayto look at the physics behind it.
But beyond it beginswhat they call true interstellar space.
(08:08):
It's almost there.
And,
you know,
maybewe can get a hold of the Roswell Grays
and see if they can
put a new battery on them so that they cantransmit a little bit longer.
You mean the Voyagers?
Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Yeah. Why not? All right.
Okay.
What else do we have? All right.
(08:29):
Amazon doesn't want eyesshopping on its side.
At least that's what comet says.
And comet is apparently not a dog.
Oh, it's an
AI that, is not allowedto evidently shop on Amazon site.
So company calledperplexity has created the AI comet,
and the idea of thisis that this AI is an assistant.
(08:51):
Then you can say, comet, order mewhatever off Amazon, right?
And it will go out there and do it.
Well, Amazon's having problemswith this saying that, well they don't
get the right kind of feedbackand they can't do the reviews.
The real reason in my opinion,
is that if you bypass Amazon'swhat they call user experience, you're
bypassing all of their ads, promotionsand everything else.
(09:12):
The AI doesn't care about all that.
It's just, you know, go and orderwhat you want.
So they issued a cease and desist
order to stop this from happening.
That is still pending, but
Amazon blockedcomet by a change to their software.
And now perplexity has upgradedcomet to be able to get around the block.
(09:33):
So, so what is Alexa think of all of this?
Because wasn'tshe being asked to shop for people?
Oh yeah, I still does.
But the thing of it is, is again,you're looking at an
AI that's employed byand I'll use those terms Amazon.
Wherever you want to go with that.
But the thing of it is, is thatthere is a difference there because Amazon
(09:54):
considers that they have control over onebut not the other.
And I think probably there is some truth
to not being able to look up comparablesand that kind of a thing.
But at the end of the day, it'sanother example of
this is the fire TV stick,which is Amazon's smart TV adapter.
Very good.
Product.
I like it, but they blocked outanother number of applications
(10:16):
that changed the way that it would bootup, is
they wanted their commercialsto be on the top of the screen.
In the front,
something changes the user experiencethat's not allowed on the platform.
I think this is a similar idea.
So okay.
Anyway.
All right.
So that being said, I'm goingto throw this question out here and ask
you Android or Apple, which one is better.
(10:39):
So where this topic
idea comes from is we get your questions.
And a lot of the ones that come inis that, you know, to what extent
that maybe in one way or the other,does this one
do one thing better, another better.
But the interesting thing aboutthis is something that has really existed
as long as computers have, isthere seems to be this almost religion
(11:00):
between people that like one or the other
and you saw that back with the Macintosh,windows days,
you know, and way back in the day, Atariand Commodore, all this kind of stuff
seems to have continued to existnow here in 2025,
whether you're on a macintosh or a PC,the files are interchangeable.
You know, that didn't used to be the case.
(11:21):
I mean, there was a time that you createda file on your computer,
you needed to share it with somebody,and they didn't have the same system,
or even the maybe the same make or notthe same model of the system.
They couldn't read your
your disk and there were no flash drivesor anything at that point.
So the other way was to transmit it
over a 1200 board modem,which was very painful.
So in 2025,we are in a very different situation
(11:44):
where your files, if you work in wordas for example, on the Mac, no,
but on the PC that I had no idea.
I didn't know they fix this.
It's been so long since I've been involvedwith that kind of graphics and stuff.
So yeah, it's it's I'm glad that they havebecause it was in the modern era.
That wouldn't work, I don't think. Anyway.
(12:05):
Yeah, I'm old, you know, my Photoshop
doesn't open on your Photoshopbecause I'm on Windows and you're on,
you know, Mac OS,whatever the case may be.
Yeah. But, yeah.
And, you know, just as a little asideon that, back in the 90s,
there were actually hardware devicesthat were made
that would go in your computerthat would emulate the other one, mainly
emulating winterin those days, dos on a mac,
(12:27):
so that you can read the filesin that way.
And this, this hardwarewas like 1800, 19, $90 to buy.
And, you also had that for the Amigacomputer, which was out at the time.
You know, some of these old namesI haven't thought of in a while.
And, you know, Safari and,that's where all of that comes from.
And before we circle back to the phone,just, you know, comparison here,
(12:48):
I just want to remind you, don'tcopy that floppy.
All right, back out of the retro stuffyou have Android and you have iOS.
You used to have the Windows Mobile, which has largely fallen behind the waist.
I don't even thinkthe system still exists for it out there.
So those are the two kinds of thingsyou're going to get.
And the question comes outand it is a legitimate question.
(13:10):
Is one or the other better.
And tolook at that you really need to consider
what you're dealing withand what you want.
So to explain it a little bit,
you have two very different methodsof building a computer.
And a smartphone is a computerthat does the same thing
(13:30):
sometimesmore than than your laptop and whatnot.
And at the end of the day, you have one
philosophy from Apple,which is very close source.
So you get in thereand you have less applications.
It's much harderto get your application onto the platform.
That kind of a thing.
It has to be reviewed and whatnot.
But what that does end up doingis there's less of a chance of getting
(13:54):
crappy applications or malware orthat kind of thing because it is juried.
And then the other thingthat Apple has with
that is because they're the manufacturer
of not only the software,but the hardware.
All iPhones are made by Apple.
You have an environmentwhere you know it is going to work.
Now everything is veryI don't want to say basic,
but kind of corporate, almost gray color,that kind of a thing.
(14:15):
You can customize.
But out of the box,that's what you're looking at.
So if you want somethingthat you're going to just grab
and don't mind spending a lot of moneyfor it, and it just works,
that might be the type of thing.
Now, the other side ofthis is Android, which I wouldn't say
is 180 degrees different because they dojury applications and stuff, but
it's much easier to get on the Play Storeand that type of thing if, in fact,
(14:40):
the philosophy is if they find itobjectionable later, they'll take it off.
But as long as your app meetsthe requirements and gets through there,
I probably will get on the market.
The other thing of itis, is on the Android side of it, there's
many, many, many different manufacturersthat can build the phones.
And the history of it's different too,because in 2007, when the iPhone came out,
(15:04):
iOS was built specificallyfor that purpose to run the phone.
Android was originally an operating systemfor digital cameras.
It wasn't created by Google either.
It was bought by and later on
and then used for the operating systemor the Android phones that we have now.
So it didn't start out as a phoneoperating system.
And the other side of it is since Googledoesn't have control of the hardware
(15:28):
ecosystem, it's kind of like windows forall the different versions of the pieces
that are out there.
You have to have somethingthat's going to work universally,
universally,or as close to it as you can get.
And there are inconsistencies,mainly because the updates
are usually done by the manufacturer.
So if you get a Samsung phone, you'regoing to have a different update roll out.
And if you have a pixel or something else.
(15:50):
So at the end of the day, you have that.
However, since there's more competition,the prices of phones are lower.
You can get a good quality product for notas much as you would pay for an iPhone,
and you have a lot more accessto being able to look at different things
in different places.
And at the point of this recording,there's some talk about them
wanting to change it.
I don't know if they will be inside,load out,
(16:11):
back and back in my day,that was called installing software.
You know, where it does doesn'tnecessarily come out of
come out of the market.
So trying to make a decision on which oneis better, I don't think one is better.
I think it's more purpose drivenand what you need it to be
and what you want and what you can affordand that type of thing.
(16:33):
Now, I think all of us are Android,I know I am a Bill Rection
you guys use Android or iPhone or Android?
Android? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
I think it's because, for me,Android was, well,
because I worked with Apple and not Apple,but, windows applications or softwares
(16:54):
when I was doing geological draftingand AutoCAD and all that stuff.
Did windows.
It wasn't, on Apple products.
Applewas like some of the more artistic stuff,
and it was almost likethey had two different professions
or, mind thinking to go with.
(17:17):
And and then as time has goneon, both both sides have broadened.
And I think that's beenbetter. What do you think?
I would agree with you 100% on that.
And having, you know, the alternativeone drives the other.
So one gets innovation.
You see it on the other sidethat very much
there's a part of that kind of thing.
(17:38):
If you just had one product out there,it would not be in all likelihood
is advances. We see our phones are today.
I'm going to throw this other questionat you, Bill,
because this is a questionthat comes in from a lot of our listeners.
If you were given
an opportunity to have comparable phonesto like, say, a Samsung Galaxy versus
an iPhone, whatever the newestversion of it is, and they were free.
(17:58):
Would you choose Apple at that pointbased on the price,
or would you stick with Android?
I personally would
stick with Android,because I'm a customizer
and I've had an iPhone before,
for work thing, and I've had an iPad.
They're not as customizableis, say, an Android phone,
(18:21):
and I'm a heavy customizer to,
you know, what I wantand how I want it to work.
And different ways like that.
Some of the things that you seeon Android,
like if you want your phoneto look differently,
you can download a themeand it'll change it.
That kind of stuff is stillI think, what you're talking about,
where you can really customizeif you want, you can sit down,
(18:41):
make your own icons, make your own layout,all that kind of stuff.
And that is, definitely a big thingwhere you'll see
that many programmers,many people that create technology,
agree 100% with what you just saidon making that choice.
And the funny thing about itis, is because from a business standpoint,
(19:04):
Apple is probably a better ideabecause your business,
like your department, has oneset of hardware they're maintaining,
you know, support foron that kind of a thing, which on Apple,
credit is generally
a lot easierto get to then Android support
if you need it to do that,you can go online,
get a lot of answers to thingsand that type of stuff.
But at the end of the day,things like AppleCare and a phone number
(19:27):
you can call might exist through a vendorlike Samsung or something.
But as far as the operating system itselfgoes,
there isn't exactly that kind of ecosystemfor help, you know?
So your businesses are going to look at,hey, this is much easier to support.
Well, not only that,
but it is because it is a closed systemand it is less customizable.
You know, you're going to be dealing with
(19:48):
pretty much one systemand one setup and one
your employees are not going to be able tomess with it too much.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah,it depends on the employee, I suppose.
But yeah, it's, definitely.
You know, that would be the caseand I know it
from even the windows side of things.
Back before I really started codingfor many years, I did hardware support,
(20:11):
and I had a, couple of clients that were,you know, bigger, like fortune
500 stuff like Wells Fargo Bankwas one of them, more or less at the time.
And, and stuff.
And what you would see is an environmentin these places where, yeah,
it was on windows, but they made surethat all of the hardware was the same.
I mean, as much as possible.
So it's like that same idea.
(20:31):
They're only having to support one thing.
And at the time,from a business standpoint, for a computer
operating system,
you had Active Directory or Windows Serveror you had Novell NetWare.
If you want to go back a little bit more
and all of that and then on the Appleside, you had Apple talk,
but they didn't really get the networkingthing done for a number of years
(20:53):
after they did on the PC, to an extentthat it was, you know, stable and usable
and something that you would seein a business environment.
Apple Park Works.
It just didn't have the adoptionthat you saw on the Ethernet side.
Now everything uses Ethernet.
But again, so you're absolutely right.
What you're saying is that, the Windows
(21:13):
Android environment is more flexible,
and a little more proneto having bad things happen.
But, the apple side is less
flexible and stiff, and they haveless of the bad things happen.
But there's there'sthere isn't that creative
(21:34):
openness that you get with the other side.
So it kind of evens out.
You get some good things on one sideor into bad things, and it evens out.
It just dependson what's important to you.
Yeah,
I think that's a good way to sum it up.
I really do, because that kind of a thingis what you're looking at from
(21:55):
one to the other, where again, it begsthe question, is one better?
I don't think so.
No, I think the use like environmentswhat you should use.
But it's, it's they both work.They both do the job.
You know, you get on the internet,you can download apps.
I think you can still make phone calls.
So, you know, it's.
Now. But you've been in all seriousness
(22:16):
and the thing new videos is most
platforms, the two platforms you offer,most of the bigger apps, you know,
you zoom on mobile, you have discord onboth them, that kind of thing.
But there are some differencesand there are some things
that are only available on one,but not on the other.
And the other thing that I findinteresting, too, about all of this is
when you dig in a little bit deeper,
it seems like there's always a premiumwhen you deal with Apple products.
(22:37):
Not only does hardware cost more,
but even getting a programmerto write code for it.
If you're an average programmer today,what makes for $185 an hour writing code?
There's going to be a premiumon top of that.
If they're doing Apple most of the time,and it's because of having
to deal with the processof going through and and doing stuff.
(22:57):
You can't even really testa lot of these things on real hardware
without having the developersget information
and all that kind of stuff,whereas on Android
you just sideload it to the phoneand you try it.
There's virtual environments for both,and a lot of programmers will use that.
But you do get to a pointwhere you need to deal with real world
hardware in that pipelineto see what works.
So at the end of the day, that meansthat your software also costs more money.
(23:20):
So again, it looks at the perspective.
And it really has switchedbecause in the past it was always windows.
That was more for business.
And now it's becoming the other way.
Both do well.
And in windows it's hardly
out of the runningor anything like that, or even close.
It's still very muchthe majority operating system
that used, you know, out there.
(23:42):
But it is interesting to seehow these things evolve and where it goes
and what some of the real reasons are,why on things are different.
So let us know what you think.
Send us your comments.
User friendlydot show is the place to do it.
We will be back after the break.
You see here he's from the future.
He's gonna really be computer
and he uses it, uses it every day
(24:04):
and he uses it in every way.
I see it before, you know, I'mnot that sure because he used to be.
Welcome back.
This is user friendly 2.0 user friendlydot show is your one
stop and send us your questions,your comments, your ideas.
Let us know what you think.
And on the idea of review, we are goingto go to the vault game store.
(24:27):
What? And talk Borderlands four.
Welcome back to the vault.My name is James.
I'll be your host today.
And todaywe're going to talk about a new game.
Just came out a little bit ago,Borderlands four.
Borderlands four is a RPG looter shooter,which means you're running around
trying to collect the best gearyou can, taking out enemies,
(24:48):
but there's still a fair amount of storyelement to it.
It can be a really fun game to play.
Was released on September 11th, 2025.
It was released on PlayStation, Xboxand computer.
There was some issues on day of releasewith computer release.
It was crashing, stuttering.
(25:08):
It was using way more resources
than it was originally saidthat it was supposed to.
They've released several patches for it.
Not all of themhave been the most successful.
I was playing it on Xboxand had very few problems with it.
It is also a cross-play enabled game.
What that means isif one of you is playing on PC,
(25:29):
another person is playing on Xbox,another person's playing on PlayStation.
You can still all line up and play, on the same game.
One of the neat parts about it isit is for player,
starts out right nowwith four different Vault Hunters,
but you can have multiplesof the same vault Hunter and a game
(25:49):
vault hunters just kind of match upwith your individual style.
So again, that's a lot of fun.
I've only put in about 60 hourson this game between me
and some of my friends.
We're at about 50% completion.
But mind you,I tend to put a lot of time into finding
everything I can in a gameand a lot of time into leveling.
(26:12):
One thing that is kind of interesting withthis one is it does scale with levels,
so you never quite reachthat feeling of having godlike power.
Instead, what you get to is a point
where you start to learn behaviors,some tactics of the enemies.
Then you'll have jumps and weapons.
So as they get better and better,you'll also find a lot better options.
(26:33):
It is an open world game.
Unlike previous installments of theBorderlands series, there was Borderlands.
Borderlands three sequel, Borderlandstwo, Borderlands three.
Those were all pretty straightforward,
by way of storyline,where you started out, the storyline
you played through, all new levelsopened up depending on where you were
(26:55):
at in the game, and you just kind ofwent from A to B to C,
they were a lot of fun.
I played hundreds of hoursacross all of these installments.
This one, as I said before, I'm 60 hours
in, I'm halfway completedand the world is huge.
It's a big open expanse.
(27:17):
The storyline is not quite as potentin this one.
It's not quite as story driven.
The storyline is still there,it's still fun.
There's still a lot of very intriguingcharacters and, areas to play in.
It's just they opened it up intothat exploration a lot more.
Some really goodthings, some kind of bad things about it.
(27:39):
I really enjoy the factthat I'm not locked in to run down
this hallway for the 37th time.
It opens it up a lot more than that.
It's also a pretty seamless integration.
You have three main areas in the game,
and then a couple of ofthink of them as sub dungeons.
(28:01):
So as I'm playing through the game,I have this huge map
that I can run around with.
I don't have any load screens.
I don't have to worry about any of that.
Where the enemies are changes
a little bit, wherewhat enemies you're running across change.
You have drop ins from the timeKeepers forces.
Who's kind of the antagonist of the gameyou have, bandits, of course.
(28:25):
Rippers.
You have Big Buffalolooking things called the Wild Warriors.
You have a wide variety of enemiesthat you're going to be going up against,
and you can run acrossmost of them in just about any area.
It's set on Kairos, so it's a new planet.
One of the neat parts about what they didis you have those three main
(28:46):
regions, each of them has a little bitof a different feel,
so one of them is more of the dustydesert expanse.
You have another one that is, kind
of a lush jungle forest.
And then the last oneis kind of snowy mountains.
They feel differentwhen you load into one of them.
(29:09):
You can tell, oh, I'm in this areaor the other area.
It's really kind of nice.
It's, it's a refreshing take on it.
The first game,everything was pretty much desert.
The antagonist,
the Time keeper is fun.
(29:31):
A little bit lacking for me. I'm.
I yearn for the days of handsomeJack in Borderlands two.
The Time Keeper, with the storyline
being a little more open,doesn't quite have the same pop
as in some of the other ones,because he's not as integral to the story.
He's still there,the storyline is still there.
(29:54):
It's just a little less immersive.
The Time Keeper is pretty much a.
God, for lack of a better term.
He is, extremely powerfulbeing on the planet Kairos.
He was in control for a very long time.
(30:14):
And then,
a new moon broke its way
into the planet,and things started to change.
And you're a vault hunterthat wakes up on Kairos
and is trying to find the vault.
And I don't want to ruin the storyfor you, but through story play,
(30:35):
kind of learned a little bit moreabout it.
As I mentioned in the beginning,it is still a litter shooter.
For those of you who aren't familiarwith it, that means that
as you fight, enemies will drop weapons.
You pick up the weapons,
and, continue on your adventure.
(30:57):
But the weapons are huge.
In this game,there are millions of combinations.
You have various different,manufacturers of land off
are known for medium power, but super highmagazine rates and high rate of fire.
You have Molly one that domost of your status effects.
You have Jacob's.
(31:18):
Their guns are made out of freaking wood.
Was a lion out of the first one?
They are known for extremely high power,very small magazines
and and,
depending on what your gameplay is.
So it's really what kind of weaponyou're going to look at using.
Some people really like that fasterrate of fire,
(31:39):
some like some really high accuracywhere you only have to shoot at once.
It depends on who you're playing with.
Depending on what you like is goingto depend on how you balance it off.
My personal style, I use a lot of Mulliganbecause I really like elemental effects,
but I still carry that Jacob sniper riflebecause
when I need to shoot him from a distance,I only want to have to shoot him once.
(32:02):
So this one has a few less
gun manufacturers for the base guns.
But one of the things that it does, it'sa lot of fun,
is you have substitution parts.
So I may pick up a Jacob sniper rifle,
but it has a Molly one aftermarket on itthat allows me
(32:23):
to shoot it with an elemental effector torque.
As the explosive weapons,I may pick up a torque weapon
that has the Hyperion Force fieldwhen I came down the site,
so you really get to cross aroundbetween them.
One of the really neat parts, and I willadmit I have not gotten up to this yet,
(32:46):
but it was something that has been teasedabout in every installment of this game
is the factthat one of the things they wanted to do
was have modifiable guns.
So if I find that perfect weapon,
high fire rate, beautiful power stat,
whatever it may be, but it doesn't havethe magazine I'm looking for,
(33:10):
I can
find a gun that has a better magazineand put it in.
Well, this isn't quite that open,but you are supposed to be able
to take these modified hearts
and switch them between guns.
It will destroy the original gun,
but you get that pieceand you can put it onto the second one.
(33:33):
This is seeing some fruition in this game.
It's supposed to really open upbeing able to mix and match
and really build the arsenal to your,
really develop it to your gameplay style.
One of the other funparts is the enemies are fast,
(33:54):
so you run across a lot of these
that they're a little bit ploddingor they're the same every time.
So you know exactly what you're doing.
They do a lot of interesting thingswith this one,
where the enemies have special abilities,they will have different weapons,
they will haveall of these different components
that make every fight seemlike its own challenge.
(34:17):
And there's also a lot more badasses,
badasses, kind of that next tier enemies.
So it's a grunt who's just a lot better
with more healthand does more damage, or it's,
Ripper that does the same thing.
They just make the gamea little bit more interesting.
They always have special abilities,and in this case,
(34:39):
some of those get really wild to the pointwhere I have an enemy that's normally
susceptible to fire damage,and they'll have an elemental eater.
So if I shoot them with fire damage,it heals up.
So then you have to change tacticsa little bit.
Make sure that you're using the rightweapons for the right combat.
(35:00):
It really adds that element
of tactics to the game,which I feel is a lot of fun.
And again, there are just so many weapons.
You may find the same gun
eight times, and every timeit looks a little bit different
and it feels a little bit different,and the stats are a little bit different,
(35:21):
even though some of the maincore parts of the same
and they're all beautifulwhen you're looking down them.
It's not that,
oh, I found a rifle in every type of riflethat I find is that same way.
I may find 20 different shotguns,and each of them
is going to look a little bit differentand a little bit unique.
(35:41):
And that holds through with gameplay.
As I'm aiming down the sights,the scope is going to be different.
The reflex sight is a little bitdifferent, or the gun just looks
a little bit different,which is really a neat component to it.
Quick note on that.
You can also scan weapons.
What I mean by that is there'sa customization page where you can go in
(36:03):
and you can actually give your weaponspaint job.
So if you have that special sniper riflethat you want to make hot
pink in and yellow, go for it.
Make it hot pink and yellowand see what you can do for fun with it.
There's also class mods and enhancements.
So in Borderlands threeyou had artifacts and class mods.
(36:27):
Class mods have been pretty much a staplesince the beginning.
One of the really cool parts about this,as you get
for the enhancements,you get them from a manufacturer.
So you, let's say Malawian.
You get a really useful abilityfrom Halo one.
One of the ones that I got wasif I kill an enemy with elemental damage,
(36:50):
they explode and cause elemental effectson enemies around them.
That can be a game changer when you'rerunning across hordes of enemies,
and then
it will give you a coupleof additional bonuses.
It may make your pistol stronger,or it may make your life better,
or it may make, your magazine size larger.
(37:11):
All of these things,and you'll get anywhere from 1
to 3 of these special abilities.
How you utilize those can really change
the power level of your characterand make it a lot more fun.
One that I did, I play as raw for the,
he's got twincannons on his back that he uses.
(37:32):
He has an exoskeleton
and one of the really neat parts.
He has an ability that the more timesI shoot someone, the more bonus damage
I do.
So I'm looking for thatreally high rate of fire.
I'm looking for a really highmagazine capacity.
So that's what I mean. That
means that when I'm dealing out damage,
my bonus damage is going through the roofvery quickly and on a lot of enemies.
(37:56):
And I can sustain that damagewithout having to reload, which resets it.
So you have this kind of thingthat you can really look at
and really play with.
One thing that I did want to mention againis that it
is almost too big an open worldfor some of this.
You can get kind of lostrunning around in the world
trying to find that perfect gun, or tryingto find that perfect fight, or trying
(38:20):
to find all the little sidequestsand things like that.
So really is a lot of fun,really immersive.
It's the type of game that I turned on.
I'm like,oh, I've got 20 minutes to play it
before bed, and all of a suddenI'm two hours late to go to bed.
But if you're
really story driven,you kind of have to keep on track
for going throughjust what you want to look at.
(38:43):
By way of some of the details,
not super linked in the gameplay,
the soundtrack is is really quite fun,
and one of the things that I like about itis it's not.
It doesn't super jump out at you,it doesn't
overrun combat,it doesn't really captivate you.
(39:06):
But it is good for channelingthe gameplay itself.
When you get into combat,you feel your pulse go up
and then the soundtrack changesa little better.
The exploration has some really nice kindof soothing music to go along with it.
It really is an, excellentlywell done soundtrack.
(39:27):
The graphics are all pretty good.
I as I said before,I played on Xbox One Xbox.
The graphics were nice. They were smooth.
They still havethat Borderlands esthetic,
but you can tell that it's a cartoon,but the movement in it is really good.
The scenery looks lovely.
(39:47):
You can actually go swimming in this one,which is a bit of a change.
So the water dynamicsare a little bit different.
All right.
One thing that I did want to throw outthat I feel does need to be touched on
the first game was pretty ribald
and, pretty graphic.
(40:08):
And then they kind of toned it downfor the next couple of them.
I still definitely some innuendo.
Still some I mean, you'reyou're running around shooting people,
so it's not completely grab, violence free.
This one has a lot more graphic violence
and is much coarser on the language.
(40:29):
The reason I want to mention thatit doesn't bother me necessarily,
but it doeslet me know that if I'm watching it
with a small child in the room,we need to be aware of that so that we can
make that judgment on if that's somethingwe want to expose them to
instead of shooting somebodyand they fall down you in this one,
you get things like spray on the wall orlimbs get blown off and things like that.
(40:50):
So it can be a little more over the top.
And again,that language can be a little more,
coarse than,than some of the previous installments.
So all
in all, I really have enjoyed this game.
For me to be able to devote 60 hoursand only be halfway through for me,
definitelymake sure that that game has worthwhile.
(41:11):
I've been a huge fan of the,
series as well as the genresince it came out.
I remember waiting in a GameStop store
at midnight to get the first onewhen it first released,
because I was that much looking forwardto it, and
I have kept that same enthusiasmall the way through.
(41:32):
If you look on some of the rating sites,you're going to see it
rated anywhere from a low to a high eight.
For me, I'mgoing to give it nine out of ten hammers.
My way of thingsthat I've played in the last year or so.
This has been one of the best experiencesI've had.
Again, it does have a couple of slotsgoing on it.
(41:53):
It does have some things that I wishmight have been a little bit different,
but at the same time,the positives really make up for that.
Well, I
really hope that people have funplaying this game as much as I did.
If you have any questions or comments,please feel free
to drop them on our website.
The vault
(42:14):
dot show, so feel free to come on,drop your comments.
I love to read them and I will do my bestto address some here in the near future.
Well, thank you everyone for your timeand I hope to talk to you again
soon and bye.
So you've heard what James thinks.
Let us know what you think.
Do you like Borderlands?
Were you agree with this review? Disagree?
(42:34):
User friendly and let us know.
And speaking of reviews of fans,let's switch gears a little bit
and talk about Snafu.
Well, I'm going to throw this to you
if you can tell us what
Snafu is for anybody that doesn't knowand what you're feeling was on a ten, that
well, as we've
covered previous years, it's Sierra NevadaAnime Fans United convention,
(42:55):
and it's held at the Reno SparksConvention Center.
And this is, another year that happened,
over Halloween weekend
is a three day event,and it just had a lot of fun.
There.
Lots of guests.
That's like, I know the it'susually Halloween though, isn't it?
(43:15):
Yeah, it has been for a couple of years.
I remember it's been a number of yearssince I've been to it.
But, what's the case? Like you said,it was a lot of fun.
What do you think?
I really enjoyed it.
I spent a lot of time in tabletop gaming,which was one of the things
they had available, playing some Dungeonsand Dragons and the new Final four,
you know, Final Fantasy 14 tabletop RPG,which was quite a lot of fun.
(43:42):
I've never even heard of that.
That sounds amazing.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah,I hadn't either slipped under my radar.
They had called a few little,and they had some other things.
But, you know, gaming isn't the,the forefront to snafu.
It's the anime,which they have plenty of different panels
and guests, voice actors, cosplayers,and just a lot of fun.
(44:06):
Even on main stage, having various games,like they had one that was named
that Pokemon.
Let me ask you a question about this,because there's been some feedback
that we've seen here on the showand other places that this convention
was getting a little,let's say, long in the teeth.
You think that there's still looking good?
Are they fresh or is it getting stale?
(44:27):
I think they had a roughpatch last year especially.
I think they are getting better.
They're under new managementand I think they are
finding themselves to bewhere they need to be in this community.
It is a small convention,you know, it's not the smallest convention
I went to, which was at an American Legionhall, and it was about
(44:48):
ten vendors.
Wow. Oh, yeah.
It's even smaller than the Sands event.
Yeah, that's the smaller than the sands ofit really was, although I got.
Well.
So, Sands is a casino in Reno, Nevadathat held a comic con
that I think was one day, and it was likein one of the convention rooms,
although I still had fun going to.
(45:10):
I enjoyed being there, butit was definitely tiny and I was there.
But, no.
So it is.
Is snafu still like, kid or teenager friendly?
Because it seemed like the timesthat I had gone with Jeremy and I,
we kind of noticed, like,hey, we're the old people here, you know,
(45:30):
very it's an allall ages, family oriented event.
And does it still run, like nonstop
from start to finish now that they'rein the Reno Sparks Convention Center?
They run until about 1030 at night.
They used to run all 24 seven.
But I decided that, about 10 to 10
(45:51):
seems to be a good run time.
I can say from a production standpoint,that's probably better.
I thought it was kind of cool.
Although you can get up at threein the morning
and the convention was still open and onand there were people there.
But in those days it was at a casinowhich is designed for 24 hour,
you know, around the clock stuff.
And I and I can see,you know, the convention center different.
(46:11):
But I still have the drawings that,I volunteered, in my costume
to be the, the subject of drawings,because they had like, a little, area,
I guess I don't I'm not really surewhether you would call it a panel or,
a special project, but, anyways, you they,
(46:32):
they had, everybody sitting in, like,a horseshoe shape where the drivers
would do their artworkand I still have the pictures from that.
So. Yeah, that was kind of fun.
I guess they call that a workshop. Now.
Okay.
Okay. Yeah.
I guess depends on where you go.
So what is the difference, really,
(46:53):
between an anime conventionand something like a comic con?
I know there's some similarities,
but the cosplayersand so there's some big differences too.
The focus is on anime,you know, Japanese animation.
Korean animation, Chinese animation.
It's very much more focused on thatthan, say,
(47:14):
Marvel or DC or a lot of comic conventions
now have a crossoverwhere they're adding anime and manga, but
they are,
very focused herewith an anime convention.
So that's why they have a little
different things like thatare very specific to that genre.
(47:35):
Do they go to the extent of researching,like the cosplayers and stuff
to fit into that genre, or can you just goshow up in your costume,
or would that matter?
You can show upand whatever they really don't,
you know,trying to troll that by any means.
They do have requirements, you know.
No showing too excessive skinor things like that.
So just family event,
(47:57):
other
events, you know, other conventionshave different rules, but
that's one of the onesthat staff holds on family stuff
and that stuff like thattotally makes sense.
Yeah.
The reason I ask iswe had a couple of questions
coming in from onethat was held somewhere in the Midwest.
I have to look and see what the name of.
It wasn't earlier in the year,
but they were actually turning cosplayersaway at the door.
(48:17):
If you weren't dressedin what they considered to be anime, and
this was a huge, you know, push backand really didn't sit well.
And I kind of understand that.
Yeah, you know, with peoplethat are paying guests
and we're not going to let you inbecause you're not dressed.
Right. Well, I'm in my street clothes.Well that's okay.
You know.
So, I was just curiousif that was something that was common to
anime or just in this one conventionand nobody else does it, or,
(48:39):
you know, must havebeen to that one convention.
Okay.
Can you imagine showing up at a Comic-Conand a like, a Star Wars thing
and they wouldn't let you in the gatebecause you didn't meet some requirements?
I'd be annoyed.
I'd be really annoyed because, not to be arrogant,
but a lot of my costumesare pretty decent.
(49:01):
Yeah, it's like, hey,
at the end of the day, I'll tell you.
All right, well,that's it for this week. Until next week.
This is User Friendly 2.0 keepingyou safe on the cutting edge.
User Friendly, 2.0.
Copyright 2013 to 2025
by User Friendly Media Group incorporated.
All rights reserved.
(49:21):
Content is the opinionof the show's participants
and not necessarily this stationor platform.
Request for material use interviews
CcpA Privacy Noticefor California residents
GDPR information for UK
and EU residents and any other feedback
(49:44):
may be submitted at user friendlyDot show.
We welcome your input.
Thank you for listening.
Welcome to We Are Technology’sUser friendly.
2.0 with host Bill Sikkens,
technology architect.
And this is user friendly 2.0 as alwaysI am your host milliseconds.
Joining me my co-host Bill and Gretchen,welcome to This Week show love.
There
(00:31):
I got to ask the questionthat's on everybody's mind.
Probably not, but on my mind.
How is your Halloween?
And pretty well,
it was busy.
Lots of, kids, but I didn'tanswer the door because I took the cheater
method and put them all out thereand let the camera watch them.
(00:52):
Did they steal your ball? No.
I've never had someone steal the ballor the or the bag.
I've put a bag out before.
And I usually give instructions,you know.
Happy Halloween, please take one.
You know.
So the neighbor here,the reason I bring it up, the neighbor
by where I lived in that she is elderly,didn't want to answer the door.
(01:12):
Came out next morning to find the candy,the bowl and the table
that was sitting on her. Gone.
Really? She's.
They took the table.
They took the table.
And she's just like, okay, whatever.
But, okay.
Outside of that,we're now through Halloween
to start the timeto start thinking about Thanksgiving.
If you can believe it, we'regoing to be covering some stuff, including
(01:34):
kitchen gadgets, for Thanksgiving herein a couple of weeks.
And you know, from that.
And it's amazing to see all the new stuffthat's out there.
I would say about 90% ofit is kind of kitsch.
You want to avoid it, but there are somecool things we'll be getting into that.
But this week, after the news, we're goingto be taking on Android versus iPhone.
Which one is better?
And I can hear peopletyping the comments now.
(01:56):
And the man,
what Italk about a little later in the show.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's go ahead and get through our news.What do we have this week.
All right.
Coming to you now from steam malware.
So explain this to me I want that game.
You know.
(02:16):
Are you destroying the malwarewith the game.
That'd be cool.
Yeah. That would be.That would probably be okay.
You know.
But it's interesting to see thisbecause it's
kind of they're badguys are trying these things everywhere.
And they put up a game on steam.
Obviously,that's what you would do there.
And we it it's actually windows malware.
So, you know, the idea of this happening,I can't say it comes to me
(02:40):
as a shock, mainly because, I think it's more into
what I would have to sayis that just this hasn't happened before.
The scheme, the way it's set up is indie
publishers are really anyonebut any publishers mainly publish games.
You know, it's a really cool site.
And anybody that's a gamer that doesvideo games probably heard of it.
If not use it.
(03:01):
And from that standpoint,it's a good resource to have.
But it is also knownthat the duration of the software
going up therewasn't necessarily looked at that closely.
So a hacker decided to exploit thisand threw up
some software that was malware for windowsand got a number of downloads.
(03:22):
And then before it got caught,
they've added it to Windows Defenderand it's now to block it as has steam.
But there's something to think about,
you know,
and especially on windows computersbecause that's where most of the malware
is pointed.
It does exist for Apple and, you know,Android, iPhone and all that too.
But the primarily you see it on windows.
And one thing that you can do, especiallyif you're getting software from a site
(03:47):
that, is even known, like steam,or certainly one that's not so
well known, is there's a way to set upa sandbox in your windows environment
and then run it there, see if it's okay,but it's blocked from everything else,
and that kind of thingis probably a good idea.
It's an extra step,
but certainly can save you a lot of hassleof having to reload or the encryption
computer or somethingwhen, you get malware and now you can't
(04:09):
get access to your stuff,you know, you are going to get a question,
how do I find a sandbox
location on my computer from you?
Well, it could, but I bet yousome of the, listeners are going.
What?
I tell you what,
I think you're absolutely accuratein that, And I think it's a valid thing.
No. Anticipate.So let's do this next week.
(04:30):
We're going to be doing our full Q&A.
Let's make surewe have that question in the queue.
All right.
New Robert Downey Junior Doctor Doom suit
HD photos reveal two exciting details.
Yes, I think the suit is cool.
If you haven't seen a picture of this,check it out.
It's it's, somebody really did a nice jobon the costume.
(04:51):
And one of the concerns, you know,
Robert Downey Junior,of course, played Iron Man,
and he's coming back into the sameuniverse as a different character.
But from looking at thisin the way that they're doing it,
I think, I think it's going to work.
And then the other thing
is, is the, two interesting thingsthat you're talking about.
There are the logos on his suit.
One is Thor's hammer,and the other one is Captain America.
(05:13):
So it's just kind of a shout out to that,too, which is which is a cool thing.
And, you know,to see how that all ties together.
But I just I really have to say,I like the way they get to see suit.
It just looks cool.I wouldn't mind to see like that.
Just to wear to work,I've got to see it then.
Yeah?
Yeah.
All right.
NASA's supersonic jet finally takes off
(05:36):
for its first super fast,
super quiet flight.
Yeah. So it's interesting.
Some may remember the Concorde,
which was, supersonic jet that did
passenger service was taken out of usejust mainly because of maintenance costs
and that type of thing.
But, the idea of a supersonic aircraftis really nothing new.
(05:59):
But what's cool about this oneis there's no sonic boom after quiet on,
so it's able to enter the, or,bypass the sound barrier
and not have the big bang that you hear.
So just for the record, that's 767mph,give or take, when you hit that.
So, again, interesting technology.
(06:20):
You know, the one thingI have to ask about this kind of stuff
is are they planning to bring backsupersonic aviation?
It wasn't that it was unsafe.
It was just the maintenance
of these type of planes and stuffmade it not worthwhile to compete.
But it'd be kind of fun
if you could fly to, you know,to Europe in an hour or something.
A little longer thanthe app itself. Yeah. Yeah,
(06:41):
I thought that was usually, Sorry.
I thought there were other reasonswhy the, the supersonic plane went away.
Yeah.
There are,and if we had more time, we dig into it.
But the main thing was actually the cost.
Oh, okay.
I'm sorry, Bill, I that's okay.
NASA's Voyager spacecraft finds a blazing
(07:03):
wall of fireat the edge of the solar system.
Oh, I don't get why this is unusual.
It makes sense that we'd have a firewall.
We do for everything else.
I keep thinking bad guys breaches,you know?
Yeah.
No, no.
Yeah, that's the other thing that me.
Yeah, yeah.
And so this is kind of interesting.
So NASA's Voyager
(07:24):
one and two have gone out furtherthan any other human made object.
They're both out in interstellarspace now,
and they're both still operatingand beaming back information.
And this wall of fireis kind of interesting because
technically, it'stens of thousands of degrees Kelvin.
And justI thought, you know, that's very hot.
(07:45):
But thequestion that comes out of all of this
is, well, if Voyager's going through that,wouldn't it burn up the spacecraft?
And the answer is no, becauseof the amount of space that's out there.
All the molecules are excitedto that temperature.
It's not dense enough to actually damagethe spacecraft with the heat that exists.
And it's an interesting wayto look at the physics behind it.
But beyond it beginswhat they call true interstellar space.
(08:08):
It's almost there.
And,
you know,
maybewe can get a hold of the Roswell Grays
and see if they can
put a new battery on them so that they cantransmit a little bit longer.
You mean the Voyagers?
Yeah.
Yeah, that'd be great.
Yeah. Why not? All right.
Okay.
What else do we have? All right.
(08:29):
Amazon doesn't want eyesshopping on its side.
At least that's what comet says.
And comet is apparently not a dog.
Oh, it's an
AI that, is not allowedto evidently shop on Amazon site.
So company calledperplexity has created the AI comet,
and the idea of thisis that this AI is an assistant.
(08:51):
Then you can say, comet, order mewhatever off Amazon, right?
And it will go out there and do it.
Well, Amazon's having problemswith this saying that, well they don't
get the right kind of feedbackand they can't do the reviews.
The real reason in my opinion,
is that if you bypass Amazon'swhat they call user experience, you're
bypassing all of their ads, promotionsand everything else.
(09:12):
The AI doesn't care about all that.
It's just, you know, go and orderwhat you want.
So they issued a cease and desist
order to stop this from happening.
That is still pending, but
Amazon blockedcomet by a change to their software.
And now perplexity has upgradedcomet to be able to get around the block.
(09:33):
So, so what is Alexa think of all of this?
Because wasn'tshe being asked to shop for people?
Oh yeah, I still does.
But the thing of it is, is again,you're looking at an
AI that's employed byand I'll use those terms Amazon.
Wherever you want to go with that.
But the thing of it is, is thatthere is a difference there because Amazon
(09:54):
considers that they have control over onebut not the other.
And I think probably there is some truth
to not being able to look up comparablesand that kind of a thing.
But at the end of the day, it'sanother example of
this is the fire TV stick,which is Amazon's smart TV adapter.
Very good.
Product.
I like it, but they blocked outanother number of applications
(10:16):
that changed the way that it would bootup, is
they wanted their commercialsto be on the top of the screen.
In the front,
something changes the user experiencethat's not allowed on the platform.
I think this is a similar idea.
So okay.
Anyway.
All right.
So that being said, I'm goingto throw this question out here and ask
you Android or Apple, which one is better.
(10:39):
So where this topic
idea comes from is we get your questions.
And a lot of the ones that come inis that, you know, to what extent
that maybe in one way or the other,does this one
do one thing better, another better.
But the interesting thing aboutthis is something that has really existed
as long as computers have, isthere seems to be this almost religion
(11:00):
between people that like one or the other
and you saw that back with the Macintosh,windows days,
you know, and way back in the day, Atariand Commodore, all this kind of stuff
seems to have continued to existnow here in 2025,
whether you're on a macintosh or a PC,the files are interchangeable.
You know, that didn't used to be the case.
(11:21):
I mean, there was a time that you createda file on your computer,
you needed to share it with somebody,and they didn't have the same system,
or even the maybe the same make or notthe same model of the system.
They couldn't read your
your disk and there were no flash drivesor anything at that point.
So the other way was to transmit it
over a 1200 board modem,which was very painful.
So in 2025,we are in a very different situation
(11:44):
where your files, if you work in wordas for example, on the Mac, no,
but on the PC that I had no idea.
I didn't know they fix this.
It's been so long since I've been involvedwith that kind of graphics and stuff.
So yeah, it's it's I'm glad that they havebecause it was in the modern era.
That wouldn't work, I don't think. Anyway.
(12:05):
Yeah, I'm old, you know, my Photoshop
doesn't open on your Photoshopbecause I'm on Windows and you're on,
you know, Mac OS,whatever the case may be.
Yeah. But, yeah.
And, you know, just as a little asideon that, back in the 90s,
there were actually hardware devicesthat were made
that would go in your computerthat would emulate the other one, mainly
emulating winterin those days, dos on a mac,
(12:27):
so that you can read the filesin that way.
And this, this hardwarewas like 1800, 19, $90 to buy.
And, you also had that for the Amigacomputer, which was out at the time.
You know, some of these old namesI haven't thought of in a while.
And, you know, Safari and,that's where all of that comes from.
And before we circle back to the phone,just, you know, comparison here,
(12:48):
I just want to remind you, don'tcopy that floppy.
All right, back out of the retro stuffyou have Android and you have iOS.
You used to have the Windows Mobile, which has largely fallen behind the waist.
I don't even thinkthe system still exists for it out there.
So those are the two kinds of thingsyou're going to get.
And the question comes outand it is a legitimate question.
(13:10):
Is one or the other better.
And tolook at that you really need to consider
what you're dealing withand what you want.
So to explain it a little bit,
you have two very different methodsof building a computer.
And a smartphone is a computerthat does the same thing
(13:30):
sometimesmore than than your laptop and whatnot.
And at the end of the day, you have one
philosophy from Apple,which is very close source.
So you get in thereand you have less applications.
It's much harderto get your application onto the platform.
That kind of a thing.
It has to be reviewed and whatnot.
But what that does end up doingis there's less of a chance of getting
(13:54):
crappy applications or malware orthat kind of thing because it is juried.
And then the other thingthat Apple has with
that is because they're the manufacturer
of not only the software,but the hardware.
All iPhones are made by Apple.
You have an environmentwhere you know it is going to work.
Now everything is veryI don't want to say basic,
but kind of corporate, almost gray color,that kind of a thing.
(14:15):
You can customize.
But out of the box,that's what you're looking at.
So if you want somethingthat you're going to just grab
and don't mind spending a lot of moneyfor it, and it just works,
that might be the type of thing.
Now, the other side ofthis is Android, which I wouldn't say
is 180 degrees different because they dojury applications and stuff, but
it's much easier to get on the Play Storeand that type of thing if, in fact,
(14:40):
the philosophy is if they find itobjectionable later, they'll take it off.
But as long as your app meetsthe requirements and gets through there,
I probably will get on the market.
The other thing of itis, is on the Android side of it, there's
many, many, many different manufacturersthat can build the phones.
And the history of it's different too,because in 2007, when the iPhone came out,
(15:04):
iOS was built specificallyfor that purpose to run the phone.
Android was originally an operating systemfor digital cameras.
It wasn't created by Google either.
It was bought by and later on
and then used for the operating systemor the Android phones that we have now.
So it didn't start out as a phoneoperating system.
And the other side of it is since Googledoesn't have control of the hardware
(15:28):
ecosystem, it's kind of like windows forall the different versions of the pieces
that are out there.
You have to have somethingthat's going to work universally,
universally,or as close to it as you can get.
And there are inconsistencies,mainly because the updates
are usually done by the manufacturer.
So if you get a Samsung phone, you'regoing to have a different update roll out.
And if you have a pixel or something else.
(15:50):
So at the end of the day, you have that.
However, since there's more competition,the prices of phones are lower.
You can get a good quality product for notas much as you would pay for an iPhone,
and you have a lot more accessto being able to look at different things
in different places.
And at the point of this recording,there's some talk about them
wanting to change it.
I don't know if they will be inside,load out,
(16:11):
back and back in my day,that was called installing software.
You know, where it does doesn'tnecessarily come out of
come out of the market.
So trying to make a decision on which oneis better, I don't think one is better.
I think it's more purpose drivenand what you need it to be
and what you want and what you can affordand that type of thing.
(16:33):
Now, I think all of us are Android,I know I am a Bill Rection
you guys use Android or iPhone or Android?
Android? Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
I think it's because, for me,Android was, well,
because I worked with Apple and not Apple,but, windows applications or softwares
(16:54):
when I was doing geological draftingand AutoCAD and all that stuff.
Did windows.
It wasn't, on Apple products.
Applewas like some of the more artistic stuff,
and it was almost likethey had two different professions
or, mind thinking to go with.
(17:17):
And and then as time has goneon, both both sides have broadened.
And I think that's beenbetter. What do you think?
I would agree with you 100% on that.
And having, you know, the alternativeone drives the other.
So one gets innovation.
You see it on the other sidethat very much
there's a part of that kind of thing.
(17:38):
If you just had one product out there,it would not be in all likelihood
is advances. We see our phones are today.
I'm going to throw this other questionat you, Bill,
because this is a questionthat comes in from a lot of our listeners.
If you were given
an opportunity to have comparable phonesto like, say, a Samsung Galaxy versus
an iPhone, whatever the newestversion of it is, and they were free.
(17:58):
Would you choose Apple at that pointbased on the price,
or would you stick with Android?
I personally would
stick with Android,because I'm a customizer
and I've had an iPhone before,
for work thing, and I've had an iPad.
They're not as customizableis, say, an Android phone,
(18:21):
and I'm a heavy customizer to,
you know, what I wantand how I want it to work.
And different ways like that.
Some of the things that you seeon Android,
like if you want your phoneto look differently,
you can download a themeand it'll change it.
That kind of stuff is stillI think, what you're talking about,
where you can really customizeif you want, you can sit down,
(18:41):
make your own icons, make your own layout,all that kind of stuff.
And that is, definitely a big thingwhere you'll see
that many programmers,many people that create technology,
agree 100% with what you just saidon making that choice.
And the funny thing about itis, is because from a business standpoint,
(19:04):
Apple is probably a better ideabecause your business,
like your department, has oneset of hardware they're maintaining,
you know, support foron that kind of a thing, which on Apple,
credit is generally
a lot easierto get to then Android support
if you need it to do that,you can go online,
get a lot of answers to thingsand that type of stuff.
But at the end of the day,things like AppleCare and a phone number
(19:27):
you can call might exist through a vendorlike Samsung or something.
But as far as the operating system itselfgoes,
there isn't exactly that kind of ecosystemfor help, you know?
So your businesses are going to look at,hey, this is much easier to support.
Well, not only that,
but it is because it is a closed systemand it is less customizable.
You know, you're going to be dealing with
(19:48):
pretty much one systemand one setup and one
your employees are not going to be able tomess with it too much.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, yeah,it depends on the employee, I suppose.
But yeah, it's, definitely.
You know, that would be the caseand I know it
from even the windows side of things.
Back before I really started codingfor many years, I did hardware support,
(20:11):
and I had a, couple of clients that were,you know, bigger, like fortune
500 stuff like Wells Fargo Bankwas one of them, more or less at the time.
And, and stuff.
And what you would see is an environmentin these places where, yeah,
it was on windows, but they made surethat all of the hardware was the same.
I mean, as much as possible.
So it's like that same idea.
(20:31):
They're only having to support one thing.
And at the time,from a business standpoint, for a computer
operating system,
you had Active Directory or Windows Serveror you had Novell NetWare.
If you want to go back a little bit more
and all of that and then on the Appleside, you had Apple talk,
but they didn't really get the networkingthing done for a number of years
(20:53):
after they did on the PC, to an extentthat it was, you know, stable and usable
and something that you would seein a business environment.
Apple Park Works.
It just didn't have the adoptionthat you saw on the Ethernet side.
Now everything uses Ethernet.
But again, so you're absolutely right.
What you're saying is that, the Windows
(21:13):
Android environment is more flexible,
and a little more proneto having bad things happen.
But, the apple side is less
flexible and stiff, and they haveless of the bad things happen.
But there's there'sthere isn't that creative
(21:34):
openness that you get with the other side.
So it kind of evens out.
You get some good things on one sideor into bad things, and it evens out.
It just dependson what's important to you.
Yeah,
I think that's a good way to sum it up.
I really do, because that kind of a thingis what you're looking at from
(21:55):
one to the other, where again, it begsthe question, is one better?
I don't think so.
No, I think the use like environmentswhat you should use.
But it's, it's they both work.They both do the job.
You know, you get on the internet,you can download apps.
I think you can still make phone calls.
So, you know, it's.
Now. But you've been in all seriousness
(22:16):
and the thing new videos is most
platforms, the two platforms you offer,most of the bigger apps, you know,
you zoom on mobile, you have discord onboth them, that kind of thing.
But there are some differencesand there are some things
that are only available on one,but not on the other.
And the other thing that I findinteresting, too, about all of this is
when you dig in a little bit deeper,
it seems like there's always a premiumwhen you deal with Apple products.
(22:37):
Not only does hardware cost more,
but even getting a programmerto write code for it.
If you're an average programmer today,what makes for $185 an hour writing code?
There's going to be a premiumon top of that.
If they're doing Apple most of the time,and it's because of having
to deal with the processof going through and and doing stuff.
(22:57):
You can't even really testa lot of these things on real hardware
without having the developersget information
and all that kind of stuff,whereas on Android
you just sideload it to the phoneand you try it.
There's virtual environments for both,and a lot of programmers will use that.
But you do get to a pointwhere you need to deal with real world
hardware in that pipelineto see what works.
So at the end of the day, that meansthat your software also costs more money.
(23:20):
So again, it looks at the perspective.
And it really has switchedbecause in the past it was always windows.
That was more for business.
And now it's becoming the other way.
Both do well.
And in windows it's hardly
out of the runningor anything like that, or even close.
It's still very muchthe majority operating system
that used, you know, out there.
(23:42):
But it is interesting to seehow these things evolve and where it goes
and what some of the real reasons are,why on things are different.
So let us know what you think.
Send us your comments.
User friendlydot show is the place to do it.
We will be back after the break.
You see here he's from the future.
He's gonna really be computer
and he uses it, uses it every day
(24:04):
and he uses it in every way.
I see it before, you know, I'mnot that sure because he used to be.
Welcome back.
This is user friendly 2.0 user friendlydot show is your one
stop and send us your questions,your comments, your ideas.
Let us know what you think.
And on the idea of review, we are goingto go to the vault game store.
(24:27):
What? And talk Borderlands four.
Welcome back to the vault.My name is James.
I'll be your host today.
And todaywe're going to talk about a new game.
Just came out a little bit ago,Borderlands four.
Borderlands four is a RPG looter shooter,which means you're running around
trying to collect the best gearyou can, taking out enemies,
(24:48):
but there's still a fair amount of storyelement to it.
It can be a really fun game to play.
Was released on September 11th, 2025.
It was released on PlayStation, Xboxand computer.
There was some issues on day of releasewith computer release.
It was crashing, stuttering.
(25:08):
It was using way more resources
than it was originally saidthat it was supposed to.
They've released several patches for it.
Not all of themhave been the most successful.
I was playing it on Xboxand had very few problems with it.
It is also a cross-play enabled game.
What that means isif one of you is playing on PC,
(25:29):
another person is playing on Xbox,another person's playing on PlayStation.
You can still all line up and play, on the same game.
One of the neat parts about it isit is for player,
starts out right nowwith four different Vault Hunters,
but you can have multiplesof the same vault Hunter and a game
(25:49):
vault hunters just kind of match upwith your individual style.
So again, that's a lot of fun.
I've only put in about 60 hourson this game between me
and some of my friends.
We're at about 50% completion.
But mind you,I tend to put a lot of time into finding
everything I can in a gameand a lot of time into leveling.
(26:12):
One thing that is kind of interesting withthis one is it does scale with levels,
so you never quite reachthat feeling of having godlike power.
Instead, what you get to is a point
where you start to learn behaviors,some tactics of the enemies.
Then you'll have jumps and weapons.
So as they get better and better,you'll also find a lot better options.
(26:33):
It is an open world game.
Unlike previous installments of theBorderlands series, there was Borderlands.
Borderlands three sequel, Borderlandstwo, Borderlands three.
Those were all pretty straightforward,
by way of storyline,where you started out, the storyline
you played through, all new levelsopened up depending on where you were
(26:55):
at in the game, and you just kind ofwent from A to B to C,
they were a lot of fun.
I played hundreds of hoursacross all of these installments.
This one, as I said before, I'm 60 hours
in, I'm halfway completedand the world is huge.
It's a big open expanse.
(27:17):
The storyline is not quite as potentin this one.
It's not quite as story driven.
The storyline is still there,it's still fun.
There's still a lot of very intriguingcharacters and, areas to play in.
It's just they opened it up intothat exploration a lot more.
Some really goodthings, some kind of bad things about it.
(27:39):
I really enjoy the factthat I'm not locked in to run down
this hallway for the 37th time.
It opens it up a lot more than that.
It's also a pretty seamless integration.
You have three main areas in the game,
and then a couple of ofthink of them as sub dungeons.
(28:01):
So as I'm playing through the game,I have this huge map
that I can run around with.
I don't have any load screens.
I don't have to worry about any of that.
Where the enemies are changes
a little bit, wherewhat enemies you're running across change.
You have drop ins from the timeKeepers forces.
Who's kind of the antagonist of the gameyou have, bandits, of course.
(28:25):
Rippers.
You have Big Buffalolooking things called the Wild Warriors.
You have a wide variety of enemiesthat you're going to be going up against,
and you can run acrossmost of them in just about any area.
It's set on Kairos, so it's a new planet.
One of the neat parts about what they didis you have those three main
(28:46):
regions, each of them has a little bitof a different feel,
so one of them is more of the dustydesert expanse.
You have another one that is, kind
of a lush jungle forest.
And then the last oneis kind of snowy mountains.
They feel differentwhen you load into one of them.
(29:09):
You can tell, oh, I'm in this areaor the other area.
It's really kind of nice.
It's, it's a refreshing take on it.
The first game,everything was pretty much desert.
The antagonist,
the Time keeper is fun.
(29:31):
A little bit lacking for me. I'm.
I yearn for the days of handsomeJack in Borderlands two.
The Time Keeper, with the storyline
being a little more open,doesn't quite have the same pop
as in some of the other ones,because he's not as integral to the story.
He's still there,the storyline is still there.
(29:54):
It's just a little less immersive.
The Time Keeper is pretty much a.
God, for lack of a better term.
He is, extremely powerfulbeing on the planet Kairos.
He was in control for a very long time.
(30:14):
And then,
a new moon broke its way
into the planet,and things started to change.
And you're a vault hunterthat wakes up on Kairos
and is trying to find the vault.
And I don't want to ruin the storyfor you, but through story play,
(30:35):
kind of learned a little bit moreabout it.
As I mentioned in the beginning,it is still a litter shooter.
For those of you who aren't familiarwith it, that means that
as you fight, enemies will drop weapons.
You pick up the weapons,
and, continue on your adventure.
(30:57):
But the weapons are huge.
In this game,there are millions of combinations.
You have various different,manufacturers of land off
are known for medium power, but super highmagazine rates and high rate of fire.
You have Molly one that domost of your status effects.
You have Jacob's.
(31:18):
Their guns are made out of freaking wood.
Was a lion out of the first one?
They are known for extremely high power,very small magazines
and and,
depending on what your gameplay is.
So it's really what kind of weaponyou're going to look at using.
Some people really like that fasterrate of fire,
(31:39):
some like some really high accuracywhere you only have to shoot at once.
It depends on who you're playing with.
Depending on what you like is goingto depend on how you balance it off.
My personal style, I use a lot of Mulliganbecause I really like elemental effects,
but I still carry that Jacob sniper riflebecause
when I need to shoot him from a distance,I only want to have to shoot him once.
(32:02):
So this one has a few less
gun manufacturers for the base guns.
But one of the things that it does, it'sa lot of fun,
is you have substitution parts.
So I may pick up a Jacob sniper rifle,
but it has a Molly one aftermarket on itthat allows me
(32:23):
to shoot it with an elemental effector torque.
As the explosive weapons,I may pick up a torque weapon
that has the Hyperion Force fieldwhen I came down the site,
so you really get to cross aroundbetween them.
One of the really neat parts, and I willadmit I have not gotten up to this yet,
(32:46):
but it was something that has been teasedabout in every installment of this game
is the factthat one of the things they wanted to do
was have modifiable guns.
So if I find that perfect weapon,
high fire rate, beautiful power stat,
whatever it may be, but it doesn't havethe magazine I'm looking for,
(33:10):
I can
find a gun that has a better magazineand put it in.
Well, this isn't quite that open,but you are supposed to be able
to take these modified hearts
and switch them between guns.
It will destroy the original gun,
but you get that pieceand you can put it onto the second one.
(33:33):
This is seeing some fruition in this game.
It's supposed to really open upbeing able to mix and match
and really build the arsenal to your,
really develop it to your gameplay style.
One of the other funparts is the enemies are fast,
(33:54):
so you run across a lot of these
that they're a little bit ploddingor they're the same every time.
So you know exactly what you're doing.
They do a lot of interesting thingswith this one,
where the enemies have special abilities,they will have different weapons,
they will haveall of these different components
that make every fight seemlike its own challenge.
(34:17):
And there's also a lot more badasses,
badasses, kind of that next tier enemies.
So it's a grunt who's just a lot better
with more healthand does more damage, or it's,
Ripper that does the same thing.
They just make the gamea little bit more interesting.
They always have special abilities,and in this case,
(34:39):
some of those get really wild to the pointwhere I have an enemy that's normally
susceptible to fire damage,and they'll have an elemental eater.
So if I shoot them with fire damage,it heals up.
So then you have to change tacticsa little bit.
Make sure that you're using the rightweapons for the right combat.
(35:00):
It really adds that element
of tactics to the game,which I feel is a lot of fun.
And again, there are just so many weapons.
You may find the same gun
eight times, and every timeit looks a little bit different
and it feels a little bit different,and the stats are a little bit different,
(35:21):
even though some of the maincore parts of the same
and they're all beautifulwhen you're looking down them.
It's not that,
oh, I found a rifle in every type of riflethat I find is that same way.
I may find 20 different shotguns,and each of them
is going to look a little bit differentand a little bit unique.
(35:41):
And that holds through with gameplay.
As I'm aiming down the sights,the scope is going to be different.
The reflex sight is a little bitdifferent, or the gun just looks
a little bit different,which is really a neat component to it.
Quick note on that.
You can also scan weapons.
What I mean by that is there'sa customization page where you can go in
(36:03):
and you can actually give your weaponspaint job.
So if you have that special sniper riflethat you want to make hot
pink in and yellow, go for it.
Make it hot pink and yellowand see what you can do for fun with it.
There's also class mods and enhancements.
So in Borderlands threeyou had artifacts and class mods.
(36:27):
Class mods have been pretty much a staplesince the beginning.
One of the really cool parts about this,as you get
for the enhancements,you get them from a manufacturer.
So you, let's say Malawian.
You get a really useful abilityfrom Halo one.
One of the ones that I got wasif I kill an enemy with elemental damage,
(36:50):
they explode and cause elemental effectson enemies around them.
That can be a game changer when you'rerunning across hordes of enemies,
and then
it will give you a coupleof additional bonuses.
It may make your pistol stronger,or it may make your life better,
or it may make, your magazine size larger.
(37:11):
All of these things,and you'll get anywhere from 1
to 3 of these special abilities.
How you utilize those can really change
the power level of your characterand make it a lot more fun.
One that I did, I play as raw for the,
he's got twincannons on his back that he uses.
(37:32):
He has an exoskeleton
and one of the really neat parts.
He has an ability that the more timesI shoot someone, the more bonus damage
I do.
So I'm looking for thatreally high rate of fire.
I'm looking for a really highmagazine capacity.
So that's what I mean. That
means that when I'm dealing out damage,
my bonus damage is going through the roofvery quickly and on a lot of enemies.
(37:56):
And I can sustain that damagewithout having to reload, which resets it.
So you have this kind of thingthat you can really look at
and really play with.
One thing that I did want to mention againis that it
is almost too big an open worldfor some of this.
You can get kind of lostrunning around in the world
trying to find that perfect gun, or tryingto find that perfect fight, or trying
(38:20):
to find all the little sidequestsand things like that.
So really is a lot of fun,really immersive.
It's the type of game that I turned on.
I'm like,oh, I've got 20 minutes to play it
before bed, and all of a suddenI'm two hours late to go to bed.
But if you're
really story driven,you kind of have to keep on track
for going throughjust what you want to look at.
(38:43):
By way of some of the details,
not super linked in the gameplay,
the soundtrack is is really quite fun,
and one of the things that I like about itis it's not.
It doesn't super jump out at you,it doesn't
overrun combat,it doesn't really captivate you.
(39:06):
But it is good for channelingthe gameplay itself.
When you get into combat,you feel your pulse go up
and then the soundtrack changesa little better.
The exploration has some really nice kindof soothing music to go along with it.
It really is an, excellentlywell done soundtrack.
(39:27):
The graphics are all pretty good.
I as I said before,I played on Xbox One Xbox.
The graphics were nice. They were smooth.
They still havethat Borderlands esthetic,
but you can tell that it's a cartoon,but the movement in it is really good.
The scenery looks lovely.
(39:47):
You can actually go swimming in this one,which is a bit of a change.
So the water dynamicsare a little bit different.
All right.
One thing that I did want to throw outthat I feel does need to be touched on
the first game was pretty ribald
and, pretty graphic.
(40:08):
And then they kind of toned it downfor the next couple of them.
I still definitely some innuendo.
Still some I mean, you'reyou're running around shooting people,
so it's not completely grab, violence free.
This one has a lot more graphic violence
and is much coarser on the language.
(40:29):
The reason I want to mention thatit doesn't bother me necessarily,
but it doeslet me know that if I'm watching it
with a small child in the room,we need to be aware of that so that we can
make that judgment on if that's somethingwe want to expose them to
instead of shooting somebodyand they fall down you in this one,
you get things like spray on the wall orlimbs get blown off and things like that.
(40:50):
So it can be a little more over the top.
And again,that language can be a little more,
coarse than,than some of the previous installments.
So all
in all, I really have enjoyed this game.
For me to be able to devote 60 hoursand only be halfway through for me,
definitelymake sure that that game has worthwhile.
(41:11):
I've been a huge fan of the,
series as well as the genresince it came out.
I remember waiting in a GameStop store
at midnight to get the first onewhen it first released,
because I was that much looking forwardto it, and
I have kept that same enthusiasmall the way through.
(41:32):
If you look on some of the rating sites,you're going to see it
rated anywhere from a low to a high eight.
For me, I'mgoing to give it nine out of ten hammers.
My way of thingsthat I've played in the last year or so.
This has been one of the best experiencesI've had.
Again, it does have a couple of slotsgoing on it.
(41:53):
It does have some things that I wishmight have been a little bit different,
but at the same time,the positives really make up for that.
Well, I
really hope that people have funplaying this game as much as I did.
If you have any questions or comments,please feel free
to drop them on our website.
The vault
(42:14):
dot show, so feel free to come on,drop your comments.
I love to read them and I will do my bestto address some here in the near future.
Well, thank you everyone for your timeand I hope to talk to you again
soon and bye.
So you've heard what James thinks.
Let us know what you think.
Do you like Borderlands?
Were you agree with this review? Disagree?
(42:34):
User friendly and let us know.
And speaking of reviews of fans,let's switch gears a little bit
and talk about Snafu.
Well, I'm going to throw this to you
if you can tell us what
Snafu is for anybody that doesn't knowand what you're feeling was on a ten, that
well, as we've
covered previous years, it's Sierra NevadaAnime Fans United convention,
(42:55):
and it's held at the Reno SparksConvention Center.
And this is, another year that happened,
over Halloween weekend
is a three day event,and it just had a lot of fun.
There.
Lots of guests.
That's like, I know the it'susually Halloween though, isn't it?
(43:15):
Yeah, it has been for a couple of years.
I remember it's been a number of yearssince I've been to it.
But, what's the case? Like you said,it was a lot of fun.
What do you think?
I really enjoyed it.
I spent a lot of time in tabletop gaming,which was one of the things
they had available, playing some Dungeonsand Dragons and the new Final four,
you know, Final Fantasy 14 tabletop RPG,which was quite a lot of fun.
(43:42):
I've never even heard of that.
That sounds amazing.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah,I hadn't either slipped under my radar.
They had called a few little,and they had some other things.
But, you know, gaming isn't the,the forefront to snafu.
It's the anime,which they have plenty of different panels
and guests, voice actors, cosplayers,and just a lot of fun.
(44:06):
Even on main stage, having various games,like they had one that was named
that Pokemon.
Let me ask you a question about this,because there's been some feedback
that we've seen here on the showand other places that this convention
was getting a little,let's say, long in the teeth.
You think that there's still looking good?
Are they fresh or is it getting stale?
(44:27):
I think they had a roughpatch last year especially.
I think they are getting better.
They're under new managementand I think they are
finding themselves to bewhere they need to be in this community.
It is a small convention,you know, it's not the smallest convention
I went to, which was at an American Legionhall, and it was about
(44:48):
ten vendors.
Wow. Oh, yeah.
It's even smaller than the Sands event.
Yeah, that's the smaller than the sands ofit really was, although I got.
Well.
So, Sands is a casino in Reno, Nevadathat held a comic con
that I think was one day, and it was likein one of the convention rooms,
although I still had fun going to.
(45:10):
I enjoyed being there, butit was definitely tiny and I was there.
But, no.
So it is.
Is snafu still like, kid or teenager friendly?
Because it seemed like the timesthat I had gone with Jeremy and I,
we kind of noticed, like,hey, we're the old people here, you know,
(45:30):
very it's an allall ages, family oriented event.
And does it still run, like nonstop
from start to finish now that they'rein the Reno Sparks Convention Center?
They run until about 1030 at night.
They used to run all 24 seven.
But I decided that, about 10 to 10
(45:51):
seems to be a good run time.
I can say from a production standpoint,that's probably better.
I thought it was kind of cool.
Although you can get up at threein the morning
and the convention was still open and onand there were people there.
But in those days it was at a casinowhich is designed for 24 hour,
you know, around the clock stuff.
And I and I can see,you know, the convention center different.
(46:11):
But I still have the drawings that,I volunteered, in my costume
to be the, the subject of drawings,because they had like, a little, area,
I guess I don't I'm not really surewhether you would call it a panel or,
a special project, but, anyways, you they,
(46:32):
they had, everybody sitting in, like,a horseshoe shape where the drivers
would do their artworkand I still have the pictures from that.
So. Yeah, that was kind of fun.
I guess they call that a workshop. Now.
Okay.
Okay. Yeah.
I guess depends on where you go.
So what is the difference, really,
(46:53):
between an anime conventionand something like a comic con?
I know there's some similarities,
but the cosplayersand so there's some big differences too.
The focus is on anime,you know, Japanese animation.
Korean animation, Chinese animation.
It's very much more focused on thatthan, say,
(47:14):
Marvel or DC or a lot of comic conventions
now have a crossoverwhere they're adding anime and manga, but
they are,
very focused herewith an anime convention.
So that's why they have a little
different things like thatare very specific to that genre.
(47:35):
Do they go to the extent of researching,like the cosplayers and stuff
to fit into that genre, or can you just goshow up in your costume,
or would that matter?
You can show upand whatever they really don't,
you know,trying to troll that by any means.
They do have requirements, you know.
No showing too excessive skinor things like that.
So just family event,
(47:57):
other
events, you know, other conventionshave different rules, but
that's one of the onesthat staff holds on family stuff
and that stuff like thattotally makes sense.
Yeah.
The reason I ask iswe had a couple of questions
coming in from onethat was held somewhere in the Midwest.
I have to look and see what the name of.
It wasn't earlier in the year,
but they were actually turning cosplayersaway at the door.
(48:17):
If you weren't dressedin what they considered to be anime, and
this was a huge, you know, push backand really didn't sit well.
And I kind of understand that.
Yeah, you know, with peoplethat are paying guests
and we're not going to let you inbecause you're not dressed.
Right. Well, I'm in my street clothes.Well that's okay.
You know.
So, I was just curiousif that was something that was common to
anime or just in this one conventionand nobody else does it, or,
(48:39):
you know, must havebeen to that one convention.
Okay.
Can you imagine showing up at a Comic-Conand a like, a Star Wars thing
and they wouldn't let you in the gatebecause you didn't meet some requirements?
I'd be annoyed.
I'd be really annoyed because, not to be arrogant,
but a lot of my costumesare pretty decent.
(49:01):
Yeah, it's like, hey,
at the end of the day, I'll tell you.
All right, well,that's it for this week. Until next week.
This is User Friendly 2.0 keepingyou safe on the cutting edge.
User Friendly, 2.0.
Copyright 2013 to 2025
by User Friendly Media Group incorporated.
All rights reserved.
(49:21):
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and not necessarily this stationor platform.
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(49:44):
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