Your Questions, Our Answers

This week an intensive Question and Answer session.

Hosts: William Sikkens, Bill Snodgrass, and Gretchen Winkler

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Welcome to We Are Technology’sUser Friendly.
2.0 with host Bill Sikkens,
technology architect.
And this is User Friendly 2.0.
I am your host Bill Sikkens.
Joining me Bill and Gretchen,welcome to this week's show.
Oh hello there.

(00:31):
So believe it or not,we are already to this time of year.
And that time of yearis the annual season of giving.
And this year, user friendly isthe charity that we're going to support,
and we are privileged to be ableto support William Temple House.
They're doing a program for this fall
to make some moneyfor covering what they offer.

(00:51):
And basically what this is,is an organization that has been around
for 60 years there in downtown Portland,which is our home city,
and it's the only place in Portlandwhere someone can get low cost counseling,
whether or not they have insurance, shopfor free groceries,
and get connected to other resources.
And with the food insecurity stuffthat's going on right now,
these kind of thingsare extremely important.

(01:11):
So we will be interviewingsome of the people from this
great charity next weekand some more details on it.
And for more information, check outour website at User Friendly Dot.
Show.
All right,
before we get into the news, I also justwanted to touch one other thing here.
We've got a slight scheduling change.
In the topics.
This week was going to be our giftepisode.

(01:32):
We're going to be moving that uptwo weeks.
So if you heard it in the TS, duringthe week, you weren't hallucinating.
There's sometimes things get swappedaround.
So, we're going to be doing our Q&Athis week,
and then we'll be doing that in two.
So all right, that being said,what do we have in the news?
All right.
Peloton issues recall for 833

(01:54):
bikes over faulty seatpost.
Well you know
peloton is not having their best yearlately these last few years.
And it was only 833.
It wouldn't be a big deal,but it is actually 833,000.
Yeah. Of their bike.
Did I say it wrong?
Eight you said 833I wish I was that small of them.

(02:14):
Number.
Oh man.
But what we've got going onhere is a situation
that could be fairly unpleasant.
And what they're having is the seatpostare breaking in, detaching during use.
So while you're riding your bike,your seat breaks and you fall off.
There have been reportsof these breakages to reports
of injuries, resulting from the falls.

(02:35):
These were the bikes sold.
All the bikelost between January 2020 and April 2025
and were manufacturedin Taiwan from 2019 to 2022.
So take a look at what you haveand check with peloton
to make surethat you don't have a recalled model.
And if you do, you've let them knowand they're sending out
a free redesigned seatpost replacementsthat owners can install themselves.

(02:58):
So it is fixable.
But you do want to check this out so thatyou don't have a bad day or something.
Didn't Senator Reed, fall off
a bike like this and hurt himselfsome years ago?
You know something?
I, Senator Reed, was the, state senatorfor Nevada.
For anybody that doesn't knowand was in for a long time, you know,

(03:19):
and I believethere was something like that.
I vaguely remember that. So, yeah.You do want to be careful.
Usually this stuff is pretty rock solid.
And, you know, this is an exception,
not the rule on these things,but it's still it can happen.
So, you know, so in this casedefinitely if you have one of these bikes
you get the parts.
So you just don't want to play with that.
Always impressed by how
some parts that have been around forhundreds of years can be screwed up.

(03:43):
Yeah okay.
Experts issue warning of harmful sideeffects of windows shut down.
Here's what's happening.
Speaking of which.
Yeah.
So this is somethingthat's really starting to ramp up.
And it's an interesting topic you've seenand a lot of questions about this, and
we wanted to hear on some of the numbershere.
So in October Windows 10

(04:04):
was phased out Microsoft startedit was obsolete neighbor of Windows 11.
And we've been talkingabout how you'll lose support
unless you, you know, stand on your headand do a dance around
a fire to get it for another year.
Or in the alternative, just pay 30 bucks.
But what's happening hereis they're starting
to realize the amount of e-wastethat this is creating.

(04:26):
So what's happened is there's a lot ofcomputers, laptops, desktops, and so on
out there that are perfectly capableof running Windows 11.
From a speed and memory standpoint.
But the new operating systemhas specific requirements
for the componentsthat are in the computer.
For technical term, that's TPM 2.0.
What that's about is ithelps with securing the computer

(04:49):
and some other things like that,which is a laughable goal.
But at the end of the day,this change has created a situation
where a lot of equipment'sgoing to go in the landfill prematurely.
And, here are some of the numbers.
There's a significant amountof salvageable metal and this stuff $2.1
billion, 1.6 billion pounds worth of gold,
almost 100 million worth of copper,33 million of silver.

(05:13):
So you're looking at 1.8billion pounds or $2.4
billion in stuffthat's just going to be thrown out.
All that is neededis a way to extract the metal
through recycling,which does not exist in a lot of places.
This is an incredible amount of e-waste,
and it's creating a situationwhere people are quite upset
looking at this and figuring out, well,how can we go longer?

(05:33):
Well,you can extend your security updates.
That type of thing is an option,but you do have to pay an annual fee
for that, which starts,I think it's 30 bucks or something
this year that increases exponentially,but you can get it up for up to ten years.
You can tell them you're a businessand get the business version,
which includes the updatesfor the next ten years.

(05:54):
A little
side thing there, although it will costmoney initially to do that.
Or you can use another operating systemlike Linux or something of that nature.
So there are some things that you can dowith the older machines.
But for most peoplethat just want to turn their laptop on
and have it boot upand they do what they need to do without,
you know, having to worry about thesethings, it is creating a problem here.

(06:16):
Now, there are some ways to be ableto deal with this e-waste.
If you have that in your area forrecycling these things is a good option.
The other side of it is what I'm doingis use them for something else.
Windows 10 doesn't stop working,it just stops getting updates.
So there's still a lot of stuff thatyou can do with a computer at that point.
And one of the thingsthat I've been hearing from a lot of you

(06:37):
is giving it to your young kidto learn how to work the computer,
take it offline,you know, so you don't have that issue.
But it is something whereif they damage it, well,
it was going to be thrown out anyway. So
that's just an option of getting creative,you know, and that kind of thing.
But I do think it's important,this being something that kind of has
call this out, that when things changeand technology does change very quickly,

(07:02):
but when you do something like thisyou can actually create
a huge negative environmental impact.
And that seemsto be what's happening here.
All right.
Farewell to the International SpaceStation.
NASA confirmsthat it will fall into the sea
and that they still don't knowwho will be its replacement

(07:23):
or what will be its replacement,or maybe who is doing the replacing.
Yeah, yeah,I think all of the above there.
Well, this is a huge amount of e-wasteon our previous topic.
Oh yeah.
So yeah, they're orbiting in 2013so that it's coming right up.
It's 2025 now. So five years now.

(07:43):
A lot can change in five years.So don't know what's going on.
But right now, todaythat's the decision that's been made.
And it's like saying don't throw your oldshoes away before you get a new pair.
You know, you can still use them,but right now there are no plans,
no budget or anything like thatto replace the space station.
So you know, we'll see what actuallyhappens and where this actually goes.

(08:05):
Right now.
That is the plan is by by space station.
Stem is becoming
as important as knowing how to read.
Yeah. And I have to agree with that.
That headline,this is something that has been important
to us, your user-friendly and with mywe are a technology company
that we've supported openly over the yearsand do things

(08:26):
like working with, local schoolsand that type of thing.
Science, technology, engineering and mathis what that acronym stands for Stem.
And in today's world,we are in a situation where
if you don't know how to use technology,you're just not going to get very far.
And this isn't,
you know, ten,
15 years ago or so,can you be a computer programmer

(08:47):
working in a data centeror something like that?
You need to understand that.
But for other things you might not.
It's pretty much not 100%.
Pretty much every occupationnow depends on technology for something,
and even if it isn't the primary thingyou still need to use a computer.
You still need to know the basics of it.
You still probablywill need to troubleshoot it.

(09:08):
Now that's one part of it.
The other part of it is some numbersthat I thought were very interesting.
So 24% of the US labor force, that's 36.8
million workers, worksin some kind of a Stem occupation.
And that number is projectedto grow by 8.1% by 2034.
So this is, this is,you know, a big deal from that standpoint.

(09:32):
The other one that's interesting hereis if you look at the average wage,
so the average wage,when this survey was done,
which was last year,so 2024 numbers was 49,500.
The average wage for Stemoccupations is 103,580.
And I can tell you it does go much higherin certain situations.
So this is somethingthat's definitely worth looking into,

(09:53):
but also somethingthat really needs to be offered
at, I think, the elementary school level.
So there's a lot of ocular thingsgoing on in occupations
that we're just talking about.
But, different organizationsthat hire in these ways,
they're just starting to get togetherand put forth only two ads in education
where it doesn't exist right now

(10:13):
and improve upon itwhere it needs to be improved upon.
There's something going forwardthat's going to be important always.
If you are unable to read,
if you're illiterate,that makes it much harder to find a job.
And we're lookingat the same kind of differential.
If you don't know how to use technology.
All right.
Shield AI has unveiled exFAT,

(10:35):
the world's first AI piloted fighter jet.
So tell us about that.
I can't do that day.
Okay. Day.
How that was.
Yeah. Hell, yeah. Hell yeah.
I was going to say it's not here, but,you know, that doesn't work.

(10:55):
Yeah, yeah.
So actually, this is kind of cool.
I just it's a plane run by I.
It's a fighter jet is the what you said.
And vertical takeoff and landing.
And one of the things that I've seen,there is a feeling that airplanes
that require runwaysand that kind of stuff
are going to be becoming more and morea thing of the past.
So we'll be calling those airplanes.

(11:17):
A lot of the new technologythat we're seeing
does have vertical takeoff and landing.
So it requires less space.And there's a lot of advantages to that.
I don't think we're going to be seeingthat on the 730 sevens any time soon.
But a lot of things you see that outthere, like jet suits, are the same way
that you just can take off and land.
So in addition to being able to launchwithout runways,

(11:39):
it's controlled by a systemcalled Shield Eyes Hivemind Software.
That's the name.
It can fly, navigate and coordinatemissions without human input.
Even whenGPS or communications are jammed.
The aircraft's
stealth design includes internal weaponbase, a range of over 2000 nautical miles,
and a service ceiling of above 50,000ft,so it's pretty formidable.

(12:04):
Wow.
Three giant solar outburstsexplode towards
Earth, prompting aurora forecastsacross the US.
Yeah, right.
I've been told this so many timeswe're going to have an aurora
an hour, but,I'll believe it when I see it.
Right. It's.
Yeah.
This is, solar storms.

(12:25):
They caused the aurora borealis,geomagnetic storms
and the three eruptions,
will converge on our planetalmost simultaneously.
And this will cause the aurora to reach
lower latitudesthan where they normally are.
So we should be able to see them up herein the Oregon area.
And they're forecasting thisin a lot of different places.

(12:47):
And these are pretty to look at.
But they do screw off electronics.
And it can cause things like radio signalsand other embedded microcontrollers
and that type of thing to act weirdand malfunction and that kind of thing.
So if you get to a pointand we saw this last month,
you were now you're using your computeror doing whatever you're doing,

(13:07):
and it feels like the internet is sluggishor something weird's going on.
It's just not quite right. It's there,but it's not.
Or if you're using if you useone of the people who still do things
like ham radio and stuff,it can interfere with that.
And having three of them at the same timecould be interesting.
I don't know,they're saying there's going to be severe.
And with that classification,I think we just

(13:29):
should be prepared for some interruptions.
All right.So that's it for the news this week.
Next segment
we're going to be going into the Q&Aand answering some of your questions
that you have sent.
And we haven't done one of thesein a while.
So this is going to be a lot of fun.So stay tuned for that.
In the meantime, let's talk pop culture.
Gretchen, you have a couple of television.
Well, once a television showand once a movie, I think. Yeah.

(13:50):
I can binge watching just stuff
and I, I used to like Westerns as a kid,you know, you you know, you.
I'm a generation X kid,and we saw Westerns, a lot of them.
So we kind of grew up on them.
So I came acrossthis series called Wild West Chronicles,

(14:11):
and it was from 2020 to 2024.
So it was four seasons.
And the star of this was a fellownamed Jack Elliott.
And he is Bat Masterson.
Okay,so I'd heard of Bat Masterson as a kid
when they used to advertise those,

(14:33):
life, Wild West books,you know, the life series,
they would do all kinds of differenttopics.
And I believe it was lifethat had a Wild West series.
And they would talk about all thesedifferent, you know, famous individuals.
Quite a well-known one, too. Oh, yeah.
And, well, anyways, Bat Masterson.Oh, okay.

(14:54):
I'll, I'll check it out.
And I really enjoyed these.
I think these stories, it sayswhen I looked it up,
for the most part,they are based on reality.
And, these are recreated using,
something they called a dramatic docudrama style.

(15:18):
So it makes sure that it's entertaining,you know?
But it seems like these,for the most part, are fairly realistic
and following probably the articlesthat he used to write and the actor
who presents it did a really nice job
of playing the character of Bat Masterson

(15:39):
and all of the othersupporting characters and writers.
Nice, nice settings.
It's worth if you like Westerns
and you want to hear somethingthat's a little more based in reality.
These were really fun.
So you get four for four seasons of it,and it's in color,

(16:04):
and it looks like it'sprobably been filmed
in California, maybe Arizona.
You know, a few places like that,because I do recognize
some of the landscape,and it's just good fun.
Yeah.
And so you get to hear about characterslike wild Bill Cody,

(16:24):
Calamity Jane
and some other unknown ones, such as some of the black cowboys.
And there was a black, I thinkTexas Ranger, which I had no idea about.
That was a complete shock.
So it was like,kind of cool to hear the stories.

(16:45):
So then.
All right.
And I'm just going to throw this commentout here at you because,
you know, with Western stuff,we see a lot of things
that are very sensationalizedand not a period that really needs that.
No, in my opinion,you know, no, a lot of things that,
you know, that you can go intoand it's very fascinating.
A lot of unsung heroes.
I mean,
now think about really who made the stuffaround, like the engineers of the period.

(17:08):
Now timeand all of this existed like it does now.
But all the stories are about,you know, gunfights
with cowboys and all this stuff,and it's not really what it was about.
That kind of stuff happened.
But that wasn't certainly that was the
you know their other stuff happenedthat was a lot more often.
Yeah.
And so I had watched, started bingewatching Death
Valley Days which is on a similar vein,

(17:31):
but from what I, read about,it sounded like their stuff,
even though it has a very,authentic feel to it.
They did kind of dramatize some things,you know, so it's not as realistic
as this set with the Bat Masterson.
So, so where do you findit is streaming on?

(17:52):
Oh, it's streaming on Amazon.
Yeah, Amazon is Amazon Prime.
So and then okay, so then we switch up toI'm feeling like watching something else.
And I come across the, FantasticFour movie and that's on Disney Plus.
And I kind of both dadwatching the Fantastic Four,

(18:15):
because it just seemed like in years past,
whenever I came across these characters,
there was always this stereotype,the big guy
who kind of turns into this kind of rocktype, type creature.
He's always angry, and the fire guyis always doing stupid stuff.
The brother.

(18:36):
And it just got so repetitive and boring
and I'm like, okay, do I want to doI want to watch this?
And it's like, okay, I've paid for DisneyPlus, let's watch the movie.
And I was kind of pleasantly surprised.
They they took some directionthat I wasn't really expecting.

(18:57):
And, I, I'd love to hear what our friend
Michael from read the freaking comic,what he says about this.
Because I know there's lots of,politics and drama
concerning different versionsof characters like the Silver
Surfer was a girl this time,and I know the silver Surfer

(19:18):
is supposed to be a guy, butshe was a really fascinating character.
And I'm wondering,did she stay true to the original one?
I have no idea.
I'm not a comic book person, so I'd loveto hear what Michael's take is on it.
Do either of you guys know anythingabout the Fantastic Four?
I wasn't a fan.

(19:40):
Oh, okay.
I think there's four people in it.
Oh. One of the things was, isthey kind of kept
that 50s retro feel,which I thought was cool,
though the whole movie is kind of setin this cool 50s retro.
It's kind of like a George Jetson feel,so I thought that was clever.

(20:00):
I liked that.
So Bill, did you?
Actually, I haven't seen it.
I haven't seen it yet myself.So it's interesting to hear this.
I think I would like to now,I wasn't quite as, optimistic,
but it sounds like they actually maybedid a nice job. Yeah.
And it wasn't so heavybased on all of the punching and shooting
and blowing things up,there was an actual story

(20:22):
with some feelings going on in there,and it's like, oh, and and they didn't,
you know, shove the angry guy,you know, the angry guy who got,
you know, changed into a pile of rocksor the stupid brother story.
And they kept at it.
They kept that like reasonable
and more realistic,at least in my opinion.

(20:44):
So, I don't know.
I'd love to just hearwhat other people have to say because
I'm not really a fantastic Four person.
So, let's hear from our our listeners.
Michael is going to be back
with us in a couple of weeks anyway,
so I'll make surethat this question gets posed
because, like you said,he would be the one to answer.

(21:04):
I would know more about this.
But now I do have to say one thing,
and I've been someone that knowsthat much about this franchise.
But if I got turned into a pile of rocks,I think I'd be angry.
Yeah.
And but he still has a special abilities
and people still like him.
Yeah, yeah.
I'm not saying they don't. I'mjust kidding. But. Yeah.

(21:26):
Okay. Yeah.
You can see wherethat one would come from.
So anyway, so speaking of,
the science fiction,all that give us an update on Cyber Hawk.
She's in process.
Oh, my gosh.
She's in process with Amazon.
And this has been a never ending battleof weird little things going wrong

(21:47):
and trying to find this personand get that straightened out.
And, all of the authors we've had beforewho have,
expressed, less than happy
thoughts about the editing processand the publishing process.
Well, they're right.
They're absolutely right.
Oh. And for the proofs that came back,it looks like getting closer.

(22:11):
But just some of the specifics,the cover was backwards.
Oh, yeah.
And for some reason,the page numbers disappeared.
So we're looking through thisand kind of figuring out
because everything's off one line, Through the whole book, when it starts
adding up because, you know, you wrotepage two has three lines, right? So.
But that was the Night School Journal,not cyber.
So we're dealing with two.
I said, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.We you a few different books.

(22:33):
Yeah. I calledthank you for that because. Yeah.
Night SchoolJournal and Cyber Hawks Rise of Heroes.
Those are two separate booksthat are coming out at the same time here.
And everything goes right in about a weekwill be available to purchase.
But yeah,it's like finalizing these things.
It looks great.
The rest of it came out well,so that's all good.
But weird little headings andyou got to pay attention to the details.

(22:55):
You know,although the cover being backwards
was more than a detailthat was kind of slap in the face.
Hey, I'm backwards, like,
No, but like I say, these
are we're finally getting to that pointand they're going to be available.
Obviously, we'll announce ithere. Where to?
And help plug.
But at the end of the day,it's been a journey.

(23:16):
And, you don't really understanduntil you've gone.
It's a learning experience for authors.
Yeah.
Yeah, it really is.
You know, when it comes downto looking at these different things.
And I know that you're working onanother one
that's under wraps right nowthat will be out next year.
So, you know,maybe things will go a little bit smoother
now that we've been through the process
a couple of timesand know what to look for already.
This is user friendly. 2.0.

(23:37):
We'll be back with your questionsafter the break.
You see him? He's from the future.
He's got a really big computer
and he uses it every day.
And he uses it in every wayyou want to use it for.
You know, I'mnot that sure because he uses does.

(23:59):
Welcome back. This is user friendly 2.0.
Check out our website.
That's where everything user
friendly said user friendlydot show is the page to go to.
You can find links to our YouTube videos.
We are starting to have those now.
You can find linksto all of our past shows,
and you can find links to submityour questions and your comments.
And you can also find the linksfor Tech Wednesday and instructions

(24:20):
on how to include them in your flashbriefing on your smart speaker.
I will leave it smart speaker
so we don't activate everybody'ssmart speaker saying,
but we have these things available.
Check them outand we want to hear your feedback.
It's the best thing is how we doour programing.
A user friendly dot show.
So we used to do thesea little more often.
I don't know why we kind of not.

(24:41):
And I think there'sthere are a lot of fun to do.
And that's the Q and A's.
And a lot of the questions you sendand what we do is we go through them
and kind of vet everythingand then take the top ones
in a given time periodand then come up with the question.
So the questions that we're asking
might not be a direct question,but they will summarize
a set of direct questions that we're askedthat are of the same topic.

(25:02):
And that's the way that, that we do it.
Now, one of the things that's changed onthis is back when we first started,
and we had some troublegetting ten questions today.
We do have to tone them downor this would be a ten hour show. So
which is agood thing I'm happy to have that problem.
So with no furtherado, let's jump into our questions.

(25:22):
What do we have?
What are software languages.
Yeah.
And this onewhat I'm looking at like what you know,
what are we actually talking about here?
Until I got some contextthat there are people that are out there,
and I guess this actually wouldn't bethat unusual if you're not in technology.
But software languages

(25:43):
and spokenlanguages are two different things.
So software languages like COBOL or BHPor C sharp or Rust or something like that,
these are the languages that you usethat are basically a way to interface
with the computer in human languageand have it convert to computer code
versus spoken languages like English,Spanish, German, that kind of thing.

(26:05):
So it's interestingbecause this has come up and something
that I think is important
to put out there, because the contextdoes make a huge difference.
And it's just important to knowthat if you're looking into something
that you're probably goingto be programing in English
as far as a spoken language goes,if you're in an English speaking country,
your notes and function calls and all thattype of thing, it'll be there.

(26:27):
But the language itselfis whatever the language is,
which is not in any way relatedto the spoken language that you're using.
What is a Nixie tube?
Yeah, this questionscome in a couple of times
because we've talked about some of thisthis year.
And I have a thing for Nixie tubes.I don't know why.
I just think they're cool and kind ofindustrial looking mid-century.

(26:49):
But basically what it is, is the story on
these goes something like this,at least from what I've been told,
is that during the Cold War,
we came up with segmented LED displays,and for a while the,
USSR couldn't replicate themor didn't for whatever reason.
So they came up with a design for it'sbasically a vacuum
tube, or valve, depending onwhere you are is what you call them.

(27:12):
And what a vacuum tube did for anybodythat doesn't know is prior
to modern Solid-State circuitry,you had tubes in your radio, television,
that kind of a thing.
They would warm up and performdifferent functions
like the solid state transistorsand stuff. You now.
So what the Russians did isthey took this a step further.
And I think these were created in Ukraine.
If we want to go to the detail on that.

(27:34):
Yeah.
What what they what they didis they created a vacuum tube.
It lights upjust like any other vacuum tube.
It instead of being a transistoror something of that nature,
there's a metal wire in it or each numberone, 0 or 9.
And depending on how you send voltageand what contacts
you engage on, it dependson which wire set lights up.

(27:54):
So basically it's a counterlike what we would use.
Now they do display four.
And there's a lot of what they would callnew old stock of the stuff out there.
I don't believe they're made anymoreanywhere.
They were soldin the United States in the early 80s.
I know that because I have a box,RadioShack that has a few of them
in in the original wrapping,but the new old stock is quite wonderful.
So they're making clocksand other things out of it.

(28:16):
Now that you can go buy a new clock,that's Nikita.
I even have a watch that uses Nixie tubes.
It's really cool because these are.
Yeah, it's cool, you know,and it just looks almost steampunk.
Kind of. It looks very steampunk.
Yeah, yeah,maybe that's why I like it, but, but,
yeah, on billboards,I have a, meter, voltage meter.
That, of all things,use Nixie tubes in the display.

(28:38):
It was made as a Heath jet in the late70s, so didn't work when I got it.
Needless to say, we fixed it upbecause I needed to, you know, meter.
I have no idea how accurate this line is,but it has Nixie tubes, so that's
all that matters, right? But,
but at the end of the day, it'ssomething to check out.
If you go searchyou can see pictures of them.
There's different styles, different sizesand just something that the esthetic

(28:59):
is somethingthat I've always really liked.
Is Windows 11 free?
Yeah.
So this is a comment that I think I made,and I sort of remember
when along these lines that wasinterpreted is Windows 11 is free. And
we got, you know, a lot of you writing inremind me that that is not true.
So I wanted to give

(29:20):
a little bit of a context of this,because it actually does make sense
to know how to deal with this.
We talked in the first segmentabout Windows 10
and replacing that kind of a thing.
Windows 11 is not great.
If you were putting togethera new computer
and you wanted to run Windows 11and you would buy a license for it
was, I think 99 bucks for the homeedition, a little bit more for Pro,

(29:41):
but what Microsoft has been doing
is basically,if you have a valid windows license,
I know it goes back to at least Windows 7,if not before that.
That's considered an upgrade pathto a free upgrade to windows 11.
So it's not free exactly, but
it is very close to it in most situations.

(30:04):
And that's where that kind of an ideacame from.
And also this is something to becauseI build a few machines where I've needed,
official,you know, license going forward.
And if you buy it now, there'sa lot of places you can get it back.
You can get, you know, some good prices,
some places like eBayfor legitimate copies.
Just make sure you'regetting a legitimate copy.
But it actually comes with a card

(30:24):
with your serial number on itand a flash drive.
And that's you have this little tiny boxwith those two things in it,
and that's one way to get it.
Or of course, you can go to Microsoft's
website and downloada tool that will make a flash drive.
You can install Windows 11without a license key as well.
There's a button on there that says,I don't have one right now,
and if you're running it unlicensed,at least from what I've seen, there's

(30:47):
no depth to it.
It just nags you.
There's a thing
in the bottom of the screen that says,this is not a license copy of Windows 11,
you know, or something to that effect,but it doesn't stop operating.
But, but just to kind of clarifythat point a little bit, it's not free
in the sense of like Linuxor something of that nature,
but Microsoft is just let's say it made itvery easy to have a legal copy of it.

(31:11):
And part of the reason for that,I think, is going forward is the desktop
operating systems is not,you know, the cash cow that it once was.
It's a lot of thingsare changing these days.
A lot of users use tablets.
There's competitors,you know, Macintosh which has been there,
but also things like Chromebookand Linux has kind of come into its own
that you can use one of those systems,and most computer users

(31:33):
will be just fineif you're doing what most of us do.
And that's browse the web and watch videosand, you know, write a document,
those kind of things.
If you get into some specialty stuff like,say you're working with the Adobe
product suite,then you would need Windows or Mac.
You don't have that for Linuxor anything else.
So it depends on what you're doing.
But that is a much smaller market share.
And even ten years ago, whereeverybody had a desktop and a laptop,

(31:56):
and unless it was Apple,it pretty much ran on windows.
So the other thingthat's coming from this too,
and I'm going to go ahead and just givea little bit of a soapbox here.
So I apologize for this in advance.
I'm starting to see commercials beingpushed into the windows Start button.
And while there are ways to get in thereand more or less shut that down, you're

(32:19):
it's like you try on your computerand you have an ad, you know, in it.
I consider that to be a little bitinvasive in my opinion, or annoying.
Annoying would be anotheranother word for it.
Yeah.
I can think of some others,but we need to be radio friendly here. So.
But that being said,
free is not free.
It just depends on how you pay for it.

(32:41):
So if you don't give money,you're paying for it through watching ads
or providing personal informationor data or, you know, that kind of thing.
So at the end of the day,that's kind of what's going on here.
Now, at one time,Microsoft talked about making windows
a monthly subscription,which was not accepted very well.
So right now, I don't know,I think on some of the commercial stuff,

(33:03):
I'd have to look this upbecause I've heard of this bits and pieces
and that there may be somelicensing models where they did do that,
but then I couldn'tfind anyone to look for them
until you download it, you do that.
So it seems like what they're doing is
they're making it easyto get to the operating system,
making it easy to install and then sendingsome commercials and stuff.
And if you don't have a previous licenseand you'd get to pay for it too.

(33:25):
And that's,you know, kind of where that's going out.
But again, just to confirm,Windows 11 is not free,
but it's very easy to get a legal copyin a lot of circumstances
where you're not going tohave to pay more to have it.
All right.
What is a TPM three letters.

(33:47):
Yeah. And means absolutely nothing to me.
So I'm assuming thatyou know what that is.
Yeah, I just I'm just kidding here.
But yeah three letters.
No, this is the thingthe acronym for what has been
causing a lot of the grief of Windows 10.
Oh, well, you've worked in this stuffa little bit.
I'm just to give a definition that,as I said, platform module,

(34:08):
this is an item in the computerthat handles, encryption.
And I'm going to ask you,
because I know you've worked with thisa little bit doing your gaming machine.
What is the have you foundthis has been a problem for you,
or is it something that kind ofis in the background?
I had to turn it on so I could downloadWindows 11.
That's what the real problem is, is the, TPM is required for Windows 11 installs

(34:32):
for the most part.
Yeah, I guess there's a way around it.
But out of the yeah,that's a, not that we talk about hacking.
You know, we all love British Telecom,but, at the end of the day, it is.
There are ways, you know, that you can dothat.
It's not recommended.
And I have a funny feeling Microsoft'sgoing to lock that down eventually anyway.
But but yeah, it's so basicallywhat's going on

(34:55):
is the platform modulespart of your hardware.
And there's different versions of it.
So your computer can have a TPM
and still not support Windows 11,which requires version 2.0.
So if you have a laptopthat's 4 or 5 years old
or maybe a little bit older,it might be on one point something.
And that won't work with Windows11 officially, as it doesn't have
the graphic capability that they arewanting in the operating system. And

(35:20):
there.
This isn't all bad.
I know this has taken a lot of hits
just because of the situationscreated with Windows 10,
but there is also, I would argue,a good reason for it to be there,
and it has to do with helpingto stop hacking and things like viruses.
So it manages keys, private keys
used for encryption, dismaldigital signatures, that kind of thing.

(35:40):
Records the state of the systemduring the boot process.
And this is one thing that it does dopretty well.
A lot of viruses
back in the day would come inand get into your boot startup sequence.
So when you booted the computer,it would load the virus.
And the TPM running properlywill effectively stop that.
Because what it doesis it knows what the digital signature

(36:01):
fingerprint of your operating systemis supposed to be.
And if your computer
starts and it's changed in some way,it will either fix it or stop it
saying that you know something'swrong here and you need to, check it out.
It can
also be used to create thingslike virtual smartcards,
things like multifactor authenticationmethods, fingerprint reading,
all those kind of things.So there is a place for it.

(36:23):
And it's not a bad thingbecause it comes off this way.
I know being that
because it's causing the problemwith requiring a newer version of it
that windows is doing.
But I would argue that, like witheverything else, it would have been better
to phase out the old versionand give a little bit more time,
for people to be able to upgradeeven another year or two would have made
a huge difference to, you know,have this balance out a little bit more.

(36:47):
But when you hear that acronym, that'swhat they are talking about is a actual
physical piece of hardware that existsin your desktop or laptop computer.
It has to be of a certain revision levelto be able to run Windows 11.
So you build you want to throwanything else in on that?
I mean, well,I know that Intel has an Intel Boards chip

(37:07):
that's actually on thereand an AMD it's actually part of the CPU.
Yeah, yeah.
So and actually that's a good questionthat I'm
sure is askedis can you upgrade an older TPM.
So theoretically yes.
But I would argue that that probablywouldn't be a value consideration,

(37:28):
because by the timeyou would figure out how to do it
and swap the hardware,if that's even possible on what you have,
you're probably going to spendjust as much as replacing the computer.
And that's that's what they're looking atfrom that standpoint.
Now, if you have a somethinglike a desktop and you know how to do it,
you could potentially swap the motherboardand keep the rest of the components.
And the motherboard supportsthe new version.
That would work,you know, and save the rest of the unit.

(37:51):
So there's some stuff like thatthat you can do.
But one of the things to hear is
the cost of computers has come downso much in recent years.
I mean, we just upgraded my mom's laptop.
The new one was under $100 for a Windows11 machine.
Oh, so yeah, you know,at the end of the day, it's kind of like,
well, do I spend $100and get a whole new computer
or do I mess around with an old onethat's a couple of years old?

(38:12):
And that's, I think, what Microsoftis trying to, to at least play off
of in their, you know, justificationfor doing this as early as they did.
What would you
considerto be the weirdest game of the 1980s?
So we've been talking retro gamesand stuff here a lot.

(38:33):
And this is one question
that does keep popping up,which I thought was kind of interesting.
Obviously, this is a subjective answer,
and we talked about this a little bitbefore we started recording.
So I'm going tojust throw the ball to you guys and like
tell us what you thinkis the strangest game of the 80s.
And then I'll give you my opinion.
Bill, do you want to start?
Sure, I'll go with it.
Which didn't really make it to market,

(38:54):
but it was a very strange gamefor what it was it.
Okay, so E.T.
is a big story of the era happenedright before the 1984 North American video
game crash, and it was, in my opinion,a terrible game.
Now, it actually did make it outon the Atari 2600.
You could buy it at the storefor a while, but.

(39:16):
Well, Bill, you know this.
Why is the game not like the movie?
According to the story that
I heard is that the producersdidn't even watch the movie,
and they just created a game, pretty much over a weekend or something
to get it out.
It sounds like the way they wroteStar Wars nine, but,
you know, that is the story I've heard.

(39:37):
There's a lot of kind of warthat goes along with this, too.
But, you basically
and again, Atari2600 was a very early video game console,
so the graphics are already blockyand all this kind of stuff.
But the game was basically differentscreens with different color backgrounds
where you moved your E.T aroundand did something.
And the something is what a lot of peopleto this day can't answer.

(40:02):
You know what is actually the goal?
It did come with instructionsand had some of that stuff documented, but
it's like one thing in thereyou do make a phone call, E.T.
phone's home, but it's not E.T.
making the phone call, and I didn't knowthat's
what it even was until I read about itlater.
So, you know, that's, definitely one.
And just kind of a footnoteto that of anybody
that's in the retro gamesprobably knows this, but it was so bad

(40:25):
after the fact that Atari dumpedthe unsold copies.
This in a landfilland poured from concrete on top of them.
And I don't know,this is also something that's in the lore,
but it is claimed that they actually,for whatever reason, manufactured
more copies of the game than there wereAtari consoles in existence at the time.
So you know what?

(40:47):
People are going to want two copies,you know, back up the frame on the wall
or something.
Yeah.
But, but.
Yeah. Okay.
Gretchen,what would you have to pick? Okay.
I really had to give this some thoughtbecause I, I don't really recall
any video games or board gamesthat were really weird,

(41:08):
but I do remember a game
that, usually it was males.
Not notthe girls would be playing this game.
The guys would,
make a strange it'sa particular hand gesture,
and they would,put the put the hand gesture
in a placewhere they would try and get their friends

(41:31):
to, like, turnand look down or see the hand gesture.
If you looked at the hand gesture,
the guy gets to punch you.
This was a game that the guys would playand I think it was weird.
I don't really understandwhy they were playing it, but they did.

(41:52):
So it was this weird take off.
I know it's a weird punching game,and I saw like, a couple of years ago,
somebody was saying,oh no, that's a racial thing.
No, it's not a racial gesture at all.
It's the punching game.
You know, the guy's making this gesture.
And if you look at the at the gesture,he gets to punch you.

(42:16):
So don't ask me.
I don't understand it. Kind of. Well,I missed that one.
And then like I was saying, that soundslike a tick tock their video or something.
I guess it would have been to talk,but that's idea.
Wow. Okay.
Yeah, that I think you might havejust taken the cake on the weirdest game.
Mine's weird, but not that weird.
So I'm going to circle back on mineto the, video game

(42:39):
era, and I'm going to talk about a gamecalled bubbles.
Okay, that sounds strangely familiar.
Yeah, it was in the arcades.
I don't knowif this ever came out on consoles or not.
It might.
If the premise of the game isyou were cleaning things in a sink.
Oh, you were cleaning things in the sinkand you would go through.

(43:02):
And when you got enough stuff cleaned out,if I remember correctly,
you went down the drainand that took you to the next level.
I think it's been about 15 yearssince I've seen this.
I couldn't even find it on, online.
I'm sure there's some gameplayfootage, but, it was just
a very strange concept, in my opinion.
For a video game.
Yeah.
You know, so they trying to encourage

(43:24):
house cleaning or the Tidy Bowl Manor?
Well, that's,you know, that's, Well, you know what?
I would,
I don't know, it's,
there's a scene in The Simpsonswhere they're trying to get Bart to go out
and mow the lawn, and he has a a Game Boyor that kind of a system.
And he's playing virtual gardeningon the Gameboy where he's mowing the lawn.

(43:45):
You know,that's what this made me think of.
But it is a real game.
And if you look out, you can find it.
Over time. Arcade,I know you did a piece on it on YouTube.
There's a YouTube channel that covers
some of the stuff and,it's just a weird thing,
but I think the punching game takestake in my opinion here today.
I'm still to this day wondering,why were they playing that?

(44:07):
You know, I wouldn't want to play that.
And I'm not volunteering to play it.
So don't hit me like, right.
Oh my goodness.
Oh my goodness. Okay.So it looks like I'm next.
So what happened to calm decksis the next question.
And I feel the same way about this.

(44:28):
Yeah.
Decks is a computer showor was a computer show that was like
the place to be to featurenew computer equipment.
Yeah, it was a big deal.It was in Vegas, wasn't it?
It was in Vegas.
It was a big deal.
It was before itcost $1 million to go to Las Vegas.
You know, you can go to the show and,you know, hang out and see the stuff.
You were supposed
to get all kinds of cool swagwhen you went to these and you did it.

(44:50):
I was to a couple of those and,it was a cool show.
The last, it was produced was 2003,
and basically two things happened.
One of them
and these arethe claims that are made, by the way,
I have not interviewed anyone on thisbecause I couldn't find anyone
to interview.
This still seems to existor will admit to it.
Yeah.
So the claims that have been out theregenerally accepted reasons is, number one,

(45:12):
bad management. Things got screwed up.
But the other part of ittoo, is we still have another show
that was kind of the opposite
of the Consumer Electronics Showor CBS still going very strong.
But when we got into the early 2000,
computersreally started to become a commodity.
So you weren't showing off as much anymoreor the latest periphery or the latest

(45:33):
board or, you know, the new memory upgradeor whatever the case may be.
It was a lot of what Palm Decks was.
So in some waysit just kind of became obsolete.
They canceled the 2004, originallywith the idea of bringing it back
next year, and then it was eventuallyofficially canceled for good in 2005.
This is a question that comes up a lot,because I know a lot of people,
especially that worked during that era,remember it because it's what you went to.

(45:56):
If you were in computers at all,you went to Comdex
and it was a lot of fun.
And Gretchen, like you said,
you got a lot of swag in thatkind of thing, but that's where it went.
Is it possible to print from your phone?
So I think to
what does this phone tablet,that kind of a thing.

(46:16):
And the answer tothis is yes, actually they do support it
depending on the version of your phoneiPhone, Android and then what version
of Android, the way that you would set upand do this may vary a little bit.
So I will tell you how I did it online.
I have a Samsung, Android phone
and I got I have an HP printerand I was able to get an app that just

(46:38):
went in there and basically set upwhat I would call a printer driver.
It works over the network.
You're not plugging into the printer,anything.
So you have to have a printerthat worked on a network for this work.
But, I set it up that way.
And yeah, I could just print off my phonejust like I would.
My computer was actually very easy to do.
I would recommend
if you want to set this up,look at the manufacturer of your printer,

(47:00):
because they're most likely going to havethe software for it, because I found
there was a ton of third partyapps that claimed to do this.
And they're a little bit,sketchy in some cases.
I'm sure there's some good ones,but if you
get one that's from your brand of printerlike HP or canon or whatever,
it's a little bit safer way to go.
All right.
Do we reallyhave to put everything on the cloud?

(47:25):
What does this make me think of?
Valley girl from the 80s?
I don't know how many people evenwe get that right now.
Like, oh my God, do we really haveto put everything on the cloud?
Yeah. Is that better?
Yeah. That's a that's better.You know? Okay.
Just thinkingwhen we, when, when we were in Bakersfield
doing the last round of a jet pack,we drove by that mall, Valley Fair.
I think it's all or something. Yeah. Yes.
And how are younow? North. So, you know. Yeah.

(47:47):
As long as it didn't turn in the fires,it's still there.
As far as I know, it's still there.
I leave in the commentsif it's not or if I have that, or
that would be the Galleria. Right?
It was a gallery.
I might have the name wrong,but I know we drove by it and and.
Yeah.
So, but anyway,to get back to the topic here,

(48:09):
this came upbecause the last couple of weeks
we've had some pretty substantial internetoutages.
And one of them, there's a YouTube channelwhere he has a teleprompter
that wouldn't workbecause the internet was down.
Question why do we need to havea teleprompter that works on the cloud?
But the answer to this is no, you don't.
But most stuff is going that waybecause it's more cost
effective for businessesdeveloping these platforms.

(48:30):
I just hope
that they figure out how to do backupa little bit better than this last time.
So we don't see the problemthat we have. Yep.
Well that's it for this week.Until next week.
This is user friendly 2.0 keeping you safeon the cutting edge, user friendly 2.0.
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(48:51):
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(49:12):
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