MEETUP NOTICE! We will be in MYRTLE BEACH, SC on Wednesday, August 19 and RALEIGH, NC on Thursday, August 20. The signup link is in the comments. Raleigh is almost full. Myrtle Beach has plenty of space, so if you're in driving range, that'll give you the best chance for a smaller crowd and we'd like to see you out there. Good location, too. We are on tour with Louis Rossmann to talk about device ownership, what you can do to take control of your devices and lock them down against manufacturer overreach, and will also be speaking about DMCA law, right to repair, and more. We need you out there to build the community groundswell needed to try and make real progress!
If you've been feeling like you want to apply all the knowledge of how bad ownership has gotten towards something productive, Louis' team will be explaining which lawmakers to contact and what to discuss with them to have the best chance at getting bills through that protect your device ownership and repair rights. I'll be there to talk about device ownership and the invasive level of spying that we now PAY FOR when we buy products that companies then deploy against us. Wendell will join for the Raleigh event, so all kinds of fun and productive chaos will ensue.
LOCATIONS:
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19 MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA Grand Strand Brewing Company, doors open at 6:00 PM Sign up on Eventbrite (free of charge) in advance at link below
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20 RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA Compass Rose Brewery (venue upgraded from last time), 6:30 PM Sign up on Eventbrite (free) in advance at link below
MEET UP NOTICE: We will be joined by Louis Rossmann at a Town Council hearing tomorrow - Tuesday, August 11 at 6 PM ET in Apex, NC (see below) - to join locals in voicing opposition to Flock cameras and the global surveillance network that is capable of tying you to every place you've ever been. The vote isn't tomorrow, but this may be one of the last general public comment sessions before they move the presence of Flock cameras in the town to a vote. This is the best opportunity to speak out. If you're local to the area and want to speak out against Flock surveillance where the council is divided in its vote, this is your chance to swing the vote against Flock by using convincing arguments to move at least one council member to join the opposition vote. THIS IS CLOSE. It looks like they are split down the center.
If you're NOT local, you should come out anyway, especially if you've never been to a council hearing. You can see the process and possibly use the groundwork you see at this one to duplicate in your own municipality.
I am also happy to meet up with people and talk about how we can apply all of this frustration and awareness to something productive, with Louis there to help provide more concrete foundation on how to work within the system.
MEET UP / HEARING ADDRESS: APEX TOWN HALL 73 Hunter St. Apex, NC
We want this to be a productive meeting and want the council to see how many people care about these issues of global surveillance. If speaking, we'd recommend preparing your 3 minutes of points beforehand.
We put something cool up on the website yesterday! Our case benchmark "Mega Charts" just got published and now have almost 100 case configuration results all on one set of charts and all in one spot. They are comically illegible in video format (which is why we normally cut results from every review -- to fit the chart on the screen) but they work pretty OK on a site since you can just scroll to the spot you care about.
I love doing this kind of stuff because it just puts all our work in one spot. This is a couple years' worth of case tests! It's awesome! You can always check the most recent case review for the most sort of "targeted" data set (e.g. cases that are currently the most relevant or competitive with something we're reviewing), but this version has pretty much everything. Includes a bunch of random alternative configurations for intake / exhaust location, filter presence / absence, etc. I've always really liked just making targeted web pages for a specific task, so had fun throwing it together and will do some more for other categories. The URL is also fixed, so you can save it and future 'mega charts' updates for cases will just bump the current one down while preserving the URL. Link below. Hopefully some of you find this useful!
Update: We are working on a follow-up to the LG story and have some disturbing findings re: LG's products. It will take us a while to parse everything and we have involved multiple security researchers, lawyers (working on reading around 40,000 words of LG agreements that are, generally, terrifying in scope), and network experts, but will have an update for you all as soon as we can finalize collecting all of the information and parsing. There is a lot for us to crawl through (and I'm also already up to thousands of dollars in LG product purchases, but each one peels back another layer of the enshittified onion). This will be a fairly large research piece and will take time, but is also the worst I've seen so far in this 'genre' of product and agreements.
We're cookin' and the recipe involves a company that is DEFINITELY NOT wiretapping its customers with the TVs it sells them. Just to be clear, the corporation is ABSOLUTELY NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, breaking wiretapping laws. That would be illegal, and they wouldn't do that.
Honored to have been asked by 'Tycho' of Penny Arcade to write a guest blog post for them about the state of video game ownership and game servers. The reason I decided to commit full-time to building GN originally was actually because of PAX Prime in 2010, which is a gaming convention hosted by Penny Arcade. It was the first major show I had attended (and the last one that my dad went to with me), and after getting home, I remember thinking "this is the only thing I want to do." 16 years later, I am fortunate enough to get to speak with the Penny Arcade team and contribute a guest post to their website. You can check it out below in the comments.
Although it's been a few years since I've been able to make it to PAX, mostly due to the timing conflicting with other events, Penny Arcade's web comic and the PAX events remain dear to me for creating the excitement to get me to commit fully to this project.
We're back at it! Took a publishing break this past week to just get a breather and give everyone some downtime, which allowed us to catch-up on a bunch of projects and also just let everyone get some extra time off. Very excited about the stuff we have coming up next! Just filmed 3 videos, one for GNCA and two for GN. In one of them, the cartels return! That'll go up on GN soon. HW News is up as of today. Always feels good to slow things down a couple times a year so we can just catch-up on everything.
Big success today. Not necessarily for a video, kind of boring business software stuff, but: Only 2 software suites keep me on Windows, at this point. Adobe and QuickBooks. I've managed to migrate off of QuickBooks, which has killed its desktop software to go cloud only. Fuck that. I was able to find Linux-compatible bookkeeping software that actually works way better than QuickBooks. Much faster, more automate-able, more customizable, can custom write Python scripts, etc. That and the fact that QB was forcing users to go online (no doubt to scrape for AI models), so this is local, fully self-owned data, and no cost. In the background, I've been slowly trying to (for real) move to Linux on my work machine. Haven't really talked about it for content yet.
Took all goddamn day, but man was the frustration worth it. Definitely not an easy migration process. I ended up trying several tools - Beancount with FAVA, hledger, Manager, GnuCash, and some others. Have narrowed to two, but the point is that there is a promising path forward and I now only have one set of software keeping me on Windows, which is Adobe.
There are solutions for that as well. It's a little more painful since the entire company uses Adobe and, for that reason, we don't have an immediate need to move and there's a lot more inertia. I will start experimenting with alternatives personally though and we'll see if we can roll it out over time.
Definitely promising.
I fucking hate Windows. The amount of spying is unbelievable at this point, and the pain to find alternatives to all my old tools is at this point lower than the concerns Microsoft introduces.
Gamers Nexus
Someone get me a new frying pan so I can finish cookin' up this investigation
6 hours ago | [YT] | 1,524
View 79 replies
Gamers Nexus
MEETUP NOTICE! We will be in MYRTLE BEACH, SC on Wednesday, August 19 and RALEIGH, NC on Thursday, August 20. The signup link is in the comments. Raleigh is almost full. Myrtle Beach has plenty of space, so if you're in driving range, that'll give you the best chance for a smaller crowd and we'd like to see you out there. Good location, too. We are on tour with Louis Rossmann to talk about device ownership, what you can do to take control of your devices and lock them down against manufacturer overreach, and will also be speaking about DMCA law, right to repair, and more. We need you out there to build the community groundswell needed to try and make real progress!
If you've been feeling like you want to apply all the knowledge of how bad ownership has gotten towards something productive, Louis' team will be explaining which lawmakers to contact and what to discuss with them to have the best chance at getting bills through that protect your device ownership and repair rights. I'll be there to talk about device ownership and the invasive level of spying that we now PAY FOR when we buy products that companies then deploy against us. Wendell will join for the Raleigh event, so all kinds of fun and productive chaos will ensue.
LOCATIONS:
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19
MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA
Grand Strand Brewing Company, doors open at 6:00 PM
Sign up on Eventbrite (free of charge) in advance at link below
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
Compass Rose Brewery (venue upgraded from last time), 6:30 PM
Sign up on Eventbrite (free) in advance at link below
See you all out there!
1 week ago (edited) | [YT] | 8,504
View 217 replies
Gamers Nexus
MEET UP NOTICE: We will be joined by Louis Rossmann at a Town Council hearing tomorrow - Tuesday, August 11 at 6 PM ET in Apex, NC (see below) - to join locals in voicing opposition to Flock cameras and the global surveillance network that is capable of tying you to every place you've ever been. The vote isn't tomorrow, but this may be one of the last general public comment sessions before they move the presence of Flock cameras in the town to a vote. This is the best opportunity to speak out. If you're local to the area and want to speak out against Flock surveillance where the council is divided in its vote, this is your chance to swing the vote against Flock by using convincing arguments to move at least one council member to join the opposition vote. THIS IS CLOSE. It looks like they are split down the center.
If you're NOT local, you should come out anyway, especially if you've never been to a council hearing. You can see the process and possibly use the groundwork you see at this one to duplicate in your own municipality.
I am also happy to meet up with people and talk about how we can apply all of this frustration and awareness to something productive, with Louis there to help provide more concrete foundation on how to work within the system.
MEET UP / HEARING ADDRESS:
APEX TOWN HALL
73 Hunter St.
Apex, NC
We want this to be a productive meeting and want the council to see how many people care about these issues of global surveillance. If speaking, we'd recommend preparing your 3 minutes of points beforehand.
See you all out there.
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 6,531
View 201 replies
Gamers Nexus
We put something cool up on the website yesterday! Our case benchmark "Mega Charts" just got published and now have almost 100 case configuration results all on one set of charts and all in one spot. They are comically illegible in video format (which is why we normally cut results from every review -- to fit the chart on the screen) but they work pretty OK on a site since you can just scroll to the spot you care about.
I love doing this kind of stuff because it just puts all our work in one spot. This is a couple years' worth of case tests! It's awesome! You can always check the most recent case review for the most sort of "targeted" data set (e.g. cases that are currently the most relevant or competitive with something we're reviewing), but this version has pretty much everything. Includes a bunch of random alternative configurations for intake / exhaust location, filter presence / absence, etc. I've always really liked just making targeted web pages for a specific task, so had fun throwing it together and will do some more for other categories. The URL is also fixed, so you can save it and future 'mega charts' updates for cases will just bump the current one down while preserving the URL. Link below. Hopefully some of you find this useful!
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 3,198
View 97 replies
Gamers Nexus
Update: We are working on a follow-up to the LG story and have some disturbing findings re: LG's products. It will take us a while to parse everything and we have involved multiple security researchers, lawyers (working on reading around 40,000 words of LG agreements that are, generally, terrifying in scope), and network experts, but will have an update for you all as soon as we can finalize collecting all of the information and parsing. There is a lot for us to crawl through (and I'm also already up to thousands of dollars in LG product purchases, but each one peels back another layer of the enshittified onion). This will be a fairly large research piece and will take time, but is also the worst I've seen so far in this 'genre' of product and agreements.
1 month ago (edited) | [YT] | 23,676
View 1,300 replies
Gamers Nexus
We're cookin' and the recipe involves a company that is DEFINITELY NOT wiretapping its customers with the TVs it sells them. Just to be clear, the corporation is ABSOLUTELY NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, breaking wiretapping laws. That would be illegal, and they wouldn't do that.
OK, good. I'm glad we're all clear on this.
1 month ago | [YT] | 11,817
View 512 replies
Gamers Nexus
Honored to have been asked by 'Tycho' of Penny Arcade to write a guest blog post for them about the state of video game ownership and game servers. The reason I decided to commit full-time to building GN originally was actually because of PAX Prime in 2010, which is a gaming convention hosted by Penny Arcade. It was the first major show I had attended (and the last one that my dad went to with me), and after getting home, I remember thinking "this is the only thing I want to do." 16 years later, I am fortunate enough to get to speak with the Penny Arcade team and contribute a guest post to their website. You can check it out below in the comments.
Although it's been a few years since I've been able to make it to PAX, mostly due to the timing conflicting with other events, Penny Arcade's web comic and the PAX events remain dear to me for creating the excitement to get me to commit fully to this project.
1 month ago | [YT] | 4,014
View 122 replies
Gamers Nexus
We're back at it! Took a publishing break this past week to just get a breather and give everyone some downtime, which allowed us to catch-up on a bunch of projects and also just let everyone get some extra time off. Very excited about the stuff we have coming up next! Just filmed 3 videos, one for GNCA and two for GN. In one of them, the cartels return! That'll go up on GN soon. HW News is up as of today. Always feels good to slow things down a couple times a year so we can just catch-up on everything.
1 month ago | [YT] | 3,973
View 69 replies
Gamers Nexus
Big success today. Not necessarily for a video, kind of boring business software stuff, but: Only 2 software suites keep me on Windows, at this point. Adobe and QuickBooks. I've managed to migrate off of QuickBooks, which has killed its desktop software to go cloud only. Fuck that. I was able to find Linux-compatible bookkeeping software that actually works way better than QuickBooks. Much faster, more automate-able, more customizable, can custom write Python scripts, etc. That and the fact that QB was forcing users to go online (no doubt to scrape for AI models), so this is local, fully self-owned data, and no cost. In the background, I've been slowly trying to (for real) move to Linux on my work machine. Haven't really talked about it for content yet.
Took all goddamn day, but man was the frustration worth it. Definitely not an easy migration process. I ended up trying several tools - Beancount with FAVA, hledger, Manager, GnuCash, and some others. Have narrowed to two, but the point is that there is a promising path forward and I now only have one set of software keeping me on Windows, which is Adobe.
There are solutions for that as well. It's a little more painful since the entire company uses Adobe and, for that reason, we don't have an immediate need to move and there's a lot more inertia. I will start experimenting with alternatives personally though and we'll see if we can roll it out over time.
Definitely promising.
I fucking hate Windows. The amount of spying is unbelievable at this point, and the pain to find alternatives to all my old tools is at this point lower than the concerns Microsoft introduces.
1 month ago | [YT] | 21,320
View 1,800 replies
Gamers Nexus
Lemme cook
New dish on the menu: Entertainment Software Association
1 month ago | [YT] | 5,449
View 202 replies
Load more