Just after this Karl Jobst video, I finally watched the Perifractic / Commodore "We remade our AI ad with real actors because we heard you, our most valued and loyal customers" video, wherein they themselves just splice various news reports together by-the-script which had caused their sales to go crazy and now they can hire human beings to remake the ad. No one could have predicted the engagement from the full backlash.
Just saying Retro Gamers. Of course no one could have predicted that there'd be any backlash to two professional actors with a history of fantastically polished and produced long-form videos "not being able to make" a commercial with either their own human talent and labor or to pay someone to create something.
Of course there would be backlash. This is two professional actors, who made the money they have by acting, saying that they could not produce a 30 second ad without making a warehouse full of video cards do it for them. These people have been making very professionally produced long-form engaging videos for years. For them to say "We don't have any money / resources and needed it fast so AI" is laughable.
Took me forever to find this Perifractic reply video. I just download stuff and watch it later. I never saw any of their other "controversy" nonsense, I just downloaded this one weeks ago and begrudgingly watched it because Karl is murdering my faith in human society.
Here. Youtube /really/ doesn't want people to share shorts. They're meant to disappear. Just like this controversy after throwing a YT short bone to the 3 or 4 people who really got mad.
In any case, at the 45 second mark, he openly plays back the script these News Show People are reading by splicing together clips from different broadcasts.
So to the extent that any of this "Actually Happened", a lot of publicity happened for the phone. And probably as importantly, the manufacturer of that phone.
If indeed the deluge of local news coverage from around the country actually happened... I can't know, can I? They could just be actors, who knows. In any case IF that happened it wouldn't surprise me in the slightest if it was largely paid for by the phone manufacturer. The interest it would generate wouldn't only be for Peri and his Commodore phone. Regular people who want the flip phone but don't care about the niche retroey branding can just get one from the manufacturer.
I believe I am exactly the target of this ad / campaign, preemptive backlash. I'm the guy who pretty much wrote off Peri a while back but never unsubbed. I've watched him buy Commodore and start selling stuff, which has gotta be a net good. But there's a lot of smarm and weird BS and I mostly filter him out since around when they started doing the mailcall show. I was aware through Fark and whatnot that there was a Commodore branded flip phone they were releasing. Which is aimed exactly at me. Or at least my neighbor. I had Ataris. I don't fully trust Atari (and Intellivisions apparently) current "IP rightsholders" either.
But I've recently left the 100 hour week hamster wheel and have no need for a $400 replacement when Google decides I can't upgrade my Pixel 8 anymore. It's great, and they were like relatively cheap, but even still I don't need a $400 phone. I want to stream to my car stereo from an Android app, which I think is doable on his thing, I dunno, I was going to look but I really don't need any phone and if I did I'd just get a normal one from the manufacturer probably. I did also see the TAC-2 short and briefly questioned whether I should spend $50 on a joystick I already have an original example of which still works just fine. Gotta have backups you know.
I fuckin' hate the future.
Update:
Wait a second fuck! That flip phone thing COSTS $400? Absolutely not. Fuck me.
I've got a lifetime supply of Cisco 3750-X switches and power supplies, but as I'm out of work and have time to actually think about things I've noticed that it costs like $30-35 / month to run one of these things, not to mention the heat.
So I'm replacing it. With consumer garbage from Netgear. It's nominally working, so now I'm going to start hunting for Craigslist/eBay sellers of decomm enterprise hardware and find something that should run a little less hot. I'm thinking like a 29xx series 24 port, PoE, doesn't need IPBASE, LANBASE is fine. That kind of thing. 10Gb capable SFP+ ports would be nice, but I have them now and don't use them, so whatever.
Recently I built a 19" rack segment to my wall to provide power, network patch and keystone blocks for various USB and HDMI ports. One thing I did was zip tie a TrippLite switched power strip to provide switched power to things like lamps and stuff that I don't need to have powered all the time.
In the meantime I've always kind of wanted the old under-monitor power strips with their neon lit switches.
I'm going to get one of these 10 port switched rackmountable powerstrips, but either get the monitor right on top or mount it under the shelf as in this artists concept:
(artists concept)
This thing's probably nowhere near the quality of the TrippLite, but those guys are dicks anyway and it's not like I'm splitting the atom here.
Screw app tethered Smart Home gabbage. This isn't an air conditioner review. We bought new $150 (?) Canadian AC. It's as loud as any I've ever used, the "fan only" mode seems to work better than my previous Frigidaires from the past. Like it might be a useful feature. Other than that, it's "the second cheapest AC unit". A white-label generic OEM AC with the "CA - Two Language" remote option & manual pack checked off.
But it came with a particularly aesthetic throwback remote. It fits in great with my '80s / '90s kid bedroom:
As far as I can tell the only way to make that LCD shut off is to pull out the batteries. The "LED/DEL" button at the bottom there turns off the dual 7-segment displays and various status lights on the main AC unit. I guess this must draw no power and it doesn't matter.
I have no idea what "Follow Me" does or what the night button and stuff do, maybe I'll look it up someday.
Sat 7/18:
I think I am making a huge mistake using enterprise switches. The heat coming off that thing has been a real problem! I was just sitting there dripping with that office over 90F. I could swap it for a 24-port Netgear but I don't wnat to lose the serial and logs and stuff I use. It's just like web gui only which isn't great for me.
I'm pretty sure that switch is "THE" source of excess heat in this room.
It just occurred to me that I never finished the video and walk through of the cable management project I did a couple months ago. It came out great and hasn't been a problem since I did it. Honestly I've been on other projects, but I know that the next thing I do with that retro-gear is going to be a breeze.
As you can see, the Checkmate spins right around and it's super easy to get at everything without putting any strain on any of the ports or stretching any cables. It's never going to win the tidiness olympics, but it's all safe and convenient and well managed. I do like some organization porn though, and this is definitely that.
Big thanks again to Checkmate for making exactly the right product for my extremely specific use case and tying this whole collection of stuff together in one easy to navigate package.
I would pay the MiSTer project money and jump in and help in any way I can to help with a "Lite Mode" UI that could be quickly picked up by say, a house guest with their only instruction being on-screen or physical info-graphics.
To that end, I'm making an arcade-cabinet-bezel inspired custom background overlay with basic "how to navigate" with QR code links to my Wiki for a little more detail if the user needs more specific info.
To give myself a visually consistent target I took two photos and crammed them together and have been meaning to share the result:
This effect really only works from very specific spots, but one of them happens to be "Standing at the controls".
The current running test is below. I've already got a list of things to change and yeah I promise the first thing is to remove my phone :
Natalie and I got this Sanyo M9935K boombox at the Brimfield North market on Memorial Day Sunday this past weekend for $20. It was raining steadily the whole day and there were very few patrons which is perfect for me. Evidently people saw this coming and Saturday was /huge/ for the vendors, so we were glad it was worth their while.
But on Sunday? They just didn't want to pack stuff back up. We saw tons of awesome retro computing and gaming hardware for very good prices even on day two.
Anyway, we asked if the radio worked and the guy literally said: "You'd proooobably be better off making something out of it". And: "The radio works, and the tape works with the right tape..." And: "The power cord is cut, and there's another cord, you'll see".
And I'm like "I got a whole drawer full of cords it's fine". And we just walked out with it.
Other boomboxes for scale. It's not that huge, like 20" x 13" but definitely bigger than I thought:
It wasn't until we were home that I spotted some key flaws. The handle was only doing Handle Things on one end. The other end was floating freely. It functions as a handle but it's just because it's slamming into the top of the slot. Noted. This thing was someone contractor's "truck radio" for quite some time if I had to guess.
The power cord is permanently attached from the factory, so that's super cool thanks Sanyo. It's cut in the middle and spliced together with wire nuts to a 2 prong plug that was like 20 years old when this boombox was made. It's also got several areas of exposed copper.
I decided I didn't have time for this thing to be in my office this week, so I had my super secret Ace Hardware mole get a NEMA 1-15 plug kit. I cut the main cord above the damage, screwed into the terminals, attached a standard extension cord and mounted in its ultimate resting place. 10 minutes, fits like a glove in its spot.
The real shame of it is is that this radio sounds GREAT. Maybe I should rescue it before any lasting humidity/mold damage happens to those speakers and clean it up it for the actual barn where it stays nice and dry.
Actually. Yeah, fuck it. This is now the Patio Radio. Sold. I'm just gonna drag an extension cable out there anyway so the short cord is perfect.
The search continues for a radio crappy enough that I don't care if it's in the basement forever but sounds decent enough and won't burn down my house.
