It's that Q&A time again, so in between waxing philosophical about meteor showers and shipwrecks, we take a few of your questions this week, about the etiquette of color-matched bidet installs, the current state of AM5, a growing army of robot chore-doers, a check-in on our download folders, and the amount of that sweet, sweet pre-war steel in the Empire State Building.

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193: The Bob Ballard Fan Club

Each Sunday, Brad Shoemaker and Will Smith discuss a new technology topic. Come for the long-form conversations about virtual reality, space travel, electric cars, refresh rates, and a whole lot more. 

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We're embarking on a two-part rundown of home video formats this week, with part one focusing on analog video up through the mid-1990s and covering biggies like VHS and LaserDisc, plus also-rans like Betamax, Video8, and the truly strange CED. Tune in for plenty of fun trivia, like myths and misconceptions about the first major format war, Sony's ahead-of-its-time analog HD video system, why a video format patterned after a record player isn't a great idea, and a bunch more!

(There are some drops in Brad's recording this week due to an infestation of audio gremlins which we're working to exterminate. Apologies for any inconvenience.)

233: My Wife Is a LaserDisc Guy

April concludes with another round of questions, during which we entertain the idea of inviting Q to assist us with Qs, Will teases a historic search engine switch, and we field a wide array of topics including breakaway USB-C cables, how to wade through the sea of search-engine slop, why you don't need "www." much anymore, our approach to episode research and accuracy, the best sandwich salads, fermented coffee and bonded whiskey, and a bunch more.

Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

232: Secret Search Engine!

The time has come for our deep dive into Pirates of Silicon Valley, the 1999 made-for-TNT movie that chronicles the parallel rises of Apple and Microsoft. Join us for a bunch of chatter about the historic business deals and betrayals, the portrayals of Gates, Jobs, Ballmer, Wozniak and others, what the actual people depicted thought about the movie, how Shakespeare informed the production, the delightful '90s blue screen effects, and plenty more. (And check the show notes if you haven't seen the movie yet!)

231: What on Earth Would Ordinary People Want With Computers?

This week we attempt to unpack the recent, historic security breach in the open source world, after the discovery of a secret backdoor that was inserted by a malicious actor into the the xz-utils package, with a focus on which specific Linux distros were targeted and why, how the attacker socially engineered their way into the position of authority that made this possible, and what ought to be done to support developers of critical infrastructure to (hopefully) prevent this from happening again.

Support the Pod! Contribute to the Tech Pod Patreon and get access to our booming Discord, a monthly bonus episode, your name in the credits, and other great benefits! You can support the show at: https://patreon.com/techpod

230: Maybe Gentoo Was Right All Along

We're doing a follow-up Q&A this week while we sort out some scheduling hurdles on the backend, and taking a bunch more of your questions from the last six months about ideal pixel density on monitors, what the heck Salesforce does, a portable gaming-focused Windows, when in the product cycle to buy, how the Clapper might integrate into your home automation setup, and lastly, you know, the slow and steady decline of everything around us.

193: The Bob Ballard Fan Club

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