 Streaming Looks like the stream is going just fine Record directly to stable and reliable SD flashmob Oh password encrypts password protected file encryption Some steals your maranth and we'll get your audio. Oh why my stream health is orange for once instead of green I wonder why there's a bandwidth trouble. I haven't changed anything It's interesting. Well, see how the stream goes. It looks fine. I don't know why it's saying that it's orange It doesn't actually tell me why What does it say? It doesn't say anything. It just says you are live and it just shows an orange instead of a green But doesn't otherwise say anything Usually when there's a problem, it's like your resolution is weird or your bit rate is low All right, we'll see if anyone's watching or complains or whatever My fios Yeah, my fios is usually like super super great. Let's see Speed test just got a fat. No, go to fast. I'm just doing the google one Yeah, it's not reporting any problems 60 down Only 60 that's what I pay for. Oh, I have like a hundred something down and 65 up I only got 10 up. Yeah Sometimes it goes up to 11 Because this like it it goes but the the limiter kicks in Yep Like it clearly maxes out and it's like this clearly more bandwidth available It's just like this the limiter on whatever Equipment is outside. It's like keeping you down and like I don't know how they limit it All right, I'm just gonna start I got nobody because you figure the router just to get the packet It's gonna send it. It's just like it's just like weights and then sends the packet Oh, there's a lot of ways to implement that kind of thing It's just drop packets get this too many See and then you there's actually there's actually a tcpip mechanism at least Like a standard one to sort of based on the window You can basically throttle people at a distance and get them to send you less data They could just my network card just like obey commands like don't send more It's not a command so much as because otherwise I could I could just hack it and tell it It's not a command so much as you haven't got like you've sent a lot of packets and not gotten an act back in a while It's kind of like that the wind it's windowing I used to know a lot more details about how it works, but I'm sure it's different now Vulnerability force All right. Oh, it's green now. So whatever It's thursday november 8th 2018 i'm rim i'm scott and this is geek night tonight We were talking about the fan creator relationship Like maybe all of you watching this stream live right now go away all two of you currently Sure, one of those isn't you? Yes, because it doesn't count you if you're on this page If I went to the actually if I'm logged in as my account and I go to The actual like regular thing as opposed to the dashboard, then it will count me, but it will not count me now. Anyway Yeah, I actually tested that once so, uh Interestingly enough, you know, it's not it's a dot of tuesday, so we're not going to talk a lot about it But all I want to say is The rangers are playing better than they've played all year for Three and a half games they've been actually playing like a real hockey team. Don't get too excited I'm not excited. There's a thing called regression to the mean. Yeah, there is it comes around eventually but uh What'll be interesting is that my problem in hockey is that I've expanded like I'm a primarily rangers fan because I live in queens I live in new york There's no loyalty is See if I was rim, I would have stuck with the red wings my whole life No matter how much scott harass me. Yeah, but but number two still the red wings Because of the history like my life. I've been out. No, I spent more of my life more than one team What the kind of bullshit is that that's like buying multiple lottery tickets I've increasingly learned that only new york sports fans freak out like that Uh-huh So, uh, they're my number two team and number three golden nights because when the golden nights do well The world suffers just pick up you start being fans or ever to be a fan of every team That way no matter who wins the cup you're like, yeah, we won You can't be a fan of the flyers. You can't be a fan of the penguins Can't be there's a lot of teams you can't be a fan of But all I want is every team except two. No, I'm a fan of Two and a half teams. It's more the limit is one per sport But that's the rule. So the problem is one per league The rangers We're doing uh terribly this year because they're a bunch of kids But thankfully my backup team is the red wings who are somehow doing worse Because the rangers are just like rebuilding their team But they're not really rebuilding like the fundamental way they play hockey Meanwhile, the red wings are actually completely rebuilding The entire system like the way they do lines the way they recruit like everything is completely different 2018 was a very bad year for all sports mets bad giants one in seven I think or the giants one in seven. I think they're they're real bad I got so desperate that Emily's like Emily likes the league I made the correct move of stopping watching football After I checked the score of the first game without turning it on pretty much So it's been like three years since I've watched the football But something's changed because tomorrow is the first uh red wings rangers game And usually where the way that would go down is even though I'm primarily a rangers fan I would instinctually Cheer if the red wings scored because that's like how I grew up But uh, I actually rooting for the rangers over the red wings because you have no loyalty This is great. You've made this bumbling mistake. So now no matter what you do I can harass you because you're either rooting for the opposite team from me Yep, right in which case I could have the normal situation that most people have which is ha ha my team kicked your ass or hopefully that the other thing Obviously doesn't happen, right? Or you come in a room for the same team as me, but I'm like what the fuck? You have no kind of person. Are you just switching around? You know what kind of you know what it's like It's like when I first moved into york and I actually started watching the rangers Everywhere else on earth like as I read we're like if we were up 2o coming into the third period I was pretty confident we're gonna win and we usually would if we were up 2o with five minutes to go Like sometimes we'd get in the car and leave the game because we had to get out of that parking lot And we were guaranteed to win and somehow when I came to new york scott was like 2o with five minutes to go means uh, we're about to lose with an empty netter. That's right And I didn't believe it But now having watched the rangers and the metsford about a decade to live in here and the giants I see and the giants. I see why scott is the way he is Fucking god I feel like a rangers 2o lead Is what every other team in the league would treat as a foro league Yeah, have you heard about the miracle of the metal all the way around the miracle at the metal lands Was not a miracle in the favor of new york and is more than one of them So I uh hockey hockey's happening. I love hockey season So we got some news. There's actually a bunch of news going on like bunch of stuff going down Uh, first and foremost just to get out of the way if you weren't aware The election happened in the us And it was actually good news like the good guys picked up like 37 seats in one of the houses of our Congress or one of the chambers of our congress the house meaning I don't have to leave the united states because that was one of my red lines So uh now we got a whole bunch of bullshit going on like literally dateline now As we're recording the show the us is experiencing two different constitutional crises So uh business is usual Yeah, but it's it's starting to escalate rapidly like the thing that's going on now is a pretty big deal I'm curious to see what happens because it's entirely unrelated to voting all the matters Really is I even if we lost the you know the house in the the federal government I mean that would have been bad. But yeah, the we got the new york state senate, which is has yeah vastly more impact on my life than anything the federal government does So I wanted to take a side that's actually where I was leaning to to talk about that because you can go to a A myriad of websites to learn more than any human needs to know about the national stuff But in new york state, we basically had this coalition of fake democrats That colluded to prevent our state from doing anything good. And let's not talk about uh, Simca Felder. Fuck that guy. Simca's not Simca's nothing now. He's double. He's in deep doo doo He's probably peeing his pants right now Basically, this is a dude who in the modern era would be would basically win both the democratic and the republican primary He still did. Yeah, because he's a piece of shit He's still senator like in new york state the technical term for Simca Felder is a piece of shit But the point is no matter what the federal government does the following things are likely to happen In new york state like next year as soon as the legislature gets back to business. Yep. So number one We have like bail reform. We're gonna all those things people complain about like all your elections are run poorly They're gonna fix all that we're gonna bail reform Voting and automatic registration. They're probably gonna legalize weed Almost definitely legalize the weed Basically, there's a chance like that like if you want to talk about things that they can do now There's a real chance like i'm not saying this is guaranteed tax the hell out of rich people There's a legit chance new york state will just do Single payer health care within the state fix everybody's rent so we can't get ripped off Yep The state like this is a big deal because basically new york could be is going to be could be a paradise very quickly It's it's currently a race between new york and massachusetts for making these kinds of reforms Basically the entire new york state legislature wants all these things to happen And the only thing that stands in the way is the governor who wants some of he says he wants some of those things to happen But uh, he may attempt to run for president in 2020 even though he says he won't And hopefully he won't win because fuck him But if he leaves in the list of white dudes who are gonna run for president and the democrats He is the last no, he's the second to last one. I want because the last one. I want is bernie sanders And your boss in there three boss in there. Yeah, my boss will be in there Cory booker's probably gonna be in there. Oh, he's not so bad. I'll take him over the three before he mentioned I wouldn't be shocked if beto or orc runs. I'll take him over the four we've already mentioned Yeah, but we got good options like the point is the worst options pretty good We could have that governor out in two years and get someone better Yep, that's why I voted yes on number two in new york. Yes. Yes. Yes one. So because The only negative thing anyone could say about that proposition was it gives the mayor of new york too much power over a thing And i'm of the mind right now that there's a lot of people on all sides of the political spectrum Including up and down as well as left and right who for some reason really hate the mayor I don't understand it. Like our mayor does some things that I guess you could he's not perfect center left He's not perfect. But it's like you could do a lot worse Plus most of the people who complain about him are mad at me is against the police union, which I am also against I would quickly Much prefer our mayor to be the governor. Oh if so imagine Ideal scenario our current mayor becomes the governor and we get someone way left of our mayor to become I don't think our mayor could become the governor because there's two left Well, no because there's too many people who like I said, yeah even on the left who hate the mayor Yeah, and would not you know, it's the trouble with the governor's upstate. But anyway, big stuff happened in elections And new york state might like rapidly become the place you live success New york might be like the fucking best place to live like next year And you might be able to afford an apartment here because of that Yeah, if they make some rent control action However, you probably won't be able to afford an apartment near us because the other news is that it is extremely likely Amazon's headquarters is going to be next to my apartment. Well, they they they're gonna split it but you know First of all, this is just rumors amazon hasn't said anything. Yeah, it's pretty looking pretty likely But I mean weeks, but it's like I thought that those were likely locations when they first started this Yep, so it makes perfect sense. So, you know where like where it probably is So one there's they're gonna have two headquarters one in crystal city And one in a place that makes perfect sense Yep, it actually does and one in new york city in long island city, which is the neighborhood I live in south of estoria, which is where scott lives. They're right next to each other You'll probably be able to see the amazon building out your window not out your window They're facing an alley now, but yep out my window. I could see it Yeah, even though much further away. So, you know, they're probably gonna put it You know where that fancy park ends and then there's like an abel basin or whatever just down at the bottom Down at the bottom, but at the at the so that giant that park goes from brooklyn Like the border of brooklyn all the way north to right across the street from that blood bank So Where Amanda works? Yep, right there. So then there's a little tiny canal where there's like kayaking and stuff And then right across that canal is a big warehouse. Well, that's where like the ferry dock is No, it's it's near there, but it's not right there Okay, this ferry dock is like way south of that at this point. All right, you forget how big the park is Okay, it feels like the ferry dock is at the north end of the park The park is like three times bigger than you were the last time you went to that park a few weeks ago Maybe a month ago. Do you see that giant ass part they built at the bottom? There's two No, I didn't go to the bottom part of the top part where the ferry is there are two fairies in that park now Two. Yeah That park is real big So anyway north of the pepsi sign I think the ferry has two docks. There are two docks in that park So well north of the pepsi sign is the end of the park There's the basin that little canal and then there's a big warehouse and it's just bullshit They're gonna put it right there. Mm. Well the good news for all the restaurants on that street. Yep So basically it's interesting because one John brown better get like more meats before they run out at like 11 a.m So you can read like i'm not gonna get into every issue with this because it's way too Like if we do a whole show on this and you can read real journalism about this But here are the things that stand out to me that are interesting one This neighborhood is already one of the fastest growing and most desirable neighborhoods in all of new york city And now they're gonna put like 20,000 new serious engineering and product jobs here That's that's a big deal but two It really goes against a long running theme in america that conservatives and people who don't know better mostly push the idea that States like new york and cities like new york drive Big companies away because of their very high taxes And what no it doesn't because they everyone gets all these companies get promised all these fucking tax breaks Ah, but even still they get fewer tax breaks coming here than they would go into like bumble fuck Well that just goes back to we were talking about two seconds ago is that Had we not turned over that new york state senate? They probably might have gotten some big ass tax breaks, but uh, at least I know that my senator who is Usually right unjust about every my state senator everyone who represents me is already usually some statement like we're gonna fucking tax Is like you know, which may keep them from coming We'll see we'll see if they still come no, no, no even with a with a state legislature that may not give them all The breaks they want personally. I think it should basically be unconstitutional to like without even amending the constitution I'm not saying we should amend. I think in scott's interpretation of the u.s. Constitution Which is you know questionable. So I don't want to get into that. I want to give you something I think it's unconstitutional to give tax breaks to or to anyone because that's not equal protection The tax law should apply the same to anyone you can't write a law I don't think you should be able to write a law that says amazon pays less tax or Scott doesn't have to pay tax this year because that's not equal protection So scott all I want to say and I don't want to get into it is that that argument is the exact same argument That flat tax fuckers make What do you mean that everyone should pay the same percent you can't no no no because that is saying because when you make a Progressive tax structure. You're saying you're saying anyone who has this much money It applies equally to everyone who has that much money. This is specific It's like amazon that argument if they wrote a law that said all companies That are this big If they tried to be stupid and were like all companies that begin with the letter a and sell books online No, no, no, no, no. So that's just bullshit that argument is the primary argument made by anti lgbt people What how so the argument is that? Marriage equality is not necessary because every man has the equal right to marry a woman It applies equally that's just semantic bullshittery and also protected class companies are not protected class anyway, the I'm assuming that this is going to happen And I'm assuming that the tax breaks are less than they would be somewhere else But generally there's a big reason why the whole argument that companies will relocate to bumble fuck if bumble fuck Like hands over the lease to the land and gives them everything they want Is that if you put the amazon headquarters in bumble fuck it is literally impossible to hire anyone good I have this app office has to hire like 20,000 Extremely skilled engineers product managers, etc Well, most of those 20,000 are not going to be the highly skilled people. They're going to be you need janitors You need security people. You need maintenance people. Ah, usually they just contract all that out I'm just saying you need a lot of people besides the high. There's not going to be 20,000 programming jobs It's going to be like 10,000 programming jobs. Some other 5,000 management jobs 5,000 Latest jobs something like some mix right if you need to hire 10 Good engineers who have a lot of experience. Yeah, there aren't 10 good engineers in bumble fuck. You're lucky if you have one computer guy Dude, there are like it's hard to hire engineers in a small city like seattle New york the they're all working at amazon for more money the argument that Companies will move where the taxes are low and that high corporate taxes in new york drive companies away Seems to be pretty like solidly disproven by the fact that companies come to new york anyway And even startups come to new york and tiny companies and independent studios. It just lies and spread by corporations Because the reality is if you like say I need to hire Compositors editors video people and like someone who knows some like obscure bullshit New york is a city where you'll probably have a hundred people applying to those jobs no matter how weird they are The other thing I have to say about this is thanks satan. I live in a rent stabilized building or I would have to leave Yeah, I'm rent stabilized They could the rent board it decides how much my rent goes up every year And every year people go there in protest and say make the rent go down because they can they could say Rent down a hundred percent your rent everyone's rent has to be zero who's stable. They could do whatever they want It's just a board of people who decide and they listen to tenants and landlords yelling at them And then they pick a number and that's how it works And my rent moves exactly according to their dictate The other crazy thing about this is that the reasons that were cited for free market be damned The reasons that were cited for amazon going to long island city There was one in particular that really stood out and it basically said it's super close to Manhattan And has excellent subway access and all I want to say is that the train runs It does but now it's not even thousands more people to it So the only subway that's actually there Really is the seven train is the seven train that is already today running at literally 200 capacity I get on the train when it's already completely full by personally Physically shoving people because it comes all the way from distant queens where it's cheap to live Relatively cheap to live so every morning when I'm on the train slightly And I am too. I am two subway stops away from where they're going to put this office So I get on the train. It's already like 99 full now. It's literally Completely full. There's no way for a single human being to get on it I don't think that will matter because if you're working in that office and you live in Yeah, I'm not going to take the trees going to walk to work But some of the people they're going to hire are going to live in brooklyn or manhattan Uh, why would you live if you live in brooklyn or manhattan? Uh, dude, it is working out. I see it is cheaper to live in northern manhattan than to live here Well, very by a lot very nor but then not as far northern as you think Yeah, but if you're in northern manhattan, the seven train is not the way to go And also you're taking the seven train in the reverse direction from that full train Dude, it's full in the reverse direction these days now too because a lot of people work here already Jet blues the seven train from manhattan coming here is full in the morning There's a lot of people coming too long on the city in the morning that The only way to fix that train is to literally build more trains like more lines tunnels so Or bridge that well you want to get into the details We need more tunnels than just the steinway tubes Which are basically cast iron tubes that are over a hundred years old We can just tax amazon and use the money to pay for it. Yeah, that's tunnel So in some other news what you got, uh, all right So here's what this crazy thing happened, which I still don't fully Have a opinion on all the aspects of it because it's so complicated Oh, yeah, it's rare that I see a situation like this because it's so complicated It's fascinating. So I have to talk about it. Yeah is the deal There's a game called red dead redemption. I know if you've heard of it It's basically grand theft auto made by the grand theft auto people But with a western skin like horses instead of cars Yep, that's otherwise effectively the same exact fucking game and the what the second or third one third one The new a new second one a new one just came out. It's two. There's only been two Okay, a new one just came out. That's what matters It's as far as I can tell it's the same as the old one only new graphics new plot new whatever right I haven't paid any attention because it's a garbage game. I don't care about Uh, but anyway, so the old game the first edition had some stuff in it that was Unseemly like because this is open world do whatever you want game that's made by the gta people You could do stuff like tie up a woman and throw around railroad tracks to get run over by a train And the old one and the new one Has other sort of unseemly things you can do apparently one of those things includes just taking NPCs to like go Be eaten by alligators Now I mean like there's a dude who made a long video in Zelda Breath of the Wild or he picked up a chicken cuckoo and like walked All the way to death mountain to throw it into the lava just to see what would happen like Even in games that are pretty benign like people can do whatever they want. It's not real. Yeah I mean, this is something, you know, I don't have a specific memory, but I feel like when I was young I I did things like this in games that had a lot of like, you know, especially video games That had a lot of flexibility to be creative You would do creative things for the one example I thought of is definitely half-life two with the physics engine, right? It's just Yeah, not only did you play to beat the game, but you would also just like try to make wacky stuff happen What was Gary's mod, right? It was like Deus Ex human revolution like I try I played mostly pacifist I only killed people who deserved it like who I would personally kill but Every now and then like a couple times I just saved my game and I played I played the game of How long can I be a menace before the police actually deal with me? Yeah, no in video games, right that allow you to do a lot of crazy different things, you know How many of you nuked the town at least once in fallout, right? Doing creative things is part of the fun of the game. It's part of the point of the game It's a long-standing tradition, right? So this guy has a youtube channel and it seems that what he does Mostly is you know the somewhat immature childish thing that I did when I was young But he's still doing it. I don't know how old he is Of killing people in like ridiculous and somewhat hilarious ways depending on how you look at it in video games And he kills npcs and wacky ways makes youtube videos out of it and posts them on his youtube And he gets a lot of views like hundreds of thousands of views because apparently you get good at that if you do it a lot Right and he's real creative in certain games It's not really fundamentally different from the people who make those crazy flying machines out of various pieces of metal And ships and breath of the wild, right? It's just that visually what he's doing is murder as opposed to making a flying machine But it's still the same effective activity because all digital you're not really killing anyone right is Is experimenting and doing a creative and visually interesting to some people thing Inside the context of playing a video game However, one is one of his latest videos in particular In followed this new red dead redemption game in the game since it's like late 1800s western time There is a old lady suffragette in the game as an npc and she's yelling You know, she let ladies vote and she's right, but at that time ladies couldn't vote Uh, and apparently he was trying to shop in the shop. This is what he says He's trying to shop in the shop and this lady was really annoying, which I could believe an npc yelling would be You know annoying in a video game Uh, so he took her out to be eaten by the alligator and made a youtube video out of it out of it. Yep, and You could see how that's different from sort of hilariously killing a generic bad guy Right is like now it's like a specific person There's also something to be said for why did the people who made this video game made the suffragette so annoying? Yep, what do they think in rock star? Yeah, well, this is the thing. There's a lot There's a lot going there's a lot going on here There's a lot of situations like this where in another context It would be default benign unless there were evidence to the contrary, but in the video game industry It's basically default malevolent unless there's evidence to the contrary Right, and again, so it's like rock star put a character in the game made them annoying and allowed you to Feed them to an alligator and murdered them in other hilarious ways And also this guy did it and not only did he do it He made a youtube video out of it Which is not something that we could do back in our day because we're so as I told fogies We would have Probably I would have probably but here's here's the price though Here's where this starts to get a little more problematic Irrespective of what his intent was because that's a whole discussion in and of itself His youtube account was shut down because of this video and simultaneously Even if he had no ill intent the people who seem to be fans of that particular video Were fans of it for very fucked up shitty reasons Oh, yes as opposed to all the other videos he made which they didn't seem to care about at all They care about those other videos He may do have lots of views just as many views as this one But the people who are so angry that his youtube got shut down, right? Uh were definitely, you know, not the opposite of feminists. Yep, right? We could say right But anyway, youtube I guess saw the error of their ways or at least, you know, believe that they It was an error at least they believed it was an error. I'm still not sure And they put his account back up With all his videos But this is a I got a lot of question marks on this one Yep Well, here's the because we're not because he also the dude also has you know prior lots of videos of killing Nazis and clansmen and other things in video games in the same way And those also have tons of views. I mean he upload the one he uploaded after the account got restored Was hitler gets punched off a cliff, right? So it's like this particular guy seems to just it appears that he just likes killing NPCs in hilarious ways in games He was perhaps taken off youtube unfairly There's some simultaneously. There is some blame to be laid in the game makers for making games where these things can happen But also the Pete there are fans that who are Uh Is a shit so At what point is a creator Irrespective of their intentions We're responsible for the behavior of their fans based solely on their fans reacting to the media and not anything outside of the media And that's uh, that's the thorny topic that we can't get into because this is just a news and it's time I don't have answers on this one. Yeah, I got uh, it's just so fascinating. You got to you got to think about I'm mulling it over in the brain So it's uh, let it swim around your nog in this situation But I gave my uh, it's uh, it's hanging out in the think meat. The think meat hasn't finished thinking But things of the day so, uh Scott has Among many annoying qualities the most primary annoying quality scott has Oh really yours is making annoying noises on purpose. We know they will annoy people Yours is that the first thing you ever kick started is this fucking really bright flashlight That's my most annoying quality. It's up there. Okay Because I'm not that annoying in terms of how often do I bring out the flashlight? I'll put it this way in terms of I mean if I'm holding the flashlight Yes, I will annoy you with it But how often is that the ratio much less often than rim making annoying noises which he can make whenever you're A ratio of milliseconds of time scott is holding the flashlight two milliseconds of time scott is annoying me with the flashlight Is nearly a hundred percent but anyway, uh, this video Has a flashlight like that and a flashlight that's way worse than that And then a water cooled flashlight this dude made for the fuck of it That is basically the brightness of the sun and holy shit is this thing impressive. Yeah, this is real fun to watch Like basically there's a point where he's got this really he's on a campus and he's way far away from this building And he like points the little like the normal flashlight of the building You see like this little light in the distance and then he points like a fancier flashlight to the building kind of see it there And then he just stands there and turns on this flashlight that he made that's water cooled 72 000 lumens How did he measure the lumens Uh, based on the rated output of the leds that he used to create it Did he use like a reflective uh cone to focus it? Uh, he has wanted to just turn the light on and close his eyes He has a bunch of lenses and there's a whole video. He actually shows how we put it together. It's actually pretty well constructed Okay, it's pretty small too. It's uh, the video is really good because it's the creation process The like design process the execution and the hilarity all rolled into one I would not look directly into this if I were you So what do you got uh, so here is a cute I guess it's a music video There's a song But it's not really about the song. It's mostly the lyrics, but it's in japanese and the subtitle so you're good Uh, and in the music video. Oh, this describes my entire childhood except without a futon Yeah, there is a uh, there is a cute what I think is a penguin. It's some sort of cute creature That looks like a penguin. I think it's a penguin. Of course. Why is a penguin? It could be that one pokemon I don't know why I don't know why the penguin is upset about the cold if he's a penguin But the point is the story is the penguin is nice and sleepy and cozy in the futon And does not want to come out because it's fucking cold and it's very appropriate because it's fucking november And then we just set the clocks back and it's dark when I leave work and fuck everybody Uh, but yes, this penguin is all of us. The penguin adjacent creature is all of us. So when I was in like elementary school I remember I'd wake up in the morning and I refuse to get out of bed And I you don't be forced out of bed. It'd be cold. I don't want to get out of bed So what I'd end up doing is I would wrap all the blankets in my bed around myself And I'd go downstairs and I would I've done that and I would have fixed the blankets to one of the heat vents I did not do that. That's a fire hazard. And I would stay in the blankets while I watched teddy ruck spin and ate my breakfast I did not do that. And that was my morning ritual. Okay So yeah in the meta moment the geek nice book club book is 2001 a space Odyssey. We're gonna read it soon. We've been busy but we'll read it I'm gonna hit the book. I'm reading as soon as I finish it. I will then read and I'm reading real fast I'll read I'll immediately open 2001 and read it and I'm sure it won't take long Yeah, we are going to be live in less than a month and packs unplugged Our second favorite packs. It's a real good packs Uh, December 1st learn and win Puerto Rico December 2nd the 40 tabletop games You must play advanced mode because it's a tabletop con We can assume some things about the audience. We couldn't assume at a general packs It's gonna be a real good time Otherwise you should definitely if you need a Nazi free place to hang out on the internet Join our forum because our forum has been rocking and I started a pretty hot thread today that got way more attention than I expected Yeah, after packs unplugged. We're gonna be going to packs south No, we're gonna go magfest magfest then pack south and then just went on sale Pax east we told you and I think the last Geek Nights episode that it was You know, perhaps urgent times for packs east tickets and low and behold They went on sale yesterday the day after the episode saturday is sold out But all the other days are readily available Just not saturday So I think there must be a lot of people who want to go just saturday Just go to the x-ball hall and leave a lot of local people. Yep So but yeah, if you want to go to packs east on any day, but saturday tickets are you can just buy them No problem and good luck. Good luck with hotels That's a problem. Yep, but any day of packs east is great because thursday Yeah, you got the q and a the opening shit like it's a full-on packs day Friday and saturday are like prime packs days sunday It's less packs that ends earlier, but you get the omegethan finale. It is all there's no day of packs It's better or worse than the other days overall You know, so it's like hey pick pick whatever Yeah, it's not saturday because it's sold out and we're gonna be at all of these probably doing events in nonsense You know our usual stuff except at night Enforcing and if you were a friend of ours who forgot to re-up their enforcer and got kicked out of everything Uh open applications for packs east enforcing went live so you can get right back in I didn't know the open. I thought it was only the veteran Call it just went live. Oh like a little while ago. It looks like oh, okay then because I just saw a link on the Common enforce packs east with us. Yeah, you'll get two red shirts and enforcing packs east is real fun You want two long sleeve red shirts and also, uh, frankly Not have to buy badges Pax east has the security theater because the city of boston is the city of cowards And they force packs to do it against packs as well. Yeah, there was like boston strong because no other packs Because all these horrible things happened in boston literally no other packs has this problem packs out But there is fake bag checks and packs east has this like ridiculous security theater But if you're an enforcer you can just come in before that theater starts Yeah, this is one thing that I keep like it's like okay, boston. It's like you had your marathon bombing It was real bad. Yeah, we're not saying it wasn't no, but if we had fucking 9 11 It was way way worse multiple planes Your much smaller city has much more security than our much bigger city You know and we've had a lot of other incidents. We just convicted the freaking uh subway bombing guy Oh, yeah, right just today. I think or yesterday. I don't know It's like we didn't go crazy with the security. Why is why is peck south has the problem that more of a fortress With their public events than new yorkis peck south has the problem that people who live in that area tend to have guns and try to bring them into places and yet the security of peck south Which is the second worst security of any packs is literally people who pretend to look in your bags But don't actually the bag check at boston events is more secure than the bag check at madison square garden Yep, the bag the boston security Which does have a bag check and metal detectors, but it's way Breeze here Yeah, let's give a shit then the the the metal detectors and nonsense at anime boston are actually the only reason I stopped going to anime boston madison where garden manages to get Like 20,000 people into the building within like an under an hour. Yep, right? Meanwhile peck's west just walk in Like there's just a few nice old ladies like looking for your badge and that's about it. Yep Anyway, so yeah, let's get on to the main bit. So uh yesterday or two days ago We did a show about rolling rights and our news was a pretty innocuous thing about how a bunch of man babies freaked out That a game company announced a game that wasn't targeted at them, but was in fact targeted at other people And uh, yeah, it started a surprising argument in our form of people who are weirdly supportive of the man babies But we're not really talking about that. We want to talk about the broader I don't want to say problem, but just state of play of in the modern era like circa 2018 Fans of things and creators of things and how they interact because That is like that space has changed to a shocking degree Even in the last five years let alone the last 10 years Right. Well, I think we got to go back and look at like, you know nerd history a little bit, right? So it's like, okay Well, originally, you know way back in the day It's like when when were there nerds like we like there are people doing nerdy things You know, but like people playing war games with little miniatures way back, but those weren't Considered nerds. They weren't culturally a separate thing, right? You know nerds weren't like their cultural own thing until like the 70s or the 80s maybe And most of them were like computer science nerds, right? They were smart people, you know, or like, you know What the poindexter in the 50s? It wasn't like or or those people doing they were doing ham radio And they were maybe astronomy. What were they doing those nerds? But even when they did it was the organization of circles around nerdy and geeky hobbies of any kind Were relative like they were mostly local And when they were larger than that it was very slow to organize and disseminate information Well, also though I'm saying is though all those nerds up until maybe like 70s 80s 90s Right the the prior nerds where people who were just smart, you know, that was their and they were culturally uncool supposedly at least in pop culture and They were people who did things like they made stuff Right, like the word the term hacker comes from the mit model train club because they were underneath the trains hacking away Right, that's where the term hacking comes from if you did not know you can look it up. I guarantee I'm right Uh, they were making something right model train is that is an active creative hobby, right? You know, it was in the 70s mostly 80s 90s And I know this history because I fucking lived it that nerdery moved more and more away from a creating being smart thing to a I wouldn't necessarily say we have to I wouldn't necessarily conflate the two creating and being smart There are people who create very evil or no, no, no, that's that's not what I'm conflating I'm trying to avoid your weird value judgments here I'm moving until it's time. Nerdery moved away from things like being smart and creating things to consumer capitalism, right? Well, I think being a nerd today is Collecting stuff buying stuff. Look at what happened with comic books in the 90s It used to be let's get away from nerder. You can talk more about fan like fan identity Those are the same thing Yep, because because nowadays a lot of nerds are you know, or like geeks and move, you know are just fans Now there were like Trekkies or trekkers Like all the star trek stuff in the late 60s early 70s And like people who are fans of dr. Who like that culture was there Yeah, and you look at like look at like the 70s 80s and 90s When it like look at all the creepy ass emails that azimov would get yeah, I'm saying comic book guy Yeah, as you know, he came about 80s 90s when comic book guy became a thing There was no comic, but if you tried to bring simpson's comic book guy to the 60s of the 50s That'll be an unrecognizable character. Yep, because comic book stores didn't exist They sold comic books in grocery stores to kids. No one was collecting them really maybe like one or two weirdos Right, it wasn't until like speculation came about but even then Because of the cost of the means of production the creators were mostly Corporations and professionals who had a significant distance from the fans of the thing So most of these fan culture events even if they became Mostly about consumption and debate about and around the thing and maybe displaying social currency about the thing That fandom operated entirely independently of the creation of the thing Well, also a lot of those things Right came about as just like comic books, right? Like when you were kids It was what transformers and stuff, right? Yeah, Voltron mask mask, you know gijos, right? It's like those all those things which are super consumer capitalist, right? It's literally cartoons to sell toys to kids eat in japan as well, right? uh and other countries and It those were just kids things and then 10 20 years on People are still into those things and they became now nerd fan things as where they were originally just kids things But even then like let's look at Magic like my magic the gathering fandom or my dungeons and dragons gathering was invented in the 90s Yep, but when I was a kid both playing dungeons and dragons and playing magic Deeply invested in these these activities are part of my wider identity At the same time I had no access to the people who created magic the gathering or created dungeons and dragons Right, so this is this is the two-step thing, right? So there's the move from the from nerdery being a creative thing to a consumer thing And then there's the suddenly Can you know consumers can now have the internet and can now talk and post and complain and Tweet at companies. Yep Which is fine in a sense because even though fans like there's like gomer gate and like people might organize and get weird About it at least Ostensibly for a while the fact remained that the company was a large enough faceless enough entity to have the same like general protection That a modern for real celebrity does like no matter how creepy you are you can't get that close to tom cruise Like you want to but let's say you say you're obsessed with tom cruise You kids it would be very high if I was obsessed with tom cruise I couldn't you would join his crazy cult, but I couldn't get that physically close to him There's no way for me to call him on the phone There's really no way for him to in any way know I exist and no matter how crazy my rants are out there They're not going to get to him personally They're going to add most get to like a pr handler who aggregates this into a sentiment that his social media team is going to use to craft his image But then another revolution happened and that revolution was I can just livestream something on youtube And there are people who livestream shit on youtube Who now became like they have fandoms that are very big But they're still just individual people who while they are now famous They do not have like a corporate team to distance themselves from their fans They don't have the tools to deal with that situation And now we're in a modern world where people create things There are fans of those things those fans can like show up at the front door of the person who created the thing And those fans are so organized and so mobilized with social media That they can actually start to threaten and interact directly with these big faceless companies despite those protections Right if I back in the day if I sent a letter to the comic book company to get printed on the letters page You know or in game pro or something they may not print it They could edit it and then print it, you know one person would read it Right. Yeah, I could start a letter writing campaign, but that would be pretty hard. No, it's not easy That's why they're effective because if you pull one off it's like, whoa, this must be legit But if you're a streamer, it's like, okay, some normal schmuck nerd Right who has you know, it's not some someone who's like being controlled by some journalistic integrity or anything out of Paper or magazine or something is not only a have fans of their own that are coming at them But they also can wield their fans as an army at corporations Right so the corporation which you know, tom cruise could ignore The one email from a nut job that he doesn't even read or no exists because he doesn't read email probably But can he ignore the ninja or someone? You know six like an army of like a thousand fans to make a harassment campaign against him But there's maybe not but there's a final piece of this puzzle that brings it all together So we're talking about fans talking about like nerds and geeks and whatever But the nerds and geeks from these earlier areas, it wasn't just that they had a very deep hobby It was also that they built their personal identity around that hobby right? Well, that's why that's why I started with the capitalism point Yep, but simultaneously we have this growth of like very intense fandoms That now we have people who have built this similar intense personal identity Around something that is solely Being a fan of something as opposed to any particular activity related to said thing Well, look the the the whole point of brought up capitalism to begin with right is that look at capitalism outside of nerdery, right? You know someone goes and they they're taught a to vote with their dollars right as if you know Where they spend their dollars? I spent dollars. Therefore. I deserve something. I'm voting Right if I buy something and it's no good. I have a right to complain. I spent money on it, right? It's like somehow there's this belief that we've created in our culture that when you spend money on something It's like, you know, I'm paying you to do this. You do what I say there's some sort of like Slavery relationship, but you know if you're at your job, it's like I'm paying you you do what I say You're the employee. I'm the boss if money goes one way then Then a complete obedience must go in the other way if I buy something at a grocery store Then the groceries and I don't like what it doesn't taste good They had to give you my money back or they're about to treat me nicely They have to do what I want because I'm giving them money, right? And then we bring that capitalist belief into the consumer Nerdery area and it's like I'm buying this video game from you You must patch it to fix this and do what I say. I'm the consumer, right? That same attitude has been brought over across the board, right? And we have always recognized we've been pretty consistent on this I think is that we've always said no fuck whatever your fans say, right? Look what happened to tribes too. I did everything the fan said the game died Look at Counter-Strike from before Counter-Strike 1.0 was out Band the AWP band AWP Counter-Strike forums were full of hardcore nerds complaining and thinking they knew better about how to modify Counter-Strike And what are those Counter-Strike people clippy being the other guy? They didn't listen to shit. They did what they thought and it was best And it's Counter-Strike the number one game right now. No fortnight is but it was but a long goddamn It was for a long goddamn time and it's still a relevant game today because they did not listen to their fans Right. I was actually just I listened to part of a podcast today where our friend, uh, luke crane was on it right and uh They were talking about how like, you know, he taught he was talking about how a kickstarter he hired someone who is not necessarily Uh deep in in the games world because he's like well, we already have a person who's deep in the games Right, uh, but he's like do we don't you know, do you do you need to be? Uh, you know just because you played a lot of games Right. Does that mean you know Enough to work in games, right? He's like I eat a lot of food Yep, does that mean I could he's like I eat food multiple times a day. I love eating food I have watched a lot. Do that mean you could be a chef? I mean, you know better than a lot of ice hockey and so have you I can't even skate Right. So being a consumer of a thing provides you absolutely no qualifications in terms of Judging how the thing should be made or being able to work in the industry that produces that thing But because fans have taken this like nerd culture over to the point that the fans Feel like like it's the thing they're a fan of is such a part of their identity that they assume They are experts on the thing So all that said You know, even you know, sports fans have been calling into sports radio thinking they know how to run the team Fire the couch That's a long tradition of fandom is like i'm buying tickets. You better put a good, you know It's that same attitude, but because nerdery became a consumer thing That has been brought over as well and is mixed with the nerd culture So where we are today as a result And I guess we can just pick different like specific points from here until we get hungry and run out of steam but uh The thing that's been coming up recently a lot that really bothers me specifically because it's causing the most harm Is that the fans will be entitled About things that they made up themselves. So like this happens in like At least they're creating something. Yeah, but like I gotta give them some credit But like my little pony fandom steven universe fandom like all these animation fandoms You see these kids who will like their identity is invested in this fucking property like this cartoon is my soul And then they make some bullshit up about this thing like these two characters will kiss because reasons Here is my here is my manifesto on why this is true And then when the show doesn't reflect the made up bullshit They feel betrayed both by the creators who did the wrong thing in their eyes And by the fact that their personal identity has now been ruined because they've tied it to a commercial property That they watched on television. Right. Well, I mean this goes back to what I was saying before about creating things Right is like if you are someone who Who will think about bill gates. Yeah, okay. I think bill gates. I don't know for some reason I think this there was like a quote that was maybe I don't know attributed to him. I don't know if it's true or not And I think that's why I keep thinking of him whenever I bring this point up which I brought up many times But anyway bill gates is someone if you don't know who fucking loves cars He's got like a garage full of like a zillion porches and shit like he's crazy But do you ever sign builds like that too? Oh, uh, j leno. I think is also one of those, right? But do you ever say bill gates The car lover Do you ever say, you know, it's like he loves to play bridge. He's huge on bridge, right? He plays bridge Do you ever say bill gates bridge player? No, you say bill gates founder of microsoft once richest person on earth That's what his identity is right because he did something he accomplished something. He made something That overrides all the other things that would normally be his identity, right? So look at me It's like I like mega man, right? But do you ever say scott megaman fan? No, it's scott geek night's annoying podcast asshole. Yeah, because like look at part of me I don't have to make something good. You just have to make something and now that becomes your identity if you are You know, it's like well, even I make x I do x there's a lot of there's a lot of lines there But pure passive consumption as primary identity. I think is a very dangerous combination That's what happens to somebody like a middle row because gaming is doing there's like it is consuming doing making right and Consuming coupled with entitlement is dangerous to the point of being deadly Those people if they don't make anything or accomplish anything Which is actually, you know kind of hard to do when you're so young especially Yeah, right it's like how could you how many teenagers can we expect even if they're trying to reasonably Accomplish or do anything that would become their identity so early in life not many right? Which me but early in life they get a lot of free time. They're going to consume a lot of media So that's going to be their identity, right? It's like, you know It's like how many how many people have like a uncle and like or whatever or or someone in your family Who's like a huge sports fan to the point where that is their identity? I am so and so cheesehead Yep, it's like I live in Green Bay. I'm a Packers fan. I got a room full of Packers shed all over the walls That's their identity because that's what they do is they're they don't make anything They have a job But no really the thing they care most about is that because they haven't accomplished anything else to override that in their in their lives Now an interesting counterpoint there is that for young people today I get there's a very distinct like worry the sort of adjacent to this that A lot of young people are creating stuff very visibly But as a result there's a lot of pressure on people who may like maybe they're not ready to make something Or they got other stuff going on to make stuff before they're ready and to be visible about it Which one makes people who make or do things that aren't highly visible feeling adequate and two Puts people under an intense pressure to succeed in areas that they might not be able to succeed And then they'll tie that identity up with their own life and get depressed and have problems Like Geek Nights is moderately successful, but at the same time We we have money and we just fund it like I don't need you to watch for me to keep doing this because I can afford to eat Independent of Geek Nights and I don't care if you watch I do Okay, yeah, but because I make we're makers you're making right here or making stuff Yeah, I don't need people to I can make stuff and enjoy making stuff without anybody seeing it Yep, but I feel like I'm happy to make wooden chairs and at a roadside Shack and have nobody by the but I guess I worry that The performative making stuff of the modern streaming culture puts an intense and new pressure on Generations younger than us to do similar things instead of less visible making pursuits Another thing that's going on right is that we used to be right that the only people who made stuff for the the big time Publishing giant companies, right? Yeah Cost to make Geek Nights 10 bucks and four bucks. Oh, you know what $0 a month You can host a podcast on patreon for free or SoundCloud. Yeah 100 bucks a month for Adobe creative cloud $100 microphone. You're good to go Anyway, the point is Nowadays, you know, I think this really became first visible on the internet At least most visible on the internet with open source software But to other people who didn't were in that community with the webcomic people It's like if you're a webcomic and you had fans Those fans would be like, why is there no comic today? They weren't even paying the money. Yep That they didn't even have that capitalist relationship of money How dare you not draw the free picture for me on tuesday like you didn't even promise you would Right, it's like that's some of the earliest instances. I can remember I remember that like not that we're super fans There's a lot of issues with mega tokyo, but Real respect to if any of that the fans of mega tokyo were real shitty to that dude If he didn't put up a comic. Yep Penny arcane too, they used to get a lot of flag curse. They never failed to put up a comic They never missed a comic ever They'd get flack for not doing more than they were already doing even though they were 100 consistent Anyway But yeah, it's you know this this sort of thing where it's like i'm consuming your thing You know and the other thing is you get these communities, right and the communities form around The things that you're consuming. Yeah, but now as a creator Am I responsible for the lot for the like health and safety of a community that formed independent of me Around a thing I happen to put on the internet, right? It's like and here's the thing There's like two big things that go on with communities One is a community forms around around a thing because it started because people were consuming the same thing Say star wars. That's the biggest, right? Yep There's people who are consuming star wars in some fashion So they end up adjacent to each other for because they're buying the same thing or looking at the same thing And then they form a community Right is star wars people who didn't attempt to make that community. Are they responsible for it somewhat because The product that they're making is somehow influencing that community Ah, but the others at the other coin at the other side of the coin Look at what happened with the new star wars movie where The shitty fans of star wars who are basically racist and or misogynist Freaked out about the media being good. You usually don't see someone who's only one or the other You ever see see someone like misogynist, but absolutely the opposite of racist Or someone who's racist, but is like super women's, right? Yeah, like usually if you peel that onion back they're both in there It's like I feel like it'd be really hard to be one another other Well, let's put it this way you know anyone like that. Let me know It's real hard to put any responsibility on the creators of current star wars for the shitty misogynist Who are fans of star wars who are mad about what they did yet? The media directly caused well directly triggered those shitty people to be shittier And those people those fans with their because their identities are wrapped up in it Organized around how mad they are about it and become a real threat to the creators Well, the point is the the content of the original creation, right? Does have some effect on the kind of people that will come to the community originally with the caveat that once you get Above a certain line from like niche market to mass market all bets are off, right? The second thing is that this is what I see is a problem as the main cause of most Especially in nerderies of conflicts within communities Is people come to the same community for different reasons and like the same Thing for completely different reasons. So you might have two people who both really both play this board game, right? pick whatever board game you can think of and Danny land let's go one person Oh, let's do netrunner because that's way easy, right one person comes into netrunner because They're all about that cyberpunk theme And they they love storytelling and how when you play the game like a cool cyberpunk story You know evolves and comes out which does happen if you play netrunner, right? And someone else and that person buys netrunner cards and plays netrunner and goes to netrunner events And somebody else plays netrunner because they want to fucking win and they play games competitively They they pay attention to math. They want to win a netrunner tournaments, right? These people both come into the netrunner community, right? Those people have nothing in common They basically are there they might as well be fans of completely different things They don't actually share anything But now they're in the same community space together because this one Consumer item is sort of serving both of their interests And they've come together and they will conflict if they happen to like play a game with each other It will not go well now. This is out of the point like a like Star Wars fans. I am a fan of Star Wars like I like Star Wars I would never Interact with a group dedicated to that fandom under any circumstances, right? Yeah, and there's plenty of like this, you know, there's the what are they called the something 38? They make the cool Costumes and stuff. No, right. They're in it for these cosplay reasons But meanwhile, there's the other people who are making like robot r2 real r2 d2s, right? And they're all programming and making robots and shit and those people could probably get along and have fun together Yeah, right and they probably bring the r2 d2 to the cosplay event Those actually probably aren't too distant as the Enjoy the theme and enjoy winning. Yeah, but the point is Maybe someone who's way into star wars The card game, right? With the people who are into star wars the blizzcon example the people are into World of warcraft for the lore and role playing versus the people are into it for the grind fest and the raids Those communities don't overlap that much. No, right? And then so now right because the the episode isn't about community problems It's about, you know the the relationship between the the fans and the creator Is now your creator of world of warcraft and you have this community of people who consume your product And there are hugely disparate factions and you cannot serve one without upsetting the other Yep, and the consequences of upsetting any one of them can often lead to weird internet hate mobs Yeah, like if you know, it's like okay. I'm right. I'm the lady writes harry potter It's like well if I do this it'll upset the fan fiction people. I got to do this for the movie fans I gotta do that, you know, it's like it's too much going on there. What are you gonna do? Yeah Right no matter what you do Someone's going to yell at you and be way mad and you can hear them because it's 2018 And if it was 1918 you would never hear from anybody unless they wrote you a handwritten note and you get like two So I guess because we're we've gone on a while here I think the the morals to really think about like the real takeaways are one We need to figure out a way to prevent people from wrapping up their personal Like real identity with a thing they happen to be a fan of that people need to Realize that creators don't owe you shit the person who makes the thing that you like They it's up to them to do whatever the fuck they want and what they think is best And you can I mean you can say whatever you want because freedom of speech or whatever express yourself But if they you don't like it tough fucking cookies Deal with it. If you think it should have gone better make it your damn self And two we need to figure out a way to prevent the more rabid fans from organizing against people who don't have any like Support mechanism to protect themselves from that And that's it like that is a real serious problem right now people who were in star wars Were driven away from social media You think those people don't have like protective networks already and still they're driven off of social media By these rabid horrid fans right there needs to be a way for people to Live their lives in you know creating and putting out public art And even if that art is you know very much despised they and maybe even deservedly so They shouldn't be uh a sale because of it and that goes back to like, you know If I get in middle ages or whatever people would make like heretical arts and get Shit, right? Oh my god in the tower of london. We're gonna end on this so there's all this graffiti in the tower of london There's one part where like prisoners were held and there's this one dude who wrote all this graffiti And his story was basically he was arrested for being a sorcerer Uh-huh, and his defense was I was a sorcerer. That is true, but I am not a sorcerer anymore I haven't done it in a long time and I definitely didn't curse the people who like sent me here You know what his sorcery was like, you know what it was literally astronomy texts All right, I gotta get some food and do some stuff. I think we're done here Okay, so take it to the forum have an argument about this. There's already one argument in the forum going on