[MUSIC PLAYING] Isn't there someone you could reach out to, like a computer club or something, that could help you resolve these issues in a timely manner? Oh, a computer club. That's a great idea. Well, I think there's a segment coming on the show where that would be a perfect thing. Is that something we-- should we leave it-- Yeah, leave it later, because I've already got a solution for Martin. Yeah. I can jump straight to the solution. He doesn't need a computer club. He's got me. Perfect. Oh. Here we go. Mr. Officeworks himself. What do we got? OK, do you want to know what you do? If you're having problems with your audio hijack, you simply turf your old M1 setup, OK? And you bring back an Intel 5K iMac, put that back on the desk and start recording and doing your podcasting from that, because it's reliable. It works. It's got a camera where you want the camera to be. And it's a glorious solution. Is it the sweet solution? It's the sweet solution. My 5K iMac is back, proud of place, recording this very episode on it. The number of times that iMac has departed and come back. Where does it go? And how does it feel about this? Because I can't imagine it's happy that it's put in a corner and then brought back and put in the corner and brought back. No, I've never neglected it. So when I took it away, I moved it into kind of like what I call the library. Sounds a bit ostentatious, but it's basically I've got a couple of bookshelves and some armchairs. Does it have one of those slidey ladders that goes all the way around the room? It doesn't have one of those. It does have a ladder that goes to the attic. So I can bring an attic into that room. OK. You need a slidey one, Andrew. I reckon that would be a real enhancement. Get one of those. Yeah. Sister of my partner has just built a new house. And they have a slidey ladder. For books or for other items? For books. For books in the bookshelf. It's good. But no, so the iMac has been living in the library. And I thought I'd have it there for music if I want a bit of ambient jazz while I'm reading a hardcover. Oh, yeah. That sounds like probably a pretty regular activity for you. Yeah. But it didn't really get used very much in that instance. And basically, I just found I was still sitting-- I was actually using the iMac still more than the laptop because it's just all in one. Now, I bought a Thunderbolt dock for my laptop. And I set up the external monitor. This just in from Andrew, the all in one. It's a big thing. I reckon that's really going to work for Apple. The iMac is, in fact, all in one, if anyone wasn't aware of that. But trying to do the same thing with my laptop, I had a Thunderbolt dock. I had cables everywhere. When I tried to do this show with you guys, as you well know, I only had a webcam on the laptop, not on my external monitor. So I'm having to sort of angle and look at the laptop screen. And I've got more cables because I've got the audio interface. And it's just a schmozzle. The Thunderbolt dock ran hot. Like, you could fry an egg on this thing, to the point where I was feeling guilty about the power consumption that it must be consuming. So every time I would leave the study for an extended period, I was yanking the power cord out of the thing. Yeah, I imagine a Core i7 from 10 years ago is probably much more power efficient. No, this is only an i5. So I thought about it. Oh, easy. OK. I don't know why you have so many cables. Can you explain a little bit where the-- I have one cable. What? He just fell into a bargain bin at Officeworks and got tangled like Medusa and stumbled out. It's like, oh, they're discounted. Why not? I don't know. I guess I'll plug them in. I don't know where they go. But-- A Thunderbolt-- so it had the dock, plus the power brick for the dock, which was about the same size again. Then I had Thunderbolt to connect the laptop. Then I had DisplayPort to go to the monitor. Sure. USB for my audio interface, USB for the stream deck, USB for the mouse. Right. Something else as well. Oh, USB for the keyboard. Because-- yeah. But you plug those once and then never touch them again. That's the-- But they're still there. --idea of a dock. But it took up so much space. And there's visual clutter. Got it. OK. So yeah. So I got rid of all that. Now I've got a-- but then you know what I've done now with-- so now the external display is gone out to the library. Oh, no. Just for shits and giggles, I decided to go iPad into the external monitor, Stage Manager. Wow. It's pretty good. It's-- actually, it's pretty terrible. And my Logitech-- That was the quickest about face I've ever-- it's pretty good. It's actually awful. No, the Logitech MX mouse is really bad for it. It doesn't-- the responsiveness levels are all wrong for that little fat finger thing. And then the scroll wheel is like you've got to go [MAKES SCROLLING NOISES] to get any scrolling. So you really-- No, no, whoa, whoa, wait. But are you doing the scroll where you have like the infinite [MAKES SCROLLING NOISES] sort of spin thing? Because I love that. That's great. You do that and it just-- here, I've got it right here. I'm spinning it. I'm going [MAKES SCROLLING NOISES] and it just goes like that. Isn't that what I did? Like [MAKES SCROLLING NOISES] like that? I don't know what I did. There we go. Sorry, there was a bit of a [MAKES SCROLLING NOISES] in the other one maybe because I accidentally clicked it the other way. I'm confusing myself. What the hell is this segment, Andrew? What's happening? It's in the-- it's in the-- it's in the run sheet. This is-- Musical-- --genre content. Musical computers. It's musical computers. He's got a library. He's got an office. And he's shuffling things back and forth. Back and forth. Which microphone is in the library now? I guess would be my next-- There's no microphone in the library. Oh, no microphone. OK. No, no. Sure. That would be just garish. OK. OK. So how many days until we get rid of the iMac again? Is it-- [SIGHS] Well, hang on. Surely you've found faults in this setup already. There's no way. It's perfect. That's a really great question. I'm glad you asked, Jason. Just open up 2024-01-21, faults with Intel iMac, .xlsx. Almost. It's numbers. It's just taking a little while because this is an Intel Mac for numbers. OK, we're here. Numbers is loaded. OK. So let me just check my Intel iMac. I just can't imagine a world where someone would walk up to me and say, hey, you have that nice M series laptop. Tell you what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to give you an Intel machine. And there being any multiverse in which I say yes to that. So this Intel has been in service for 219 weeks and four days. Well, has it, though? Because I've heard tell that it's been in the library kind of doing nothing for some of those days. So this is not contiguous days of service. It was the directory for his Dewey Decimal System of Books at Home in another room. It was actually like a search computer. OK. Yeah. It's like the library computer where you ask exactly. It was one of those really ugly Windows applications with 500 buttons in the interface, which also doubles as like a dental patient record. So it's only just over four years of service. So that is it's still in pretty good nick. Spring chicken really. It's costing me $15.12 a week. So I still need to bring that down. So it's got some service life left in it. The M. Can I hate myself for a second and ask you a question about the depreciation thing? Yes. So let's just say theoretically someone cared about this and that person. Many-- sorry, my apologies. Let's just say that the three people in the world that care about this are listening right now. Can you explain to them maybe and maybe me as well, 15, 12 a week, what's the goal here? What are we trying to get to? And why do we care? That's a great question. Why have we never asked that? I don't know. I just realized that I don't really-- we've never asked. Is there a magic number? When it hits $8 a week, we've won the medal? What's the goal? Can you help me here? It's one of those things, you can never get it to zero. Because it's-- It's a game you can never win. So you're always dividing by time. So you're never going to get to zero. So it's more a comparative feature than an absolute. Comparative to what? Other stuff on the spreadsheet. OK. So my iMac is costing me $15.12, right? Sure. My MacBook Air M1 is only costing me $11.97. So it's already better. And my Apple Mac-- the Mac mini M1 that I have is only at $8 per week. No, no. So the iMac is still more expensive. So I need to use it more, because I paid so much more for it. I need to really maximize my value. I would be looking at the iMac-- I'd be wanting to get that down to about $10, $11 a week before I could really feel like I've gotten full use out of it. I don't think that's too bad. If it's to maximize use for sustainability or to make sure you're getting long life out of your products, I kind of get that. But I'm not sure that's your motivation. Jason, where's your mind going with this? I think the shareholder value is where I went initially. But then I realized that-- I think I was correct in my initial thinking that there is no point to this. There is no actual end goal. OK, confirmed. Got it. I understand now. It's a thing to make you-- It makes it miserable. That's the thing. --feel like you've gotten out of the thing with-- the money you put in, you got out an equal amount of-- Yeah, it's almost like a question. It's like, so at the moment-- It is a question, and I question it every day. If I had been asked to put aside $15 a week for this iMac, would I be comfortable with that? Like, if you said you can use this iMac, but only if you set aside $15 per week-- For the rest of your life. Until you die. That seems a lot. Like, to put aside for an iMac, an Intel iMac. How much was this iMac? Why is it still more than everything else? And it's like 100 years old. Well, it's cheap. It's an all-in-one, Jason. Having you do it, it was really expensive. Oh, it's an all-in-one. OK. I thought there were wires everywhere. I thought there were wires and connections. This is a good question. It cost me $3,319. Wow. Why? Apparently, Apple's more expensive these days. Apparently, that's a lot. Jeez, that is a lot. OK. So that's just why I've got to keep using it. That was a lot. Andrew, I know that you love tasks and to-do lists and managing your knowledge. So I mean, maybe not as much as depreciation in general is a topic, but I'm going to set you a task, right? You remember the Mac OS 9 funeral that Steve Jobs held? Vaguely. He did it on stage with a casket, the whole thing. Well, you don't have to do that, necessarily. I'm not telling you to go that far for us visually for YouTube or something. But I think this Intel iMac has been such a champion and such a recurring champion on this podcast that when it does eventually die or you put it to rest or pass it on or whatever, I would like you, for us and for the sake of the listeners, to hold a special service for this iMac, an all-in-one funeral, as it were. That's a good idea. Can I replace-- I think I'm going to have to get another iMac. Well, however it happens, I think the listeners, they're going to be emotional when this happens. And I think we need to give them warning that it's coming. And then out of the blue, when it does come, they'll be prepared for that strong emotional wave that flurry of confused Intel feelings. So I'm asking that of you. Attitude to do list. I love the idea of the all-in-one funeral. That sounds like a good package, actually. Yeah, birth, christening, marriage. Very few wires involved. Funeral, it's all in there. It's clean, concise. Yeah, I like that. All delivered through Bluetooth. Just be thankful I can't buy an Apple Vision Pro, because imagine how that depreciation situation would look. That's not going to be good. That's $6,000 a week. Oh, man. Your spreadsheet could be panoramic. You'd just be, like, boxed in. All right, well, that's whatever that was. Depreciation IMAC corner. We'll check back in in two weeks, where it'll be $15.11. Quick mention, which isn't in the notes, but I want to throw it out there. One Prime Plus, just this week, before this episode is going out, members will have been enjoying our first newsletter for the year, which is actually a bit of a weird one. It's not hemispheric news. It's not hemispheldic news, just with me. It's hemispheldic canyon, or hemis-canyon-feldic? I don't know. I can't even remember what we wrote. But two pieces, one from me, one from Andrew. Jason's sitting this month out because, I mean, he's a busy man. He's dealing with ice damage or something. Not the drug, the actual snow that falls from the sky. I should clarify that. Whoops. A bit illicit. And our first members episode for the year, which is, I mean, two segments people might not be expecting. We explore the wonderful world of markdown in apps and whether you really need it. And on top of that, I talk about a camera, which I think was going to be originally in the show, but I thought, I'm not going to inflict this on regular listeners. I'm just going to stuff it in the thing with the members to make it painful for them. So if you want to pay more to hear me talk rubbish about a camera and Jason's thoughts about markdown, make sure to sign up at what's the site again? I think, let's see. Let me check my notes. Oh, that would be one prime plus dot com. You can also get stickers too. We have stickers. Get a sticker. It's so good. Get a sticker. Get in there. Get a sticker. You both have stickers coming in the mail. We need more orders from Australia. Australians and generally southern hemispherians, I think, just lift your game. This is embarrassing. Nobody wants to be beaten by America. You know what Americans like when they win? They're all like, USA, USA. This is ridiculous. Free shipping if you want the $10,000 sticker. Is it? Hey, I don't want to cut our margin on that 10 grand. Put that in your depreciation spreadsheet. Sticker, line item, sticker, $10,000. Anchor. What's happening with anchor? That's today's sponsor of the Hemispheric Views podcast. Today's episode 103 is brought to you by Anchor and the Anchor 548 power bank, the ultimate camping power bank with USB-C. Was that pretty believable that that could be an ad? Because it's not. I reckon you genuinely worried people listening when you did that. No, we still have no ads. We don't like them. Although, actually, we've got something about a mattress here. They're the actual sponsors, right? Oh, yeah. That's later, though. Don't-- shh. Don't. That'll be-- yeah. Oh, sorry. When I record the next segment from my bed, you'll know. [LAUGHTER] Whoa. [LAUGHTER] Oh, boy. We're not that kind of podcast. Hey, yo. Hey. [LAUGHTER] We used to have a clean rating. Not anymore. [LAUGHTER] We still do, though, somehow, even though there's like plenty of swearing on the show. Nobody's dumped on us. I think that's so funny that you can just pick whatever you want. Just actually-- Yeah. Sorry. No. Sidebar. Sidebar. Interjection. Sidebar. Yeah. Do Americans say-- Americans don't say "dobbed." I just said nobody's dobbed on us. No. No one says that. Do you know what that means? Good point. It was actually a crossword clue the other day in Puzmo. And I'm forgetting what it meant. But it was-- it did come across my desk. Oh, OK. Yeah, "dobbed." Martin, you'd be familiar with "dobbed." I bet you-- It's like a painting term. It's like you, like, slap a bunch of paint on something. Is "dobbing." Mm, "dorb." Is it? "Dorb." "Dorb." We're talking "dob." D-O. OK. Yeah, like a "dib-dobber." You're a "dib-dobber." Don't "dob" on me, Martin. Mom! No, you're not coming to my pool party, Andrew. Mom, Martin's doing-- Martin's "dobbed" on me. So fair. Wow. Shut up, Andrew. I'll "dob" on you whatever I like. Mom! OK. Wow. OK. So yeah, "dobbing" is-- All right, so that's the example that goes in the dictionary, but what's the definition? I have no idea. You tell me. I'm asking Andrew. I shouldn't have specified. I can convert this to American because I'm bilingual. Oh, right. Yeah, I think this is how-- I'm just going back in my memory banks. I might get slightly wrong. It's calling on some Brady Bunch knowledge as well. Don't be a tattletale. Oh, OK. Got it. Yep, that makes sense. Nobody likes a tatty-- what? A tatty-- Wow. What is a "dobber"? Tatty tail? Or snitching. Snitching too, do you reckon? Snitching? Snitches get stitches. Exactly. All right. Well, dobbers get "dorbed" apparently, whatever that is. So there you go. Sorry, that was Anchor. So, well, thanks to our sponsor Anchor for that segment about "dobbing". They're going to hear that and just love it. Where was I even going with this? I don't-- I just wanted to mention a thing that I'd used that I thought was cool. And that's the Anchor 548 Power Bank PowerCore Reserve 192 watt hours. It is a gigantic battery backup thingy. You know what? You know Anchor Power Banks. They make them in all different sizes and stuff. This one is like a camping one. And it's really big and has a handle and has a million thousand billion batteries in it that last forever. And a little pop-up light on top that in low mode can last 99 hours. So there you go. It's a really handy little camp light slash emergency light to keep in your house should you ever lose power and need to charge your phones and devices or just need a light on for a while. So Anchor 548. I've used it. I love it. And it's really cool. I'm trying to contextualize the amount of power that 60,000 milliamp hours. Not being an electrician. Like, could you give us a ballpark? Like how many iPads or like-- I don't know if that's-- That is a-- that's a great question. It can charge an iPhone 14 over 10 times. Okay. A MacBook Air three times. Is that giving you-- Is that-- is that all together or one or the other? Oh, I don't know. I don't work there. [LAUGHTER] I'm guessing one or the other. I think it's like Apple numbers. It's like if you only watched endless numbers of movies. Ah, yeah, yeah. Listen to minutes of songs. Like in that case all in a row. Like if you had no other devices and you only charged your MacBook Air repeatedly. That's what I mean. And you can also charge it with solar panels. So it's good in that respect as well. Yep. It's got a big screen on it that tells you what the-- like what's coming in, what's going out, how much time it's got left based on what it's using. It's really-- it's really nice. They did a really good job with it. It's almost like the modern digital version of like, you know, when you see some sort of old movie where they're carrying the gas lamp or the torch. Yeah. Oh, exactly. That's exactly-- In that little-- Totally. Except if you drop this, it won't catch you on fire. This is cool. I want it. $150. Is that US or is that Australian? Ah, US, I think. Yeah. I snagged it during a sale. So it was like $120, I think. $199 with coupon. Have you got a coupon? Coupon. Thank you, Anchor, for sponsoring today's podcast. Oh, how American does this review sound, Martin? I take it to our off-the-grid ranch and use it for my phone, tablet, rechargeable flashlights. I'm thinking of getting one for my son and daughter. Love it. What? Wow. In a male voice. It's actually by Denise, but I'm going to read that as Dennis, seeing as I got the accent wrong or the voice wrong. Right at the bottom, last review. On the ranch. Last review. Where's the ranch? Oh, last review. Denise. She's a verified buyer. Oh, lovely. All right, I'm going to click on a random number from that one to nine-- Seven. --that I can see going through the web pages. Seven. Oh, God. Okay, seven. Okay, not random. Let me click on seven. What am I going to read? What am I going to read? Well, this is a great endorsement. "The charging power distribution controller is a little wonky, but once you figure it out, it works quite well." So is it wonky or not? Does it work or not? Where was the accent? Why didn't you-- you didn't sound American enough when you said that. No, you weren't American. Well, maybe Matt H isn't American. Let's see. Okay, you want me to read an American one? Oh, read the two-star-- read the two-star one as an American. Yeah, or the one-star, either one, whichever you prefer. Are we going for like Andrew's like deep south kind of vibe on the ranch or-- You can pick east to west, my friend, whatever you like. Okay, I'll kind of go down Andrew's vibe, but make it my own. "I got mine and the box was in very bad shape and the thing arrived completely dead and will not charge. I was told I need to return mine and wait before I can get a new one, which that in itself is ridiculous when it's a new machine that didn't work when I got it. And now support isn't responding to any of my emails. What happened?" That's great. I love it. Okay. I like that there's a "was this review helpful?" and there's three thumbs down. Okay, Jason, you need to now read one as an Australian. Oh, God. It's so much harder. I don't think you understand what a monumental-- You can't drop the R. I know you can't do the non-rhotic R. I know. We're asking you to ignore sounds that you think are crucial. I know, and I can't. My brain doesn't want to do it. It's just like-- No. These all sound like excuses to me and I don't-- You know, we don't like excuses on this show. We love excuses on this show. Snorting over here. I can't do it on the spot. I can't do it. Andrew, pick a number. Pick a number out of the like little thing down the bottom, whatever that's called. Got it? Do I say it? Four. No, I can't. Are you on page four? I'm stuck. Read the second one. Read the second one by John. B. It's short. It's easy. Can't do it. I'm hanging up now. Can't believe it. I literally can't do it. It's not-- Okay, fine. It's not coming out. Fine, I'll do it. It's not coming out. I'll do the second one. You do it in an Australian accent. My Anker 548 works great and the pop-up lantern is great at night. Lantern? Would anyone-- That is not-- --know. Pop-up lantern. I don't think so. I was going Queensland. That was Queensland. Oh my God. All right, let's see. Let's see if we can do this. I think it requires a bit of a rethink. I think you actually have to, Jason, ignore the way that things are written. So, how would you say the name of-- The surname of the artist whose name is Paul A-N-K-A. I think that's how you spell it. What? Paul A-N-K-A. How do you say that last name? How would you say that? Am I spelling that correctly? Let's have a look. Just say that word. A-N-K-A. Just say it. Yeah, it's a Canadian singer. A-N-K-A. How would you pronounce that? Anker? My goodness. Oh, okay. Okay, can you say Ank? Ank. Ah. Ah. Anker. Anker. Perfect. You have just pronounced Anker as an Australian. That's it. There you go. Anker. I'm glad that my analogy or name reference there really, really resonated. That's good. That one, you nailed it with that, with the Anker. Well, say Lantan how you would in an Australian accent, then we'll move on. How I would in an Australian accent? Yeah. Since you completely shredded Andrew. What's the way you would say it? Now all I have in my head is how he said it, Lantan. Okay, ignore Andrew's attempt at his own accent. What? I don't know. Lantan. Lantan. Lan- Lan-ton. Yeah, Lan- Ton. Not ton. Lantan. Lantan. Ton. Ton. T-N. Ton. Lan- Celila. Ton. Lantan. Whenever you see an R that is there and should be, just take it out. Oh, God, I hate you. This is... Lantan. I don't think this sponsorship is going to continue, I'll just say. I'm pretty sure they're out at this point. It's a good battery, buy it. Buy it. That sounded pretty Australian. It's a good battery, buy it. Battery. All right, what's next? Media Corner. Seen any good movies lately? I have. I watched one last night. I have, but I didn't put this in the notes. Oh, Andrew, what have you seen? Last night I watched, um, looks fairly new movie. You might not be aware of it. Very cutting edge. Uh, The Breakfast Club. Oh, hey, that's a brand new release. Classic from 1985. Well, so here's the... Here's the thing, though, with Hollywood seemingly only being able to redo everything that's ever been done, for a brief second, I'm kind of wondering, did they redo The Breakfast Club? And this is like a big one. They might do. They're doing Mean Girls. They've done Mean Girls. Oh, God, stop it. To be fair, though, that is a movie of the musical version that, like, went to Broadway. So it's like not the same. It's not technically a remake. The Breakfast Club? No, Mean Girls. What about Wonka? That just looks like... Yeah, no, thanks. Wait, like Willy Wonka? Yeah, this new one. Yeah, but before he was Willy Wonka and running around with Hugh Grant, the Oompa Loompa and singing songs and stuff. What? I haven't seen it, but I found the trailer looked a bit cringe worthy to me. My sister saw it and loved it. She was like, oh, I loved it. And I'm like, yeah, I'm not feeling that. Never heard of it. OK. So who put this in the show notes? Are we just randomly shouting out movies that we've seen recently? I did. Oh, Jason did. I was just curious if we haven't talked about movies in a while. I don't know what kind of movies you're into. Anything on play. Anything. Well, I have examples. Anything in the last decade, Andrew, or no? No. OK. Martin, you just watching? Well, I've seen some great movies recently. What have you got? Actually in a cinema. You know, that thing where you enter a room, popcorn, theatre. What language is this movie going to be in that he talks about here, Jason? Oh, French. I was thinking German or Greek. I can't decide. Leaning towards Greek. But let's see what he goes with. OK. It could be. OK. Let's see. German is a good pick, though. But I'm leaning heavy, heavy French with like really, really fancy subtitles that are super difficult to read. All right. What do we got, Martin? Well, it was a fantastic Armenian journey through someone's own- I'm joking, actually. Two in English and one in Japanese. It could be so true, though. He could have just kept going and everybody be like, "Yeah, yeah, it checks out." Well, you know, it's like Rochelle Rochelle from Seinfeld. It's one young girl's erotic journey from Milan to Minsk. You know, it's a great story. Anyway, I digress. So anyway, look up Rochelle Rochelle. That'll be in the show notes. Thanks, Jason. We actually went to the movies a few times. You know, people like, "Oh, it's holidays. Can we have Mac, please?" I'm like, "No worries. You can have him. We'll go to the movies." Just random people were asking that? No, people in the family, but I didn't want to like specifically- Oh, in the inner circle. OK, just checking. It's like we're just walking down the street and someone says, "He looks like a lovely toddler. I'd like to take on that burden." Yeah, "Can we take him for three hours?" And you're like, "Yeah, I guess." And he's not a burden, but maybe for people who don't know his specific routine. I'm just talking randomly now. So the movies are fantastic. The first one, Nicolas Cage in Dream Scenario. Have you two heard of this? I've heard of Face/Off. Fantastic. Yeah, that's a good one. This is quite different. This is quite different, but has its own creepiness in a different way. I won't ruin it. Won't give spoilers for any of these, but really worth your time, I think. Very odd. He plays this kind of frustrated, dull, middle-aged university professor who suddenly starts appearing in other people's dreams, people who know him and people who don't know him. And it quickly kind of gets out of hand for positive and very negative reasons. And it kind of deals with issues of fame and what you want to achieve in life. So he really owns it. It's quite amusing, but more disturbing. So if you're after something that's really quirky and different, I'd give Dream Scenario a go. Another movie, Priscilla, all about the life of Priscilla, who is married to Elvis. That's funny you say that, because Natasha kept saying, "Oh, do you want to go see Priscilla?" I'm like, "I've seen this movie." It's like, "Oh, you don't mean The Queen of the Desert, the classic Australian movie. You mean former wife of Elvis." I just kept imagining people in drag in the desert. But great movie. It actually explores the life of Priscilla and how she basically had to live with Elvis and what she went through. And it's not particularly kind to Elvis. It's much more, let's say, real and from her perspective and based on her book, her autobiography. So I give that a go. It's a great kind of exercise in framing or editing to show, basically, Elvis is a big part of her life, but he wasn't the whole story. And it's directed by Sofia Coppola, who's fantastic as well. Last one I'll mention, Godzilla minus one. Absolutely loved it. Now, truth be told, I have not watched a whole heap of proper Godzilla movies. The only one that I can ever remember seeing completely is that questionable one from the 1990s with Matthew Broderick and Hank Azaria. I don't think that really counts. Yeah. Yeah. No, no. All the other Godzilla stuff I've seen is like fragments of old movies on TV or documentaries. I've never actually sat through an entire one, but this was set in Japan post-war period. It's all set in like the late 40s and onwards and really fantastic kind of period piece stuff. If you're into anything like World War Two or Japanese history and anything like that, they try to actually line it up with wartime experience and as a commentary on the effects of war as Godzilla was kind of intended. And Godzilla looks as it is supposed to. And notice I said "it" because in my reading, apparently in English speaking countries, Godzilla became a "he". Like Americans and Australians and English people and so on refer to Godzilla as a "he" where Japanese people always said it was an "it". I might be wrong, but that's what I read. And it's just a different kind of vibe from Godzilla turning around and attacking somewhere like San Francisco or New York. So two thumbs up for that one. That sounds cool. Was the Australian actor Paul Hogan by chance? No. No. Let me look it up here. Oh, actually I'm typing on my keyboard, but I've got this fantastic app called Callsheet, which I'm sure our listeners will be familiar with. Let me have a look. I am familiar with it. What's that? Thoroughly enjoy it. It's Casey Liss's app. It's kind of an answer to things like IMDB, which. If people are unfamiliar with Casey Liss, I suggest they check out a podcast called Really Specific Stories hosted by Martin Feld. Thank you, Andrew. That's nice of you to say. Casey Liss was a guest on that podcast. It's probably his greatest claim to fame. He may also be known as one of the triumvirate of the ATP crew. But really, yeah, he RSS, ATP, Callsheet, in that order. Kind of you to bring that up because I didn't raise it for that mention, but I'm very grateful. And just as evidence, because I love this app and it's actually on my front home screen. I use it all the time. The actor's name is Jacob Elordi, and I found that in no time at all just by searching Priscilla. Love it. That's a weird way to pronounce Paul Hogan, but I guess. OK. Yeah. Well, he looks just like him, so maybe it's like a kind of alternative name or pseudonym or something. Cool. Yeah. RSSpod.net. There you go. Thanks for that media corner, Martin. That gave us an excuse to use the theme. We haven't used that in a while, so that's good. Now we got to head over because we've got a type 45. We have got to head into the. Wait, what about my movie? Do you have one? What the hell? What about my movie? Oh, OK, fine. Go for it. OK. Quickly, quickly. You got 30 seconds. Go. I get 30 seconds. Come on. Martin gets to talk about Paul Hogan for 45 minutes and I don't even. 25 now. OK, hang on. 56 seconds. Hang on, hang on. Hang on. Hey, Siri, set a timer for 30 seconds. I would like to bring for my show and tell today a movie with the title The Black Pirate by Douglas Fairbanks from 1926. It is an American silent action adventure film shot entirely in two color technicolor. It's about pirates and you have to read. So, there you go. Black Pirate. And what drew your attention to that? Sorry, that's the end of this. That's the end of his time. He can answer my question. I just want to know a little bit. There's the session and then there's Q&A. This is Q&A now. Q&A. Good question. Thank you. In front, Martin, go ahead. What was your question about my dissertation? I'd like to know what drew your attention to this Black Pirate movie. It's super old. It's a silent film. And somewhere I read that it was the first film shot in this two color technicolor. And I was like, "What the hell is two color?" Because there was obviously black and white and then color. I didn't even know two color was a thing. So, I was very intrigued to see what that meant. And it was weird. It gave it a very weird look. But yeah, I would actually recommend people watch it because I think it was kind of a cool movie. I just want to know when you say two colors, these are the same two colors throughout the whole movie or they shift? Yeah. No, same. It's as if you had like two, you shot it on two different colors of film and overlaid them. So, it gives the almost appearance of the film being shot in color, but still black and white. It's this weird like, it's not sepia tone. But it's like a half color. I don't know. I am not a, obviously a film color expert, but it's a very interesting look that I think added to the film. Considering if they didn't do that, it would have just been black and white. I think it actually added a good bit to it. So, The Black Pirate, Douglas Fairbanks. We are going into local tech news corner. Hot off the presses. And when I mean presses, I mean literal like printing presses. Martin, you have all the details on this. I could not have asked for a better intro like leading into that from you two. That was great. That was like it was rehearsed, but it was not. I will assure the listeners it was not rehearsed. If people listen to episode like triple zero, the pirate, not pirate, the pilot. The pirate? The pirate. You put the black pirate in my head. I have infected your brain with pirates. You are episode triple zero. Arr, episode zero, zero, zero, matey. If people listen to International Mac Nerds and the follow up prop first episode, Tim Tam Slams and then jump to today, they think what kind of like drugs with these people, like what kind of bizarre downward spiral have they entered? But anyway, I digress. This is something that I almost completely forgot about. It's something that I photographed when I was away on holiday in Sussex. And I think I mentioned last episode or whatever. When I was there visiting the fish and chip shop, the Chubby Mermaid, which I think I mentioned earlier, I was there with Natasha's aunt. We're picking up takeaway for dinner and she showed me this fantastic, really, really charming local paper or newsletter called the Sussex Inlet. And she was flicking through it because she says, oh, whenever we come down here on holiday, there's actually genuinely useful stuff in here like tradespeople or notices for the community and stuff. And I actually use stuff from here. But flicking through, oh, my goodness, I found the official minutes made public. This is the last meeting for twenty twenty three on Tuesday, the 12th of December for the Sussex Inlet Computer Club. Now, they have not had their next meeting yet. It actually says at the end that their next one is Tuesday, the 13th of February for twenty twenty four. And I thought in this transitional period, as they have exited twenty twenty three and are looking forward to their next meeting in twenty twenty four, we could dive in for a bit. I'm going to read the opening section and then open to the floor because I think this is a it's hilarious and kind of, oh, my goodness, what's going on? But at the same time, it's charming. And I know a lot of listeners here love the blogosphere. They love the open web. We think about this era of like, oh, you know, we're getting back to proper open web blogging and writing away from social networks. Let's not forget that there is a significant population of people who have never even entered that sphere or they are relying on in-person face to face stuff and then putting it into clearly a Microsoft Word created newsletter that is put in fish and chip shops. OK, let me just quickly before you start, could you please paint just a small picture, give a flourish to what this newsletter was like? How thick was it? How many different sections? Just a little bit of detail about what accompanied this section. Sure, sure. Well, listeners can go to the show notes, first of all, and find under the chapter markers, the actual link to this screenshot or photograph page that I've done. But to answer your question, Jason, it was very much like a double sided kind of printed a four stapled together. It might have been a three in half. Do you know what I mean? So it's not really like a glossy magazine or that kind of newspaper feel. It's like they've gone to Officeworks and bought a huge ream of A3 reflex and done the double sided spring stuff. It's so fairly thick for a small community newsletter or paper, but not something the size of the Sydney Morning Herald or the New York Times or something. It's got more ads than we do. So that's true. And I apologise if you can hear Rocky the cockatiel in the background. She's I think she can hear me. So let's kick it off here. I'm going to read a small bit here, just the intro, and then you two can dive in and we can read some sections and maybe discuss it for the remainder of the episode. Computer Club with a kind of clip art heading at the top of a person happily using his computer. And it says meeting Tuesday, 12th of December, 2023. Users helping. Sorry, I feel bad for interrupting. I just want to point out the monitor that he's using is a CRT. I just thought that would help contextualise what we're dealing with, the clip art. And the O in computer is like the operation like on for a button. Yeah. On. Yeah. It's classic. That's all right. No, that's I'm glad you interjected. Users helping users. We discuss the interests, issues and problems our members have in this digitally connected world, be it with computer, tablet, smartphone or smart television. David opened the meeting at 12. I'm not reading it properly. At 10.15am with 15 members and two visitors attending. I'm going to read this first section. Two visitors. That could have been us. I just want to say, can you imagine if that if we just showed up to this and said, hey, computer club, we're going to do a show here. So first section in bold, electronic lounge. Colin had come down from Sydney without a power cable. Luckily, Tom was able to find one for him on the recycle table in cat, like with title case, the official recycle table. There was the October edition of the APC magazine. David had a nice widescreen monitor with VGA, DVI and display port connectors, but no HDMI connector. He was able to buy it says HDMI, but should be an HDMI to DVI adapter from Scope Tech for ten dollars. That would be Australian. The Epson wireless overhead projector has been snapped up by the Sanctuary Point Masonic Lodge. Martin Martin's correcting the grammar of of the of the poor show notes here. Like that should be an HDMI. Well, it's not H, it's H. That means it starts with a V. So we're going to be right here. Oh, my God, this is so good. Like just the fact that I mean, Colin bless his heart going all the way from Sydney without the right cable. We've all been there, haven't we? Oh, geez, you show up and you're like, oh, shit, not again. VGA, we're calling that out like that's a like it's an impressive stat. So that was a weird flex, but OK, I don't think so. But OK, that sounds good. Um, I had a question for you to Scope Tech. Scope Tech is that a that a store that is around and they chose that name on purpose. Is it a Scorpion logo? Do they have like a cool Scorpion logo where the tail is like an Ethernet cable or something? I have no recollection. I feel like I've seen them, you know, when you look for generic PC equipment and they're just you're trying to find it, wherever it's cheapest. IBM PC compatible. Yeah, and I know you staticice.com.au as a great search engine for cheap generic products in Australia. It's just it's just like white italic font on like a red oval. There is another Scope Tech out there which looks like some sort of app with a Scorpion logo, but I don't think that's related. So this is just like no frills kind of. Over 20, over 25 years in tech. Scope Tech is one of Australia's largest and most established IT retailers specializing in PC hardware components, peripheral software and accessories. I mean, that's what they say. So take that with a grain of salt. I just want to know how do we feel about the $10 price for the HDMI cable that actually when you're in a pinch, you know, and you just go to the closest store for an HDMI cable that can tend to get pretty pricey. So $10 actually doesn't sound that bad. It's not bad. We're assuming it's not like Dolby Vision compatible. Oh, for sure. No, no, this is not. This is not your HDMI 3.2 Gen 2 PV6 9. Definitely not. I have further detail on Scope Tech. So it is the Scope. It's the Scope family. They've lived and breathed tech for over 25 years. So Scopes, we thank the Scope family for their commitment to technology. Computer Club brought to you by the Scopes. Brilliant. Now, I do want to go on and read one more bit after this under the in bold problems, because I think following your exploration there, Jason and Andrew, Andrew is really going to enjoy this section. I would like to do Best Buys if I could, if you would allow me. Of course. Yes. I'm just going to read this one and then I'll move on. We'll move on together. Problems. And listeners can wonder why I think Andrew would like this particular section. I know exactly why. John C. Smith. I don't even know if that's actually a John Smith or just someone like John Citizen, like you see on like driver's license screenshots. But a John C. Smith has an electricity smart meter in his home. And because of a recent ICAC finding, that's the Independent Commission Against Corruption, can request the electricity readings for his meter. The electricity supplier sent him an Excel spreadsheet with the readings for the last two years in half hour intervals. Unfortunately, there were readings for general off peak and solar, each in a separate row with 72000 rows in total. His problem is how to separate the data into separate rows so he can analyze each power feed type. I love this. This was one of my bullets. This was so good. An Excel spreadsheet. John C. Smith, can I offer you two quick solutions, may I? Please. OK, the first and obvious one is to consider a pivot table. OK, so see if you can just get that data, put it into a pivot table, and then you'll be able to slice and dice the data according to your needs. Um, if you if you're a bit befuddled by the pivot table, there is a software solution. Now there's a program out there called Easy Data Transform. Easy Data Transform. It's a way of grabbing. You can basically grab data out of an Excel, apply transformations to it. So maybe it's got too many decimal points. Maybe you need to apply a formula. It's amazing software. So it'll suck it in, do the transformations. It's almost like Regex for spreadsheets, if you want to think of it that way. But with an easy graphical user interface, which I'm sure people at the computer club would appreciate. It's both available for Windows and Macintosh computers. I'm a big fan of it. It's Andy Bryce, I think is the name of the developer. I also use another software of his called Hyperplan. That is also fantastic software. Get that. That'll solve all your problems. You can get your spreadsheets. You can make sure you're not being screwed by your electricity retailer. And as always, when shopping for electricity, shop around. You may find a better deal. Wow. That is a hemispheric top tip for Grand Canyon itself. Into top tips. That sounds like best buys, Jason. Do you want to explore the best buys section? I do. But I would actually really love for you to read the paragraph starting with, "At the last CTC drop in". If you could cover that one quickly before I move into best buys. I just feel like it can't be missed. Well, this actually flows on. Thank you for picking that up from the last paragraph that I just read after the power feed type. So thank you, John C. Smith. Moving on. At the last CTC drop in, Darcy, Tom and Dave were run off their feet. One interesting problem encountered were, okay, encountered was, should be singular, was two sisters who both had identical iPhones and Apple Watches, which had been synced to the other sister's device. A factory reset on one iPhone was tried, but not resolved when the iPhone would not accept the Apple ID. Classic error when you've got issues with IDs and passwords around here. They left us hanging though. There's no solution. Well, I think if they wouldn't, the problem is that they're identical sisters. So how could the phones know who was who? Right? I mean, I think that's just, that's just how it goes. Face ID was actually stumped. This is that one case where they look identical and who could know? I read that, I read that, I think two or three times. And every time I was like, A, what the hell are you talking about? And, and B, what the hell are you talking about? Because this doesn't make any sense at all. It's as if these two people who both have quote, identical iPhones, which, spoiler, we all have identical iPhones. But it's as if they just, it was like, they bumped into each other and all of a sudden, like everything switched, which is kind of making me think maybe they just swapped phones and didn't realize. Maybe if they would have just said like, Hey, this is actually yours. And I don't know. Well, we're going to have to try to get our hands on the sequel, the first, you know, February edition of The Minutes. We're investing in this now. When it comes up. I don't know if that's going to happen. Yeah. All right. So Best Buy is Jason because we're running out of time. We've got to end, there's too much gold in this episode to get rid of. Poor Andrew. So let's, let's do it. Oh no, this is good. Yeah. I don't want to have to, I have to edit long. What's type 45? It's a loose type 45. It's a loose 57. Okay. All right. Let's get on to it. Let's go. Excuse me. Here we go. Title Best Buys. Okay. So this is the section with the best buys. Tom R bought a Digitech Wi-Fi HDMI mirror cast dongle from J Car for $40. So he could stream or mirror video and audio to any TV with HDMI. He had no luck getting his device to connect to the TV. So in his opinion, it was not worth the money. What? How is that a best buy though? It didn't work. Shouldn't that? That's true. It sounds like a worst buy. I don't know. I just, I. Is it, is this, I think part of the title is missing. It's best buy not or to avoid or something best to avoid. Yeah, it should be, you know, one star reviews or something. I don't know. I don't, I'm not feeling a best, but I'm not feeling the need to go out and buy this device right now. I'm not filled with confidence. Can I just go into the next section, please? Oh, please. Can I go through that? So yeah, the heading is learnt since last meeting. Okay. Now I just preface this with the fact that we're at a computer club, right? We are. Okay. Okay. Just want to make sure because since the last meeting. Well, if you scroll up, sorry, Andrew, quickly, if you scroll up to the top, scroll up to the very top and read the first two words. Computer club. Computer. Okay. Computer. Okay. So good. Yeah. Okay. It's given me a content because so learnt since last meeting, Bob Heddle has received his special rate variation notice from the Shoalhaven City Council. The financial impact of these on the average residential rates would be an increase in 2024 to 25 of $467 for option one and $263 for option two. If you would like to give the council feedback about these proposed increases, the website is blah, blah. Okay, Bob. Yeah. This just sounds like a whinge about your council rates. This doesn't sound anything to do with computers other than you quoted a website. That's pretty tenuous. We learned since the last meeting is Bob is pissed about his association. They may as well write the email subject should read Bob's whinge. Like Bob, chill man. Like take it to the ratepayers association. Don't go to the computer club with this. Everybody else is like, Bob, we don't even live there. Why did we give a shit about your raised rates? But I love that it just goes straight into the next thing of on the 1st of December, the council introduced an online booking system for booking tennis courts in council halls. Oh, this is my next favourite one. I love this one. This is so good. [Laughter] Yeah, I have this highlighted. We can't read through this whole thing. We have to leave something. I just want to put one. Yeah, go for it. I'll just add the one sentence that just summed it up for me. It says, if you want to book a hall tomorrow and no one has it booked, you can't book it. This is patently ridiculous. We could spend ages on this, but a couple of other little gems before we wrap up. Favourite website. I'm so glad that Noel Reid is using home delivery from Woolworths, but one day he just needed a loaf of bread. He discovered the local spa supermarket also does home delivery. Here's their website. And if you actually flip to the other side away from the computer club, this cannot go unmentioned. And that is Recipe Corner. Well, there's a recipe on this page even. On this page. Yeah. Before you move to Recipe Corner, one very last thing on Computer Club Corner. I have to say, whoever was the one that got the report illegal fishing put in to the technology section, gold, just gold. Well done. And that's fishing with an F, not a PH. So, it's real good. Yeah, good point. But at least they wrapped up nicely saying that they closed the meeting at noon and enjoyed a delicious Christmas lunch organised by Treasurer Bob, supplied by the Bamboo Restaurant. Brilliant. And that leads into the food question, doesn't it? Recipe Corner. They stole Recipe Corner. That's our thing. We do corners. Do we do Recipe Corner though? No, we do every other corner. It's corner. It's Star Corner. It's full stop. Yeah. The question I had about the Recipe Corner, Martin, is really you're our local mango expert. Yeah, mango expert. To the point where I've literally been at a grocery store and been flummoxed by mangoes and got in touch with Martin for buying advice. You will vouch for that, right? It's true. I gave you a lecture on the phone. This is nothing to do with the show. I just needed mango advice. And I rang you. You were not expecting that, I think, but you were pleasantly surprised. Pleasantly surprised. Unfortunately, you were a little late. I'd already purchased the mango. So, as the mango expert of the show- He put it in the notes in the magazine that's coming out next month. What more do you want? What do you think of the Mango Eaton Mess? Where you sit with this one? I'm not a huge fan of meringue, to be honest. I mean, I'll eat it, but I think the meringue would actually detract from the flavour and texture of the mango. I love mango on its own. I love it in salads. I like it in kind of smoothies and frappes and stuff or juices or whatever. But putting it with meringue, I feel, why would you do that? The thing that I find hilarious about this is that it's the Mango Eaton Mess, as you said, and it gives the ingredients and a very short method and then shows a picture of three untouched mangoes in a basket. It doesn't actually display what the recipe is or what you should be making. So people may see this and go, I'm making three mangoes? I don't know what that means. But look, these ones here, interestingly, the one at the bottom right, I would assume that they're Kensington Pride. I mean, of course, there are Honey Gold and other kind of Calypso mangoes, but the shape of it is somewhat reminiscent of a Maha Chanok from Thailand. So it's almost like some sort of weird hybridized Kensington Pride Maha Chanok mango in a basket amongst other ones depicting a recipe before it's been made. So I'm very troubled by this recipe corner. I have nothing to add. That was wonderful. Thank you for that. I was partially sidetracked back up into Computer Club. I somehow missed this part. There's a section for YouTube video, colon. Oh, yeah. And they literally just describe a YouTube video that they watched with no extra commentary about it. Just this is what the video was. No link to the video, no way to find this video, just a description of the video. It's not shown until. How far is this Computer Club from you? Is there any chance that we can get some boots on the ground here and get involved? Well, it appears that they're holding the next meeting on what would be a working day for me. So I'm not sure what kind of arrangements I can make for leave to visit the Sussex Inlet Computer Club to feature in its next Inlet of Minutes. But it's a nice idea, nevertheless. I'm going to do some research and see if we can get involved remotely. I think we need to somehow provide some assistance. Yeah, that would be pretty fascinating. And look, just I agree that would actually be very cool, however, that could work. And I want to make it very clear to the listeners that although we've been laughing about this, we don't seek to mock these people because it's fantastic, frankly, fantastic that they do this. I don't know about you two guys. The fact that people actually get together and do this to me, it's the hilarity is just the specific nature of these reported complaints. It's just brilliant. So if there are any other gems out there that listeners are aware of, maybe local computer clubs or things you've seen in maybe print or something less typical, please let us know because this is gold. It's fantastic. I would kill to go to this kind of thing locally. It would be so good. And people need these kinds of resources because not everyone is necessarily connected or comfortable with technology. So we might laugh, but it's beautiful. I think it's great. My only fear is that we would solve everything for them and they'd have no minutes to write. How would we solve anything? Are we even a tech podcast at this point? Like, what do we know? No, we're tech adjacent. Yeah, we're commenting on local newsletters now. Look at this. Look what I've done. 2024! Here we are. Welcome. [Music]