Really excited about this new series we're starting. The first episode is up today. We have all become painfully aware of "you'll own nothing," and of all the data sale / sharing and vulnerabilities linked to devices sold by huge companies. We're trying to apply that same hardware enthusiast spirit and interest to learning new things outside of just DIY PCs as we try to find ways to take back ownership of devices and services. A lot of the same DIY PC principles apply here, it's more important than ever, and it's a lot of fun. We're new to some of this stuff, so come along for the journey as we learn a new area of tech. First up is the world of DIY routers, which Wendell helped guide us on. Video is up on the channel. Let us know what topics you want to see next. Self-hosted media, self-hosted VPN solutions, and plenty of other options out there. We're just not sure what to tackle next in the series, as there are seemingly endless options.
Looking forward to learning new ways to apply the same technical mindset as PC building while also getting back some privacy and control!
@LegalEagle has a great break-down of the LG TV situation over on their channel! Wendell and I joined for it. Awesome to see their process behind-the-scenes and they've done a good job at distilling it in an approachable way. Highly recommended. Will link their video below!
This is your opportunity to get questions answered by some technical experts: We have lined-up a series of interviews with professors, independent researchers, and experts on the impact of data center construction on energy, the power grid, water usage/water consumption, and human health. We have a list of questions on our side, but we'd like to crowdsource some good ones from the community. If you have questions that you feel haven't been well-answered or addressed for their technical specifics, particularly relating to energy, water, human health impact, and the power grid, please leave them below! Upvoting the questions you think are the best will also help us sort them.
This is part of our huge data center documentary and roadtrip that we've been working on for the last year (was part of our AI DYSTOPIA campaign) and it's finally coming to a close. We want to make good use of the experts' time and get new information out there to people. It'd help if you preface your comment with an all-caps category that we can ctrl+F. For example, "ENERGY:" or "WATER:" or "HEALTH:", as that'll make it easier to filter through.
Really looking forward to it. These people know their stuff better than anyone.
Following the Steam Frame and Quest 3 testing we did, we are trying to figure out if we can find the time to look at either PiMax or Bigscreen VR headsets also. What's the interest level? It'll help us decide. If interested, let us know which one. It would be a large time commitment and obviously would mean other videos are skipped in favor of more VR, so the feedback will help make a decision!
MEETUP NOTICE! We will be in MYRTLE BEACH, SC on Wednesday, August 19 and RALEIGH, NC on Thursday, August 20. The signup link is in the comments. Raleigh is almost full. Myrtle Beach has plenty of space, so if you're in driving range, that'll give you the best chance for a smaller crowd and we'd like to see you out there. Good location, too. We are on tour with Louis Rossmann to talk about device ownership, what you can do to take control of your devices and lock them down against manufacturer overreach, and will also be speaking about DMCA law, right to repair, and more. We need you out there to build the community groundswell needed to try and make real progress!
If you've been feeling like you want to apply all the knowledge of how bad ownership has gotten towards something productive, Louis' team will be explaining which lawmakers to contact and what to discuss with them to have the best chance at getting bills through that protect your device ownership and repair rights. I'll be there to talk about device ownership and the invasive level of spying that we now PAY FOR when we buy products that companies then deploy against us. Wendell will join for the Raleigh event, so all kinds of fun and productive chaos will ensue.
LOCATIONS:
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19 MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA Grand Strand Brewing Company, doors open at 6:00 PM Sign up on Eventbrite (free of charge) in advance at link below
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20 RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA Compass Rose Brewery (venue upgraded from last time), 6:30 PM Sign up on Eventbrite (free) in advance at link below
MEET UP NOTICE: We will be joined by Louis Rossmann at a Town Council hearing tomorrow - Tuesday, August 11 at 6 PM ET in Apex, NC (see below) - to join locals in voicing opposition to Flock cameras and the global surveillance network that is capable of tying you to every place you've ever been. The vote isn't tomorrow, but this may be one of the last general public comment sessions before they move the presence of Flock cameras in the town to a vote. This is the best opportunity to speak out. If you're local to the area and want to speak out against Flock surveillance where the council is divided in its vote, this is your chance to swing the vote against Flock by using convincing arguments to move at least one council member to join the opposition vote. THIS IS CLOSE. It looks like they are split down the center.
If you're NOT local, you should come out anyway, especially if you've never been to a council hearing. You can see the process and possibly use the groundwork you see at this one to duplicate in your own municipality.
I am also happy to meet up with people and talk about how we can apply all of this frustration and awareness to something productive, with Louis there to help provide more concrete foundation on how to work within the system.
MEET UP / HEARING ADDRESS: APEX TOWN HALL 73 Hunter St. Apex, NC
We want this to be a productive meeting and want the council to see how many people care about these issues of global surveillance. If speaking, we'd recommend preparing your 3 minutes of points beforehand.
We put something cool up on the website yesterday! Our case benchmark "Mega Charts" just got published and now have almost 100 case configuration results all on one set of charts and all in one spot. They are comically illegible in video format (which is why we normally cut results from every review -- to fit the chart on the screen) but they work pretty OK on a site since you can just scroll to the spot you care about.
I love doing this kind of stuff because it just puts all our work in one spot. This is a couple years' worth of case tests! It's awesome! You can always check the most recent case review for the most sort of "targeted" data set (e.g. cases that are currently the most relevant or competitive with something we're reviewing), but this version has pretty much everything. Includes a bunch of random alternative configurations for intake / exhaust location, filter presence / absence, etc. I've always really liked just making targeted web pages for a specific task, so had fun throwing it together and will do some more for other categories. The URL is also fixed, so you can save it and future 'mega charts' updates for cases will just bump the current one down while preserving the URL. Link below. Hopefully some of you find this useful!
Update: We are working on a follow-up to the LG story and have some disturbing findings re: LG's products. It will take us a while to parse everything and we have involved multiple security researchers, lawyers (working on reading around 40,000 words of LG agreements that are, generally, terrifying in scope), and network experts, but will have an update for you all as soon as we can finalize collecting all of the information and parsing. There is a lot for us to crawl through (and I'm also already up to thousands of dollars in LG product purchases, but each one peels back another layer of the enshittified onion). This will be a fairly large research piece and will take time, but is also the worst I've seen so far in this 'genre' of product and agreements.
We're cookin' and the recipe involves a company that is DEFINITELY NOT wiretapping its customers with the TVs it sells them. Just to be clear, the corporation is ABSOLUTELY NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, breaking wiretapping laws. That would be illegal, and they wouldn't do that.
Gamers Nexus
Really excited about this new series we're starting. The first episode is up today. We have all become painfully aware of "you'll own nothing," and of all the data sale / sharing and vulnerabilities linked to devices sold by huge companies. We're trying to apply that same hardware enthusiast spirit and interest to learning new things outside of just DIY PCs as we try to find ways to take back ownership of devices and services. A lot of the same DIY PC principles apply here, it's more important than ever, and it's a lot of fun. We're new to some of this stuff, so come along for the journey as we learn a new area of tech. First up is the world of DIY routers, which Wendell helped guide us on. Video is up on the channel. Let us know what topics you want to see next. Self-hosted media, self-hosted VPN solutions, and plenty of other options out there. We're just not sure what to tackle next in the series, as there are seemingly endless options.
Looking forward to learning new ways to apply the same technical mindset as PC building while also getting back some privacy and control!
1 week ago | [YT] | 2,664
View 146 replies
Gamers Nexus
@LegalEagle has a great break-down of the LG TV situation over on their channel! Wendell and I joined for it. Awesome to see their process behind-the-scenes and they've done a good job at distilling it in an approachable way. Highly recommended. Will link their video below!
2 weeks ago | [YT] | 3,203
View 771 replies
Gamers Nexus
This is your opportunity to get questions answered by some technical experts: We have lined-up a series of interviews with professors, independent researchers, and experts on the impact of data center construction on energy, the power grid, water usage/water consumption, and human health. We have a list of questions on our side, but we'd like to crowdsource some good ones from the community. If you have questions that you feel haven't been well-answered or addressed for their technical specifics, particularly relating to energy, water, human health impact, and the power grid, please leave them below! Upvoting the questions you think are the best will also help us sort them.
This is part of our huge data center documentary and roadtrip that we've been working on for the last year (was part of our AI DYSTOPIA campaign) and it's finally coming to a close. We want to make good use of the experts' time and get new information out there to people. It'd help if you preface your comment with an all-caps category that we can ctrl+F. For example, "ENERGY:" or "WATER:" or "HEALTH:", as that'll make it easier to filter through.
Really looking forward to it. These people know their stuff better than anyone.
3 weeks ago | [YT] | 3,061
View 620 replies
Gamers Nexus
Following the Steam Frame and Quest 3 testing we did, we are trying to figure out if we can find the time to look at either PiMax or Bigscreen VR headsets also. What's the interest level? It'll help us decide. If interested, let us know which one. It would be a large time commitment and obviously would mean other videos are skipped in favor of more VR, so the feedback will help make a decision!
1 month ago | [YT] | 1,433
View 531 replies
Gamers Nexus
Someone get me a new frying pan so I can finish cookin' up this investigation
2 months ago | [YT] | 3,695
View 156 replies
Gamers Nexus
MEETUP NOTICE! We will be in MYRTLE BEACH, SC on Wednesday, August 19 and RALEIGH, NC on Thursday, August 20. The signup link is in the comments. Raleigh is almost full. Myrtle Beach has plenty of space, so if you're in driving range, that'll give you the best chance for a smaller crowd and we'd like to see you out there. Good location, too. We are on tour with Louis Rossmann to talk about device ownership, what you can do to take control of your devices and lock them down against manufacturer overreach, and will also be speaking about DMCA law, right to repair, and more. We need you out there to build the community groundswell needed to try and make real progress!
If you've been feeling like you want to apply all the knowledge of how bad ownership has gotten towards something productive, Louis' team will be explaining which lawmakers to contact and what to discuss with them to have the best chance at getting bills through that protect your device ownership and repair rights. I'll be there to talk about device ownership and the invasive level of spying that we now PAY FOR when we buy products that companies then deploy against us. Wendell will join for the Raleigh event, so all kinds of fun and productive chaos will ensue.
LOCATIONS:
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 19
MYRTLE BEACH, SOUTH CAROLINA
Grand Strand Brewing Company, doors open at 6:00 PM
Sign up on Eventbrite (free of charge) in advance at link below
THURSDAY, AUGUST 20
RALEIGH, NORTH CAROLINA
Compass Rose Brewery (venue upgraded from last time), 6:30 PM
Sign up on Eventbrite (free) in advance at link below
See you all out there!
2 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 8,524
View 212 replies
Gamers Nexus
MEET UP NOTICE: We will be joined by Louis Rossmann at a Town Council hearing tomorrow - Tuesday, August 11 at 6 PM ET in Apex, NC (see below) - to join locals in voicing opposition to Flock cameras and the global surveillance network that is capable of tying you to every place you've ever been. The vote isn't tomorrow, but this may be one of the last general public comment sessions before they move the presence of Flock cameras in the town to a vote. This is the best opportunity to speak out. If you're local to the area and want to speak out against Flock surveillance where the council is divided in its vote, this is your chance to swing the vote against Flock by using convincing arguments to move at least one council member to join the opposition vote. THIS IS CLOSE. It looks like they are split down the center.
If you're NOT local, you should come out anyway, especially if you've never been to a council hearing. You can see the process and possibly use the groundwork you see at this one to duplicate in your own municipality.
I am also happy to meet up with people and talk about how we can apply all of this frustration and awareness to something productive, with Louis there to help provide more concrete foundation on how to work within the system.
MEET UP / HEARING ADDRESS:
APEX TOWN HALL
73 Hunter St.
Apex, NC
We want this to be a productive meeting and want the council to see how many people care about these issues of global surveillance. If speaking, we'd recommend preparing your 3 minutes of points beforehand.
See you all out there.
2 months ago | [YT] | 6,538
View 198 replies
Gamers Nexus
We put something cool up on the website yesterday! Our case benchmark "Mega Charts" just got published and now have almost 100 case configuration results all on one set of charts and all in one spot. They are comically illegible in video format (which is why we normally cut results from every review -- to fit the chart on the screen) but they work pretty OK on a site since you can just scroll to the spot you care about.
I love doing this kind of stuff because it just puts all our work in one spot. This is a couple years' worth of case tests! It's awesome! You can always check the most recent case review for the most sort of "targeted" data set (e.g. cases that are currently the most relevant or competitive with something we're reviewing), but this version has pretty much everything. Includes a bunch of random alternative configurations for intake / exhaust location, filter presence / absence, etc. I've always really liked just making targeted web pages for a specific task, so had fun throwing it together and will do some more for other categories. The URL is also fixed, so you can save it and future 'mega charts' updates for cases will just bump the current one down while preserving the URL. Link below. Hopefully some of you find this useful!
3 months ago | [YT] | 3,204
View 96 replies
Gamers Nexus
Update: We are working on a follow-up to the LG story and have some disturbing findings re: LG's products. It will take us a while to parse everything and we have involved multiple security researchers, lawyers (working on reading around 40,000 words of LG agreements that are, generally, terrifying in scope), and network experts, but will have an update for you all as soon as we can finalize collecting all of the information and parsing. There is a lot for us to crawl through (and I'm also already up to thousands of dollars in LG product purchases, but each one peels back another layer of the enshittified onion). This will be a fairly large research piece and will take time, but is also the worst I've seen so far in this 'genre' of product and agreements.
3 months ago (edited) | [YT] | 23,658
View 1,300 replies
Gamers Nexus
We're cookin' and the recipe involves a company that is DEFINITELY NOT wiretapping its customers with the TVs it sells them. Just to be clear, the corporation is ABSOLUTELY NOT, under ANY CIRCUMSTANCE, breaking wiretapping laws. That would be illegal, and they wouldn't do that.
OK, good. I'm glad we're all clear on this.
3 months ago | [YT] | 11,797
View 509 replies
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