renze

At the end of the video, you were wondering why people aren't watching the WAN Show as much anymore. The reason is because we used to watch you guys sit on a couch with brighter, more inviting surroundings, having a conversation. Now you're sitting in a dark, dirty, rusty alley out behind a Burger King, shooting off topics. The feeling is much more impersonal now. You've said you don't care about the surroundings and people are just going to have to deal with it. Well, people are dealing with it and now you're acting surprised. Edit: You should move the show to a smaller, more private room and bring back the couch. The relative privacy will foster better conversation, too.

Anyone know where to get some audiophile network cables?

Hello.

All electronics companies want to be Apple. This is a clear example of that. If it works, it works. Unfortunately, you seemed to have purposely sidestepped mentioning that the design is identical in many ways to a Macbook. I've come to expect impartiality and objectivity from you, Linus, so it was a big disappointment. Well, at least MKBHD is capable of being objective so all's not lost. I disagree with you about some of the design elements, though. The Razer logo, green lighting, and keycap font make it, well, just plain hideous. That's Razer's style, though, so it's not much of a change.

MAC address spoofing feature will be implemented, eliminating the ability of marketers to engage in Wi-Fi sniffing, a burgeoning and increasingly common practice, against users with devices running iOS 8. "The result is a privacy win for Apple users and a major blow against data marketing ..." Full article here: http://www.theverge.com/2014/6/9/5792970/ios-8-strikes-an-unexpected-blow-against-location-tracking

I hear what you're saying but if it were just a matter of being "accustomed to" it, then I'd want to play every game at 30hz which isn't the case. Also, if I were going to be "accustomed to" anything, it would be 60hz because I've spent most of my time and most of my years playing games and using a computer with a monitor set to 60hz. It's more than just being "accustomed to" something. A big reason the film industry continues to use 24p is because, yes, we're accustomed to it, but also because it adds an effect to the viewing experience. Just as speculation, it seems like any time I watch a video shot at a higher frame rate with (for example) human actors, my very first reaction is "I'm watching actors being recorded by a camera." Whereas there's something about 24p that allows you to naturally fall into that 'willful suspension of disbelief' mode and more readily accept that those actors on screen are actually the characters they're playing. I'm sure there's a sort of training we go through that helps us along with this but that's not the only factor and it does add an effect that's important in specific instances that we can point to and identify as being definitely separate from other instances. There's a window of FPS amounts that's optimal for getting the brain to instinctually interpret what's being watched on screen as being fantasy as opposed to higher frame rate content where, even though we know we're watching video content on a screen, the brain is still trying to grapple with the smoothness of the frame rates which is drawing closer to what we see when we look at things in the real world. Also, the reason the film industry uses 24p is because anything below that has too much flicker which becomes distracting. While I'm sure keeping the frame rates low was done to save costs, they purposely chose the best option and, now that film is increasingly digital, they're continuing to use 24p because it gives you the unique film experience that just isn't satisfying or believable at higher frame rates. It's an amount of unrealness (yes, I said unrealness) that gives the film a certain magic.

I'm going to throw this out there in response to the corresponding WAN Show segment: I played Dark Souls on the PC without a 60 FPS mod, so it was running at 30 FPS. When I booted up Dark Souls II and noticed that it was 60 FPS, I instantly missed the cinematic look of Dark Souls with 30 FPS. I didn't search to see if there was a config setting or mod to set FPS to 30 but, looking back, I would've preferred it. It contributed significantly to the original's aesthetic. I like TotalBiscuit and agree with him on several different things (including his newish stance on social media and comment sections if he still feels the same way) but he's just a gamer who's YouTube famous. He isn't any more an authority on anything than any other gamer who's observant and has some idea of what they're talking about. I also remember a handful of times when analysis of something specific on the WAN Show was a little off so I wouldn't be so quick to lay down the law on things like this. It's typically something so minute that it isn't even worth mentioning but this time it was worth bringing up. This kind of debate is sort of along the same lines as people saying phone specs are the end-all-be-all and having a "to hell with experience" attitude or at least putting experience second to specs. It doesn't make a lot of sense. Having higher numbers isn't the only factor when it comes to tailoring an experience. In this case, more FPS doesn't necessarily equate to having a better experience. In fact, now that I look back, there have been plenty of times when I thought games I'd been playing could've used a more cinematic feel to enhance the experience (whether by limiting frame rate or working some other magic I don't know about). Granted, limiting FPS while playing games with mouse/keyboard might be too much of a trade-off to warrant limiting FPS (I've never tried it) but it doesn't mean that I wouldn't still wish the game had a more cinematic feel. I'd venture to say that, if I were playing a game on PC with a 360 controller, I would almost always prefer to play at 30 FPS. As a semi-related aside, when I walk into a big box store and look at the high refresh rate TVs and how smooth the motion is with the motion blur reduction and other fancy features they use, I always walk away thinking, "I'd really hate to have to watch movies or anything on that thing. It's too smooth--not cinematic at all." You can turn those features off, of course, but that's not the point. I'll also note that I've been an avid PC gamer my entire life. The last console game I played with any seriousness was for the PS2. Edit: It should be a given but I want to make it clear that there are all sorts of different types of games that I prefer to run at the highest FPS possible. Competitive games (FPS, MOBA), MMORPGs, and others. My preference for 30 FPS is pretty much limited to single-player film-like/cinematic games, usually played with a 360 controller.

Anybody else like to waft farts to their nose with a cupped hand?