Star Trek Expansion, PC Building, and Podcast Tech

You are tuned in to Steve Megatron on Altered

Geek. And, uh, it's gonna kinda go all over the

place. So, if this isn't your cup of tea, I'm

sorry. Feel free to tune out of this episode.

I need to vent. Uh, so, essentially, some of

you may have heard. I am in the process of looking

for a new employment. Uh, not by my own choosing,

but, uh, nevertheless, I have no ill will against

the company. that I previously worked for. They

were a great company and great to me. They were

very helpful in my time of need and it was amicable

parting, however, not my choice, like I said.

But regardless, I still have respect for all

the people that work there at that company. So

that being said, I can talk about whatever I

want now, politics included, although I probably

won't. I don't really want to get down that rat

hole, because we know how that goes, look at

Roseanne, with that whole program of stick, foot,

and mouth rewrite, not included anymore. So yeah,

anyways, I've got like this giant kind of soapbox

of just stuff that's that's kind of on my mind

among it is is like listener feedback I've got

Whether it's over Facebook Twitter the dot -com

Just some various things I'm gonna cover there

and then some kind of geeky news pertaining to

movies and Technology and and some stuff like

that. So stay tuned Because you might be intrigued

and If you need someone who's got podcasting

experience or know of a employment Avenue for

me, please let me know if it has to do with podcasting

radio television, whatever and pays decent and

it's Something you think I'd be good at please.

Let me know send it to me at SCP 21 on Twitter

or Steve at geek cast radio comm let me know

because again, this is a labor of love and it

doesn't pay the bills. Anyways, that aside, getting

to the feedback. There was a fun, interesting

question and we have guest writers on the website,

so some of these particular questions or topics

or one -off articles are written by them. They've

been asking some pretty interesting questions

one of them was being how much bandwidth is your

family really using is there a problem somewhere

and So it kind of goes through this this this

list and and Mike powers says like 60 days of

usage for his household just his wife and him

All streaming all the time Netflix Hulu and YouTube

in 4k when possible. No cable service is usually

lower than his average is a hundred to two hundred

gigs higher when Netflix releases new 4k shows

so like he'll hit about 450 gigs of download

speeds and myself not so much mine is kind of

in there in between like the 118 mark per month

for for terms of bandwidth so and then Doug Abel

kind of jumps in there with You know his usage

on gaming and the ps4 skype chat sessions with

his dad wife streaming freeform hulu netflix

etc 12 hours a day on the weekends and three

to four hours every night He says now we don't

have netflix and 4k because I don't have a 4k

tv I figure why pay more when I can't see it

I get a terabyte usage a month and I only get

close once when we had guest access Open and

bought a ps4 where I bought several 30 gig titles

online That one month we hit 750 gigabytes now.

This is what my average looks like so he kind

of shows that it's kind of averaging between

like 175 and Like 225 Which is which is decent.

I mean we all pretty much get the the one terabyte

plan Overall some people have unlimited some

people can afford unlimited so But I thought

it was kind of an interesting choice how uh...

we used to survive on fifty six k modems back

in the day and now uh... we have this high speed

internet we can download full movies we can download

full games we can play online we can stream television

and it's all these like high quality uh... definition

uh... visuals and We use this massive amount

of bandwidth, which doesn't seem like a lot,

but it kind of increases year by year based on

the type of content and the more we consume.

So it's kind of interesting to kind of look at

that and see kind of what's going through the

heads of people when they're doing all the streaming.

One of our podcasting friends, Hank Davis, he

says, Please don't tell me you're an OG podcaster

if you've never had to search. How do I escape

ampersands in XML? The struggle was real hand

-coded feed I Remember those days it was not

fun Especially when Mike would type Some some

particular title he would have like a combination

of things in a title and he would end it with

and the ampersand for the and symbol in the the

titles When you're hand -coding it, it's different

when it's translated from WordPress or one of

these podcasting sources, but when you're hand

-coding it in either an HTML editor or notepad

or something, and you're trying to configure

the XML, the ampersand just will completely brick

the RSS feed. it will destroy the RSS feed. And

then you're sitting there like, I don't have

a clue where the problem is. And then eventually

I didn't, eventually I figured it out. I didn't

even Google it because I don't even think at

the time when I was doing that I used Google.

I was like still using like Yahoo or something

to that extent. And I was just starting to come

around to Google at that point. But I didn't

even Google it. I think I was looking and finally

figured out how to do it. And then removed it

and put the and in there and it showed up and

I was like, holy crap. And so I told Mike, I'm

like, you have to stop putting ampersands in

because I'm not fixing it. Which used to drive

him crazy because it was like, along the same

lines of having to have like a specific date

for like an anniversary date for a show or something

like that. So. Hank replies to me when I said,

yeah, I forgot about those days and having to

deal with that and it would kill titles and brick

the whole RSS feed. He says, it took me so long

to understand why it was breaking my feed. I

remember being so frustrated. Ampersam, AMP,

colon, you know, it's funny when you have to

like remember the HTML code to actually generate

that. But we don't have to do that anymore, which

is kind of exciting because I can put my struggle

into other issues. instead of fixing and generating

an RSS feed. So I really love not having to deal

with that, although I do know how to fix them

if possible. So yeah, it was, it's another one

of those fun, fun things there. And apologize

for that, but we have, you know, also the whole

thing with having to go to HTTPS and registered

RSS feeds, which, I'm waiting for. I have a couple

more pages on the new website to get done, and

then I have to import all of the content that's

not there right now, which isn't very much. I

kind of keep it up to date every week. But I

also have to... I'm going the route of making

the site have a subscription fee, but it's not

mandatory. You can still browse the site, fine,

it'll still work. But what the goal is is to...

I'm gonna put ads on it. More than what's on

this one. Not a lot and they're not gonna be

like junk ads where they bring up spyware and

viral and spam and all this other crap Because

I detest that type of marketing It's for all

geek related material. However, I am going to

allow bypassing that by the subscription fee

where you can Essentially pay to make them go

away and we're gonna have other exclusive content

behind the paywall but everything that is out

now and anything like any shows unless it's specifically

mentioned are going to be free like we're not

we're not gonna do that whole garbage game that

everybody else does with oh pay to read the comments

or pay to read the article or listen to the podcast

or view the video show like some resources that

I know of and It's going to also allow for people

to sign up for the newsletter to keep kind of

involved in the website. I'm trying to get the

social share aspect or the social login built

in so people don't necessarily have to log in

the old fashioned way. And that way they don't

have to... Go through the whole signup process

of you know, I I personally hate doing that.

I love the social login However, I don't trust

Facebook with the two and like a two -foot pole

So I've got it set up so you can use like tumblr

Facebook Twitter Google There's a few other ones

reddit and some other sources like that so it's

gonna be very open in still very friendly, that's

what I'm looking forward to with the site plus.

I'm gonna enable HTTPS SSL on the new site. And

then it's completely GDPR friendly. It's a lot

more ability for interaction and commenting or

submitting certain issues with the site or submitting

press tips or things like that because the emails

get inundated with a lot of junk and this will

therefore save it all on the website. and myself

or some of the others on GeekCast Radio can access

it and kind of publish it or, you know, pass

it around and kind of do what we got to do. But

it will have it all in the dashboard first, which

will be nice. I know a lot of technical jargon

and stuff that nobody probably cares about behind

the scenes, but I find it interesting because...

lot of what I'm doing to this new site is stuff

that we've discussed for about five years and

It's disgusting to me because I'm just now figuring

out how to do it and now that I'm unemployed

I have even more reason to sit here and actually

get this thing done because I've been working

on it for about a month and a half now and going

on two months and It's it's pretty much done.

I just have to finish configuring the the shows

that are active at this point and then Get a

glitch with the ads fixed and then everything's

pretty much ready to go all I had to do switch

it over The comments I also figured that out

there was like some glitch in the old site because

every time I've done something and reinvented

the site it Duplicated and reimported all of

the comments so like every comment that's in

the site or was in the site it duplicated so

instead of like You know say for example. We

had you know like 12 ,000 comments total, it

doubled it and we had 24 ,000. And so I was like,

this can't be right. And then I started looking

through old posts and I'm like, it's not right.

There's comments that are doubled in here. And

so I found this script that somebody wrote like

six years ago that removes the duplicates. And

I tried it on the test site first and I was like,

okay, it actually does what it says, but I had

to edit and modify it heavily because it didn't

work. It was a it was a broken piece of software

so I had to fix it and then it worked and I was

like yes plugin achieved and I've got that safe

now, so That's it all I got on that that aspect

because I don't want to bore the crap on anybody

anymore, but There was another fun thing that

I Reposted on GeekCastRadio's Facebook, and it

was a video posted by Unilad originally and it

was they were doing a presentation on countries

and information about them and their rulers and

their armies and all this, and people may have

seen this clip. But this particular student gave

a presentation in class on the fictional country

of Wakanda, and his teacher legitimately thinks

it's legit and real. And she's like, oh, okay,

just flabbergasted at this whole thing. And he

explains all the backstory of T 'Challa and his

family, and this is what he's trying to do, and

you didn't hear about this, and the Sokovia Accords,

and blah, blah, blah, blah, and the teacher's

just, she's like, where have I been this whole

time? I'm living under a rock. It's very entertaining.

And Desiree, mentions how, you know, the trail

of a lifetime. She did catch on slightly with

all those kids laughing, but while, even if you've

never seen the movie come on, a world class,

or world leader assassinated at a UN building

would be headline news. Which you would think

so, however, you know, in today's age, it's just

kind of crazy. But I still thought it was kind

of interesting and funny, and I... I was actually

genuinely laughing at this clip because I'm like

how is this teacher not knowing this and they're

supposed to be a teacher of like countries like

a geography like country, you know teacher and

and so the fact that they couldn't even you know

mention Where this was on the map like he kind

of vaguely pointed it out and she's like, oh,

okay Like just it was just entertaining and he

had this really chintzy PowerPoint As as like

lazy and dumb as possible like I hate these type

of power points when people do them like that

But that's because I'm a perfectionist with them.

They have to look professional which is why in

college I always had to do them if I wanted them

done, right and So yeah, there was that and So

anyways we we had a Couple other things pop up.

One of the articles was about five great ways

to enhance the gaming experience and this was

written by one of our writers and said that,

you know, sure all you need are the four main

components, you know, a game, a platform, a monitor,

a controller, but you know, sometimes the essentials

aren't, bare essentials aren't good enough. And

so they said, you know, something to start with

that's simple and is sound like stereo speakers,

which I kind of agree with that. When I started

playing my Xbox 360, we used to have some surround

speakers and we actually used to have one of

those chairs, the rocker chair type things, gaming

chairs that sit on the floor and it had speakers

built into the side and you could plug it into

the device. I would plug that into my TV and

so I would get a little bit of surround sound

behind me as well as in front of me and it was

awesome until the chair broke. But I kind of

didn't care after that and I would just turn

the volume real low. So it didn't really bother

me. Another thing they kind of mentioned was

like a digital projector. So instead of like

a TV. However, you won't get the quality that

you're really looking for that you could get

from like a plasma television or an LED. And

Mike Powers actually mentions how he says, pass

on the digital projector for gaming. Give me

F -A -L -D or OLED any day, which F -A -L -D.

is a full array variable, like full array LED,

which is more of a common backlit, edge lit LED

system, which I wasn't really familiar with that

prior to looking it up when I read his comment

because I obviously, I'm so out of the TV realm,

like the last TV I have is a 50 inch plasma,

so I have no idea what came out after that because

they had LED TVs and LCD TVs when, We were we

were looking at plasmas the first time when we

got our 42 inch plasma like over a decade ago

and that crapped out about six years into it

and we've had this this 50 inch plasma for about

five years now and Maybe a little less maybe

about four, but still it was It was a better

TV for what we needed and although the The glare

was terrible on it. It's not so bad when it's

downstairs because we don't have any light coming

barely down there. But I always enjoyed the plasma,

but the F -A -L -D sounds pretty interesting,

as well as the O -L -E -D, which is organic light

emitting diode. So, I don't know, I'm kind of

in favor of using a TV or a really large TV at

that, rather than a projector. But it's an interesting

concept, so if you're going to play outside maybe

and have a tournament type thing, I can see it

being kind of a cool option, but I don't see

it working for just a generalized play, unless

you just really like projectors. Another option

is VR. Monitors and projectors are not the only

way to go, and with virtual reality coming pretty

regularly on every device, whether it's mobile,

console, and PC, You can kind of enter yourself

into these technologies kind of like the Star

Trek Bridge Commander I would love to play it,

but I don't really want to invest in the VR plus

It's still the technology is still lacking like

when I can go in and it's like a holodeck And

I can interact with everything and I don't have

to put on a headset. That's when it's ready to

be For my consumption, which it probably will

never be as long as I live if it does Awesome.

I would love to go back and like create things

and you know scan in pictures and make people

again and That are no longer here, which would

be kind of interesting and morbid at the same

time they say having a dedicated gaming chair

or For when you're playing a game a comfort chair.

I I have a nice office chair cost me like 80

bucks I'm good with it, it's leather, it's comfortable.

I put a laptop in the bag, like bag on this seat

so the cats don't sit on it clawed up. It's kept

it rather nice for the last six months I've had

it. I would not go back on that idea. My other

two office chairs, the one is all like, it gets

hairy constantly and the other one, my cat tore

up the entire center part of the seat just from

residual jumping on it. So I enjoy the fact that

I don't have an animal on my chair. unless I

allow it. But I like my gaming chair. It's very

comfortable. I can sit here all day. As a matter

of fact, I was sitting here all day, every day

while I worked from home and when I would be

online recording the shows and playing games

late at night. So another thing they said is

a cooler table. So like a thing for hunger and

food and basically something meant for the patio.

I do another method and my method is a little

bit different when no matter where I've I've

worked or like if it's a desk job or if it's

here at home I use my desk honestly like I just

I have a drawer I have a little bit of space

in the front I put my snacks in it my goodies

if I got pop I put it next to the tower or I

put it in the the the desk drawer Then I call

it good I really don't honestly like if I put

it low enough to the floor and my dust drawer

because I'm in the like the basement of the house

The floor is not insulated. It's it's actually

concrete underneath the really thin Like sentiment

like I don't know like half a centimeter thick

Tile and so the floor stays freezing cold so

if I put my pop right on the floor, and I let

it sit there it ends up like almost refrigerated

level. Not quite that cold, but it's not warm

like room temperature like when you get it at

the store. So I can bear it and it's decent.

So that's kind of the way I go about it. Another

funny thing I saw on Facebook was the audacity

to podcast posts. And I think this is kind of

true because people are nitpicking the crap out

of Google for their podcast app, which it's simple.

But you gotta remember Google is kind of the

one that can't seem to figure out anything on

their own when it comes to new processes. Apple

seems to innovate something and then everybody

else follows suit or invents their own version.

Which is the only thing I can give Apple is the

fact that they come up with stuff if it isn't

Microsoft that comes up with it first. Because

Microsoft had the idea of the tablet and before...

and the mp3 player well not the mp3 player but

the the tablet at least beforehand and it kind

of flopped and then apple reinvented it and it

went took off um but he he says that uh podcast

power listeners who criticize google podcast

for being too simple missed the point it's like

a wine connoisseur criticizing a child for drinking

capri sun uh which i thought was hilarious it's

uh you know it's it's good enough for the for

the average person um more so because they really

didn't have any representation on Android, which

is 90 % of the problem, is that they didn't have

any representation. And I'm not one that downloads

any of these apps, I prefer just to stream them

from one of the locations if possible or just

download the stupid file. But I'll be interested

to see what Google does with their new podcast

app. So I'm looking forward to To seeing what

what they do with it anyway, like it's it's kind

of One of those things I have hopes of what they'll

do and I hope that they enhance their back -end

for a lot of this stuff because a lot of it's

just utter garbage from Google and Really to

be honest most of the services are terrible with

their back -end for for stats and stuff unless

it's like a Libsyn or an Omni or a Spreaker or

something like that. It's really hard to have

a good app unless you're using those things.

So, yeah. So anyways, those are some of my Facebook

comments. Now when I go to Twitter, starting

off my conversation was about PC upgrades. And

the sad thing was is before all of my job situation

took place, I was starting to piece out and price

out like a possible new system because I didn't

realize that my system is as old as it is because

I have a Pentium i3 core fourth generation, they're

on eighth right now, fourth generation, 12 gig

of RAM, 2 gigabyte GeForce DDR3 system and Yeah,

I mean it still does everything I want it to

do but I was looking at What was that new egg

yet new egg I was looking at their website and

I had logged in I was kind of just for mostly

just for fun I I have a lot of a lot of these

like little wish list things and I'm kind of

glad my Like for my birthday, which just passed

on the 18th. My wife was gonna buy me a 32 inch

TV to be a computer screen and I was like pretty

much all for it And then I was like, you know,

we should probably save the money like I felt

bad just spending it It was kind of a good thing.

I didn't spend it, but I Felt terrible and so

I just I didn't do it And it turned out to be

a good thing, because I still have a working

monitor. It's not like it's a huge deal. I have

a 27 inch and a 19 inch monitor. So anyways,

I was piecing together pieces of what I would

get. And it's just because I'm trying to stick

on the low end of some things and some things

not so much. So anyways, I put together, I was

like, okay, Seagate, three terabyte SATA hard

drive, to put in it. And I was like, okay, 83

bucks, not really that bad. EVGA, 750 watt, fully

modular power supply. Compact one, so it'll fit

in a baby AT case or a micro ATX case. 89 bucks,

okay, what to do. Gigabyte, GeForce, and I love

the Gigabyte brand, which is why I always gravitate

towards it, but it's also the cheaper brand,

so it works out for me. Gigabyte GeForce GTX

1050 Ti DirectX 12 4 Gigabyte 128 -bit GDDR5

Video card $189 bucks. I was like, okay, that's

good Because it's like double of what I got now

and it'll process more and then gigabyte DS 3H

LGA 1151 300 series Intel H370 HDMI SATA 6 gigabyte

and micro ATX Intel motherboard and it has a

bunch of you know USB 3 .1 type C Smart fans

dual bios like all this like a ton of I think

it's got like eight USB ports on it's like 89

bucks And then I've got like the the thermal

paste for the the processor the cooler fan 29

bucks for that Corsair, you know 16 gigs of RAM

179 And then and then I've got the Intel processor,

which is the most expensive thing because it's

a It's it's an eighth generation Pentium I core

or core i7 8700 k coffee lake 6 core 3 .7 gigahertz

349 that's the most expensive piece of the whole

machine. So it's a thousand dollars And I was

like, you know, that would be awesome, but I

can't afford that right now So eventually like

if I ever figure out how to make enough to get

something like that in the future I'll probably

buy it all At least incrementally for most of

it because it seems to be the way I do is I gravitate

towards things like that, but Yeah, so anyways

that that's kind of the the funny thing That

I mentioned about it, and we were also going

to sign up for new cell phones like a week or

two ago and Sprint had this awesome deal for

like 15 20 bucks a month you can get you know

a cell phone unlimited everything within reason

not granted that special and that that's just

particular plan are now missing from their website

because it was a part of that special but you

had to buy a device and I wanted the Google Pixel

XL2 and they didn't have it. And I think that

was kind of an omen that I was not meant to get

a new phone. And again, it kind of plays into

this whole thing of like, I'm glad I didn't spend

it. So it's, yeah, it's kind of like this weird

situation for me. Like I'm kind of taking a back

on some of the stuff that's been going on just

overall. It's been a weird freaking week and...

long, to be honest. But regardless, there have

been some pluses. Namely with like, Star Trek

stuff. That they're gonna have four or five new

series now that Kurtzman is in charge of the

boat. And what that means is that we could be

seeing a Captain Picard reprisal? possibly which

don't get me wrong I would love it but is it

the show we deserve or need I still would take

it but what's going to be coming like these are

the four projected series now that Kurtzman Alex

Kurtzman has entered a five -year deal with CBS

all access to oversee a variety of Star Trek

series and miniseries which is something Abrams

tried to do 9 years ago, or 10 years ago, and

they were like, no, we're good, we don't really

want to move in that direction, so, bite me.

So anyways, Kurtzman's kind of carrying on that

torch. So they want to do a Star Trek, Starfleet

Academy show, which we kind of joked about, Dodd

and I, a few years ago when we heard about new

series, from creators... Stephanie Savage and

Josh Schwartz Creators of Gossip Girl and Marvel's

Runaways weren't previously a Trekkie so I mean

I guess it's a good entry point for the the teens

that are out now whatever generation they're

called so then there's a limited series based

around the character of Khan which is the one

that Nicholas Meyer was was kind of foreshadowing

and you know from Ricardo Montalban's version

from from Spacey and Star Trek to the Wrath of

Khan so This would be presumably about his exile

under the orders of Captain Kirk So it would

be during the time that he was stranded after

he was stranded by the Enterprise on CT Alpha

5 and When the the planet thing was destroyed

and and they they technically were thought to

be CD Alpha 4 Before checkoff and Captain Terrell

found them in the Wrath of Khan So it'll be interesting

to see how they play that out. There's a limited

series under Raps, whose plot are being kept

very tight -lipped. And it's a limited series,

just like the con one. Which I think it's cool

that they're doing a limited series, meaning

that there's going to be no continuation. It's

going to be a one -off. Which I think works really

well, rather than doing a bunch of films. I think

doing a one -off series is much cleaner. in the

direction and especially if they're wanting to

recapture a lot of these prime timeline people

like myself or Or just covering it entirely,

you know, I think what they're gonna do is I

think with this Star Trek thing of covering characters

that have been done Through these limited series,

I think they're going to hit the nail on the

head where Star Wars failed With their live -action

film of Solo and I think it's gonna be a good

thing for Trek But like Star Wars seems to have

this thing with their animated series that they're

just superb and then their episodes are kind

of sub power, but they're depending on the film

I think that Trek their their films have gotten

to be sub power at this point and Discovery I'm

still on the fence. I mean I like it, but it's

not it's not the Trek that I'm I'm in favor of

at least not yet until I see what they do in

season 2 I won't quit watching it, but it's it's

still gonna be a difficult series to watch. But

I think that they're hinting, and they've asked

Patrick Stewart that he was gonna brush up on

his Star Trek knowledge, so I'm wondering if

this new limited series, because they've also,

now mind you, Marina Certis has also been on

set two of Discovery at one point, so I'm wondering

if it's gonna be a TNG limited series reprisal,

and we could possibly see some TNG DS9 Voyager

characters all in this limited series. And if

they did a 13 episode arc, limited series, covering

the TNG era or, you know, 15, 20 years, you know,

basically keeping with real time of the actors

from their original characters, and they kind

of picked up 20 years after Picard and Cisco

and Janeway, I think we could end up with a really

awesome series. And... You could possibly see

that take off and go go further. I would love

to see it I know that if Patrick Stewart's involved

it's got to be good if you know at least you

think so Because that guy won't do something

if he doesn't like it so It would be nice to

see regardless of what happens and then the other

thing is the animated series whose plot details

are being kept under wraps I hope that they skip

Any of the generations we've seen so far unless

it's gonna jump around I hope that they skip

the the enterprise era. I hope they I hope they

really honestly skip Everything that's not like

between on I Would like to see them to go between

the undiscovered country and and the next generation

to be honest Like when the Enterprise B is floating

out and the Excelsior is floating around and

then the Enterprise C ends up out there later

on and up to its destruction in the creation

of the Enterprise D. I would love to see that

timeline, but doing it in the way that they've

done, kind of Star Wars Rebels and Star Wars

Clone Wars, kind of filling in that gap with

an animated series. Because I think that's about

the only route that you could play at this time

and still have some of the actors. reprise their

roles who are elderly at this point and I think

that it can be pretty solid if they did it like

the CG route of what they've done with Star Wars

because I think the Star Wars animated series

have been like pretty spectacular and so if they

did it in that vein I can see it going really

well but if you're a fan of the original animated

series which why would you be they're doing they're

doing a crossover comic with Transformers on

IDW right now it starts in September and it's

a four -issue arc and I'm really looking forward

to that because I've followed Transformers like

forever but then when they start doing the GI

Joe Transformer crossovers I got all those for

the longest time and then they've done a bunch

other Marvel well not Marvel but like Hasbro

properties now mind you like Marvel used to have

GI Joe and Transformers and Star Trek and like

all these properties way back when and then DC

got half of them like Star Trek and you know

you've seen GI Joe jump between like Devil's

Dew and some of these other ones that are image

and some other like that. So, I don't know, I'm

kinda looking forward to seeing what they do

with it when it comes out. I know that it's following

the original animated series and the original

Transformers G1, but it should be really interesting

to read. At least for the animation style that's

in it, or being that it's not animated, the art

style that's in it, so. Anyways, that about wraps

this up. I'm gonna call it a day and until next

time, get altered, get geeky with the Altergeeks!