Voxels

Hi, I'm Sadiq.

I'm out here, you know, trying to walk stuff back, but also progress as a person.

I want to introduce something some of y'all don't understand, something called nuance.

All right.

So I was here on Mastodon yesterday.

I was posting some posts.

Oh yeah, was it the React post?

Okay, so I was reading the Ars Technica comments on the article about how Tumblr is going to migrate everything over to WordPress.

And people were talking a lot of shit about it.

And here's the thing.

Ars Technica is a WordPress blog.

It is.

It is.

Yeah, it's always been.

If you pay for Ars Technica, you can't talk shit on WordPress.

It's not how that works.

Has Ars Technica failed you before?

Or as well, you got the verge of Vox Media.

Polygon just had a good redesign.

I know people here, especially someone in this group chat here, might dislike the whole big font, white background stuff.

But Polygon is a good design and it's all on WordPress.

Okay.

Okay, let me talk about the verge, the WordPress thing.

And I, look, I'm a WordPress fanboy, have been for probably a decade plus now.

And my day job involves WordPress.

So I'm very much involved in WordPress every day.

It's my day job.

So, and I use WordPress and I have used WordPress for my own blogs and sites.

Like the Two Shades of Brown, the Shades of Brown site is WordPress, by the way.

It's just WordPress with a podcast plugin.

And I also use it for other podcasts myself.

So, like, I've been using WordPress for a long time.

And you cannot deny, like, the thing is WordPress is like, people always shit on it a little bit because of the plugins issue and all that.

But WordPress dominates the web.

Like, so many sites use WordPress for a reason, bro, because it's very flexible.

It's in PHP.

So it runs on literally a toaster.

So, like, you could run it everywhere, anywhere.

It scales very, very well, especially if you do page caching.

So I'm not, I'm not hearing no WordPress slander in this house at all.

This is a WordPress fanboy zone.

So we talking.

And Tumblr moving to WordPress is honestly, it doesn't surprise me.

Like, Tumblr is like a blogging platform and WordPress is like a content management system and a blogging system.

So, like, it feels like a natural fit.

I don't know why people would get mad about that.

Like, why would you get mad about that?

What's why?

I think it's better for Tumblr long term that Automatic, the company that owns Tumblr now, actually maintains the site properly because it's been on maintenance

mode kind of like for a bit because I think the code base for Tumblr is like a hot garbage mess probably.

And all the people who originally worked on it is probably long gone.

So, like, the problem is better to just move it to something that is actually maintained like WordPress that is actually actively being used and very flexible and very extensible.

And then using whatever the fuck Tumblr was, like, come on, bro.

Like, it's just better.

And Automatic knows how to scale WordPress.

Obviously, they had run WordPress.com, which is the paid commercial service.

And, you know, like, WordPress is good.

WordPress always good.

Or WordPress is the king of the web.

It's the open web, baby.

Anyways.

Also, more importantly, speaking about the whole Tumblr to WordPress move, Tumblr has been working on ActivityPub integration.

And guess what you get for free if you move to WordPress as your back end?

Oh, shit.

I forgot about that.

I forgot about that. ActivityPub integration.

That's cool.

Cool.

That's actually.

Yeah.

So, Tumblr would federate with WordPress because, and this is what I think they put in the, a lot of the commenters are saying in the Arsenic article or is in the Arsenic article, is that, you know, people are like, wow, WordPress.

How can WordPress scale to be a bunch of million blogs talking to each other?

WordPress.com exists.

I do not remember.

Can you still follow blogs at WordPress.com or is it more of like a B2B kind of thing nowadays?

Oh, yeah.

It's, I mean, it's not, it's, yeah, if you, if you go, if you have to have a WordPress.com account to do it, but you can still do it.

Like you can still follow blogs.

It's a little social though, really.

I mean, obviously you could just use RSS if you don't want to have like an account like that and you don't want to use their site.

But like.

Can you, I'm checking right now.

Hold on a minute.

I'm on WordPress.com right now.

You have to go to the actual site to be able to follow, like hit follow on them.

Like it's not like a.

Yeah, because yeah, I'm trying to see where the feed would be at because I have my website here and then I go to the main thing and domains plugins.

It's also for WordPress blogs, by the way, the default feed URL is always slash feed slash, right?

For any WordPress site that did disable the feed, by the way, is it's going to be at slash feed, but or did it change the URL?

Sub sites obviously change the URLs like our stack has custom URLs because obviously it's a bigger site.

That's a custom site.

But yeah, WordPress is.

Oh, it's the reader.

There we go.

Yes, WordPress reader.

Okay.

Yeah, there's a reader mode.

There's a reader like app basically.

Yes, it's WordPress.com slash read.

There you go.

Okay.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So WordPress.com supports that.

So they already have experience having some kind of that.

Yeah, obviously.

That's what I'm saying.

It's a natural fit.

Like when I first heard that that automatic was going to acquire acquire acquire Tumblr, I was like, you know what?

That's actually a great place for Tumblr to be because obviously Yahoo can't do shit with it.

Because Yahoo is how the fuck does Yahoo exist?

Anyways, like WordPress is blogging.

Tumblr is blogging.

Like Tumblr is still a blogging social network.

It's just blogging and WordPress.com is also a blogging social network.

And so automatic and making it into Tumblr is just like the natural next evolution of Tumblr because Tumblr, the code base, I assume is not is very custom and very bespoke and not actually really all that good probably internally.

And they probably haven't maintained it properly either.

So why not move it to a platform like WordPress?

It's just used by millions of people and they know it inside and out.

They already know and they have expertise in-house already, obviously.

So like, yeah, it's a good thing for Tumblr.

It's a good thing for WordPress.

It's a good thing for the open web, baby.

It's all open web.

It's all open web.

We got activity bump in here.

So, you know, everybody's winning.

Do we want to talk about Star Wars Outlaws next?

Because I could talk about WordPress for literally hours.

I don't want to, I don't want to, I don't want to, you know.

Yeah, yeah, we can talk about Star Wars Outlaws.

So basically, I went ahead and I picked up Star Wars Outlaws on GeForce Now as God intended.

GeForce Now is the best place to go.

As God intended, the gamers intended GeForce Now.

Well, so here's the reason why.

Because I do have a series that I haven't turned on in a while.

And the reason I was doing GeForce Now is, is I was looking at the reviews and it's like it's 30 FPS.

And here's what I've noticed, all right.

Here's what I've noticed.

Basically, when you have a game, even if you're cloud streaming it and you run it high enough of a frame rate,

it doesn't really matter the input latency for the network sub versus running it locally at 30 FPS.

So right now I basically am playing it on GeForce Now, the 4080 tier with.

Which, which is like 120 FPS is like, or 60 FPS.

The stream is 120 FPS, but here's the thing.

But the video is like, actually the game is running at.

It supports VRR.

So basically I have frame generation on with reflex on and it is running at about 60 to 90 on ultra with ray tracing on.

OK, it doesn't really matter for this game, but I know frame generation, which is the LSS3 feature, right?

NVIDIA DLSS3 feature. As far as I remember, I don't watch Digital Foundry, so correct me if I'm wrong.

But as far as I remember, it adds a bunch of latency to the pipeline.

It's not too bad. It's about a frame of latency.

I mean, it's for this game. Wouldn't matter anyway. I don't think it's not a game where latency would matter.

Yeah, yeah. Like Destiny, I don't have frame generation turned on.

Right. But in this game, because it's I think what's more important is fluidity of motion versus like super rapid fire input latency.

And because of how high the frame rate's running at, it's still better than running it on the Series S.

So it's still better than running it on the cheaper Xbox.

Oh, of course. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

So what is it running out on the Series S, do you know? Is it like 30 FPS, like locked?

30 FPS with FSR3 or FSR2.

Jeez. OK, that's 30 FPS. Yeah, that's...

Yeah, like 1080p upscaled to 1440p FSR.

Yeah, that's that's not a good good time, I would imagine.

But you know, the game looks great. It's really, really pretty. I'm enjoying it.

So this is a Ubisoft open world game, right?

And it's got the... And I'm a known hater of Ubisoft open world games.

So a lot of people in the audience might be thinking, why?

OK, so what's up? No, but I want to know why.

Why do you... I mean, all the Assassin's Creed games are very different from what Ubisoft makes now.

I know you like some of the newer Assassin's Creed games, right? You played like, what is it like Valhalla for a bit, right?

And you played Odyssey, maybe. I don't remember.

But what makes you like this one more?

I mean, is it Star Wars or is it just like it's the formula that is working in this setting more than others for you?

So here's the reason that I took a look at this game over other Ubisoft games.

So basically Star Wars Outlaws is an open world game by Massive, same studio that made the Avatar game.

And it is by Ubisoft. So everyone's probably thinking, oh, it's the Ubisoft formula.

Here's what's interesting, though, about it. It's not just the Ubisoft formula because the structure of the game is you are an outlaw.

And you go around and essentially have different factions that you can either have good or bad reputation with as you progress through the story.

And it's pretty interesting in terms of gameplay design in Assassin's Creed Odyssey, right?

Which I'd say is the last great Ubisoft game. Basically, it was just.

OK, I mean, I would actually actually hold on. Let me take that back.

I agree with that, actually, because I know you know everybody for those people listen to this podcast who don't know who I am.

Hello. Did we we didn't say our names, by the way. Yeah, we did.

You said your name. I did. Did you introduce yourself? I introduced it.

No, everyone knows. Listen, Voxels.fm, check out the about page.

You already know what it is. OK. OK. Anyway, so.

So people who don't have known me that well, I suppose, should know that I've been I played literally most of the mainline Assassin's Creed games.

The only one I haven't played is Assassin's Creed Rogue because it's a weird game.

It's kind of it's not a great game either, personally, I think.

But anyway, I played all of the all the good Assassin's Creed games, including the new ones from Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla.

And then you would sound like the origins was a little rough.

Odyssey was better. Valhalla was personally, in my opinion, the there was some good writing in there, but it was like really long.

Right. I remember you didn't even finish it. Right. So I remember you didn't finish the story.

It's long. I did the DLC in America, the Native Americans, and I think I got everything I needed out of that game.

But turning back to this game, what's there's been Odyssey and the other Ubisoft games in this game of its gameplay design?

Basically, it's that in this game, rather than pinpoints on map and gold icons,

you follow when you are given a quest.

It's by interacting with NPCs. Basically, you just have to walk up and talk to people.

And that's how you get side quest by like hearing random side conversations or someone might give you a hint.

But there's no predefined like, OK, so it's doing kind of the Assassin's Creed thing as well.

A little bit like it's kind of a system borrowed from the other games, I think like.

Right. But how you how you go through the game, though, an upgrade, there are no skill trees in this game.

The only way to get upgrades is by doing quest lines for people.

So basically, you can get like I think I had to get an upgrade for it's it's their self scenes.

And when you get caught, you can get an upgrade called Fast Talk, where you basically try to talk your way out of it while sneaking up to someone so you can take them out.

And that just required doing regular gameplay things, right?

It's like you need to you have to talk to this NPC. Oh, that's fun.

I like that. That's an interesting mechanic. Like there's an interesting way of doing skill progression in a video game because usually.

Right. And how it sort of takes effect is, is once you talk to NPC and be in their quest line,

they're a vendor for upgrades, basically, and you do different things and different gameplay things and you can unlock them.

I like I like this because one of my big one of my big problems with Valhalla.

All right. Let me explain about the skill tree thing that you just mentioned.

Why I like this a lot is that skill trees in Valhalla, I think if you remember, was had a massive, massive skill tree.

And it was just like insane amounts of skill. And honestly, most of the skills meant jack shit for your gameplay, honestly.

But so it was like not good because it was just that you didn't really care about getting skill points and getting skill upgrades.

Right. Because it's just so meaningless that it felt like shit.

And over here, it sounds like I've not played this game, by the way, I've not played any games, new games for a while.

But like it sounds like in this game, you just kind of naturally stumble upon skills.

It feels more significant to you and yourself as a player. Right. Like is that what you're feeling?

Yeah. And it's a lot more organic and there's not a lot of grinding, which I think is the the nicest part of it.

And going back to the mission structure. So basically, right, you go to the main story.

You have three, four main factions that you can either rank up or rank down with in terms of reputation.

And you'll be presented a quest, like, say, for example, you need to get an item, but it's in the stronghold of one of the factions.

You could either sneak in or do some side quests, gain favor with the factions, just walk in and take it because they like you.

Oh, that's cool. I really like I actually want to play this.

I'm going to buy this game and play it, actually. Not today, but, you know.

Yeah, because it and we're not even getting out, get to the Star Wars stuff in a minute, but just like a pure gameplay design.

That's fun. The important caveat is the game makes it seem like you can run and gun.

You really can't run and gun. I assume I could probably unlock things to make running and gunning more feasible.

But it really like it plays better when you're like sneaking around and doing more of a stealth build than you are trying to just go, you know, brute force everything.

Assassin's Creed is a lot more. You can either stealth or grind for a bit and do nothing but, you know, mow people down.

This game, Eriso decides of your guns and that are more backup tools when you get caught.

Yeah, I like this.

Actually, this feels like a more focused game because the problem with Valhalla was it is doing literally everything.

And it felt like it was doing nothing good because it was just like a master of all these trades, like doing all these little things and master.

None of them. Right. And it was not good at any of like, why did Valhalla have a fishing minigame, bro?

Like, why did it it did need a fishing minigame? Right.

So this feels like they had the IP and this is Ubisoft Massive, right?

I think this is Massive Entertainment, which is the Ubisoft in-house studio.

Right. I forget. Is it Massive Entertainment? Yes. It's based out of Sweden.

And it did seem like they, oh, they made the Division, bro. Do you remember the Division?

Yeah, they made Division 2. Yeah. The Division 2 as well. Remember you bought the, oh, we don't talk about that here.

We don't. This is Snowdrop. This is the same engine as the Division.

I know, but I was going to mention your whole thing about the Division was you bought a special edition copy, which we don't mention here.

Sorry, bro. Sorry about Unity on this podcast. Anyway, so yeah, let's let's I think we should go on to the to the Star Wars aspect of it.

And the thing is, I don't give a shit about Star Wars.

This is just set. This is like window dressing. Some people are like, oh, we're just in the timeline.

This is a good Star Wars. I don't know. I don't I don't care.

I don't don't care. Earl Sweatshirt meme here. Don't care.

I'm just here for a good story. Now, the one thing I'll say is the dialogue is oddly stilted in terms of, no, no, not the writing, the facial animations.

Is it like the writing? I mean, the performance of performance or facial animation?

That's weird because Ubisoft is generally pretty, pretty good.

Like it's weird because it's yeah, it's Ubisoft. Like they put all their money into mocap.

Maybe it's just because of like my PC configuration because I'm doing GeForce now.

But I mean, you see this and bug like latency wise, it's like causing some issue with the animation.

No, no. It's just the facial animations aren't there. You would expect more.

Okay, that's that's weird for a budget game of this size and budget.

I receive like it's that doesn't seem right. That seems like a bug.

Maybe I don't know if it's a bug, but anyways, that seems I don't care about Star Wars.

The last Star Wars media thing I engaged was was Andor like a few years ago,

I think, and I haven't really I don't really I'm not really a Star Wars person.

Never been and I don't particularly care about Star Wars like that,

but I don't actually care. I think Star Wars is a fun setting for a video game

because it's so dynamic and colorful right?

And so many weird characters and alien races and outlaws and all that shit.

So how what do you feel like you're not a Star Wars person either,

but like how do you feel about this like Star Wars bit of this game?

Like I know you don't like the animations are still there,

but like other than that, like what is the Star Wars vibe like you get it?

Well, it is good piece of the ship combat sections to read where you can go into space.

I guess I should mention that too. So you can actually you have different planets to go to it's an open world game.

You have different planets to go to and you can basically invade spaceships

and stuff too if you need to grab stuff there's missions on the ground.

There's also factions in space. So honestly, it plays.

Well, it it has that Star Wars vibe to it.

I can't really say like I did not play the response Star Wars games,

but in terms of you're kind of like a space cowboy.

That's really the vibe it's going for and so far it's fine.

I I fuck with that or I fuck with that that seems I actually just put it on my wish list

and what do you I we should mention by the way on PC hits on two stores Epic Game Store

or the Ubisoft store and I would personally suggest using the Epic Games store

because the Ubisoft you play launcher is fucking garbage.

Let me just tell you right now. It's a hot piece of shit do not actually somehow the Epic Launcher,

which I still don't really like all that much.

Honestly, I'm going to is better. I'd like to refer back to what I just said 10 minutes ago.

Don't care because here's the thing. All right, I'm gonna rant about PC gamers for a minute.

Y'all love the DMA y'all want alternative app stores,

but on PC it's oh no fuck that big games are only buy from Steam.

See this is why this is why people in North America can't have nice things.

Okay. Can we okay? Can we address this once

and for all because I have a beef with that statement because I have a beef with that statement.

It's not that I care about comp don't care about competition.

It's that literally every single other platform

than Steam is fucking worse than Steam is steam is fucking amazing

and what it's meant it's been designed for decades at this point focus tested focused on delivering.

It's it's a storefront sure, but it's also very good at managing a library

and I don't care about one game. I have hundreds of games in my library

and when you have that many games it becomes important to have a good UI

and you ask for being able to manage your games

and Steam does that better than literally any of these other touches.

It's not about it's not about competition,

but it's literally for me. I don't know. I don't care about other people what they say.

So so we're basically comparing a platform that's been around since quite literally 2004 2005 like it's 10 years

plus a development of all these platforms are newer.

I don't sure. Yeah. I mean, that's what I'm not like I said,

I like the Epic Games Store launcher thing well enough.

It's okay. It's mine. But my preference always is going to be steam.

Like I don't like I still use epic.

I launched epic games right now to put this game on my wishlist.

So I'm not like I if I the game is exclusively on Epic Games

or like Alan Wake 2 for example, I I'm still going to buy it.

I don't give a shit like it's a launcher,

but I don't care about the launcher that much like like you said,

I don't actually care about that.

It's just a discourse point that people bring up and actually get tired of the discourse.

I have a PC gamer. I've been PC game in my whole life.

And honestly PC gamers are tiresome people like honest to God so many PC gamers need to shut the fuck up like bro.

Just just play the video game. Why are you whining about the launcher?

It's just another account who cares. It's like not like you have a hundred other accounts.

Like who cares that one more account to your password manager is like some big deal, bro.

Yeah. Anyways, we address that I guess in the sense that I told PC gamers to shut the fuck up.

No, I mean I agree. I would I would I'm I don't know if people can tell my energy is very different from like a few months ago.

I don't know if people can tell that I'm just a little bit different.

Anyways, is there anything else we want to talk about for Star Wars Outlaws before we move on?

Honestly, no, I'm happy at the game so far.

Yeah, I'm actually I'm like I'm going to buy this game once we done with this podcast.

I'm going to start you start over the accessibility features.

They don't talk about that because there are some bullshit in this game primarily the lock picking.

It's a rhythm game. Oh, I hate lock picking bro. I hate lock picking mechanics so much.

But here's the best part. You can skip it. Oh, you can skip it. You can skip it.

You could just get you just turn it off in the accessibility settings.

You could just skip every single lock pick thing in the accessibility settings.

Oh, isn't that one like this? I think the Spider-Man games have this accessibility game setting where you can skip like puzzles like entirely.

You could just skip puzzles, which is like great for me because I hate puzzles.

I like that sounds good. I hate lock picking it literally any video game.

Yeah, you could you could turn off all the bullshit in this game.

Shout out Ubisoft. And you know, I see this and I appreciate it.

I appreciate the fact that they try to lock picking mechanic and they also and maybe someone in design is like some people might not like this

and they're like, okay, I guess we'll just turn it off.

And I know Laura K Buzz who does like our show accessibility.

Very good show by the way, if you care about if you want to know learn more about accessibility in video games.

She also does a podcast. She has a new podcast with another gaming accessibility advocate.

And I want to find can you find the link for that while I keep talking?

Control all access it'll be in the show notes control all access great name by the way, very good name Laura.

So Laura has the podcast where she talks about how Ubisoft is important in a sense,

obviously because you just have to the massive game publisher their massive games,

but also that they are extremely folk. They're very good at accessibility.

Ubisoft invented a lot of accessibility features before they really really existed in modern video games.

Like not that's what Laura said that's not me saying that by the way,

I'm not I'm not being a Ubisoft stan because I'm not a Ubisoft stan.

I care about a screen. I don't care about Ubisoft,

but Ubisoft cannot be denied their Ubisoft developers that people who work on it.

I don't want to say the company because company didn't make it.

It's not a U of S chemo working on fucking accessibility features.

It's people on the development teams at Ubisoft various Ubisoft Studios who are so focused on accessibility the feature

and like if you launch any Assassin's Creed game the amount of accessibility features is fucking wild bro.

It's just actually bonkers. So it doesn't surprise me that they're just like inventing features where you just

plus this game to on launch launches City Accessibility Menu,

which I think should be applauded. Oh, yeah, that's that's that's basically every modern use of game.

By the way, there's every modern Ubisoft game when you launch it as far as I know Valhalla did this.

I think even Odyssey did this if only launch it for the first time it'll bring up like

if you want to watch it starts voice narrating because if you're launching the game for the first time

and you are deaf or so you feel blind you can't like if there is no voice narration,

you don't got to be able to navigate right?

So obviously the thought of that and so when you launch the game for the first time you'll hear voice narration of the menu

accessibility menu so you can actually set the options for yourself already.

So Ubisoft developers working on accessibility y'all doing like large work out there

and they really setting this bar really high and really a good standard.

The only other developer that really focuses on accessibility like this is the last of us developer.

Not a naughty dog right last of us to as much as I hate the last of us and I hate whatever the studio head's name is.

Neil Druckmann fucking annoying piece of shit.

But like the accessibility features of that game are also like extremely innovative.

So I'm going to put a link to Laura's like control all delete control all delete is Walt Mossberg's podcast.

I think control Walt delete. Yes, the good are not RIP, but I miss him writing.

But yes, so control all access. Yes, control all access and Laura's whole video series accessibility,

which as I said is honestly incredibly good.

Like if you care about accessibility at all, not just video games go listen.

She talks about she knows a lot about she knows her shit on this as well.

So that's I think everything we want to talk about video games related to Atlas.

That was a good segment. I think that was a fire segment. Let's let's talk about music for a bit.

I want to talk about Denzel Curry, one of my favorite hip-hop artists right now.

Honestly, I look consistently the only good thing to come out of Florida.

Yeah, that's what I love. I love every time you say that by the way,

because every time you say it, it's just like funnier to me because I've been to Florida once now, bro.

I agree with that. I love just I'll just say that right now.

Orlando, you know, like it's fine.

But but yeah, Denzel Curry is is fire.

This album is very Southern hip-hop, right? You said was Memphis, right?

It's very yeah. Yeah. Like what's the style called?

Is there a name specific name for the Memphis style?

I chopped and screwed like those mixtapes like Oh chopped and screwed.

That's cool. I actually am not familiar with the sub sub genres of Southern hip-hop.

Honestly, I'll be real with you. So I actually don't know this this particular style,

but whatever it is, it's it's a dance.

I'll obviously is doing it pretty well.

What's your what are some set of standout tracks for you?

Like on this on this little little album hoodlums the track race at Brock is the best best track on the album

and on ironically I really fuck with the one without slurp her pepper of Slurp.

Ski God not slurp her that's a different. Yes.

He got slurped about here making for four night rappers on delta.

How tracks ski God? Yes.

Slurp Slurp. I'm sorry Slurp God is a great Slurp got a rapper.

I gotta Google this. I got this.

I don't wait. I got open a private window already like this is going to be some rapper like on on Tik Tok called Slurp.

God like come on like in the way my God there is.

Okay. Can you put a link in the is no it is bro.

It's available. I think this is going to be our rap group name.

We're Slurp Gods. We're the Slurp God that sounds so nasty.

I'm sorry. I'm losing it over this fucking Slurp Gods.

I'm just putting it in the show notes. Just just that's a fantastic.

Yeah, just for reference already. And so I don't want to forget because there's ski masks a Slurp God Slurp.

There is no sleep in the ski mask a Slurp God. So, you know, there's a there's a space in the industry for us.

Anyways, let's talk about the album. My favorite stand out tracks.

Personally, I really like Black Flag Freestyle with that Mexican Oti.

I know you're a big fan of that Mexican. I want you to actually talk about that Mexican Oti a bit because I don't think a lot of people know who he is yet.

He's not that big yet. I don't think as far as I know, it's kind of new to this.

I don't think he's new to the scene. I think he's like kind of unknown in the scene right now.

Like it's not that big as far as I know. So what's what's that?

Johnny Dang is his biggest track, right? The song Johnny Dang with Paul Wall and Droddy, right?

That track is probably the biggest track. Probably heard it at some point.

I'm going to put a link in the show notes. So what do you think about Black Flag Freestyle?

I really like the energy on the track is insane to me. Like not insane.

That's a bad word. It's like so high level in high level energy on that track.

It just gets me pumped up. It's like a workout track, you know, like you put that on at the gym.

Like you're like fucking working out like lifting weights.

That's the shit you lift weights to it. It's really I love the album is like that sked.

I really like sked. I also like G's up with 2 Chainz and Mike Dimes.

I just unironically like love that track. 2 Chainz just doing 2 Chainz stuff.

You know, it's a fun time. I honestly Hot One is also like a really good track.

Tia Corina is on it and A$AP Ferg on it as well. Fun track. Ultra Shit is also pretty good.

Honestly, there's some tracks that don't remember all that well like Set It or like Cold Pimp or Wishlist.

Cold Pimp is a good track. The interludes are fire. Like Lunatic Interlude, that's a fantastic interlude.

Yeah, so it's I just think that Denzel Curry has consistently been good for since I first started listening to it,

which was Taboo, right? His album that he did really hard.

It's like a very metal album on metal hip hop.

I call it metal hip hop because it's came out in 2018. It's very dark. It's very gritty.

It's like a three-part album and it's fucking nasty.

It's like it's aggressive. It's very Denzel is very aggressive in this one.

His vibes are very different and it's like by the end of it like part of this tracks like Perks or Black Metal Terrorist like

that shit will tear your skin off bro. That shit's hard as fuck

and I've been fucking with Denzel since Taboo and I fucked with Taboo,

but I didn't really fucked with his 2019 album, which was Zoo.

I don't know. Did you hear Zoo by the way? I don't remember. It wasn't really all that good.

So I don't know if it really made a splash like Taboo did. Did you?

Taboo has been years since I listened to that. I'm vaguely familiar with it.

Yeah, Taboo is a I don't really like Taboo all that much anymore honestly because it's so aggressive.

It's hard to listen to it's kind of like useless in that way.

It's very abrasive is the word I would use.

It's very like it's not an easy listen. Like it's not like it's something you put on,

you know, it's you know, what's the term scaring the hoes music is that's what it is.

Yeah, it's not it's not it's not for the clubs. You know what I'm saying?

It's not JPEG Mafia, but it's not for the clubs, you know melt my eyes see your future by the way.

It came out in 2022 is honestly like I'm not I'm not even joking probably be one of my rap albums of the decade.

Like I'm not it's still 2024 bro. It's only like barely halfway through the decade.

But if I had to make a list I'm making a list like that.

I'm putting that out that album is just solid every track on that album is fire.

All the features are good. All the tracks are good.

Like it's just the tens of energies much actually very nice on this album very good tracks

and there's a jazz version basically jazz version where they play with a what is it called?

Like a jazz hope the cold-blooded soul is a soul version.

Yeah, the extended one extended version, which I don't know if you've listened to it.

It's just such it's such a devil. It's such enjoying himself in this performance.

There's some videos of it and I just think that Denzel is on fire.

I think more people should listen to Denzel if you are a hip-hop head like us.

I if you haven't listened to Denzel bro, go go put on melt my eyes your future and thank me later.

You know because it's just I just really think Denzel just has everything going for him.

Like he has a good flow and a good style good voice and he talks about deep topics

and like not I mean not this album King of the mischievous out is not like a introspective album.

It's not it's really not it's not it's not an introspective.

This is not the album we put on what you need to like think about some stuff.

It is kind of a kind of a more aggressive style like taboo,

but it's not like ultra aggressive.

It's it's more just like the braggadocious hip-hop thing going on like a lot of kind of fun tracks

that are like just kind of silly but you know, they're kind of fun.

So yeah, Denzel Curry is not go listen to Denzel Curry like you won't regret it.

Like it's it's he's making good music and as Christian just said the only good thing to come out of Florida Denzel Curry anything else.

Do you want to talk about Mexican Oti for a bit?

I don't really know his music because I want to I want to do the one to talk about that Mexican Oti of it.

No, I mean, I think that Mexican Oti he's at the stage I would say in his career now where he's actually trying to figure out his own sound

because he's been doing like sound.

I mean SoundCloud rap isn't really a genre anymore.

I don't like what it would be called backpack rapper and people were just kind of like,

but I mean right you like this backpack rapper people like doing independent mixtapes uploading online putting on what is like early 2000s like early 2000 2010s.

I forget the time frame where this was a thing.

Right, but you know what I mean the rain and it's sort of turned into SoundCloud people like just uploading music SoundCloud and blown up off of it.

I mean he's like post that cause all that stuff is on YouTube and put on Reddit and stuff,

but I don't know what we would call that like I just don't but basically he's like coming up.

He's an up-and-coming person has been figuring out the sound.

Oh, so you mean like he's just an internet rapper like he's not like a like a like he's not he's coming up through internet like posting stuff on SoundCloud,

but not really a SoundCloud rapper like the term used to be right like his right.

I mean he has a music deal now, but yeah, basically.

Yeah, but but still so I I recommend taking a look through hisography was his last time and I might see if I could stall for time as I pull that up that Mexican OT.

Let me let me a Mexican OT.

You even send me this album.

I think he backs it OT.

No, I got a I got him pulled up right here on okay.

Yes, Texas technician. I pretty okay with but honestly, I liked Lone Star Luchador a lot better.

I think Lone Star Luchador is pretty fire.

Yeah, that was the one I listened to.

Yeah. Yeah.

Look, yeah, Lone Star Luchador.

I got a lot of different.

I remember you telling me there has a lot of different musical styles of this true.

It has a lot of different styles of hip-hop like or rather styles of rapping for that Mexican OT as well,

which is interesting is just kind of experimenting at just to confirm because I'm not actually sure he is actually he is a Mexican.

Okay. I just want to make sure that he wasn't just calling himself that Mexican OT out of just like a you know,

anyway, so we just we don't we know he's Mexican American from Bay City,

Texas. I'm looking at his Wikipedia.

I don't know where Bay City is.

That sounds like a fun place which tracks would you recommend it people are new to that Mexican OT which I suppose a lot of people are at this point still Johnny Dang.

Honestly, that's that's probably the first one and then also pull this up here Cowboy Killer was a pretty fire track with opera to a Maxwell cream.

That's another good one. You match a creamy that song big shit without other creator.

I think or bitch that your big shit is such a good travel.

I love big shit is like such a pump up your energy try track and so good.

I really love that track. So yeah, Mexican OT Denzel Curry.

There's some good up-and-coming. Can I talk about another album that just to drop but I think it's supposed to be a big step but who cares if not cares about mixed tape the difference between mixtapes and doichi who's on Top Dog Entertainment,

by the way, I'd hasn't been teasing music for a long long time like any kind of album release and everybody was like what TD not drop and shit.

Well, here we are. It's called alligator bites.

Never heal great name by the what a what a what a name and I just thought I don't like the entire of the real with you,

but doichi is an up-and-coming on that up-and-coming but she's a talent that we need to look out for like for real.

She's popping off popping off for real. There's a track called Nissan Altima, which I suggest literally go watch the video for it on and tell me that flow is not fucking like absolutely magical.

And so female rappers in the game really be really be stepping up.

So, you know, if you are looking for women by women by black women out here talking about talking to hip-hop, so go check that.

I'm going to put a put a link on the music video and the Spotify link, which I have on me.

So do you have you listen to doichi at all?

Like this hot Altima maybe I'm like this. I think this one single so maybe it's possible you heard it.

I don't know if you heard this. Okay, so go after the podcast go listen to Nissan Altima.

Tell me tell me what you think of it. Anyways, I think that's all for hip-hop.

We have one last topic and this one is a little bit serious.

I suppose I'm not serious. I think it's a good good topic.

It's a little bit serious, but not sad. I think it's a video from former verge video video person Becca Forsythe.

I just said her name correctly that I said her name wrong right now, but what are we talking earlier?

First, I first thought she was a she says her name on the first 10 seconds of the video.

So if you want to be know the correct anyway, this video call is called why I love the verge.

We're going to put a link in the show notes. Basically.

She's talking about creative freedom like it and a gist of it as I understand this video.

It's about 10 minutes long. Not very long. She's go watch everybody should go watch it.

She's talking about how when she was a divorce, she had a great time,

you know traveling all over the world, you know with her friends making friends seeing wonderful things,

and you know, taking a lot of pictures and videos and all that, you know video person.

But after covid sort of started at lockdowns happen, you know,

she was working from home obviously like everybody else and it kind of just ruin the vibe

and what she said was her coworkers were friends and she didn't make any friends.

She doesn't she was like she's saying that she doesn't really know anybody at the verge anymore.

And also that she said one of the one of the most important points in this video is the creative freedom thing

where she said that all her work at the verge.

Buffer belongs to Vox Media. Vox Media owns copyrights, owns the content that she worked on all her career in there.

So she's starting this new YouTube channel, her new career fresh, right?

She's not this is new to her and not new to her as in like she's starting videos for the first time,

but she's starting from scratch as far as like I'm having a portfolio of videos.

And she's saying that she does she got a little meeting with Vox Media legal probably

and they pulled her aside and said that she had a video up.

She had a YouTube channel already and she had some video up on it

and they said that they could ask her to remove any of our videos at any time,

which I don't know about you, but personally as a person who likes to make creative content on creative work,

not content. I hate that word creative work on like podcast writing blogging like my own blog,

my personal blog this podcast, whatever else I'm going to possibly make videos soon.

I want to make videos like whatever it is.

I want to do if my workplace tells me I can't my work is not related to video or podcast or writing.

So it's not really relevant I suppose but even if it was if they asked me to do that bro.

I can understand why Becca was like, okay,

I just need to leave and do my own thing because it's clearly I don't own any of my work

and it's not sustainable to just keep doing this obviously she feels bad about not knowing any of her coworkers.

So like what do you think about this whole thing about you know company owning like what do you work

or like a creative position like a video person videographer like a camera person a director a photographer

for a media company like the Vox Media Company.

Why what do you think about them owning literally everything and not no not actually not that

but also why allowing assigning a contract where you they are allowed to tell you to take down any video

that you any content that you any video work that you put out by yourself.

Like how is that even legal or enforceable bro?

Like what is can you like just explain that is this an American thing?

Like I've literally not heard this before. I'll be real with you.

So I mean you're in Ontario Ontario has so Ontario is a little different Ontario doesn't have non-competes are not legal in.

Oh, yeah, I don't know about most of Canada.

I don't see as well but I don't think you could still do stuff like that in other countries.

It's not specifically American because the idea is is okay.

So you get hired at a company you are unknown and by your platform you then start,

you know being on camera and your personality.

So when you were in a role where you're like a personality driven,

you know presenter or videographer or whatever it how do you how do you tie what someone puts on their personal channel

versus like what the like the actual person does it at the verge.

So you're saying so you're saying that that for the for the verge

and for Vox Media back up putting out videos of her own represents the verge like she's a rapper's right

because she's on camera during doing Verge stuff.

And I mean, I don't say I agree with it per se but that's the perspective of it,

you know, say for example, you're you're a PR person at like some random tech company

and you have a and on your personal Twitter page you have your drop role.

You can't post certain things because everyone's going to assume how many times is someone at Nintendo do something

and someone's like is that the switch to oh, right?

I guess. Okay. So if you say that the company is like afraid of the any PR as is a PR disasters like happening

because somebody that works for the company is a personality publicly

and is associated with the company will say some stupid shit

and it will be bad and I agree to this to an extent obviously,

but also the same time I feel as a creative person that's going to be like if you are a person who makes videos

like Becca does or videos and cameras are a whole thing

and as a creative person, I think you'll understand like you also understand this feeling

where you want to make stuff all the time, right?

You just making stuff. I make stuff. I write stuff.

I put stuff in drafts that I never publish right like writing that I never publish

because you know, it's not good enough or don't want to publish it.

I'll add that just feels like the weight of that hanging over your shoulders at all times that a way that your the company

that you work for where you have friends and co-workers is going to basically muscle you to muscle

and take down a video or a writing thing that you did is just what do I call it's called a chill.

I personally call like I would have called chilling effect

and I feel like it kills creativity rather than enhances it personally,

but I'm just talking about it from a creative perspective not a business perspective anyways or PR perspective.

So that's like my thoughts on I don't know if you have any other thoughts on this video

or on Becca specifically like do you have any thoughts on Becca's?

I mean I would say is it makes sense. She went independent because you can't really like have your main job be your side gig.

That'll always even even if we take out of the equation the because I can compete clause wherever the Fox Media has you're still dealing with basically doing the same thing,

but in a different way like it it just it conflicts too much.

So I support her. I'm down her earbud reviews were always the best.

I hope she keeps her hearing headphones.

Yeah, I just hope that all your heart your bud reviews are so good,

but I don't know if people have seen our videos on reviewing your job there on the verge channel obviously.

So if you want to go see them there's there instead but I would say that yeah,

I am excited for Becca's like work coming forward at whatever she gets like a patreon thing or whatever.

She's going to do the subscription to God.

I'm out on that shit for real like where the patreon at Becca.

Let's let's let's let's put in a few dollars because I think Becca are always two people at the verge.

I mean three people are the verse that I always kind of enjoyed as far as personalities and can't like the work they put on its back up Versace.

It's Dieter bone was at Google now working for Google that fucking guy.

He started reviewing photos as bad as working for Google now and also Nila Patel the editor-in-chief of the verge.

These three people I've always felt have this strong personality driven kind of really Patel.

I don't really listen to the verge cast anymore.

I mean one of the reasons I listen to the voice guy was because the LA was was cool and also like a brown dude like me.

It's cool to see like an Indian dude make it you know what I'm saying?

Like yeah, so like, you know, do you fuck with the verge like is it is it do you read the verge by the way?

I don't read the box media site that don't particularly fuck with the version verge either.

So do you still listen to the verge cast? Is that a thing?

Yeah. Yeah, I still listen to the verge cast. How is it these days?

Who's on the board David Pierce runs the verge cast and you I still on it,

but they do about three episodes a week now and they're all good like their their Sunday specials are usually some like random theme and then there.

I don't really listen to Ted podcast anymore as you could probably tell but I always liked the verge cast.

I just never kind of I think what happened to me was I just fell off of Ted podcast in general because so much so much of it was talk discussion of LLMs right open chat open AI and all that shit.

And I just I would just get really angry and it was not enjoyable anyway.

So I was like, I just got to stop doing that to myself.

So I just stopped listening to any tech podcast. Can we talk tech podcast for just a second?

What are good tech podcast right now? What are your hot tech podcast other than the verge cast?

I mean other than the verge cast. What are the some recommendations you want to make if you want to like if you're a if I want to listen to some tech you would love better off lying because the last 10 episodes have been nothing but anti-ai grift better off line better offline is I don't know that one actually is that a oh shit.

I'm subscribing right now bro.

Anyways, that's a that's a that's a good I'm going to go put a link to better offline in our podcast notes because that's is that cool zone media like cool zone media at Zitron you might know where everybody knows who has a shot is even he runs the that's his podcast.

Oh, that's his podcast.

Oh cool.

I oh right.

He does a podcast.

Okay, cool.

I'm going to put that in our show notes because I've been looking for a couple.

Okay, you put it with that link already.

Is there anything else we want to mention before we head off close out this show?

I'm going to mention links.

No, I'm very happy that Jack saw my video of the really so this for context.

We're not we're not we're not boys group chat.

You know, again live with the dude with the guys and basically I recently bought a $20 speaker at Walmart just mostly because it would upset one of our friends.

I thought it'd be really funny and these speakers are like they're actually so the reason I got him is I have really nice headphones, but sometimes that I'm gaming or watching anime.

I just don't want to wear headphones and I my monitor doesn't have speakers built-in.

Yeah, I actually actually do that as well because what I'm sometimes I'm playing actually like to listen to a podcast when I'm playing like Forza or whatever.

Like I'm just driving around racing and I play listening to like the Jimquisition or whatever podcast and listen to and I just have the dawn speakers because I'm not really caring about the sounds from the game.

I'm just listening to the podcast on the home pod mini that I have instead of it's not my computer because overcast speaking of overcast.

There was an we don't have time to go to the overcast.

We're not we don't have time for that.

I think I think wrapping up is where we're going to go.

Yeah.

Okay.

I sorry.

This is my brain right now, by the way, small context.

A lot of things have changed about how I brain works.

I would rather I accepted how my brain works.

So I talk faster.

I talk more and I talk rapidly switch topics rapidly.

Anyways, let's wrap this up.

This has been an excellent return episode of Voxels episode 10 is a banger and we can find us on our website.

You may notice a little HTTP.

Okay, for context, I stopped paying transistor 20 bucks a month because a cast is for free.

I know he casts those ad insertion, but I have that turned off.

So you won't should not be hearing ads.

I honestly would have paid for transistor myself if I don't know.

But anyways, that's that's a different discussion.

We can have that later.

We are on a cast now because as just Christmas and cost, it's expensive.

Transistor is not cheap.

It's never cheap.

It was never cheap.

It's always been like that price.

I was just kind of like, well, given the amount we do episodes because this is infrequent, just putting on a random host.

It's not.

I mean, honestly, we're going to put it on like a WordPress site like we do for shades of brown.

I mean, I'm not saying we'd have to, but you know, listen, if you want to run a WordPress instance for go for it.

I will give you I'll give you the DNS access.

If you want to port it to WordPress, that's a go for it.

Yeah, but for context, we moved the podcast feed.

We had to add a redirect, obviously.

But the problem is, let me this is a small technical detail.

This is learn some technical detail.

Hover, who you used to the redirect your domain registrar only does HTTP redirection on HTTPS.

And the problem is both Chrome and Firefox and probably Safari as well.

Launch HTTPS by default is this because obvious and literally every site is a GPS.

The problem with that is the redirect just doesn't work.

The Fox and FM does actually doesn't work in like any browser right now.

So I will fix that by the time you hear this show, it will be fixed because I'm a genius.

But also go to Voxel FM, read the show notes, subscribe, hit the hit the like.

And there's no like, but hit the subscribe button.

Actually, we're on YouTube. I did.

Yeah. Smash that like button if you're on YouTube.

If you really want to help us out, leave a review on Apple podcasts, because that actually matters for the reviews on Apple podcast is the only thing that actually matters in this ecosystem of podcast.

So if you love our podcast, share it with your friends, obviously, first and then leave.

But if you use Apple podcast, please leave us a five star nice review.

You know? Yeah. So that's it.

If not, if you don't leave a review, I'm going to start generating all of our podcast show notes.

Bro. OK.

Anyways, that's the show.

You could find me online at.

OK. Yeah.

OK, let's wrap this up before we go any off the rails more.

I am. Did you finish your your website was Josephine that website, right?

No, that domain expired.

I spent a shambles. I let that expire.

And it's a remission at WordPress. I'm not paying a hundred dollars to get out of remission.

Sure. OK.

If I be online at the five carats, a tenfold.

We are back on ten forward.

Christian back on ten forward.

Yeah, because my other instance kept going down.

We're in cloudflare errors, but we don't talk about that.

Oh, we don't.

Anyways, I am a packet cat at ten forward.

I'll say so social on the Fediverse as I've been for years.

And I'm also you can find the rest of my shit on Sonic Save dot com, which is my personal homepage.

And you can find my blog at non routed space.

And you can find you can find you could give me money, actually.

But let me can I plug my subscription thing, by the way, because, you know, I have one now.

Subscribe dot packet cat dot C.A.

Could give me money directly by me.

This is my birthday month.

Everybody listen up. It's my birthday on the 26th of September.

And I want people to buy me shit.

So go to subscribe dot packet cat dot C.A.

You don't have to subscribe for more than a month if you don't want to.

Obviously, it's a Stripe subscription.

You can cancel literally immediately.

I'd give me like $20 so I could buy like a matcha latte from Starbucks.

Anyways, thank you, everybody, for listening.

Voxels is back.

Voxels is back.

I'm back, maybe.

This has been a good episode.

And with that, we will say goodbye.

Bye.

.