May 2021 Patreon Exclusive VIDEO Oddcast

Glad you mentioned Tim Hunkin! His new stuff is just as good as his old show.

Sorry I am late to the video, but FWIW I bought a Chevy Spark EV (~80 mile range) this year. When I go to a faster charger (50kW) here in the US it takes me 15 minutes to charge from 10% up to 80%. From 80% to 100% takes quite a bit longer. Of course, your car has to be equipped with fast charger capability to take advantage of it.

I was recently trying to get my hands on some new minidiscs from Japan as well and had the same experience. From a bit of research that I did Sony (and some Japanese electronics shops) seem to still be selling new blank ones. Not sure if that means that they are still making them of course but the fact that they are still listed on Sony JP site for sale gives me some hope.

“...even if the owner’s a flipping bellend”? Am I close? ;)

As an anecdote, I watched the (excellent) Ski slope video from the beginning all the way through, but when I shared it with some friends I sent it to them from the first demo bookmark. They're perhaps not as nerdy as me, but both watched it from that point on. So having those links there was very useful!

I’m curious Mat – has Patreon reduced your reliance on YT views at all to free you up to make videos you want, or is AdSense still a really important part of your income. I’d hope eventually you can concentrate on making the videos you (and patrons!) like rather than the algorithm – but perhaps still some way off that yet! Also, I’m a very happy Bob owner following your video – first time I’ve ever been able to fit a dishwasher in my flat, and it’s delightful.

Like the new intro!

Always fun to watch a good ramble. Thanks much! I noticed the new intro and thought to leave a comment, but you know… lol. It looks good! It’s new and updated but still in the same style. A keeper for sure!

Matt, Thanks for making these monthly updates. I enjoy the behind the scenes bits as well as the more [to me at least] personal nature of these videos. Thanks again, Mark

Here's something on the charging of Lithium batteries, and why it takes longer from 50-100%, than from 0-50%: https://batteryuniversity.com/index.php/learn/article/charging_lithium_ion_batteries Also, I like your emergency kit for connection downtime! A more seamless option would be a new primary router which also has MultiWAN-capability. With the appropriate settings, it could be made to switch to mobile as soon as the primary WAN is disconnected. But this might be overkill for your situation. 🙂

Thanks for the reminder about the affiliated links for the IPS clock. Bought one tonight through your Ali link.

The best experience I had for waiting on hold for customer support was a call centre used by a former consumer broadband supplier BT Ireland. It would say something like - Please hold for the next available operator or press 1 and we'll ring you back when you reach the top of the queue. Obviously I would press 1, carry on doing something else and when the phone rang a short while later, I was speaking to the agent. I wish all call centres did this! As for the first charging experience, I think it's well worth rerecording the bit where you successfully charged your car, but starting from let's say 40% charge and use the existing footage of the first two faulty charging points. Title it like - How not to provide public EV charging (or something more catchy).

Nobody else is talking about it so I will: The feeling old part where you got the marketing email about 'blockchain' and 'nfts' and all that stuff you don't understand? Nobody does. It's a whole lot of smoke and mirrors of trying to 'create' revenue and wealth where there isn't any. It's trying to create an economy over intangible goods that relies exclusively on, well, exclusivity. The whole idea of it on the face is absurd, and no matter how far you go down the 'blockchain' and 'nft' rabbit holes you won't find any understanding since everyone is pretending there is something more to it. There isn't.

Flipping electric chargers! I have a PHEV and they drive me nuts - they all have a different app, which is of course dreadful usually and almost unusable. Then the chargers are always broken, then you often need a card (why when I have your stupid app do I need a card too) which takes months to arrive. They remind me a bit of parking apps which proliferate and clog up my phone. They are without doubt the worse bit of electric cars. The mind boggles how bad they are.

I just had that problem as well, whilst playing it!

Did you make the video private?

tbf I'd buy shares in Techmoan Plc if you decided to publicly list your channel on the stock exchange, but I don't know if I'd buy one of those Rubbish Dot App block thingies.

I used to work for an ISP, and while "training" was a 4-letter word they didn't have us use any scripts when talking to people which was nice. They had a somewhat higher standard of who they would hire and expected you to be able to figure out problems on your own.

Aren't we all different! The Audities videos were one of my favourites! But that's a lifetime of being fascinated by audio/visual formats for you!

That user interface with the EV charger boils my blood. Poor interface design is inexcusable in this day and age. It's kind of why I have never used the self-service checkouts at supermarkets. They're just so much faff! I've heard so many horror stories from people who use them. Scan the stuff then pay. Why would it be any more complicated than that?

Really good - thanks! The car charging thing was pretty disappointing and that was a BP-branded station? Aren't they supposed to be all hip to this new energy era? Yikes. I want my next car to be electric, too, but even a 100-mi range would suit my needs just fine since (pre-COVID at least) it was all back and forth to work, which is only 11 miles from home. Even with hi-capacity chargers, I just don't see a way for long-distance travel to make any sense, where long-distance means I have to charge on the way. I want to get there, not spend 20-30 minutes stopped to charge the battery. The only plausible defense I can see for this is that we've been filling cars with a tank of gas (which has WAY more energy/kg than batteries) for 100 *years* and we've kind of got that all sorted out while we've only been charging cars this way for about 10. As for your trips to see the parents - can your car trickle charge off your 240 V mains current? If so, and if you can convince your Dad that it won't burn the house down, maybe that's a solution?

Just my .02 on the new intro. I really liked it and it just popped for me when I saw it for the first time. I think it gives off the "retro tech" look, like the vacuum florescent display you mentioned, and a more modern look.

That turntable reminds me of the CR7, DR1 and CD1 cassette decks where they have external adjustments for playing cassettes that have been recorded off azimuth. It is a very Nakamichi thing to do. Looking at recent prices on those, they probably won't pay for themselves through add revenue either.

Sorry I'm late coming to this one. And I'm sure you don't want to hear anymore criticism of your EV charging experience. The very first thing I noticed in the video was you were at 78% and I thought "uh oh.. that's going to be slow." And I see some others have updated you on the situation there. That being said, you are correct in your assessment that if you are planning a road trip or looking at buying an EV, you do need to consider the 80% charging. I mean sure, you can start the journey at 100%, and you can charge to 100% at your destination, but during the stops in between you should target 80%. Admittedly, the Mini is the lowest range EV one can buy today (at least in the USA) as most EVs have twice that amount of range. I've done several long road trips in our Tesla (which I no longer have) and my wife's Bolt. But even with the Bolt, 80% of the range is still almost 200 miles. So, you can see the dynamic changes a lot when you have more range. I will also say that unfortunately, your experience with the bad charger design seems common. This has been one of my biggest complaints. It seems that every time I have gone to charge at a fast charger, the first charger I pull into never works. (probably why nobody else is parked there) so I have to move over. Many of the design aspects are just silly. I understand some of the designs are down to cost, such as why we have to park in front of the station instead of pull along side like at a gas-station. But, it is admittedly irritating. Also, why do they need these huge touch screens on there? That is one of the things that always goes bad. They just don't work well out in the sun and rain. Why not use a simpler design like gas pumps? You know, physical buttons and a small monochrome LCD with just the information you need? That would make so much more sense for reliability (and readability in the sun). I could go on and on. But I think as time goes by, we'll see a refinement of these stations to probably morph into something more similar to current gas-station design. Those systems are tried and true.

The Audities videos are a series that I absolutely love - I know that doesn’t help with the viewing figures but I always love to see formats being used way after their sell-by date.

I wonder if longer videos start people into it then as time progresses, as they've invested more and more time, they feel more and more committed to go the whole hog to see the end.

I just realised this is probably the first time ever we get a glimpse of Mrs. Techmoan in the rear view mirror :).

Loved the vid Mat, ever thought of a career in STAND UP? You had me rolling on the floor. And I didn't know you were a fan of Howard Keel?

About the 4-track heads: I guess when developing stereo reel-2-reel, they also had already difficulty in making it small enough, so they interleaved the tracks, which made it completely incompatible with older 2-track reel-2-reel systems.

My mobile phone is a bit like your car the last bit of charge takes ages too. I wonder if you can get extension cables for charging your car? Best wishes.

I should mention I also cleaned out the drive with compressed air. It had quite a bit of dust inside and it could be possible that the dust had also clogged up the worm gear. Unfortunately I didn't do a staged clean and test so I don't know which of the steps was effective.

Don't know if I'm repeating what someone else has said, but years ago when I had a similar problem of a CD ROM drive in my desktop computer not reading disks reliably, I cleaned it with a CD cleaning kit and compressed air, and also cleaned my CDs, and that solved the problem. I believe the CD cleaning kit was no more than a CD which had a soft microfibre type surface, and some "cleaning fluid" that you applied to the microfibre surface, which was most likely isopropyl alcohol.

Hi, Mat. I was waiting to hear about your charging away from home experience. The fact is, Rapid charging is different, in that the charge always slows down (a lot) towards the end of the charge cycle. This is because the car is always "in charge" of the charging process, telling the charger what to do - how many kWs to send etc. To protect the battery, from about 80% onwards the car will tell the charger to slow down. It will end up sending only about 10 amps or 2-3 kW to the car. Your problem was your battery was not empty enough, so you never got anywhere near the 50kW your mini is capable of accepting - IF - the battery is pretty empty. When rapid charging, one never bothers to wait for the last 10% - 15% because that last 10% will take as long to deliver as the first 80-90%! Next time, go in with a battery at 10-15% and charge until 80 - 85% then get back on the road. You should be able to get that 70% in about 20 minutes even at 50kW Hope that helps. Cheers, SB

The first perspective view during the charging sequence made me think what a Techmoan FPS would like. Not particulalry exciting I suppose? (Just joking)

If you think the UK has a charger problem try living in New Zealand. I borrowed a Nissan Leaf before Christmas and thought I’d try the 140Km trip to Wellington it it. It was one of the most frustrating journeys I have had and totally put me off electric vehicles until they are 1. Cheaper: 2. Have a decent range 3. There are loads and loads of cheap charging points everywhere

"Punching a Kangaroo", I can't say I have ever done that :-)

The original intro graphics was probably entered into the 1980's/90's global computer graphics competition showcase called 'Imagina'. I used to watch it every year as a kid as I was into graphics back then too, but not seen many of the entries online yet after lots of searching. I will continue to look

A couple remarks about the charger cable: those DC fast charging cables are so thick and heavy because, aside from the cable that conducts the electric current, there’s also a cooling apparatus inside. When you’re charging at such a high speed/high voltage/high current the wires heat up really quickly. So you need something to keep the wire from overheating.

Interesting to see your experience with the car charger, I would've been very miffed with that and I'm used to a certain amount of faff. I thought BP were supposed to be using their own Chargemaster/Polar chargers at forecourts, still waiting for them to be built here but we do at least have Tesla chargers on our part of the M1 now. I signed up to Polar for a bit because it would've been cheaper in the long run, then COVID happened and the one time I tried they were out of order. Anyway, enjoyed the update as always.

What a great update. Just picked up a Brennan jb7 tonight and made me think of your hi Res audio player. I often watch your old videos as they are so interesting and well made (was watching the hd laserdisc one today both parts) and I often wonder what you kept and made it into your collection and what you got rid off, is this an idea for a video? (Probably a bad one). Would love a electric mini but we have no where to charge at home and your video doesn't give confidence in the charging system. Keep up the great work and hope you feel better soon, my wife suffers from health problems and it's amazing how life changing serious health problems can be Ps nice to see the 8 tracks in shot

Speaking of Tim Hunkin and electric cars, at the end of his latest video he mentioned that he has a sneaking suspicion that if we ditched electric cars and went with modern Citroen CV sized petrol cars it might be greener

About 18 months ago, I bought a used Fiat 500e. They were only sold in California and Oregon, but once all the leases were done, I think dealers bought them and sold them further east. I was intrigued by it, and I like small cars, so I took the dive. The range is awful when the temperature is below 20ºF, but other than that, I really enjoy the car. One day I was going to stop at a local grocery store, and I noticed they had a charging station near the entrance. Ok, I'm lazy, so even though I was only going in for a few things, I decided to give it a try. It was actually quite painless, and free. So, I got 12 minutes of charge, which probably added 9 or so miles range.

I was so delighted to see your endorsement of Tim Hunkin's YT channel. As you correctly say, for people like me (in my late 50s) his C4 series was a seminal experience. I regularly stay in Southwold, and visiting his wonderful emporium on the pier is a terrific experience.

I'm not surprised that the Philips Ski Jump Video did well as it is so unusual. I looked through the comments once it had been on Youtube proper for a few days and a recurring one was that no company would ever be able to make something so complicated with so many parts these days, while missing the point that no one needs to. I'm sure that Philips Engineers in the early 1970s would have been amazed by the original iPod and would have had no idea on how to make one. Of course even Apple got a lot of help from Toshiba who produced the miniature hard drive inside. The "Rubbish.App" sounds to be no different from Musicians selling off the rights for their work, then usually regretting it when they get a bit richer. Maybe you could sell off your videos to Scooter Braun then remake them all :-) Finally the CD problem sounds like gummed up rails. I expect you realise CDs play from the centre outwards. I also recall that some players have some kind of switch or sensor so it doesn't try to drive the laser off the end of the rails so maybe that needs adjusting.

I really like the new intro, but I'm missing the slight "zoom in" before the usual circular wipe that you used on the old one.

Regarding the nixie watch review thing, I think that sometimes people in sales/promotion/networking jobs mistake polite refusal as a negotiation tactic. Maybe they just thought you were playing hard to get and that the wheels of commerce needed to be greased a bit more.

On the CD Boombox I think you are on the right track. I have had some older CD players where the lubrication dried up and it would struggle to move past the beginning. Once I cleaned and lubricated the gears and rails it began working reliably.

GoldenSound? *subscribed* tim hunkin? *subscribed* Harry Mack? Eh, not my style of music. Though those skills are whack! Perhaps I could use it? Nah, my subscription count is already 825 channels. I'll have to do without the guy in the flannels. Yao. *ahem* 😳 Regarding the CD player, there might be something useful in Ye Olde Repair FAQ: http://www.repairfaq.org/sam/cdfaq.htm

Hey, first off I just want to prefix that I understand it's your channel and I have the belief that when I give money on patreon, it's to a creator to do whatever they want with, knowing I will enjoy it regardless. So please dont take this as me "demanding" something of you, but I just want to say that your "audities" videos are actually my favourite and I find them utterly fascinating. But I understand that this is your job and you need to balance patreon, personal choice and youtube views to keep food on the table and technology to actually make videos on. I just hope that maybe you do decide to do one in the future.

My YT views for April were crap as well. Glad it wasn't just me!

The former job as a callcenter programmer explains a lot :) Thanks for making excellent content, it is much anticipated and enjoyed.

The ability to pay the bills...everything else is gravy.

We recently started paying $$$ to Google/Youtube for the Youtube Premium that eliminates Youtube adverts - do you have any idea if that impacts your revenue (+ or -)?

I got a mention:). Will go through some FX on the main pc and see if I can get it more glowing (soft focus and heighten light and contrast should do it). That's made my week even if everyone says it's rubbish. I won't say if I prefer it to the original or not as I MAY be bias:/

Heh my AdSense revenue was basically behaving just like yours... April tanked.

My app, Binlinr, uses machine learning to implement NFTs on all the blockchains. It's sustainable and holistic, incentivizing disruptive agility. If anyone wants to touch base, I'll circle back to you. ...sorry, I think I'm going to be sick now. 🤢

I'm now also a Bob dishwasher owner after seeing your video, so much for YouTube recommending to make videos on diverse set of topics. Best wishes

Woohoo new stuff:). Casts to TV with a fresh coffee

I look forward to the Oddcast so freaking much!! Thank you for taking the time to talk to us. Enjoy your weekend as well, Mat 🌿

I love the oddcast. I look forward to it every month and watch it in full.