NZXT PODCAST - #116 - Dmitry Novoselov

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

This week we're joined by Dmitry Novoselov from Hardware Canucks! We discuss guitars, content creation, and maple syrup. Follow Dmitry at twitter.com/Dimitry49 Tune in live every Thursday at 10AM PT on twitch.tv/NZXT and send your questions to: [e-mail]

Chat moving so fast, nobody will know this is take two. Hello everybody and welcome to episode 116 of the NZXE podcast, the official podcast of the NXT community. This podcast is recorded live every Thursday at 10 a end Pacific Center time of the official NXC Twitch and is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. So sharpen those bug teeth because we're going to be building one super sick damn. My name is Dennis. With me as always is Ivan. Hi, Ivan. How we do, baby boo?

Good, chilling. I wasn't say back from vacation, but we're actually not back from vacation. But it feels like I'm back from vacation. My brain feels like it's on vacation right now. Yeah, if it does, the holidays always make me feel like it's just one long break. Even when I'm going to work every day, it just feels like it just feels different, especially when it rains. Like it rained in LA last night. So. Oh, wow. It's gloomy and isn't it raining down my sweats, but I'm excited to put on a nice shirt for our special guests today. It doesn't rain often, right? So it's kind of like.

you get the gloomy it's nice rain it's literally always 120 degrees now in LA for sure it's an event yeah it's a bit in a rain in a story in LA like the oh wow to go to like the market and interview people like hey it's raining what do you think and they're like I got a coat on what would you say if they were to interview you about the rain it's great I would say is that LaCroix falling from the sky? I was saying the sky's on a sick one. Joining us sitting in the podcast is, as everybody knows,

are our good friend, a PR manager here at NZXT, Andy Johnston, aka Frito bandito, aka what else we call you, Andy? Mr. Sly Guy in the sky. Mr. Sly Guy in the sky on. Mixer, follow him. He's streaming daily. All right. Streaming.

Remix. And special, special guest. Live, obviously, from the beautiful Canada, Dimitri from Hardware Canucks. How's it going, buddy? What's up? What's up? Good, good. I'm not sure if I messed it up or not.

In honor of Dimitri being here, we do have a secret word for the giveaway if you're listening live. So the secret word is Beaver Oh my God Yeah

So type in Beaver into the Into the giveaway form And you'll get some extra entries there I guess I should discuss about having that near the end of the show So people have to stick around Listen to the whole thing But it's okay I guess

I should change it then I'm gonna change your right now You have plenty of Actually it'd be funny if you did If you did change it like halfway through That'd be pretty hilarious It doesn't work anymore Doesn't work anymore

It doesn't work anymore Yeah welcome to the podcast I think Maitrieve, you're very, very happy and thrilled if you have you here, looking forward to chatting with you, getting to know you a little bit better. And if the community who is tuning in live has any questions for you, please ask him too, guys. So drop him in the chat. Welcome. Thanks, thanks. Yeah, I'm happy to be here. I don't get to do podcasts often.

So, you know, as much as it is a pleasure for your community, it's also a really cool app for me. Yeah, I have to admit, I am somewhat of a Hardware Canucks fanboy. Hey, okay, cool, cool, cool. In my opinion, Hardware Canucks has the best B-roll in the game. Like, their videos are just, like, so beautifully shot, unlike any others, in my opinion. I remember when I first started working at NZXT, the first product launch that I worked on was Manta and we did this event in Las Vegas at CES and I remember you know gushing when when Dimitri came up to our hotel room and just like

staring at Dimitri like wow that Hardwick Canucks is in here and actually seeing you work and like the all the work that goes on behind the scenes to make sure that those camera angles are perfect and you know and you think about it you know it's you're literally just filming like a box, you know, like a lot of people might just dismiss it like, oh, you know, it's, it's a box. I could just put a camera there. But no, like you guys were literally like almost like you were filming a movie or something. It was really, really impressive. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of goes into trying to make like a case look interesting because otherwise you don't get, you don't get an interesting video out of a case. But it's also,

It's a really good practice of going into a suite like that. And for example, I remember that Manta release. It was even decorated in that really cool pattern. And we're wondering, like, all these like curves are interesting and immediately thinking about how cool it would be to shoot something like this, because it's not just a standard rectangular black box with a screen on the side, you know, or glass on the side. Funny you mentioned that because I'm going to send you a picture right now on Discord.

Do you remember? You put that on the on the stream that is. Yeah, I'm doing it right now. It's going to pull it up. I was going for you to throw it up on the thing. Yeah, the man the Manta for some reason looks huge in your arms. I don't think it's that big. Maybe I was small back then.

That's kind of a big case, you know? It's kind of a big case, to be honest. I remember you guys blocked out the glass or the side panel so we couldn't see inside. And we're like, you really wanted to see inside. You were like, it's going to be revealed soon. and everything, but yeah. That was a really fun launch because, you know, like,

the whole thing with Manta was that it was inspired by race cars, you know, and so we were like, what's the crazy thing we could do to release this thing? Like, let's wrap it like a car. And we'll fly out all these tech tubers to Vegas and have them drive some supercars

and then we'll unveil the case to them. I don't think you went to the car event, though. I think he just went to the hotel room. Yeah. But the car event we had, I think Linus was there. It was cool. It was a fun, fun launch. Nice.

Yeah, that's cool. Do you remember taking this picture? I do, yeah. I think I also made some jokes about like throwing over the side and, you know, it was all about like, please don't do it. It's our only case, you know. Yeah. We blew the budget on the race car.

I think I'm not sure if it was the same day same CES where you guys were doing like cam updates and we're like oh man software stuff but then you were like this is we have the Manta as well yeah I think that is that is when we were making some really big updates to camp at the time I think that was like the first big cam update like because we had just released the hue plus LED controller.

So like back then, you know, RGB wasn't really like as mainstream as it is now. So it was kind of a big deal. For sure. Well, I feel like RGB is kind of making a comeback a little bit, you know? Like we kind of went through the wave of RGB, RGB, and then everyone was like, oh my God, I want to just please black out everything. But it's kind of coming back now as long as you approach it from a like a sustainable way

of lighting stuff up that looks consistent, looks pretty, you know? Yeah. But I don't know why is it every time there's anything that's RGB LED-specific products, everything has to be with the RGB wave effect. You know, why can't it never be just displayed

in the way that is synchronous and looks beautiful? Because like mine, look at mine. Yeah, there we go. Nice, nice. Yeah, mine's like a glowy purple. Like it just is just a purple that kind of fades in and out, Except for my RAM because my RAM doesn't like my CAM software. So, you know, I just leave it like on a solid purple.

I just like the solid color because the waves just get way too much. Like I think right now, mine is a solid white with my RAM and white cracking. Yeah, I don't think I know a single person who just has like the RGB wave effect on like 24-7. And I feel like if you're trying to play a game or something, it's just, it's like, like, or anything, right? Watching a movie, it's just going to be, like, constant, like, colors, like, shuffling through, like, the corner of your eye or something like that. For sure. Yeah. I would show you my case as well, but my side panel is facing the wall.

What? And it's, and it's also on the ground, which I know is Paul's, you know, sins. Sacriligious. Yeah. So don't tell that, please. Someone tweet to that quick. Breaking news, breaking news. Yeah.

So, Dimitri, for those who don't know, right, for those who aren't going to know, who are you? What do you do all day? Oh, man. So, man, what do I do all day? I'm either writing. I'm either emailing. I'm in either production mode, which is like phone in the other room. And I have headphones on and like just blasting music while I'm, while I'm shooting something.

So that's my production or I'm editing. So that's kind of, that's, that's who, so making videos for Harvard Canucks. If you, if you stop by, check it out. We, we, we, we, I think we have, like Ivan said, we have cool, cool quality. I think we're all proud of everything we put out. Constantly learning from the algorithm and more recently are starting to do more analytics deep dives and do trying to understand what exactly is happening with, with kind of each

month in terms of releases and more a specific daily basis that should hopefully help grow the channel more forward and like kind of developed the video structure to be a bit more viewer friendly. You know, keep up with that retention. Right, right.

What was inspiration for Hardware Canucks? How'd you guys get started? Well, so I started, I joined Hardware Canucks after they've been, they've been around. It's actually a funny story. I bought my first case because of Harrow Canucks. It was the Cooler Master CM692. I remember seeing that review and thinking, my gosh, that's a beautiful case. That's how I started. And then eventually when I got my camera, I also had my own channel that I was doing like build videos and peripheral reviews,

kind of following in the footsteps of Linus from the very beginning. And I wrote an email to Harvard Connect's saying that, hey, I'd love to make some videos for you guys. And then three months later, I got a response saying, hey, like, we would like your stuff. Let's, let's give it a shot. And so that's how that's how I joined. And yeah, the rest has been like a really, really cool journey of like trying, you know, ups and downs, really kind of learning about video production, learning about this industry as a whole.

It's very fairly new. And just evolving with it, using social media, learning social media, learning what it's like not to have a schedule or like a like a rest schedule for a while. And then you probably guys know about this too. You're kind of like in the hustle mode for like the first few years of trying to like build. Yeah. No, it's actually like the that's where we are right now. Like with social media, you know, what I work in with.

with Dennis here, it's like, you know, I feel like we spent the last seven years or whatever just building up these followers on social. And it almost feels like we're just starting to really get to know who these people are and what they like, what they don't like. Just because like you said, there's this whole like business element to, to content, whether it's YouTube or Twitter or whatever. Like, there's so many, like, numbers to look at, like, what's the best time of data post? What's, you know, what type of content works best on certain days?

You know, like, what happens if we, you know, add a hashtag or an emoji and things like. There's like so many, like, little things that, right, on behind the scenes. And I can only imagine, like, for running, like, a successful YouTube channel, like, that's literally probably the equivalent of running a TV show. Right? Yeah. Because you have to be the producer, the director, the host, the cameraman, the talent, like everything. The distribution platform. The distribution platform.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, kudos, man. You guys have 1.7 million subscribers, so you're obviously doing something right. Thanks, thanks. Yeah. I mean, you're right about being like in every part of the show man. Like both, so like our team in terms of production, we have, we're like in three sections.

There's me. There's Eber. There's Mike and the team in Montreal. So we kind of handle our own production pieces separately. So like Ebor, for example, would do everything from zero to 100, right, in terms of like shooting everything, writing it, editing it, thumbnail. Oh, my God, the thumbnail stuff. If you have any advice on outsourcing that or just. I mean, it's fun in terms of being able to use that as another creative outlet from sitting for six hours at the editing screen.

But then when it comes to like shooting a photograph, for example, for the thumbnails, it's a little bit more challenging and more different than what you do on normal basis. You just need one shot. And I've known some other YouTubers who take one photograph and that's it. I'm the other way around. I take 40 pictures and then sort through that to see. see what would be the best frame. Yeah. It's a lot.

It seems like your thumbnails are just more product focused. And a lot of them these days are just like the YouTuber or whoever's the host going like, like right next to a, you know, a laptop or whatever. And then, you know. Can you do that first again, Andy? I do appreciate that you guys don't do that normally. I don't think. Well, the thing is the YouTube algorithm prefers a face.

So if there's a face 100%, that's going to get more views and clicks than something that's like a very pretty, like a product photograph, but it may not work as a potential like thumbnail that will get views, which is, you know, you're trying to like balance things out. So that's that's kind of why. I can't stand YouTube thumbnails. Like, they're always like someone like going like this and the. Everyone's so shocked on YouTube. Yeah, it's like everyone's always shocked. Everyone's shocked on YouTube. Well, I mean, we've done those as well.

And like, you know, the audience responds because they're not used to that type of kind of seeing that type of exposure in the very beginning. So, you know, we try things that you kind of revert back and move along with what was up. Yeah. I mean, that's kind of like what you have to do, right? Just on a consistent basis is always iterating on the content you're making,

how that content's being presented. And sometimes people just, you know, for whatever reason, they want to see that super surprise face, you know? So I also find that more recently the whole category of like what success on YouTube looks like in terms of the behind the scenes aspect is very, it's growing because a lot of people are maybe are feeling stuck and like not knowing how to play the system. So that side of YouTube about analytics, about what? what works with thumbnails, what doesn't work.

And there are also really successful tools like to two buddy that allow you to like do A-B testing for thumbnails, which you can upload to and they alternates and gives you the better thumbnail performance. And you stick to that because data and data is everything. If you know how to read the analytics graph and you know what all those spikes mean and you know exactly what happens at that 30 second mark. Yeah. Just do more about that.

hire them. Yeah. I was I was watching a video where they were talking about Mr. Beast and the way he does his thumbnails and apparently he'll like swap them out like all the time. So like he'll he'll change thumbnails on like the same video while it's live like four or five times for just better analytics because it gets it'll like change and it gets the way he does it. So here's a he's a little secret for those. He literally just goes through whatever is trending on the YouTube and just basically copy essentially like what. what those thumbnails look like or or do something that looks different so that it stands out from the rest of like the stuff that you're scrolling through so

right these guys you want to be a successful YouTuber that's all you got to do is swap out your thumbnails right it's like a half million dollars on a squid game remake that too yeah I don't why people are bugging about that to be honest because I remember I saw the video where Jay was talking about that and I'm like well dude has like more money than like like 90% of YouTubers combined like why wouldn't hear it like I thought it was a cool video It was crazy. It was super well produced.

And the fact that he got it out as quickly as he could to me was like, hey, this is, this is cool. You know, like I don't know, you know, the dude's using his own money to make content. I can't really hate on that, right? Sponsored by Cash App or whatever sponsor you had turned out of it. Rawls stars. Oh, yeah, yeah, brawl stars. I've never played brawl stars. Um, Dimitri, so on Hot WorkConucks, you guys do a lot of reviews, right?

And that's actually my favorite type of content that you guys do are your, your guys' reviews on cases, mice, keyboards, whatever. What are some things that you guys consider when you review a product? When we review a product, I mean, like everything from just understanding the basics behind it versus really kind of taking it into how it might be used by an actual buyer, you know, someone that might get it from the audience. So, I mean, all the basics, we cover all the basics plus like a little bit of that personal flair behind our own experience. So Iber, for example, does

crazy in-depth awesome notebook reviews where we cover such really in-depth performance numbers. So like what happens in Eco mode to your frequency? Might not be important to everyone, but

it might not be very important for someone who's just like skimming through stuff, but for someone who's like really interested in that particular notebook and they want to know everything about it, like it's going to be kind of useful information. When comes to coolers, for example, when Mike and the team of Montreal, they do extensive cooler testing per decibel level, right?

So it's not just about performance of putting the fans to the max, but actually apples to apples comparisons in terms of like RPM numbers, decibel levels. And so that's very competitive data that you can do with like knock to a cooler versus something else from, let's say, from you guys. And so it kind of just, you know, you take into account all the basics, plus we add the flair, you know. So what would you say? What's the worst product you've ever reviewed, Dimitri?

Oh, my gosh. The worst product, I mean, I think I've done a, yeah, we did definitely do a video on this case. It was like a Zalman case, a Z9, I think it was. It was like one of the most overpriced, stupid cases to have ever come out. I was surprised they even sent it to us because, I don't know, as someone who's reviewed so many cases and see something like that be designed by, I think it was the Zalman Z9, yeah, 100%. Just like everything about it was just kind of like, no, this makes no sense.

sense. This is way of price. Like quality of the materials was was bad. It was a hardware support. Nothing kind of fit into the the at the time expectation of what you want from a full tower. So also that kind of contributed to it. Do you, so here's a question. So like we we don't do full towers, right? We just do, you know, like mid towers, you know, with the H510 and the 710. Do you think there's like a huge market for full towers anymore? because I'll see every now and then someone like going to ask about those cases, but I haven't had a need for like a full tower. And I think since like I got rid of my H440 like a few years ago. Mm-hmm.

I mean, it's hard to say, but I'm not in that demographic that I've never liked full tower cases either because I'm never doing anything extreme. If you're doing any extreme water cooling like dual 360 radars, for example, like you'd want a full tower because. More space, it's going to be less frustrating routing things, more space for cables, et cetera. But when comes to receiving a really large tower, like the Corsair 5,000D, for example, that's the biggest I would go for like my own components, which is standard ATX motherboard, ATX power supply, a big GPU. But I think mid-towers and ITX is where it's at for sure. You have a Fantex case, correct?

Currently, I have. I have three in terms of what I'm using now. I'm using fractal Zion Meshify as 2. I got Corsair. Which one's on the floor? That's the fractal, yeah. Don't turn. Sorry.

I'm going to tweet this at fractal right now. Yeah. I have a Coursera 4,000 D airflow as my editing machine. And right now I have a Lee and Lee O11 Air Mini, the new one. Ooh. Nice. That's a cool case. Yeah.

I really like that case too. It looks cool. Yeah. It's a nice, like, boxy design. It's not as tall. So it's slightly wider. Yeah. For a bigger desk where you have the room, it's awesome.

Because it doesn't go much higher than you monitor. So it kind of creates this like nice beautiful lining. That course staircase, does it have 200 millimeter fans? 240 millimeter fans? 240 millimeter fans. No, sorry. Does it have 200 millimeter fans? Oh, no, no.

What's the, what's the, I think that was it them that had it, they just came out with the, or might have been Cooler Master. I think someone recently just came out with the case that had a 200 millimeter fan. I was like, man, that's huge. Well, Lee and Lee has a few And practical design Just with their The latest case

What was it called? You could mount two 200 millionaires fans Yeah, torrent, yeah Mm-hmm I was like a mini ITX cooler master case With it just

There's like one giant fan I was about to say My sister has that one Yeah It's a tiny box or something Yeah I think you did a review on it I did oh my God

That could also be one of the worst cases I yeah I recently like as of like last year built in that case it's not the newer one it's like an older one though because I'm looking at the rest of right now I think you may be talking about the master case H100 Andy H100 yeah that yes yes so this is like one or two generations before that and that case was kind of a pain in the ass to to build in but I will say that 90% of the frustration was because he's using the stock cooler and it had one of those stupid like why are you you know like clamp designs that like kind of clamps onto the the the uh the radiator or whatever things that pain in the butt it was something okay watch so it was something like this one here i'm gonna throw up on the stream and give uh cooler master some some free publicity it was like the precursor to this one the elite 110a so this is like i'm assuming it's a bit of a better design but very similar like way to get into it we're just kind of like take off the whole shell and just like building it like that but it looks like a

speaker it doesn't like right yeah we can use as a footrest if you want i think it looks pretty cool no it does look cool for sure for sure it's just it was just um it was just the way that like the bars to kind of keep it from like bending and stuff were kind of set up it was a a little bit of a pain to like move around but like i said that was like an older an older case and i think even when we got it it was maybe like one or two years old so you know it was just like super cheap on ebay this is when I forget, I forget when it was, we built it. But yeah, she's at the computer for a little bit. And we just like just use the same chassis and just upgraded her old stuff in there.

Hmm. So back onto the YouTube tip real quick, Dimitri, what do you think about YouTube getting rid of the, getting rid of the dislike button? Oh, man. The head shake like, uh, I knew. I knew that question was coming. I mean, it's, uh, hot takes only. Yeah, bad decision, I think. Like, you, you get into.

any video and I've been using the like to dislike ratio as a indicator of how honest video is, how good it is, for example. Now we don't have that indicator. Only the creators do and that doesn't help me, the viewer. So perhaps on some level it might be useful for the creators, but then if it's just not made public, we had this feature where you could disable the likes to dislikes to showcase to the public. But the fact that the Now the dislikes are not available. Not good. So Ubisoft, they just announced, I'm going to drop the link here in the chat.

They just announced this Quartz trailer. For the NFT game, right? Yeah. And there's a plugin you can get for Chrome to see the dislikes. And this video has 1,000 likes and 33,000 dislikes. But you don't see the dislikes. This is what I was kind of my biggest, argument, I guess I was having with Dennis about this in the last podcast episode, was like,

for the reason you said, like, I think the dislikes actually validate a lot of content, especially like how to guides, tutorials, and things like that. And I feel like if we don't have the dislikes, someone's going to Google or YouTube, you know, how to how to build a PC and they're going to come across a video that has like a million dislikes or whatever and they're going to think, oh, this is how I build a PC or something. They're going to do something wrong. And I'm wondering, like, do you think that the dislike button has had a negative impact on like your videos, your views and things like that?

Not on our channels personally, but I've known a few creators who have been subject to like bought dislike attacks where you publish a video and immediately you receive 200 dislikes. And that hurts the video because YouTube might notice this and say, you know, something's happening here with dislike. So we'll just kind of bury it. We're not going to send it out to as many subscribers from that particular channel, for example. So in that sense, it's, you know, it kind of sucks. But then I feel like also the ratio is important because sometimes, for example, you can see how many likes the video has. And even it has the same amount of dislikes, that gives you that indication of how many people have interacted with that certain video. And now you have to use the comment section as a way to filter out and kind of see if things are, if this video is legit or not. And the comment section sometimes is not good because you can love a comment as a creator that will be always at the top.

And so you have to kind of filter through a bunch of things to see where people are landing in terms of being positive or negative. for that particular content piece. Yeah, and the thing about YouTube comments too, it's like it's also, it could also be like a cesspool of just trolls. You can't really, you can't really use the comment section as a guide in my opinion. Here's my counter for that there, right?

My counter is like how often are people really going and watching bad like build guides? Because that's something that you guys have mentioned like multiple times. I don't think that's that common, right? Like I can't remember the last time where I just Googled how to do this thing on the computer and then the video I find is like a bad video, right?

Like, I feel like most... Well, that was just an example. Yeah, but I mean... It's something for ESO 2 because like I'm looking how to revitalize a dreamcast essentially. Yeah. And I'm sure that's not something that normal people do. Yeah. And like, you know, I have to like solder, de solder, put in new fuses and stuff.

And if I can't trust that video and that like, again, that's not something, how to build a PC's way more common. but you know how to revitalize you know this puppy right here you know like that that i'll just have it on hand he's just had the dreamcast ready to go just grab it i miss i miss my podcast yeah but like again though right like if you're if you're looking at stuff like a dreamcast you know soldering video then i'm probably going to go to the common section as well to kind of see what people are saying because i feel like something that's that neat is just probably going to have more hopefully more like in-depth

or thoughtful comments right or even then like I'll just use something like Reddit or something like that but I think like you'd be surprised yeah like on these like random videos of old stuff that like something that's very very niche not a lot of people they're just arguing right

like well there's just it's mostly just like thanks and then that's it there's like five comments the only comment section I read is on TikTok that's true The TikTok comments are better than the videos. 90% of the time, they're way more hilarious.

Yeah. Or like you'll see something in the video and you'll immediately go, I had to go to the comments because I know somebody else noticed this thing. And then that's like what everyone's talking about. Well, the other problem is that what happens when like a channel disabled comments, then you have no indication on what's going on. And like you might immediately disappear from that video because you're like, it's a little suspicious if comments are turned off.

But then. I don't know. I hope we see at least some sort of like a remedy to the dislike button, perhaps the return of the ratio, like as a line underneath the like dislike. So you're not necessarily seeing the dislike amount, but you can see a ratio. Right. Just like a general sentiment, right? Yeah. I actually didn't think about that because I, because I don't really watch too many videos where the comments end up getting disabled, but whenever they are, I always assume one or two things. When they're saying something, that they know is going to anger people

and they're purposely getting rid of the comments so people don't call them out on it. Or they're just getting so much negative sentiment from like a raid or something like that that they turn out the comments. But like I just won't watch that video then, to be honest. Like if I see no comment section at all and no way for me to kind of gauge

what the video is about or how people feel about it, even if I do have to scroll through a little bit, I just won't watch that video. I just immediately leave. It's usually for like YouTube apologies. Yeah. that I said. Stuff with it.

It's like the solemn thumbnail like I messed up. You know, 20 minutes long and they're like yeah, you know, explaining how they're sorry. There's a whole, it's a whole thing. I'm sure as we all are aware. Yeah.

By the way, I just noticed that link you shared in the chat with the Ubisoft Quartz. Yeah. That video is unlisted and someone mentioned about the dislike. And it's already been, yeah, 200,000 views. So I guess. they must have taken it down but not go in private so you can still watch it yeah like when i never listed because when i saw the announcement initially it it was unlisted and i thought that was

strange hmm someone someone probably found it or like leaked it or something like that oh i see okay because i yeah i think that maybe what i'm thinking is maybe they're trying to save it for the game awards right because that's kind of that's like today right so maybe they were like saving that video and going to like unveil it after they announced it because I think normally we would have seen a bigger PR push from Ubisoft regarding this thing and the only thing I saw about it were people saying how it was just a dumb idea or something as opposed to you know Ubisoft kind of having the first say and how they want to position this thing and he's going to the game awards tonight he should ask them yeah yeah it could go up to mr. Ubisoft and go hey he's gonna I what's the deal with

Excuse me, Mr. Robesoft. I asked Andy what he was wearing to the Game Awards and he's like, pretty much this. You should totally dress up, man. I hate dressing up so much. It's a fancy event. It's not that fan. I've been before. It's like the Met Gala.

I have a Game Award story if you guys want to listen the first time I went like five years ago, six years ago. I went with my sister and we were in the audience and we were, I got tickets. It was like Jeff Keely tweeted like, hey, who wants tickets?

And I just emailed and they sent me tickets. So I went. Then we were just sitting. And it was like after some award, a producer just randomly came to like me and my sister and a couple other people and just went, you, you, you, come with me. Then I got carted away.

Then we essentially had a seat fill for like the center audience and I got to sit next to Phil Spencer if you don't know he's the head of Xbox and I like sat with him for like 20 minutes and he said one of the most interesting things to me because I was just sitting next to my sister and he goes who's that your girlfriend? I'm like no my sister and he was just like oh I'm sorry I'm like better than that he was a chill dude we just we just talked about games and he's like I'm like oh I think Metal Gear's going to win but the Witcher won that year and it was interesting who was this is he spoke to in andy i can't one more time who who was this that you spoke to again phil spencer phil spencer right right so here's a question right phil spencer obviously pretty big name right in gaming do you feel weird

just having just like a regular gaming conversation with someone like phil spencer like i don't know why but i i i always have it in my head that like if i meet somebody like you know like you know like that up in the gaming industry or like an industry that actually like say something with more like impact right as opposed to like yeah man you know just yeah how's it going i just came back from playing destiny you know cool game i'm really digging it like i mean i feel like it's almost kind of a wasted conversation you know i mean we were at the awards like i mean there's not what what do i say to him i actually did thank him like you know i'm a big xbox gamer which is true or was true back in the day you know like thank you because you fell off i came back i'm like i came back i

with the series X, but left with the Xbox one. I mean, I get it. But then he just thanked me and then I don't know, we like, Dead Mouse was performing and I'm like, I hate this music. He just walked away. That's all he said, I feel Spencer. You just go, I hate this music and turn around and walk away. He's leave. Well, I mean, I don't want to like ask him for a job.

Like, you know, it's sort of like, what like what do you say? I just treated him like a normal dude. That makes sense. Yeah. Like, I remember when we spoke to Pete Hines, he was very big, too. I'm like, you know, don't ask you about jobs. I just talk to him like a real person. He'll actually, he actually has on his Twitter, if you bug him about work stuff on his personal Twitter,

he'll just, like, block you pretty much. Which I think is actually kind of, you know, a great policy. I should just block anybody who bugs me about work stuff in my personal. Yeah. For sure. I also was in grad school at the time. So it's like, you know, I wasn't really in the industry. sort of kind of but not as much as I am now yeah so Dimitri as as you know and as everybody knows right

we have been in the middle of a pandemic believe it or not I don't know if you if you got the memo but I want to ask you how has yeah okay cool great good I'm fine I wanted to ask you how does that or how has it impacted the stuff you guys do at Hardware Canucks well I mean When we work, basically all of us work from home anyway. We do have a Montreal office. So before that, before it was built, you know, it's kind of like a home operation from each of our respective houses. So in terms of like how we work, it hasn't changed in terms of the production stuff, but it has changed quite significantly with the delays of the products, the delays of launches or the launch is here. But then they go click, click, tick, tick, tick, the little trickle down until it's actually available to buy and because of the shipping, the shipping issues.

So in terms of being able to, let's say, publish something on launch and being able to buy it for the viewers, you know, that's been the challenge. Has that affected just how you plan your content in general? For sure, yeah. So basically, if something isn't available. for the viewers to buy immediately at launch when we publish the video, then we push it until it's available. Otherwise, it's kind of just a little teaser. And I don't know, I don't think that's necessarily fair.

I mean, I think we've still done a few of those for like really cool items that hopefully were available shortly after. But it's kind of the reason why we don't kind of do Kickstarter supports because it's kind of a for a very select few individuals who might be interested, but it's also very time limited. So by time, if you watch this, you can kind of miss out on it. So in terms of the schedule, we try to focus on items that are available right now. And how has the maple syrup shortage affected your job?

Oh, my God, maple syrup shortage, man. It's like, it's like, it's really tough. It's really tough. When I have my coffee in the morning, it's like I don't know what to do. My maple syrup glass is empty. Have you ever tried maple syrup on a Montreal bagel? No. Have you ever had a Montreal bagel?

Yeah, I think so. Yes. They're like regular bagels, but with no holes. No, there's holes. I know. Really? Okay. You could have fooled me there.

Our boss is for Montreal, and she just loves Montreal bagels. Mm-hmm. She sent us a box of them. Yeah, she sent us a box yesterday. I came home yesterday. My wife's like, why do we have, like, six bags of bagels? I'm like, what are you talking about? Yeah, I was like, I've got Montreal bagels.

I had one this morning very delicious. I have not had one yet. I have a chance to make any breakfast, so I'll probably have it for like dinner. I had mine for lunch. I just I just toasted it and put turkey in it and a little bagel sandwich. And you're still eating turkey? You cannot eat turkey? I'm pretty sure it's, uh, is there a limit?

I think it's a one week limit after Thanksgiving. Oh, no. Oh, okay, okay. Slice deli turkey, not like turkey from Thanksgiving. You mentioned it's still the same turkey that you cooked from Thanksgiving? Like Andy, that might not be good for you anymore. You should probably stop eating it. Just get the sick of a old turkey.

Hey, Dimitri, do you have a favorite YouTuber? It doesn't have to be in the tech space. Well, to be honest, like I've been... It's donkey. When I consume YouTube, it's mostly outside of tech. Because everything we do around it, you know, just revolves around all types of stuff. I mean, I love, let me get into my subscription, subscription box. I recently bought a car for my first one.

Ooh. What kind of car? It's a Schoda. A what? What? Yeah, it's a Volkswagen group Scholar. It's a European brand. So not very known in North America.

but I've been recently just really into all the car videos, Car Wow, Straight Pipes, Uri, and what's his name, Max, Alex. I mean, Jerry Rig everything and what he's making is electrical Hummer. I mean, that's crazy. So all that stuff, like a bit more car-related recently. What about you guys? I like a lot of educational YouTubers that just talk about, geography or like geopolitics.

Like this is one dude Johnny Harris. He used to work at Vox and did this series called Borders. He does a, he just did a thing about Cyprus recently, where he went to Cyprus and talked about the geopolitical, you know, issues there and kind of interviewed people from the Greek and Turkish side. And very interesting, very good visuals too. He does a lot of drone shots.

But yeah, I like his stuff. That's awesome. I like watching like barbecue videos, like how to smoke meats. That's cool. I guess the lo-fi hip-hop beats too. Lof-Hip-Hip-P beats. For sure. I watch a lot of smarter every day.

I watch a lot of like video essay stuff, to be honest. Like there's a really good account called the Captain Christian. They haven't uploaded in like, I think a year or two years. And they just upload into the video and it's about the shining. And like how the composer for the shining or whatever you call that person in that role in movies, how they like kind of. This is so hard to explain with actually playing the whole video. But basically like the way the music in that in that film is used is also used to kind of like show when action is happening.

And it's really, really cool. it's again hard to explain this really really cool video it's like really well edited really well shot and also accounts like a hoi you know they do like really awesome like gaming like long form video essays about one topic or another like there's like a

it's like an hour long video on like doom just doom in general just just everything doom from the impact of doom to the art of doom to the music of doom to how doom was made just everything about that so that's stuff that I watch oh there's one more that I like as well um It's a baseball YouTuber

It's a good name is Foolish Baseball And he does video essays In like a video game Like tint Like well that's like his style But he does very good deep dives About baseball and I mean I love baseball

So you know he's kind of like The best and he's really smart too So Okay here we go It's a weird way of saying I like him a lot We just found Dimitius car. I'm about to buy a SCOTA Octavia. It's pretty nice.

Yeah, I'm going to show you guys. Here's, here's, here's Dimitri's ride right here. This is Scota Octavia. That's a whip. I mean, I'm not going to lie. It just looks like a, it looks like a BMW front almost with like, like a civic body a little bit. Yeah, it's a mix. Well, it goes Schoda Volkswagen Audi.

So it's kind of like a, a. It's kind of in between in terms of design and performance, but it's like it's good, well priced. This is your first car? Yeah. Where's the first place you drove it to? I just went to the coast. To get gas. Yeah.

Sorry, I mean to get petrol. How much gas mileage you get on this? What kind of gas mileage you get? 5.5, it was about like five. So we did a close to 500 kilometer drive. It was 5.5 liters per 100 kilometers. I'm American, so I don't know. It's about to do the math on that.

5.5 liters for 100 kilometer. Let me just chip. Oh, it's fancy inside. It looks really nice. Yeah, it looks cool. 2 MPG. Why haven't I heard of this car before? 42, so 43 miles per gallon.

What? That's amazing. I don't believe you. That's crazy. That's like, that's what it is. Pass mileage on any car ever heard of. That's like, is it a hybrid or? No, it's a diesel.

See, that's, oh, that's cool. Oh, that makes a lot more sense. I remember, like, I used to have a Volkswagen back in the day, and it was a 2004 Volkswagen Jetta, and I remember when I bought that car, I really wanted to get a diesel one because of the gas mileage. But for whatever reason, like, California has this law where I guess they didn't sell that car here. So I almost consider going out of stages to buy that car. But I think diesel is the way to go because you get better gas mileage and the fuel is cheaper, I think.

So good job. What's the environmental impact of diesel, though? The same price. Well, right now at the same price, but you get better gas mileage. So it's kind of balanced out, I think. I'm all of us. It has like, yeah, I know the electric would be, would be great once the infrastructure get here, you know. But I guess in the States, the infrastructure is very good, well established for electrical future.

Yeah. I think Mark Hess did a video where he, like, did a race between a Tesla, the Mustang, and I think a gas car. and they basically got on pretty much fine driving from like New Jersey to Niagara Falls to Pennsylvania back to New Jersey like there was an issue with the Mustang because it's like the infrastructure isn't as good as like a Tesla's infrastructure

but for the most part once they figured out the weird issue they were fine I never knew the hype about Tesla's until I got in one and then I was like okay I get it like this car is like from the future it just like it's really amazing like it's super fast you don't even hear it you don't even feel feel it to be honest like it's just like you're in a little little rocket ship or something yeah my friend has a model a model three and he has self-driving and we went to an angel game and um you did the self-driving and on on the way home we were like doing karaoke

that was like built into the car's like infotainment system while self-driving. This is the weirdest thing. We were seeing like sweet Caroline and Disney songs. Wow. On the way home. I was like low-key terrified that, you know, that something was going to happen. But I mean, I'm here and I'm alive and no one got hurt. So it's it's very strange, but it was cool.

The only ones that got hurt were the people driving behind you listening to your singing. I have beautiful pipes. Hey, Dimitri, one more YouTube question for you. What's up? All right. What advice would you give someone who wants to make a career out of YouTube? Like from the very beginning or are we talking about like someone who's like already in the space, you know, kind of knows what's up? how they work or like from the from the very beginning because it's a different I think uh good point

I think from the very beginning would be good one because we do get a lot of questions from people asking us this and we like we have no idea because we're we're not we're not even YouTubers but people ask us this so yeah from the beginning right I mean so it's kind of like a multi-layer answer because we we used to say you know it still kind of still applies today in terms of like be something very good at in terms of content delivery and like a particular category, for example, for content, and just do that well and grow that, become known for a particular thing where people keep coming back to you. Lots of great examples recently were like switch and click, click and switch. It's a switch and click. Yeah, the keyboard channel like blowing up right

now because they know how to work with data. And that's the second part of also being kind of true to yourself, what you want to do, but at the same time, knowing how to work in the backhand with all the data that you can receive and, like, fine-tune your stuff accordingly. Do we get a, yeah? All right. Is you meet you cutting out? I think the connection is reestablished.

All good. All good in the end? Yeah, all good. Okay. So yeah, it's it's also understanding the expectations of what it's like because it's kind of in the beginning it would not be a full-time job. It would be like your entire like full-time energy going going something like it. So also being prepared for what that means and maybe lowering the the expectations that you know you're going to grow exponentially i think the the initial grind and climb is very linear with like a bit of an incline and then at some point you kind of like take off but that take off very difficult to you have to you know taking notes handy yes i'm taking

notes i think that's similar to how like mr b screwed because like he started like 10 years ago as a little kid just making call-a-duty videos. And then, you know, he had very, very linear growth. But then once he figured out the secret sauce, he just exploded. Yeah. Granted, you know, he's a very, you know, one in a billion chance, but still, like, the lessons still hold. And that's what, you know, I hear a lot of YouTubers say as well.

I would also say, too, like, you need to find, like, your own secret sauce, right? You can't just do what everyone else is doing because then why would they watch you, right? unless your content is like so wildly high quality or something and like just really spot on where like they can't ignore it. But I think also like providing something different as well, right, knowing what that different is. And you may not know what it is to start off right. I think that's also a big part as well, you know. Like if like every, every tech channel I watch if we're talking tech space, right, does something a little bit different, right? Different personalities, different presentation, whatever that is. I think that's also what you got to figure out as well.

like what your, I don't say niches, but it's like what your style is and how that can differentiate yourself and make people want to watch you versus watch somebody else. Yeah, it's a big point. But also it's kind of the way you get to that point. Yeah. At least as a creator is to have inspiration from people you like as well. Yeah. And kind of trying to not necessarily, well, you could go ahead and attempt to recreate what you like

from their part, but always having your own. on flair with it. But that's a really good way to grow creatively trying to like, all right, let's say in terms of video production, it's very cool to watch some of the behind the scenes of like how certain things were filmed or like how certain things were achieved and trying to also get back to the ground and trying to recreate it yourself. Really lots of learning opportunities there. And so it's the same thing with all the interviews with like Mr. Beast. everyone else in the education space for for YouTube lots of like little not little just lots of a good information on like what works what doesn't you know yeah I also think you

really have to stick with it because a huge part of it in my opinion is literally just showing up to work and doing it and like in just like for example just in time I've been here at nzxte which is like seven years I I remember when like Bitwit and Paul started their channels, you know, and like going from like a brand new channel to where they're at now, you know, like they're really popular YouTubers. For sure. Like I don't remember how many subscribers, Hardware Kinnock's had back in 2015, but I'm sure

it was nowhere near where it's at right now, right? Almost two million. And I always feel like a huge part of success is just showing up and doing the work. every day, day in, day out, not giving up, because that's literally like how you learn, how you get better, how you experiment. And also, I think it's important to do that because that's, that's how you fail. And failing is actually like the thing, at least in my experience, like, whenever I fell at something, that's like, okay, I got to figure this out. And then just like, that's how you get to that next level, you know? You kind of have to suck at something.

something so you can just figure out how to do it right. Yeah. Well, a lot of the times you don't even know you suck at something at the time. You know, you kind of look. It's always in retrospect when, for example, you look back at the work you've done in the past and you have improved from then, then you can see like, all right, well, I mean, with videos, it's very easy. You can see like five years ago the quality, for example, was very different.

And at the time, that was like our pinnacle of what we could achieve in terms of being the perfect cells, for example. So now it's always in retrospect in terms of the failures. But yeah. I always find it so interesting to like just any YouTuber that has been doing it for a while to see how they improve.

You just go back to the video and like it's almost an entirely different person, entirely different feel. You're like, oh my God. Like, you know, like I said, it was the pinnacle then, but the game has changed so much and it's just like, wow, we've come a long way.

Runday slash we as YouTube viewers. Yeah, I think, I mean, because YouTube, you think about it, like, it is like the most popular TV station of all time, right? Like, it's not like, it's not just like a website anymore. It's literally like entertainment, And a search engine. Platform and a search engine too.

So it's like, I think for channels like Hardware Connects that have kind of been around since that explosion of YouTube, I think, I think you guys definitely got in at the right time. Because I think right now, like, if you were to start of the Hardware Connects right now, I feel like it would be a lot harder to do all the things you just said, like, you know, Yeah. Unique and all that because like how do you how can you be unique when when everyone's already like doing doing it a bunch of different ways, you know, it's really hard. I think.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. Getting in on it now would be like, yeah, it would be interesting to see how how things would get picked up. But there's already so much competition. You're like constantly, I mean, by competition, I mean, like, like not necessarily competition from our personal stuff, but just in terms of what is available from the same category of content.

Because I love all the other guys and gals in the space. Don't consider them the competition per se. Too late. I know. We're coming for you. It's like I feel the same way about like the people that, you know, talk about our competitors like, you know, they'll say, what do you guys think about Corsair and Cooler Master and Fracto? all these different companies that everyone considers their competitors.

But my point of view is, like, I am just happy people have computers, and I'm happy that this industry is growing, and it's not about NST being, you know, the only one that's making money or the only one that's, you know, selling computers and whatnot. It's literally about everyone, all these companies contributing to this pie and making the pie bigger so everyone gets to eat, right? So everyone gets a slice, basically. And I think that mentality that you just said, like, you know, you don't see them as competitors,

that's awesome because I think that that is definitely the approach, in my opinion, that you should be taking when you're creating content or I guess doing anything creative-wise or business-wise. Especially in our industry because, like, the, and also that's kind of the beauty of it is, like, you literally can pick what you want. like you can be very specific of what part goes into what you know spot so like if you love nz-d you can go all n d x dxd if you hate nzxd you can you know do like a lot or corsair razor

um i can't think of thermal take vantex you know you can mix and match to fit your own unique personality budget yeah and i think that's that's great and not many industry like like with Apple, you know, you just get MacBook. Then that's basically it. There's no very minimal, very minimal customization and repairability for that matter. But still like, and that's what I love about PC building. You make it uniquely your own. Well, you make it uniquely your own and the current times you just build what you can find or you don't build it all.

That's true. You get like 80% of the components and you're waiting for that last 20%. You're like, ah, where is that coming? Yeah. That's where you got the foundation PC, right? So you don't have to worry about that. All right. That was like PC World's CPU and GP of the year was the Bryson 5600G.

Oh, really? Mm-hmm. I don't know. Nice. I love APU gaming. Not just because graphics cards are hard to get right now, but just the fact that you don't need a graphics card because graphics cards have always been literally the most expensive thing for a computer. And every time I build a computer, I've always dreaded the part where I have to pull out my credit card and buy that graphics card. It's just so expensive.

Yeah, they're ridiculous, dude. Yeah. So I am all for APU gaming and for that technology to get better. hopefully it does. Well, the Steam deck. Yeah. The Steam deck is kind of like, I think, the pinnacle of APU gaming. It's going to, I think, bring a very cool, like, basically what the Switch did, but on a kind of a bigger scale in some ways.

Yeah. It's basically a computer. It's more so much of the Windows on. Oh, wow. What's the performance? What's the promised performance like with it? I think it can run basically anything, but it runs it at like 720P.

But it doesn't matter since you're on a tiny screen. Yeah. Right. I think pretty much any game you can throw at it it can handle for the most part. They get 720p 60-ish. It's also running off of Linux, right? It's like it's Steam OS.

Yeah. And it uses, I think, a thing where it can play Windows games. I think it's called Wine or that might be a Mac OS thing. But you can install Windows on it. Then also, back to Phil Spencer, I saw him tweet that he did Xbox GamePass on PC on the Steam deck when Valve gave him a little tour of it.

You can also install an emulator on it and play all your Nintendo Switch games. If you wanted to. Only if you own them, though, only if you own them. Yeah, and probably run them at better quality to you, right? But the coolest thing about the Steam tech for me is not just the APU gaming, but the fact that you can connect the keyboard, mouse, and monitor to it. And it's literally a computer.

Like, that's amazing. I think that's super cool and totally worth the price tag just for that simple fact, in my opinion. Because, you know, computers are expensive. and this is coming from a guy that works at a computer company. I definitely want people to buy computers. But at the same time, I'm all for the consumer and giving people options, especially when it comes to saving money.

Because right now it's definitely not the cheapest time to get a computer. It's really expensive right now to build or buy one. Yeah. Yeah. You always kind of just not suck it up, but you use what you can right now, for example, with an integrated GPU for gaming with a slightly lower resolution, lower the settings, just if you want to just kind of go by without getting the GPU at the moment. And then always add one later for a nice little upgrade boost.

What do you guys think about services like G-Force now where it's most recent stuff where the pricing, is $100 for six months, and you get an RTCS 30, 80-level graphics machine. So like, the only bottleneck in that situation would be your internet connection. And I think the requirement would be like 50, like to be about 50 megabits per second. And so getting, removing like the latency equation out of that,

that's fairly amazing deal, to be honest, right? Like 100 bucks, 200 bucks per year, basically, for 30 Arctic 3080 gaming machine on the cloud. I'm a big, big proponent of cloud gaming. And once again, this is kind of from a guy that works at a computer company. Definitely want to be by computers.

But I love my Google Stadia. For a couple of reasons. The first reason being I have fast internet. I have fiber optic internet where I live. So I have zero latency whatsoever. Like, it's just, it just runs like perfect. And to me, that's amazing because I don't have to download anything. I don't need a computer.

I don't need cables going in out of my TV or nothing. It's literally just a wireless controller. And I sit on my couch and I play Peppa Pig with my daughter. That's what we're saying right now. But that's the first reason why I love it. But the second reason I love it is because as someone who, like I said, works at a computer company. I'm sitting at the computer all day long.

The last thing on my mind and the last thing I want to do when I'm done with work is to sit in front of the computer and play video games. So I just want to go on the couch and my sweats and play video games laying down. Yeah, like a lazy person. I have the X-Cloud because I have Xbox GamePass Ultimate.

And it's, I've been trying I tried to like, like in the past three months, I'm like, I'm going to play a game, start to finish just with cloud streaming and see it was like. And it wasn't terrible. Like, I could definitely tell the latency, but like, but I wouldn't play a game like Halo in it. Like I did try playing Halo Infinite on X cloud. I got my butt kicked. I got my butt kicked.

I was using a controller. I was in plus I was on my, I was actually on my MacBook. Like, wow. Yeah. Playing Halo Infinite on the cloud. I mean, it was awesome. That's the fact that I could do that, but it wasn't the best experience. But for a game that where latency doesn't really, or, you know, you don't need to be like quick thinking, killing five people in a matter of two seconds.

Yeah. It's great. Like, I think it's a good compliment to what you have. Like, like games and games are getting so like, fours the horizon. was like 50 to 100 gigabytes. I know that's huge range, but still, they're like downloads take forever. Yeah.

And I was just like, you know, I just want to play right now. And then I just instantly jump in. And I think Xbox has the series X in the cloud. So like with the 3080 is. Well, it's not 3080 level, but you know what I mean, the same high fidelity graphics.

Yeah, yeah. And you can play on your phone too. Yeah. Like with 5G, like I have an adapter that I could put on an Xbox Should one? Should one? Should one?

I don't know. I mean, if I was in a pinch I desperately needed to play a game. The only game I play on my phone is Twitter. Yeah. Same here. I can't think of any situation where like I have to be playing something and I have to hook something up.

Like I'll just do something else, right? Like I don't think gaming is that much of a, I would need for me, but I get it, though. I think the last game I played Cloud was on PlayStation Now, and it was God of War I. And that was cool. The PS1 one, or? The, uh, or PS2, sorry?

The PS2 one, yeah. I was like, PS1. I was like, did they release God a war on PS1? No, I'm in PS2. It's so long. You can imagine what that would look like. But that was, that was a fine service until it didn't work and it lost progress. Like, it'll be fine.

And then all of a sudden, it'd be like, you're losing connection. And it would just stop working. And then it would start working again. But then if I hadn't saved in that amount of time, I would just lose that progress. But that was like my last experience with it. And that was a long time ago, too. So like I haven't tried out X cloud. The only thing I'll do that's cloud-based at all, if you can even call up that,

is just streaming gameplay from like my PC to my Oculus. And that's it. Everything I'm going to say. The only thing cloud-based you do is vape. That's true, man. Sick, sick fat clouds. That's how we do it out here. I think one thing.

I do like what's happening, at least what Microsoft I think is kind of doing well, is making gaming more of an idea than tied to a specific platform. Yes. Because like I said, I played an Xbox game on a Mac. Like 20 years ago, that would have been unfathomable. And plus with GamePass on PC, I get the same games I could play on my Xbox, but with the quality of my, you know, amazing PC. Like I have played Red Dead Red Dead Redemption 2 on my phone with Stadio.

Wow. It was fine. It was just, I wanted to see if I can do it and just to check it out. And I was like, wow, like, I never thought in a million years I could do this and it worked fine. That's so interesting to hear because usually with games, games like that where you require a lot of controls, you know, I feel like having everything kind of crammed into the tiny phone would be, I don't know, would take away from my experience. I want a big screen, 27, 32 inch. But I guess as a cool way to test to see if it works. Yeah.

And I guess it depends on the game you play too, right? Like obviously, if I want to play Red Day Red Day Redemption too, ideally I would want to do that on a big screen. But I think if I was playing like, I don't know, like Hotline Miami or something, I wouldn't mind playing that on my phone or Stardy Valley, some sort of casual game like that. Right. Yeah. Yeah. So you asked us what our thoughts are on cloud gaming. I want to ask what your thoughts are on another trend that's going on right now in the computing world.

And that's NFTs and cryptocurrency. What do you think about that stuff? It's kind of also one of those things where you kind of have to, well, you have to be lucky. You have to have some disposable income, right? Like whenever you are investing in crypto, it's always like kind of gambling. You know, things go up and down. So unless you know when to sell, but that's also kind of a gamble as well. I don't have anything myself.

But I do see a lot of people on Twitter, for example, talking about their successes with crypto, but also understanding like 95% of people don't lose money, right? As soon as you sign up to any of those platforms, it's like a big disclaimer. So NFTs are that's a funny way to sell a JPEG, you know. I'm selling Andy as an NFT if you're interested. You guys have official NZXT NFTs yet or what's up? And it's a NZXFT. That's what we're calling it.

You know, that's funny too. I remember when we're talking to Layline? Yeah. I love the, so that Ubisoft Quartz video, I didn't, I'm not going to lie, I didn't really like the video. I thought it was a, the video was an ad. The video was bad. It was like a PowerPoint presentation. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. But I love the concepts of playing NFTs.

Like that actually makes me want to buy one. Because like Dimitri said, like, it's just a fancy way to say download a JPEG. That's literally the same thing I think of when I think of it, NFT. I'm like, why am I going to spend money on like a digital file that I can just literally download onto my phone or whatever? But if it was something like, if I can buy a character and like buy stuff to build up this character for a game, that interests me. I think I would actually do that. So we have this whole debate on the NZXT Slack in our gaming news channel about this particular thing. And the one thing that like I keep going back to is like why, right?

Like what's the point? Like and the reason why I say that is because a lot of people brought up like CSGO like knives and stuff as an example, which technically if you want to say are like NFTs, right? Each individual knife is unique to that person who owns it. Right. You can't just give it to someone unless you like, you know, trade it away. But at the same point, I want to just create like a marketplace for that, right? want to just do a Steam Marketplace without having to do all the whole

NFT blockchain stuff because it's the same thing right like unless they're planning on like creating this whole ecosystem within multiple multiple games within you can use that NFT somewhere else or that or that or that NFT hat or whatever I don't see the point of it like

I don't understand why it has to be in the blockchain and I feel like a lot of this is just like it's just like the the whole like e-sports push right it's like some some some investors somewhere is like what's your plan for esports right and now it's what's your plan for nfts and crypto that's a big thing now we see it on twitter what's your plan for that and they go uh quartz my my theory is that the reason why it's like that is because the people that own

cryptocurrency wanted something to do with they that's that's as simple as that that's like my theory at least like these people just have crypto and they're like we have a lot of it what should we do We're like, I know. Let's buy digital artwork. So is that what Ubisoft Quartz is trying to push? I didn't watch the... I had no idea what you're doing. It's like trying to NFT through like... Engage cosmetics tied to blockchain.

Right, right, right. Okay. Yeah, well, the blockchain in terms of like the tech of being like the ledger of, sure, you acquired it, it's kind of pointless, right? You're like logged in to your whatever account. Yeah. So why would you need an NFT to prove that you've... made this transaction happen if it's already tied to whatever origin steam ubisoft epic account

anyway i don't get it yeah and that's and i think it would only help with selling it maybe but like in like like let's say like at a counterstrike tournament they make an nftcine knife that only like five of them are made right and but they do do that already like that that this like prevents counterfeiting but I don't know how you can counterfeit skins. Like that is the only argument I can see for it. But I mean, it's at the end of the day, it's just like, it's just, it's basically the same thing, but with a different spin.

And I don't know, I don't really mind it, but I don't really hate it. It just is to me. My biggest thing is the environmental impact of crypto. Because I know like Bitcoin uses like the whole Bitcoin itself is like the same carbon output of like Argentina or something like that. What about the environmental impact of you not cleaning your room, Mandy?

I did clean. Look at that messy room. It's because my dog, she likes. See? At least you made a blurry for the podcast. Yeah. So that's why I'm using RtX or NVIDIA broadcast to blur. So do you guys think NFTs and crypto are fads?

I think the current implementation of selling stuff like a JPEG is for sure an ad, an ad is a is a fad. It is just the way someone has shared to me is just people with a lot of money funding new ways to spend it pretty much, right? Because they're bored, which I think is true. I think NFTs in different types of situations like maybe like home ownership or something like that might be a thing that makes more sense, right? Like an actual real world application to prove that you have something tangible as opposed to, just a picture, right? Like a digital record of home ownership. Yeah, exactly.

Instead of doing like I have a paperwork this thick. Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, like kind of like the way that like Bitcoin was designed to be, it was just like decentralized way to like store your money and use it without having to have like paper backed up to it, right? I think you just hit the nail on the head. Yeah. NFTs in crypto, they're not a fad, but they're new.

So I think we're still figuring out how to use them. Like for example, like, at one point, social media was a fad because, you know, it was like no one knew how to use social media. It was like, you know, it was a fad, basically. And then Facebook introduced the like button. All of a sudden, people wanted to tell you what they were doing all the time just to get those likes. And then now social is what it is now. And I feel like NFTs and crypto are the same where, you know, 10 years from now, like, we're definitely going to figure out how to use them. And I don't think it's going to be buying monkey avatars.

One thing for your social media accounts. One thing that I heard that NFTs can enable or it gets blockchain. So like, let's say, like art, for instance. Like when Andy Warhol, when his painting sell these days, he doesn't get any of the money. But within the blockchain, you can write in a contract that every time it changes his ownership and that asset appreciates in value. that the original artist can get paid. Because I'm sure Da Vinci, Michelangelo, they didn't see the money that they made.

Because their paintings go for hundreds of millions of dollars. Granted, they're long dead, but still like, NFTs can allow the original creators to still benefit from appreciation of their art. If that can be implemented in a real-world sense, that would be cool. And that's probably the best argument for it, I think. So in the chat saying Bitcoin was a way to buy illegal things online.

We all seem to forget that. I mean, you can use a lot of things for illegal purposes, right? That's why money was invented too. Yeah. I mean, true. I remember when I was in college, I did a presentation on Bitcoin. Like, this is almost 10 years ago. And Bitcoin was at like a hundred.

dollars a coin. And I'm like, because we were talking about monetary policy and fiscal policy. And it like basically, like an argument for a government-backed currency is in case of there's an issue, you know, the Federal Reserve can raise interest rates to lower inflation or the, you know, Congress can pass something to like deal with issues with money, but with a decentralized currency, you can't. But I don't know. It was just talking about that.

Interesting how you go back kind of like discussing Bitcoin and how would impact the future. It's kind of the exact same conversation happening today. You know, like in schools about monetary policy. But it's cool how well. I'm not sure if you guys know that El Salvador was the first country to make Bitcoin like official tender.

So they gave each of their citizens like a like a small portion of Bitcoin to each wallet as a way to like incentivize the adoption of it. I mean, aside from having the news kind of like just be everywhere kind of promoting Bitcoin and this adoption, I wonder, wonder where it's at right now. Like if the that type of crypto implementation is working. or not, you know, especially because of all the dips and dips with its value. Right. I want to buy a, I want to buy a beaver NFT from Harvard Kurnucks.

Coming right. Actually, it won't be a beaver. Or I mean, it could be a beaver eating a poutine with like a just a bagel in the back. Montreal bagel somewhere in the plates as well. I'm on a troll bagel and if T. What do you think is a fad right now? Besides crypto and NFTs, like what do you guys think is a fad? It's like a tech fad.

What's a fad going on right now on YouTube? What's a fad going on with computers? What's a fad going on with video games? What do you guys think? I mean, with video games, that's an easy one, right? Like things just launch as a full launch game. And then a year later, it's like, that's when it's complete. That does seem to be the fad now.

I don't think, I don't think it's a fad because people are still buying these games. Like, like, didn't a CD project make like a bunch of money off like day one sales off of a cyberpunk? I think they made back. Yeah. Because the game was in development for eight years or something. So the first two days, they made all the money back. Yeah. And I'm pretty sure battlefield, you know, despite, you know, all the people saying stuff is making a bunch of money.

as well, right? That's the thing is like, people say that we should be voting with their wallets, but they don't, right? They don't. So it's going to keep happening. And it's just the reality. So now you just have to kind of go into a game knowing that it might be a little buggy, it might be a little broken in the beginning and, you know, eventually they'll fix it up to get it to where it needs to be or, you know, add more content or so on and so forth, right? I don't think it's a fact. That's one reason why I haven't fully gone into cyberpunk. It's good now. It's good now. If you play it now, it works great. And to be honest, like on launch, I had rarely any problems, but granted, you know, I'm running a 2070 super and like any 700K.

It also worked perfectly on Google Stadia. That was actually like the best reviewed version of the game at launch was on Stadia. Like everyone was saying that's literally the best way to play the game, which is awesome. That's so interesting. And that's why Cloud is here to stay. I think your mic swapped over to like a webcam or something, by the way. What kind of mic is that, Andy? It's like a 1950s.

It's a short SM58. My dad had one. It's like the mic they used in the Tonight Show. Basically. It's a good mic. I've thought of getting one. But then I was like, you know, I'm just going to go get a standard streaming microphone. I'm surprised none of you are using or maybe Ivan and Dennis are using the.

Okay, yeah, nice. I was going to say, where's the capsule? Who's using the capsule? I'm actually using my Elgada Wave 3 because of the software. Literally, the only reason I'm using this microphones because of the software. It's a great mic, but I mean, it turns like quality and stuff. I don't think it's like better quality than like any other USB mic out there. It's just I use a software to produce a podcast.

For sure. Yeah, it's great for like rerouting things, right? Yeah, no, it's awesome. Like I can even show you on Discord what it looks like right now. This is the video my control center. Nice. Yeah. That's awesome.

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Yep. Yep. It's amazing for like live mixing stuff. It's cool. But just on the topic of the fads, like I know that, you know, surrounds, like the 3D stuff came and died, but then surround sound when comes to audio.

For me, that was kind of like a dying fad. But I think it's coming back in terms of like certain companies, companies are done. doing it right and it actually benefits the entire experience. Even if you have just a pair of stereo headphones, the rendering of like binoral engine through the headphones without doing stuff within the game is like really good uncertain pairs. But it's mostly like 90% of fad because 90% of time it's crap. But then you get to like a few surround notes that actually work.

It's awesome. I have I know like the PS5 has like 3D audio and I I don't notice a difference at all but like with Apple music and spatial audio it like like listening to like the Beatles

in spatial audio is phenomenal I think they have I think they're doing more but like I listen to let it be in its entirety with you know sounds like a different album right it's so good

and then the Beatles are really good at you know, studio recording. But it, it, it, it, it, it, you kind of have to close your eyes while listening because it's hard to, you know, feel the positionality of each of the audio sources. But like, once you really pay attention to it, it's, it's kind of mind-blowing. And I really, I really enjoy it. But it's awesome. I did actually recently, recently listen to, I, the let it be, I guess it was like the 50th

anniversary or whatever. and they released this remastered version and it sounds like a totally different album. I think because when there's a version called Let It Be Naked where Phil Spencer, the producer after when they recorded it, added a bunch of Phil Specter. Phil Specter, God damn. Phil Spector added a lot of orchestration to it

and then they did the version of the Beatles actually wanted. and I think it's probably a continuation of that. That's awesome. That's the first version I actually listened to because when I was learning about the Beatles, that album came out and asked it for Christmas. So like the original versions are weird to me. Speaking of which,

there's a great documentary on Disney Plus that Peter Jackson did. Yeah. I was going to watch that but I saw that every episode of three episodes is like two hours long and I'm like, yeah, this is not like a... It's long. Yeah, yeah.

It's definitely not a... Let's watch on the couch, you know, for like tonight's movie. It's like, I'm going to watch it on my own when I have like, you know, bits and, you know, chunks of minutes here and there. It's the ultimate fly on the wall experience because they just recorded the let it be sessions. And you see them kind of like arguing one second. Then like the next second, they're just like jamming. And then I was their last album, right?

Yeah. It's if you like the Beatles, it's fascinating. and you kind of get to see their dynamics, like within the band and like, and my opinion. Dimitri's like, I don't like the Beatles. I like the beavers. The beavers are nothing. Okay.

But yeah, go watch it. Dimitri, I have a question for you. What's it like working with Andy? Oh, boy. Oh, my God. Be honest, be honest. Pretend he's not here. Yeah.

OK. Yeah. Well, it's good thing. He just went black on the screen. So I can reveal the truth about Andy. Oh, no. No, it's good. It's good.

Very, very good comms, very fast comps, you know, in terms of like new stuff launching and sampling. Absolutely zero complaints, basically. Zero complaints. You're good, Andy. Good job, Andy. We'll let our boss know, Andy. Give me a raise, please. Any can work here one more day because of that comment.

Thank you, Dimit. Do you miss, like, events, like where you would meet or hang out with guys like not just Andy, but, you know, different companies and things like that. Do you miss that stuff? Oh, 100%. Yeah. I mean, I don't like CES. Like, I don't like Vegas in general.

So whenever we do CES, it's just the, I gain energy from all the interactions. And also just doing the whole production stuff outside of our normal comfort zone. So in terms of that sense, it's very different. Plus, seeing everyone face to face in terms of company contacts and all the other YouTubers. But man, Computex, that's a whole different story. I miss Computex. It's such a, yeah, such a different experience in terms of like, I mean, Taipei is really nice. I like Taipei.

Yeah, yeah, when I went, I think the only one I went to is the 2019 one. And it was, it was a blast. Yeah. I mean, like, you work your ass off there. Like, because you know you guys have to go to like 20 different booths and talk to 20 different Andes. and and like imagine 20 Andes Yeah

I can't imagine But you know You have to do There's a lot of work in editing And I know like It's just it's just a grind And like on our side Like I have to give the same same

Spiel over and over Like this is the H510 elite Like right You know And all that all that stuff And it can it gets exhausting Just talking to people And then more public facing conventions

people ask me about like sponsorships and all that fun stuff and that's like all day every day you're just standing there talking constantly and saying the same thing and they're like oh what's in dxte and then you have to give that whole spiel as well oh they're fun but they're a grind i'm guessing they're like a grind for both both sides uh different ways right like you like you say you're like constantly rewriting what you're like you're like constantly rewriting what you're you've been saying for the last couple of days, you know. And we, at least for us, we, we have the, the option. Like, all right, show us the new thing and then give us five minute spiel and then let us,

leave us alone so we can work. Basically. Yeah. Which is unfortunate how we've been doing it for a while in terms of like trying to get as much content out of as possible. But we've taken a different approach of wanting to actually socialize with our contacts. And like have a, have a good time. the work and then having a good time that's been much well much better integrated over the last couple

years before the pandemic so that we can actually enjoy our time too but do you remember at compotex when we tried we took you out to dinner I asked someone at the office about a ramen place because I'm like yeah it sounds good oh that's right yeah and it was essentially like in a mall it was like a food court in a mall and then we're like no no no then like we went to like like a nice Korean barbecue restaurant. Yeah. I was just like, I was like, oh my God. Why did like, why did Kevin said me here?

Yeah, this place is good. I'm like, oh, okay, this sounds great. And then it was like, oh, no. Yeah. But to be honest, like all the food in Taipei, even from like a food mall is always excellent. Have you had stinky tofu? Yes. Yeah, yeah.

Would you think? It wasn't as bad as it's, it's not, it doesn't taste as bad as it smells. Yeah, I would, I would agree. Kind of like just more, it's flavorful, but yeah, the smell. Like, if you can't stand it, then it's like, it's like sewage at times. Like when you walk by a stinky tofu place, you're like, oh, what's that smell? Hmm. But when I had it, it tastes nothing.

Like, I had it steamed. but not fried but I don't know it was just it was just fine it was delectable right Andy huh no nothing um I haven't you got some first right yeah we have some questions here but before I get into them I do want to ask Dimitri one more question Dimitri do you have any questions for us before we ask you the community questions oh good one uh let's see I mean from from n60 what the best selling case uh the h510 it's like our it are popped the charts on amazon yeah like the most popular one yeah all time all time i think either the h510 now well probably the h510

but before that i think uh probably the s340 the one i had behind here Hmm. It was a... It was a really, really cheap case and really good. Nice. Yeah, that makes sense. I think when we were doing like our 20... In 2019, we did like a full-on decade overview of like the most popular cases and yeah.

H510 baby. Or it was H500 at the time or H510, yeah. It was one of those. Think, thing. Yeah, just minus the USB port. All right, community question time here. All right, Dimitri. If you could punch any person on this podcast, who would it be and why would it be Dennis?

I don't know why people ask these questions. Why is it always me? I was going to say, I'm not a violent person, so it wouldn't be anyone. But I guess the question ended with its own answer. There you go. There you go. All right. DJ Illogic wants to know.

What are your camera settings, Dimitri? What are my camera settings? For what? For the stream right now? Because you look very good. Yeah. I'm using a Logistic Brio webcam. So it is a webcam.

I have a big softbox here. I have a hair light, as you can see. so that gives me that nice. And of course, we get the... So in terms of camera settings, I start talking about myself all of a sudden. It's on auto. So it's doing this thing.

Looks pretty good. Yeah, yeah. Reb Fur wants to say, TBH, Dimitri sounds perfect. Perfect. What's your sound set up, Dimitri? All right. Well, it's super simple.

Algada Wave 3 on auto. Let's go. Nice. Yeah. And just running into, that's it. Nothing. I haven't touched anything. Plugged into a computer and go.

As long as it's connected, as long as it's like close enough to your mouth, right? And I'm on the third little notch for microphone sensitivity. I'm on the second and like a half. So one more click and I go over to the third. Because the mic's actually pretty close to me right now. It's like right here. Oh, wow. Yeah.

That is very close. Almost broke yesterday, actually. Saracha Zila wants to know what kind of like. Do you have behind you? So I have an aperture 120D over here with a big octabox. And then I have a SL 60 watt light for the hair light. And just one of those power tubes in the back with the purple. That's it.

There you go. So typical two lighting setup plus something in the background. I did see someone asking if I can play on the guitar. So we can we can do that. I was saving that question for last. Hang tight, hang tight. All right, cool, cool. And I'm also going to ask you to do some bicep curls with that weight behind you.

So start prepping for that too. That's easy, yeah. Oh, okay. Roger 82, as Dimitri, is there any tech you have wanted to cover outside of the PC peripheral category? Um, um, outside the PC.

I was going to say VR, but that's kind of in the PC, in the PC space. We've been joking. Yeah, I am actually on the last headset before it got, you know,

before you needed like a Facebook account to to use it. So, but in terms of doing videos on other things, we've been talking internally with the team jokingly about doing

like a cooking channel because both Mike and Iber we're all we're all big home cooks and so we kind of share recipes explore different things and Mike is just like on another level with with his books and they they get a new book every year I think last year or maybe this year is Turkish cuisine so they explore all that stuff so we were thinking of doing stuff with cooking while we're all together and maybe exploring that avenue So I'm not necessarily reviewing stuff, but making videos about food. About food. Thanks.

The NastyJ, who by the way is a recent giveaway winner, so proof that free PCs do exist from Ndhete. He wants to know, Dimitri. If you could collab with anyone, who would it be and on what? Oh, man, collab with any. Let's see I mean like most recently we've been collaborating with people within our own space with with you know peripherals and some some no book stuff but I would I think outside of that space with someone who we haven't been in touch with at all

I don't know I'm kind of drawing a blank like there's this is a lot of I think I would love to participate in some of the like Andy said some of the more educational stuff like smarter every day I love love their channel Dustin is like amazing in terms of delivering some engineering examples while also having really cool like relatable production quality but I think I guess like Mark Roberte too

yeah yeah but well yeah Mark Robber too for sure I think my collaboration in in those sense would be cool if, like, I'm part of the production stuff as well. Like, I've been, I've always thought about, I've always loved the Planet Earth series and always considered to be like, how cool would it be to be behind the scenes of actually, like, shooting that type of stuff and being the production side?

So I think in that sense, my collaboration, like, element would be from that point of view. Richard Attenborough Matt Frazer Asked Dimitri Do you have a smart thermostat I do not

There you go What's a smart thermostat I guess it's like a Google Nest Or something like that No we don't have Like apartment So like main circulation

Just AC units And Windows And Windows Angiotara wants to know what is your favorite pizza topping Ooh, pizza topping? Oh, like a combination? Or just one?

I guess combo. Let's do it. So I'm the Hawaiian. Let's go. Yes. Let's go. I'm going to I'm going to buy a Hardware Canucks NFT just because of that.

Yeah. So I'm pineapple, but also I love tomato, onion, and like some sort of bacon topping like that with a nice tomato sauce. Beautiful. You can't go wrong with bacon. No. Death Rage wants to know, what is your favorite mouse? We just published our top five. So, you know, there's a plug.

Maybe we can put it in the chat. I mean, right now, I'm using the Loddek GproX wireless super light. The battery life on that is amazing and it's really nice. But there's just so many awesome options to, like, I've been loving the Pulsar X light wireless with superglides. So the temper glass feet and the glide on that is just next level. Nice. So Red Panda asked the question.

here for us but I'm going to make you work Dimitri I want you to answer this question for them oh so they are looking to either build a PC or buy a pre-built and they don't know which one to get and they're saying that uh they want to do casual game streaming as they enjoy that and they never want to leave their day job but they're stuck on deciding between air or water cooled computer what do you recommend for them i mean either have their advantages right now all my uh no actually yeah actually all my computers right now are on water so like a aio um just because uh i have them available and i i prefer working within the iio in terms of like memory clearance i don't have to worry about populating all slots in case the the CPU tower has like some compatibility

issues. But before putting everything on air on water cooling, I was running everything on air cooling. So it kind of depends. I don't think you can go wrong with either. Air cooling is of course like more future proof in terms of like nothing can go wrong except maybe a fan dying with air cooling a little bit more components that you have to kind of worry about but also there's warranty and And so far, none of my All-Oamun coolers have failed. So it's also kind of an argument. So I would say go with an AIO if you want a bit more convenience mounting.

And if you have the space for it, go with air cooling. If you, you know, it fits in your budget. Usually air cooling is a bit cheaper. And it's easier to set up. Yeah. We do have a couple more questions, but we're also running out of the time here. here. So I'm just going to jump straight into it and ask the question that everyone wants me to ask. And that's from IRO's funeral. Dimitri will use serenade us with that acoustic guitar behind you there.

All right. Let's do it. Let's do it. Someone better clip this so I don't have to do it later. I can use it as the show teaser. Oh, nice sanders, Dimitri. Stayed again. We're gonna move the mic a bit closer. Can you guys hear this? Yes, I'm gonna have to adjust this, but let's do it. I'm ready.

What do you want some stalker vibes? You might need to turn off your noise suppression, by the way, on Discord. Because it's gonna cutting off a little bit. Sorry, let me... Yeah, yeah, so if we do that, it'll just play it raw. This is awesome, by the way. My noise suppression is off, but my gain... There we go.

Yeah, it might be that. How's this? Maybe like turn it up a bit does that work does that cut out I think it is you might have to play something a little bit longer before it like cuts off on its own I just turn up the the volume a bit yeah that works too There we go a little something all right like that let's go You're you're pretty good A little uncomfortable position but let's see There we go

That's awesome Bravo Amazing Much better than I thought. Or do you have electric guitar? Do you just play acoustic? Yeah, just the acoustic. That's awesome.

Now I have to ask what sandals are you wearing? Oh, these are... Did they pop in the frame? Yeah, they did. When you picked up the guitar. They're happy... Nice. Can you do some bicep curls and show us the sandals, please? just making them do stuff for our own amusement now

we got happy happy those are actually cool you got some some happy slides very bright yeah they're from happy socks if you know the brain happy flip flops so good

thank you so much Dimitri for not only serenading us but you know join us in the podcast answering our our silly questions and hanging out with the community really appreciate it man yeah thanks for the for the invite for sure it's been it's been cool to hang out answer some questions and before we before we get out of here we do have some quick announcements for y'all dennis you want to go through those yes but before i do Yeah, get some background music for this. So number one announcement is N-Z-T has an investor.

So we tweeted this the other day that we are getting, and we just pull it up here since I have a thing here. Big Day from N-Z-X-T. So T-L-D-R, we are taking in a round of funding. I believe that's the correct way of saying this. And Andy, if I'm wrong, let me know you're the PR guy. All I do is just meme all day. But we're taking in an investment from Francisco Partners,

who is pretty well-known in the tech space. pretty big news for us what it basically means is that we can be able to use some extra funding to do bigger and better things for the community for our customers for literally anybody and everybody and he's getting a raise he's getting one more for computer is going to go to to paying Dimitri for joining us on the podcast yeah yes he's yeah exactly he has a very high appearance fee for his for his performances So that's number one. Really, really cool stuff. Read it up on the blog if you want to know more about it. It's very businessy, but that's kind of the point of the stuff.

Next is the NZXT holiday gift guide. So if you want to know what to pick up for the gamer in your life, no matter where they at, what they do, even if they're not a gamer, maybe they're just a streamer. You don't have to be a gamer to be a streamer, just like a Hassan. Or someone who wants to build the computer, all this is great stuff here. check out the nzx t gift guide and there's uh you know some some stuff there if you go and check it out and grab something for a friend of yours uh i guess this one too uh sign it for the newsletter i guess i'm doing this now uh it believes on the bottom of the nzxt dot com page to send it for newsletter and we'll give you some news i don't know what news that'll be but it'll be a secret uh you heard jess she wants us to get those uh newsletter sign-ups man why is that my job

Follow Dimitri on Twitter. Okay, actually, so I'd ask you, Dimitri, why is it D-I-M-I tree? But then your display name is Dimitri with no I between the I and M. That's an easy story. So when we move to Canada, our, so my legal name is Dimitri without the I, but our ESL teacher when we were learning English, she said, It'd be great if there was an eye there so that it'd be easier to pronounce Dimitri. So for throughout my high school, I always spelled it like that. But then I had to change everything because like it's not legal name, right?

Yeah, yeah. So Dimitri stuck and 49, I don't know why. And why the watermelon? Oh, because I freaking love watermelon. There we go. Andy, next time you see me, you better bring him a watermelon. You should bring a little mini watermelon. Can someone clip that please? That should be like, uh, yeah.

That's literally going to be the thing for this for this episode. It's just the way, it's so much force in it. It's funny, I actually have a similar story just real quick. So my name Dennis is D-E-N-I-S. That's how you spell it in Spanish, I guess, right? And it's not actually even pronounced Dennis. And it's not pronounced Denise. It's pronounced Denise.

It's like a very, denise. It's a very specific thing, right? But author of my entire life, I thought it was two ends. So literally on all my school stuff, it was D-E-N-N-I-S, D-E-N-I-S. And the funny thing is that my passport, this is where it's all messed up. My passport has two ends, D-E-N-N-N-I-S. Oh, no. But my actual ID, social and everything is one end.

Technically, I'm two people. So if one is skipped country, I can make it happen. All right. Next announcement. Oh, this is my favorite one. Follow Harvard Connects on YouTube. Subscribe, not follow. Subscribe.

That's the word of there. Subscribe. Hit the bell. I don't think the bell works anymore, right? I heard from somewhere that the bell like doesn't do a thing anymore. Because I'm not getting older. Sometimes. It's mainly like if you have the app and if you have like email notifications enabled.

Okay. Otherwise. You can give them all the dislikes since they don't show up anyway. Right, Dimitri? Please give us all the dislike. Give me all the dislikes. Yeah. Check out Hodder Canucks on YouTube.

They've been around forever. I remember when I was buying computers for my own, I didn't work for a computer company. I will look at their videos all the time. So check them out. They're great. Next is. We also got to get some love too. So huge shout out to Seagate Gaming because they came to us and say, hey, we want to do something with these brand new and I'll show it here. Maybe do that here.

Yeah, this new Mandalorian SSDs, Mandelorian themed SSDs made it with real Best Guard, by the way. So you can melt these down and make some weapons with them if you want. But asteris, don't actually do that. Don't melt down an SSD. Thank you. So shout out to them because the story is, they're like, hey, we want to do a thing. And Ivan's like, why don't you just give us S&E so we can give way on the podcast? Which we never think would happen. They're like, yeah. So that's awesome. So give them a lot of love.

They deserve it for supporting the show. See, we're even following them. And we're going to put them on notice just for you guys. See, there you go. So now we're going to see everything they say. We're going to comment on all their posts. Don't home into that. So, yeah, thanks.

Thanks for them. Thank you, Cigate, Gamey. Thank you, Cigate. If you guys entered the giveaway, it's going to end in four minutes. and we will email the winners, as well as publish the winners on the giveaway page you guys want to know who want. So, yeah. And Dimitchi, do you have anything you want to let the friends out there know before we balance anything you want to personally plug or support or anything like that? Just as usual, you know, we have a very simple intro and outro in our video.

of like hello good people, you know, so all the people out there stay good. And as Ibo always closes off to spend responsibly, I think that's an appropriate thing in this environment. So those are my two things. All right, awesome. Love it. Thank you again for being on, Dimitia. Really appreciate it, man. Thanks, thanks, guys.

And thank you to everybody who tuned in. Remember to catch the show next week at 10 a.m. Pacific Center time of the official NZ60 Twitch and follow at NZC on all relevant relevant or irrelevant social media. And send an email if you want. We don't get emails, but we do take email. So if you want to ask this question off the air, podcast at nzxte.com, that is podcast shift2 at nzxte. com.

I had to look at my keyboard and make sure it didn't say it incorrectly. Imagine if I did it wrong, if you were sending it to like a non-existent mail address. Don't forget to listen. Or type that out. Podcast shift to at nzxt.com. That'd be funny. Someone actually tried that.

You can also listen to previous episodes on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify and not or and SoundCloud. Listen to all of them. Listen to the show once on every single platform and you will achieve a higher form of consciousness and maybe break yourself out of the simulation that we're all obviously living in. And if you want, share the show with a friend or share the show with an enemy. It's even better. Exactly.

Stick around. Yeah. If you're listening live, stick around. We're going to go ahead and throw a raid to one lucky streamer on the internet. So let's give them some love. Get your purple heart emojis ready for their chat. Thank you again. Dimitri.

Thank you, Andy, for being on as well. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye, everyone. Bye. All right. Thanks for doing this again, Dimitri.