Gift Guide for Geeks 2024
About This Episode
Picking just the right holiday gift for the GenX nerd in your life can be challenging, but we’re here to help. Each year around this time we release our Geek Gift Guide. Once more this year, we run down some great gift ideas for the 2024 holidays, regardless of your budget!
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Show Notes
- Note: Affiliate links included below
- See everything we talked about on our Amazon page » www.amazon.com/shop/genxgrownup/list/339XM5HC9G0IQ?ref_=aip_sf_list_spv_ons_mixed_d
- Under $25
- CRKD ATOM » www.amazon.com/dp/B0DCZYLTZM?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Cards Against Humanity Nerd Bundle » www.amazon.com/dp/B091FDDJTW?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Apple AirTag » amzn.to/4hWulvB
- Under $50
- MuteMe » www.amazon.com/dp/B0B6HPPBXV?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Game & Watch: Super Mario Bros (Nintendo) » www.amazon.com/dp/B08GZ3DRLW?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Apexcam Action Cam » www.amazon.com/dp/B07HP18CWC?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Under $100
- Snow Piercer Comics – Full set » www.amazon.com/dp/178773465X?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Arduino Starter Kit » amzn.to/4fzFqkA
- iFixIt Pro Tech Toolkit » www.amazon.com/dp/B01GF0KV6G?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Under $250
- Smart Bidet Toilet Seat » www.amazon.com/dp/B0B1G5YZBS?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Bambu Lab A1 Mini 3D Printer
On Amazon » www.amazon.com/dp/B0CRYJBKQQ?tag=genxgrownup-20
On Bambu Site » us.store.bambulab.com/collections/3d-printer/products/a1-mini - eero mesh wifi router » www.amazon.com/dp/B08ZK2BHP2?tag=genxgrownup-20
- Email the show » podcast@genxgrownup.com
- Visit us on YouTube » GenXGrownUp.com/yt
TRANSCRIPT
Speaker | Transcript |
Jon | Welcome back. Gen X grown up podcast listeners to this backtrack edition of the Gen X grown up podcast. I’m John joining me as always, of course is Mo. Hey man. |
Mo | Hey, how’s it going? |
Jon | Not a show without George. How you doing, George? |
George | Hey, how’s it going guys? |
Jon | You know, picking just the right holiday gift for the Gen X nerd in your life can be challenging, but we are here to help. Each year around this time, we release our Geek Gift Guide. And once more this year, we’re going to run down some great gift ideas for the 2024 holidays, regardless of your budget. |
Jon | And but last episode, Mo, you made a couple of notes. You said we’ve done this for how many years now? |
Mo | yeah Five. |
Jon | Four years? Five years? |
Mo | This is our fifth one. |
Jon | This is the fifth? This is the fifth one. |
Mo | Yes. |
Jon | And also, it took us five years to figure out, to pull it back about two weeks to give people time to act on these gifts. |
Mo | To actually buy this stuff. |
Jon | because We’d been doing them like, you know, mid-December. Like, that’s not enough time. So finally, I think we figured it out. I think we a but call it a broad and eclectic collection of gifts that would be perfect for the nerd in your life. |
Jon | We’re going to run down, including links on where to find them. We’re going to run through all of that. in just a little bit but first it is time for some fourth listener email and our fourth listener for this geek gift guy 2024 is Brandon G who wrote in about the satanic panic backtrack again a lot of traction yeah let’s see Brandon says I love the satanic panic episode when I was going on when this was going on I was old enough to be influenced by it yet too young to realize it was BS like I think all of us were ah living in a very |
Mo | Yeah, popular one. |
Jon | living in a very rural area lent itself to stories about Satan worshippers perhaps living off in the woods, ready to snatch someone as an offering to their dark lord. Much of that fear was exacerbated by my older brother who made stuff up to scare me. |
Mo | Eh, older brothers. |
Jon | one thing at the time. Yeah, right? One thing at the time, however, was acknowledged by both kids and adults in our local area. There was a certain bridge over a small creek near the edge of town that no one dared go under. |
Jon | There were tales of people finding cats and dogs skinned on some sort of altar there as well as Bibles laying around with bloody knives stabbed through them. Okay, before I continue, do you think any of this actually ever happened? |
Mo | Whoa! |
Mo | I’d say probably not, especially if no one went down there to check. |
Jon | Yeah, it sounds like something I would do to fool someone else and then leave it there. Not the skin dogs, the cats, I mean like a bloody knife or something, you know? Well, he goes on to say, everyone seemed to believe it, but no one ever knew who supposedly found those atrocities or who might’ve been responsible. |
Mo | she |
Jon | Mm-hmm, there we go. |
Mo | It’s a good story though. |
Jon | Yeah, he says, I have lived just right, He says, I have lived just right down the road from that bridge for almost 20 years now and haven’t seen jack shit going on except kids fishing. |
Jon | Yet every time I drive over it, I remember my childhood fears and laugh. |
Jon | Thanks for such a great episode. And as always, the best of wishes to all three of you, Brandon G. Cool. Thank you, Brandon. |
Mo | Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s funny, though. He didn’t say that he ever went under that bridge to check. |
Jon | No. |
Jon | I try to think as a kid, would you have gone under just to see or would you have been too scared? |
Mo | Oh, hell no. |
George | Oughta gone in a heartbeat. |
Mo | Yeah, George, I believe I believe that I believe that George. |
Jon | Would you? Yeah. |
George | Yeah, with my lunchbox. |
Jon | Yeah. to defend yourself. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | Brandon, thank you so much for taking the time to write in and tell us what you thought of the satanic panic episode and share your memories. We love that. If you would like your email featured here on the show, you know, it’s dropped dead easy. Just hit us up at podcast at Gen X grown up dot com or read every single one and most of them just like Brandon’s will eventually make this show. |
Jon | All right. Get your shopping list ready. We get back from this break. We’re going to jump into our 2024 geek gift guide. Stick around. |
George | So one thing is for sure, all three of us are relatively cheap. So we like to start this geek gift guide out with ah stuff that we would like to receive ourselves or maybe give to a geek tech person in our lives, whatever, for under $25. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Amen. |
George | So that’s the rule for this section. They’ll increase as we go down into, I think we’ve got a 50 and a 100. |
Jon | Okay. |
George | We’ll see as we go, but I wanna start out with the one that I’ve got for under 25. And that’s the Cracked Atom. Now Cracked is this company, like 8-bit dough. They make a bunch of controllers and stuff like that for your peripherals and gaming needs and stuff. |
Jon | okay |
George | They do a lot of retro stuff. But this Cracked Atom, I’ve been seeing it on a lot of different YouTube videos lately. And so I went and took a look at it. It’s only $16 on Amazon right now, first of all. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | But this is basically a key chain, Bluetooth, controller setup, it’s almost looks a little bit like an SNES controller. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | It’s got a B X Y it’s got a shoulder buttons. It’s got two shoulder buttons on the right and the left. Actually a blue so Bluetooth compatible with switch and a PlayStation X box, your mobile phone, which is the reason why I was most interested in it because I was like, you know, sometimes I like to take my mobile phone when I’m out somewhere and just sitting around and I like to play, but I hate playing with my thumbs on the screen for a lot of games. |
Mo | oh |
Jon | Oh, yeah. |
Mo | Yeah, I agree. |
Jon | Yes. |
George | I, I, that sucks. |
Mo | I agree. |
George | Well, having a controller with you, oftentimes these Xbox One controllers or the PS5 controller, they’re way bigger than your phone. You’re not carrying those in your pocket, but this little key chain controller, it’s… |
Jon | Right. |
George | incredibly small, but it still seems to be playable. Now I haven’t bought it for myself yet, although I’m really considering it’s between it and there’s an eight bit dough one called the micro. I’m kind of debating between the two. A micro is $24. This is 16. But if you’re looking for something that you can just throw in your pocket or your little book bag or something like that to have for on the go gaming, I think this little cracked Adam has a pretty good reputation. So I’d probably be worth it. |
Mo | Oh, so ah so George, how I mean, how big is it? I mean, you said it’s small, but. |
George | Like every picture that I see, like it literally would fit in the palm of my hand with a lot of room around the outside edges in the palm of my hand. |
Mo | Oh, OK, so yeah, super small. |
George | Like it’s tiny, like, yeah, they, they include a little lanyard, uh, that you can tie to it, that you can tie around different things. And I see it in the pictures, people having it, have it hanging off their backpack zippers and stuff like that. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
George | So it’s very, very tiny. I would say no more than like, I don’t know, three, four inches, something like that. |
Mo | OK. |
Jon | Mm hmm. Yeah, I’m looking at the pictures of it. And the first thing I thought was like, well, how it has a rechargeable battery and it’s had like 10 hours for it. |
George | Mm hmm. Yep. |
Mo | That’s awesome. |
Jon | The other I was thinking was, is it going to be too small? And I look at it and then I think about some of the little gadgets and toys that we collected that are only about two inches wide. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | This is double that width. And really the the area, other than the fact that your hands are closer together, it looks like the buttons are maybe 80 percent the size of a regular controller button. |
Mo | no |
Jon | There’s not the buttons are like larger on the controller than like the ratio you would normally see that I think is probably going to make it. Once you have it in your hand, it’s going to be transparent. I’ve never seen this before. |
Jon | And you said a video has one similar to, huh? |
George | Yeah, Abido has one there. There’s several companies that are making these micro controllers right now that are all Bluetooth. |
Jon | That’s neat. Yeah, it’s a neat idea. |
George | ah I saw one video where the guy was talking about, you know, he got the the transparent case version of this because they have multiple colors and everything. |
Mo | No. |
Mo | Okay. Oh, okay. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | Okay. |
George | And you got one of the transparent case ones. And he says, and you can see the battery that gives you eight to 10 hours takes up most of the controller. |
Jon | Right. That makes sense. Yeah. |
George | Which is funny. And then ah they did talk a little bit about the D-pad and I found this interesting. So they did like a little ah concave D-pad and it’s got like a little matte finish on it. |
George | So the guy was saying that it felt very comfortable and natural to play with can, even though it’s smaller than say a regular D-pad on a big Xbox or PlayStation five controller. |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | Oh, okay. Cool. |
Jon | That’s neat. |
George | So I, it’s, you know, $16 kind of hard to go wrong with that price point. |
Jon | Okay. |
Mo | Yeah, really. |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | You know, I mean, if nothing else, it’s a novelty that you might get $16 worth of party conversation out of it. |
Jon | Yep. |
Mo | Right. |
George | So, but speaking of parties, John, the thing you’ve got on your list, I believe is pretty well linked to parties. |
Jon | That’s premium. Yeah. |
Jon | Well, of certain parties, sure. There are parties where it should not be brought out, and there are parties where it can actually make the party. Yeah. So it sounds like you already know, Mo. So it sounds like you already know, George. |
Jon | Mo, I don’t know if you’re familiar with the game, Cards Against Humanity. |
Mo | Oh my god, yeah. |
Jon | You’re familiar with it? Okay, good. All right. So, listener, just in case you’re not familiar with the game Cards Against Humanity, it is, as George said, a party game where you ah you’re given these cards and you have to make connections between them. I won’t tell you the instructions here, but some of them are very wildly suggestive or inappropriate for different audiences, which is hilarious. That’s part of the hilarious part of it. It kind of gets you to loosen up and lower your inhibitions and have a good time. |
Jon | and so it’s been around for a good long while and I tend to see they make interesting either booster decks or substitute decks themed like they’ll do ones all about |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | You know, the food industry, you know, restaurants and, you know, ah waiters and servers and stuff. There’s one for them and there’s one offer, you know, nerds and stuff like that. And I see them and I’m like, well, that’s cool. But do I need the big packs for this? I was looking because I’m super interested in this game. um Everybody in my family enjoys it. And being the dork that I am, I guess Amazon made the connection. We know the kind of stuff you search for. And if you’re looking looking for cards against humanity. So they now have this bundle that includes all of the nerdy packs in one big box. |
Mo | Oh, okay. |
Jon | So the themes are like fantasy, sci-fi, World Wide Web, geek, AI, human, I don’t know what that is, and a few more cards for you nerds are the different collections, all in this 20 bucks for this box. |
Mo | Okay. Oh, not bad. |
Jon | That’s it for that. So it has all of these pieces of the collection to add. And ah at first it was weird that anything is at $19.99 these days, it was 20 bucks. But whenever I see these in the store, I see them like at Target and stuff like that. |
Jon | And it seems like the individual ones are $7.99, $8.99 for these little bundles. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Jon | And here’s seven of them together for 20 bucks. And I think it’s, for anybody that likes board games, card games, game night, get togethers, things like that, and their nerds, I don’t think you can go wrong with this one. |
Mo | Yeah, I have definitely played Cards Against Humanity and had have some very uncomfortable conversations and discussions during it as well. |
Jon | Mm |
Mo | So my question is, are these cards, like they’re nerdy, but are they um as suggestive? Let’s put it that way. or Or do they lend themselves towards as crude, you know, |
Jon | I don’t know that they are as crude and suggestive. The only one that I ever seen was the Geek Pack. I was at a, I think it might’ve been at SFGE or somewhere when we were at, someone had, they’re out playing and I got to look at a few of the cards. |
Jon | And the ones I went through were not, look, okay, let’s just, let’s just be clear up front. I don’t think the Geek Pack has the big black cock in it. Okay. That’s what you’re thinking. That’s the card. |
George | Wow. |
Mo | One of the things I was worrying about. |
Jon | That’s a card. Right. That’s one of the cards in the base kit. Just caught George off guard. Sorry, George. That’s,-hmm |
Jon | But it it’s all things that wouldn’t be in the base kit. Like it wouldn’t talk about, you know, a sequel query. Well, the geek pack would because geeks would know what that is. You know, why throw in technical terms? |
Jon | So I haven’t seen you can make cards against humanity as inappropriate as you’d like. But I don’t think it’s baked into these cards as much. |
Mo | Right. Okay. |
Jon | All right. ah Yeah. So again, and just for 20 bucks. Mo let’s turn to you. You’re the last one in our under 25 category. What did you pick as a great gift for geeks? |
Mo | Yeah. So I find a lot of the things I have for this whole podcast are actually kind of practical, which is a little boring, but useful. Let’s put it that way. So one of the things I got for under 20 bucks, which was $19. I think I saw it for an on a under 25 rather, um, is the Apple air tags. Now. |
Mo | George, John, you remember way back when we had those tracker things that we were playing with? |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Jon | Certainly. |
Mo | Yeah, you know, and they were kind of well, but they had some problems, right? |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | Yeah. Yep. |
Mo | One, the range was an awesome and some other things. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | But now Apple has these think that the Apple air tags, which one, they work really well. |
Jon | Yep. |
Mo | I mean, they’re really good at finding things, keys, luggage, all that kind of stuff. They’re relatively inexpensive. And the best feature is they have um a battery that you could change. |
Mo | you could actually put a brand new battery in when the battery dies. |
Jon | Oh. Mm hmm. |
Mo | It alerts you to before the battery dies. The drawback is I think they only work with Apple iPhones. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | Ah, oh, really? |
Mo | That’s the drawback on this thing. um But, you know, I mean, back in the day, I mean, we would get like packs of like three tracker things for 70 bucks or whatever it is. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | So, you know, so I think right now, I think they’re going between like from 19, I think maybe now they’re 24 bucks, but still under that 25 limit. |
Jon | Okay. |
Mo | And I have one of my keys. I use it often. It’s is’s pretty helpful. |
Jon | Hmm. |
Jon | we Samsung has something like that too. And I don’t know if, like you said, whether or not the batteries can be changed. that was That’s the game changer for those. Because the ones we picked up before, they would last for a while. |
Jon | I forget even who made them. But after a while, you just had to replace them. And that’s what they encouraged you to do. It was like, well, well they’re only 15, 20 bucks just to change them after a while. |
Mo | Right. |
Jon | But the fact that this is something, I’m surprised they’re not more expensive with a because they could could theoretically last forever. but They seem to generally have come down in price and have come up in durability and functionality. |
Mo | yeah |
Jon | So I had no idea. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | OK. |
George | Yeah, ah for me, it’s I’ve wanted several of these for so long. |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | But the reason why I can’t, they’re only on Apple. |
Jon | Apple, yeah. |
George | Now I know there are similar items in the Android universe, but they’re apparently not nearly as good as the AirTags, which, you know, that happens when Apple makes a good product. |
Mo | this |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | It’s hard for people to knock it off. But I really wish that whatever Apple has done, somebody would figure out on the Android side, cause I’m not buying an Android or sorry, an Apple phone just for the AirTag thing. |
Mo | Just for this. |
Jon | Right. |
Mo | Oh yeah, absolutely. |
Jon | Right. |
Mo | Yeah, yeah. |
Jon | Of course. Yeah. |
George | But every travel blogger that I watch, this is always in their must have travel kit list. |
Mo | Yeah, they stick it in their luggage. |
George | They slip them into the bag in case they’re like, I’ve seen several videos where people have tracked thieves stealing their bags from the airport and taking it to their homes. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | And then they go with the police and get their bags back. |
Jon | Wow. |
George | So they’re extremely useful for, especially for under $25. You said 19, I think you said more or something like that, 20 bucks. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | Yeah, I just really wish there was an Android version. |
Jon | Yeah, there’s got to be something, but like I’m worried that it’s it wouldn’t be as good, you know? |
Mo | Yeah. I actually did look. Yeah. And I actually did look when I saw these like, Oh, only obviously I can find some, it’s a little more generic that would, you know, cover more people. I couldn’t find one. Not for this price, but that’s for sure. |
George | Mm hmm. |
Jon | Hmm. All right. So there are three recommendations under $25 and can get you started. These are gifts you would get someone that you you you kind of like, but we get back from the break. |
Jon | We’re going to step or we’re going to double. |
Mo | since |
Jon | We’re going to double the ceiling on it. And the next gifts are between 25 and 50. Stick around. We’ll be right back with those. |
Mo | kind Like I said before, all the things I picked or most of them are pretty practical, but this one I actually, I know, but this one I think people are going to really like and want to get for people, especially these days with so many people working remote, right? |
Jon | Yeah. Yeah. And most so boring. |
Jon | OK. |
Mo | So many people working at, you know, on ah video calls and chats and all that stuff. |
Jon | Mm hmm. Zoom calls, you bet. |
Mo | The biggest problem I have with those is You’re on mute, John, John, you’re on mute. yeah Come off mute, John, come off mute, John. Okay, now we can hear you. |
Jon | Right. |
Mo | you know So this is actually a thing, it’s called Mute Me. |
Jon | Yeah. |
Mo | It’s an USB, cooks your computer, and it’s a big button that actually works with Zoom, Teams, Webex, and when you hit mute, it mutes it, and it blinks, or it shines red. |
Mo | So you know you’re on mute. |
Jon | Oh, so it’s like a, this wasn’t plugged in the back here. It feels like a, something sits in front of you, like a big button. |
Mo | Yes, it’s actually a button. |
Jon | Okay. |
Mo | It’s USB. |
Jon | Okay. |
Mo | It’s a button. It’s cabled. It’s a button that comes up. But when you go on mute, it actually turns red. So you know you’re on mute. |
Jon | Ah. |
Mo | And then you hit the button again and it takes you off mute. |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | And I looked at a couple. There’s a few products like this. This one’s actually relatively expensive. It’s $27.99, $28. |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | It’s not on Amazon. And the fact that it works with all the different things, like you said, it works with Zoom, Teams, WebEx, you know, all that stuff. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | Apparently, it was like a Shark Tank thing or something like that. |
George | Yeah, that’s what I was going to say. |
Jon | Ah. |
Mo | but |
George | I think I saw this originally like during one of the pandemic episodes on Shark Tank. |
Mo | Oh, really? |
Mo | Ah, OK. So again, I I’m personally thinking about getting one just for myself, because again, that seems to be a general like you never know if you’re on mute, especially if you like, you know, say something inappropriate on the call. |
Mo | You’re like, oh, crap, my mute. And you can immediately look and see that you are not. So I think this is a pretty good value for twenty eight bucks. |
Jon | This is a problem that came out of the pandemic. I mean, we had conference calls, and we had, you know, face calls, FaceTime, Zoom, whatever, I guess Zoom, Zoom exploded during that time. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Mo | No, yeah. |
Jon | But you earn so much. And the problem is, when you have these calls, look, in my old job, I was on these calls working from home. And I literally had like nine straight hours of conference calls. |
Mo | Oh, I remember you doing that. |
Jon | And it got to where you’re like, well, |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | If you want any privacy, if you wanna be able to you know eat your lunch or whatever without ah smacking in the microphone or whatever, you just stay muted a lot because I would be in and calls that i’m just I’m just there because they’re like, we want you to be there to hear whatever happens and I don’t even need to say anything. And I had experienced just what you said many, many times, Mo, where I’m like, okay, well, |
Jon | I chime in and nobody seems to be listening and i realize, oh yeah, I’ve been muted for 30 minutes and I forgot anything. So does it, do you know, is it when it’s not muted, does it turn green or is it just not, is it just off? |
Jon | Is it one of those things? |
Mo | ah i actually should No, I think it actually turns green if you’re up muted and red if you are muted. |
Jon | It’s not like always on. |
Jon | Oh, so green or red. Okay. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | So it’s it’s like a vis indicator that it’s both. I could just imagine the other problem with somebody, you know, a family member comes into the room and they don’t know, are you want to call it like whatever? |
Mo | Yeah. Right. |
Jon | Like, no, if if the puck is grid, you can just talk to me. So I can see that would be, that’d be pretty handy too. |
Mo | Right. |
Jon | me |
Mo | Yeah, so I thought it was pretty good. 28 bucks can’t really go wrong. Practical, but I think pretty useful. So, George, I hope you have something actually fun. So, |
George | Well, I mean, I’ve enjoyed it. It’s something that I own and I’ve talked about it previously on one of our other podcasts, uh, in our tech and toy segment. |
Mo | Okay, there we go. |
George | It’s the game and watch super Mario brothers, the Nintendo version. |
Mo | Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Jon | Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. |
Mo | Mm-hmm. |
George | Yeah. Uh, right now it’s $46 on Amazon. So I picked it up on Woot for a little bit cheaper because they were doing a sale, but Woot is owned by Amazon. So of course, you know, they’ve got it in both places. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Right. Oh, yeah. |
George | Um, You want to go get them as soon as you see them available. Apparently these things do sell out quite regularly. So I’m not sure about if it’s a supply chain issue or if it’s a demand issue, but. |
Mo | Well. |
George | the It’s just really fun. It’s compact. Again, just like the, the cracked atom controller, it’s something I can throw in my pocket and game on the go easily and conveniently. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
George | And I’ve just, I have a lot of places now where I’m going somewhere and I’m having to sit and do nothing for 30 minutes or so. And if I’m sitting in a lobby or a waiting room or something like that. |
George | I’m tired of doom scrolling on my phone. I want to play something and entertain myself. And these little gaming devices, both the cracked Adam and now this game and watch super Mario brothers, uh, they, they allow me to do just that. I can have both those things in my pocket and not feel like my pockets are jammed full because they’re both tiny and at $46, I don’t think you can beat this kind of thing. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Well, you talked about this, as you mentioned, on a previous show, it was something that that you just recently got. And one thing I forgot to ask you about, and not that it’s a deal breaker for me, but there’s something that people do, ah people, companies do now in devices like this. |
George | mhm. |
Jon | And I’m curious whether or not Nintendo did this or not. ah you’re playing it in short session short burst like you said twenty thirty minutes or so and these games were intended to be played like that but as we get older and the amount of time we have to play. |
George | Right. |
Jon | A lot of times companies will offer things like save states to like jump in and out anywhere like save games do you know ah have you experienced does this do this or just act like it’s in any asking you jump in from the start every time has it work. |
George | ah Yeah, well, uh, so I have a deficiency in this area. I am so terrible at this game. I never need a safe state because I usually die within three minutes. So for me, I don’t have a time constraint issue. |
Jon | ah okay |
George | Like somebody else who’s good at a video game might have, uh, |
Jon | It’s like, don’t worry, I’ll be dead soon. Don’t worry. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | it Don’t rush. |
George | It’s like, they’re like, would you hurry up and come on? I’m like, yeah, I’m ah okay. I’m dead. And then I move on and everything’s fine. So I haven’t really paid attention to it. |
Jon | Okay. |
George | I don’t remember it telling me at the beginning, like, you know, click this to save or anything. |
Jon | Got it. |
George | So it probably doesn’t, but it I don’t need it. |
Jon | Yeah. Okay. |
George | And it’s. I know that the game needs it. I believe that I read somewhere though, that the old n NES codes that get you to one level or another, I think in super Mario brothers, like where you could put in a code and jump to level five or whatever. |
Jon | OK. Oh. Huh. |
George | I think those things still work because this is the original cartridge ROM. |
Jon | All right. |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | So other than that, I don’t think it has safe States, but for me, I don’t need them. |
Jon | Got it. All right. |
Jon | Yeah. I don’t think they’re mandatory. I know some people will go, well, if it doesn’t have this and this, these new modern conveniences, they won’t play it. |
Mo | Right. |
Jon | I’m not in that camp. It’s nice to have those. They’re let what I said, modern conveniences, but we didn’t have those back then. I remember, you know, Jonathan, come do such and such. I’m playing a game. |
Jon | I’m on my last man. I’ll be there soon. There was no pause. |
Mo | Right. |
Jon | There was no resume. There was no save for later, anything like that. The codes helped out a lot. And then like, Often they built into games like warp levels. Like we could jump up on this and walk on top of the wall. You can go to warp pipes and stuff. So of course those are still there. So all right. Got it. Thank you. |
Mo | Nice. |
Jon | I’ll just jump in from there. if you Yeah. |
George | Yeah, because you you but I don’t have any way out there. |
Jon | Yeah. I had it. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | Perfect. Perfect. but Yeah. |
Jon | Got to get. So to wrap up the sub $50 range, now this is, ah what did you, mo Mo, you said something about, you know, they’re kind of practical or they’re kind of, you know, so I think this is entirely impractical and I really only picked it because of how cheap it is and |
Mo | Yeah. Okay. |
Jon | I love, love, love GoPros. I think they’re amazing. I think the video quality put out is amazing. The battery life is amazing. Also the price is amazing. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Jon | They’re so, even like three generations old are still $300 and $400 for a thing the size of a golf ball. you know no and There’s a lot of technology in that golf ball and I’m minimizing it, but they’re really steep. |
Mo | Oh, sure. |
Jon | What they have, it’s it’s a battery, storage and a lens. And then of course the the ecosystem and the software that’s baked onto that. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | It’s just too expensive if you want to dabble. So I went looking around and I came across a knockoff of the GoPro. |
Mo | No. |
Jon | So this is made by a company called Apex Cam and they call it the action camera. It’s 4K, 20 megapixel, 170 degree wide angle, wifi, waterproof, 4.G, 2.4 gig remote, all that stuff, $38. |
Mo | Okay. Wow. |
Jon | dollars |
Mo | No way. Really? |
Jon | 38 bucks for effectively a GoPro. And so I’m thinking to myself, well, it can’t be as good as a GoPro. |
Mo | who Yeah. |
Jon | And I’m okay with that. If it’s 90% as good as a GoPro for 75% less money, I think you’re off to, yeah. |
Mo | So yeah, seriously. |
Jon | and And I never, so here’s the deal, I never owned a GoPro. My daughter owned a GoPro and I borrowed it from her sometimes and I loved it. But my daughter doesn’t live here anymore. And so when she moved, the GoPro moved. |
Jon | And so I don’t have access to that if I want to do little things like that. Like one time I shot some B roll by suction cupping it onto the outside of my car, like like shooting footage of like my tire on the street. |
Jon | And you can do that with a GoPro. |
Mo | Right. |
Jon | but you’re not gonna strap your phone on there and do those things, right? There’s no stable. But there’s all these cool little gimmick shots and cool cover shots I just can’t do. And so now this thing, for under 40 bucks, you can almost do all that stuff again. |
George | Now I think to be fair, we need to point out something that we haven’t had to point out in the previous four iterations of this gift guide. |
Jon | Mm. |
George | Some of these prices that we’re talking about, like the one you just mentioned is a black Friday deal. |
Jon | Oh. |
Jon | Ah. |
George | So by the time that people hear this, that price is not going to be there. However, in your particular case, I looked at it, the regular price on this is $48. So it’s still under 50, which is still a great price compared to GoPro, no matter what, but |
Mo | mm hmm. |
Jon | Yes. Right. |
George | That’s something that you guys might find slightly different prices when you go to look at these links that Mo’s going to have in the show notes. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | ah Some of these things are going to be different prices as we move along throughout the Christmas holidays. |
Mo | Good point. |
Jon | yeah Yeah. Yeah. It’s an excellent point, Georgia, and even though the ones that I picked, uh, well, I guess what people try to point out if it’s on sale, but the sales usually like 20% or so. So even if you come to this, A month later, a year later, I bet you they’re going to be no more than about 20%. |
Jon | And by then they might’ve come down a little bit again because it’s no longer you know ah the latest gadget, but yeah. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Mo | Yeah, so ah you have you have one of these, right? |
Jon | I don’t, I don’t, I have the original GoPro. |
Mo | Oh, you don’t. |
Jon | I don’t have this one. |
Mo | Oh, OK. |
Jon | It’s on my list. It’s on my gift guide. |
Mo | Ah. |
Jon | Pay attention, everybody that knows me. |
Mo | Very cool. |
Jon | All right, so that’s gonna wrap up the products we’re recommending under 50. So as George alluded, we’re moving up in the world. We get back between 50 and 100 now. Really nicer gifts for a little more money. |
Jon | Not gonna break the bank, but you’re gonna get more bang for the buck. Stick around. |
George | And I’m back again to start another segment. This time we’re between 50 and $100 on the items that we’re gonna talk about. |
Jon | Mm. |
George | And I wanted to start with something that ah it’s kind of like family oriented for me specifically. It might not be for anyone else, but my family and I really enjoy the Snowpiercer movie and the TV series. |
Jon | OK. |
George | We recently finished it. They wrapped up their final season this year. And after we finished watching the entire TV series and then the movie, my son and I were kind of craving some more snowpiercer ah entertainment, I guess. |
George | And we noticed in all of the episodes that this is based off of an original comic book from France. |
Mo | Oh, really? I did not know that. |
George | And so we went and looked and I finally found a box set of the Snowpiercer comics. |
Mo | Oh. |
George | It’s the four volumes of the originals trade paperbacks, but they’re in three hardback ah boxes or three hardback |
Mo | Hmm. |
George | graphic novels, I guess you’d say, uh, it’s a box set. It’s $60 on Amazon. Now, yes, that is on sale. |
Mo | Hmm. |
George | Like I was talking about in the last episode, but this one typically stays at that sale price of $60. So you go look at it now. |
Jon | does it okay |
George | It’s probably going to be the same later on, but, uh, the, the book so far, my son has read, um, issue number one or trade paperback number one in the box set. |
George | And he was like, holy crap, this is so much different than the series or the movie, which the series and the movie were different from each other. |
Mo | Uh-huh. |
George | So it’s just another way to enter a world about humanity surviving on a train during an apocalypse that apparently he really loved. |
Jon | Does it, okay. |
George | And I can’t wait to start reading it myself. |
Jon | So you mentioned this is very kind of family centric to your family as a big fan of Snowpiercer. And so I’ve heard you talk about this. |
George | Mm hmm. |
Jon | I remember you talking about the movie. I remember you talking about the series and you just, you just gave a great summaries about humanity surviving on a train and an apocalypse, snow, whatever. I’ve never watched a frame of Snowpiercer, not cause I’m not interested. |
Jon | It just never percolated to the top of my thing. So my question really is ah not specifically about this box set, but about the franchise. what yeah ah What about it has drawn you in? Because you talk about it so much. What about it has drawn you in so much and captivated you about this mythical apocalyptic storyline? |
George | Well, I mean, the first one was the movie is a Chris Evans led movie. Um, like maybe 10 years ago, I think it came out something like that. |
Jon | Okay. |
Mo | Yeah, it’s been a while |
George | Um, What I loved about that movie was um just that it was such an interesting society study, right? Like we see character studies all the time where you look at just one individual and how their evolution through a certain situation is. |
Jon | Mmm. Mm-hmm. |
George | But this is a study of society and humankind at large and how we behave right now and how we would probably behave in this situation. |
George | And Snowpiercer is definitely French in its origins. And I don’t think I recognize that until I realized the original comic book was from France. |
George | But once I did, I was like, Oh yeah, that makes a ton of sense because it’s all about class systems and the haves and the have nots. |
Jon | Oh, right. |
George | And you know, the French people have been through so many revolutions. I can’t even count at this point. Uh, but it starts with, |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
George | The hero of the story being what they call a tailie at the back of the train, locked in a windowless set of cars, a whole bunch of people crammed in there forced to eat the this food that is made up of basically all the cockroaches ground together on the train kind of stuff. |
Mo | Ooh. |
Jon | o |
Jon | oh |
Mo | Yeah, it’s gross. |
George | um At one point they weren’t even being fed so everybody in the tail had to resort to cannibalism and stuff and so that’s a part of the story and it’s all about how they decide to revolt and move their way up the train up society through the classes to reach the engine and take control. |
Jon | Oh. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | Uh, the movie has a Chris Evans, like I said, it also has Ed Harris and John Hurt, uh, as major characters in the story. |
Jon | Oh. |
George | The TV show has, um, a whole bunch of different people, cause it’s a much broader ah thing, but Jennifer Connelly is one of the leads along with ah Sean Bean is also one of the leads. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Mm. Right. |
George | So, uh, it’s. That series talks a lot more about society whereas the movie is just the revolution. The series is more about an ongoing saga and day-to-day struggle for life. |
Jon | Wow. |
George | ah The comic book it’s several volumes long and they also have some prequel volumes that have been written by others that we haven’t picked up yet but I just really like the world that has been created from it by the different stewards of the storyline, the directors and writers of the movies and the TV shows. |
George | And I believe obviously the source material comic book is going to be great. Otherwise it wouldn’t have gotten these two different, uh, iterations. |
Jon | Wow, that’s, yeah. that That’s the most detailed information I’ve ever heard about it. It makes me much more interested. Like the train is like a like a tangible analogy for the class system, huh? |
George | Mm-hmm. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Damn, okay. |
George | Yeah. Yeah. |
Jon | Well, maybe I need these books. Well, I’ll watch the show first and then we’ll see. |
George | Matt, you i never know. Mo, what about you? You got something for under a hundred that everybody’s going to enjoy. |
Mo | Yeah, this is a good, probably, well, for yourself or a gift for somebody else. There’s a thing, it’s a Arduino starter kit. And for those of you who don’t know what Arduino is, it’s kind of like a Raspberry Pi system, like the little mini computers. |
Jon | Okay. |
Mo | And this is a whole electronic set. So if you have a kid or yourself and you just really love like electronics and building stuff and making little gadgets and stuff, the Arduino set is like really cool. |
Mo | Right now it’s $93 and it comes with, the Arduino, which is like a little tiny on one on board computer, you know, it comes with everything, basically everything you need to do like 12 different little projects like alarms and you can control things. Um, and the nice thing about this, if somebody is like real, really interested in this stuff, is that once they get past this, |
Mo | there are entire websites and groups and everything of people who’s like, Hey, here’s how to do this. And here’s a parts list to go get to build this thing. And here’s this, and here’s how you pro here’s code to do all this stuff. So it’s a good gift for somebody who’s just like, just really like into computers and coding and building little robots or contraptions or whatever. This is a really cool but a fun kit to get. |
George | So first of all, Mo, I think the term you might have been looking for it is SBC, single board computer. |
Mo | yeah Thank you. |
George | That’s what Arduinos are, right? |
Mo | Little tiny things, yeah. |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | Yeah. Only reason why I know that a couple of channels I watch, that’s what they do all day long is review SBCs. But to your point about the different projects that are out there, number one, |
George | um Another guy who has a channel called I like to make stuff. He uses Arduinos for a whole bunch of different things around his shop. The one that was the most interesting and unique to me was he had these ah blinds that he wanted to raise and lower in his little area to basically cover a window and black it out. And he used Arduino for the raising, but also the most, the coolest part was when it closed, he had the blind hit a little switch and the switch had a reaction from the Arduino board to cause it to stop rolling down any further. |
Jon | Oh, uh huh. |
Mo | Right. |
George | So you wouldn’t just like unroll the whole blind accidentally. |
Mo | Right. |
George | It was really neat, cute little project. But in looking at this kit, John, you need to go check this out, I think, and and a lot of our other people, because Gen Xers will specifically see the image that’s here. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
George | And you remember those old electronic kit boards that we used to be able to get at the toy store? |
Jon | Radio Shack. |
Mo | Radio Shack. |
George | Yeah, Radio Shack and Toy Store stuff. |
Mo | Yeah, exactly. Heathkit. |
George | It reminds me of that, just a more modern version. |
Mo | Yeah. Yeah. |
Jon | Yeah. |
Mo | It, it definitely got my interest. I actually bought one for myself. I played with it. It’s just cause, um, as a kid, my dad used to get things called Heath kits, I think they were called and radio shack sold them. |
Jon | Yeah. oh |
Mo | And I built my own little digital alarm clock and I built my own little, you know, now those were very single purpose kits. Like you build this one thing and that’s pretty much it. But I mean, I was soldering stuff. |
Mo | I was, you know, making things and just the fact that you build something and make it happen. And I really liked this cause I think it gives, especially kids, like more understanding about how things work. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | you know, which I think is a lot of things that we’re kind of lacking today in some states. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Jon | There is, you know, I saw, it’s kind of a meme, it was a little comic, but it reminds me, it’s looked like Gen Zers. And you know, the current generation, talking about how how much aptitude they have with electronics and computers and phones and the digital and touch and everything. And then the next panel of the comic was the same the same character as a young person going, my computer says there’s a problem with my C drive. What’s a C drive? |
Jon | And it illustrates that, yeah, the younger generation, they’re very ah they’re very aware and knowledgeable ah how to use computers, but not… Why why is it when I touch the screen does something happen? |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Jon | Why is it when I push this button, the volume goes up? |
Mo | right |
Jon | What’s happening actually in the background? And there’s something to be said for… Haven’t you ever had those epiphany moments of you use something all your life and then you figure out how it works? And you’re like, oh, I have a greater appreciation, understanding and could actually fix this thing if I needed to because you you you learned at the core functionality in the background. And that I think that applies here to that comic. We’re like, |
Jon | Yes, younger people are very, very tech savvy, but they’ve never seen that Radio Shack kit. You’re talking about George ever seen a Heath kit. |
Mo | Right. |
Jon | They never taken their flip clock apart to find out how it works like I did and could never put it back together. There is something interesting and. |
Jon | educational in a in a deeper level of like, oh, understanding how the world works. not It’s not just, oh, these wires connect. Oh, I see there’s resistance and ohms and things like that. |
Mo | Right. |
Jon | It makes you understand everything in the world better. And I think if you can get a younger kid interested in that, they’re going to have a better grasp on everything. |
Mo | Yeah, I agree for sure. |
Jon | Neat kid. |
Mo | Yeah. So that’s what I have. So actually John, I think your thing looks actually practical. |
Jon | It is, but it’s also a lot of fun, right? And it’s something that I actually already own and I love it. And in fact, I was missing one piece of it and when looking to see if I could buy just the piece. And that’s what made me decide to put it on this this list. |
Jon | It’s iFixit. I think we’ve talked about them before. |
Mo | Oh yeah. |
George | Mm hmm. |
Jon | They make these wonderful kits that are, I think initially they were making, I think iFixit was a brand for fixing phones initially, but they’ve really grown into an engineer’s, |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | go-to toolkit manufacturer. So the one I chose is the one the very one that I use and have and love. And it’s called the iFixit Pro-Tech Toolkit. And it advertises kind of being for smartphone and tablet repair. Excuse me. |
Jon | Because it has all those little things like for like suction cups and the little guitar pick things for lifting a screen if you have to change it. But it’s way more than that. It’s stuff you would never think you would need for a phone. |
Jon | But for any technical stuff, look, if you’re somebody who’s taken ah little screws out of eyeglasses or electronics or taking the battery box off or you need to take something apart, |
Mo | Hmm. |
Jon | It’s got, I don’t know, dozens and dozens of little specific, very, very precise um screwdriver bits, including like those crazy security bits that you normally wouldn’t be in a toolkit, not Phillips and straight, like weird triple prongs and helix shapes and stuff like that. |
Mo | Oh, well. |
Jon | So for opening stuff that you shouldn’t be able to open if you want to tinker with, ah ah It has a driver bit for that, all these blades for it, extensions, tweezers, all these precision kits. And I use this daily. And sometimes it’s just, I need a screwdriver or something like that, but it’s not… |
Jon | The reason I wanted it, and I got a couple of years ago, I needed something to open up a little piece of electronics, get the battery box off, and I’d go to the you the garage and get the screwdriver, but the screwdriver was too big, it was blunted, or it was not great. This is good for precision work on small devices and electronics and toys and gadgets. I think it’s a fantastic dad gift, for because the dad is the guy that has to fix things, and dad, might my this isn’t working, my this isn’t working. |
Jon | I literally, it’s in arm’s reach. I can see it right now. I can look over. It’s something I pick up and work with every single day here in my studio and working on stuff that I’m that i’m either have to either fix or find out why it doesn’t work or even just put the batteries in or something. So it’s made by iFix. I don’t think I said though, it’s the price, 75 bucks. |
Mo | Ooh, okay. |
Jon | 75 bucks. Now this one I look and I actually see it’s got a bunch of different I see it ranging from 75 to 85 still within the 100 limit that we set for ourselves. ah But yeah, I fixed I think we all probably have one form or fashion. |
Jon | I know George has a big drawer of of screwdrivers and bits and stuff in his office that I’ve stolen from before him when I was over you you gave me some stuff. |
Mo | this |
Jon | But yeah, so that’s ah that’s my recommendation. The I fix it Pro tech toolkit is a good addition. |
Jon | We’re up to our last segment of recommended geek gifts that we yeah we have in this episode. And this is under $250. We took a little jump. ah These are the things you’re probably gonna get your loved one or your very best friend, or maybe you just have money to burn, that’s okay. |
Jon | ah This first one, you know, George, you said the Snowpiercer was very family centric. My first pick in the under 250 is very family centric. |
George | Mhm. |
Jon | It’s a very intimate gift. |
George | Mhm. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | Don’t get it for someone that doesn’t know they, you don’t know for sure they want it, but you all gave me grief a couple of years ago when my pick for a tech toy was a bidet for our commode. |
George | Mhm. |
Jon | It has since ah become quite popular with several of us. I know George had one in his his ah closet. Did you ever get that one hooked up, George? |
George | Uh, yeah, well I have, I’ve had one outside of the one in my closet hooked up for several years now, but one in my closet was supposed to be for the other bathroom. |
Jon | Oh, did you? Okay, yep. |
George | It’s still sitting there. |
Jon | Okay, all right, so so we’ve talked about the benefits of a bidet. It’s very common in European countries and stuff, not so much in the US. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
Jon | So the brief benefits, it’s it’s a water jet that cleans your butt after you go to the bathroom. Let’s be as nice as we can about it. In my family, we have become very, very happy with using a bidet. It literally does save on the cost of like, you know, toilet paper and cleaning and stuff like that. But it still is just a jet of cold water shot at your butt. That’s what it is. So we’ve been looking at upgrades and man did I find You can get a little bidet for like 40 or 50 bucks, and it just hooks into your seat. |
Jon | This is a Smart Bidet toilet seat. So this isn’t an add-on. |
Mo | Uh-oh. |
Jon | This it replaces the entire seat. You unbolt the seat you’ve got, and you bolt this on. |
Mo | Mm-hmm. |
Jon | And right now it’s running about $219. Let me tell you what the Levi’s Smart Bidet toilet seat does. It has… Why are you laughing? |
Jon | It has… |
Mo | No, it’s ah good finishing. |
Jon | So it, it has the jets of water for cleaning front, cleaning back. It has air rated water. It has instant warm water. It has hot air blow dry, if you would like. |
Jon | It has controls on the side of the seat. It has a remote control. You can hold in your hand to control all the things that it does. You remove your existing toilet seat. You put this on. |
Jon | its It must have, I haven’t seen, but I think it must have access to electricity as well, but you to tap it into the water and it replaces your entire seat. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | It also has a nightlight. So you get up in the middle of the night and you come in and you don’t want to lose your sleep, but you got to go to the bathroom. It just has like this led d nightlight, like a soft glow. So you don’t have to turn on all the lights. |
Jon | This is the best upgrade for anyone’s bathroom activities that I could imagine. ah Basic bidets like 50, this is only 200 bucks, 220, I think list price, 299. So it’s discount right now got it into this barrier, but it’s still not crazy for something you’re gonna use every day and it’s gonna improve your quality of life. |
George | Yeah, essentially looking at the link that you provided, this turns your American toilet into a Japanese toilet. Japanese toilets are awesome. |
Jon | There you go. |
George | They are the best invention for bathroom activities ever. Uh, in Japan, they even have those kinds of smart toilets in public toilets, not just in private residences, which is why I think a lot of things over there are much better than they are over here. |
Jon | Mm hmm. Yeah. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Happier people. |
George | Um, right. But i the only things that I’ll say is now they have two different models. So when you go to click on John’s link, make sure that if you have a round toilet, you select the right one versus the elongated ah because not everybody has one or the other, you know, it’s different different styles. |
Jon | Mm hmm. Yes. |
Mo | Oh, right. Yeah. yeah |
Jon | Right, right, right. |
George | But the remote is the one that is making me consider buying this because as my wife has had her stroke, |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
George | Most of those ones that you just attach and they have the little spray nozzles and you do the hose and everything, their controls are off to the side of the device and they’re in an awkward place. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Yep. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
George | And for her, it’s virtually impossible for her to use it. And she liked using the bidet before she had her stroke. So having this remote would make that |
Jon | All right. |
George | usable for her again and I I think it might be worth it to spend $200 we’re already replacing the toilet in our bathroom anyway might as well go ahead and get this along with it although oddly enough this is more expensive than the toilet we’re putting in |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Jon | I hadn’t even considered the accessibility. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | aspect of this. But yeah, I was actually thinking about the nefarious like, what if I had the remote and when I heard my wife was in the bathroom, I just like shoot, shoot a jet of water at her and surprise her. |
Mo | Oh. but |
Jon | But I had not considered the actual altruistic benefits of this. If you have limited mobility or you have a disability that you don’t have that easy motor control to get to, that is a great had had not even occurred to me. |
Jon | That’s yeah, another benefit. |
Mo | so So I know I was one of the people who gave John a ton of shit when he brought this up. |
Jon | Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. |
Mo | I have two now. |
George | Literally. |
Jon | Literally, George. |
Mo | i Every every every one of my bathrooms has one. So, you know, oh, yeah. |
Jon | Does it? Really? |
Mo | Oh, yeah, and and they’ve been there for a while. |
Jon | Yeah? Okay. |
George | Yeah. South Park got it right. |
Mo | I just didn’t want to admit it Yes Yeah, big toilet big big TP Yeah, and so, um, yeah, and’ve I said I’ve had him for a while. |
George | The toilet paper monopoly industry is real. They are desperate to keep these things out of American homes. Trust me, Americans, it makes everything better. |
Mo | I just it wouldn’t admit that you were right So that’s the reason why I kind of kept this to myself but |
George | he |
Mo | but But I mean, honestly, we got just the basic ones, like you said, like the ones that just hook up and blah, blah, blah. |
Jon | Yeah. |
Mo | The only downside I do see this that you do have to have access to power. That’s the only thing because some bathrooms, especially if history you have a separate one that doesn’t have power in the room itself, you’re going to have to do some finagling. |
Jon | Yep. |
Mo | I guess they get that to work. But I mean, it’s ah I don’t know how I feel about the fact that I’m looking at this being like, Oh man, that’s cool. You know what I mean? |
Jon | Yeah, yeah you know the power aspect is one of those things because this is not a common technology in North America. It’s not uncommon to not have immediate access to an electrical outlet in the the room where your bathroom is or may it might not be on the wall where your commode is even, right? |
Mo | Yeah, right. |
Jon | And so, but looking at all the features on this and knowing how much improves you know the quality of your your personal sanitary life, I’m willing to run a cable. I’m kind of thinking maybe it’d be worth it. |
George | I see these things hooked up all the time in a bunch of different YouTube videos for the like homeowner crafty kind of DIY things and stuff and most often they just run them through a hole that’s been drilled in the vanity near the toilet and then somebody takes the electrical outlet that’s on the wall above the vanity runs a cable down into the vanity from there and |
Jon | Mm hmm. Yeah. |
George | You’re good. But I find it very funny that America is the one country that doesn’t do this. |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | I have been to the Philippines, as you guys remember, several years ago. |
Mo | Mm hmm. |
George | And in order to hook up a hot water source in the shower, because they only had cold running water at the time in the house. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
George | And I was like, bullshit, I’m not taking cold showers the whole time I’m there. The electrician installed an outlet in the fucking shower. |
Mo | Oh, my God. |
Jon | What? |
George | I was terrified of being electrocuted, but it’s a common practice in a lot of other countries to have electricity in interesting areas that we wouldn’t even consider in America. |
Mo | Oh, that’s funny. |
Jon | Right. hu |
George | So surely somebody out there can figure out how to hook this up for you if you can’t do it yourself. |
Jon | Oh, well, yeah. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | Well, if I pick it up or get it gifted to me, I will make it happen. It’s not, it’s not going to be one of those is going to sit in a box for a couple of years until I get to it it. I’ll, I’ll make it happen. All right. Well, I’ve talked enough about that crap. |
Jon | Crap George. ah Thank you. Oh, how about you? What is your pick here for our top tier? |
George | Yeah. I mean, we all three have 3d printers and 3d printers are getting more mature. |
Mo | it |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | The platforms are getting better every day. Uh, they’re also getting, um, a little bit more restrictive, like certain printers only work in certain ecosystems, maybe with certain software or things of that nature. |
George | Um, there’s still a lot of independent making stuff going on out there, but |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | One company that’s kind of risen above some of the others, especially on YouTube is Bamboo Lab. |
Mo | Oh yeah, yeah. |
George | They produced the very first super fast bed slingers that were not only fast, but also still high quality. |
Jon | Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. |
George | They’re doing other stuff. One of their very popular models is the Bamboo Lab A1. Well the A1 Mini is an affordable version of that Bamboo Labs A1. |
George | So it’s a much smaller printer but right now on their website it’s $199. |
Mo | Wow. |
George | Extremely affordable for how fast |
Jon | Mmm. What? |
George | this printer is, um especially considering the quality prints that you can get out of it. You can also then add their ah ABS light tool to add multicolor or multi-filament. |
George | options to your printer while you’re just printing one thing. I’ve even seen a video recently where a guy has figured out a way to take the rubberized TPU filaments along with the PLA and mix the two together in a single print project like making a window scraper for his car that has the rubber tip but the hard plastic handle |
Jon | Oh, really? |
George | Brilliant stuff going on in the community, but you can’t do any of this unless you have a 3d printer at home that has these capabilities bamboo labs have a ton of stuff through their ecosystem and granted that’s why I said some things. |
George | work in an ecosystem. They have this one tool on their website. You give them a 2D face forward photo of anybody and they turn it into a bust with one simple click that downloads to your printer and you can print it, put it on a little stand or whatever like this guy showed Abraham Lincoln. |
George | They do, ah they have like other ones that you take another image for color and they turn it into a key chain for you. If you’re selling key chains on Etsy or something like that. |
George | I’m telling you for a $200 intro into the universe and then later on you get the ABS light. I think they’re like 75 or a hundred or something like that. |
Jon | Hmm. Hmm. Hmm. |
George | If you’re looking to get into the 3D maker space, this might be the way to go right now. |
Jon | I am stunned by that price. I feel like, so let me tell you how I use my 3D printer. I do use it occasionally. Every time I use it, I need to dust it off. |
George | Mm-hmm. |
Jon | So that should give you an idea of how frequently. |
George | Yep. |
Jon | Now, when I do, what I’m able to make is amazing and very simple stuff. I’m like, oh, I need this, like a part for something, you know, like a, I made a part for my drawer. |
Jon | Like there’s a bracket that broke in a kitchen drawer and like, perfect. There was a model, all that stuff. I use it for very utilitarian purposes, but when I need it, it’s perfect. I had not been paying attention to how common now is, you’re talking about multi-filament, multi-color, all that kind of stuff. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | That seems alien to me. That was the multi-thousand dollar printers when I got in, we got into this one, the Creality some time ago. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | Yeah. Now it’s common. I mean, they have that ABS light that I was talking about for this specific model. |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | They have another unit that sits on top of their main unit. ah It’s more expensive and a more expensive system. |
Jon | Mm-hmm. |
George | That’s why I’m championing this because it’s an entry level system to get into and do 3d printing and multicolor. |
Jon | Gotcha. Yeah. |
Mo | Nice. |
Jon | huh |
George | um Other companies have plenty of multicolor solutions. |
Mo | Mm-hmm. |
George | I’ve seen eight, I’ve seen 16 colors out there. |
Mo | Yeah, oh, yeah, it’s crazy, isn’t it? |
George | So, |
Jon | Wow. |
George | It’s just a matter of how active you’re going to use your printer and how much money you want to spend. ah But it’s definitely a great time to get in all the stuff that we did when we first got in with the Creality six, whatever SE or whatever it was called. um It’s definitely not only the next generation, but probably the generation after that with 3D filament printing. Now, I still have not ventured into ah the liquid |
Mo | yeah i mean either |
George | 3d printing yet, the resin printing, I want to because of the detail you get on miniatures and whatnot. |
Jon | Yeah, the resin stuff or whatever, yeah. |
George | But there are so many people doing such good miniature work with these filament printers today. |
Jon | Yeah. |
George | that you could still go cheap with a filament printer and get really amazing miniature results as well. So $199 on their site. I gave Mo the link for the Amazon site because there it’s 255. |
Mo | Yeah, me either. |
George | But if you have prime, you don’t have to pay for the shipping, which could put it over our 250 limit. |
Mo | Hmm. |
Jon | so it might be better, okay. |
George | Uh, but I mean, 200 to 250 for a 3d printer. That’s awesome in my book, especially one that is capable as the a one lab mini. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | starting to feel like 3d printers are like remember when it’s not a direct parallel but like like not everybody had a microwave a few people had a microwave and then eventually people got one because they felt like they needed to one or maybe it’s like a |
George | Mm hmm. |
Mo | yeah |
Jon | a VCR or something, you know, in the early, early days and of adoption kind of thing. A VCR was more, again, not a great analogy, but not everybody had them, but people got them because other people did, even though they didn’t necessarily use them a lot. |
Jon | They’re starting to get like, they’re so much more capable that we’re not the early adopter crowd anymore. It’s like, oh, look at this mature product that does these amazing things that you can only dream of three years ago. |
Jon | And now, and for 200 bucks, holy crap. |
George | Yeah. I mean, the, the early adoption stuff is not what we did with our basic 3d printing stuff that we got in on the early adoption stuff. |
Jon | I’m just stunned. Yeah. |
George | Now we’re on things like a multi-axis belt fed kind of things that do infinite printing forever. |
Mo | mm hmm. |
George | Those are kind of like the early adopter status. Now the straightforward 3d printer that prints stuff fast and clean and quick. |
Jon | Yep. |
George | We’re in the mature consumer space now. |
Mo | Yeah, I agree. |
George | We’re not in the early adoption space anymore. |
Jon | It’s impressive. It’s crazy where how far that’s come just in what, five years or so. |
George | Yeah. |
George | Yeah, absolutely. |
Jon | Yeah, cool. |
George | All right, Mo, what about you? You’re last up on the hip parade. |
Mo | Yep. |
George | You got something that everybody wants to buy for under 250. |
Mo | Yeah, I do. It’s it’s practical again. um So but hopefully people will find some use for this. |
Jon | Yeah. |
Mo | It’s the Euro mesh Wi-Fi router. |
Jon | Oh, it’s awesome. |
George | Mmm. |
Jon | Yep. |
Mo | So my house, yeah okay. |
Jon | Yep. Pre-approved. |
Mo | So like my house is not huge by any stretch, but I still have spots in my house where the wifi signal isn’t awesome. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | You know, And you know, which you think inside my house, it should be a hundred percent everywhere inside my house. |
Jon | Yep. |
Mo | It’s not the case. So what this does is that I guess it has a different protocol for sending out the, uh, the signal. so it’s So it’s like a different protocol. It’s like stronger and faster, but you place these little satellite things in the dead spots of your house and it makes them wifi active. |
Mo | I mean, they are, and you get the full, the full bandwidth and it’s, they work really, really, really, really well. Um, They, the Euro, this one in particular, I really like because it comes with two satellite pieces, not just one. |
Mo | So you actually can place them in two spots. So for instance, like if you’re a bedroom, you do a lot of streaming video and stuff like that, you know, and maybe you don’t have the best wifi signal. |
Jon | Yep. |
Mo | Maybe you can’t get full HD or 4k. Stick one of these puppies in it. There you go. You can probably be able to do everything you want to and more. It’s right now, it is on Black Friday sale, but I did see this 194, which normally I think it’s like 299 or something crazy. |
Mo | But, um, I saw this price like a week ago at the same price. So I’m thinking it’s probably going to stay around this level probably through Christmas via the guests. But I think it’s like super useful, gets rid of those dead spots. |
Mo | And it so again, everyone’s working at home more often. |
Jon | Tell |
Mo | So I think that’s even more important. |
Jon | you. Oh. |
George | So I took a look at this because I have a bad history with the Aero products. |
Mo | Oh, OK, OK. |
George | When we first got our fiber service here in Tallahassee, the Aero was what they were giving us for the routers in our homes. |
Jon | Hmm. |
Mo | OK. |
George | And the problem I had with them is at that time, and I don’t know about the one that you’re looking at, because I know it says it’s the newer model on the Amazon link, but they were passively cooled instead of actively cooled. |
Mo | just |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | Now, routers, |
Jon | Hmm. |
George | for lack of a better term, are nothing more than computers. They have a CPU in them, they have fans and memory and everything else, so they need, in my opinion, to have some kind of cooling. |
Mo | Sure. |
Jon | Sure. |
George | SBCs like the Raspberry Pi or the Arduino that you were talking about earlier, Mo, |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | Even those traditionally these days for as powerful as they become need active cooling. And I never understood why Aero chose to go cheap by not putting a fan inside these cases and mine kept overheating and disconnecting. |
Mo | and Okay. |
Jon | oh no. |
Mo | Oh, okay. |
George | Now I guess yours doesn’t because you really like it and that’s great. The other problem that I’m wondering is these hotspots for wifi have been around for years. |
George | You’re not the first one to the market on this. |
Mo | but no no but but a far |
George | I still have some TP link ones that I picked up for like 10 bucks for the satellite device that would work with any router, regardless of brand. Will these era satellites work with any other router or only an era router is what I was going to ask you. |
Mo | It works with any router. You basically plug it directly. |
George | Okay. |
Mo | It has a like a cable connection to your router, like the base unit, and then it sends that signal. |
Jon | Mm hmm. |
Mo | like yeah I think it’s it just a different protocol, I guess, that goes through walls and stuff much easier than the normal Wi-Fi. But yeah, it works with any router. You just plug the base unit into your router. |
Jon | Yeah, I have this very kit that you’re recommending. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | I but but had the base unit and two of the extensions, and that’s exactly what I’ve been using for years now, ever since the this Mesh 6 Plus came out is when I picked it up. |
Mo | Mm-hmm. |
Jon | And I’m a big fan for several several reasons, many of which you’ve already enumerated. As you were asking, George, I plug it in to one of the spigots on my router and it creates a new wifi network that basically clones mine and starts whatever its mesh is. |
George | Mm hmm. |
Jon | I will pretend that I know how it works, but I call it mesh network. It seems to be worked very well. |
Mo | Yeah. |
Jon | And I’ll tell you just a brief anecdote about what worked really well for me. We have, and you’ve set it up more perfectly. What if you have a bedroom or Wi-Fi is not so great? Literally, when I set this up, I put one in the middle of the house and it was great. |
Jon | I put one in the closet, didn’t need it. And then a month or so ago, my wife was like, man, when when I’m in bed on my Kindle, I have trouble streaming video. It’s not working great. Is there something we can do? And I said, hey, we have one of those we mesh things. Let’s see what I can do. Brought it out, plugged it in. There’s an app you configure with and you say, find new hardware. It finds it. Connect to this network. Yes. And let me run some tests. |
Jon | Okay, it’s in an ideal location. So it knows what kind of signal it needs. It doesn’t give you numbers or stuff, you know, find a better height. It just says, I’ve i’ checked. It’s a great the location. It now from that point on extends the network out. |
Jon | So you could you piggyback these. You can go to the next one, to the next one. |
Mo | Oh |
Jon | I just looked and saw they have indoor outdoor mesh extenders, you want to put one out by the pool, you know, when we’re about getting wet, plug it in and off it goes. |
Mo | wow. |
George | Mmhmm. |
Jon | And it’s given me fantastic Wi Fi signal. and And I got it to fix the very problem you said we had trouble in the back of the house, I had trouble up in the front of the house. And That went away. |
Jon | ah for the for the For the quality of peace of mind to know that you’re not, and somebody’s gonna go, the internet’s bad, how come it sucks? It just isn’t. It just makes it super stable. I’ve been very happy with this specific brand that you’re talking about. |
Jon | Works great. |
Mo | Okay. |
Jon | I never had an overheating problem with this version, so it probably was something they matured. |
Mo | Well, there you go. |
Jon | I don’t know that it has a fan, it’s pretty quiet, but i have I’ve never had ever a device say it has a problem. So it’s been good now. |
Mo | All right. Well, there you go. |
Jon | There it is, okay. So we’ve what we brought you, 12 or so, 12 or so, something like that, 16, I don’t know, yeah, yeah. |
Mo | Mm-hmm. 12. 12. |
George | No. |
Jon | 12, four, yeah, I can’t count. |
George | Yeah. 12. |
Mo | Yeah. |
George | Three items, four four categories. |
Jon | 12 products, thank you for the math, Mo. |
Mo | Four times, four times three. |
George | Yeah. |
Jon | Math, can I make me Arduino do a calculator? I need that, yes. |
Mo | Yeah, you can. |
Jon | So we brought you your 12 picks in various price categories that if not perfect gifts for someone in your life, maybe get you started down a path or an idea. Mo, as always, you’re going to provide a link to all of these down in the show notes. |
Mo | Absolutely. |
Jon | They all have affiliate links for Gen X growing up. If you’d like to help us out and click there to do it, we certainly would appreciate you. I’ll tell you, someone else we appreciate, they got to talk about before we leave the show. And that’s our patrons who support us over on patreon dot.com. |
Jon | And so many times we talk about, we have some new patrons we’d like to welcome. These are folks who went over to genexgrownup.com slash Patreon and set up a regular recurring pledge to make sure that we can continue to bring you this show and the content we do on YouTube. |
Jon | I want to thank Jason H., brand new patron, just joined us, as well as Josh, no last initial. So Josh, you know who you are. |
Mo | Wow. |
Jon | It’s Josh. |
Mo | two Awesome. |
Jon | Thank you for for supporting Gen X growing up. We love bringing you these shows. ah We love getting together to talk about the things that we’re talking about on here. And it’s clear that many, many other people do. And the fact that they put their money where their mouth is and support us for as little as a dollar a month. |
Jon | Thank you. Thank you so much for that really means the world to us. That is going to wrap it up then for this now fifth annual geek a gift guide backtrack. We hope you found some good gifts on it. |
Jon | We will be back in two weeks with another backtrack and next week with a regular edition of our show. Until then, I am John George. Thank you so much for being here, man. |
George | Yes, sir. |
Jon | Mo, you know, I appreciate you. |
Mo | Always fun, man. |
Jon | Fourth Lister, it’s you. We all three appreciate most of all, though. We can’t wait to talk to you again next time. but Bye bye. |
George | See you guys. |
Mo | Take care, everybody. |