Brad & Will Made a Tech Pod.
by Brad Shoemaker, Will Smith
Latest episode
364: You're Folding it Wrong!
364: You're Folding it Wrong!
About this podcast
Each Sunday, Brad Shoemaker and Will Smith discuss a new technology topic. Come for the long-form conversations about virtual reality, space travel, electric cars, refresh rates, and a whole lot more.
Support the pod on Patreon: http://patreon.com/techpod
Episodes
The newest 50 of 375 episodes
- 364: You're Folding it Wrong! · 1 h 7 min · Episode 364It was a pretty momentous week in US politics this week with a historic midterm election outcome that inspired us to sit down and discuss our media consumption on election night…
- 363: The Theoretical Becomes Real · 1 h 7 min · Episode 363Last week was a rough one in the annals of cybersecurity, with a major vulnerability in the PHP language that runs the majority of the web, and a grossly negligent lapse in the…
- 362: Bigger Sample Size Better · 1 h 24 min · Episode 362The year's most horrifying crop of questions has arrived (accompanied by some fun spooky usernames), and we bare our fangs as we address such topics as: 5AM air travel hacks…
- 361: The Definitive Hoth Level · 1 h 8 min · Episode 361Inspired by the recent 30th anniversary of the Nintendo 64's release in North America, we decided to do some reading this week and try to gain at least a layperson's…
- 360: The Bridgestone Affair · 1 h 12 min · Episode 360Brad's on the road this week, so we shook up another potpourri of mini-topics to discuss, including DIY VR mods, the questionable wisdom of working remotely on a brand new…
- 359: Potatoes From the Sky · 1 h 4 min · Episode 359This week we round up some news items that have caught our interest in the last few weeks. Google and Walmart have rolled out a backyard drone-delivery program for small orders…
- 358: It's a DE-rail, Not a DB-rail · 1 h 12 min · Episode 358It turns out we haven't answered all the questions that have ever been asked yet, so we figured we'd take a few more from you, the listener, this week, covering topics like cell…
- 357: Drag Your PC Into the Back Yard · 1 h 10 min · Episode 357Following up on our bonus Steam Frame episode earlier this week, Tested's Norman Chan stops by to go much deeper on Valve's new standalone headset, unpacking topics like the pros…
- 356 Extra! - Steam Frame Edition · 25 minValve sent us a review unit of their new standalone VR headset, the Steam Frame and we're here with first impressions, after testing it for about 40 hours over the course of a…
- 356: Small Team, Big Thinking · 59 min · Episode 356This week we sat down with the 2018 documentary General Magic, about the early '90s startup of the same name that was full of Macintosh veterans who were way ahead of their time…
- 355: Spindly, Greebly · 1 h 15 min · Episode 355We're back with another hodgepodge of user-submitted topics this week to clear out some of our backlog from the summer, leading us to talk about everything from uses for a PC's…
- 354: The Dog Nose Knows · 1 h 9 min · Episode 354The Q&A returns for August with a variety of topics including pet-related tech mishaps, the contentious multimeter pronunciation debate, arcade boards and Super NES expansion…
- 353: Notes About Notes · 1 h 18 min · Episode 353It's been a while since we checked in on note-taking apps and ways to wrangle their data, and a lot has changed with our personal use cases on that front. Will has gone deep on…
- 352: Tell the Robots to Eff Off · 1 h 11 min · Episode 352We reach into the grab bag again this week for a selection of topics we hope will delight and/or inform. On the AI front, Twitch stepped in it this week with a belated ability to…
- 351: if Name == "Will Smith" { Grade = "A" } · 1 h 28 min · Episode 351Brad and Will reconvene this week to talk about their recent adventures in the real world. Brad returns from the Vintage Computer Festival West once again with a recap of this…
- 350: Mice Make Bad Decisions · 1 h 19 min · Episode 350Our friend Steve Lin joins Will this week for a broad discussion about hobbies, learning new skills, and preserving the past. Topics include everything from the multidisciplinary…
- 349: We're Gonna Do Some Popcorn Science Here · 1 h 2 min · Episode 349It's our first-ever solo Q&A episode, and Will takes on a backlog of awesome questions from the audience. Topics include Will's favorite way to make popcorn, under-volting for…
- 348: Vincent Caravella, Back Alley Electrician · 1 h 42 min · Episode 348In a wide-ranging conversation, Nextlander's Vinny Caravella sits down with Will to ask a cavalcade of questions. Topics include whether paid search engines are worth the cash…
- 347: Is That The Monster from Godzilla? · 1 h 15 min · Episode 347PC Gamer and Read Only Memo's Wes Fenlon joins us on the pod this week to talk about the latest retro game recompilations for N64, PSX, and Xbox 360 games, with a big bonus…
- 346: Are Steam Sales Even That Good? · 1 h 23 min · Episode 346This week, Will is joined by Tested's Norman Chan to dig deep into their extensive hands on testing with the Steam Machine, including how it fits into Valve's burgeoning hardware…
- 345: I Covered This On My Livejournal · 1 h 12 min · Episode 345This week, Will is joined by tech journalist Florence Ion, of PC Mag, Material Podcast, and Android Faithful to talk about what Google's been up to, the inevitable encroachment…
- 344: A Fistful of Videogames · 1 h 5 min · Episode 344Brad's out of town this week, so Will welcomes Expedition: Handheld and The Full Nerd's Adam Patrick Murray to run down the current state of the handheld gaming console market…
- 343: Siri Lives on Dynamic Island · 1 h 13 min · Episode 343Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference happened this week, and there was enough going on that we wanted to unpack the whole thing, primarily due to the company's…
- 342: Faster Thinner Quieter Cooler Cheaper · 1 h 18 min · Episode 342Computex happened this week, and there was enough to talk about to devote this week's episode to rounding up the high points, including Nvidia's attempt to dominate the consumer…
- 341: F2 Is My Most Used F · 1 h 20 min · Episode 341Question time again! This month we discuss quite a wide range of topics, such as tracking down printer dots with a USB microscope, the dream of going to SIGGRAPH, the legality of…
- 340: Like a Bong for Your CPU · 1 h 10 min · Episode 340Brad's tired of throttling his CPU due to an inadequate heatsink. Will's been spending a lot more time testing PC hardware of late. Between those two things, we thought it was a…
- 339: Billionaires Versus Dinosaurs · 1 h 22 min · Episode 339After a couple years off, we're returning to our annual tradition of each picking a year for our birthdays that we want to review in-depth from a tech and science perspective…
- 338: Everything for Everything · 58 min · Episode 338Somehow the news just keeps happening, so we're here to round up and chew over another handful of headlines this week. Discussed on this episode are stories about canary traps in…
- 337: They're 3D-Printing Shoes Now · 1 h 15 min · Episode 337We've got a project potpourri this week of things we've been getting our hands on, literally in the case of Will and his brand new Steam Controller. We talk through the ins and…
- 336: When Triple Redundancy Isn't Enough · 1 h 27 min · Episode 336After all these monthly Q&A episodes, you folks continue to send us great Qs every month, and this time around we dig into such topics as the MacBook Neo's target audience…
- 335: With Craft and Focus · 1 h 16 min · Episode 335It's time to fix Windows 11. OK, that might be a little ambitious for one podcast episode, but it's at least time to step through the plan Microsoft unveiled recently for…
- 334: We Nailed the Math! · 1 h 11 min · Episode 334Friend of the show and all-around science guy Kishore Hari joins us once again, this time to dig into humanity's return to the Moon in NASA's Artemis program. We explore…
- 333: I Used To Do a Podcast · 1 h 4 min · Episode 333Brad's out this week, so Norman Chan takes the guest chair to talk us through the current state of the art in 3D printing. We cover the latest in FDM printers, whether resin…
- 332: Shout Out to the 1979 Lady Kenmore · 1 h 20 min · Episode 332Is it time for another Q&A again already? How the months just fly by. This month we address everything from auto-generated podcast chapters and episode links to computer…
- 331: More Teddy Ruxpin, Less Chucky · 1 h 12 min · Episode 331It's been a while since we got down to brass tacks with a tips and tricks episode, so that's what we're doing this week with a new list of tech that's making our lives a little…
- 330: Our E-Cores Are Better Than Your P-Cores · 1 h 33 min · Episode 330There's kind of a mountain of hardware news from the last week, so we're rounding it up this week, starting with Microsoft's Project Helix (a.k.a. the next Xbox), interrogating…
- 329: A Plaid Decade · 1 h 28 min · Episode 329We just passed the 25th anniversary of the GeForce 3, which felt like a good reason to dust off the April 2001 issue of Maximum PC. We reflect on both a quarter-century of…
- 328: Shared Resources, Shared Problems · 1 h 19 min · Episode 328It's another glorious bounty of listener questions for the monthly Q&A, touching on a bunch of subjects like modern HDMI switchers, enormous turn-of-the-century TVs, MikroTik…
- 327: Two Hours of War · 1 h 4 min · Episode 327There's... a lot going on lately, so we're rounding up some of that news this week, starting with Discord's forthcoming age verification policy rolling out globally, with cursory…
- 326: Quantumly Entangled Keyboard Switches · 1 h 9 min · Episode 326Magnets have been replacing potentiometers in a variety of places for a while now, especially as Hall effect and TMR joysticks have started popping up in fancy game controllers…
- 325: renderDEEZ128 · 1 h 44 min · Episode 325It's been a while since we did a deep dive on our home networking and server infrastructure (what some might call a "homelab"), so it's time for the 2026 check-in to run down…
- 324: The Intel Batman · 1 h 14 min · Episode 324After two months of accumulated Qs, we felt we still had plenty of As to dispense, so we're wheeling back around to a supplemental questions episode this week, touching on such…
- 323: Ignore All Previous Instructions · 1 h 3 min · Episode 323The questions piled up over the holidays and now it's time to answer them in this, the first Q&A of 2026. This month we touch on topics like the splendor Gateway 2000's cow…
- 322: It Was DNS · 1 h 18 min · Episode 322We get into the nitty gritty this week with a grab bag of home computing projects that's really more like a set of cautionary tales. Will discovers the perils of hanging your…
- 321: How to Charge Your Knife · 1 h 9 min · Episode 321Another new year means another CES means another roundup of CES news. This year we cover all the announcements from Intel, AMD, and Nvidia (or at least one of those), plus some…
- 320: Maybe Somebody Hates Brian Eno · 1 h 5 min · Episode 320We're back to start the new year with the second and final installment of our ranking of startup sounds. To close out the tier list we consider later consoles like the Xbox 360…
- 319: An Amuse-bouche for Your Device · 1 h 5 min · Episode 319As is tradition (?) around here, over the holidays we're doing another extended ranking, and this year it's a two-part tier list of... every startup sound we could find across…
- 318: System B or systemd? · 1 h 15 min · Episode 318As the end of the year rolls up on us, we attempt a little personalized year-in-review, looking back at 2025 without dwelling on the various tech crises we've already talked…
- 317: Schrödinger's AirPod · 1 h 13 min · Episode 317It's briskly, unusually cold here in the Bay Area this year, so what better time to crack open another tray of cold opens for your bite-size listening pleasure. This time we…
- 316: I Don't Like the Sparkle · 1 h 3 min · Episode 316Things are getting so dire in the PC-building space that we had to revisit the subject again this week, primarily to discuss the sudden and shocking end of longtime RAM and SSD…
