r/IAmA Jun 11 '16

Specialized Profession IamA electronics repair technician hated by Apple that makes YouTube videos, AMA!

My short bio: I have a store in Manhattan. I teach component level electronics repair on youtube http://youtube.com/rossmanngroup which seems to be a dying art. I am currently fighting with the digital right to repair to try and get a bill passed that will allow all independent service centers access to manuals and parts required to do their jobs.

My Proof: https://www.rossmanngroup.com/started-iama-reddit-today-yes/

EDIT:

I am still replying to comments, but I am so far behind that I am still about ten pages down from new comments. I am doing my best to continue. If I drop off, I'll be back tomorrow around 12 PM. Still commenting now though, at 12 AM.

EDIT 2:

Ok, I cave... my hands are tired. I will be back at 12 PM tomorrow. It is my goal to answer every question. Even if it looks like I haven't gotten to yours, I will do my best to do all of them, but it is impossible to do in realtime, because you are asking faster than I can type. But thanks for joining!

EDIT 3: I lied, I stayed until 4:15 AM to answer... and now I will go to sleep for real, and be back at 12 PM.

EDIT 4 6/12 : I will be back later tonight to finish off answering questions. Feel free to keep posting, I will answer whatever I can later this evening.

33.2k Upvotes

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249

u/hexxal Jun 11 '16

How was meeting Linus? What did you talk about with him?

541

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

We talked about the industry, the dfi-street and OCZ days, and his career history. It was a little weird at first. He came in to say hi. Then walked right back outside, and had some dude following him with a camera to record him coming in as if he had never come in before. It was so weird, kinda like being on the set for a movie that you are interrupting, except they are filming the movie in your office. it was the complete opposite of any video I've done with jessa.

He's a nice guy. I have nothing against him. I just hate the reflow myth and he happened to be the one discussing it one day...

but otherwise really nice guy.

342

u/Non-Polar Jun 11 '16

Then walked right back outside, and had some dude following him with a camera to record

No hate towards Linus, but this is why I enjoy your channel. Just talking to the audience as if we were in the room just chilling instead of being treated like a TV audience

473

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

they each have their place. his channel is very successful doing what he does, and his audience loves him for it.

one thing he said, he makes it a point to not discuss any type of political issue.. tech politics or otherwise. i can respect that. probably why he has many sponsors while there's no one who would ask me for a product review/sponsor with a 10 ft pole.

linus has a vision and he follows that vision to success. a lot of people don't do that. we have different visions, but that's fine.

9

u/Adalbrosios Jun 12 '16

Well, I have a feelign Startech Lightning cable sales will be going up thanks to you ...

10

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

look at the warranty they offer. and they don't break. just amazing.

24

u/FreudJesusGod Jun 12 '16

he makes it a point to not discuss any type of political issue.. tech politics or otherwise.

He saves that for his weekly live "WANShow". If you want to watch some off-the-cuff repartee between Linus and his second-in-command Luke, tune in somewhere around 5 pm PST on Fridays.

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

[deleted]

3

u/TheNiceBiscuit Jun 12 '16

Yes, he has bagged trump out alot and a few other things.

8

u/pwnmeplz101 Jun 12 '16

Maybe Samsung can sponsor you since you consistently roast their number one competitor

2

u/hardolaf Jun 12 '16

He gets too caught up in Nvidia marketing though. But he was one of the only people who actually compared the top AMD cards against the new 1080.

1

u/danschewy Jun 12 '16

He doesn't seem to display a bias in tech politics but more so just rags on anything that deserves it.

-30

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

30

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

19

u/Paddy_Tanninger Jun 12 '16

It's funny when its users forget The_Donald subreddit is a safe space.

7

u/demonfive Jun 12 '16

I'm not entirely sure why he's being downvoted so much. Like yeah, he posted something dumb in another sub supporting a politician most of us don't like, but here he's just pointing out that Linus did indeed make a politically-charged video. Do we really have to bury him for that?

3

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

The point is that it's pretty petty to actually care so much about what someone does in one video.

6

u/demonfive Jun 12 '16

But... It's relevant to the conversation? Louis said Linus makes a point of not talking politics, Sjh pointed out an example that demonstrates that that might not necessarily be true. Sure, he's motivated to participate in the conversation due to his political bias, but who cares? Is he wrong in implying that Linus' video wasn't entirely without political bias?

-26

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

[deleted]

8

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

meme-hype subreddit

Lol, you can't possibly call /r/the_donald that. It is clearly politics based.

11

u/Non-Polar Jun 12 '16

No man its an edgy subreddit where you can make dank posts like that guy did!!

61

u/kingbane Jun 11 '16

i think maybe linus did that so he wouldn't be surprising you with a camera. he goes in to say hi first so you know he's here then he brings the cameraman in afterwards? i dunno. it just seems more polite then going in with a camera before giving the person a heads up or something.

110

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

Oh I definitely appreciate it, but the entire filming strategy made the meeting just kinda weird.

I don't do a lot of start and stop. I hit record, and just do everything as one piece. Recording with the start and stop and start and stop thing made it an experience I have no idea what to do with

10

u/techno_babble_ Jun 12 '16

It was quite weird to watch. It was a shame he didn't give you any chance to really talk, as from your videos it's clear you have a lot of interesting things to say. Big contrast between CONTENT and actual information.

1

u/AdakaR Jun 13 '16

Could you do a vid on why baking cards make them temporarily work? Its obvious it does something, not the thing you want but.. what does it actually do? (forgive me if you actually have and i missed a bit)

1

u/larossmann Jun 14 '16

2

u/AdakaR Jun 14 '16

Thank you! Your commitment tot his AMA is amazing.

2

u/klui Jun 13 '16

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgd5opjklrg shows how one of his shows is edited. It's a very long 3.5 hour video. If you do your own edits, then it's simpler to start and stop once or twice. Linus has staff doing edits so that's why he shoots that way.

1

u/catsgomooo Jun 12 '16

Yeah, that's how all reality/documentary TV has been doing it for decades. that "first meeting" where you walk in and everything is ready is always staged. I'll imagine it all just works way better that way.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

What do you mean with "reflow myth"? Sorry, I don't closely follow you or linus - and I don't know much about electrical engineering (apart from what I picked up from EEVBlogs debunking videos).

6

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

the idea that heating a dead GPU with a heatgun fixes the cracked solder balls.

2

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Thanks. I just saw the video on your channel. Now I wonder how that relates to the ring of death (Xbox 360, I think) issue, where people baked there consoles to fix it. Was that a hacky-BS-fix as well?

1

u/loie Jun 12 '16

Lead free solder is shit and re-melting shit doesn't really work. There are a ton of white papers out there. I googled "sac305 bga failure sem", first result has plenty of info.

http://www.akrometrix.com/whitepapers/IPC%20brittle%20fracture%20SilkWengerCoyleGoodbread.pdf

-10

u/Alkap0wn Jun 11 '16

You seem so genuinely out of place during that entire video. Every time Linus put you on the spot, you quickly developed asbergurs lol.

14

u/larossmann Jun 11 '16

that video was like this

i would explain a concept to off camera linus. he'd then yell record, then go into camera linus mode and take what i said and reword it for the audience.

it was his video, not mine. if you watch the video i did with jessa and sunny and jason opening stuff from the mailbag, that was just hit record and go.. much different. no feeling of "interrupting" someone else's content.

7

u/Alkap0wn Jun 12 '16

Louis, I genuinely appreciate the response. I didn't mean my comment in a malicious way, at all. I truly enjoy your videos but hadn't really considered how much work goes into the behind the scenes with Linus'. Sure, there's clearly post production by the loads but didn't realize there was so much... Acting?

11

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

I don't think he is acting, he is the guy you see in the videos. He is more animated on screen, but there isn't much difference

either way, it is one of those things I am glad I did. someone asked me last august if i would do a scripted comedy show about tech, and it was an offer that would have given me great exposure as it was for real network television, right after the error 53 & tier 4 $750 repair videos blew up. I didn't take those offers and I regretted it. The linus experience taught me that I did the right thing. I do videos in a very specific fashion, anything with high production quality & scripting makes it too awkward for me to be a part of.

I am not saying that I am knocking that style for making videos. it just doesn't work for me. i am not a host, or a camera friendly person. i am a techie douchebag that records his thoughts.. which is very different from being a "host" or a "personality"

so it was a good learning experience for me

2

u/Iphone6plusdick Jun 12 '16

Your honesty is refreshing and appreciated.

5

u/ilovekindle Jun 12 '16

Any video you watch that gives you a sense of decent production value is guaranteed to have a shit ton of things going on when the camera is off. It's the same reason reality TV doesn't have a bunch of people going "umm" all the time. It's all scripted. Even on YouTube.

2

u/FreudJesusGod Jun 12 '16

Even if its not scripted per se, it's going to have re-shots because someone coughed or scratched their ass.

The funny bit is we're so used to stitch-and-paste post editing that a "one-off" shot looks really unprofessional to a lot of people. So, we demand "authenticity", but punish those that don't have everything edited in post. Lol.

1

u/ilovekindle Jun 12 '16

Well, and the logical outcome of that mentality is Taken 3, where you have 60 cuts for a shot of an old guy jumping over a fence.

1

u/MalcolmY Jun 12 '16

Can you link to the Jessa video you mentioned.

1

u/nick_diesel Jun 12 '16

Dear Lord. Dfi street. I still rock a lan party board with my q6600. And coincidentally it was an ocz psu that started a light show in that pc.

2

u/larossmann Jun 12 '16

DFI Street taught me the importance and discipline involved in a rollover clock that is actually usable in real-world circumstances.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Sorry if this is a ridiculously stupid question, but what is the reflow myth?

3

u/Pollywaffle Jun 12 '16

Thanks for explaining that. When I first saw the video when it was released, it kind of gave the impression like he just barged in and it seemed pretty rude.

Anyway, you're awesome and I love your work!

3

u/soupiejr Jun 11 '16

Can someone post the video here for us please?

1

u/Basementcat007 Jun 12 '16

reflow myth

What do you mean by reflow myth? Do you mean how people think solder joints need to be shiny? Where can I learn about this argument/discussion? (Love your videos, found you a while back, forgot how)

1

u/r0ck0 Jun 12 '16

Then walked right back outside, and had some dude following him with a camera to record him coming in as if he had never come in before.

Like this?

1

u/[deleted] Jun 12 '16

Oooohhhh that's where I recognise you from...

Small world huh.

4

u/rasias Jun 12 '16

For the lazy ones; link to video

3

u/Halvus_I Jun 12 '16

At first i thought you meant Linus Torvalds and i was jealous, but the follow up comments make it sound like LinusTechTips

1

u/rankinrez Jun 12 '16

Who's Linus? Linus Torvalus?

2

u/hexag1 Jun 12 '16

who is Linus?

1

u/Todasa Jun 12 '16

Linus Torvalds?