Philip Adams: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 18:30, 2 November 2020
Philip Joseph Adams (born on April 21, 1994, in Sydney, Australia) is the host, director, and preparer of operating systems for the OSFirstTimer YouTube channel. He is also the creator of the time-travel indie hacking game Histacom and the make-your-own OS game Shift OS. He comes from and currently lives in Tasmania, Australia with his parents Diana Adams and Ben Adams and his younger sister Jasmine Adams. He lived with his family in an apartment in Sydney, Manly, until January 21st, 2018, when they moved into a house in Hobart, Tasmania with him.
Philip also edits for a fitness company located in Sydney, Australia. Some elements he includes in the videos for the company are also included in OSFirstTimer videos as well. One example of that would be the lower thirds, which are the introduction slides/blocks with descriptive text, appearing mainly on the bottom of videos/documentaries.
He currently uses a Mwave Custom Built PC (elaborated below) as his main computer, a Microsoft Surface Pro 3 as his secondary computer and a Samsung Galaxy S10+ (8GB RAM and 128GB storage space) as his phone.
To elaborate, his Mwave custom-built PC has an Intel Core i9 9900K @ 3.60GHz, 32GB of DDR4 3200MHz RAM in Dual Channel, a Samsung 970 EVO Plus 500GB as a boot/programs, Samsung 860 EVO 1TB for unknown reasons, 2x Seagate IronWolf 8TB and an MSI GeForce RTX 2060 with 6GB of VRAM. His Alienware Area 51 is still listed on his channel alongside his current PC but on his latest video, he said that the Alienware had failing hardware which made screen recording impossible. Unfortunately, the new Mwave PC was sent back due to it not powering on every 2nd day thus making recording videos on time impossible.
Early life
As a child, Philip loved playing the educational game Math Blaster: Episode 1 - In Search of Spot in math class. After asking his mum, he got his own computer at the age of 7 so he could play Math Blaster at home. Windows XP had just been released in Australia, and so the computer came pre-installed with XP.
Diana and Philip tried getting Math Blaster at the shop, but couldn't find it. Philip, upset, bought some other educational games. After playing the games, he quickly got bored. As Philip did not have the Internet at the time, he decided to explore other parts of XP, like the screensavers, games and help articles. He was amazed at the seemingly unlimited potential of his computer, even without the internet.
Philip spent years exploring Windows XP, until sometime in 2007 when he got the Blue Screen of Death (BSoD). His computer soon stopped working, so he had to get a new one. He bought the computer the day Windows Vista was released in Australia, so the new computer came pre-installed with Vista.
On May 12, 2008, Philip started a project named Massive Archive, in which he tries to vlog almost anything every day, including his thoughts, activities and family-related things. He started uploading some of these vlogs in early 2015, but before that, he did not have the intention of making it public. In February 2019, he even decided to do a series named OSFT Archive on the channel OSFT Historic VLogs. It is a summary/commentary series of the vlogs contained in the archive, where Philip compares his past and present self and points out other differences and bad/unprofessional things. The series' episodes represent each month since the beginning of the archive (e.g.: Episode 1 - May 2008, Episode 2 - June 2008, etc.).
RSI Diagnosis
He learned about RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) at school, and a little while later, he got it. For a while, he stayed away from the computer as it hurt his fingers and wrote a couple of books until he read an online article about TMS, a possible cure for RSI. He then made Let's Plays on a new YouTube channel called AstralPhaser. He was originally going to call this channel RSIGamer, but that would remind him of RSI. On this channel, he played games such as Minecraft.
Philip's YouTube channels
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OSFirstTimer (Main YouTube channel)
He eventually became bored with the same games, since he wanted to play new ones (which he couldn't do, due to not finishing the games he'd started). By this point, TMS had cured his RSI, and he became interested in Windows 8 development. When it came out, he had his mum try it while filming her, starting the OSFirstTimer channel with that. The channel's main aim was to find the best and worst operating systems (initially the worst operating system was Windows 8 but that changed when Diana tried out MS-DOS). Now, they do it for fun, as his mum (Diana) had a 2013 Alienware 14 laptop with Windows 8 to replace her old Toshiba one with Windows XP. The Alienware laptop also got replaced later with the Lenovo Yoga 510 in August 2017. And the current laptop is a yoga 910
They used what they called the shaky cam method, until the Windows 95 video, where they started to use a screen recorder to show the operating system and a green screen to show Diana and Ben On May 17, 2014, Philip started to make Dad Tries Out videos. OSFirstTimer also does tutorials, unboxings, and used to do comment videos as well. Philip even published the video OSFirstTimer - House Tour! to the channel, which is a tour of their old apartment.
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AstralPhaser
AstralPhaser is a gaming YouTube channel that's home to Philip's Gaming Through the Ages series where he plays games dating from 1975 to the present day, exploring 44 years of gaming console history. It is also home to the AstralPhaser Weekly Chat where members of the AstralPhaser Central Discord server meet, discuss and ask questions. These videos are unedited as of episode #11. The Weekly Chat has been discontinued since August 2017; episode #22 is the last episode, and the last video related to the server is called Experiment - Are The AstralPhaser Central Mods Abusive/Ban Happy?. AstralPhaser's original purpose was to upload Lets Plays of Philip playing various games to help him progress in overcoming RSI, and recording proved helpful in keeping his mind on something else other than RSI (hence the name change from RSIGamer to AstralPhaser). An Oculus Rift game playthrough series was uploaded before the Gaming Through the Ages series. AstralPhaser last uploaded on December 15, 2017.
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I2padams
I2Padams was one of Philip's first YouTube channels. This channel is a replacement for his first (now deleted) 12padams channel and contains videos about Histacom, videos on The Phase and also features some videos of an OS series he did call Up To Date. Other videos include Minecraft being played by his then two-year-old sister Jasmine, a video of her eating a yucky lunch, and Code link running on an iPad 2 with Splashtop. Due to Phil using a new account, i2padams last uploaded on August 20, 2012.
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TerrifiedMum
A month after creating OSFirstTimer in 2012, Philip started the TerrifiedMum YouTube channel where he gets Diana to play scary games as decided by Phil or requested by the viewers. As of November 2018, the channel is inactive. The channel started with a brief playthrough of the original Slenderman game, then went on to other titles, including Oculus Rift games. The content later expanded to include a reaction video series named Diana Watches. TerrifiedMum last uploaded on August 14, 2017.
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Arch Linux Adventures
Philip made a channel in early 2014 called Arch Linux Adventures, where he started in a terminal in Arch Linux and eventually evolved it by downloading the LXDE desktop environment, Compiz, and many more compatible programs. It was originally meant to have around 512 episodes, but it only had 15, (ep. 0-14) as it was hard enough to focus on his OSFirstTimer channel, and Philip wanted to work on ShiftOS more. Arch Linux Adventures last uploaded on March 1, 2014.
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ShiftOS
Philip worked on ShiftOS, a game where you start with just a terminal and evolve it into a fully-functional graphical interface (like Arch Linux). However, he has stepped down from its development. From that point on, two new people were admins and developing ShiftOS, but later quit doing that (for currently unknown reasons), making the project officially inactive. ShiftOS also has its own YouTube channel. ShiftOS last uploaded on October 12, 2014.
OSFT Historic VLogs
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In late 2014, Phil created a YouTube channel called OSFT Historic VLogs, where he publishes old and new, non-OSFirstTimer related videos such as videos from his childhood and parts of his daily life in more recent years of his life. The channel also contains videos including a 58-minute long video of Ben and Diana Adams marrying on October 3, 1992, and a vlog video of them moving from Sydney to Tasmania in late January 2018, which is almost two hours long.
More about OSFT Historic VLogs
YouTube Millionaire
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In late 2016, Philip created the YouTube Millionaire YouTube channel posing the question whether it is possible to make a million dollars on YouTube in the next ten years with a series of different channels. The channel was originally kept secret but is now public.
TiaB KcilC
Around January 2017, Philip created the TiaB KcilC channel in secret (now public).
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TiaB KcilC, reversed for Click Bait, is part of the YouTube Millionaire experiment. The channel is to see if videos with clickbait titles can assist to draw in more viewers and contribute to the YouTube Millionaire experiment. All videos on the channel have thumbnails designed to attract views and now is deleted
Channel Description: This is a channel you ought to click on... What is it? Who knows! Just click on it already!!!
How To Quickly
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In late 2016, Philip created the How To Quickly YouTube channel which uploads quick computer-related tutorials on how to do certain tasks in the timeframe of 2 minutes or under. Examples are How To Quickly: Bulk Delete Emails From A Sender in Gmail and How To Quickly: View Older Versions Of Websites
How To Quickly's motto is: ...because two minutes is too long
What The Heck Just Happened
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In late 2016, Philip created the What The Heck Just Happened YouTube channel which showcases various magic tricks. A video showing Phil doing a trick is published and it is soon followed by a video explaining how the trick works. However, viewers must reenact the trick themselves in a video and link it to Phil's video, before the trick is revealed on his channel. If a trick video reaches 100,000 views and still hasn't been solved, then Phil will release hints and snippets of attempted submissions to help viewers figure out exactly what happened in the trick. Also, Dianna made an appearance on what the heck just happened
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Let's Explore
In late 2016 Philip created the original Let's Explore YouTube channel which later evolved into the Let's Explore Community Hub.
Let's Explore involved Phil recording himself walking to various destinations in his local area allowing the viewers to decide what direction to go with YouTube poll cards, to explore new locations (initially starting with Phil's local beach, back when he lived in Sydney).
Philip made 13 episodes of Let's Explore in his area but due to the distance required to reach episode starting points Phil ended his personal Let's Explore videos and transferred the channel to someone else, however, it wasn't the end of Let's Explore as the channel had become quite popular and others began making their own Let's Explore Channels, which is when the Let's Explore Community Hub came around.
A dedicated Discord server was created under the same name to allow for other Let's Explorers to meet and discuss.
More about Let's Explore on the Let's Explore Wiki and this wiki.
Channel List
As of July 6, 2020, Philip has 12 channels:
- OSFirstTimer (active)
- AstralPhaser (discontinued)
- TerrifiedMum (discontinued)
- OSFT Historic VLogs (active)
- YouTube Millionaire (discontinued)
- What The Heck Just Happened (discontinued)
- How To Quickly (discontinued)
- Let's Explore (discontinued)
- ShiftOS (discontinued)
- I2padams (discontinued)
- Arch Linux Adventures (discontinued)
- TiaB KcilC (discontinued)
Another channel he partially manages is the channel Char Char Gaming, which is primarily owned by his sister Jasmine. On the channel, he made thumbnails and wrote descriptions for the videos she made. He was also featured in several videos of the Minecraft Let's Play series on the channel.
Freeforums & Discord
At one point in 2013 and early 2014, he had a forum on Freeforums for the OSFirstTimer channel, but constant DDoS attacks from MalwareUp starting in February 2014 caused him to shut the forum down in April. The successor of this forum is currently Tech & Talk, which was also eventually (partially) replaced with the AstralPhaser Central server on Discord. Later, Philip decided to no longer maintain the server, leading to him handing over his administrative rights, leaving the server and the server being renamed to bits & Bytes. More information on bits & Bytes can be found on its official wiki.
Controversy & Criticism
The earliest known controversy goes back to the video Top 3 Worst And Best Operating System User Interfaces (1985-2012) which was published in December 2012. At that time, people misunderstood the video for a World's Top 3 video and/or found the listed operating systems to be loosely tested out by Diana and Phil. The current like-to dislike ratio is around 2.13 likes for every dislike.
Back in April 2013, Philip published a prank video called OSFirstTimer - Talking About Operating Systems Prank on the OSFirstTimer channel, which got substantial amounts of backlash. The backlash has its roots leading back to 4chan, where users shared that video and described it mockingly. The main points they listed is that Phil is miserably failing at being funny and relatable and that he is either an attraction for autistic people or being autistic himself. Other people would go for making fun of his voice being too frog-like. The backlash eventually grew to the point where the video is having a like-to-dislike ratio of about 1.34 likes for every dislike, which is worse than the previously listed controversy. Since then, OSFirstTimer was often associated with cringe, but in more recent days, the backlash for that video has almost gone away.
However, Philip's general type of humour and delayed knowledge of internet memes creates controversy as well, so does his overconcern and/or misinformation about topics such as radiation, sunscreens or even geographical knowledge. Religious jokes and references are also made by him and his parents sometimes, especially about the devil's number 666 and god. The controversy has been built up for alleged reasons such as them shoving their religion onto other people's faces, being too uneducated, and/or them telling their audience things that were debunked before. Especially the radiation scenario has either been debunked or joked about a few times in the past, even by his viewers/subscribers.
Some viewers have mentioned that his videos are loosely prepared and that it still feels as if Diana/Ben and Phil are trying out operating systems and programs, and not just Diana or Ben themselves. This means that there are a few things still being improvised and/or not fully researched upon. On the other hand, other viewers find that Phil is restricting Diana too much, making her actions limited to the things that Philip finds interesting or watchable for their viewers/subscribers. However, Diana's purpose is (or was originally) to be portrayed to be a computer-illiterate person, trying out another operating system/program for the first time and in her own way. Several scenes were included in videos where even Diana herself questions Philip as to why he is restricting her to do her own actions. Examples are the episodes Mum Tries Out Solaris 11.1 (2012) and Mum Tries Out Solus 1.1 (2016).
Another controversy is his fanbase's action of doxxing Philip's current home address and phone number, although there is no report of Philip and his family having been unwantedly visited by OSFirstTimer subscribers so far. However, they do not recommend/condone to be doxxed (or to doxx in general) as privacy and welfare is still needed to be respected regardless of subscribers being long-time or recent fans.
Up to this day, Philip and his parents had to do several long-term tasks and/or jobs, leading to Philip having less and less time to maintain his channels and produce, edit and upload videos. This was especially apparent in the years 2013, 2015, 2016, 2019, with 2015 and 2019 being the most dormant years of the OSFirstTimer channel. When he did have time, it was most likely that his mother Diana didn't, leading to further delays of episodes. To avoid further dormancy, he started his Gaming Through The Ages series in December 2015 and the OSFT Archive series in February 2019, with the latter being due to the renovations in their house. These series are much easier to produce episodes of, as it doesn't require Philip to edit videos as professionally as he would normally do for OSFirstTimer episodes. However, with all that happening and being done, many of his subscribers still aren't happy about the continuous dormancy of OSFirstTimer, which has resulted in many hate comments so far.
Trivia
- After about 7 years of making content, he has managed to get over 90K subscribers.
- Char Char Gaming is the first channel he created that doesn't have him as the (main) host.
- Instead, Jasmine is the main host, due to the channel being created for her.