Ask the Tech Guys Episode 1992 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
Well, hey, hey, hey. It's time for Ask the Tech Guys. I'm Leo LaPorte. Rod Pile will be joining us a little later on our space guy to talk about the U F O report.
Mikah Sargent (00:00:10):
And I'm Micah Sargent, and we answer the question, if I've got an old iPhone eight, should I upgrade to the 14 or the 15
Leo Laporte (00:00:17):
Plus? Finally, we found the perfect headphones for people who want to watch TV in privacy. It's all coming up. Next, ask the Tech guys podcasts you love [00:00:30] from people you trust. This is tweet.
(00:00:36):
This is Ask the Tech Guys episode 1992, recorded Sunday, September 17th, 2023. Gradually, then suddenly Ask The Tech Guys is brought to you by our friends at IT pro TV now called a C I Learning. Keep your IT Team skills up to date with the speed of technology visit. Go dot [00:01:00] ACI learning.com/twit. Listeners receive at least 20% off or as much as 65% off an IT Pro enterprise solution plan. Just fill out the form, you'll get a quote based on the size of your team. Listeners of this program, get an ad-free version if they're members of Club twit. $7 a month gives you ad-free versions of all of our shows plus membership in the club. Twit Discord, a great clubhouse for twit listeners. And finally, the TWIT [00:01:30] plus feed with shows like Stacey's book Club, the Untitled Linux show, the GIZ Fizz and more. Go to twit tv slash club twit and thanks for your support. Well, hey, hey, hey. How are you today, Micah? Sergeant's in the house.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:45):
Oh, and so is Leo LaPorte. He's in the house.
Leo Laporte (00:01:48):
Why? Your socks are so boring.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:50):
Well, moving from a distance, they're boring, but they
Leo Laporte (00:01:52):
Have exciting when you get
Mikah Sargent (00:01:53):
Close. Yeah, they've got speckles of color all in them. Want to get that close?
Leo Laporte (00:01:57):
This is a show where we answer your computer questions. [00:02:00] That's why you ask the tech guys. That's us. Eight eight seven two four two eight eight four is the phone number.
Mikah Sargent (00:02:08):
Yes, you can call that number during the week when we're not doing the show to leave a voicemail or during the show to have your question answered live on air. You can also get in touch with us via Zoom. If you go to call twit tv, that will lead you to a Zoom call. We suggest doing it from your phone because that way you've got the microphone and the camera right there so you can get in, you hang [00:02:30] out, you hold up your hand. There's a digital hand, not your physical hand. And that way we know that you have a question that you want to ask. There are people out there going like this. Yeah, we've got several people with their digital hands and their physical hands. But
Leo Laporte (00:02:42):
Before that, we should talk a little bit about the weeks tech news. Did anything at all happened this week?
Mikah Sargent (00:02:50):
Yeah. Yeah. Quite a few things happened this week. Google is the Microsoft of today.
Leo Laporte (00:02:57):
Google went to court.
Mikah Sargent (00:02:59):
Google is in [00:03:00] court. It's what? 13 week.
Leo Laporte (00:03:03):
The judge makes all the decisions. This is not a jury trial.
Mikah Sargent (00:03:07):
I think the most fascinating thing about this, basically we have the accusation that Google has used its power in a monopolistic practice to, I love the quote, a monopolist flexing as Google is being examined for kind of swaying people into using [00:03:30] Google across Google search across different
Leo Laporte (00:03:33):
Platforms. As an example, we know they pay Apple somewhere between nine and 12 billion, billion with a B every year. It's like a quarter of Apple's profit every year to be the default search engine on iOS and Mac oss and Google points out, well, you're not stuck with it. It's not so hard to change to some other engine, but what other engine? Google says, oh, you got plenty of choices. You got binging [00:04:00] and you got binging. And there are things like DuckDuckGo, which are just binging relabeled really? I was a big fan of something called Neeva, N E E V A, I've talked about it. They finally said, yeah, we give up because we can't compete against Google because of the power of the default. So Neeva was five bucks a month. That was another problem. But you were no ads. And that's the other thing. [00:04:30] Google subsidizes everything with ads. I loved the idea of no ads. I think it taints Google's search results
Mikah Sargent (00:04:36):
They get in the way. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:04:38):
So I paid five bucks for Neva. The search results are very good. They had started with binging, but they were phasing bing out as others are trying to do, doing their own search engine. And by the way, the Neva founders came from Google, but they said just a few months ago, yeah, we can't do it. You cannot compete against Google. You just cannot get market share. Even binging is struggling. Google is [00:05:00] now almost 90% market share. It's a monopoly.
Mikah Sargent (00:05:04):
I have a question for you though, because there is the argument that I have heard that Google has a very good search engine and that when people try other search engines, they end up going back to Google because Google is the search engine that provides the results that they're after. So how does performance factor into a [00:05:30] conversation about Monopoly? Is it all just Google getting the market share and paying money to maintain market share? Or is there some argument to be made that Google does a good job with search? Although I will say that that has changed, I feel in, do
Leo Laporte (00:05:45):
You remember the first time? Did you use anything besides Google in your life?
Mikah Sargent (00:05:49):
Yeah, ask Jevs. Okay, so Yahoo, do you
Leo Laporte (00:05:52):
Remember going from Yahoo? Ask Jevs, excite Alta Vista to Google. Do you remember that? Because I remember it vividly about 25 years ago.
Mikah Sargent (00:06:00):
[00:06:00] Yes, actually I do. Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:06:02):
Yeah. And it was so much better that everybody just switched for a while. John c Devora would use this as his litmus test of geeks. He would say what search engine you use? And if you didn't say Google, you obviously dunno what you're doing. I use a o l or I use Excite. But that test didn't work so long because about a year later, everybody was using Google and Microsoft, by the way, is trying to use the tyranny of the default [00:06:30] to get you to use Bing. They're trying their darnedest, right? They bug you on windows constantly. Oh, you bing. It'd be better with binging. You got binging binging b bing, binging Bing, binging bing. They even pay you to use binging with binging rewards. And still they're less than 10% market share despite all of that. When you use Yahoo search, by the way, that's relabeled binging. So I think Google used to be at the beginning absolutely above head and shoulders above everything else, [00:07:00] but I don't know. I'm getting the feeling in the last year or two that Google's search is sucky.
Mikah Sargent (00:07:04):
I agree. I agree. It has become,
Leo Laporte (00:07:06):
It's no longer the best search
Mikah Sargent (00:07:08):
It has become, not only just with ads and stuff, but also it's starting to feel like when you find a recipe online and you have to scroll through nine paragraphs of a story about somebody's child who kicked the ball across a field,
Leo Laporte (00:07:22):
And by the way, that's caused by Google. Incidentally, that's how you get Google Juice,
Mikah Sargent (00:07:26):
Right?
Leo Laporte (00:07:26):
So it's even the bad stuff that's happening on the internet to [00:07:30] some degree it created by Google.
Mikah Sargent (00:07:35):
I was talking to Paul Ott on Windows Weekly this week, and there was an interesting point that he brought up. He said, okay, so let's imagine that Google kind of loses this and part of it's, or maybe it doesn't even lose this, but what Google does to try to get the conversation off of it is the thing that keeps getting cited over and over. In this case, Google paying Apple so much money to be the default search engine. So [00:08:00] let's say they stop doing that, they stop paying it to be the default search engine, and instead Apple chooses a different default or gives you the ability to choose. At the beginning he said, what kind of PR disaster would it be if let's say binging became the default search engine? And then you suddenly have these stories of, for the first time ever, people have learned how to change the default search engine so they can switch from Exactly.
Leo Laporte (00:08:26):
Oh my God, how do you stop using? And he [00:08:30] knows this. There is a precedent for this because that's what you have to do in Windows. And people do it.
Mikah Sargent (00:08:35):
Yeah, they switch
Leo Laporte (00:08:36):
Away. So I think the real problem isn't that Google's paying people. The real problem is there's no good alternative. If there were a great alternative, then you could say, and that's what Google says, oh, there's great alternatives. And then people also say, well, you can always use TikTok for search, which some younger do, or you can always use Reddit or some other thing that you would [00:09:00] search, but I think we need a good search engine. I think Google used to be it. I think we need a competitor. So maybe really, I mean, I don't know what the remedy is at this point. That's the problem is that the government moves so slowly that at this point it's hard to find a remedy. They may be fined, they may be forced to stop paying Apple, but as you say, that's not going to change anything.
Mikah Sargent (00:09:25):
Does Google have to start paying other search engine providers to make them become [00:09:30] more competent? That is the tough thing. Is one a monopoly if there just simply are no other competitors?
Leo Laporte (00:09:38):
There is a remedy, but it's so draconian. I don't think the government will do this to compel Google to spin off all of its other stuff. Get rid of YouTube, get rid of the big one is let's forget YouTube for the moment. The big one is the ad business, and this is what's polluting Google's results. They are in an ad. Really Google's money, almost 80% or maybe [00:10:00] even more comes from advertising buying and selling advertising. By the way, they play both ends of the game, which I think honestly is what the government should be going after. There is some action in that area too. So force Google to divest the ad agency, then what do you get? Then Google will have to succeed as a search company, which would make 'em better,
Mikah Sargent (00:10:22):
But then what they guess they start charging. Then you have $5 a month for Google search.
Leo Laporte (00:10:25):
Maybe they charge, I don't know,
Mikah Sargent (00:10:27):
I, because suddenly that 10 billion that they're [00:10:30] certainly making back from the ads that are being served on Apple products is gone. So then they can't pay 10 billion to Apple to be the default on Jin. Yeah, it
Leo Laporte (00:10:38):
Solves the whole thing. Maybe let 'em keep a part of the ad business, but it really solves the whole thing is to strip that part out. That's what's made Google bad, what's made Google all its money. It's what gives them the billions of dollars they can hand to Apple and others. And because they have Android, which is another thing you take away, they can tell handset holders phone people who use Android. Oh by the way, Google [00:11:00] search. Yeah, they're forcing them. They force them and the customers say it too to have Google stuff on their Android device. So there are remedies, but they are so dramatic. I wonder if a judge will have the ness to say that. I mean, the fact that it's a judge is good. By the way, Google tried to get the judge recused and failed. So this is very interesting.
(00:11:28):
This is a case to watch. The Microsoft [00:11:30] case in the nineties really did change the landscape. In fact, you might, and many do argue that Google exists only because Microsoft was forced to step back in the late nineties. That opened the way for Google. I think it's time to force Google to step back. We need right now, here's the problem. Maybe this will crystallize it for people who disagree. The problem if you are not on Google, let's say you have a website or you have an online store. If it's not in the Google search results or it's not [00:12:00] highly ranked, it's like you don't exist because they're the only place people go to find
Mikah Sargent (00:12:04):
Something. That's how people find something. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:12:06):
So I think perfect world, you'd have three or four or five different search engines equally valid. If you disappear from one, you still are on the other four. That's what we need. How do we get there? I don't know. I mean we're kind of so far down
Mikah Sargent (00:12:23):
This road search engine, government funded search engine. Another quick thing about this, one [00:12:30] of Google's other arguments is that they, along with just not being the other search engine in town, they didn't go to traditional means of search. When they talked about, they cited other options. They said when someone goes to Amazon, they're not using Google search to find their products. And they said when someone goes to TikTok, they're not using Google search to find the TikTok videos. So they're trying to break out all these social media networks as their own search engines in a way. And I thought that was, do you buy it? No, that's thin. That is a very thin, thin.
Leo Laporte (00:12:58):
And they do that because you can't [00:13:00] say, well, there's bing, your Honor,
(00:13:03):
It doesn't work. So they have to say, well, it's a different world. And we did think this about four or five years ago. In fact, Google at one point said, social is everything. We got to figure this out. That's why Google Plus came along. They were very worried that all these other means of searching would eat their lunch. They haven't, haven't eaten their lunch, ate their lunch. So this is a tough one. So Jonathan Cantor was the Justice [00:13:30] Department official who was not a judge, but the Justice Department official who was leading the Google advertising case. And the judge will not order cantor to recuse himself, even though Cantor has worked for competitors apparently in the past. That was a story I was talking about. That happened on Friday. Anyway, that's not the only big story. I do believe Apple announced something this week. Am I wrong?
Mikah Sargent (00:13:52):
It was this week, wasn't it? Man, time just flies. Time just flies.
Leo Laporte (00:13:57):
So I ordered, and boy, it was not [00:14:00] easy. I fought Apple.
Mikah Sargent (00:14:02):
Oh, me too. It was Apple. It was a mess.
Leo Laporte (00:14:04):
Every year this happens. Can they not fix
Mikah Sargent (00:14:06):
This? This was the worst year in a while. I will say I usually am able to get in this morning or that morning. So
Leo Laporte (00:14:13):
We're the cuckoo nuts. Yeah, we're that. Get it up at 5:00 AM Pacific time
Mikah Sargent (00:14:18):
On the day to make sure we can get our phones,
Leo Laporte (00:14:20):
But we need it so we can show it to you.
Mikah Sargent (00:14:22):
Exactly. And yeah, I sat and waited. It rolled and rolled and rolled and rolled. It didn't show up. And this [00:14:30] is the thing, because it worked so well for me last year and the year before, for the most part I was being kind of smug, you know what? I'm just going to have my iPhone and so I'm just going to wake up. I'm going to open up my iPhone. I'm going to do that. After it kept spinning, I finally went and grabbed an iPad, went to the store on that, and then it kept spinning and I'm like, well, great. This is not going to be good. So I went into my office and opened up a computer,
Leo Laporte (00:14:55):
The browser.
Mikah Sargent (00:14:56):
Finally, it was the browser for me that worked.
Leo Laporte (00:14:59):
So for me it was the iPad [00:15:00] that worked the phone. Never did the store, never did wake up on the phone. I think that they flipped switches to regionally and they just randomized it. They apparently cannot let everybody on at the same time to order at the same time. And even though I was able to get in, the order failed about 10 times. Who cares? Anyway, we were able to get it for Friday. So Lisa wanted black. I think she made a mistake. Have you seen the fingerprints on the blue and black from the
Mikah Sargent (00:15:29):
Event? Oh, but [00:15:30] she'll put a case on it.
Leo Laporte (00:15:31):
Yeah, she's going to put a case on it. I ordered natural because it's going to match my watch, which is natural titanium and my watchband. So we'll see. We'll have two and that'll be Friday week. So a couple of points on the technology that you're buying. First of all, do as we do, unless you have a really old iPhone, if you had an iPhone 12 or maybe even 13, but not if you have a 14.
Mikah Sargent (00:15:55):
No, if you have a 14, there's no
Leo Laporte (00:15:56):
Risk. One thing we're learning, the three nanometer processor that they put in there [00:16:00] is not that much faster because this is a complicated technical issue, but it's not the three nanometer node that we're going to eventually see. It's an interim node, which is essentially the same as the five. So it's very similar in performance. A few percentage points faster. You won't notice a difference. They made the graphics processing faster, noticeably faster, 10, 15% faster by adding GPUs, not by having faster GPUs. And this is the point, [00:16:30] this is not going to be a faster, which is very disappointing to me. I really thought when we got to three animators,
Mikah Sargent (00:16:34):
Bam, zoom, zoom, zoom. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:16:36):
Zoom is zoom, zoom. Battery life has not improved. Speed is marginally improved. Pushed that game thing. They have eight gigabytes now instead of six. Now you might say eight gigabytes. What are you Crazy. But that's how it works in the iOS. It used to be six. So I think really the only thing worth talking about if you have an older phone, the 14, [00:17:00] the 15, what do you call it? Regular, normal?
Mikah Sargent (00:17:03):
Yeah. The non-pro,
Leo Laporte (00:17:05):
The 15 and the 15 plus are the same chip as the 14, which was great. The same cameras as 14, they got the dynamic island. That's going to be a nice upgrade for you at a lower price. The people who buy the pro version are
Mikah Sargent (00:17:19):
Fools.
Leo Laporte (00:17:19):
Oh, well they're photographers. Yes. Because that's the only argument for this. I think for this phone is
Mikah Sargent (00:17:27):
Seven cameras.
Leo Laporte (00:17:29):
I thought it was very interesting [00:17:30] that they said that because Apple and most camera phone manufacturers don't usually talk about focal length, like a regular lens focal length. They'll talk two x one x three x. They won't say 120 millimeters because it, but it's equivalent. Right? So they said the equivalent of seven lenses ranging from 13 millimeters, which again, these are equivalents. It isn't actually 13 millimeters. Can I
Mikah Sargent (00:17:56):
Ask a stupid question? Yeah. What do those [00:18:00] measurements actually refer to? It's the length of what? The outer lens focal to the inner lens?
Leo Laporte (00:18:05):
Yeah, the focal. No, the film plane to the outer lens. Okay, so it's never going to be 120.
Mikah Sargent (00:18:16):
Yeah, because it's not literally 120 millimeters. Millimeters.
Leo Laporte (00:18:19):
They're also talking about aperture, which is the opening and closing of an iris in your camera. There's no iris in the iPhone. So all of this is equivalent. So we can understand as a photographer, [00:18:30] and that's where they're aiming this at as photographers. They're saying, Leo, when you go out with your Sony camera or your Canon camera or your Nikon, you bring a camera kit that has seven lenses in it. Now you just bring your phone own and that's good. And so they're increasing the optical zoom Now. Now correct me, this is why it's confusing because it isn't really 120 millimeters. I think it's three x or is it five? No, it's five.
Mikah Sargent (00:18:59):
It's five. Five [00:19:00] x optical.
Leo Laporte (00:19:00):
It was three x three times. Don't even think about digital zoom. Think about optical zoom. So it was three times optical zoom. Yes. And now because of they're using, it's so funny, they're using little prisms to bounce the light so it can travel farther. They can now get to five x. It's not a periscope lens. It's like a sort of a periscope.
Mikah Sargent (00:19:22):
It
Leo Laporte (00:19:23):
Sort of sort of a periscope. But they're able to get to equivalent of five x and that's your real zoom, your [00:19:30] optical zoom as opposed to your digital. Because digital means we're just zooming in on the image. So they're going from a very wide angle, 13 millimeters to a fairly telephoto, 120 millimeters. The other thing they did that makes photographers happy is you can set your default. So you could say, I want to be the 35 millimeter equivalent, which is what I'll probably set it for because that's a good, it's not super wide, but it's a good medium with, it's actually, by the way, basically what your normal lens was on your iPhone
Mikah Sargent (00:19:57):
14. And speaking of that, [00:20:00] I've actually done it now when you get the update to iOS 17 with your iPhone 14 pro or iPhone 14 pro max, you can take those super high resolution photos now. So even that needing to get the new 15 pro in ProRes. In ProRes. Yeah, ProRes. And also they call
Leo Laporte (00:20:20):
ProRes raw, which gives you all the
Mikah Sargent (00:20:22):
Pixels. So you can do it in ProRes Raw or you can do it in Heath Pro is what they call
Leo Laporte (00:20:26):
The new. Well, that's an interesting one too. So they have the high efficiency format, [00:20:30] which is compressed. It is a lossy compression. Raw means nothing is compressed in theory means nothing compressed. So they're compressing it. But that means on the new phones, five megabytes per image instead of, what is it, 48 megabytes per image. It's a big difference and we'll have to look at the, but Heath, the high efficiency image format is a pretty good compression format. The
Mikah Sargent (00:20:52):
Photo, let's see, this photo is 48 megapixels, 8,064 by 60 48 coming in [00:21:00] at 68.1 megabytes. That's large. That's a lot. By the
Leo Laporte (00:21:04):
Way, I ordered the five 12 gig phone because of that.
Mikah Sargent (00:21:06):
Nice.
Leo Laporte (00:21:07):
That's smart. That and the ability to shoot four K 60 frames a second video, which will be nice. And the
Mikah Sargent (00:21:13):
Heath version of that photo is five 4.5 megabytes.
Leo Laporte (00:21:18):
Yeah. Yeah. It's amazing. So that's a lot of compression, but it's lossy so well, you just have to play with these formats. I think the point from Apple's point of view is we're giving you some choices and we're describing it in the way [00:21:30] a photographer would describe it. There's one other thing they did to make the photographers happy. They replaced the silencer switch with a camera button. Now you say they call it an action button and in an action button action. I mean you can make it some other action, but I think most people will be you press it and hold it. The camera pops up. Now you turn it sideways and it is a
Mikah Sargent (00:21:54):
Camera point and shoot. I
Leo Laporte (00:21:55):
Think that's very interesting. So this is Apple. Clearly realizing this is the number [00:22:00] one reason people use a smartphone. It ain't going to be faster. The screen is not much. It's not any better.
Mikah Sargent (00:22:06):
I think it's just brighter.
Leo Laporte (00:22:07):
It's brighter. The biggest thing they were able to do is brighter. Lots more knits, but it's really about the camera. If I did not need to review it, I think I probably would stick with my 14 pro max.
Mikah Sargent (00:22:20):
Yeah, I mean, unless you have some weird love for titanium that you just couldn't hold back,
Leo Laporte (00:22:28):
That does make it lighter. [00:22:30] Did Jason Snell or anybody talk to you about, he said it felt much lighter in his hand.
Mikah Sargent (00:22:34):
Yeah, and somebody did some calculations where due to the way that the frame is created now, where it's the sort of wafer frame and the fact that it's titanium, there's a change in the, they did some physics calculations. There's a change in the momentum of the phone that ends up making it feel lighter. I'll have to find that. This just means
Leo Laporte (00:22:54):
Lower mass. I don't know what they're talking about. Momentum's based on the mass of the phone, which means basically on earth, [00:23:00] mass and weight aren't the same thing. Are you answering the
Mikah Sargent (00:23:02):
Phone? It does feel lighter. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:23:04):
You got to call in the middle of the, it's lighter because there's nothing in there. Oh, by the way, there's nothing in mine either, because I gave it to my sister, so I have to use an Android phone for the next five days. What is that? Is that the fine we,
Mikah Sargent (00:23:14):
This is the new fine woven case that well, I
Leo Laporte (00:23:16):
Haven't seen. How'd you get one so fast?
Mikah Sargent (00:23:18):
It came yesterday. I ordered it on day one and it came yesterday. So now I get to look at it for the next week.
Leo Laporte (00:23:25):
I hate it when Apple does that. You've got a package from AI [00:23:30] at the door? My phone came early now. No, it feels nice.
Mikah Sargent (00:23:33):
Yeah, I like it. I'm worried about it getting dirty though. It feels like
Leo Laporte (00:23:36):
Collect. I've seen some people say it might not wear well. We'll see. I bought my normal leather wallet case. I don't care if cows, how
Mikah Sargent (00:23:45):
Could you? Those cows were already dead. You're fine.
Leo Laporte (00:23:49):
Somebody's eating the insides. That's nice. I did get one of these just to try it. That's very nice. What color is that? This
Mikah Sargent (00:23:56):
Is, let's see what they call it because it always changes names. It looks like
Leo Laporte (00:23:59):
Dark [00:24:00] charco. It
Mikah Sargent (00:24:00):
Is evergreen is what they're calling
Leo Laporte (00:24:02):
Color. Oh, there's a slight green. Are you disappointed it's not as green as you would like? No,
Mikah Sargent (00:24:06):
This is green. This is one of the kind of greens that I like. Deep green.
Leo Laporte (00:24:09):
Green. Yeah, I like deep greens. You're in the middle of the forest.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:11):
Indeed.
Leo Laporte (00:24:12):
Yes. Alright. I also ordered the new ultra, even though I would not do that if I were anybody else, I want to do this.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:20):
You want to do the, you have to
Leo Laporte (00:24:22):
Have the new watches, right?
Mikah Sargent (00:24:24):
Yes. Yes, you do. The
Leo Laporte (00:24:25):
Pinch is not a watch OSS feature except for accessibility.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:28):
Exactly. If you want to do [00:24:30] the new double tap gesture, I have to be very careful about how Yeah, if you want to do the new double tap gesture, you will need of a SIP nine, right. And a nine. The next processor basically. But this is able to be done in other ways with accessibility.
Leo Laporte (00:24:47):
I'm mad at Apple, by the way. We used to call these SOCs system on a chip. Now they're calling 'em
Mikah Sargent (00:24:54):
IPS system in package.
Leo Laporte (00:24:56):
Same thing. Yeah. Okay.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:59):
But you see they [00:25:00] package it so nicely. They made a new
Leo Laporte (00:25:02):
Name. We knew the name. What's the SIP thing? I heard 'em say sip. I said what are you sipping at? What's going on? Yes. I should say that this action button can be anything including the silence that you
Mikah Sargent (00:25:13):
Want. Yeah. You could just have it do the ring silent,
Leo Laporte (00:25:15):
But I think I am going to make it a camera button. I bet you people end up making a
Mikah Sargent (00:25:19):
Camera camera button. I've seen a lot of people talk about how they turn on their flashlight a lot, so they'll make it a flashlight. Flashlight. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:25:24):
You'd have to flash to use it a lot to make that a worthwhile choice. Plus the accidental action.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:30):
[00:25:30] Yeah. Having your flight turn on. Have you
Leo Laporte (00:25:33):
Decided you could make it a shortcut? You know people.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:35):
Yeah, I do know people. I know people. I haven't decided, I really don't know yet what I'm going to do with it. Yeah, I don't know yet.
Leo Laporte (00:25:45):
Scooter X is telling me SIP goes a step beyond sock because there's more components and then get ready because don't get so used to sip, because next is soap, which is a step beyond sip.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:58):
What does it stand for? System.
Leo Laporte (00:26:00):
[00:26:00] On a package. On
Mikah Sargent (00:26:01):
A package instead of system in a package substrate on package maybe, who knows?
Leo Laporte (00:26:07):
Anyway, it's all there to Befuddle
Mikah Sargent (00:26:10):
SOC versus M C M versus SIP versus
Leo Laporte (00:26:13):
Soap. Thanks to semiconductor digest.com.
Mikah Sargent (00:26:15):
That's my new law firm, soc, M C m, csop.
Leo Laporte (00:26:22):
So these are industry terms. You can't really blame Apple, but I think they like
Mikah Sargent (00:26:26):
The idea. I guess they're following the rules. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:26:28):
They're following the rules. It's really [00:26:30] how much is on the thing. It's not just a chip anymore, it's a system.
Mikah Sargent (00:26:34):
Oh, I also ordered a new U S B C cable from Apple because it's not because it's, but because it can do 240 watts max power. Not that I need it. So yeah, that arrived.
Leo Laporte (00:26:55):
This was another question. Is this some sort of M F I cable that has different capabilities? [00:27:00] Is there a chip in there? It is a standard U S B C port and standard U S B C cables will all work. And so it is not only Apple that could make a high power. Correct. U S B charging cable.
Mikah Sargent (00:27:10):
Yeah. If it's thick enough to do it, then it can do it. That's the only difference between this and other cables that I have is that it's even thicker than a Thunderbolt cable. It's thicker. It's thicker. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:27:23):
Okay. Okay. We will have those phones and watch and all that stuff next week.
Mikah Sargent (00:27:29):
Indeed. [00:27:30] Next.
Leo Laporte (00:27:30):
And we'll give you our review.
Mikah Sargent (00:27:32):
Oh yeah. So we'll be able to talk about it on Sunday. Yes. That's Sunday. That's fantastic. Yay.
Leo Laporte (00:27:38):
It is a hundred percent standard according to nine to five Mac. They really looked into this and it is not an M F I certified. You can use all your cables and I'm relieved.
Mikah Sargent (00:27:47):
Yeah, I'm relieved. That would've been. I
Leo Laporte (00:27:49):
Am not going to go out and replace my AirPods Pro just to get a type C charger. And I did go to the Apple store just to do some research on Friday, [00:28:00] and they do not yet have the Type C AirPods Pro, but they will, if you're going to buy AirPods Pro, you might want to wait until type C comes out. Yes,
Mikah Sargent (00:28:08):
I agree.
Leo Laporte (00:28:10):
But big deal. You probably have a few lightning cables. It'd be nice to use 'em for something. That's
Mikah Sargent (00:28:15):
True. Right? Yeah. What am
Leo Laporte (00:28:17):
I going to do? What am I going to do with these? You're going to throw them all out.
Mikah Sargent (00:28:20):
I'll give them to people I guess who still Rock lightning.
Leo Laporte (00:28:24):
Rock lightning. Ah, boy. We have talked this.
Mikah Sargent (00:28:27):
We've exhausted
Leo Laporte (00:28:28):
Death.
Mikah Sargent (00:28:29):
It all. Lemme
Leo Laporte (00:28:30):
[00:28:30] It. Time for NASH commercial. And then finally
Mikah Sargent (00:28:34):
We'll take your
Leo Laporte (00:28:34):
Questions. My God, these guys are verbose. The verbose twins. We'll take a break and let you talk
Mikah Sargent (00:28:43):
The vts,
Leo Laporte (00:28:43):
The vts, our show today brought to you by those great folks at a C I Learning. You might say, well, that's our friends at IT Pro tv. We've known it pro since they started and now by partnering with a C i learning, [00:29:00] they are even better than ever. IT teams will significantly benefit from training by a c i learning a c I has kept all the fun and personality of IT pro tv, but now amplified with robust solutions for all your training needs. And very important, your team will still love these videos. They're informative, but they're engaging and they're fun. Short form. So you can watch 'em whenever you got a minute. It's about 20 to 30 minutes long, [00:29:30] most of 'em. So during lunch break or on the way home from work, 7,200 hours to choose from that library is growing because there's a lot more new content.
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(00:32:47):
It's like a warm bath, I guess. Do some calls. Let's
Mikah Sargent (00:32:53):
Bathe in the pool of questions.
Leo Laporte (00:32:56):
Look at all the hands raised, hands raised. Never seen so many. So
John Ashley (00:32:59):
I think [00:33:00] James was the first one hanging
Leo Laporte (00:33:02):
Out in the room. James gets the, because he was the first in line. We'll pick up James and bring him into the tech guy Stargate. Woo
Mikah Sargent (00:33:15):
Woo.
Leo Laporte (00:33:18):
Hi James.
Caller James (00:33:20):
Hello. Hello. Hello. How are you guys doing?
Leo Laporte (00:33:23):
We're great. Welcome to Ask the tech guys. Where are you calling from? Thank you
Caller James (00:33:27):
Very much. Las Vegas, Nevada. [00:33:30] If you look behind me, you'll see the racetrack.
Leo Laporte (00:33:33):
Let me see. Oh boy. We're sitting right there. Everybody's
Caller James (00:33:39):
Mad. You're right here.
Leo Laporte (00:33:40):
Everybody's mad because they took the trees out in front of the Bellagio
Caller James (00:33:44):
Fountain. Yeah. Oh, they are very, very upset. What? And the Bellagio got in a little trouble. They kind of fibbed about it also.
Leo Laporte (00:33:50):
They said they wouldn't. They said they wouldn't or they would take 'em out and put 'em back. But no, they killed, well,
Caller James (00:33:54):
They were going to transplant 'em, but before they got to say that statement, the news [00:34:00] already showed all these saw off trees at the concrete level and it's like, well, how do you transplant a tree? You already chopped
Leo Laporte (00:34:06):
Up Dead Tree. Oh, but see, they're putting a grandstand where the fountains are.
Caller James (00:34:11):
Exactly. Yeah. They already started the foundation in the fountains and that was a couple weeks ago. And of course, as you know, it's going to go out of the fountain onto the sidewalk to the cable barriers of the racetrack.
Leo Laporte (00:34:23):
Formula one racing, which is the pinnacle of racing going to Oh, you got tickets. Oh, you're by the sphere.
Caller James (00:34:28):
I'm actually working. I just [00:34:30] got offered a position yesterday. Nice.
Leo Laporte (00:34:32):
So I
Caller James (00:34:33):
Get
Leo Laporte (00:34:33):
The spear. Will you get to see the race at all?
Caller James (00:34:36):
I'm pretty sure I will. It's an usher position, so I'll be telling people where to sit, where not to sit. And then of course when the race comes on, I'm going to turn around and You bet.
Leo Laporte (00:34:47):
Oh, that's great. And that'll be fun to watch those cars go around that sphere. That's going to be a very nice little chicane in there. That'll be really fun.
Caller James (00:34:54):
Nice. And then I think they're going to broadcast the closed circuit. Oh
Leo Laporte (00:34:58):
Yeah, they put the big [00:35:00] screens up. Yeah. Oh, on the sphere. Oh, how fun. Wow.
Caller James (00:35:05):
They're going to have a blast Max
Leo Laporte (00:35:06):
For staffing will be like a giant for Stepin balloon. So they're
Mikah Sargent (00:35:10):
Actually using Vegas streets to
Leo Laporte (00:35:13):
Make the track. Yeah, so Formula One, some of them are dedicated tracks. Many of 'em are like Austin, but in some cases the Singapore race, we just saw it this morning. They're on the streets of the city and in this case in Vegas. And we're going to be sitting right on the Vegas strip, which will be the high [00:35:30] speed d r s zone, the straightaway
Caller James (00:35:33):
212 miles per hour. Oh
Mikah Sargent (00:35:34):
My
Leo Laporte (00:35:35):
Goodness. So really we're going to pay lot of money to watch cars go. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:35:42):
Did you see it? No. There.
Leo Laporte (00:35:45):
So yeah,
Caller James (00:35:46):
You may feel the air as it comes by because the downforce is going to generate some turbulence.
Leo Laporte (00:35:51):
I am so excited. This is a once in a life. It's so expensive to just watch a Formula One race. In fact, I have a good friend, sold his company, made a lot of money, spent it all [00:36:00] going around the world seeing Formula One races. What? Yeah, last time I talked to him he was living in a Motel six, so I'm not going to do that. I am going to go to one. It's for my birthday and this will be it, the Las Vegas race and November 19th I think. Something like that. Anyway, thank you for giving me the, I'm getting excited giving me the preview.
Caller James (00:36:20):
It is. They're putting the lights up now. As you know, it's a night race. The race doesn't even start till 10:00 PM 10:00 PM
Leo Laporte (00:36:26):
But that Singapore race was also a night race, which is great.
Caller James (00:36:29):
Correct. Yeah. They [00:36:30] do that with a night also.
Leo Laporte (00:36:30):
So it's so beautiful, so beautiful with the lights and everything. I think this is going to be quite an experience. I'm really, and I'm glad you're going to get to see it and I was hoping to see get to see a show in the M S G Dome. That thing is going to be so cool. Amazing.
Caller James (00:36:47):
Yeah, you too. I think Friday is the first show. Friday or Saturday
Leo Laporte (00:36:51):
Was the first. I wouldn't take my credit card and I took that as a message that I should probably,
Caller James (00:36:58):
I looked at it and I'm like [00:37:00] spoke to the wife and it's like,
Mikah Sargent (00:37:04):
It's
Leo Laporte (00:37:05):
Very expensive. What can we do for you?
Caller James (00:37:09):
So still kind of on the same thing you guys closed your sermon on. I have a Promax, which everybody'd probably be interested to know. I put it in Discord. I literally got my tracking number about 15, 20 minutes ago.
Leo Laporte (00:37:23):
So they shipped. Congratulations. But don't get your hopes up. I've been through this [00:37:30] as I'm sure you have as well. Many times, even if it gets to the FedEx office on Wednesday, hold it. They're going to hold it until Friday no matter what.
Caller James (00:37:39):
I know I was thinking about it because there's always like on Mac rumors or something,
Mikah Sargent (00:37:42):
Somebody,
Caller James (00:37:43):
Oh, somebody got it a day early or something like that.
Leo Laporte (00:37:47):
Well, if you do call us,
Caller James (00:37:49):
We'll do, we'll do,
Leo Laporte (00:37:52):
We'll put you on the air. We'll give you a special show just for you.
Caller James (00:37:55):
Thank you. So the question is my current iPhone, [00:38:00] I have the beta. This is probably maybe a more MICA thing and I know it's been iCloud updates and if I remember correctly, let's say the new phone has to be on the beta to restore.
Mikah Sargent (00:38:14):
Okay. Yeah. This is a good question. If you are running the GM version of iOS, so if you've updated,
Leo Laporte (00:38:26):
You're talking about 17.
Mikah Sargent (00:38:27):
Yeah. If you've updated to the latest
Leo Laporte (00:38:29):
IOS 17 and the last [00:38:30] version that was updated for beta users was the Gold
Mikah Sargent (00:38:33):
Master. Yeah, it was the Gold Master. If you're on that, and the version that you're going to get that comes with the new phone will be iOS 17. The release version. I've had no problem doing that shift. If you're on a beta version that's from before then the Restore did not work for me. But given that I was able to, now it will depend on what kind [00:39:00] of restore you're doing. So I, for example, iCloud. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Then that does change things. If you want to do the iCloud Restore, they do need to be running the same version.
Leo Laporte (00:39:14):
I'm screwed
Mikah Sargent (00:39:15):
Then when I've done that in the past,
Leo Laporte (00:39:17):
I'm in deep trouble. You're running
Mikah Sargent (00:39:18):
Beta
Leo Laporte (00:39:20):
And I have to say, by the way, the phone to phone is the way to go over iCloud. Yes,
Mikah Sargent (00:39:25):
I agree.
Leo Laporte (00:39:26):
I gave my sister my 14 Pro Max. She had I think a 12. [00:39:30] No, she had a 10 X SS or something. So we went through the whole process. She had a SIM card. I was ready to pull it out. But no, this new 14 has eim. It transferred over beautifully. It took maybe a half an hour, and essentially the new phone was identical to her royal phone. She was up to date. I made sure she was at 16.1 0.1 or whatever the current version is, but obviously I will not have that phone to do phone to phone. [00:40:00] So I made sure my phone was backed up to iCloud. That's iCloud, but it was backed up. I'm sad to say it was 17 beta.
Mikah Sargent (00:40:07):
I didn't know you were running the beta.
Leo Laporte (00:40:09):
Yeah, and not only that old beta, because I hadn't had a chance to get the Gold Master. So are you saying that when I get my new phone, I will not be able to restore? I'll tell you what, I'll be the Guinea pig. I'll let you know next Sunday. Yeah,
Mikah Sargent (00:40:21):
Because I don't know that especially is a unique situation where you're not backed up to the latest.
Leo Laporte (00:40:26):
They didn't tell me I shouldn't give away my phone to my sister. No, [00:40:30] give me a break.
Mikah Sargent (00:40:31):
There's going to be a way for you to be able to do that. It might take longer though. So one thing that you can do is get your current phone that you have, and on Monday you basically uninstall the profile on it that gives it access or in this case now with a new way that we do it, you just turn off, you just flip the switch. Yeah, just flip the switch to turn off and then force restart your phone. Volume up, volume down. Hold [00:41:00] down the side button. Basically. That kind of tells it. Oh no, we're just doing that and as long as you're on the release candidate, the Gold Master, then your new phone should recognize that as such. Good match. Yeah. Then you need to make sure, one thing that I failed to mention is you need to make sure to do one more iCloud backup essentially, so that way it's sent to the system. It knows then yeah, that iCloud backup or iCloud Restore should work fine. But yeah, Leo, this will be interesting. I'm curious.
Leo Laporte (00:41:30):
[00:41:30] I didn't even know I was making myself a Guinea pig. I don't think it's going to say
Caller James (00:41:34):
Guine pig. Well, this thing it's with, they release the betas basically to anybody right now. They do come around and so I'm sure a lot of people flip their phones over to the beta and they're going to get these new ones on Friday and yeah, this is going to be messy. Hopefully nothing comes out between now and Friday far is beta eight or whatever number they're on because people are going to go, I'll get the latest, they get the new phone and then it's going to pop up, which I've seen [00:42:00] previously. It'll say, oh, you need to be on blah, blah, blah to restore.
Leo Laporte (00:42:05):
So our recommendation, and I have to say this has changed over time, but now our recommendation is to, if you can the phone to phone, when you get the new phone, take your old phone, even a really old phone and do a phone to phone. If you are on the beta, then before you do any of that update. Update, yep. Like right before, so you get at least whatever the latest version is. I would also, and Apple will give you an [00:42:30] option to do this. Make sure everything's backed up to iCloud if you have enough space, and then I think it's going to go smoothly. I really do. I was so impressed in years past, many years ago. I said, plug it into your computer to then restore. Then the iCloud backup got better and better. I think the two years ago I did an iCloud backup, but these days I was so impressed when I, yeah, the so nice. The phone to phone works so nicely. You don't need a cable to connect [00:43:00] them. I think they probably have to be on the same wifi network. They use Bluetooth to signal to say, Hey, here I am. And they do that little cloud thing. Do
Caller James (00:43:08):
The cloud. Yeah. You put 'em
Leo Laporte (00:43:10):
Over each other and it was so smooth and easy. I thought, oh, we will go to bed and it'll be done in the morning. No, it was done. So it really is. It's the way to go these days. The only thing
Caller James (00:43:22):
I suggested needs to have a bug. Didn't Lisa have a bug last year when you guys did the 14? She did. I remember her. Remember sitting [00:43:30] down at the end table and you book up the next morning and she's,
Leo Laporte (00:43:34):
Oh yeah, she found a
Caller James (00:43:37):
Said it again and redo it again, I believe. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:43:38):
She had to. In fact, she was very proud of herself because I was, for some reason she couldn't ask me and so she went online. I think you were still asleep. I was still asleep. So she went online to YouTube and found the, I don't think it was A D F U, it might've been a D F U, but she found not the basic reset and not the hardest reset, but the kind of the middle ground that got her phone back and she was able to end [00:44:00] to finish it up. So yeah, she got it before I woke up. I'm surprised she didn't wake me up, to be honest. Anyway, good luck. Which one did you get?
Caller James (00:44:11):
I got the 15 Promax five 12. What color in blue. Oh, blue team Blue.
Leo Laporte (00:44:17):
You got blue.
Caller James (00:44:18):
They were asking in, Lisa got black cases. Black. I got Titan and I said, oh, I got a clear case. Oh yeah. I thought about going, you're going to pay for the blue or get the blue. You got to show it off.
Leo Laporte (00:44:27):
You got to show it off. Absolutely. [00:44:30] Yeah. We'll see. I always order, I carry these wallet cases because I like to have all my stuff. Well, that's good. I've lost all my stuff
Mikah Sargent (00:44:42):
Somewhere. He is. Got the wallet
Leo Laporte (00:44:43):
Somewhere. My wallet is, and that's really the, for me, if I have a wallet and an iPhone, I just want it all in one thing. It makes it bulky and stupid, but Well, good. It's nice to talk to you. Thank you for giving me a race update. I'm getting very excited. [00:45:00] I'll see you in November.
Rod Pyle (00:45:02):
Alright,
Leo Laporte (00:45:03):
I'll look for you at the sphere.
Mikah Sargent (00:45:05):
Thanks for calling.
Leo Laporte (00:45:06):
Take care.
Rod Pyle (00:45:08):
Alright, you guys take care.
Leo Laporte (00:45:09):
Alright, it's time to play the Space Force theme. I should have gotten it ready for Mr. Rodney Pyle because we are Space Foren. Rod Pyle, the host of this week space with Turk. Malik joins us every month to talk about the latest in space [00:45:30] action. The Space Force now has, oh, I hate it. Everybody. Everybody does this to
Mikah Sargent (00:45:36):
Pure form of the
Leo Laporte (00:45:37):
Space Force Force. I just want the Pure Space Force
Space Force! (00:45:40):
Into my veins. We're the warfighters. Brave and true. Brave and true. [00:46:00] Okay. We don't have to play the whole thing. He's lasering us. Ladies and gentlemen. Standing guard.
Leo Laporte (00:46:09):
Standing guard both night and day. Rod Pyle, the Space Force from on high, by the way, happy fourth anniversary to the Space Force.
Mikah Sargent (00:46:18):
Oh wow. Has it been four years? Your thing? What have they done in that time? No, it
Rod Pyle (00:46:22):
Was bad enough without the lyrics.
Leo Laporte (00:46:25):
They did a launch, didn't they? Space Force did a launch just recently. I saw
Mikah Sargent (00:46:29):
What did they launch?
Leo Laporte (00:46:30):
[00:46:30] That's thing
Rod Pyle (00:46:31):
Something we can't talk
Leo Laporte (00:46:33):
About a space
Mikah Sargent (00:46:34):
Thing. A space laser obviously to protect. We've
Leo Laporte (00:46:36):
I, we've doing launches all along, but now it's under the ages of Space Force. Right? Yeah. Was it Air Force before or was it before
Rod Pyle (00:46:43):
There was Space Command and Air Force. So Air Force handled the launches. Space Command was more of a tracking and operations thing. That was actually in Los Angeles. That's such a cool name. And then Space Force kind of absorbed that Space Command. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:46:55):
I'd rather be in Space Command
Mikah Sargent (00:46:56):
Me. Me too. That's such a cool.
Rod Pyle (00:46:58):
Yeah, but Space Force has the different uniform. [00:47:00] I designed one that looked very much like the uniforms that the guards that the Vatican wear with the puffy pants and everything. And I thought that was pretty cool, but I think
Leo Laporte (00:47:10):
There be a Swiss guard for the Air
Rod Pyle (00:47:12):
Force. See, especially Leo Winter birthday
Mikah Sargent (00:47:15):
Bumping around my
Leo Laporte (00:47:16):
Birthday's November 29th. Why do you ask?
Rod Pyle (00:47:19):
Because I'm turning 67 today. I'm beating you by two months. Happy
Leo Laporte (00:47:23):
Birthday. Happy birthday you Happy birthday Rod.
Rod Pyle (00:47:27):
Feel it every day of it too.
Leo Laporte (00:47:28):
Oh man. [00:47:30] Well, and you
Rod Pyle (00:47:31):
May wonder why I'm coming to you from inside the boat today.
Leo Laporte (00:47:33):
Perhaps that's true. Perhaps why
Mikah Sargent (00:47:35):
Is it rainy?
Rod Pyle (00:47:36):
Because, no, I opened my M one MacBook Pro the other day. Here comes the question and my battery went from being just fine to saying, oh no, I'm dead. I'm only going to charge 1% the rest of my life. Does that happen overnight like that?
Leo Laporte (00:47:52):
Yes, it is a cliff. So all lithium-ion batteries have a certain number of cycles where [00:48:00] a cycle is one fully charged and fully discharged, and it's typically around 500.
Mikah Sargent (00:48:07):
It feels too soon though, for an M one.
Leo Laporte (00:48:09):
It's way too soon something went wrong.
Rod Pyle (00:48:11):
Well, I already had to replace the screen on this, so I think I got,
Leo Laporte (00:48:14):
Oh gosh, maybe a little sea air got to it. But the thing is, it's often the case. It'll degrade slowly then it's like going bankrupt. It happens slowly then all at once, so it gets down to 80% or so. But there's a certain [00:48:30] point beyond which it just goes, I'm not going to hold a charge, so I'm not going to do anything. And that will be very, you might not notice the degradation unless you look at a battery meter and you see,
Mikah Sargent (00:48:40):
Yeah, it is feeling rather
Leo Laporte (00:48:42):
Though it shouldn't be. You didn't charge it 500 times. So I mean all the way
Mikah Sargent (00:48:45):
Up and all. Yeah, I would try to talk to Apple about that and see if they can't do something
Leo Laporte (00:48:50):
Still under warranty. Did you buy AppleCare?
Rod Pyle (00:48:55):
Of course not.
Leo Laporte (00:48:57):
I hate that
Rod Pyle (00:48:57):
Question. Every time I buy AppleCare, I go in and they go, oh, this [00:49:00] isn't covered. And you need a new motherboard.
Leo Laporte (00:49:01):
I hate that question. Every time I bring in my computer they say, did you buy AppleCare? And I say, no.
Mikah Sargent (00:49:06):
Have you seen that video of the woman that's very upset at the mall because they're not helping her with her device. And so you just hear her go, I was told by AppleCare and then the video just stops.
Leo Laporte (00:49:21):
Grab the phone and throw her out.
Rod Pyle (00:49:24):
Let's move on to more productive.
Leo Laporte (00:49:26):
Anyway, that is worth working on. And that is not normal failure.
Mikah Sargent (00:49:30):
[00:49:30] It's interesting. Yeah, I would take it in and say exactly what you said, that overnight this happened and that you've had to replace a screen on it and it's probably
Leo Laporte (00:49:35):
Not the battery. In other words, it's probably some circuitry in there.
Rod Pyle (00:49:39):
Or maybe they'll, if it is circuitry, they'll give me an excuse to buy the new 15 inch air, which would be okay.
Leo Laporte (00:49:44):
It's very nice. It's what I have right here. Micah has the 13 inch
Mikah Sargent (00:49:48):
Air. I have a 13 inch and I'm very happy with it. They're
Leo Laporte (00:49:50):
Absolutely identical except for the scream size and every other respect. They are the same. Perfect. I like the 13 actually I have the 13 at home. [00:50:00] I'm
Rod Pyle (00:50:01):
Waiting. I like the 13, but these old eyes. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:50:04):
If you can wait until the spring, you'll be able to get an M three based. Although now I'm not sure what node they're going to be using on the three animator. If it's the same node with the iPhone, it might not be as much faster.
Mikah Sargent (00:50:18):
I think that's why we are not getting an October event. I think it's They're waiting on that node to
Leo Laporte (00:50:23):
Be
Mikah Sargent (00:50:23):
What you need it to be.
Leo Laporte (00:50:24):
Yeah. This is, oh, there's
Mikah Sargent (00:50:25):
AppleCare anyway.
Leo Laporte (00:50:27):
Mr. AppleCare?
Mikah Sargent (00:50:28):
No, the Oh, there's the
Leo Laporte (00:50:29):
Video. [00:50:30] Okay. Woman flips out at Apple store employee. Alright, now I have many questions to ask you.
Rod Pyle (00:50:38):
Well, okay. And I do want to talk about the new Musk biography.
Leo Laporte (00:50:42):
Okay, there you go. What is the story? Morning Glory.
Rod Pyle (00:50:46):
Oh my God. So we all know Walter Isaacson. He's
Mikah Sargent (00:50:50):
Personal
Rod Pyle (00:50:50):
Friend. He's the chronicler of great men.
Leo Laporte (00:50:54):
Einstein Newton jobs and now
Mikah Sargent (00:50:57):
Musk, Brutus, Benjamin Franklin, the [00:51:00] guy who killed Caesar.
Leo Laporte (00:51:03):
Really? He did it Biography of Brutus?
Mikah Sargent (00:51:05):
No. Okay. I'm sorry. I
Leo Laporte (00:51:06):
Don't think there's much to say. You just did the biography of Brutus. That was it right there. He killed Caesar, then Caesar killed him. It was over.
Rod Pyle (00:51:14):
So it puts Musk in some fairly August company obviously. And so I haven't written Augustus
Leo Laporte (00:51:20):
That killed
Mikah Sargent (00:51:20):
Brutus. I was thinking, okay, go ahead. Sorry
Rod Pyle (00:51:23):
Guys. I'm
Mikah Sargent (00:51:24):
Sorry.
Rod Pyle (00:51:25):
Now they're going to play the Spaceport theme beginning. [00:51:30] So I haven't had a chance to read the book yet. I want to do a review of it pretty quick. But I did read a wonderful review in The Guardian by Gary Steinhart and three of my favorite excerpts. Who or what is to blame for Elon Musk? A dull insight free doorstop of a book. Oh, Isaacson. Isaacson comes from the Eyes lit up School of cliche writing the rest of his prose workman like bordering [00:52:00] on ai. Is
Leo Laporte (00:52:03):
Iran a pill or a genius?
Rod Pyle (00:52:06):
Well, so I mean, we've talked about it before. You guys know as much or more about 'em as I do? I just know 'em from the space side. It's so hard to parse the stuff. And I have my opinions. We'll see if they're changed by this book at all. But clearly because he wears his life on his sleeve like nobody else. We've seen all the dark sides of this guy, the multiple marriages, [00:52:30] dropping kids every 10 feet wherever it happens to be.
Leo Laporte (00:52:33):
I don't care about the personal life. I'm going to say that I care about his impact on us. And that's been a mixed bag. I think he said on Saturday Night Live, I invented or not invented. I brought electric cars to the world and I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars in a rocket ship. Did you think I was also going to be a chill normal dude? They're [00:53:00] in a nutshell, by the way, is the whole problem. He thinks he should be something because he reinvented electric cars. Putting that in big quotes and is going to send people to Mars. Even bigger quotes. That's what I care about is his impact on society and on us. And one of the revelations in the Isaacson book is that he used his power as the owner of the starlink satellites to cut off Ukraine so they couldn't attack Russia. [00:53:30] So there wouldn't be a, again, scare quotes. Nuclear war is appalling. Isaacson walked that back. I don't believe it. I think Isaacson wrote the truth and that Elon called him and said, you better back off.
Rod Pyle (00:53:47):
That's appalling. Yeah, it'd be interesting over time to see if details of their relationship during the writing of this book emerge. And since I haven't read it, I can't talk too much about it, but I certainly could talk about Musk and the core of my [00:54:00] feelings about him, his personality aside, because it is challenging, is just from my lens. Here's a guy who came along with lots of money but no experience in aerospace or rocketry. And the traditional aerospace companies, sneered at him said, oh yeah, nice kid. You're peeking on the circus tent. We'll see year round. And within 15 years he had virtually revolutionized the launch market and now owns more than half of it. And if it wasn't for him, [00:54:30] China would be outpacing us and launches about two, three to one. Yeah, but that's necessarily a metric. But
Leo Laporte (00:54:36):
He did that. But it's because we, NASA didn't do its job. NASA was letting Russia launch our stuff. So I guess he's marginally better than having Russia launch our rockets. Yeah,
Rod Pyle (00:54:49):
Let's be careful about NASA doing their job. I mean, their job is to spend taxpayer money responsibly and explore space. And the shuttle was not the most responsible system. I mean, it worked [00:55:00] for 30
Leo Laporte (00:55:00):
Years. That's what I'm saying. They didn't do their jobs failures, they didn't do their job for a long time.
Rod Pyle (00:55:06):
But Congress really, they
Leo Laporte (00:55:08):
Were corrupted by politics. I agree. A
Rod Pyle (00:55:09):
Bad deal with the shuttle. I mean, it was a brilliant design starting. It was still probably ahead of what the technology really could do.
Leo Laporte (00:55:15):
Well, they've done the same thing with Artemis, by the way, because they want to make sure every piece is the
Rod Pyle (00:55:23):
S Ls,
Leo Laporte (00:55:24):
S l Ss rather it's built in a different region. So every member of Congress gets their little pork barrel and [00:55:30] it's not how you do it. So what happens private is, well,
Rod Pyle (00:55:33):
That's how they did it for a long
Leo Laporte (00:55:34):
Time. I know Congress fumbles, private industry comes along and now we're saying, well, gosh, Elon has so much power that's not right. Well, that's what you gave him.
Rod Pyle (00:55:47):
Let's look at that for a moment. Why did they give him that much power? So we had United Launch Alliance, which is a combine of Boeing and Lockheed Martin building the Atlas Rocket, launching military [00:56:00] payloads with very, their rockets run from 200 million to a half a billion dollars. And here comes Musk saying I could do it for less. And again, NASA and Air Force said, prove it. And he did. So his launch is, depending on how complicated the integration on all that is, range anywhere from 50 million to about a hundred. If you're talking about the Falcon nine, that's transformational. So of what you think of the guy personally, he did reinvent that market. He really boosted us up on the world stage in terms of being able [00:56:30] to handle this stuff. And to be fair, NASA has always hired private industry to do these things for them. It's just that they tended to run it differently with these cost plus contracts and the heavy hand of NASA inspectors in the background, which they didn't do with SpaceX and it worked out
Leo Laporte (00:56:45):
What will happen. Could NASA, if it had seen this coming for instance, put up starlink like internet access satellites
Rod Pyle (00:56:55):
And not at that price?
Leo Laporte (00:56:56):
No.
Rod Pyle (00:56:57):
No way
Leo Laporte (00:56:58):
Mean, but the problem is we [00:57:00] now have some private individual who is arguably nuts making our foreign policy,
Rod Pyle (00:57:09):
And that's a separate conversation. And I find that very discomforting. Yes, as you
Leo Laporte (00:57:15):
Do. I don't care how many kids he has, I don't want him deciding I'll start a
Rod Pyle (00:57:20):
World
Leo Laporte (00:57:21):
War. The observer opinion piece in The Guardian today says, Elon Musk likes to think he saved us from Armageddon. He just [00:57:30] brought it closer. And I think this is problematic. And I guess all we can say is, well, it could have been done better, but it's done now so
Rod Pyle (00:57:40):
Well, and another part of not just this book, but others in many, many articles is how he deals with his workforce. Clearly, he's a bit of a slave driver. He expects the level of commitment that he's got from his people. I was thinking about, I thought, what does this make me think? And I feel like he uses his workers as antibodies against [00:58:00] the establishment of traditional American manufacturing. And I think he kind of used most humans as inconvenient, messy cargo for settling Mars. And by the way, the whole settling Mars thing, which I guess is still part of his portfolio, again, I haven't read the book, but it's a really bad place to live. Nonsense. And I brought that up.
Leo Laporte (00:58:20):
It's nonsense. Well,
Rod Pyle (00:58:22):
It is short-term nonsense for sure.
Leo Laporte (00:58:24):
Well, it's funny because
Rod Pyle (00:58:25):
It's long-termism about
Leo Laporte (00:58:26):
This, the philosophical tenet of his long-termism, [00:58:30] which is don't worry about today, let's look to the generations of the future more than, and Elon wants us to be a space fairing species, but first of all, that's his unilateral decision. Second, if you talk to anybody who knows what they're talking about, Mars is not a place to raise a kid El, I think Elton said it best, right?
Rod Pyle (00:58:57):
Well, and you can do an awful lot of living in low earth orbit. [00:59:00] And there's
Leo Laporte (00:59:00):
Lots of other things we could do better
Rod Pyle (00:59:01):
On the moon if you want to do that. But I asked Wyn shotwell this question during an interview a few years back, and I said, what happens when you get the people there? And her answer, and I'm paraphrasing, is that basically, look, we're the trucks and it's up to other people to build the towns. They're the railroad. And I get that. But that's kind of a disconnect from what he's saying about settling Mars. And as you point out, Mars is a really horrible place. You're going to be living probably in a cave or under at least 10 feet of dirt [00:59:30] in a metal can. And you're not going outside without a spacesuit. And if you are, you're doing it for a very short period of time because the radiation's deadly. So there's a lot of work to do on that one for
Leo Laporte (00:59:39):
Sure. I'd sure like to see him and everybody work on saving this planet than some vain hope that we can move to another planet.
Rod Pyle (00:59:46):
Well, that's what Tesla's for.
Leo Laporte (00:59:48):
Oh boy. Yeah.
Rod Pyle (00:59:51):
Micah playing
Leo Laporte (00:59:52):
Space force. Actually, I wanted ask you about aliens. Well, I was going
Rod Pyle (00:59:57):
To say we have some other stuff to discuss.
Leo Laporte (00:59:59):
Yeah. I want to ask you
Rod Pyle (01:00:00):
[01:00:00] The NASA report. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:00:05):
They've put up a website, which is great. There's a lot of transparency now, but NASA has once again said, it ain't aliens, right?
Rod Pyle (01:00:18):
Yes. So if you watch the press conference and Bill Nelson, he's older, he's definitely old school, but we haven't had up until Jim Briden Stein, the previous administrator, [01:00:30] we hadn't had a politician in charge of NASA for decades. And in my opinion, it should always be a politician because they know how to play that game and former astronauts don't. So Nelson got some goofball questions from people of questionable credentials towards the last half of the press conference, and he handled them pretty masterfully, and that was one of 'em. He said, we have no evidence to indicate that these of extraterrestrial origin yet. But they're also careful to say, look, this was a study [01:01:00] on how to better study these things. This is our NASA's take on how to look at the non-classified data and through this website primarily try to sort of decriminalize or de-stigmatize, if you will, people being able to report like pilots who are very concerned about their careers prospects if they report UFOs or UAPs. And this is a way of better studying it and gathering data so they do know. So I think it was about as well handled as that kind [01:01:30] of thing could be. And it was a really small contained study. Let's remember the budget for this thing was about a hundred thousand dollars. So it wasn't a big ticket item. And I was very impressed with the way they pulled it off.
Leo Laporte (01:01:42):
Nelson said, we don't know what they are, but there's no evidence there from out there.
Rod Pyle (01:01:48):
And the more we learn about what the Chinese and perhaps the Russians can do with spoofing and so forth, seems like we've talked about this. It seems like there's a good chance a lot of this could be deliberate [01:02:00] radio pinging from them to try and see what our carrier battle groups do. Because isn't it interesting that the aliens, you talked about this last week on one of the shows, they cross a hundred light years of space and then slam into earth, oops, oops, we lost control at the last minute and it's always near an aircraft carrier. What's that about?
Leo Laporte (01:02:17):
So I think the fundamental takeaway to me from this report was none of these sightings have much instrumentation. And if we had more, it's,
Rod Pyle (01:02:28):
Excuse me, but in an era where everybody's [01:02:30] got one of these things, where's the evidence? That's what we're waiting.
Leo Laporte (01:02:34):
UFOs are mysterious and we'll stay that way until we have better data. And that's the issue. I mean, it's silly to me and I hope we're not spending too much. I'm glad to hear it was only a hundred thousand. Well,
Rod Pyle (01:02:50):
Let's try something else on.
Leo Laporte (01:02:53):
I want to say I'm glad that Mexico knows how to handle UFOs by [01:03:00] turning
Rod Pyle (01:03:00):
Them to stone. Right?
Leo Laporte (01:03:04):
I can't believe that. Did
Rod Pyle (01:03:05):
Those things not look like sand sculptures at the beach on day? They
Leo Laporte (01:03:08):
Said though, they did scans of 'em and they had guts, but I don't believe it for a minute.
Rod Pyle (01:03:13):
Well, they said there was D N A. That's what I saw. Which depending on how you handle those things, when you find them, D N A can come from a lot of sources. Right.
Leo Laporte (01:03:21):
I coughed on that. Okay. Don't get your hopes up kids.
Rod Pyle (01:03:23):
September 24th.
Leo Laporte (01:03:24):
Yes,
Rod Pyle (01:03:26):
Osirus Rex, the sample containment capsule comes [01:03:30] hurdling down to Utah. We had an engineer from that project on this week in space on Friday. Very exciting to talk to her. And this will be, wait a minute. They're
Leo Laporte (01:03:39):
Exploring Utah?
Rod Pyle (01:03:42):
No, no, no. This is a sample from the asteroid venue. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:03:44):
It's coming back to Utah.
Rod Pyle (01:03:46):
Coming back to Utah.
Leo Laporte (01:03:47):
Right. Okay.
Rod Pyle (01:03:48):
Because I think we
Leo Laporte (01:03:49):
Know there are no aliens in Utah. I think we knew that. Go ahead. If
Rod Pyle (01:03:53):
You're going to drop something at 25,000 miles per hour, you might as well plop it into Utah. Right? Yeah, that's what I do. So that comes back, [01:04:00] and this is a carbonation
Leo Laporte (01:04:02):
Asteroid.
Rod Pyle (01:04:04):
So this is a remnant of the primordial solar system, which is very, very cool. And they did find when they got there a few years back, they found hydrated minerals, which is evidence of water in the past, which is exciting. I mean, we knew that. But the coolest thing for me is once they get the sample back to this lab, they've constructed a Johnson Space Center. Now you're able to see the pure [01:04:30] sample from the asteroid. Compare that to meteorites we've been looking at for hundreds of years and see, okay, how much does it change coming to the earth? And if it doesn't change too much, besides going through the sample of Benu, which is very small, it's just a couple ounces we think we're not quite sure how much they picked up. This could open the door to a whole reevaluation of how we look at meteorites. And then that's a conversation about the early solar system, how earth formed and very possibly how life came about. If [01:05:00] there's organic chemistry in this sample, then that's something pretty exciting to look at.
Leo Laporte (01:05:06):
So this is from Benu. And by the way, I think that I was surprised that Elon did not spend more time trying to figure out how to mine asteroids. If you really want to make money, that seems like the play, but he wants to go. He read too much science there or three
Rod Pyle (01:05:22):
Other companies tried and they didn't last long. It's hard. And there's an awful lot of good stuff on the moon to get to before asteroids. It's a [01:05:30] lot easier to reach. I mean, talk to Dan Suarez about that. He's studied this to death. It's
Leo Laporte (01:05:33):
Pretty exciting what they're getting on the moon. And the Indian Explorer has done very well. To me that is much more exciting. That is our nearest planetary, our nearest object.
Rod Pyle (01:05:46):
You find water up there and there's metal in the soil and all kinds of other stuff. There's a lot you can do there without having to trend a lot to asteroids. I mean, eventually we will, but it's a big pull. One of the things exciting about Osirus Rex though is [01:06:00] as soon as it drops off the sample container, so it's heading towards earth sample container separates and hurdle straight in. And by the way, this is not one of those orbit. And then come out your leisure deals. This is okay, we got to shoot it just right. Oh
Leo Laporte (01:06:13):
Wow. Interesting.
Rod Pyle (01:06:14):
It's not guided Glide or anything. It's got to go right to where it's going to end up. And it's another feather in the cap of nasa. We'll be
Leo Laporte (01:06:21):
Able to watch this live, by the way, on NASA tv, which is exciting.
Rod Pyle (01:06:25):
Or space.com
Leo Laporte (01:06:27):
Or space.com. Yeah, they
Rod Pyle (01:06:29):
Carry all that stuff. [01:06:30] As soon as that separates the main spacecraft is going to be diverted and will be repurposed to go look at another asteroid called Apophis, which is famous because we thought it was going to come hurdling and smash into Earth a few years back. Turns out it's not. We're worried about it hitting us in 2029. That's been dismissed for now, but it's being repurposed for a whole new mission. And this wasn't originally in the mission plan. This is one of those things that NASA and JPL L do very well, which is redesigning missions on the fly, if you will, [01:07:00] because they can and because they've got very robust equipment and good people. And so it's being repurposed to go look at this other asteroid. So I think that's incredibly exciting.
Leo Laporte (01:07:10):
September 24th
Rod Pyle (01:07:13):
And a sky near you now, just remember if you see that thing coming at you and it's just getting bigger and bigger and not going sideways, run fast,
Leo Laporte (01:07:23):
Run until it's not getting bigger and bigger.
Rod Pyle (01:07:26):
One more thing that I'm not sure we'll have time to talk about before it happens [01:07:30] on October 14th, there is an annular solar eclipse which will be crossing a section of the western United States. So annular is when the moon's a little too far away. So you still see a ring of the sun around the shadow of the moon. So it's not like a total eclipse. You can't ever look at it with the naked eye. But if you have good eclipse glasses, be sure to buy them from a reputable dealer like Celestron or something. Don't just go on Amazon and find them. And I sent you guys a link to put in the show notes. If you buy bad [01:08:00] eclipse glasses, you can end up with cataracts at the age of 45 or 50. I did from doing that very thing. So this
Leo Laporte (01:08:06):
Will really moly. You did. Wow. So that's a good kid. I
Rod Pyle (01:08:11):
Had a little telescope with little screw in welding glass filter. Yikes. And I never paid attention to the instruction book, which says, don't use this for more a minute at a time and spend hours staring at the sun.
Leo Laporte (01:08:22):
Oops. How long do annular eclipses last? Oh, well, go ahead answer Micah. Sorry.
Mikah Sargent (01:08:28):
Did you feel pain to know [01:08:30] that this was going to be, this was happening. It
Rod Pyle (01:08:32):
Was just like my Mac battery. One morning I woke up and I suddenly realized I could barely see out of my right anymore. So you
Mikah Sargent (01:08:38):
Can start using that instead of bankruptcy. It's like cataracts from the solar eclipse.
Rod Pyle (01:08:43):
It happens all over slowly.
(01:08:44):
I go to the eye doctor and he looks and he looks and he doesn't say anything. And then he calls his staff and he said, Hey, you guys come in here and I'm not there. They have this whole thing. Go look at these. Wow, these are really bad for a guy his age. We're going to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I was like, I'm right here. [01:09:00] So that was a good object lesson. But if you're in parts of Oregon, it'll enter over Oregon, cross through Nevada, go right through Central Utah and central New Mexico, then blast through Texas and hit parts of Central and South America. If you've got eclipse glasses or a way to look at it safely do, because I've seen one and it's pretty amazing. You just see this disc of the sun with this much of it occluded out. So it's just this ring of fire. And then of course in [01:09:30] April of next year at 24, we have the total solar eclipse, which
Leo Laporte (01:09:34):
That's going to be exciting.
Rod Pyle (01:09:35):
I hope I can get to go see, it's probably in Texas would be the best place to see that.
Leo Laporte (01:09:40):
So the best way to keep up on all of this is the weekly show called This Week in Space, which Rod hosts with terick malick of space.com. Yes sir. Yeah. Or subscribe the National Space Society as a wonderful magazine called Ad Astra. And of course Rod is the editor in chief of that. And you get that has come out every [01:10:00] other month. How often does it come out?
Rod Pyle (01:10:01):
It's quarterly. Quarterly.
Leo Laporte (01:10:03):
Okay. Every 13.
Rod Pyle (01:10:03):
I'd like it to be six times a year, but budgets and magazines and it's still print. It's a really deluxe,
Leo Laporte (01:10:09):
It's a beautiful job. They do. Yeah.
Rod Pyle (01:10:11):
It's pretty nice and it's hard to stay in that market. And what's interesting is our sales are actually going up pretty quickly in retail. We send it to all members, of course as part of their membership, but magazines are not a pretty scene in retail right now. But there's so few left in the space area that we're doing quite well. So I'm happy. I'm glad to hear
Leo Laporte (01:10:29):
That. Glad hear. And you're [01:10:30] working on a book right now? Yes,
Rod Pyle (01:10:32):
I am. We don't have a firm contract yet, but after going to a lot of publishers that went and 2019 was a good year for me. I made at least one publisher about a million and a half dollars. What? Yeah, but you go back,
Leo Laporte (01:10:50):
Was that the Apollo 11 book?
Rod Pyle (01:10:53):
Yes. Yeah, it's sold like crazy. It was such a
Leo Laporte (01:10:55):
Great book. I loved that. Yeah, and you
Rod Pyle (01:10:57):
Go back a few years later and they go, well, we're not [01:11:00] really sure and all that, but there's an academic publisher I'm talking to, so it looks very favorable. So as soon as I have details, I'll bore you all with them. Good.
Leo Laporte (01:11:08):
This week in space, TWI tv slash twists. Rod, thank you so much. Yes. And and
Rod Pyle (01:11:15):
Thanks to you and Lisa and the whole team for helping us put that show on because it wouldn't be anything
Leo Laporte (01:11:20):
Without you guys. I know an does a great job producing it. Happy and happy birthday. You can do anything fun for your birthday.
Rod Pyle (01:11:27):
This is kind of it. This was my fun thing seeing you [01:11:30] guys.
Leo Laporte (01:11:31):
I know how you feel once you get to a certain age, you really, there's nothing to celebrate. I'm
Rod Pyle (01:11:35):
Sorry, Micah. You're not old enough to know yet.
Leo Laporte (01:11:39):
This
Rod Pyle (01:11:39):
Is exciting. It's just a long icy road to 70 now, right?
Leo Laporte (01:11:43):
So I Yeah, exactly. How did you get old? Gradually then suddenly been all at once.
Rod Pyle (01:11:49):
Just like Mac.
Leo Laporte (01:11:50):
I have to give credit to Ernest Hemingway. That's from the sun also rises. How did you go bankrupt? Two ways gradually. Then suddenly. Hey, thank you so [01:12:00] much. It's great to see you. Thank you, sir. Take care. Rod Pyle our space guru. Thank you, rod. Now we're going to take another break and then we're going to get back to the calls and we're going to do calls. We're going to do a lot of calls,
Rod Pyle (01:12:10):
Calls on
Leo Laporte (01:12:11):
Calls, on calls like never before. The best calls. Only the best calls coming up, which is all of them. Mike is too young to sigh yet. You're too young to sigh. Too young to sigh. Alright. All right. This is dealer's choice. John Ashley.
John Ashley (01:12:30):
[01:12:30] Ooh, let's take a phone call. I think I see, I'm going to pick up this caller
Leo Laporte (01:12:35):
Right here. Pick up that caller right now and then we'll do a voicemail and then we'll do an email and then we'll do a Zoom and then we could rotate through 'em all. Yeah. Yeah. I'm ready. Hello caller, welcome caller. Oh, I'm sorry, Dr. Mom has to go next time. Dr. Mom, I'm sorry. She sat there for a long time and now she's mad at us. Hello. Hello. What's your name and where are you calling from?
Caller David (01:13:00):
[01:13:00] I've actually called before on this very show after you guys went off the radio. It's David from Chicago.
Leo Laporte (01:13:08):
Hi dude from Chicago. Welcome
Caller David (01:13:10):
David. D A v O
Leo Laporte (01:13:12):
O D. That dude Va Daud. Okay, Daud. Alright, welcome.
Caller David (01:13:19):
I originally dialed in reaction to what you were saying, Leo, about spending time with your parents
Leo Laporte (01:13:26):
Before the show. I talked a little bit about why I was gone. I don't [01:13:30] think people who were only watching the show know this, but I was back east to put my mother in assisted living, and so we were talking a little bit about that beforehand. Yeah,
Caller David (01:13:39):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, it was pre-show and I was about to say that, but then when you started the show, did the Sunday sermon, I wanted to ask something in relation to that and comment on that.
Leo Laporte (01:13:52):
This show just stimulates questions.
Caller David (01:13:57):
Well, I want to say to Micah real quick what Leo was saying [01:14:00] pre-show. Very true. I unfortunately lost both my parents between 2010 and 2020. I'm sorry. And my grandmother, my mom's mom one year before that, I'm sorry. So all three between 2 0 9 and 2020
Leo Laporte (01:14:17):
Got to enjoy the while
Caller David (01:14:19):
Grandmother was assisted living. So it is what it is. We are all going to die one day. But Mike, to take that advice to heart, [01:14:30] get as much time as you can with your mom and your dad if he's still around
Leo Laporte (01:14:35):
And his grandparents, he's got a great family and as nieces and his sisters and you got a great family and he knows it though, I have to say. You love your family. I do. I know that. And the problem is he doesn't like to fly and his family's back in Missouri. We're going to have to drive
Caller David (01:14:53):
Somewhere. I don't like to fly either. I don't
Mikah Sargent (01:14:55):
Like to spend a bajillion dollars to go to Missouri.
Leo Laporte (01:14:59):
The problem is he's a cheap [01:15:00] ski. I take it back,
Mikah Sargent (01:15:01):
That's what it is. I'm a cheap ski
Leo Laporte (01:15:04):
Anyway.
Caller David (01:15:05):
I get that. For me, it's the reverse. I have to spend a bajillion dollars to come to California and visit my sister,
Leo Laporte (01:15:12):
But once they're gone, it doesn't matter how much stack you aren't going to go see. So the best memory of this all was holding my mom's hand. We'd got her all set up. She's very happy in the new place and just holding her hand for a while and telling her how much I loved her and that was a very nice experience and I'm going to go [01:15:30] back every month for a while just to make sure she's settling in and everything. So yeah, I remember Johnny Jet used to go back and see his dad all the time. I thought, well, you're a good boy now I understand why you get
Mikah Sargent (01:15:40):
It now.
Leo Laporte (01:15:41):
And Johnny's dad has passed and so I'm sure he's very glad that he spent the time he did with his father. Did you have any other questions?
Caller David (01:15:51):
Yeah. On your Sunday sermon, I wanted to comment and then I wanted to ask a question as well. [01:16:00] The comment is I actually wrote a paper, a research paper in eighth grade about the Microsoft lawsuit. Eighth grade for me was oh 2 0 3.
Leo Laporte (01:16:09):
Yeah, so the lawsuit was 98,
Caller David (01:16:10):
So it was after.
Leo Laporte (01:16:12):
Yeah,
Caller David (01:16:13):
Right. So there was a bunch of books on it, academic level books and not, I was able to write a good research paper. Actually my eighth grade teacher who graded that paper literally was not expecting to be able to give me an a plus. [01:16:30] And because they weren't expecting to, they gave me an a plus plus because of the level at which I wrote the paper. That's nice and understood the case. What
Leo Laporte (01:16:40):
Conclusions did you come to?
Caller David (01:16:44):
Well, I've been tracking the Google, apple Facebook stuff very closely and the conclusion I am coming to is the governments of the world, and I'm saying it that way because of the EU as well are [01:17:00] handling it better now because of Microsoft back in the nineties. And that me to my question, and it's more of a rhetorical question, but I do want your opinions on the actual answer with the U S B C change and yes, I'm referring to the iPhone and all of the Apple products at this point. [01:17:30] I'm an Apple user, have been since 20 0 9, 20 0 8, maybe even. I love Apple products. I've had no problem with the change from the 30 pin connector to the lightning connector 10 years ago, 12 years ago, whatever it was. What is it though about regular users and some technology minded users as well? Not understanding that [01:18:00] Apple actually helped invent U S P C and that's why they didn't wait another year since they're out of that 10 year window where they guaranteed they wouldn't change charges for 10 years.
Leo Laporte (01:18:13):
That's a really good point is that Apple has been involved in all of the connection technologies that we value. They were the first company to put U S B in a computer with the original imax. They developed Thunderbolt with Intel. FireWire with Intel, and [01:18:30] they've been very involved in U S B C, so they're very much engaged in these standards bodies.
Mikah Sargent (01:18:34):
What is it about the average user? It's that they don't
Leo Laporte (01:18:38):
Care. They don't care. They don't
Mikah Sargent (01:18:39):
Know any of this and they're not interested in knowing. It
Leo Laporte (01:18:41):
Doesn't make it better that Apple invented it.
Mikah Sargent (01:18:45):
The thought of them even having the wherewithal to know about how a cable is invented is I think just focused.
Caller David (01:18:55):
I'm more concerned by the average tech user,
Leo Laporte (01:19:00):
[01:19:00] And I think you're right. They should realize that Apple's been using U S B C in their laptops and even their iPads for some time. This is not new. They created lightning back in the day because there was no, remember that was back when we had micro U S B, those weird connectors you had to put in the right way and it was just terrible.
Caller David (01:19:21):
Which they helped with as well. Well,
Leo Laporte (01:19:23):
Of course. But the point is they created something that they thought was superior to the 30 pin connector and the standard at the time, [01:19:30] micro U Ss B. And so they did create something that was better, was faster. You couldn't put it in wrong. There were a lot of pros for lightning and I don't know if this was a consideration because they owned it. They made a lot of money on lightning accessories.
Mikah Sargent (01:19:47):
I think that that certainly is part of it. I wonder if internally there was a goal, if we can get services revenue to this place, then we can stop being so reliant [01:20:00] on the M F I accessory money that we're making that played role. That's
Caller David (01:20:06):
A good point too that I didn't take into consideration.
Mikah Sargent (01:20:09):
And then I think that there's also some level of, if you spend 20 minutes talking about how you are an environmentally friendly company,
Leo Laporte (01:20:18):
Oh boy, that was a bomb,
Mikah Sargent (01:20:20):
Wasn't it? And then you change ports and maybe cause people to go, well, what do I do with all of these or these lightning cables? I'm throwing them in the landfill. I think there's [01:20:30] a lot of consideration that goes into it that Apple has to think about frankly and what it means. And part of this is probably a little bit of ripping off the bandage, but I also, what I found interesting Leo at this last keynote was before they ever mentioned U S B C, they talked about all of the wireless capabilities of the phone. And we've heard for a long time [01:21:00] that Apple is considering a pointless phone in the future. And I think this is a continued hint at that, that U S B C was almost an afterthought when it came to the phone because look at what you can do with it wirelessly without even needing to have a port. And so I do wonder if they would've even made that transition to U SS B C at all if there wasn't the EU part of it. A
Leo Laporte (01:21:23):
Lot of people said that, remember they had another year, they could have done it next year. EU was going to give 'em till the end of 2024. [01:21:30] And there's been a lot of speculation about this idea of Aless iPhone, by the way. That's all speculation.
Mikah Sargent (01:21:35):
Yes. Yes.
Leo Laporte (01:21:37):
Based on kind of clues like the fact that they're promoting MagSafe, I'm not convinced that they want to go completely pointless. The advantage would be that it's waterproof. It's a sealed case less, but they're massive disadvantages in terms of data transfer convenience. Wireless charging [01:22:00] is very inefficient. So if you want to be environmentally friendly, you shouldn't be wireless charging. So I'm not convinced that Apple does want to go pointless. We've had this debate on Mac break weekly. Jason Snell thinks that that was a phony supposition. Interesting. I just don't know. We'll see if they do do that in a couple of years. I think this might be the port they stick with for five, seven more years until the next big thing comes along. [01:22:30] I don't know. It's unknown. It's unknown. I think I would be disappointed with a pointless phone. Me
Mikah Sargent (01:22:36):
Too.
Leo Laporte (01:22:37):
Apple understands that that's a big risk. That might be the move that it takes to get people to go to Android. Apple. Talk about a monopoly. Wow. I mean it's Android or Apple, isn't it? That's pretty much. That's pretty much it. Hey, thanks for the call to boot. It's always good to talk to you. Oh, why don't I do an email. Let me just reach back. Okay, reach
Mikah Sargent (01:22:59):
Back.
Leo Laporte (01:23:00):
[01:23:00] Oh
Mikah Sargent (01:23:00):
God. Rotate that cuff.
Leo Laporte (01:23:02):
Oh, it's so painful. That's it. My career in the N F L is over Question upgrading my iPhone eight. Should I go with a 14 or a 15? Very timely. This comes from Jim in Granite Bay, previously known as Jim from Walnut Creek. Congratulations.
Mikah Sargent (01:23:19):
Congratulations on the move.
Leo Laporte (01:23:20):
Yeah, I've been waiting for the iPhone announcement. Should I go all the way to the iPhone 15 now he's got a really old one, the iPhone eight. He does need to upgrade because Apple's [01:23:30] no longer going to give you security updates. Certainly no more iOS updates on iPhone eight or would settling for a 14 or even a 13 be a better value? A few hundred dollars when we're another is not going to make or break the budget. I want to get the best value for my money. I do take photos with my phone, that's important, but when I'm trying, usually in vain to get great photos, I end up putting out my D S L R and it's interchangeable lenses. That's interesting. Side note, 50 years ago I got a master's in computer science. They had [01:24:00] computers then. Wow. Spent an entire career designing and building enterprise level applications. But nearly everything I know about personal technology I've learned by listening to the tech guy. Thank you Jim. We love Jim. He's a nice guy. I know him from his calls. That's a good question.
Mikah Sargent (01:24:19):
This is a question that specifically my mom, same exact thing. iPhone eight. Do I go to the 14 or do I go to the 15? It's going to be different for everybody, right? It's a matter of [01:24:30] what you want to pay. Here is my basic suggestion. If you can afford it and it doesn't even cause a little bit of hair to stand up on the back of your neck, absolutely go for the 15. The big reason for me is not even all of the great stuff that the 15 can do over the 14, not that much, but it's the fact that the battery is manufactured newer. So that for me [01:25:00] ends up being the big,
Leo Laporte (01:25:01):
It's not the same battery
Mikah Sargent (01:25:02):
Tech, it's same battery tech. Oh, I see.
Leo Laporte (01:25:05):
But
Mikah Sargent (01:25:05):
It's made more, but one's been going to be sitting in a warehouse for a lot longer,
Leo Laporte (01:25:08):
So just sitting in a warehouse can wear out a battery.
Mikah Sargent (01:25:10):
Absolutely. Well, yeah, by the time you get it, it's justs going to be an older battery and that is going to result in not as long of a life plus. There have been a lot of complaints. I have not had this, but anecdotally I have seen at least eight different people talking about, and then nine to five Mac I think has even recorded a lot [01:25:30] more than that of people talking about the battery life on their iPhone 14, dropping in efficiency. So I think that if you can afford it and it doesn't raise your hackles at all, go for the 15 because just in the long run it's going to last you longer. You are clearly a person who can hold onto your phone for a long time and so getting that latest greatest means that the warranties there, the battery is newer, all of that. Plus if there ends up being anything in [01:26:00] this new phone that's wrong. Apple's really good about within the first month or so. They just pretty much replace them. They fix them, they do whatever needs to be done trying to collect and see what might be going wrong in the manufacturing process, et cetera, et cetera. If it does raise your hackles even a bit, you're going to be happy going from the iPhone eight to the iPhone 14, huge. It's going to be a huge jump for you.
(01:26:25):
Again, the fact is that it's a little bit older, but you get a better [01:26:30] deal on it. So yeah, there are all of those indications as well that if you're looking for a deal, go for the 14. If you're looking for or if you can afford to and it doesn't bother you go for the 15.
Leo Laporte (01:26:43):
I think there is one thing that might push you towards the 15 and that is the type C connector. That's true because this is the end of the line for the lightning connector. So you buy an older iPhone, you're buying a phone that's going to use instantly an out of date connector. [01:27:00] Apple's going to change everything to type C and eventually you'll be harder and harder. I mean, go try to find a 30 pin cable.
Mikah Sargent (01:27:08):
Right.
Leo Laporte (01:27:08):
You'll be
Mikah Sargent (01:27:09):
Harder and you're only find 'em in hotels or motels. So
Leo Laporte (01:27:11):
I think you're going to, I hate to spend, look, it's like buying a new car. You're spending the top dollar to get the latest phone. It will be cheaper next year. It'll be cheaper the year after.
Mikah Sargent (01:27:20):
Yeah, it's always the
Leo Laporte (01:27:21):
Case. It's always the case. So I hate to give them that money if it weren't for the type C connector and the points you've made. I didn't even think [01:27:30] about the age of the battery, but that's an excellent point. I would say get a 14 or even a 13. They're really very, very close now at the point in phones where there's just little improvements each year. So it's almost always a better idea from a pure economic point of view to get that last year phone or even two year old phone. It's that type C thing that I think I really worry about a little bit and I think it probably is worth it. This might be the jump to make and then you can [01:28:00] reasonably say, okay, I'm going to wait another seven years before I get a new
Mikah Sargent (01:28:04):
Phone. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And good on you for holding onto your phone for that long.
Leo Laporte (01:28:07):
By the way, you were right. It's interesting what you said and this came from that's
Mikah Sargent (01:28:12):
Yep. I recognize the site. Lean
Leo Laporte (01:28:13):
Crew.com,
Mikah Sargent (01:28:15):
Dr. D.
Leo Laporte (01:28:17):
Dr. D Durang
Mikah Sargent (01:28:19):
On social media,
Leo Laporte (01:28:19):
The expert, by the way, that the new iPhones are lighter, the weight reduction is nine to 10%. That's not huge. Almost [01:28:30] on the edge of what you could perceive. He points out that Jason Snell thought it seemed distinctly lighter. He says it's not the weight of it or the mass of it, it's the rotational.
Mikah Sargent (01:28:41):
This is wild.
Leo Laporte (01:28:42):
It's the rotational momentum of the device. It's 15% lower rotational inertia and that's because the titanium edge is lower mass, so the overall weight [01:29:00] is only nine to 10, but when you go like this, it doesn't pull you as much.
Mikah Sargent (01:29:07):
Got it. Because the frame,
Leo Laporte (01:29:08):
Because of the rotational. So that is a wild, weird thing, but drang is smart. People are more sensitive. He says that's one explanation, nine to 10% people might be able to notice it, but he thinks it really is about a change in how you manipulate the phone. It's not just the mass, the weight of the phone. It's [01:29:30] the moment of inertia.
Mikah Sargent (01:29:31):
Oh, because that's almost, think about a gyroscope if I do this with the phone and it's got the steel edge on it versus Yeah, that titanium edge. It's not going to pull me to one side of the, yeah, look at all this.
Leo Laporte (01:29:43):
So brings the mass to calculate the rotational inertia and he says the moment of inertia is about 15% less and that you would notice that's a bigger reduction than the actual mass of the phone. I thought that was interesting.
Mikah Sargent (01:29:58):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:29:59):
Yeah. Wow. [01:30:00] Alright, we're going to take another call in just a moment. You're watching Ask La Tech guys. Do we have a voicemail, John? We have
Mikah Sargent (01:30:09):
Voicemails, but we have a lot of callers. I think maybe we should
Leo Laporte (01:30:11):
Try do callers. You tell me. Yeah,
John Ashley (01:30:13):
Let's do, I think let's do Cameron.
Mikah Sargent (01:30:18):
Cameron.
Leo Laporte (01:30:19):
Alright, we're going to go to Cameron, our next caller on the Zoom. Hello Cameron. Join us in the star gates. Is that weird? The rotational [01:30:30] inertia is what? Hey Cameron.
Caller Cameron (01:30:34):
Hello.
Leo Laporte (01:30:35):
Hello Cameron, where are you calling from? I
Caller Cameron (01:30:37):
Have multiple questions ranging in Di difficulty
Mikah Sargent (01:30:41):
Today. Difficulty. I knew it.
Leo Laporte (01:30:43):
How did you know that? I
Mikah Sargent (01:30:44):
Just had a feeling.
Caller Cameron (01:30:46):
The first one is very simple. Is there any good stock ticker like apps for Windows? My father's [01:31:00] been kind of needling me and I have no idea.
Leo Laporte (01:31:03):
So it's interesting because Microsoft has now with this new gadgets in the lower left of the Windows screen does have stock prices, but it sounds like he wants the old school
Mikah Sargent (01:31:17):
Updating,
Leo Laporte (01:31:17):
Updating that it goes across the bottom of the screen.
Caller Cameron (01:31:20):
Right? Kind of like the news
Leo Laporte (01:31:24):
Where you have all the, I am not familiar of one, but I think there are quite a few.
Mikah Sargent (01:31:29):
I remove them as [01:31:30] soon as I get a new device.
Leo Laporte (01:31:31):
So there is a desktop widget that is part of Microsoft Windows, but I think it only shows, at least on mine, it shows. Does it do a ticker? I don't know if it does a ticker. It does.
Caller Cameron (01:31:46):
Well it does have a watch list.
Leo Laporte (01:31:48):
Yeah, it's a watch list and it puts graphs
Mikah Sargent (01:31:51):
Up. Says he just has a tab of Yahoo Finance open
Leo Laporte (01:31:55):
On
Caller Cameron (01:31:56):
Browser. I think my father specifically wants something that'll [01:32:00] just say, I
Leo Laporte (01:32:01):
Know what he wants. I actually love what he wants. Not just a widget that shows a price and then rotates or anything like that. He wants a toolbar in effect. Yeah, kind of like this is the one that looks the most to me, like what he wants. It's called the finance toolbar. See that? It's a ticker. It's even got little dots. Oh
Mikah Sargent (01:32:23):
Yeah. It's got all of the language on there.
Leo Laporte (01:32:26):
Access, realtime stock information and investment updates [01:32:30] to stay on top of the market. It is for Mac and Windows. So I should go ahead.
Caller Cameron (01:32:37):
So it looks like that's from the Microsoft store.
Leo Laporte (01:32:40):
It's in the store. Yes. So he can get it in the store. It's not from the Microsoft store, but it's from Stefan vd. He's the guy who wrote it. It is a finance toolbar, a Windows app. So it's an app that'll give you realtime stock information and tick across the screen. [01:33:00] Let me see if I want to see the ticker. Yeah, there it is. Stock ticker bar. That'll go across the
Caller Cameron (01:33:07):
Screen. Oh, but it's not free so I have to
Leo Laporte (01:33:09):
Get, well, it's $5,
Mikah Sargent (01:33:13):
But hey, give your
Leo Laporte (01:33:14):
Dad a fin and
Mikah Sargent (01:33:15):
Then $5 in stocks and then you can buy
Leo Laporte (01:33:18):
It. Okay, now here's a review that says rip off. I bought it. It was working fine and stopped working at contact the company and they want more money to help me. Huh? I don't know if that sounds [01:33:30] like an Well let's find another one because the reviews aren't great on this. A lot of one star reviews now, so let's not,
Caller Cameron (01:33:37):
What I like about that though is that it does have, that's
Leo Laporte (01:33:40):
What you want. Yeah, I understand what dad wants Dad's old school. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Caller Cameron (01:33:47):
You got it. Good.
Leo Laporte (01:33:51):
Here is something from the The American Association of Individual Investors. It's a desk top [01:34:00] ticker. This might be, and this one because it's from an organization in contrast to cool stock ticker where you have to click on a stock to take you to another page with news and details. This is going to display actual news headlines, but I want to see a picture of it before I recommend This's. Also pretty old. So maybe this isn't, yeah, this may be too old. One of, if it's real time, you know this that you have to pay for realtime updates, otherwise they're delayed by 15 minutes. [01:34:30] That may be why that widget, the desktop ticker widget costs $5 is to pay for the real-time quotes. I see a lot of widgets. I don't actually know. And obviously Micah's too poor to have investments. True. Teasing you. Here's another one from our Discord. This might be good. No, that's the one that's the same one. Stefan vd, [01:35:00] the finance toolbar. I don't know. We'll have to keep looking. I'll tell you what, ask the next harder question, but actually I have an easy question for you. First, you didn't tell us what city you're calling from.
Caller Cameron (01:35:12):
Monterey.
Leo Laporte (01:35:13):
Monterey Love. Beautiful Monterey home of the best aquarium in the world. Okay, next question.
Caller Cameron (01:35:23):
Now the rest of my questions involve my Linux box. I just recently [01:35:30] acquired. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:35:31):
Congratulations.
Caller Cameron (01:35:32):
Debbie and 10 Bus, I believe is the codename for, but I want K neon on it, so I have to burn the U S B on my Chromebook. I'm talking to you on right now. It won't do it
Leo Laporte (01:35:47):
Because it won. So first of all, don't worry, you don't have to burn. You don't have to get a new distribution to have K D E. Once you have 10 on there, then you can install a new desktop environment. What do you have right now? Is it gnome [01:36:00] or what is
Caller Cameron (01:36:01):
Yeah, I have gnome. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:36:03):
But so it's a little tricky installing a desktop environment. It's not as simple as installing a simple application, but if you look up installing K D E plasma on Debian, there will be instructions for how you do it. There's a couple of commands you have to do, and when you do that, it just replaces it. And in fact, what it really does, which is great, when you're at the login screen, there'll be a dropdown and lets you choose your desktop [01:36:30] environment. So it's possible to have multiple desktop environments installed, which is kind of fun.
Caller Cameron (01:36:35):
Yeah, so the reason why I want Katie Neon is because like Ubuntu and other distributions don't really have all the up-to-date K project, and so yeah, I am aware of that. I've been doing Linux for what, three, four years.
Leo Laporte (01:36:50):
Okay. You understand how to change de
Caller Cameron (01:36:52):
Yeah, I do know that I use
Leo Laporte (01:36:55):
Are you trying to use Wayland or is that the issue? Yeah,
Caller Cameron (01:36:58):
Well, not [01:37:00] necessarily. So the issue is in order to burn the U S B, right. Honestly, I'm not a big fan of Debian. I'd rather at least do Ubuntu.
Leo Laporte (01:37:12):
Well do Ubuntu then. Doesn't abuntu have a K D E plasma? No. Yeah,
Caller Cameron (01:37:17):
I can.
Leo Laporte (01:37:18):
You know what? I'll tell you my favorite. That does have KDE plasma as manjaro,
Caller Cameron (01:37:23):
Right? But in order to switch, I need a disc drive, right?
Leo Laporte (01:37:29):
No, [01:37:30] you a do not need a disc drive. You need a U S B key.
Caller Cameron (01:37:34):
You know what I mean? Okay,
Leo Laporte (01:37:37):
That's what you mean. The problem is
Caller Cameron (01:37:41):
Didi didn't do it for me when I tried booting
Leo Laporte (01:37:43):
Into Ah, you're trying to, okay. Yeah,
Caller Cameron (01:37:45):
Yeah, yeah. When I tried booting into it, it wouldn't read. Right. Now I know I love beara. Etcher is the one I typically use for, but I can't get that because I have no internet. Now [01:38:00] when I look, it does not have the copper firmware.
Leo Laporte (01:38:03):
Okay, just chill, just calm. So a lot of people use ENA or various gooey applications to burn a Linux distribution to A U S B key, but you can easily do it with dd. I always use dd, which you have because it's command line. It comes with Linux. So the trick is just to, in fact, the easiest thing to do, go into your terminal type man space, dd. But I'll tell you the command [01:38:30] I use, so I download the ISO that I want. I then type dd, that's the, I think it's disc, duplicate disc, I can't remember what it's, it's a way to copy a disc in effect. You can use it for backup to DD space. I usually tell it what block size to use. So that's BS equals, and I say four lowercase M four megabytes. So that's four megabyte block sizes. That just makes it a little faster.
(01:38:58):
You can leave that out. [01:39:00] Then you're going to have to tell it what the in file is. That's going to be in your downloads folder. So I f equals and then the link, the path to, I usually just type downloads slash tab and then see which one of them is the iso. They just downloaded space and then the out file o F equals, so it's i F equals and o F equals. Those are the key. Now careful with O F because you're going to actually DD is a dangerous [01:39:30] app because it will blast those bits to wherever you say, and if it's your main drive, it'll erase your main drive without asking, without. So before you even do this, there's a command you should execute to figure out where that you put the U S B key in and then type l, SS B l, K.
(01:39:51):
That's going to list all the block devices and you're going to look for the appropriate name, block name for your SB key. [01:40:00] It'll be probably something like slash dev slash S B A or S B b. You'll see there'll be a list of all the devices. That's why you put the disc in first. Then once it mounts, you list the devices, you'll see a two gigabyte or a four gigabyte or an eight gigabyte U S B key. Do not copy it to SSB A if that's your main drive, right? So that's the only trick in using [01:40:30] DD is to really be sure you're dding to the right output. So just to recap, DD space BS equals four, lowercase M four megabytes in file. If F equals if equals, and then the path to your ISO O F equals the path you've just figured out from LSS block.
(01:40:56):
It's usually slash d slash SBA ad or [01:41:00] SS B D or something like that, and then hit return. It's going to come back fast. If you really want to get fancy, you can then say Ampersand, ampersand sync. You could say don't execute, don't stop the execution until you're done. But what'll happen because of the way Lennox is set up, it'll execute and then come back to you immediately. You'll get the command line immediately and you might go, oh good, that was fast. And pull out the thumb drive. It's not done. Leave it, let it sit. Go have breakfast. [01:41:30] Let it sit because it's still writing to the drive. Once it's done, writing to the drive. That's why I use sync. Once it's done writing to the drive, then you can take the U S B drive out and now it's got the image on it. That was a long answer.
Caller Cameron (01:41:46):
I did do that. However, when I try to boot into it from my system, it won't read. Now another issue is even if that were to work, I still would not have windows. [01:42:00] It has an Intel device, Intel internet, wifi, because I only have wifi here. It would be too,
Leo Laporte (01:42:12):
And that's why you don't have internet. Yeah. So this is where people go. I'm never using Linux. You have to get the drivers for the Intel wifi. And all of this is online though. This is where you're not online. Do you have You have a Chromebook. Wait a minute, what am I saying? Yeah,
Caller Cameron (01:42:30):
[01:42:30] So
Leo Laporte (01:42:30):
If you're online with this, so go do some searching. Don't dismiss the Arch Wiki even though you're not using Arch, because it's a great resource for all of this stuff. I've
Caller Cameron (01:42:40):
Used it.
Leo Laporte (01:42:41):
Yeah. So search the arch wiki for dd. There's a lot of little hitches in the get along. For instance, if you have a U A F I machine, you have to download the right U A F I and so forth. I'm going to suggest you go look at the manjaro website. Here is they have the plasma desktop right there on the left. They support plasma [01:43:00] X F C E and GNOME as the defaults. But there's communities for a lot of other desktops. This is an arch based distro, but it has a really good installer that will recognize your Intel wifi. That'll install the right drivers, do the non-free drivers, and this should be very easy. Again, you can download the I S O file and use DD to burn that to A U S B key. If you do it properly. If you don't use belene, etcher, etcher makes it very easy. But Etcher [01:43:30] probably is just a front end to dd. I'm going to guess.
Caller Cameron (01:43:33):
Yeah, honestly, it probably is. And because it's a class platform, so I didn't try to use an online guard to put them in there, but it's still not recognizing it.
Leo Laporte (01:43:48):
And if I could just come over to your house, I could probably show you what's going on. There's some little thing. It's easy for these things to, but this is why you use Linux because you're going to learn, and [01:44:00] there's always little hitches in this. There's always little hitches, and once you learn it, then your brain gets bigger. So this is all about making your brain bigger, and I think you'll be able to figure it out. I really do. DD works just fine. I use DD always to burn my US B keys. I have Etcher. I don't even use it,
Caller Cameron (01:44:20):
But it worked fine for me. I'm not at the point in my Linux learning where I am comfortable really using something [01:44:30] like CD happen. The
Leo Laporte (01:44:31):
Problem, this is what's going to happen though. We're going to get you to that command line. You're going to be a command line sensor. And really, honestly, you kind of have to, and this is why people don't like Linux. The good news is you have total control. They don't get to say you should be using Edge. Why aren't you using pinging? You don't get any of that. And if you want a stock ticker, you write it in Python, baby. Oh
Mikah Sargent (01:44:58):
Yeah. Oh
Leo Laporte (01:44:59):
Yeah. [01:45:00] Straight
Mikah Sargent (01:45:00):
From the source.
Caller Cameron (01:45:03):
But then I could honestly find one in GitHub too. And then,
Leo Laporte (01:45:09):
Yeah, I mean, I'm sure there's such a thing, but Windows is the problem. Alright, we got to wrap it up. We're almost out of time and I want to make sure we get everybody in. It's great to talk to you. I hope you'll call again. Okay.
Caller Cameron (01:45:23):
I will for sure.
Leo Laporte (01:45:24):
Give us the hard question next.
Mikah Sargent (01:45:26):
Thanks.
Leo Laporte (01:45:28):
If that wasn't the hard question, I don't know [01:45:30] what to do now. I'm sorry to bother everybody with all of that stuff,
Mikah Sargent (01:45:34):
But Oh no, they're loving it.
Leo Laporte (01:45:36):
I love that. I love the command. You get me starting talking about Lennox, you never, we're going to stop. What should we do next? We should take a break is what we should do. And then come back with more of your calls.
Mikah Sargent (01:45:46):
Even more calls.
Leo Laporte (01:45:47):
88. Sorry, 8 8, 8 7, 2, 4, 2, 8, 8, 4, 8, 8, 8, 7, 2, 4, 2, 8, 8 4. We do have a little more time to get some [01:46:00] calls in. I think. I'm always get confused by those clocks.
Mikah Sargent (01:46:03):
I know which one's the time, which one's the time.
Leo Laporte (01:46:06):
I can see this clock. We have a little more time. We'll be right back. All right. Actually, by the way, I should have told Cameron, we have a Linux show if you join twi.
Mikah Sargent (01:46:16):
Oh yeah. Unentitled Linux show.
Leo Laporte (01:46:17):
Yeah, I can't read that from here, John. He's pointing to the label, which is like 10 point type. It says, this is your fare. This is my fare. Good. All right. So that's the cab meter on top. [01:46:30] What was I saying? Oh, we have a Linux show, the Untitled Lin Show, and it's open to calls. That's a perfect call for the Untitled Lin Show. Jonathan Bennett is great. His team is great, but there is a catch. You have to be a member of Club Twit if you're not a member yet. That's so important. It helps us so much.
Mikah Sargent (01:46:48):
It's only two more dollars than a stock ticker.
Leo Laporte (01:46:50):
Yes, exactly. A month, $7 a month. But you get ad free versions of all the shows. You get a great Discord community where you can chat with like-minded [01:47:00] geeks. You also get Twit Plus, which is a feed of stuff that doesn't happen in the shows, happens before and after the shows,
Mikah Sargent (01:47:10):
And a huge back catalog of stuff in that feed.
Leo Laporte (01:47:12):
Yeah. So $7 a month, $84 a year. There's family plans, there's corporate plans. Go to twit tv slash club twit. And Aunt Pruitt is our community manager there. He's putting together so many great things. Lou Mareska coming up at the end of the month with a special, ask me anything. [01:47:30] If you're a sci-fi fan, you will want to talk to John Scalzi on October 5th. That's amazing. Our lead AI guy, Anthony Magician Nielsen will talk about how he uses AI to do so many of the things, including the design of the Club Twit logo, which is really cool. Stacey's book club is in November, fireside chat with Renee Richie. He's back. I'm going to participate in the old farts fireside chat with Doc Searls and Jeff Jarvis. [01:48:00] Just some of the events coming up in the next few months. Twit TV slash club twit keeping us on the air. At this point, we're hanging by a thread
Mikah Sargent (01:48:12):
To the club. If you look very closely, you can see the
Leo Laporte (01:48:14):
Thread. Thanks to the Club twit members. We're still here. That's what I call a bargain. Who should I say
John Ashley (01:48:22):
Real quick? Just to let people know that? No, Chris Marquardt today.
Leo Laporte (01:48:26):
Oh, if you were tuning in for our photo guy, he's not here, but I [01:48:30] can tell you that gives you more time for the assignment. Right. Which is
John Ashley (01:48:34):
Adorable.
Leo Laporte (01:48:35):
Adorable,
Mikah Sargent (01:48:36):
Adorable.
Leo Laporte (01:48:38):
I'm going to submit a picture of my mom.
Mikah Sargent (01:48:40):
Oh, that would be cute. She
Leo Laporte (01:48:41):
Was pretty adorable. Adorable. Oh, I am definitely submitting that. Good idea. So here's how it works. Take a picture. It's got to be a current new picture. If you like it, you say that epitomizes. That is adorable. Right there. Then upload it to flicker.com. Tag it tg. Adorable. And submit [01:49:00] it to the tech guy group. Renee Silverman, our moderator will welcome you in. You can submit up to one picture a week, but you've got a reprieve now. So I can be in this. I'm going to send a door and he'll have to pick it. Right.
Mikah Sargent (01:49:13):
It's very,
Leo Laporte (01:49:15):
It's adorable. So when you see that picture where you say, Chris is going to have to pick this, upload it. So Chris is going to be a month now before he is back. Okay. So you have another month to be adorable. I
Mikah Sargent (01:49:27):
Just was reminded of something in the chat too. [01:49:30] We would not have Club twit either if it weren't for Lisa LaPorte, who did a lot of the early research to figure out what was going to be the membership program for us. And recently at the podcast movement, Lisa sat down with one of the folks that we work with at Member Full.
Leo Laporte (01:49:45):
That's who is the backend of our
Mikah Sargent (01:49:48):
Operation. Yes. Meaningful. And so Lisa had a great conversation about how Member Full has worked for us at twit and all of the work that she did leading up to that and why Member Full [01:50:00] has been a success. So we put out that video
Leo Laporte (01:50:02):
That is well worth
Mikah Sargent (01:50:03):
Seeing. You can watch it on. Yeah, I think Twitter or X or whatever. Just find us on social media, twit on social media. You'll be able to find that video and
Leo Laporte (01:50:12):
You don't have to be a club member to watch that. That was a really great presentation from the podcast movement and I'm really glad they put that out. That's fantastic. Lily's adorable. Could be a picture of Lily. Could be. Thank you for saving [01:50:30] my marriage
Mikah Sargent (01:50:32):
Tech. I know. Thank you for ing me. Save Leo's marriage.
Leo Laporte (01:50:36):
If I went home and I hadn't mentioned that, oh boy, I'd be back on the couch. Alex is on the line. Where are you calling from? Alex, pick him up. Push the button, do the thing. Hello, baby.
Mikah Sargent (01:50:51):
Zoom
Leo Laporte (01:50:52):
Is Zuma. Zoom.
Mikah Sargent (01:50:54):
Alex. Alex probably stepped away and is,
Leo Laporte (01:50:59):
Who [01:51:00] should I talk to?
Mikah Sargent (01:51:01):
What about John with the hat?
Leo Laporte (01:51:04):
John with a hat.
Mikah Sargent (01:51:06):
Oh, you can't see probably.
Leo Laporte (01:51:07):
Oh, in Burlington. Yeah. Oh
Mikah Sargent (01:51:10):
Wait. I think we might've gotten Alex,
Leo Laporte (01:51:13):
Whoever's to the spirits. Spirits speak to us. Tap the table three times.
Mikah Sargent (01:51:23):
Is there someone here with us?
Leo Laporte (01:51:25):
I feel the spirits moving.
Caller John (01:51:28):
Hello, Neil, how are you?
Mikah Sargent (01:51:29):
Ah, we've got John [01:51:30] with a hat.
Leo Laporte (01:51:30):
Hey John. Where are you calling from today? Yeah, with
Caller John (01:51:36):
The hat. The hat that says I'm retired.
Leo Laporte (01:51:38):
Nice. Does it have a date, like the date you retired on that?
Caller John (01:51:44):
No, it was only about a week and a half ago.
Leo Laporte (01:51:46):
Oh, congratulations. How has it been?
Caller John (01:51:53):
So I have a burner question.
Mikah Sargent (01:51:55):
Just kidding.
Caller John (01:52:00):
[01:52:00] No, my question is I have a pixel six A and it won't connect or stay connected to my wireless mode, my wireless in my house, but it'll connect at other places
Mikah Sargent (01:52:16):
And
Caller John (01:52:16):
I've called my phone supplier, I've called my internet supplier and we can't figure out what's
Leo Laporte (01:52:24):
Wrong. So you enter what you are absolutely sure is the proper password to [01:52:30] your wifi?
Caller John (01:52:32):
Yeah, it'll connect and then it'll just immediately disconnect.
Leo Laporte (01:52:35):
Oh, that's interesting. So it connects, you see the bars and it looks like it's working. It doesn't say no internet, but then it just falls off Again,
Mikah Sargent (01:52:44):
I had this with a pixel and I'm trying to remember what I did to fix it. Pardon me? I've had this exact problem with a pixel, exactly what you're describing, and I'm trying to remember what I ended up doing to fix it.
Leo Laporte (01:52:58):
Sophia, in our I R [01:53:00] C is offering something, I don't know if this would work or not. She says, uncheck that helped on your pixel uncheck private IP address. That's the V P N that Google starts up on the pixel and it may not be interacting well with not by the way, it wouldn't be the hardware. It would be your I S P rejecting you.
Mikah Sargent (01:53:23):
Oh, someone's just posted a Reddit
Leo Laporte (01:53:25):
Thread. Ray thought, who's very good at his Google FU is nearly [01:53:30] as good as Scooter X's has a Reddit pixel seven wifi keeps connecting and disconnecting to the home wifi. Let's see what they say.
Mikah Sargent (01:53:44):
Okay, adaptive connectivity. That's it. That's it, yes. Oh, in fact, Burke has just said, so there is a feature. That's what ended up working for me as well. There's a feature called adaptive connectivity. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head where exactly that feature.
Leo Laporte (01:53:59):
So that feature [01:54:00] is weird and it's unique to a pixel, which is I'm going to use both L T E or five G and wifi, and I'm going to flip back and forth depending on what's better. And if for instance, it said, well, I don't like this wifi, but your L T E is excellent, that might exactly be what happens. Where did Brooke say it is?
Mikah Sargent (01:54:21):
It's just under internet. You may also try turning off, depending on what router you use, you may try turning off private D N Ss. [01:54:30] You may try turning off. There's a feature that masks your Mac address on the phone, and I don't remember what it's called on pixel, but that feature you might try turning off privacy. Yeah, privacy.
Leo Laporte (01:54:44):
In other words, Google has built in all these weird features to the pixel phones that are not exactly standard. You won't find 'em on many other phones and you might just go into those settings and turn some of them off and on until you get something that works. [01:55:00] I think adaptive connectivity might be interesting. What happens if you turn off cellular connectivity and just try the wifi? Does that work better?
Caller John (01:55:11):
Yeah, same thing. It would would just same thing. Kick on. Go on and kick itself right back off.
Mikah Sargent (01:55:15):
What's the router you use?
Caller John (01:55:21):
I can't remember the name of it.
Leo Laporte (01:55:22):
They come from your I S P.
Caller John (01:55:24):
It's hit tron.
Mikah Sargent (01:55:25):
Okay.
Caller John (01:55:26):
It's a hit Tron, H I T R O N.
Mikah Sargent (01:55:28):
The reason I'm asking is [01:55:30] because another problem that some people have had is a router, like ERO and many others that do this broadcast, the 2.4 gigahertz and the five gigahertz network using the same ss, SS I D. And when that happens, the pixels for some reason seem to get confused and that will cause them to drop off the network. So if your router supports 2.4 and five gigahertz connectivity and you connected to it when it was in that [01:56:00] mode where it's broadcasting both, that could also be the issue. This is the problem is that there
Leo Laporte (01:56:06):
Are many reasons,
Mikah Sargent (01:56:06):
Many reasons why this might be happening.
Leo Laporte (01:56:09):
Did this just start or has it always been the case?
Caller John (01:56:12):
Yeah, about a week ago, less than a week ago, but towards the end of the week I thought it might've been an update. That might've done it too.
Leo Laporte (01:56:20):
Yeah. Was there a recent update to the
Caller John (01:56:22):
Phone? Not since the 5th of August, security update. That was the last one
Leo Laporte (01:56:30):
[01:56:30] I see on the Reddit thread. A lot of people say there are connection issues because of these Google's using its own chips, the tensor chips, and people have said these are part of the problem as well. I would try turning off some of these features. I'd start with adaptive connectivity. I'm trying to remember. I think I turned that off too,
Caller John (01:56:52):
Actually. I think I've tried that, but I'll make sure again, I think I've went through everything that was already on the list.
Leo Laporte (01:56:56):
Oh, you've already done the research.
Caller John (01:56:58):
You guys might've heard something different.
Leo Laporte (01:56:59):
Yeah. [01:57:00] No, you're calling as a last resort. Yeah. We only get last resort questions.
Mikah Sargent (01:57:04):
I wish I could remember what ended up working for me on the, I'll check it out because it may have just been that
Caller John (01:57:13):
If you'll find it, you'll put it in the show notes, right?
Mikah Sargent (01:57:15):
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. It may have just been that something ended up, I remember resetting the device entirely. I remember doing so
Leo Laporte (01:57:23):
Many different things, reset the router, reset the device, all of that stuff,
Mikah Sargent (01:57:26):
And it finally started connecting.
Leo Laporte (01:57:27):
I have to say though, this Reddit thread is really chilling [01:57:30] because there are a lot of people with this problem. So this was seven months ago, so this was in Nexel seven, not a six, but it sounds like it's not an unusual problem. I have to say I'm not
Caller John (01:57:47):
Thrilled
Leo Laporte (01:57:48):
With Google's
Caller John (01:57:48):
Hardware, but I also like being connected when I'm at home.
Leo Laporte (01:57:50):
Yeah, yeah. What a surprise. I am really disappointed, frankly, with the direction Google has taken with its hardware, and I [01:58:00] don't think I'd buy another pixel phone, to be honest with you. I hate to say it. They'll be announcing a new one next month. We'll be covering that event, but I foolishly bought the Pixel tablet, Google's new tablet. I thought, this is cool. This docs to the speaker, then
Mikah Sargent (01:58:17):
Take it off. It could have been so cool. It's
Leo Laporte (01:58:18):
A great design and they screwed it up in every possible way. The speaker has no functionality by itself. It's a tablet, not a home hub. So [01:58:30] it doesn't do a lot of things. Some of the things I want it to do, it says okay, but you got to enter a pin just like you would with a tablet. But when it's docked, it shouldn't be doing that. And then I fix it, just did a tear down and showed all this empty space. They could have put more battery. They didn't, I mean, it's a bad, I think Google has lost a lot of mojo. That's all I'm saying. And I'm a little disappointed with the latest Google hardware [01:59:00] and I have a Pixel seven, we'll probably buy an eight just to keep up with the Joneses. But yeah, it looks like this connectivity problem is not uncommon according to Reddit. So anyway, there's some things to try. We'll keep our eye peeled. If somebody mentions it or calls in, we'll put it in the show notes. Hey, it's great to talk to you.
Caller John (01:59:24):
Yep, take care. Good talk to you guys too. Have a good
Leo Laporte (01:59:26):
Day. Bye. You as well. Sorry we were so useless. [01:59:30] Larry's outstanding in his field. I mean literally. Let's go to Larry right now. Join us in the Stargate. He's actually in his vineyard, I think. Is it Martha's or his? It could be Martha's Vineyard. Whose vineyard is that? Larry?
Caller Larry (01:59:53):
That's mine. I'm here in Temecula, California. I called you about a month ago about that magic documentary that I was working [02:00:00] on.
Leo Laporte (02:00:00):
Yes. How's that going?
Caller Larry (02:00:02):
It's going pretty good. I went to that magic convention. I've interviewed a couple documentary filmmakers. I got some pretty good response from the folks at the convention, so I'm moving forward.
Leo Laporte (02:00:15):
Have you heard from Steve Martin yet?
Caller Larry (02:00:17):
I have not. And I'll keep reaching out to him and see if we can connect.
Leo Laporte (02:00:22):
I'll do that back channel thing again. You sent me, it was so cool, the program from that event you put together [02:00:30] and his name on it. And I think the problem is, of course, he's Steve Martin and he probably gets a lot of email and a lot of requests, but I'll pin him again.
Caller Larry (02:00:41):
Appreciate you. I appreciate you reaching out to him. What I'm calling about today is to offer a little tip and maybe a little bit of a solution to a problem that we keep hearing on the show. Good. Which is how do I get my headphones and my speakers to work at the same time?
Leo Laporte (02:00:59):
Yes. [02:01:00] In fact, I was just faced with that with my mom.
Caller Larry (02:01:05):
What I'm, I'm about to share is going to sound like a commercial, but it's not. So the name of this product is called Avant Tree Opera, and the way it works is this is a headphone, a transmitter, and it's on Bluetooth, but they've done a couple of interesting things. First of all, in the transmitter there is a pass through. So [02:01:30] you would take an optical cord from the tv, put it into this device,
Leo Laporte (02:01:35):
Which
Caller Larry (02:01:36):
The transmitter. Then there's a, which goes to the soundbar. And then the second thing that they've really done is they've used Bluetooth, but they've done two things. First of all, they put a class one transmitter, so it goes a hundred feet as opposed to three
Leo Laporte (02:01:56):
Feet. Nice.
Caller Larry (02:01:58):
And the second thing they've done is [02:02:00] they're using a special codec in the transmitter and the headphone that is low latency. So the thing
Leo Laporte (02:02:09):
Really not, I have to say I've tried over and over again to get Bluetooth to work with audio in there is just a slightest latency that makes it unusable. For instance, I'd love to use Bluetooth headphones, but it sounds like it's echoing. You're saying they solved that?
Caller Larry (02:02:23):
Yeah, they solved that. It's a special codec and it's hard to find it on normal headphones. [02:02:30] So by buying the headphones, the headphones are comfortable. They work really well. Been using it for several months now. It works perfectly. There's absolutely no Missy between the audio and the video and my situation's even a little more complex. I have my 80 receiver 45 feet away in a media clock.
Leo Laporte (02:02:52):
So you're far away. Yeah,
Caller Larry (02:02:53):
I'm far away. So the
Leo Laporte (02:02:54):
Range is great for you? Yeah,
Caller Larry (02:02:57):
My AV receiver luckily [02:03:00] has two H D M I ports out. So I plug in this device, another device which splits the audio from the H D M I
Leo Laporte (02:03:15):
And
Caller Larry (02:03:16):
I run that into this device and into the Aventria Opera. And even though it is a room away, several walls or whatever, it's perfectly synced and [02:03:30] it works perfectly. So my wife can be at any volume she wants, which is usually typically a lot lower. And this headset set up, it's comfortable, it's nice. And it even has an EQ switch where you can say focus, make it a balanced EQ or make it focused on voice.
Leo Laporte (02:03:52):
I'm wondering this for mom right now. Now
Caller Larry (02:03:55):
I was thinking, yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:03:56):
Right
Caller Larry (02:03:56):
Now this thing, again, it almost sounds like a commercial, [02:04:00] but I'm telling you, Leo, I tried five other setups and the Sree, they really started out as a company selling ways of adding Bluetooth to your AV receiver and all that stuff is okay, but it's regular Bluetooth. But by going with this low latency codec and the long class one transmitter, I mean I think I even got 110 feet away and it was still working [02:04:30] fine.
Leo Laporte (02:04:30):
This is really a good solution. I know it sounds like a commercial, but I really appreciate it because I too have this problem. We have a lot of callers, as you pointed out, one of the problems is if you're using the headphone jack on the tv, it cuts out the speakers so you can be the only person listening because this supports ox, H T M I, optical as well as headphone. You are going to find a way to do this that doesn't impinge on other people in the room. And I think this is really, really,
Caller Larry (02:04:58):
That's right. And then there's another side benefit, [02:05:00] which is you can link, I think it is two or three of these headsets.
Leo Laporte (02:05:04):
Yeah, I love that idea. Yeah. So
Mikah Sargent (02:05:07):
Technically
Leo Laporte (02:05:07):
And can each headset be a different level?
Caller Larry (02:05:10):
They can. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:05:11):
Nice.
Caller Larry (02:05:12):
The volume is at the headset level and I think there's a microphone built in, so if you want to mute it and take the phone call, I mean, it's a darn nice solution. And again, it's not a commercial, but [02:05:30] if you don't remember, but two weeks ago there was a guy that was out doing a walk. He was an IT guy and he called you and he had this problem. How come I can't find something simple that I can run my soundbar and my headphone at the same time?
Leo Laporte (02:05:46):
I am buying it for mom right now. In fact, I'm going to ship it directly to her and I will be installing that the minute I go back out there. That's great.
Caller Larry (02:05:56):
It's an easy install and even you've got it down to [02:06:00] where the pairing, it's a one-time thing, and of course it's charging when it's sitting on the transmitter. Nice. Charging time is ridiculous. It's something like 20 hours of playtime off the charger. So I don't know how they did it. And then I'm thinking, well, they're not really a headset company, but boy, they did a beautiful job. It's comfortable, very adjustable
Leo Laporte (02:06:25):
And the sound quality's good and all that stuff. It
Caller Larry (02:06:27):
Is. It is. [02:06:30] What my wife is listening to is a 5.1 sound. Mine is a core sort of two, one or two, but that's good enough. It does work nicely.
Leo Laporte (02:06:40):
Hey, I appreciate that. Oh, go ahead.
Caller Larry (02:06:43):
I was going to say one other caller, this is a couple times back, said, should I put ethernet in the walls? And you recommended putting in a conduit. Yes, and I did do that in mine, but what I did learn is you got to put a pull string in,
Leo Laporte (02:06:59):
Right. [02:07:00] Otherwise there's no way to get it threaded through the conduit. Oh,
Mikah Sargent (02:07:05):
No.
Leo Laporte (02:07:06):
I think I mentioned that, but maybe only in passing.
Caller Larry (02:07:11):
You can do it, but it makes it much more difficult. So anyway. Anyway, I just want to say thank you to both of you for all the things that I've learned listening to and I thought, boy, I have an actual tipper solution. It's obligation to call in. Thank
Mikah Sargent (02:07:26):
You. Yeah. Honestly, even sometimes it feels [02:07:30] like it's an advertisement, but the fact is if you find a great solution and that is a product, that's just how it ends up being. And so anytime we find we do the same thing, we find stuff that we're going, oh my goodness, I amazing. For example, they're not a sponsor of the network, but we've talked about them a lot because they're great for doing backups and it just happens to be if you make a great thing, then yeah, we'll talk about it.
Leo Laporte (02:07:50):
Well, that's great. I'm buying it right now. Yeah. We'll
Mikah Sargent (02:07:53):
Let Leo focus on the order. Thank you so much for calling in and sharing that tip and good luck with everything. And again,
Caller Larry (02:07:59):
Leo, [02:08:00] thanks for the possibility of maybe reaching out to Steve.
Leo Laporte (02:08:03):
Yeah, let's get that because I really want to see the documentary. That sounds fantastic.
Caller Larry (02:08:07):
Okay, thanks again guys. Have a great
Leo Laporte (02:08:09):
Day. Take
Mikah Sargent (02:08:09):
Care. Goodbye. Thank you.
Leo Laporte (02:08:10):
Wow. What a great, we got a great group listening to this show. Very useful. I do want to take another one. Do you have a voicemail? Do you have anything? Let's do voicemail. Yeah, let's do a voicemail.
Caller Mike (02:08:24):
Hi, this is Mike. Go back to the tech TV days from Western Massachusetts. Have a question about cloning [02:08:30] and drive. Windows 10 Drive did an exact clone and on both sides of the clone original and the clone, everything was converted to raw files. Any answer on that? Thanks.
Leo Laporte (02:08:44):
Raw files.
Mikah Sargent (02:08:45):
What is even a raw file?
Leo Laporte (02:08:47):
Raw files. We talk about raw with photography.
Mikah Sargent (02:08:50):
You think it said rar
Leo Laporte (02:08:51):
Maybe? Yes. Rar. Rar.
Mikah Sargent (02:08:56):
It got compressed.
Leo Laporte (02:08:57):
Yeah,
Mikah Sargent (02:08:59):
But why did it [02:09:00] do both? What program are you using, friend that it's, if that's the case, maybe it compresses one side to do the clone and then it's supposed to uncompress afterward whatever program they're using.
Leo Laporte (02:09:17):
Not sure. I mean, I think this is specific to the program. It's one of the reasons I often talk about when I talk about backup, choosing a backup that is really just copying. If you [02:09:30] use a backup, most backup programs create a blob and you can't really easily verify that you've got everything you think you've got. Usually they'll have a blob viewer program, but I like to do a backup where it's just a copy of the direct copy of it. It sounds like this was a backup program that doesn't do direct copying, but in fact does some sort of file format and so don't use that.
Mikah Sargent (02:09:57):
Yeah, I don't [02:10:00] have any advice without, for
Leo Laporte (02:10:01):
Windows answering more questions. I use second copy, which I like from Centered Systems. That's a synchronization program. I use Sync thing nowadays. That's an open source free synchronization program. Same idea. You can keep two folders. Identical Windows has some of its own backup capability and I can't remember if it does. I mean, you can extract the raw files I guess, but I wouldn't, [02:10:30] it's obviously not what you want. I guess what you really need to do is use the same program to restore the backup and not just copy the files, but actually restore them using the same program you back them up with.
Mikah Sargent (02:10:45):
If you're listening to this, you might email us or call back in and let us know what program you're using and that kind of thing. That could give us some more information to help you out. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:10:55):
I hate to say it, but I think we're out of time. I don't want to end the show. I really don't. I want to keep going,
Mikah Sargent (02:11:00):
[02:11:00] But alas, we must say goodbye. That said, all throughout the week, you can call us and leave a voicemail just like our friend did or Raw Friend by calling eight eight seven two four two eight eight four. When you call that number, you can leave a voicemail with your question, give us some details. That helps us be able to answer specifically your question and provide some feedback. You can also, while we're doing the show on Sundays, starting around [02:11:30] about 1115 ish am Pacific, you can go to call twit TV to join us in Zoom or you can email us ATG at twit tv. Send us your text, send us your video, send us your audio. All of that can go to ATG at twit tv.
Leo Laporte (02:11:50):
We love hearing from you. Of course, if you're a Club Twit member, you'll get special treatment. No, you won't. You will get our Eternal Gratitude, so don't forget, join [02:12:00] Club Twit, and even if you're not, you can listen to the show. If you're not a member, you'll get the ads. The best way to do it is to go to tech guy labs.com. That's the website still is for the show. You can download recent shows. You can find the YouTube channel where you can either watch live or after the fact and you could of course subscribe in your favorite podcast player. That makes it easy to get the show the minute it's available. If you do want to call into the live show, we are on the air from two to 5:00 PM roughly [02:12:30] Eastern Time. That's 11 to two our time Pacific Time. In fact, if you're somewhere else in the world, just do the U T C calculation.
(02:12:41):
It's 1800 U utc, the live streams at twit tv slash live. There's audio and video there. If you're watching Live Chat Live, we have an irc, IRC twit TV that's open to everyone. You can even use your browser. You don't need a special internet Relay Chat client or anything like that. Of course, club [02:13:00] TWIT members get the Fabulous Club twit Discord. You could chat with us there and you can chat about everything else you're interested in because the Discord has many, many areas, many sections is a great place to hang up, hang out rather. I think she just got hung up on. What else? Is that it? I think that's all we have to say. Yeah, except thanks for being here.
Mikah Sargent (02:13:28):
Thank you for listening, for tuning [02:13:30] in for asking
Leo Laporte (02:13:30):
Your questions. That's Micah Sargent, that's Leo LaPorte, and I hope you have a great Geek week. Bye-bye.
