This Week in Google 713, 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):
It's time for TWiG This Week in Google. Jeff Jarvis is here. Stacey Higginbotham, Ant Pruitt, and yes, I'm back in the saddle, as it were. We will talk about Google's quarterly results and how they compared to, let's say, I don't know, Microsoft. We also have a story about teens and social media. What is causing teens to be so anxious these days? Is it social media, <laugh>, and the blue check? Now that's making me anxious. All that, and a lot more. Coming up next on This Week in Google.
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Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWiT.
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This is TWiG, This Week in Google. Episode 713 recorded Wednesday, April 26th, 2023. Creased Cargo Shorts. This episode of This Week in Google is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Whether you're starting a new business or growing one, if you want it to be successful, you need the most talented people on your team. That's where ZipRecruiter comes in. And right now, you can try it for free at ziprecruiter.com/TWiG and by HPE GreenLake, orchestrated by the experts at CDW who can help you consolidate and manage all your data in one flexible edge to cloud platform to scale and innovate. Learn more at cdw.com/hpe. And by Cisco Meraki. With employees working in different locations, providing a unified work experience seems to be bad, as easy as herding cats. How do you reign in so many moving parts? I'll tell you how the Meraki Cloud managed network. Learn how your organization can make hybrid work, work. Visit meraki.cisco.com/twit.
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It's time for TWiG This weekend. Google the show. We cover the latest news from the Google verse. The Metaverse. The Twitterverse, such as it is. Stacey Higginbotham is here. Hello, Stacey. Wow. Your hair changed. Hello? Since I've been gone. Oh yeah. I got new color. Like I turned it pink. It's pretty. I like it. Thank you. Yes. You never know what we're gonna get. My hair color, unfortunately unchanged. Jeff Jarvis. Let's see if he's still the silver fox. He sure is. Hello, Jeff. Hello. How are you? Leonard, tow professor for journalistic innovation at Craig. Craig. Craig Newmark, graduate school Journalism at the City, university of New York. I like the choir from heaven. That was like a choir from heaven. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, Jeff. Deepest condolences. I know your dad passed while we were gone and I'm Thank you. So sorry so much. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. Thank you so much. 97.
Jeff Jarvis (00:03:01):
97.
Leo Laporte (00:03:02):
Holy cow.
Jeff Jarvis (00:03:03):
I wrote about 'em on buzz Machine
Leo Laporte (00:03:06):
Folks. Oh, good. Yes. Sorry, Jeff. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And Covid sadly. Covid. Yeah, COVID was it what do they call the new one? Abraxis? No, there's a name for it.
Jeff Jarvis (00:03:17):
No, I don't, I don't know it. They don't got December 30th and then was hospitalized three times.
Leo Laporte (00:03:21):
Oh, it was a long time.
Jeff Jarvis (00:03:22):
Successive thing happened. Yeah. Oh.
Leo Laporte (00:03:24):
So he got it late last year and it just dragged out. He
Jeff Jarvis (00:03:28):
Was fully vaccinated. He had internal bleeding first. Got out of the hospital. Oh. Back in with post covid pneumonia, which is a certain kind of pneumonia. And got outta the hospital, went to rehab, got home for 11 days, went back in with pneumonia again. And
Leo Laporte (00:03:41):
That was that. I'm so sorry.
Jeff Jarvis (00:03:44):
Well, 97 years
Leo Laporte (00:03:45):
Condolences, I guess, you know, if there's any
Jeff Jarvis (00:03:47):
We buried him in my sister. My sister was his ashes. My sister's former church. She's been a minister. And we put a bottle of gin in with him.
Leo Laporte (00:03:57):
<Laugh> what kind? Excellent choice. Yes. Outstanding. There was something on the That's it. Yeah. There was something Stacy, I really enjoyed on the trip. You know, when you're on a cruise ship, you have to establish a drink so that you get it automatically every day. And there was something called a braemble, B R A E M B L E, which those are delicious. You've had them. She's with on Yes. I the show. I, well, you, there's now somebody who braemble.com that has taken gin and Blackberry, Liqueur and married it together. And you can buy a bottle of it. And it's, that's what we were drinking. It was fantastic. So that's an actual beverage, but that you make by hand. And so that's probably a good idea. Oh. Cause you can choose the gin, but this way Yeah, the
Stacey Higginbotham (00:04:43):
Cocktail is a braemble, but yeah, this is a liqueur, which would be
Leo Laporte (00:04:46):
Fun. Well, it's just like the cocktail. I mean, it's basically gin and blackberry. Liqueur <laugh>. So yeah, I loved it. That was my beverage. I was ashamed because couple of years ago I went on a riverboat trip, drank an aperol spritz. Somebody said, ah, yeah, cruise drink. So I couldn't have that anymore. <Laugh>. But then we get to Rome, that's all they drink in Rome. Every table. Yeah. Bright orange, aperol spritzers. So that's
Stacey Higginbotham (00:05:13):
A great drink because you can have a lot of 'em. They're true.
Leo Laporte (00:05:15):
Yeah. They're not highly alcohol. I mean Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're tasty. It's basically alcoholic tang, basically
Jeff Jarvis (00:05:24):
<Laugh>. That is true. <Laugh>, but not made by NASA <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:05:28):
But maybe ask by NASA. Yeah. Yeah. Well, they say that. I don't know. That's okay. Hey, it's, look at that. It's Ant Pruitt from Hands on Photography patiently waiting for us to stop talking about silly beverages so that he can no have another it.
Jeff Jarvis (00:05:43):
A few sips of his own
Leo Laporte (00:05:47):
No, this was espresso. Oh, now you'd like the, you know what I have say the chant. <Laugh>, you get a chance. The best coffee I've ever had. And we've had coffee all over the world in you know, Arabia, where it, it came from in South America in France. The best coffee I've ever had is Rome. Ever consistently. I believe you. I believe you. Unbelievable. <laugh>. They invented espresso, so, right. I was gonna
Ant Pruitt (00:06:13):
Say, well, well, espresso comes from there. Yeah. They probably know what they're
Leo Laporte (00:06:16):
Doing. We went to a illegal
Stacey Higginbotham (00:06:18):
To ask for decaf.
Leo Laporte (00:06:20):
Oh no. Act, you know what, I can, you
Stacey Higginbotham (00:06:22):
Can't ask for a cappuccino after like
Leo Laporte (00:06:24):
Noon. No, they won't. No milk in it. But I found out what the order is cuz our guide, who is Roman, said, you get an espresso con latte, frio or calde if you want hot, but Lattee Frio, she says, I like it. And then put a little cold milk in my espresso. So you're allowed to do that. That's, that's okay. So I was ordering espressos con Latte Frio Afternoon. You're exactly right though, Stacy, they think you're American or something if you have a cappuccino.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:06:49):
Crazy. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:06:51):
Ah, best coffee ever. I miss it. I really miss it. We actually did it <laugh>. It was so, a lot of it's Lavazza, which you can get. So I ordered some Lavazza beans. I'm just gonna, we'll, I'll bring 'em to work. You can try 'em. All right. But that's enough of that. We got so much to talk about. Oh my God. It's crazy. I guess we should start with alphabet's earnings, cuz this week they announced their quarterly earnings and there was good and bad it beat for the first quarter. That means it beat the stock market's expectation. They're gonna do a 70 billion [inaudible] share buyback. That means they got some cash on hand. Revenue was 10 cents more a share than expected. A hundred a $1.17 a share. That's 69.79 billion. But there were some dark spots. Youtube advertising revenue went down. Not, not, didn't grow as fast. Actually went down to 6.6 billion. A scotch.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:07:53):
Just a scotch. A scooch. A scooch, a scooch, scooch, scooch. Oh, be it,
Leo Laporte (00:07:58):
It went down a little bit. Google cloud revenue went up a little bit. Just the same Scooch just to skosh. Just to, just to offset it.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:08:08):
But it's profitable. That's big.
Leo Laporte (00:08:12):
Yeah. 6.7 billion and cloud for the first time is profitable. You're right.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:08:16):
Yeah. That's, that's a huge deal. The first time. That's a big deal. Huge deal. They're, they're sucking wind at the cloud.
Leo Laporte (00:08:22):
They've been an also ramp to Amazon and Microsoft. Right. Those are the two big ones, right? Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:08:27):
Yep.
Leo Laporte (00:08:28):
And it's been hard going for Google. I don't Microsoft's earnings came out. I don't, I don't remember what their number was, but I think it was bigger than seven and a half billion.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:08:38):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:08:39):
I
Ant Pruitt (00:08:39):
Wonder what was the push that made it actually profitable for them? Finally, what?
Leo Laporte (00:08:43):
I'm gonna guess, ai. What do you think, Stacy?
Stacey Higginbotham (00:08:48):
Maybe I don't, I I truly don't know. I mean, their AI is internal, so I don't know their internal accounting policies towards that. It may just be that they finally, they also cut, they cut some products. No, they cut some products in the, the cloud. So they're not supporting some iot products and things that they were not as good at. Okay. Or didn't have customers in. Yeah. So it could also be that they
Jeff Jarvis (00:09:10):
Took a right off for, for layoffs.
Leo Laporte (00:09:12):
Oh yes. Billions leases and
Jeff Jarvis (00:09:14):
All that.
Leo Laporte (00:09:15):
Yeah. But 2.6 billion charges related to layoffs and office space reduction.
Jeff Jarvis (00:09:21):
The journal has a story saying that Google is all about cost control now.
Leo Laporte (00:09:24):
Yeah. Well we know
Jeff Jarvis (00:09:25):
That that's, that's everything. Which is, I mean, okay. It makes the market happy, but I'd prefer they also had some innovation in there too.
Leo Laporte (00:09:32):
So Google's revenue on cloud was 7.5 billion. Microsoft's revenue on cloud was 52.9 billion. Whoa. That'll give you an idea. Microsoft's not even the best, the biggest aws. And do
Jeff Jarvis (00:09:47):
We know what Amazon's is?
Leo Laporte (00:09:48):
They didn't do their earnings yet, right? I don't think there are earnings. They
Stacey Higginbotham (00:09:51):
Haven't done 'em yet.
Leo Laporte (00:09:53):
And I should point out profit
Jeff Jarvis (00:09:55):
62 billion in 2021.
Leo Laporte (00:09:58):
So there's not that much bigger. That's interesting, huh? Microsoft's really gaining on them. Microsoft also, I'm sure did well because of ai, both Microsoft and Google have, what are the TPUs special processors designed?
Stacey Higginbotham (00:10:12):
I think Microsoft said like 1% of their revenue in the cloud came from ai.
Leo Laporte (00:10:17):
Oh, maybe I'm wrong then. Which
Stacey Higginbotham (00:10:19):
Is Well, no, that's, that's not insignificant. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:10:23):
It's gonna be bigger
Stacey Higginbotham (00:10:25):
Considering how small or how young it is. Yeah, that's
Leo Laporte (00:10:27):
The point we, we made. Because Microsoft of course owns half of open ai. But better than that, if you're gonna generate these massive large language models, you're gonna do it in the cloud. And you know, I think the competition is really between Microsoft and Google for that. Sorry, Ann, go ahead. Oh, no,
Ant Pruitt (00:10:45):
No, no. I was just saying it's the AI side of it is brand new to them. So I don't, I wouldn't expect it
Leo Laporte (00:10:51):
To be a huge number. Yeah, exactly. But in future it would probably get bigger profit on cloud. So Google lost a year ago, 700, $6 million on Google Cloud. They finally made their first ever profit 191 million. Not billions, but hey, hey, better. Let's start better than losing money revenue in other bets. That's life sciences. Barely. That's Waymo. It was next. Yeah, it was 440 million last year. 288 million this year.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:11:27):
Well, but they also pulled out Deep Mind from other bets. It looks like. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:11:31):
Okay. Well they
Stacey Higginbotham (00:11:32):
Merged
Jeff Jarvis (00:11:33):
Deep Mind.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:11:34):
Yeah. I focus on other bets cuz of like Nest. So I can see how insignificant. Oh, that's right. Their home is, yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:11:41):
Did they don't break it out though, do they?
Stacey Higginbotham (00:11:44):
No, not, not the hardware. No. Yeah. But as you can see, this is why Google's like, yeah. I'm not gonna support those other, those other smart displays and
Leo Laporte (00:11:52):
Yeah. The heck with, yeah, search and other revenue came in at 40 billion. That's up Akosh from 39.6 to up Akosh. But add sales not so good. Right. Ad sales. Youtube on YouTube. And let me see if they have the ad sales for a search. I think search ad sales were not great either. Ad revenue B analyst expectations, but fell from year prior to 54.55 billion. Must be nice though. Oh yeah. We, we, it wasn't quite as big. It was only 54 billion in three. This, this is three months. This is not a year. Traffic acquisition costs went up as well. I have to say though, you know, looking at Microsoft, which is also, you know, for the most part very positive. Only Xbox and Bing didn't do that well. But I have to say, I feel like Microsoft's starting to gain ground on Google. Or am I wrong on that?
Stacey Higginbotham (00:13:00):
Wait, Microsoft is Yes. Gain
Leo Laporte (00:13:02):
Ground on Yes. In what Cloud revenue up 22% per share earnings up 10%. Quarterly revenue. 7% LinkedIn revenue. 8%. They're firing on all cylinders. How is that? I know <laugh> that's at
Ant Pruitt (00:13:19):
Sin. Linkedin. LinkedIn is making money. Yeah,
Stacey Higginbotham (00:13:23):
Well they've got premium, they've got ads, they've got, well they've got resume services, I think.
Ant Pruitt (00:13:28):
Yep. I haven't, I haven't, I've just not heard anything positive about LinkedIn in a long time. It seems
Stacey Higginbotham (00:13:35):
Like. I love LinkedIn
Ant Pruitt (00:13:36):
Scam. I love it too. But it, there's definitely a lot of scamming and spamming happening over there on that platform. Way more than it used. Depends
Jeff Jarvis (00:13:43):
On how you use it. If you're going for a job that's useful. If you're looking up your colleagues and your competitors, that's useful. If you're wandering the feed, you're right, man.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:13:53):
Yeah. I actually get a lot of content, like good quality audience on my, my stories.
Ant Pruitt (00:13:59):
I usually get most of my business from there.
Leo Laporte (00:14:01):
Wow. How about Twitter? Do you guys like Twitter? I've heard this is a pretty exciting happening.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:14:06):
<Laugh>, is it, are we now calling it X Or what are we doing here?
Leo Laporte (00:14:10):
We still have, the company is X. Right? The, it's no longer. That was last week's news, but I don't know. I don't want to talk about Elon. I don't. Okay.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:14:20):
I don't. I'm okay with that. Sure.
Leo Laporte (00:14:22):
We have so much else else we can talk about. We had to on TWI on Sunday cuz Elon had such a bad week. But let me let me put it this way. Have you guys noticed, because of this blue check thing is there any difference, cuz I know Stacy loved the content you get on Twitter. Is there any difference? Has the blue check thing changed anything?
Ant Pruitt (00:14:44):
Not for me.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:14:46):
Yeah, some of the, like, some of the replies and things like, I really like Twitter has become less and less useful. Oh, okay. So I'll just be honest. I I don't spend much time.
Leo Laporte (00:14:56):
There's
Ant Pruitt (00:14:57):
How a change for me. It's just, again, it's more and more broadcast from me over.
Jeff Jarvis (00:15:02):
I'm disappointed to see some people bought the checks, the, the eight bucks schmuck.
Leo Laporte (00:15:07):
Yeah. Boy. And you really the
Ant Pruitt (00:15:09):
Value
Leo Laporte (00:15:09):
Outta it, there's a whole movement to block the check, right? Yep. There are those who say anybody who was anybody who bought a check is, is probably a low value Twitter fo person to follow because they had to buy, basically promote their tweets.
Ant Pruitt (00:15:30):
I think the problem is, is people are looking at that as them buying a check versus it being someone that wants a ad list or, or, or lower ads in their Twitter experience or, or wanted to be able to edit button, edit button or whatnot. You know, for, for most people they had squat to do. Well check
Leo Laporte (00:15:49):
Marty. Okay, now we do have to wade into this, and I don't know if this number is valid, but I keep seeing it. The net gain, when they took away the blue checks of people buying the blue checks was 28.
Ant Pruitt (00:16:00):
Yeah. Crazy low. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:16:01):
Little more than two dozen total. Yeah. so it wasn't, it wasn't Wait
Stacey Higginbotham (00:16:06):
20. Wait, what?
Leo Laporte (00:16:07):
You didn't see this
Jeff Jarvis (00:16:08):
Some math on that?
Leo Laporte (00:16:09):
I know it's a little weird. And it was a study and I don't know by some guy, but I've seen the number quoted again and again. This is I mean the, everybody quoted it, but let me show you the original. This is from Ben Collins. Oh, okay. Who's really
Jeff Jarvis (00:16:32):
Good.
Leo Laporte (00:16:32):
Ben's great, but baby he got it from somebody else. Oh yeah. He got it from somebody else from Travis Brown, who, I don't know who he is when he is at home. After and this is in one day, but in other words,
Jeff Jarvis (00:16:46):
Let us read the, read it.
Leo Laporte (00:16:47):
Yeah. Update for the day after. Just before the Purge yesterday 19,469 of the 407,000 legacy verified accounts I had identified early in April had Twitter blue. So that's the first data point of almost half a million legacy accounts. They were all blown out. I lost my blue check. Everybody did. Only 20,000 left. Today that number has only gone up by 28. That's, in other words. Oh,
Jeff Jarvis (00:17:14):
I see. 28
Leo Laporte (00:17:15):
More people bought blue checks, bought it in one day. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> there is some question about whether it's a good thing to have a blue check. You're right, aunt and, and Stacy, it could be for the edit button. It could be for the fewer ads. It could be cuz your
Jeff Jarvis (00:17:26):
Business needs you to put up longer videos or longer posts. I mean, I I I'm empathetic to that. However, in general, unless you have a good excuse why
Leo Laporte (00:17:37):
I've heard some people complain that when you look at replies now to any tweet, the blue checks are prioritized.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:17:43):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:17:44):
Oh,
Stacey Higginbotham (00:17:44):
I understand. They're, and it can be a nightmare, like on things to try to figure out if it's accurate or if you're looking to see who's replying and people, you know, commenting. You can't, it's,
Ant Pruitt (00:17:56):
That's my struggle now is just going through the notifications. Cuz I don't look at it as often. Maybe more so on the weekends. And it's, it could be pretty crap in there, sort of sifting through.
Leo Laporte (00:18:08):
So instead of talking about Elon, let me talk, let me do a little meta thing. Politico had a piece, I'm sure you all saw it, your journalist Jack Schaffer writing in his fourth estate column, Elon Musk figured out the media's biggest weakness. The, the premise is Elon has always said, I'm not buying advertising. I don't need to because like, I guess Donald Trump, I figured out how to get coverage just from a tweet mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And he, and the, and the complaint that s Schaffer has is we all fall for it. We actually buy into it. Well, yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:18:43):
I don't, we don't have to be talking about it. <Laugh>. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (00:18:46):
Yeah. That that's been an argument of mine for a little while. It's like, why do we continue to give people press time?
Leo Laporte (00:18:53):
Schaffer writes, he'll do anything's story. He said, the rocket, he said, he calls what Mu Musk is up to media stunt work. He says he'll do anything to keep it and him Twitter and himself in the news. And every day the news media rewards his showboating with an avalanche of running coverage and commentary. Sound familiar? But you've gotta wonder, is Elon Musk the problem here? Or is it the press, which understands how it's being manipulated by Musk, but just can't quit him. It's good for traffic, right?
Ant Pruitt (00:19:25):
Yeah. It's good for their business.
Leo Laporte (00:19:27):
But I want to, but I, I'm bringing this up as a journalism question Yep. For our journalist, Stacey and Jeff. Yep. Jeff, of course teaches journalism. Stacey's a practicing journalist. What is the responsibility of the media? I mean, on the one hand I understand an outlet, especially in this day and age, look at what just happened to Buzzfeed News wants drive traffic. And if, if a president drives traffic his tweets drive traffic or Elon's outrageous statements drive traffic, I understand their the desire to put that on the TV or in the newspaper. But on the other hand there are consequences to this as well. And it, we are being, we are, we're allowing ourselves to be manipulated. Stacy.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:20:10):
Well, the issue with journalism is that we don't have the right economic model for what we're trying to do, like for the quote unquote good. So if you want to drive traffic to benefit your advertisers, you have to cover a lot of this stuff. If you want to cover what is right, your readers, they'll still read it. Some of it they'll still read about like restaurant openings and sports pages and things like that, but they may not necessarily read your, I don't know, coverage. That's good for you. The, the the green coverage. Yeah. By greens I mean like broccoli. Yeah. Your broccoli coverage, no
Leo Laporte (00:20:50):
Vegetables.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:20:51):
And there are stories like Elon's tweets do become actual news when you look at things like the, the SpaceX Rocket explosion, right? Yeah. Where he actually tweeted about not putting in the right safety protocols. So that, that's a way to talk. I'm like, Ooh, will this come back to Haman lawsuits maybe. And there there is actual news. I mean, the man is trying for big government contracts and has big, has big government contracts, but yeah. Maybe not the Twitter <laugh>. And I don't know. I mean, some, some of the Twitter stuff is news because it does affect a site that people go to and like, but it's probably not to the level that we talk about it. But it's also our home. Twitter used to be our home. So yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:21:37):
There's a certain amount of lamentation mourning for what happened to Twitter.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:21:44):
But yeah, you could dial back that kind of coverage a lot and that would be more appropriate, I think.
Leo Laporte (00:21:50):
But amongst us, just us kids we're, you know, we're all pretty sad that what was once something pretty cool was gone.
Jeff Jarvis (00:21:58):
Yeah. But I also, I was talking to a reporter at Digi today. It was really about buzzfeed and Buzzfeed news, which we'll get to I'm sure later. But I, I, I think what we're seeing happen is with buzzfeed, with quitter, with vice and on and on and on, is the, the dying breath of, of the mass media business model. Stacey said, we don't have a me a business bottle yet. Right. The business bottle we still borrow is that from mass media where you want maximum attention, and that's just not gonna be competitive anymore because there's a complete abundance of content, abundance of speech. It's gonna be hard to get any attention. And I think we have to invent new models and new institutions to find quality. And we're not there yet.
Leo Laporte (00:22:47):
We had Paris Martin Oe on TWIT on Sunday. Oh, love her. Her love her. She works at the information and the information doesn't do link bait stories because it's paid vault. Yeah. You have to pay a hundred bucks a year. And so they don't need to, they get the, they're not trying to drive traffic from links on Facebook.
Jeff Jarvis (00:23:06):
Right. So it's about service and value and not about reselling your audience. I mean, the internet gets everything. The internet gets accused of mass media invented are, you gotta get attention. Well, that's what Mass media did. You gotta get engagement and, and sensationalism and click bait. Mass Media did that. Why did they do that? Because they wanted to, to sell audio. The internet sells you to advertisers. Well, that's what Mass Media did. Right? And, and so I think that we can shift to a view of value in here. And a a smaller scale, more to the point I've mentioned on the show before, the average circulation of a, of a daily newspaper in the US before industrialization was 4,000. If you have a CK newsletter at $10 a month, you got $200,000. You can make a living at that. Yeah. Right. It's, it's, it, it brings the scale down. So the expectation that you've gotta be huge, I tell you, huge. And you gotta find all this stuff. I, I think, I think just is people are gonna, are, are fed up with it
Leo Laporte (00:24:03):
Now. Buzzfeed is kind of the k the poster child here. Buzzfeed announced that it was gonna dissolve its news division, by the way. I know it's behind a paywall. But at Puck News, Dylan Byers wrote, I thought a really good, it's very good history of the whole thing. And it really doesn't blame Jonah Perretti. I mean, I think I was tempted to blame Jonah myself. But he says Jonah was a geek, right? He, he, he came from Huffington Post. He was a co-founder there. He didn't, he kind of was doing what his heart wanted to do, not necessarily thinking it out. Ben Smith, on the other hand, <laugh> who had left Pol, oh, there we go. Traffic wrote a great book all about it. <Laugh> had left Politico to go to Buzzfeed and then saw the writing on the wall. He's founded s SEMA four since he knew a lot about what was going on. And he saw the, the, the train coming at the end of the tunnel, which was essentially that Buzzfeed was living on Facebook clicks.
Jeff Jarvis (00:25:09):
Well, it was, it's, it's two things, Leo. It's, yes, that's true. If you go back to about.com, which full disclosure I consulted for when The Times bought it, it was pretty wonderful. It would, it would write things about all these topics. And then content farms came along and ruined it. Google had to diminish them all. Buzzfeed came along and did fun, neat quizzes and lists. Then everybody came along, all the content farms and ruined it. Cuz then the platform said, this is rotten experience and we're gonna degrade all of this. And, and so the problem then was that that happened to Buzzfeed's own business model. Buzzfeed News never had a business model. And Jonah talked in his, in his memo about how he regretted Overinvesting. That is to say he invested in something that had no business model. Ben Smith and the newsroom did great work, but it was a philanthropic act by Jonah to say, I'm gonna subsidize news with Ticals. The news itself never fit into the Buzzfeed business model. It needed advertising, but news and advertising don't mix. And I, I said for years, I like Buzzfeed news, but it's doomed. It's doomed. Either the venture capitalist or the private equity or the public market would say, this is not making money. Get rid of it. And that's what happened.
Leo Laporte (00:26:29):
Should I read traffic?
Jeff Jarvis (00:26:31):
I, I just started it. It's not out until next week. I, I have, I actually have a copy on order. I told Ben I always save friends by friends books, but I, I, as I read the reviews, I said, I want this now. So I went to Ben and it's like, can I get a copy now? Nice. Have two copies soon. It just started as, of course it's Ben. It's very well written. It's about, I mean, I think it's about that topic of, of, of traffic, of that whole motif of, of Ethos of Media. It's about both Jonah and my friend Nick Dent. So I'll be very eager to see what the contrasts and comparisons are there.
Leo Laporte (00:27:05):
Nick Denton of
Jeff Jarvis (00:27:08):
Gawker Media,
Leo Laporte (00:27:09):
My favorite site.
Jeff Jarvis (00:27:11):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:27:14):
G Gawker was a really good example of how, if you follow that, you know, fall down that rabbit hole of, of link bait, how bad it can get. Right?
Jeff Jarvis (00:27:24):
Well Ben was one of the, I mean, I mean, I mean Nick was one of the first ones to put the screen up in the newsroom with all the traffic stats.
Leo Laporte (00:27:31):
Talk about a rabbit hole. He would motivate
Jeff Jarvis (00:27:32):
Them. Yeah. Oh yeah. He, but he, he cynically knew what exactly what he was doing with that
Leo Laporte (00:27:38):
Traffic. Subtitle is genius Rivalry and Delusion in the billion dollar race to go viral. You know, I've been, I don't, I don't know if you guys watched Succession. It's my favorite TV show and I man, that
Jeff Jarvis (00:27:50):
Shows don't, don't, don't, because I'm two episodes behind.
Leo Laporte (00:27:53):
I won't, no, I won't say anything except cuz it's actually from last season. But that was one of the new media ventures that Kendall Logan wanted to get. It was called Vulture kind of
Jeff Jarvis (00:28:04):
Right. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:28:04):
Familiar sounding, isn't it? And it was the same idea and it failed for the same reason. And one of the things the writers a succession are very good at doing is kind of plucking stories from today's headlines cuz you really, and
Jeff Jarvis (00:28:16):
Changing 'em just enough. So it's just enough. So, so you have to ask what that is and what it really means. And so, Stacy, we are going to, I bet we're gonna have a reference to the latest episode with no spoilers later because they mentioned Sunar <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:28:30):
Okay.
Jeff Jarvis (00:28:31):
Andar. Yes. Respond Hysterical.
Leo Laporte (00:28:33):
Isn't that hysterical?
Jeff Jarvis (00:28:34):
Yeah. Dundar responded. I think we gotta at least deal with it. We'll
Leo Laporte (00:28:37):
Mention this. It won't spoil it in any way. In fact, he'll just give you a heads up to listen for this line. So as Sunar Pacha of course getting excited about Google io and he was on the analyst call. Here's a picture that they released the press department released of Sunar meeting with the team to prepare for the analyst call. And he talked about the AI and pic. He didn't say anything that we didn't already know. You know, about Google io. But notice there's something about this picture that's a little bit odd and it's hanging up here in the background. There's a pair of white cargo shorts that are creased. And this was a direct reference cuz he's mentioned in the last episode of succession
Jeff Jarvis (00:29:16):
Soc, social invention. What? So Tobs hits down, oh, I can't say that. Have to say this one line. No, no, no. Oh, it's funny. Just look
Leo Laporte (00:29:26):
For the dimension. Look for it. Just because it, my ears perked up as soon as, as he says Sundar Pacha. It's like, what? And and it's a very funny attempt to, to bond that fails miserably. But it involves creased cargo shorts. Sundar, who maybe he's a fan or maybe his press department, you know, is savvy enough to, to do it. This is a complete, the funny thing is this is a, this is an intentionally stock photo e kind of, I mean, look at Sundar's smile. Oh yeah. It's so fake and posed everybody's
Jeff Jarvis (00:29:59):
Posture. Phillip's talking to somebody like the, you know, just a friendly conversation.
Leo Laporte (00:30:03):
The whole point of it is clearly to
Jeff Jarvis (00:30:06):
The stop the
Leo Laporte (00:30:06):
Cargo shorts, the pants
Jeff Jarvis (00:30:08):
<Laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:30:09):
Which is I love it. It, that made me very happy actually. Well, also,
Jeff Jarvis (00:30:12):
Tom pronounced it Sundar, right?
Leo Laporte (00:30:15):
Yes. Yes.
Jeff Jarvis (00:30:16):
Was that intentional is true, you think? Or is that, oh, I don't know. That is what all like white people say when they see,
Leo Laporte (00:30:22):
So that is intentional cuz Tom, as you know, Tom wos scam is Mr. Middle America stuck in these all the, with these Manhattan elites or so-called elites. Anyway, enough of that. But <laugh>, that was hysterical. I thought, God, I look forward to it. Finger on the pulse. Speaking on the, another we should probably talk about another big media turnover. A ABC Disney which acquired 5 38. I did not know that. 5 38 was Nate Silver's. At the time. Amazing thing. Nate had started kind of in a, in a, in a form of baseball fandom called Sabermetrics. Which is, it's, it's like there's a game going on. I don't know, I just see these stats here. He's like, it's spreadsheets. Spreadsheets. But he was brilliant. He's really brilliant. And if you watch the movie Moneyball, you see how it's changed. Baseball is this under sabermetrics understanding of what stats matter. And he started applying this in his models to politics. When was that? Jeff, was that 2008? I think so. Yes. I think it was the first Obama election. Now very famously they got 2016. Very wrong.
Jeff Jarvis (00:31:36):
Very wrong
Leo Laporte (00:31:37):
<Laugh> and I think the brand.
Jeff Jarvis (00:31:39):
And they led the New York Times down a bad path in saying, let's just predict the percentage chance of winning or losing as opposed to the actual percentages. And, and that's the last time the Times has done that.
Leo Laporte (00:31:50):
The number 5 38 of course comes from the number of members of Congress, right? Or no, it's electoral. It's the electoral electoral college. College votes. And so it was always, it was this very nerdy kind of stats focused look at politics. Remember the times they had a meter
Jeff Jarvis (00:32:06):
<Laugh>? That's what I'm saying. The meter. The meter is what they got rid of after
Leo Laporte (00:32:10):
This was all, when did the Times own five? Did they buy 5 38? They,
Jeff Jarvis (00:32:13):
They had no, they had a deal with 5 38 for a few years where he was kind of exclusive there. The Times was doing that at the time with blogs. They did it with Freakonomics too. They did it with
Leo Laporte (00:32:24):
Various That's right. Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (00:32:25):
And then a b ABC bought it for 5 38 for espn and then it kind of split off from ESPN to do politics and stuff. And then Nate famously decided that he was an expert in epidemiology and covid.
Leo Laporte (00:32:40):
Yeah, that was too. He really went off the, off the road. Yeah. And now he's gone. ABC is gonna continue the brand. You know, you'll see, see stuff I, when 5 38 started in 2008, I loved it. I read it. And you probably did too. I read it religiously. It was like, oh yeah, yeah. Because it was a great, if you want horse race coverage of politics, that's the i the ultimate horse race, which I hate. I know, I know. It completely. It's not, it's terrible. But, and I learned that after 2016, probably not to pay too much attention to it, but anyway, this is so you're not sad that Nate Silver has moved on, huh?
Jeff Jarvis (00:33:20):
I'm not.
Leo Laporte (00:33:21):
He's taking, the interesting thing is Disney's keeping the brand. He's taking the formulas. He keeps the, the maybe nobody wants it. <Laugh>. He's,
Jeff Jarvis (00:33:34):
Maybe
Leo Laporte (00:33:34):
He's keeping his math. All of the IP that he invented to do all of this,
Jeff Jarvis (00:33:41):
We got in trouble the last time because he, he favored too many. There were polls. I always quote the late James Carey of Columbia about polls that they preempt the public discourse. They are meant to measure. They cut it off. And then that's a very good way. It was savvy.
Leo Laporte (00:33:58):
That's a very good point, brilliant point. You're just, you start focusing on who's winning and you stop thinking about what matters.
Jeff Jarvis (00:34:04):
And you put people into binary buckets. Right. You lose all nuance. Right. That's a very good point.
Leo Laporte (00:34:08):
So thank you
Jeff Jarvis (00:34:09):
James. Kerry's brilliant. I read about it in the Gutenberg parenthesis available for pre-order now. But what happened in the last election or in, in, in the Trump victory was that the polls were being manipulated by the right way cleverly smartly. Right. So that the, the polls that Nate put into his average were kind of messed up. Plus people in the public like to screw with the pollsters. They, cause they have
Leo Laporte (00:34:33):
No,
Jeff Jarvis (00:34:34):
They gave they have no credibility and nobody has land. Nobody except me has a landline phone anymore.
Leo Laporte (00:34:41):
Oh, that's not showing us your phone. You have a fax machine attached to that.
Jeff Jarvis (00:34:45):
I used to <laugh>. Sos are pretty ghost
Leo Laporte (00:34:51):
<Laugh>. We need a new, we need instead of moral panic. How
Jeff Jarvis (00:34:55):
About landline
Leo Laporte (00:34:56):
Phone? How about that? <Laugh>
Jeff Jarvis (00:35:00):
Still works. Wanna hear what a dial to sounds like. Hey, kid.
Ant Pruitt (00:35:04):
My, my stepmother, she still has a landline ed fax
Jeff Jarvis (00:35:08):
Machine. That's a dial tone in the house.
Leo Laporte (00:35:10):
Kids. Kids, what? Do you know what a dial means? <Laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (00:35:15):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:35:17):
All right.
Jeff Jarvis (00:35:17):
I talked to it to a reporter today from San Francisco about the Skylab story cuz it's, it's coming up on an anniversary, I guess. And I said something about the composing room at the newspaper at the Chronicle and the Examiner. He said, what's
Leo Laporte (00:35:29):
That? What's the composing room? What's
Jeff Jarvis (00:35:31):
That? He had no idea.
Leo Laporte (00:35:32):
That's where you go there if you're feeling lightheaded,
Jeff Jarvis (00:35:35):
Ac a little,
Leo Laporte (00:35:36):
Composing a little bounce, a little a lounge there. And you can fall on that. Compose yourself. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:41):
Oh, okay.
Leo Laporte (00:35:42):
No, it's not what it's No, no,
Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:43):
It's okay. I was like, sure. <Laugh>. I have those days all the time. <Laugh> honey.
Leo Laporte (00:35:49):
I'm going, I'm off to the composing room.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:52):
I'm like prepared my fainting couch myself. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:35:58):
No, it's where they composed the room. The lead type. Right.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:36:02):
Oh, okay. Yeah, Jeff. They composed it. I, yeah, yeah. I have literally never worked at a publication that had in-house printing. No, I'm sure not. I've only or neither.
Leo Laporte (00:36:14):
Neither is aunt. You're the only one. So she also just, we worked in the magazine. Hey dude, I'm not that old. That's what
Stacey Higginbotham (00:36:20):
<Laugh> Yeah, that's what she's saying. I know. Well, yeah, I'm like, like when I went to journalism school, I learned on like actual computer programs, so Oh yeah. I dayden
Leo Laporte (00:36:31):
Jetson of the,
Stacey Higginbotham (00:36:33):
Exactly. Now was that computer program Cork? Yes, it was <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:36:39):
Oh wow. Old timer there. Hey, let's take a little break. There's more to talk about. I am so happy to be back. You guys, I missed you. We are happy to have missed you. Your, your your, your guys did a great, great job. So tell me, so did was it j Jason Howell last week? Last two weeks of Micah before that? And Micah the first week. Okay. Thank you. Jason did a great job. Thank you, Micah. You know, it actually is great for me. It means that I can go on vacation and and the, and they will hold down the fort. So I really I'm very grateful to them. Thank you. Our show today brought, but I did miss you guys and I'm glad to be back. I mean, if I could be in Rome right now, standing up and drinking a, a espresso, I might be, but I'm, since I'm not, this is my second time. I mean,
Stacey Higginbotham (00:37:22):
You could be there and miss us at the same time. I did.
Leo Laporte (00:37:25):
Totally. I did. I thought, yeah, it was Thursday afternoon, I thought, I wonder what the little people are doing. Our show today brought to you by, no, I didn't. Ziprecruiter actually. We were, we, this is something that we always worry about. Lisa, of course runs the company. And and, and she knows. We know anybody who has a company, knows the company is the people. That's all that matters is the people. And if somebody leaves, I don't wanna say it's disaster, but it's all hands on deck time. It means you've gotta cover their duties. And it means while you're doing that, you gotta go out and find somebody to replace them. And you darn well, better find somebody that's at least as good, if not better. Whether you're starting a new business, you're growing an existing business. If you wanna be successful, you gotta get the right people, right?
(00:38:19):
The most talented people, the people who are gonna fit your culture, the people will fit in. That's where ZipRecruiter comes in. And right now, you can try it for free. Ziprecruiter.Com/Twig. Think about what new business you would start. I don't know. I'm, I'm thinking, I dunno if food truck might be kind of fun, get my son and we could make some salt Hank sandwiches drive around the country. Or maybe maybe you'd want to give back. Start a charity. Just don't start a podcast network. Just a little word <laugh>, word to the Ys. Just maybe think of something else. However, no matter what you're doing, whatever your next business is, whatever your current business is, you gotta let ZipRecruiter help you hire. That's what we do. And it is such a relief. Somebody says, Hey, here's my notice. We're gonna, I'm, I'm moving lease this.
(00:39:10):
Oh, okay. And we post on ZipRecruiter, usually at breakfast, right? First thing in the morning. That's when we get the n the news. But what's so awesome about ZipRecruiter is within a very quick period of time, we're gonna get some really good qualified candidates. Now, how does it work? Well, first of all, you're posting a hundred plus job boards. You're posting all over the place. So you're casting the widest net. And by the way, sometimes people say, well, I don't know if I want that. What am I gonna do with all those phone calls and, and emails and resumes. No, don't worry. It all goes into the ZipRecruiter interface. They reformat the resumes to make them uniform so it's easy to scan them. You have qualifying questions. True, false, yes. No even essay questions that can eliminate people who just don't fit. You also, of course, have this amazing ZipRecruiter matching technology.
(00:39:59):
So cool. This really is the secret sauce. They will look through their million plus resumes, current resumes on file, and find people whose qualifications fit what you're looking for. Then suggest them to you. You can look at them and say, I think we should invite these three people. Those people now, because you've invited them personally, are, they're al they're already thrilled. They're gonna follow through. They're gonna give you a great interview. You re they're more likely to apply because you asked them. Ziprecruiter also has some nice little features cuz there's people going through ZipRecruiter postings all the time that let you add labels. Nowadays, what some of the labels that are really good are, for instance, remote. You know, you can remote work. A lot of people are looking for that. Training provided be a good one. They have these little stickers and people who are looking for jobs might be looking for that right?
(00:40:51):
On entry level. Oh, they're gonna train me. That's good. Urgent <laugh>, we put that in all of them. It's always urgent. Let your job stand out among all the other listings. Let's ZipRecruiter fill all your roles with the right candidates. F we are not alone, by the way. Four out of five employers who post a ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day on day one. I would say for us, it's almost always within an hour or two. It's just like Lisa, she does it at breakfast before lunch. She's going, oh, I got one. Oh, I got another one. And for her, it's such a relief to know, oh, I'm, I'm gonna be able to fill this position. Say for yourself, go to our special web address, ZipRecruiter and try it for free. Ziprecruiter.Com/Twig. Again, ziprecruiter.com/t W I g. Ziprecruiter, the smartest way to hire. We are very grateful for ZipRecruiter. Thank you. Thank you for sponsoring the show too. We appreciate that. Ziprecruiter.Com/Twig.
(00:42:01):
where I saw something, I thought, oh, this'll be, this'll be a good one. What do you want, Jeff? What do you like? What are you thinking? I know you're used to a democracy. I don't want to, I don't wanna pull the rug out from under you too fast here. <Laugh>. How about the dead people subscribing to Twitter? Blue <laugh> Elon was so, I think shocked that nobody had the check mark that he gave it. Well, he says I paid, which he obviously didn't. I mean, oh, I guess it's okay to lie now. And just like blatantly, oh yeah, I paid eight bucks for LeBron. I,
Jeff Jarvis (00:42:34):
Stephen King has a, has a, has an actionable libel case against Elon.
Leo Laporte (00:42:39):
Well that's an interesting one cuz when you go to Twitter, it says, this person paid for Twitter blue and was very, and gave their phone number. And Stephen King said, well, I absolutely did not. So that's an implied endorsement ftc. Hello.
Jeff Jarvis (00:42:52):
Right. It's, it's eight bucks schmuck. You know, no, I'm not that idiotic. I didn't do that. No.
Leo Laporte (00:42:58):
We can be pretty sure however, that Anthony Bourdain did not pay for his, nor did Kobe Bryant choy.
Jeff Jarvis (00:43:04):
He also put on,
Leo Laporte (00:43:05):
Nor nor Chadwick Bozeman, your friend aunt these people passed. But they all got blue checks. <Laugh>. Thank you Elon.
Jeff Jarvis (00:43:16):
Well, that may
Stacey Higginbotham (00:43:17):
Be, that may be just good pr because you really don't want someone impersonating someone who's dead.
Leo Laporte (00:43:23):
Well, that's a good point actually. True. That's the right thing to do, I guess, huh? Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (00:43:28):
But the blue check is me in this
Leo Laporte (00:43:29):
Now. Chrissy Tegan. Yeah. Who is actually a very talented tweeter. <Laugh>. She can stir out the pot like nobody says. You still tweeting? Yeah. Wait, I'm trying. I'm crying. They're giving them for punishment now. <Laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (00:43:48):
Okay. That's
Leo Laporte (00:43:49):
When John fau Booton getting a blue check, Tegan advised in the changing his account handle would make it disappear. This, by the way, from the Washington Post, Michael Jackson Mack Miller, John McCain, Kirsty Ali, Barbara Walters all got all got blue checks. But you know, that's a, I think you raised a good point. I think it's reasonable for them to say, Hey, you know, these people aren't gonna pay for it Black morning. Those people, it's appropriate. Really? It's the people were alive. Oh, Jamal Khashoggi. That's kind of nuts. So
Jeff Jarvis (00:44:19):
That's, that's, yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:44:19):
That's a little queasy making. But those, but the people who were alive who were you know, forced to have it with the implied endorsement, I think that's, that's problematic. I really do. Okay. Enough. I don't want
Jeff Jarvis (00:44:38):
You said you were gonna do more better. You did it. I didn't make you, I had my put on accidentally. Why disgust? You just did it
Leo Laporte (00:44:44):
Like it. Okay. I like this one. This is kinda interesting and I think we might get a little conversation going. Do you remember? I think we interviewed her and I did not like it. A woman named what was it? Twk? How do you pronounce it? Oh, no, I didn't like her. Jean Twk was, I don't either. She wrote a book that said, this is back in 2017. She's like, psychologist wrote iGen iGen. And we interviewed her. And she basically said this whole generation's lost because of social media and screens. And this has been a continued conversation. I think Dana Boyd probably debunked it, I would guess. Yes. when Twangy looked at, she, she studies generational trends at San Diego State when she looked at mental health metrics for teenagers. And this is back in 2012, according to npr, EE saw shocked her in all my analyses of generational data, some reaching back to the 1930s. I had never seen anything like it. She warned of a mental health crisis on the horizon. Well, fast forward 10 years, and we're seeing now, people say that young people today, especially young women today are more depressed, more detached. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> lonelier an more anxious than ever before. You've got a teen teenager. Stacy what are your thoughts? I think,
Stacey Higginbotham (00:46:23):
I think it's silly to ascribe all of this to social media. I will say that my teens social life is so different from mine. Part of that is covid. Like, so for over a Yeah. Year they were, they were isolated. But even before that, this generation of kids has historically been so overscheduled that they never like, hang out in person. And even now they don't really hang out in person. Like, it's probably once a month, maybe twice a month that my child actually meets in real life outside of school with friends. And I think that probably has a lot. I mean, I'm not saying social media is part of that. Like at least they're having connections with people, I guess. Right. And there are implications of like pile on bullying and things like that. But I also think a lot of it's like if you try to make plans with somebody, they're like in club sports, so they're never available or they're part of like, some team or theater or some part of like school, then they're at least hanging out, possibly in person with other people. But it is, it is like high drama to try to get your kids together with other kids.
Leo Laporte (00:47:40):
Yeah. I mean it's, I don't think anybody in denies that it's hard right now to be a teenager. But I I I think to say it's social media or screen time is over simplistic. There are other things, as you say, overscheduling, but, you know, I could, you could trace that back to stranger danger too. This bogus, eh, this bogus promotional thing that oh God, don't let your kids out of the house. They're gonna get assaulted. Really colored. These were
Stacey Higginbotham (00:48:06):
All latchkey kids. Yeah. Like I feel like Yeah. It was a reaction. At the same time I was stranger danger. I was also like, no one was watching me. <Laugh>. Right.
Leo Laporte (00:48:15):
<Laugh>. But they made, but they, you didn't, you know, when I was a kid, you went out to the street and you played
Stacey Higginbotham (00:48:22):
You did that when I was a, we just went to the mall and played.
Leo Laporte (00:48:25):
But I think even, even that was constrained over time.
Jeff Jarvis (00:48:29):
Exactly. No, that would seem to seem to be evil too.
Leo Laporte (00:48:31):
Yeah. You just said, no, don't go out. We don't know. Some strangers are gonna abduct you and that. So that was, I'm not saying it's all of it. I'm not saying social media's not part of it, but it's, but there's so many possible root causes. Society's changed a lot. And then the other thing, and Jeff and I will always, I know, bring this up, which is when we were kids, it was rock and roll and Rolling Stone Magazine. I mean, there's always something when the old generation, I like
Stacey Higginbotham (00:48:58):
Rolling Stone.
Leo Laporte (00:48:59):
No, I know, but I'm just saying when the younger generation disc is disconnected from the older generation that we called it the Generation Gap. <Laugh>
Jeff Jarvis (00:49:07):
Well that's, that's twin's new book now.
Leo Laporte (00:49:10):
It's called Generations. Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (00:49:12):
She's doing all that, all that, that, that generation stuff. So I, so before my father died Joe Scarborough was praising the Utah bill or law now taking kids off of social media entirely and getting every praise. And so I went on Twitter and I said, oh no. Now Joe and Meer praising this. And Joe came on and said, you know, damnit Jarvis, there's proven science and you are you know, just shilling for the technology companies are. So I said, I'm gonna come back and give you some data. So I have a, a long thread in there, line 60, which I did for Joe, but I'll do for here now, which has a lot of data in many studies that directly respond to both Twenge and her partner in crime. Jonathan Hate from the Atlantic. Do you
Leo Laporte (00:49:58):
Think she cherry picked a little bit?
Jeff Jarvis (00:50:01):
Oh yeah. And everybody does. I can't do, I'm doing it right here. Yeah. But Amy Orbin, who's, who's the best, I think at, at arguing back did some important research down a few. You'll find it. Oh, that's the wrong one. I don't know where you went. If you go to my link, we'll see it.
Leo Laporte (00:50:19):
Should I go to his reply to you?
Jeff Jarvis (00:50:21):
No, just go back to line 60 and click
Leo Laporte (00:50:23):
There. That's what I did.
Jeff Jarvis (00:50:25):
No, now go back. Okay, now scroll down now.
Leo Laporte (00:50:28):
Oh, don't show this thread. See, I don't understand how this Twitter thing works. This is the thread. So the thread, oh, this is the thread.
Jeff Jarvis (00:50:36):
You're probably on an apple. So you're scrolling the wrong way and get confused every time you scroll. No,
Leo Laporte (00:50:40):
Because I went, this is the link. It's this tweet. Scroll down. Just, but, but this tweet refers to this tweet which has us show this thread. This
Jeff Jarvis (00:50:48):
Is the
Leo Laporte (00:50:48):
Thread. But why doesn't it say show this thread on this tweet.
Jeff Jarvis (00:50:51):
Well, because that's Twitter. Don't blame me <laugh>. Alright, let's go one more, one more, one more. Keep going, keep going
Leo Laporte (00:50:58):
There. Amy Orbin, a leading researcher in the field, studied large social data sets with 355,000 subjects found, quote, the Association of Wellbeing with regularly eating potatoes was nearly as negative as the association with technology use.
Jeff Jarvis (00:51:15):
And by the way, wearing glasses is worse than technology use cuz don't we know all, all of us who were called Four Eyes at school and traumatized diverse.
Leo Laporte (00:51:22):
This is in nature.com, which is a fairly reliable
Jeff Jarvis (00:51:26):
Or ORs a leading person. She also found in the next one that that social media use is not in itself a strong predictor of life science. Ah.
Leo Laporte (00:51:37):
So when 20, so let's, let's go back to the NPR thing cuz Twinges got a lot of data. For instance, 22% of 10th grade girls spend seven or more hours a day on social media, which means they're doing little else than sleeping, going to school and engaging with social media. Screen time is cutting the kids' sleep. The percentage of 10th and 12th graders who slept seven or fewer hours each night rose from a third to nearly one half. But again, is that social media or the fact they got zero period so that they can take their crew classes so they can get into college, which they can Ill afford. Right,
Jeff Jarvis (00:52:20):
Right, right. And if they're, if they're depressed and under stress and anxiety, talk about the social stress of the lunchroom, talk about the fact that they're control over young women's bodies is being taken away from them. Talk about the fear that they're gonna be shot at school. Talk about the environment of falling down in their future generation. There's plenty of cause for them to be anxious.
Leo Laporte (00:52:41):
Hundreds of thousands more college students depressed. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:52:45):
I think actually, I mean there are obviously all levels of maturity, but the kids that I see through my child's school and my child, they're thoughtful. Yeah. Individuals and yes, they're, they, I mean many of them are anxious, but I honestly, I can't say to them, well that's crazy. I mean, this is a generation that is going to be worse off than their parents. Mostly they're
Leo Laporte (00:53:17):
Crying out loud. They're, they know the climate change is gonna clobber them and their kids. Well, I'd be anxious too. I'm glad I'm gonna be dead before 2050 because it's not gonna be good.
Jeff Jarvis (00:53:30):
Leo, Lisa, and an I'd like to ask a generational question here. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I'm curious about this. When I grew up, no one I knew would, if they did, would say out loud that they went to a shrink. We didn't talk about mental health. That's correct. That's correct. We didn't talk about needing therapy. We didn't have any discussion of that.
Leo Laporte (00:53:51):
Especially part of these stats, I think. Yes, that's right. Yeah. That people
Jeff Jarvis (00:53:54):
Are more
Leo Laporte (00:53:55):
Willing and mafi
Jeff Jarvis (00:53:57):
To talk about it. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:53:58):
Because Tony Soprano, it really, it was a hard thing for him to admit <laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (00:54:03):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:54:04):
Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (00:54:06):
He could have lost his gig
Leo Laporte (00:54:07):
From that. Yeah. Yeah. No, it no, I think you're right. But now it's okay. Right.
Jeff Jarvis (00:54:12):
Yeah. Now our kids, I go to
Leo Laporte (00:54:13):
Two shrinks. <Laugh>, I'm thinking about a third <laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (00:54:18):
It
Leo Laporte (00:54:18):
Doesn't help.
Ant Pruitt (00:54:21):
I, I, I still, I I, I agree with you Mr. Laporte. That is not the only thing. It is a combination of things. Yeah. And for me, I think it's a combination of word of parents. And I know this, this country in particular is full of really, really crap parents. So that puts the children at a disadvantage right out the gate. And then you throw in this, this, these different platforms, be it Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, what have you, that has a lot of things that are sensationalized and are falses. I can get why children are, or teenagers or what have you, can go through depression because they feel like they're missing out or, or should be living up to that standard that they see on this screen. But again, that stuff could, you know, you could fight that a little bit with some decent parenting or, or mentors, you know. So a lot of times I, just speaking from my own experience, I see stuff happen in the communities back in Carolina and the very first thing that pops out of my mouth was, well, where's mom and dad? Cuz some of the stuff could be taught at home. And I don't think the parents are getting enough credit for some of the things that our kids are going through these days.
Jeff Jarvis (00:55:39):
Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:55:40):
So let me ask you this Jeff, in your tweet thread and Stacy and your experience and your experience are we gonna stipulate that Yeah. Kids are more troubled now than before?
Ant Pruitt (00:55:55):
I, y'all gonna go ahead
Leo Laporte (00:55:58):
<Laugh>,
Ant Pruitt (00:55:59):
Because I have thoughts
Leo Laporte (00:56:00):
<Laugh>? No, Anne, no.
Ant Pruitt (00:56:04):
Again, I think kids today are more trouble than before because of,
Leo Laporte (00:56:09):
Well, I'm not asking because Okay. No, no, I'm not saying, because that's the next que part of the question. First part is though, okay. Do we agree that there is a problem?
Ant Pruitt (00:56:19):
Yes, I agree.
Jeff Jarvis (00:56:21):
I, I think the kids
Stacey Higginbotham (00:56:22):
Are struggling, but I think the kids are actually bet, like my kid and their friend group is so much better and more ambitious and more considerate and empathetic than my friends and I ever were.
Leo Laporte (00:56:38):
I mean, I, I guess what I'm asking is what's the dispute? Is the dispute that kids are in are in trouble? Or is the dispute what caused it? Because I, there's clear, it's, it's clear that it's foolish to say, oh, this is what did it, they used to say it was violent video games and violent movies. I mean, I, right, there are many, many, many possible causes. Maybe all of them involved, but, well, that's
Jeff Jarvis (00:56:58):
Why I asked my question. If, if people are more willing to talk about mental health today, does that mean mental health is
Leo Laporte (00:57:02):
Worse? Right, exactly. That's, that's legit
Jeff Jarvis (00:57:05):
Healthier right. At dealing with it. And in
Leo Laporte (00:57:07):
Anything autism is decreased. Dian company, autism today is diagnosed at a much higher rate. Is that cuz autism suddenly has appeared? No.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:57:15):
It's cuz of Tylenol.
Leo Laporte (00:57:17):
Or is it cuz of an environmental factor, <laugh>, or is it much more likely not Tylenol, although, who knows? But there was just
Stacey Higginbotham (00:57:25):
A study, a diagnosis that blamed autism on
Leo Laporte (00:57:27):
Tylenol. I know. And, and you don't hug your kids enough and blah, blah, blah. But really probably the case is that we just didn't have the term and we didn't diagnose that way.
Jeff Jarvis (00:57:37):
I do think that the pressure on kids today, I mean, how many, how many schools did you and I apply to? And you got into Yale versus seven how many schools kids apply?
Leo Laporte (00:57:45):
I got into all of them, but one Harvard, I hate those sons of bitches.
Ant Pruitt (00:57:49):
<Laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (00:57:53):
The social pressure, the, the political pressure. I think that there is worse pressure on kids. Yeah. I
Leo Laporte (00:57:58):
Think there is more.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:57:58):
And the economic unwinding. Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:58:00):
I don't blame 'em. I look at my kids 28 and 30.
Ant Pruitt (00:58:05):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:58:06):
The economic, they couldn't buy a house. They can't, they don't have a job they're gonna have for life. It's completely changed.
Stacey Higginbotham (00:58:16):
Yeah. And the internet actually shares a lot of that. Like, you wanna feel anxious, like scroll through your kid's Twitter or, yeah. Not Twitter. Tiktok feed because they're angsty. Like, they're like, I have $500,000 in student debt. I didn't get into any of my colleges that I wanted to. Yes. I can't buy a house. I'm not gonna have any children even though I want them because how can I, and I mean like, I just got a hospital bill for $80,000. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:58:39):
There's another one. Yeah. Constant medical bankruptcy. There's another one. I would be terrified if our 18 <laugh>, I really, I, I completely understand that there's a
Ant Pruitt (00:58:50):
Lot of, you know,
Leo Laporte (00:58:51):
Stuff. The
Ant Pruitt (00:58:53):
Kids can be depressed about that stuff because of the situations that we put them in as parents, in my opinion. I know I've never shied away, excuse me, about finances and things like that in this household. Because I don't want my children to think that things just come for free or you just get handouts and things like that. Everything has a consequence. Everything has a price. There's, yeah, we have free lunches in school, but I try to explain to them that free lunch is costing somebody else somewhere else. And, and I need them to understand that. And so, yeah, every now and then they can be quite anxious about, man, I, I'm, I don't want to have all of this debt for college cuz college is gonna cost, you know, a quarter of a million dollars at some point. And I don't want that hanging over my head. So Yeah. I should probably think about getting myself in a better position and yeah. I, yeah. That, that can be quite anxious. But that's, unfortunately that is life right now, you know, and I've also
Leo Laporte (00:59:59):
Respected greatly
Ant Pruitt (01:00:00):
How you talk about mental health yeah. And use this, and use this platform to do so. Yeah. I don't shy away from it, you know, cuz again, a few minutes ago as you were saying from a generational standpoint mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, you didn't talk about it. And then I, I can tell you for a fact, black folks did not talk about depression. Yep. And when depression or, or anxiety or anything like that came up, you were called quote crazy, or you were told, go, especially in the south, go and pray it away, or something like that. And that's, no, that's not cool. You know, people can have chemical imbalances that can lead to, to, you know, mental health concerns.
Leo Laporte (01:00:44):
And, and aunt,
Ant Pruitt (01:00:45):
You've always,
Leo Laporte (01:00:46):
I've done a great job with your boys. You've parented 'em very well. But I think
Ant Pruitt (01:00:49):
I'm trying, you've
Leo Laporte (01:00:50):
Fallen into a little, you've fallen a little bit of a trap that a lot of parents whose kids have done well fall into. And I don't know if it's just your parenting, I think you kinda lucked out. I think there are plenty of very good parents whose kids are very troubled, very concerned. I'm include myself in this. I'm sure Jeff, you probably, yeah. Include yourself. It's not that we were bad parents. You lucked out, you did well. But I don't think that,
Ant Pruitt (01:01:13):
I'm still not good. Undo good
Leo Laporte (01:01:14):
Parenting isn't the only problem by any
Ant Pruitt (01:01:17):
Means. No. No, it's not. It's not. But I do believe that, well, a couple things. I do believe that parenting helps, and this is gonna sound very selfish, but I also believe having daddy in the picture helps. I hate that there's so many single mothers out there. And, and just look at statistics from the black side of things, black dudes. We had to do better. We gotta stay in the picture.
Leo Laporte (01:01:48):
There's a black kids chance. Yes. And this is a big conversation I know, in the black community. But you could also say, and what happened to religion? You know, we'll look at the divorce rate. I mean, there we're in a different world and there are many, many things. I love Taylor Lawrence's response. You, you quote this in your tweet thread. Taylor says, people are like, why are kids so depressed? It must be their phones. But never mention the fact that we're living in late stage capitalist hellscape during an ongoing deadly pandemic with no social safety net as climate change cooks the world. Yeah. Yeah. There are a few things to worry about. Just a few
Jeff Jarvis (01:02:25):
Right below that. Yeah. The, the rust column in the New York Times, you know, blames, secularization, blames cancel culture. It's, it's a pure political agenda. Try to find the things that, that, that are screwing up kids.
Leo Laporte (01:02:39):
And on the left, I'm gonna blame billionaires. It's billionaires fault. That's who's it is. It's problems.
Jeff Jarvis (01:02:44):
Much succession.
Leo Laporte (01:02:45):
So, I mean, look,
Jeff Jarvis (01:02:47):
Fair, fair share.
Leo Laporte (01:02:47):
I, there's a lot of reasons. So that's why I asked a question. Do we agree that there's a a mental health crisis among young people? I agree wholeheartedly. And then the next question is, well, what caused it? I don't know,
Jeff Jarvis (01:03:00):
Stacey, Stacy, do you agree with the premise?
Stacey Higginbotham (01:03:03):
I do agree that there's a mental health crisis among young people. I would even say that mental crisis extends up to even millennials. Yeah. Like, it's not just teenagers.
Leo Laporte (01:03:12):
No. My kids are millennials. I'll va I'll vouch for that.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:03:16):
The lack of the economic pre precariousness. I mean, we've known that was stressful for a long time. Looking at, you know, I'll say black communities or other communities that have historically been unable to access economic privilege. Right Now everyone's kind of getting into that place and that's, we're all gonna be there. And it's scary. Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (01:03:47):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:03:49):
Well anyway
Jeff Jarvis (01:03:52):
So Leo, when when I
Leo Laporte (01:03:53):
Saw take that gene twangy <laugh> take,
Jeff Jarvis (01:03:55):
Take Leo. Cause when I saw that rundown, I thought, oh God, get my blood pressure.
Leo Laporte (01:03:58):
No, that's what I, that's why I put in the rundown. I am looking for things you could
Jeff Jarvis (01:04:01):
Surprise me
Leo Laporte (01:04:02):
To get your blood pressure. No, no. I, I this was a great conversation. I think this was important conversation. Yeah. and you're right. It's easy for, I understand why Joe Scarborough said, you know, Hey, you technology guys, you're defending technology. I understand why they say that. But honestly, it's not just to defend technology. It's to point out there are a lot of other things, nuance things. Yeah. There's a lot of nuances. And, and
Jeff Jarvis (01:04:25):
All of this is to say there is more that the platform should be doing for young people, for, for content, for lots of things. But to, well,
Leo Laporte (01:04:35):
I'm, no. And you know me, I'm no fan of any of these social media platforms, by the way, except for Mass now. But the
Jeff Jarvis (01:04:40):
Utah law is ridiculous to today. We don't have, in the rundown is, I didn't bother cause I saw this. I thought it was gonna be an overdose. But today bipartisan group just this afternoon announced through legislation to legally forbid children under 13 from being anywhere on social media. And to forbid the use, this is what's ridiculous of any algorithm. Cuz algorithms are bad. God. on, on anybody up to 18, and our friend near Weiss Blatt put up a really good piece on, on tech meme which I don't think I put in the rundown where she said, everything that Tristan and Harris did against social media is all this evil. Just like, like fear for fear is now transferring that to ai. So from social media to algorithms to ai, it's a continuum of an and get ready, get ready. I'm gonna say it when I say it. <Laugh> moral panic about this. Ah,
Leo Laporte (01:05:33):
Productive
Jeff Jarvis (01:05:34):
In dealing with the underlying problems.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:05:37):
Well that's because if we dealt with the underlying problems, we'd have to like
Leo Laporte (01:05:41):
Fix the world.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:05:42):
The entire society <laugh>. No, I was gonna say, I mean, <laugh>, I don't, I'm like, I don't know how we do this. Because we've enabled, we've put corporate wellbeing above societal wellbeing. We've put individual wellbeing above societal wellbeing. And we've basically, we're gonna just ride that train to the very end. And we're kind of getting close. I feel it'll be interesting.
Leo Laporte (01:06:13):
Yeah. By the way,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:06:14):
Make an interesting opportunity to, to change things. But
Leo Laporte (01:06:18):
I mean, honestly, I think you could add politicians to, to the cause as well. I mean, if I were young and I were looking at the, the disarray of our national polity, I would not have high hopes. And then what's it look like? The 2024 elections gonna be between two people in their eighties. Oh, great. <Laugh>. That's wonderful. <Laugh>. That'll solve it. Those old folks knew. So the bill you were talking about unveiled today, the Protecting Kids on Social Media Act is bipartisan, created by Hawaii Senator Brian Shatz, a Democrat. I'm not Tom Cotton, a wonderful Republican. Chris Murphy of, of Connecticut, Katie, Brit. These are, these is left and right. This is these, you know,
Jeff Jarvis (01:07:12):
Found their, cause they can agree on it's all the
Leo Laporte (01:07:15):
Internet common cause It's all the internet. This
Jeff Jarvis (01:07:18):
Is, by the way, speaking of parent, isn't it? Up to the parent to decide. You know, I go back to Dana Boyd. She grew up in some small Pennsylvania town feeling like a freak and weirdo. And it was because of the internet and connected that she could find out that she wasn't alone. Right. She wasn't a freak. She was brilliant. And, and it's up to parents to decide how their children should be be doing this. But it's, it's like, it's like decree that no kid can be outside alone in your backyard anymore.
Leo Laporte (01:07:48):
Meta's meta's quarterly results came out at Market Close, which was a little while ago. Third Q1 revenue up 3% revenue up 3%. How? Income, well, okay, revenue up, income down. Get ready for this. Stand back 24%. Ooh, that's a big drop in income
Jeff Jarvis (01:08:10):
Breakdowns for firings or
Leo Laporte (01:08:12):
Yeah, I'll have to look at the details. Year over year the Reality Labs unit, the Metaverse unit, Q1 revenue down 51% year
Jeff Jarvis (01:08:23):
Over year. Are they gonna change the name of the company again?
Leo Laporte (01:08:26):
Operating Loss Get ready 35% year over year. Last year, remember they lost 13.7 billion and they're on track to lose even more this year.
Jeff Jarvis (01:08:37):
But they're destroying the world deal. They're all powerful. There's nothing that can stop them stopping themselves.
Leo Laporte (01:08:47):
Knock. You know, I
Jeff Jarvis (01:08:47):
Read, I read a a, a a German essay cause I'm working on my book the next one. And it was going on about, about Toxic Genius and the Myth of genius in Silicon Valley and how that is toxic. And it went through Mark Zuckerberg and had this great line in there that said that, you know, he's neither a genius nor a villain. He was just a ill-prepared, rather incompetent guy who got lucky. And I think that that's a lot of this too, is we, we, we put these guys up on these pedestals as if they're as if they're amazing. And some of them are very smart. But Elon Musk shows that not just the emperor has no clothes, the closet's empty. Huh And
Stacey Higginbotham (01:09:29):
That's the media's fault.
Jeff Jarvis (01:09:31):
Exactly. Exactly. Stacey agreed. We pump 'em up and so we can knock 'em down. That's our sport. It's like bowling genius. Bowling. Well,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:09:39):
It's because we do, it's because people like people. And if you're gonna tell a narrative, you need a person. And these companies were big. So then we put these pe So maybe we chose bad people to exemplify, or we focus too much on the c e o as a person. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Right. Instead of like the, like in TikTok, maybe we should have been focusing on some of the awesome users. And I see that, like people are doing things like that. But I don't know.
Leo Laporte (01:10:11):
Wasniak should have had more focus. <Laugh>
Stacey Higginbotham (01:10:15):
Or, you know, just people like the school system, like the guy who bought Macintosh's for schools initially. And why, you know, we should be talking more to, we should not just be sitting around calling the CEOs of these companies. We should try to build our narratives. Not around some guy genius. But Lord, that's, that's almost impossible.
Leo Laporte (01:10:40):
And then there's Tucker Carlson, but we'll save that for another day. <Laugh>. Oh
Stacey Higginbotham (01:10:44):
Yeah, let's not talk about him.
Leo Laporte (01:10:45):
I only have one question that's a journalism question about the Wall Street Journal's story today. So I, but, and, and it's completely kind of a meta story about this. But, but I'll save that. Cause I wanna do an ad. Again, thrilled. That'd be back. Thank you Aunt Pruitt. Yeah. It's been great to, great. I missed you. You did a great bunch of hands on Photographies. Been doing great stuff in the club. Thank you for that. You've got a bunch of more club events coming up. If you're not, you're not a member of Club Twit, man. This, this guy's doing is rocking it. Go to twit tv slash club twit for ad free versions of all of our shows. The fabulous special shows that we put out only for Club Twit members, of course, our Discord, which is a great hang. I think that's my social media.
(01:11:32):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, no kid ever went crazy in our discord. I can tell you that right now. <Laugh> nothing. Nothing but happy Go-lucky folks in there. And it's Aunt Pruitt approved. No, that's legit <laugh>. That's the greatest stamp ever. I love that aunt. Shout out to Julius Pasito. That is so, oh, Joe's great. I'm like, he fixed my traps <laugh>. Oh, he did. There you go. That's a little greeting. You can put that up. That's a little greetings from the nerds in in the club. Twit discard seven bucks a month, buck less than a blue check. And you get so much more for it. Code to twit TV slash club twit. There's now family plans, there's corporate memberships, there's an annual membership. I think it's the best thing ever. And we thank our members. We love you twit TV slash club twit.
(01:12:19):
You're rocking it for us. <Laugh> our show today. Brought to you by HP e GreenLake, orchestrated by the experts at C D W. The helpful people at C E D W Understand that your organization needs simple management over its big data, but some needed to keep their workloads on prem, you know, for organizational or compliance requirements. It could feel challenging to organize and optimize your data. That's where C D W can help your organization. By consolidating and managing all your data in one flexible, unified experience with the HPE GreenLake Edge to Cloud platform. The experience you're gonna get with HPE GreenLake is unique cuz no matter where your data applications live, you can free up energy, free up resources, automated processes, streamlined management. I mean, who doesn't want more streamlined? Right? Not only that, HPE GreenLake creates a seamless cloud experience among multiple data environments.
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So it kind of solves this problem thanks to the ASA service model that meets your remote workforce at the edge. And with unrivaled scalability, you'll see instant increase in capacity, allowing for greater flexibility and accelerated business growth so your team could tackle bigger priorities. I'm sure there's other things on your plate like I don't know, innovation. Sure. When you need to get more out of your technology, h pe make makes data transformation possible. CDW makes it powerful. Learn more@cdw.com slash h p e. We thank of so much for their support of This Week in Google, cdw.com/h p e. What else is going on? Oh, I guess we can mention this. So not talking about Tule Carlson getting laid off at at blah blah, blah, but there was always this question, well, well, what happened? Nobody know. And the Wall Street Journal,
(01:14:23):
Who should know because they're owned by the same family says, oh, is those memos Those memos? That's what did it. Now, I just, I knew when I saw this, I thought, I'm gonna ask you, media Watchers in particular, you Jeff, how cr at first I thought, well, that's credible. It's a Wall Street Journal. They, they know. Anyhow, they say unnamed sources probably Locklin called 'em and said, could you print this? But now having watched succession <laugh>, I'm wondering if there's some deep dark thing that they're, that they're kind of, this is, oh, no, no, pay, no attention. It's just this, it's the, it's the memos. And I think you, there's some people made a fairly credible s case that, hey, they've known about this for months. Why, why would that suddenly do this? Right.
Jeff Jarvis (01:15:10):
Abby Grossberg was, was interviewed on, on Nicole Wallace last night. And it was a fascinating interview talking about this kind of bad behavior. The be behavior had been there forever. I I, my theory is a little bit different. I think that Tucker and his toasted test testicles got too big for his britches. Yeah. And was
Leo Laporte (01:15:34):
That's the Dylan Byers take on it. Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (01:15:36):
On about Puck News can be controlled.
Leo Laporte (01:15:38):
Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (01:15:39):
And he
Leo Laporte (01:15:40):
Was working out of his house in Maine. He wasn't even,
Jeff Jarvis (01:15:43):
By the way, I wonder who owns that studio and who gets to keep the stuff. Yeah. so you know, he was trouble, they couldn't fire him before the Dominion settlement because that would've hurt their case though. It's before.
Leo Laporte (01:15:55):
Ah, so that's the timing.
Jeff Jarvis (01:15:58):
Timing is that I think. Yeah. Yeah. I think I, but I think that they're, they were looking for an excuse. Abby Grossberg gave them a great excuse. You know, he used the c word to bosses. He did horrible things.
Leo Laporte (01:16:09):
I saw somebody else say, do all that he was, that it's an Australian company. They, they don't mind that word <laugh>. They use it all the time. I don't know. I guess it really comes to a much broader question, which is, is the Wall Street Journal, you know, I think for a long time I've thought that Apple has used them, for instance, as kind of a, a, a house organ. Is the wall how much, I guess you can ask this now about the New York Times too though. How much of a journalistic entity is it? How trustworthy is it? You know, I'm not talking about the opinion page is I'm talking about the reporting.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:16:49):
The reporting is still trustworthy. Still good. I think you do find a certain, a a certain type of person will veer turn to the Wall Street Journal for leaks. For example, a FCC commissioner, a Republican FCC commissioner, that's
Leo Laporte (01:17:09):
Where they're gonna go.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:17:10):
Used the Wall Street Journal extensively for leaks. And the reporter knew that. But also the fact that they could get these sorts of scoops was important.
Leo Laporte (01:17:21):
Access journalism, which is problematic.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:17:24):
It is access journalism. Yeah. But it's also, I mean, the New York Times does that too. It's just different people leak to the New York Times, times,
Jeff Jarvis (01:17:31):
Stacey, I, you got a chicken egg there. I agree with you, but I'll see your bid and up you. Okay. Where I think that the reporter without ever being told also sees that an FCC car leak happens to fit that C A R R, not a gas leak.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:17:49):
Yes, I got you.
Jeff Jarvis (01:17:50):
Car leak.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:17:51):
It wasn't car, but, oh, it was
Jeff Jarvis (01:17:54):
With, I think so fits in with the agenda of Murdoch and the company.
Leo Laporte (01:18:00):
It goes in both directions. I think that makes sense. I mean, you're gonna leak to it. You're gonna link to somewhere where that leak will be welcome.
Jeff Jarvis (01:18:08):
Right. And check it in. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:18:09):
Yeah. So, and I also, so I will say I, once y'all know my bias, which is towards consumers, and if you've ever read my broadband coverage, when I was covering that beat, I was like, I mean, I talked to the telecoms and I knew how their stuff worked and I respected, like the technical invitations, but I was always, I was also pretty skeptical of a lot of their arguments. Right. rightly so.
Jeff Jarvis (01:18:33):
<Laugh> as
Leo Laporte (01:18:34):
A, as it turns out.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:18:36):
Well, no, I mean, again, I, I understood the tech behind it. Yeah. but when I went to Fortune after being at Gig Home, giga Home was always happy when I was like, when I'd be like, oh, look, it's another effort by our duopoly to squash competition in broadband, <laugh>. You know, that could be my headline. And no one would blink an eye. And it was true, it wasn't crazy. But when I'd write the same headline, I think I wrote something about Comcast goes with Evil plan for <laugh>, you know, data Cap.
Jeff Jarvis (01:19:09):
Hey, Stacey, go get em, Stacey.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:19:11):
So I put that in session and it did like, it was there for maybe an hour before I got a, an email that was like, Hey, maybe we don't wanna call Comcast Evil on our front page, <laugh>. And I was like, what? Not call. I'm just saying it's their evil plan. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:19:27):
<Laugh>, maybe they may not say, but they're plan is maybe
Jeff Jarvis (01:19:30):
<Laugh>.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:19:31):
I was like, maybe we could just go Comcast introduces data caps. I was like, yeah, but data caps are real bad. They're like, yeah, maybe we just put that in the story. And was like,
Leo Laporte (01:19:39):
<Laugh>, okay. Mm-Hmm.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:19:41):
<Affirmative>. So it's subtle.
Leo Laporte (01:19:43):
I get it. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:19:44):
Yeah. It's probably there. Yeah. But I don't think it's as like, I don't think that's how they got the scoop or like, like we're actually that is kind of how the, the Scoop.
Jeff Jarvis (01:19:55):
There, there, but there does come to be a, an agenda for a publication that people fit into. Yeah. And I, I love The Guardian dearly. I've worked with The Guardian, I think, I think The Guardian is brilliant, but the Guardian's Tech coverage has been pure Get Ready. An pure moral panic. Oh, was it gritty? Oh, you're made, it's slowing the uptake there.
Leo Laporte (01:20:15):
<Laugh>.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:20:16):
Ooh. It's a new one. Ooh. Oh, that one's so fancy. Love that one.
Jeff Jarvis (01:20:24):
The Atlantic and the Wall Street Journal have all been of a single voice and others haven't been. And so does it come from the top? Rarely. You know, when I worked for the TV guide, I never want, never once did ruper bur.com or did his everbody come and say to me, you can't do this. Now, when I worked at Time Inc. To your point, Stacy. Oh yes. When I wrote a favorable review of a p b s series about Alger Hiss, they, I, I had to quit and my editor almost quit. Well, they took away their edits.
Leo Laporte (01:21:01):
Wow.
Jeff Jarvis (01:21:03):
Yeah. They, because cause Whitaker Chambers was a time editor, and Henry Grunwald found Whitaker Chambers to be his mentor. And when I said that the thing was credible about Whitaker Chambers, he went slashing through my piece. And I said, that's not going in by name. No, I'm, I'm, and we had to fight. And God bless my editor, pat Ryan, may you rest in peace fought for me. So I saw direct interference from Time Inc. More than I did at News Corp.
Leo Laporte (01:21:30):
Well, here we go. The New York Times just published an article, very much like the journal article <laugh>, with pretty much the same suppositions again, you know, unnamed sources. And here's another one. The Rolling Stone. Now who leaks to the Rolling Stone these days? They
Jeff Jarvis (01:21:48):
Say awkward. You are the Rolling Stone.
Leo Laporte (01:21:49):
Is it Rolling Stone? Just Rolling Stone. Not the Rolling Stone Kids
Jeff Jarvis (01:21:52):
Today. It's like the Facebook. Yeah. Lost the thought at some point. Yeah. <laugh>, you're showing your face. I think it's
Leo Laporte (01:21:57):
The Rolling Stone. I'm sorry, Sean.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:22:00):
No, it's Rolling Stone Magazine. Isn, isn't it? Is that, is that what we're talking about?
Leo Laporte (01:22:03):
Yeah. Yeah. But I'm wondering, cuz it used to be, you know, a rock and roll magazine. I think it's changed. Its it seems like it doing a lot of book coverage Right. And stuff.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:22:12):
They've done a, they used to do a lot of investigative journalism even when Yeah. I was in high school. They came,
Leo Laporte (01:22:17):
They they were the one that they, they had the portrays scoop and stuff, so Yeah, you're right. They've got, anyway, eight people. F this just came out too. Eight people familiar with the situation. Eight Tell Rolling Stone that Fox News in its communications department has assembled a damaging dossier about Tucker Carlson that they will release should he attack the network. So, wow. This is a story. I love this story. It has nothing to do with tech
Stacey Higginbotham (01:22:44):
That totally tracks.
Leo Laporte (01:22:45):
Yeah. I mean, it has nothing to do with tech, but it's very much outta success.
Jeff Jarvis (01:22:50):
You may run for president
Leo Laporte (01:22:52):
What?
Stacey Higginbotham (01:22:53):
You should not, you should not let people, if you have the ability to gather a damaging dossier on someone, do it. You should not put them in a position of power.
Leo Laporte (01:23:02):
I have Tammy prove dossiers on all you guys. So don't <laugh>. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:07):
Might is like, my dog is upset cuz I forgot to walk her the other day. That's say you
Leo Laporte (01:23:11):
Make a good point. That's, you make a good point. If your number one anchor has a dossier damaging enough. Really good point. Stacy. That's an excellent, really good point. When I was,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:21):
I mean, just like, Don Lemon, everybody, I'm like, ah,
Leo Laporte (01:23:25):
Ah, well, you know what? Just add 24 hour news channels to the pile of things wrong with this world. You know, what's right with this
Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:36):
World? I think it's the men in charge of these places. Men. I mean, I, I was, well, I don't know. I mean, like, I have to, I'm not hanging out with like Soledad O'Brien or other people.
Leo Laporte (01:23:47):
She's, she's cool. She's very cool.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:49):
But, but like do, I'm just trying to She
Leo Laporte (01:23:53):
Would never
Stacey Higginbotham (01:23:53):
Do that. Most of the professionals, she's been
Leo Laporte (01:23:54):
Very women escaping about all this stuff, actually. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Oh, she's, she's a she's a strong voice for ethics and journalism. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:24:01):
Our damaging dossiers. I feel like most women, we, we would never like <laugh>. That is, that is my slogan when like, I, I'm around my editors who are like, oh yeah, I totally got trashed. And then I, I was late for my interview and I missed my plane and I didn't get way
Leo Laporte (01:24:16):
Do, women are more, women are in power. And then you tell me that. I think some of this is maybe because there's a, a predominance of men acting badly because there's a predominance of men in power. It's really a power dynamic. And I think it's human. Yeah. And maybe if a more or a predominance of women in power, we'd see more of those stories. I don't, I'm not
Stacey Higginbotham (01:24:33):
Give me power. And I will see, I
Leo Laporte (01:24:36):
Think we should try it. Lisa always says that. She says, put women in charge. We wouldn't have all these wars, would you? And and she's got a, she's got a point. We just haven't tried it yet. When I was back out there in the real world, AKA Europe, I saw a lot of small cars, especially in Rome. Great story in the journal this week about this car. A really tiny car that is number one in Brazil. <Laugh>. Wow. <Laugh>. Wow. It's the size of a golf smart car. Yeah. It's a, it's an ev doesn't have a trunk. They talked to one of the owners who said he's driven 6,000 miles in it, and it can squeeze in three people. Quote. But they can't be very fat. <Laugh> <laugh>, thanks for putting that in quotes. He also says, you gotta be careful driving it around.
(01:25:32):
Because people don't respect you at all. <Laugh>. Oh no. Plus drivers call his car L Esto or the little nuisance <laugh> <laugh>. That's the name of clicking it. But it's very popular in Bolivia. It's made in Bolivia can be plugged into any outlet costs for this person that they're quoting about $8 a month to get around top speed per hour. What? Per hour charter? 35 miles per hour. It'll only go about 60 miles per charge. But if you just drive it around town. Perfect. By the way, for Chihuahuas, Micah <laugh>, a sergeant, not a, not, we put
Stacey Higginbotham (01:26:11):
I would totally drive this around Bay Bridge.
Leo Laporte (01:26:13):
Yeah. It's for, it's, I
Stacey Higginbotham (01:26:14):
Mean our, our speed limits top out.
Leo Laporte (01:26:16):
It's a getting around town That makes sense around the island. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I saw a lot of Chinese cars. There was a, there's a brand called Yo-Yo <laugh>, which is about it
Jeff Jarvis (01:26:29):
Is, is how many more brands you see in Europe Yeah. Than choices.
Leo Laporte (01:26:32):
And they're small because there's no parking. You know, I mean, right. You gotta fit in. I'm, it's so cute cuz you're walking along and people aren't allowed to have cars in the center of Rome unless they live there and they're trying to park and watch. And if you have a, if you have a normal size car, the streets are this wide and there are no sidewalks. So you're walking down the street and it's, it's dodging cars all the time. And I said, well, I'm sure they never hit anybody. So Lisa looks it up and it's like, there's thousands of casualties a year. <Laugh> cars hitting people. This is the, this was very popular
Stacey Higginbotham (01:27:09):
Casualties or just in injuries?
Leo Laporte (01:27:11):
Casualties is injuries. There's deaths. I don't know. Oh yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:27:15):
I thought casualty was death.
Leo Laporte (01:27:16):
No, I think casualties, I don't know. Well, I meant, I don't know. Oh, okay. Let's look it up. So
Stacey Higginbotham (01:27:20):
They're, they're not
Leo Laporte (01:27:21):
Death, let me ask, they're, they're just being chat <laugh>. How many, so getting
Stacey Higginbotham (01:27:26):
Hit by a small car versus like a, a curve word. F-150
Leo Laporte (01:27:31):
In Rome probably do to what? Pedestrian. Pedestrian as you should say, pedestrian deaths. Would that, would, that, that would be pedestrian deaths occur unless you
Stacey Higginbotham (01:27:44):
Winning the bikes
Leo Laporte (01:27:45):
Each year. You saw, I I was seeing a lot of e-bikes, which was very, oh, it's not too bad. 59 a year. That's not so bad. Oh
Stacey Higginbotham (01:27:54):
Dude, we get like that in Seattle in
Leo Laporte (01:27:56):
Like, I know. Two months. Yeah. here's an article from China. Roman roads are becoming like the Wild West for pedestrians. <Laugh> <laugh>. 59. Come on. That's nothing. On the other hand, on the road. 2,395 people died in road accidents. Lisa looked that one up when we were in a cab going 90 miles an hour to the airport. <Laugh>. She literally, she, she looked up how many people die on the highway in Italy. So I went,
Jeff Jarvis (01:28:29):
When the, remember the volcano went off in Iceland. Yeah. I made it to the last flight out of Europe from Berlin to Munich. A guy who convinced these two women that I was a longtime friend of his, I'd never met him before, but he Right. I need to get to Munich. And they let me into their car, their last rental car, they get outta Berlin. And I'm sitting there in the back calculating kilometers to miles. Oh yeah. You were going hundred 20
Leo Laporte (01:28:53):
Miles an hour.
Jeff Jarvis (01:28:55):
Oof. Miles an hour.
Leo Laporte (01:28:56):
Ooh, that's that's awesome. On Alban. Yeah. I did the hundred 31 kilometers an hour. And I found out, oh, that's only 80 miles an hour. That's nothing. That's nothing. Us Supreme Court will not review a decision that says AI can patent inventions. Gotta be a human, gotta be a human computer scientist. Steven Thaler challenged the US Patent Trademark Office. You remember, they refused to issue a patent for inventions. His AI system had created. The justice has said, no, we, no, we don't even, we don't even want to talk to you. They just, they declined to hear the challenge. So I think that means officially right. That AI cannot patent anything. Human can't get
Jeff Jarvis (01:29:47):
Copyright and they can't patent, which is really interesting. Then when you turn back around and say, well then am I really stealing your content? If I can't patent it Right. I can't
Leo Laporte (01:29:56):
Copyright it. Right. You know, there was a really good article in the New Yorker by a guy named Jar Lanier, who was a, I have mixed feelings about, Jarin was a very early pioneer of a ai, I'm sorry, vr literally 20 years ago about books
Jeff Jarvis (01:30:13):
Like this.
Leo Laporte (01:30:14):
Yeah. And he wrote a really terrible book called You Are Not a Gadget. What's his, what's that one? And,
Jeff Jarvis (01:30:18):
And 10 arguments for deleting your social Media accounts right now. Okay. Cuz
Leo Laporte (01:30:21):
You know, better, he was kind of anti-technology. But he did write, I thought, a very good article that was published this week in the New Yorker about ai. And his argument is that, first of all, you shouldn't call it artificial intelligence. Names are important. And you know, because we've, we've grown up in this milieu where ai, you know, smart machines kill humans and stuff like that. It's called, there is No AI is the name of the article. And what he really says is, this isn't ai, this is a new way of collaborating. This is about social collaboration. Because no AI makes something from Whole Cloth. It's all from previous human creations, am
Jeff Jarvis (01:31:01):
Not gonna agree with him about something.
Leo Laporte (01:31:03):
He says, if the New tech isn't too artificial intelligence, what is it? In my view, the most accurate way to understand what we're building today is an innovative form of social collaboration. And I thought that's fascinating. Fascinating. That's a,
Ant Pruitt (01:31:17):
An interesting angle similar to what Stallman said. Right?
Leo Laporte (01:31:21):
Well, Stallman said you should never trust an AI because it's not, it's never desire to be factual, you know, but, but what he saying, no, but I thought
Ant Pruitt (01:31:30):
He was saying how, how the AI is not necessarily quote unquote intelligent. Right.
Leo Laporte (01:31:35):
It's just because it doesn't basically Yeah. It's just a doesn't mean autocorrect. Yeah. And that's what we've been saying for a while. But I think this is an interesting way of thinking, man. And it goes back to this patent thing because it is, it is generative, but it's generative from stuff humans made previously, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So think of it more as that. He says think of people, people are the answer to problems of bits. That goes back to his kind of overarching thing that he's writing about in that book. And you are not a gadget and all of that stuff. He's become kind of a well-known Andy technology guy. But I, but he's not,
Jeff Jarvis (01:32:14):
He started writing about vr. Is that what you said
Leo Laporte (01:32:16):
He created early vr? No, he was the guy. Oh, okay. Yeah. He's very famous.
Jeff Jarvis (01:32:23):
Okay, what's the word he coined? But yet he's against tech these days. He's made, he, and there's a lot of folks, I think Tristan Harris as an example, and others where they've seen the burning bush after they've cashed their checks ah, after they've made their, there it is. Okay. <laugh>, they say, oh my God, it's terrible and I'm gonna save you all from what I helped create. Right.
Leo Laporte (01:32:45):
And
Stacey Higginbotham (01:32:46):
Even what if, what if they're not cashing their checks? What if they just are like, they simply, they were naive. They believed in what they were doing. They created it. They thought it would be used for good things. It wasn't, they thought it would get better. It didn't. And now they're like, oh, screw it. It's awesome. And I feel like that's where,
Leo Laporte (01:33:03):
Or he's coming with an informed point of view because he's in, you know, he created stuff
Jeff Jarvis (01:33:10):
Or he's explaining this to, just to get more attention.
Leo Laporte (01:33:13):
I don't think he made a pocket of money on all of this, frankly. Well,
Jeff Jarvis (01:33:18):
He's making, he's making money on these books. Like Professor Jervis
Leo Laporte (01:33:22):
Terrible. Yeah. You are not a gadget who owns the future, Don of the new everything. 10 arguments for deleting your social media accounts and his you are not, there is no ai. I think it's,
Jeff Jarvis (01:33:32):
But I will read this piece with an open mind because I
Leo Laporte (01:33:35):
I would like you to, I'm sorry that but next week we could talk about it. But I think it was really good. You know, it's a New Yorker. It's not, you know, the Daily Mail
Jeff Jarvis (01:33:44):
You can be. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:33:45):
Okay.
Jeff Jarvis (01:33:46):
I thought, I thought I, I'd already used up my free articles this month, so I I I didn't, I'm putting it out right now. You
Leo Laporte (01:33:51):
Know what? Done that before I paid for it.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:33:52):
I'm printing it out.
Jeff Jarvis (01:33:54):
Yeah. Well, for things that, for the book that I underlined,
Leo Laporte (01:33:56):
I pay for the New Yorker, but Condi Nast is so screwed up <laugh> that I can never log in. The only way I can actually do it is, is in my Apple, you know, news thing. I can read it or with the New Yorker app, I can read it, but I can never read it on the web. They, they think, they think I'm not a member, even though I am. And I log in and it says, oh good, welcome. Your account is good. You're in. And then I go to a law article says, no, you gotta buy you the, you gotta subscribe. They have to, would you please talk to your friends over there? It's the worst system. It happens to be with Wired two. It's te and Vanity Fair. I subscribe to Wired Vanity Fair in New York. Wow. Wow. And, and none of them work.
(01:34:35):
Right. It's terrible. Anyway, sorry. Diatribe over US Supreme Court has taken a case that may interest you. They agreed on Monday to consider whether the First Amendment does indeed bar government officials from blocking their critics. Now, you may remember there have been a couple of cases around this. Donald Trump was told that he could not block people on Twitter as president. Right. Actually, oh, I take it back. An official, they agreed to review it, but then he left office and they decided it was moot. So they dodged, they dodged that bullet. Ooh, interesting. So we don't know how they're gonna rule on this. The justices took up an appeal by two members of a public school board from Paul, which is down in Southern California. Lower court ruled in favor of school parents who sued after being blocked from Facebook pages in a Twitter account that the officials maintain.
(01:35:40):
Now, this isn't a private account, this is their official school board account. And the parents, I think quite rightly said, no, if you're gonna have a official school board account, you can't block us cuz you don't like our resp our our responses to this. I agree with the parents. They also took up an appeal by a Michigan man of a lower court's ruling against him after he sued a city official in Port Huron who blocked him on Facebook. So they've got cases can go in, in both ways. So the issue is whether a public official's social media count can amount to governmental action bound by the First Amendment. And I didn't realize that they, that they they they mooted the Trump case. I forgot that completely. Forgot that. Yeah. He saw, he lost in the lower court though, and did have to unblock those people. And that's why I thought he lost in the Supreme Court. They just never did decide that. So this will finally decide that I don't, what's what's a credible argument saying public official on Twitter? That's public pronouncements. Right? You shouldn't be able to block people, I
Jeff Jarvis (01:36:54):
Guess. Well, let's, let's, let's, let's play devil's advocate here. Is that if, if, if trolls and bots and opponents come in and do nothing but attack and attack and attack to make it useless, well,
Leo Laporte (01:37:06):
You could block a nonhuman
Jeff Jarvis (01:37:08):
Affecting the speech.
Leo Laporte (01:37:09):
Okay. But let's say it's a human. Huh?
Jeff Jarvis (01:37:12):
Even so you
Stacey Higginbotham (01:37:12):
Then you have to, the platform doesn't have a way to prove humanity or it doesn't force proving humanity. So then you've got, then you've just created a digital like system of proving you're at a person.
Leo Laporte (01:37:24):
Hmm. Well's. Good thing we're
Jeff Jarvis (01:37:27):
Not in the Supreme Court cuz we can't decide
Stacey Higginbotham (01:37:30):
It's a good thing. We're not Congress <laugh>. Actually,
Leo Laporte (01:37:34):
It's not, it's a good thing. Think we, I don't know, are the best I've heard of the last couple months, the best thing in the world, which is podcast hosts, God bless em,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:37:43):
We're pundits only,
Leo Laporte (01:37:45):
Only
Jeff Jarvis (01:37:46):
The a pundits and the podcast hosts Ru ran the world
Leo Laporte (01:37:49):
If only would be okay. That's what George Bys once said. He says, it's a shame that all the people know how to run the government are work in as barbers or taxi drivers. <Laugh> Facts. Schools bought millions of Chromebooks three years ago, and now they're starting a break, which is causing the US public interest research group education fund to complain, saying that cheap Chromebooks due to their short lifespans and lack of repairability are less sustainable and more expensive for schools than price year devices might be. I don't know what they're talking about. Windows. Like Windows. So laptops. No, they,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:28):
They're, they're upset because they're having an eight year lifespan. Like Google's like, we'll, we'll promote like the, not promote, we'll keep updating Chromebooks for eight years. Eight years in school. That's, that's kinda a long
Leo Laporte (01:38:42):
Time. They're saying these things are crap. They call it the report was called Chromebook Churn. Was the problem, the update or the problem of the hardware problem was they, well,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:52):
So they also, they have two problems. They have. One is the update and the other is the fact that the keyboards keep breaking. But you know, that's also affect Apple
Leo Laporte (01:38:59):
Two and it's hard to get repair parts. But yeah, you give a K through 12 student. Yeah. What do you any, give him an idea. Macbooks any, give a computer to Stacy. She's gonna beat it to death within months.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:12):
I will have, you know that my computers last at least five
Leo Laporte (01:39:15):
Years. How about the keyboards? Helen? Long lies. How long have the keyboard last? This
Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:18):
Keyboard has lasted for, I've had this keyboard for like a decade or more. Oh, actually I think two decades.
Leo Laporte (01:39:26):
It must be masochistic. It's a masochistic losing
Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:30):
Its letters.
Leo Laporte (01:39:31):
No <laugh>. Wow. You have had a long time. The letters are wearing off
Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:36):
The A, the S Wow. The m They're all going.
Leo Laporte (01:39:40):
The m That's interesting. You would expect it to be the
Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:43):
Is gone.
Leo Laporte (01:39:43):
E t a i o n s h r d l u The most used letters. Shrewd Lu. I don't know if Oh yeah, that's an old one. Oh wow. That's not a computer. That's a keyboard. Yeah. Well, that's what I was asking.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:56):
Oh, here's my, this is my letters. See? No, A laptop
Leo Laporte (01:39:59):
Would not be able to stand your abuse. Oh no, she doesn't have a laptop. She's got a desktop. No,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:40:05):
No, no. I have a, I have a laptop, but I have a docking station. Yeah, yeah. You're smart. This is a better keyboard. You're
Leo Laporte (01:40:10):
Smart. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Perg says, well, you should double the lifespan if you did, you could cut emissions by 4.6 million tons of co2, blah, blah, blah. They say Google should make it easier to unenroll Chromebooks from remote management and should install remote operating systems. Linux. These, this is so uninformed. <Laugh>. It would make post you're your sixth grader in Linux. Yeah. This is moronic. Google's response is, we work diligently with our hardware partners to increase the years of guaranteed support. Chromebooks received since 2020. We provide eight years of automatic updates, which was up from five even. Look at you give a kid a laptop five years. You'll be, I mean, look at the, the books last five years, up. Five, five years in 2016. We're always working with our device manufacturing partners to increasingly build device. You know what? Yes, it's true. If you buy a $200 Chromebook, it's not gonna wear out. Wear it very well. But, but you're saying what, what are you gonna get a $200 iPad? Nope. Eh, you're gonna get a $200 Windows machine. Nope. Eh, I don't understand what their proposition is. No. Give 'em a wooden block. It'll last longer. <Laugh>. How about a slate with a piece of chalk? A I've got a tablet for y'all, right? Yeah. I got you. Tablet <laugh>.
(01:41:34):
All right. What were those books?
Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:35):
The writing books from the Colonial Times. Like a primer or primer. Yeah. A
Leo Laporte (01:41:39):
Primor. A Horn book. Horn book. There you go.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:41):
A horn book. That's it. Yeah. I knew you guys would know that <laugh>, because
Leo Laporte (01:41:44):
We're that old. Cause he remembers it. Yes. He actually remember, remember them Flo School? Yeah. In fact, when he and Hester Print were in fourth grade and he dipped her pigtails into the Inkwell <laugh>. <Laugh> got hers. She got hers. That's right. That's right. <Laugh> Tesla has one good news. There is some good news for Elon in the weeks. Rundown. I don't like that Tesla won a <laugh>. Well, there's some bias. I think we've just uncovered some, some bias. There is indeed. There's some bias. Tesla wins a lawsuit over autopilot. Model S crash 2019 accident. Justine Shu sued Tesla after Evie swerved into a center median on an LA City Street while autopilot was engaged. She's just going down the road. And all this happened to me, used to happen to me all the time with my Model X. It would just decide some days I think I'll drive that way.
(01:42:40):
She saw it more than $3 million alleging defects in the software. And the des and the design of Tesla's airbags. She suffered a fractured jaw, missing teeth and nerve damage. The jury said not, not Tesla's fault. Tesla's defense was, Hey, we told you you shouldn't use it on city's streets. The jury awarded her no damages. Said the automaker did not intentionally fail to disclose facts about autopilot. Not, not Tesla's fault. Jury did not. Maybe the jury likes Elon. Meanwhile, Elon's self-driving rocket made a lot of days. Now, now this is a, there's new video. I know, but there's new video you might wanna just look at. Oh, where is that? Down at line. Give me the line. Oh, you want the line line? The 76. 76. This is a TikTok of the SpaceX. Oh, well this is just the damage done on the ground. I know, I know, I know. But it there, but that's not be, is that, that's not because the rocket blew up. That's just be what happens when you No, it's
Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:48):
Rocket. He doesn't have a flame divert. No, no. That's because he didn't build the appropriate safeguards.
Leo Laporte (01:43:53):
Whoa.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:54):
Handling the thrust of the many engines.
Leo Laporte (01:43:57):
Oh yeah. Cuz we've seen he admitted to that. Right. Remote cameras.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:44:01):
He, he tweeted about not wanting to put one on <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:44:04):
Yeah. Hey, if you go all the way down to Boca, Chika, Texas, however it blow the fact that the thing blew up is, is widely considered not to be a bra a bad thing. It was the first time they'd launched it and it got very high and they learned a lot and blah, blah, blah. It was a turn they learned.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:44:24):
But the big issue was it blew up. They, they believe one of the reasons it blew up was because they had insufficient ground protection. Oh. And so when they had, oh, he kind of caused his own problems by, and I get not wanting to, you know, if that's, if that feels like a safety regulation that you could ignore. And I mean,
Leo Laporte (01:44:45):
So there was damage caused in the launch, which is why the rocket went off course. Which is why they had to blow it off. But it's a test. Yes. So he's learned a lesson and bad ellan. Yes. Yeah. You've learned your lesson. But
Stacey Higginbotham (01:44:58):
We already knew this was
Leo Laporte (01:44:59):
I know we <laugh>. I know <laugh>.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:45:01):
I know. I'm like, I'm like, we don't have to reinvent this wheel at Yeah. This wheel at the cost of, yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:45:09):
Anyway. Okay. Sorry. All right. The space guys, you know, we have space experts at the network rod pile. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and Terry Malik of this weekend space. They said it was looking forward to this. Then I wonder what Rod will say. We're gonna have 'em on the ask the tech guys on Sunday before he does this week in space. I wonder what he'll say with this new knowledge. Cause I don't think they knew about the shield. They didn't know about the shield. Did they know all about the shield? Okay. And they still say it was a So
Stacey Higginbotham (01:45:36):
They still think, I mean, people, I
Leo Laporte (01:45:39):
Will take it to him. I will say my friend Rocket scientist Stacey Higginbotham,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:45:44):
Not a rocket scientist.
Leo Laporte (01:45:46):
<Laugh>, I'm sorry. Brain surgeon. Stacey Higginbotham says
Jeff Jarvis (01:45:50):
Famous epidemiologist.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:45:52):
I stayed at a holiday end last night. That's it.
Leo Laporte (01:45:54):
<Laugh>,
Jeff Jarvis (01:45:56):
Right? Humble. Humble brain scientist. Humble
Leo Laporte (01:46:00):
Rocket scientist
Jeff Jarvis (01:46:01):
And UUs. Humble rocket scientist. Stacey Aiken.
Leo Laporte (01:46:05):
So this is, are we now in the TikTok segment? Is that, is that, was that your secret plan?
Jeff Jarvis (01:46:10):
I had no TikTok quarter today. Oh no. I had All right. I tried, but I found nothing. I watched a lot for
Leo Laporte (01:46:15):
You. What in your, in your vast TikTok experience, what is your take on talk this day? Is it, is it, it feels to me like it's kind of decline. Like the content is kind of going downhill. Maybe that's cuz my son no longer posts there. He posts on Instagram, but I just, I feels like it's not as, as satisfying as it used to be. Is that
Jeff Jarvis (01:46:34):
I I still enjoy it. It still, it it, for me, it varies day to day. The, the algorithm's kind of having a bad day sometimes.
Leo Laporte (01:46:41):
Maybe that's it. It's weird. Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (01:46:44):
Some days it's better than others.
Leo Laporte (01:46:45):
There was, we mentioned the Go ahead. I'm sorry.
Ant Pruitt (01:46:49):
When I'm in there, it seems to be all right far as showing me things that I would like.
Leo Laporte (01:46:53):
Do you get a lot of musical theater?
Ant Pruitt (01:46:56):
No. I, oh gosh. <Laugh> goodness. I'd like to tease you. Oh, it's doing so much better for me. I will say that <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:47:04):
There
Jeff Jarvis (01:47:05):
Was one, there's a business model. We would pay TikTok to show ant musical theater.
Ant Pruitt (01:47:10):
Stop it. <Laugh> to stop.
Leo Laporte (01:47:14):
There was apparently one thing you might be interested in, in this completely posed picture of Sundar's cargo pants. Some have hypothesized note that a little bit of this picture down there in the lower left is kind of blurred out. Some have hypothesized that that maybe was a fold. A, a Google fold.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:47:45):
Oh. Like a little fold Easter
Leo Laporte (01:47:46):
Egg. A little fold. Easter egg perhaps doesn't look like fun to me. But remember it was blurred. It modified. Perhaps
Jeff Jarvis (01:47:54):
On 47 we have video
Leo Laporte (01:47:56):
Of, you wanna see the the, the, the TikTok video of the full, or sorry, Twitter video. This is from zci. Whoever that whoever. Oh, it's Polish. So there's the fold. Is that, you think that's it? It looks a lot like a galaxy fold.
Jeff Jarvis (01:48:12):
I
Leo Laporte (01:48:12):
Don't know. Maybe a little bit. No, the aspect ratio is more like more like a three by two. Don't you? That's interesting. It's more square. Hmm hmm.
Ant Pruitt (01:48:24):
The hinge. Okay. Opened
Jeff Jarvis (01:48:25):
It folds closed. It folds open.
Leo Laporte (01:48:28):
Stacy, how's how's your flip pa holding up? Is it still is? Do you have any weird creases or anything on this? On the Samsung? No. You don't use it though.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:48:38):
I do. <Laugh> time. We have this conversation.
Leo Laporte (01:48:41):
I know, I know. Maggie. Don't use the eat eat. I keep trying to get you to tell the truth. So you, you do use it. <Laugh> <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:48:53):
The Galaxy Flip. I sent it to Stacy. I know she doesn't use the Cobo and I'm just, I'm waiting for it to tell the Theresa better. Well, a
Jeff Jarvis (01:48:59):
Cobo she found. Yeah, she found boggling. Unusable. Like, it was like,
Stacey Higginbotham (01:49:04):
Well I didn't know what it was at. I was like what? Huh?
Leo Laporte (01:49:06):
<Laugh>. I found the box.
Jeff Jarvis (01:49:08):
Like everybody loves Raymond's parents with Why are you saying as a fruit? Every month I <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:49:12):
Of the month. Cobo terrible. I found the box and I, if I'd known, I would've said it in the box, then you would've had a better idea of what the hell that was. But anyway, but the flip, you knew what it was. Cause I told you I was saying that and you do use it and you, you flip it all the time and it hasn't flip it. And it's held up.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:49:30):
It's held up. I don't flip it. I certainly, I don't <laugh>.
Ant Pruitt (01:49:36):
It's not
Stacey Higginbotham (01:49:37):
A, that function. It's more just like a, but yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:49:39):
In order to use it, you have to open it.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:49:42):
Yeah. I think I, I leave it open sometimes. So that's, that's, I I'm not great about always closing.
Jeff Jarvis (01:49:49):
Is that negate the flipping?
Stacey Higginbotham (01:49:52):
Well, no. Just like, cuz if I'm, if I'm like on the couch and someone asks me something and I'm like, oh, hold on. And then I just put it down. I don't always close it.
Jeff Jarvis (01:49:59):
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:50:01):
So I also throw my phones around a lot, I'll be honest.
Leo Laporte (01:50:06):
And it's survived. Which is good. It's
Stacey Higginbotham (01:50:08):
Survived.
Leo Laporte (01:50:09):
So this, the whole reason I ask this is I've of kind of, of the opinion, these folding screens, I haven't had great results with their longevity. But y y you are and that's good. So maybe Google should do a fold. What do you guys think? They, the rumor is they'll announce it in June. Right?
Stacey Higginbotham (01:50:26):
I would not pay what their rumored price is, but we'll see
Leo Laporte (01:50:29):
That's yeah. Almost 2000. But again, that's too expensive. Yeah. You
Jeff Jarvis (01:50:34):
Not gonna announce it at io?
Leo Laporte (01:50:36):
Oh I'm sorry. When is io? May, may, I meant, I meant say May coming up. Yeah. In fact, actually, good news. We will be sending people down to Google for io. Jason Howell will be down there. And Jason, Ron and Flo will be doing a special, or is it win win to it. Do. It's win. We'll be doing a win to Dow. We'll do, we'll be doing, or I've been told it's win
Jeff Jarvis (01:51:04):
Win.
Leo Laporte (01:51:08):
I can't say it right. It's Vietnamese is very hard.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:51:10):
You're you're getting close though. Keep trying.
Leo Laporte (01:51:12):
Anyway, you know who I'm talking about. The wonderful Wintu Doo and and those other people will be down there, <laugh>. They're gonna do all about Android that day or Yeah, that day. You and I j Jeff. And if, actually I wanna invite you to Stacy. If you want, we will be doing the keynote with Sunar, but we'll do it from here. Our respective locales.
Stacey Higginbotham (01:51:36):
I had to say no I'm sorry. It's cuz I record my show. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:51:39):
No, no, no, no. My show. It was just an offer. It wasn't a demand.
Jeff Jarvis (01:51:43):
Here's the question. Will he be wearing shorts?
Leo Laporte (01:51:45):
I think he'll be wearing creased. Wouldn't that be hysterical? Be wearing Crease cargo short. It would be great. Love that. It'd be great. Anyway, so you and I, Jeff will be doing the keynote. I'm looking all about Andrea. They'll be doing the show from down there, and then they're gonna do a second show, which will be, I think the following week. They've got four people from Google. They're gonna have on they've done this before, so they're gonna have some great information from Google io. Make sure you watch all about Android during the mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, Google IO 2023. Trying
Jeff Jarvis (01:52:15):
To find out whether Google still does book talks like they used to. If so,
Leo Laporte (01:52:20):
I, I've watched many of those on YouTube and they're really great. Yeah, cuz you should, you should. There you go. That's one more thing you could do out here. Yeah. What? I'm
Jeff Jarvis (01:52:28):
Out here. Put that on the list, man.
Leo Laporte (01:52:31):
We'll give you a bucket. Google 50.
Jeff Jarvis (01:52:32):
Is anybody, anybody Google still on? Let me know if you still do book talks and Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:52:36):
Usually Jeff's available. What's the date of that? Commonwealth Talk.
Jeff Jarvis (01:52:40):
Commonwealth Talk. But I found these results on Search <laugh>. You said I used somebody who actually worked with Google. They've rejected you. They've caught off all support for you. You're boss. You're nothing <laugh>, you're ex Google sympathetic. Did he just say you're nothing anymore? <Laugh>. He's so mean to Google. Good word. Not. No, it's, I'm, I'm mean to the device that, that thinks it's still a Googler. It's just an employee who's now been laid off and doesn't know it. Right. Oh gosh. Where were we? Oh the 25th of July at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco and the 26th, they'll come up. I'm already, I'm already having sweaty palms about the bridge. Honest to God.
Leo Laporte (01:53:22):
Do you? Okay. In my personal opinion, the fact that an AI could do a credible Drake song is not that exciting.
Jeff Jarvis (01:53:35):
No, no,
Leo Laporte (01:53:36):
Because Drake sucks.
Jeff Jarvis (01:53:38):
<Laugh>. Okay. How about the weekend? What do you think of the weekend? Oh, even worse. Okay. Oh, well, so <laugh>, it's okay. He, he, <laugh> Macy needs some spelling salts. He just pissed off Stacey. He didn't piss off our fan base. I'm sure. So I too <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (01:53:57):
I'm a Kendrick Lamar fan. I think Drake is a little, anyway.
Jeff Jarvis (01:54:01):
No, you're talking.
Leo Laporte (01:54:01):
Yeah. No, that's, that's,
Jeff Jarvis (01:54:03):
I like Kendrick Lamar as well. But Drake, I mean, I grew up on
Leo Laporte (01:54:07):
Drake. No, Drake's fine. I'm not just teasing. Grew up <laugh>. Drake is the Nickelback of rappers. Is that fair to say? That
Jeff Jarvis (01:54:14):
Is fair. That okay? Yes. I'm just saying. Oh, geez. Oh's. He Canadian. That's a yes. He is Canadian. Yes, he is Canadian. He was
Leo Laporte (01:54:23):
On De Grassi. He was a child star on deGrasse. He grew up in the hood. Canadian. If the hood is Upper Westside, Toronto, <laugh>,
Jeff Jarvis (01:54:31):
We go. He grew up in the sixth <laugh>. Anyway,
Leo Laporte (01:54:37):
The reason I bring this up is a TikTok user named Ghostwriter 9 77 created a AI generated song with Drake in the weekend. But it wasn't Drake in the weekend. They, there's a Kendrick Lamar version of Off the Grid. There's Rihanna singing Cuff it. And these are all fake AI generated. Now I listen to it, but since I think Drake is the nickelback of rap, I was underwhelmed. But apparently the song, according to the Washington Post, sparked a panic in the music industry because it got labeled the artist. Right. They should be. Well, it's interesting. The artist's response is a little different. But anyway, 15 million views on TikTok. 600,000 streams on Spotify. It has now hard on my sleeve. I you I can't play it for you cuz it's gone. It's been removed from all digital
Jeff Jarvis (01:55:34):
Services. Here's, here's the question. Here's the question. Given the copyright discussion and trademark discussion we had earlier, not trademark, but patent discussion we had earlier, was it taken down because it was a copyright violation when in fact you can't copyright it? They were made up, is it? Yeah. Or was it just because they didn't wanna peeve the publishing house? Or, we talked about this a little last week too. We wanna Oh, of
Leo Laporte (01:55:57):
Course. I'm sorry. Is this an older, this is kind of an older, it's okay. It's okay.
Jeff Jarvis (01:56:00):
We talked about this last week.
Leo Laporte (01:56:01):
I did kind of want to, well, I just wanted to dis Drake, mainly <laugh>,
Jeff Jarvis (01:56:06):
How rude Mission. That was so
Leo Laporte (01:56:08):
Rude. How rude. But it goes back to this whole thing about you can't copywriter or patent something that an AI created. Oh. So why is it a threat? Because it's sold a lot of songs, got a lot of spins. I don't know. This is really interesting. And actually a law, the post quotes, a law journal, a law professor rather kg Green, who said the history, and this is true of black artists within U S I P law has been one of appropriation degradation and devaluation. And that's absolutely true, right? You know that mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, it took Elvis to take little Richard's music and make it popular. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, pat Boone. Sorry. pat
Jeff Jarvis (01:56:52):
Boone. Oh my God.
Leo Laporte (01:56:53):
Yeah. Pat, pat Boone singing little Richard is something.
Jeff Jarvis (01:56:59):
Oh boy,
Leo Laporte (01:57:00):
There's a new movie Bell. Little Richard I can't, or a new documentary. I can't wait to see Love. Oh, Richard. Nice. Yeah. Anyway okay, so you already talked about this. We don't have to to bring it back. Grimes has has tweeted that I will be glad to, to collab with any AI as long as, and I will share the profits 50 50. So she's addressed this and said, look, that's fine, but let's, let's share in the, the profits. But, but if you Well, can't
Jeff Jarvis (01:57:29):
Do you share a profits with Yeah, I was about to. How do you know <laugh>?
Leo Laporte (01:57:32):
Well, you know, we're, well, there's profits when
Jeff Jarvis (01:57:35):
You, where do you send the transfer?
Leo Laporte (01:57:37):
If you have 600,000 streams on Spotify, if you, you're getting something for those streams, right? Tiktok? No, but
Jeff Jarvis (01:57:44):
Yeah. Where are they sending that, that transfer though? <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:57:47):
Who count? Well, whoever did the AI ghost
Jeff Jarvis (01:57:50):
The entity?
Leo Laporte (01:57:50):
Ghost writer 9 77, I guess. Right? Right. Ghostwriter shouldn't make any money on it because he's basically piggybacking on previous works by Drake in the weekend. So I don't, I apologize, I forgot. This is an older story. I just, I was all week. I've been confused. Where
Jeff Jarvis (01:58:08):
Have you been, man, come on.
Leo Laporte (01:58:10):
But then nobody was talking about it. I
Jeff Jarvis (01:58:12):
Ua
Leo Laporte (01:58:12):
Peppi by, by the way, the food is great in rum. The music, well, it's weird. Italian pop music is very, very strange. <Laugh>
Jeff Jarvis (01:58:25):
Do not dare to listen to music though.
Leo Laporte (01:58:28):
Anyway. Well, but no, I enjoyed it. But it's, it's just weird. It's just, I think Lisa, let me see if she posted a clip from one of these restaurants that we were in. Maybe not. There is a, I have a video clip of us enjoying some, some fine pop music in an Italian restaurant. <Laugh> <laugh>. But I don't have a cl I have anywhere to show you. Okay. That's that. I don't have anymore to say about that Bad Bunny and Rihanna AI duet Now Sure. The fake Drake and the weekend creator seems to be behind it. Fake Drake is actually a pretty good name. I'd copyright that. Ah, yeah. Hard on my sleeve is the original, the Drake tune. Now well that was last Tuesday. Nevermind. This is all old names. Forget it. <Laugh>. I didn't put it in there. You put it in there. So don't blame me. No, I did because I thought it was good. Wanna make clear thought it was important. Just stale, that's all. Does it show as Reason Magazine said the potential for AI's future? Do you wanna see something?
Ant Pruitt (01:59:46):
Certain artists are going to be quiet. All right. When it comes to ai. Yeah. cuz some, some artists that they're really talented and can Yeah. You know, put something out there that's gonna be catchy and That's right. The eye is just not gonna be that good. That's right.
Leo Laporte (02:00:01):
I don't, I think we don't have to worry about AI creations. I really don't. I don't thinks Well,
Stacey Higginbotham (02:00:05):
And you don't have to wor I mean, should you worry about it in pop music where familiarity is what we're usually
Leo Laporte (02:00:10):
Fun for? You gotta get. Yeah, maybe. But you gotta get on the AM radio if you really wanna make a hit. At least. That's what I'm told. Well, I don't think that ly am these cats here.
Ant Pruitt (02:00:23):
5,000 watts of power. Huh?
Leo Laporte (02:00:28):
It's time for the Google Change log. Ah, Google Authenticator has finally well, but not so fast added syncing. If you explain this to me for two factor codes. So when you, you know I've long ago abandoned Google Authenticator because I get a lot of phones, new phones, I'm always setting authenticators up. I don't wanna have to go out and get all new two factor QR codes. Actually our security guy, Steve Gibson, solves that by my screenshotting the QR codes, printing them out and putting 'em in a notebook. And then he has 'em when he gets a new phone. Phone. Wow. I'm not sure I'd recommend that I, for a long time have been using, we, we mentioned afi, which would automatically sync to the cloud. You know, do what this thing that Google's now doing or, and now I've got one that's I think better, which is two fas.
(02:01:24):
That's the one I used. It's free, it's open source. So you know, you can look at the code, you know, it's not doing anything weird and it backs up either to Google Drive or iCloud, but you encrypt it, it's end-to-end encrypted. So you encrypt it and then it backs it up. So only you can look at it. So that has worked out very well for me. Some have said, and I have to look into this, that this Google Authenticator backup is not end-to-end encrypted uhoh, which would be problematic because, well, it means that if somebody could get into your Google account, they could just, you know, back restore your authenticator. Yeah. So I don't, you know, I haven't ver independently verified this, so
Ant Pruitt (02:02:10):
And wouldn't this be a part of Google's strategy to make sure that it's encrypted end to end?
Leo Laporte (02:02:16):
Yeah. You know, I trust Google. I do, I totally trust Google's security, but they mention nothing about this. Well, when they, when we talk about this, they mention nothing about encryption. And I've seen some articles, again, I haven't independently verified it that say it's not, so you'll know if it is or isn't. If you, well, maybe you won't, you'll still have to provide a password. But does Google keep that password as a question? So I, I'm not gonna recommend it, but this is a feature that's been long needed on Google Authenticator. Here's, oh, Emmett here's nine to five. Google. I trust this Google on why Authenticators sync isn't end to end encrypted. They said that's coming later. So misk discovered this and I think that's very valid. Google today explained, says nine to five Google that they wanna offer features that protect users, but are useful and convenient <laugh>,
Ant Pruitt (02:03:19):
But are useful and convenient.
Leo Laporte (02:03:21):
Useful and convenient. Acknowledging that E two e e is a powerful feature that provides extra protections. The downside is users might get locked out of their own data without recovery if they forget their Google account password or whatever extra password's they use, that
Ant Pruitt (02:03:36):
Happens.
Leo Laporte (02:03:37):
Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:03:38):
That's why you print 'em out and you leave them somewhere.
Leo Laporte (02:03:42):
<Laugh>, and I'm serious, if you lose a, like passwords, if you lose a, it's not the end of the world. Oh. I I think this is, it's just
Stacey Higginbotham (02:03:53):
Expensive for Google. Cuz they have to Google help you and validate you Google.
Leo Laporte (02:03:56):
Yeah. Or they make it easy. You, you know, you always have recovery codes whenever you set up two factor. So you should always have those. And in most cases you can turn off two factor and then rein redo it. Because it, in effect, it's the same thing as when I get a new phone with Google Authenticator, I have to go out and redo it. Right. Anyway
Ant Pruitt (02:04:18):
Wait a minute. Hold on, hold on, hold on. So you're saying if I'm locked out, you, I, I have a way of,
Leo Laporte (02:04:25):
In most cases,
Ant Pruitt (02:04:25):
Going in and turning off the two fa if I'm locked out so I can get in that don't
Leo Laporte (02:04:29):
Actually, that that doesn't sound secure either, does it?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:04:32):
<Laugh>? No,
Leo Laporte (02:04:33):
Nevermind. <Laugh> can't end to end encryption. I I don't think this is right. They are adding end to end encryption. However, for our CS group chats, this was in beta for a while. Google messages start showing end-to-end encryption for group chats. So it's, and
Ant Pruitt (02:04:51):
That's
Leo Laporte (02:04:51):
Useful. That is good. See they like end, end encryption here, but not there. <Laugh>, Google's making it much easier to search for tools in docs, sheets and slides. You'd think as, as a search engine, they'd probably be good at this. They now have a search bar that allows users to locate tools and features using their own words. Whose, whose words would be you be using using ants words. Oh,
Jeff Jarvis (02:05:17):
Rather than a a a paperclips.
Ant Pruitt (02:05:19):
Ah, make it easy for me to search email in Gmail.
Leo Laporte (02:05:23):
Ah, I see. You don't need to remember the specific name of the tool. You need a description of the features device. So it's just the natural language. Something Google's had for 15 years on their search. Okay, fine. Google ups, Chromebook privacy. They're now adding a new camera and mic switch so you can turn off the camera and microphone system wide, you know, useful. Yeah. The best thing of course would be to get a device that has a physical shutter, but microphone's a little harder. Microphone's a little harder. So Nice. You can toggle it off. It'll be in the privacy control panel in Chrome os so you can
Jeff Jarvis (02:06:03):
Toggle it back on
Leo Laporte (02:06:03):
Then. Yeah. Okay. See this toggle, toggle toggle means on and off. Well, no,
Jeff Jarvis (02:06:10):
But I meant if you turned it off for all applications, did you have to turn it on application by application again?
Leo Laporte (02:06:14):
No, no, no, no, no, no. It's all for previously approved. It's, it's, it's allow access. It override, it overrides. That's right. Okay. Got it. I see what you're saying. Thank you. No, that's reasonable because normally you do that one by one that's completely reasonable. Google Bard, which I don't know about you, but I've been less than impressed with Google Bard.
Ant Pruitt (02:06:34):
I've not opened it up.
Leo Laporte (02:06:36):
Yeah, yeah. I
Ant Pruitt (02:06:36):
Play with it. I did open it up. Wait a minute. I did open it up when I got the little invitation, but I haven't opened it up since, since
Leo Laporte (02:06:42):
Then. No, frankly, I pay for Che G P T and I haven't opened it up that much either. I'm,
Jeff Jarvis (02:06:46):
I, I see, I think, I think flash of the pan man. Yeah, I
Leo Laporte (02:06:49):
Think, you know what I did do though, when we had an unscheduled stop in Genoa. We were supposed to go to Portofino, but the waves are too high. Went to Genoa. So I asked Chad g p t to recommend. I said, give me a three hour tour of starting here. And it actually three hour tour, it gave me a pretty good suggestion of things to do. And it, it knew, you know, that's 15 steps and you'll be able to do this and you should be done in three hour. It was pretty good. And it gave me everything. Christopher
Ant Pruitt (02:07:18):
Bunch of Christopher Columbus stuff.
Leo Laporte (02:07:20):
Yeah. Christopher Columbus's house. Very good. That's good. Aunt. Google Bard now can do one more thing. Something Microsoft's co-pilot, GitHub co-pilot can do, which is write, debug and explain codes. They've added coding capabilities for c plus plus Go Java, JavaScript, Python and type script. And you can, even with Python, export the code to Google CoLab without copying and pasting. It's actually a very handy feature of these to paste in some coat and say, what does this do? Or what does this mean? Especially with regular expressions, things like that are a little bit obscure. So that's pretty, I'm be
Ant Pruitt (02:08:02):
Curious to see that, because it was hard for me to understand a human trying to explain Right. To me, you know? Right. Explaining classes and, and, and, and inheritance and stuff like that. So I'm, I'd like to see how I, I've seen AI could do it.
Leo Laporte (02:08:17):
I've seen people claim that one of the advantages of this AI chat stuff is, is gonna be as a teacher. And I have seen that in the past where you could say, well, explain Mo ads to me and, and would do very well. Somebody I just saw from somebody well known who said, what was this? That in a few years your kid will learn to read from chat G P T, that that will be okay. Your
Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:40):
Kid can already learn to read from an ai I mean, there are apps on your, that you put on your iPad or your phone that will run them through the alphabet and Right. Letters and all that. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:08:51):
Yeah. Somebody was somebody well known. I can't remember. I I who it was Google Assistant. Maybe
Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:58):
They don't have a kid and they don't, they're not aware of all that's happening in reading. Technically
Leo Laporte (02:09:01):
Maybe. Yeah. But, but a human taught your childhood breed, right? Or no?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:08):
A human and an app.
Leo Laporte (02:09:09):
Really? Oh, neat.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:11):
Well, we were, that's really cool because Yeah, my kid had, they were dual language so they, it took a little longer to learn to read. Oh. so we, what did they
Leo Laporte (02:09:22):
Speak?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:23):
Spanish and English. Oh.
Leo Laporte (02:09:25):
How did that happen? Did you send him to a Spanish
Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:28):
School? Spanish school. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:09:29):
You did? Oh, that's cool. That was in Austin.
Ant Pruitt (02:09:31):
That's so freaking in
Leo Laporte (02:09:32):
Austin. I love that. Yeah. Wow. That's awesome. I regret not doing that actually. That's a great, that's a great,
Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:37):
Yeah. That was my argument for my husband and I won that. Yay. I got to spend a lot of money on private school tuition. Yay.
Leo Laporte (02:09:44):
Woohoo. Are they fluent in both still?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:48):
Oh yeah. Yeah. They nice. They yeah, they, they
Ant Pruitt (02:09:54):
Are. That's awesome. Amazing that
Leo Laporte (02:09:55):
They ever complain about it or, or recognize the value of it early.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:59):
Oh no, they love knowing Spanish. Yeah. They, they, they actually love, they also know they're not fluent in Mandarin, but they learned what Mandarin starting in Thursday.
Ant Pruitt (02:10:09):
Ah, somebody.
Leo Laporte (02:10:10):
Amen. Stacy, you see that? That's good parenting. Damn. Damn.
Ant Pruitt (02:10:16):
That's what's up.
Leo Laporte (02:10:17):
This I've noticed already on my smart devices, Google Assistant shuts the hell up. I'm sorry. Stop speaking this.
(02:10:25):
After turning on smart home devices in the past, I'd go, Hey Google, turn off the lights and go. And then sometimes Amazon does this too. They go, Hey, did you know I can also close the garage door? And it's like, no, just turn the Diggy gang lights off. Anyway. They got one job. Do it. Yeah. <laugh> by the way, they're tur. I hope nobody's home cuz they just turned up the lights. Whoopsy. Sammy the cat. The cats are not gonna be happy. No. I think that they got a little too chatty both Amazon and Google. Glad to hear they're getting getting it a little bit a little bit less. You probably covered this, Stacy, on your fabulous podcast with Kevin Tofu Stacey on ot.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:16):
Oh, thank you. Yeah, Andrew. My husband hates Google and Madame a has had it forever. And he is like, I hate you Google. I hate you <laugh>. And I get it. It's, it is annoying. He's like,
Leo Laporte (02:11:28):
Okay, turning on fan. Ah, yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:31):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. Turning off. Actually my birthday cake this year had, sorry, I can't help with that cause I was clicking <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:11:39):
Andrew has a sense of humor. The birthday cake said, sorry, I can't help with that. He's all right.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:45):
Yeah. I think is that whatever, whatever Google says, my birthday came,
Leo Laporte (02:11:48):
Here's what I found on the web. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:51):
Yeah. We eliminated my birthday present was to eliminate my nest. Audios in, in Sono speaker.
Leo Laporte (02:11:57):
That's Hyster was
Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:58):
Like a little theme.
Leo Laporte (02:12:00):
<Laugh>. That's hysterical. You see that now sometimes, by the way, on Twitter replies that the ai, that somebody's got an AI hooked up to the, to their account. And they will say, I've, I'm not allowed to talk on that <laugh> and stuff like that. Hysterical <laugh>. Anyway, now you'll get
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:16):
A, oh, it says, sorry, something went wrong.
Leo Laporte (02:12:18):
Sorry. That was your cake.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:20):
Something went wrong. That
Leo Laporte (02:12:21):
Was your cake.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:21):
Would you like to see a picture here? Yes.
Leo Laporte (02:12:24):
That's awesome.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:26):
Share. See,
Leo Laporte (02:12:28):
What, what do I have to do? Do I have to do
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:30):
Something? I'm gonna create a link.
Leo Laporte (02:12:32):
Do I have to click something?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:32):
And then you're gonna have to click it. How do
Leo Laporte (02:12:35):
Computers work? That's the question.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:38):
I'm gonna stick it at the, on top of the change log. So line. Well,
Leo Laporte (02:12:43):
I'm already there, so that's good. A that should make it easy. Okay, here we go.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:47):
Boom.
Leo Laporte (02:12:48):
Boom.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:49):
Oh, wait. Nope, that's the wrong. Nope. Don't,
Leo Laporte (02:12:50):
Nope. Don't want that. Nope. That's that will that's, that's gonna
Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:54):
Be a minute link to the podcast.
Leo Laporte (02:12:57):
Can't be found. Nope. Nothing there. Nope.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:02):
You know, sometimes, sometimes cutting a pasting is so hard.
Leo Laporte (02:13:04):
It's not ideal. There you go. It remembers the old thing here is Stacy's crazy birthday cake. Sorry. Something went wrong. <Laugh> had a good sense of humor. That is so funny. That's brilliant. That is awesome. <Laugh>. I love that.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:24):
Yeah. He gives me great cakes.
Leo Laporte (02:13:26):
Really? Is that his thing is that he's famous for that.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:29):
I mean, it's one of his things. We're, we're, we never put happy birthday on our cakes. Oh, that's, we always come up with some fun.
Leo Laporte (02:13:35):
Oh, that's great. Thanks. Should do a retrospective of cakes. Yeah. I wanna see a gallery. Yeah, I
Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:41):
Should, I'll get right on that. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:13:44):
<Laugh>. Yeah. That's the Google change log. Final thoughts and picks of the week Next, ladies and gentlemen, as we wrap up this thrilling, gripping, and only two and a half hour long show. <Laugh> our show today. Brought to you by Cisco Meraki, the experts in cloud-based networking for hybrid work. I tell you, it's really interesting. As much as some of these companies have fought hybrid work, employees love it. And I think now a lot of leaders are saying, oh, you know, this isn't so bad. Whether your employees are working at home or a cabin in the mountains at a lounge chair on the beach. A cloud managed network provides the same exceptional work experience no matter where they are. And I gotta tell you, you might as well roll out the welcome, Matt, because hybrid work is here to stay. Hybrid work works best in the cloud.
(02:14:41):
And yes, obviously your employees love it, but it's got perks for leaders too. Workers can move faster, deliver better results. With a cloud managed network, leaders can automate distributed operations, build more sustainable workspaces, proactively protect the network. And I D g market pulse research report conducted for Cisco Meraki highlights the top tier opportunities for you in supporting hybrid work. Hybrid work is a priority for 78% of C-suite executives. Why? While leaders wanna derive collaboration forward while staying on top of or even boosting productivity and security security of course, one of the challenges of hybrid work. The I IDG report says, you know, 48% of leaders report cybersecurity threats is a primary obstacle to improving workforce experiences. One of the things that's gonna make a difference here, thanks to Cisco Meraki always on security monitoring makes the cloud manage network so awesome. It can use apps from Meraki's, vast ecosystem of partners, turnkey solutions built to work seamlessly with the Meraki Cloud platform for asset tracking, location analytics and more.
(02:15:50):
You can gather insights on how people use their workspaces. This is actually great because if you have a hybrid workspace, you can actually have it smart. Be smart. So environmental sensors can track activity. They can track occupancy levels, they can stay on top of cleanliness. You can implement hot desking, but not sacrifice security so that employees can reserve workspaces. And then you can have time-based door access. So, you know, people can't just wander in. You can, you, you've got all sorts of power to do this, which is fantastic. And it lets employees quickly scout out a place to work, have access to it without compromising your security. Mobile device management's very important too, these days. Integrating devices and systems will let it manage, update, and troubleshoot company own devices. Even when that device and that employee are in a remote location. Turn anywhere into a place of productivity. Empower your organization with the same exceptional experience no matter where they work. With Meraki and the Cisco suite of technology, learn how your organization can make hybrid work, work. Visit meraki.cisco.com/twitter mer aki meraki.cisco.com/t w i t. We we really thank Cisco Meraki for supporting the show you supported. Now, you know when you go to that address, so make sure you do that exactly as I specified meraki.cisco.com/twit. It's that slash twit that really makes a difference. And we thank 'em so much for their support. Stacey Higginbotham, did you bring a thing?
(02:17:35):
Oh, muted.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:17:36):
Muted. Oh, oh,
Leo Laporte (02:17:37):
Unmute.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:17:38):
I did. I have the most exciting thing for y'all today. Oh
Leo Laporte (02:17:41):
Wow.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:17:43):
Do you know what this is?
Leo Laporte (02:17:44):
Oh, is it a is it electric compact?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:17:48):
No, it is the a acquire fp two millimeter wave sensor. Oh. This is according to Stacy, the hottest sensor coming on the market in 2023.
Leo Laporte (02:17:59):
So, millimeter wave I'm aware of. Cuz that's what they use at the airport when they go who? And they scan you for arms and stuff, right? That's millimeter wave, right?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:18:09):
It is. So they're actually using radar. They're not using the same
Leo Laporte (02:18:13):
Frequency. Oh, it's not the same frequency
Stacey Higginbotham (02:18:14):
Scheme over the And what
Leo Laporte (02:18:16):
Would you use this cool little thing? Were you skinny for? Yeah,
Stacey Higginbotham (02:18:19):
Let me tell you. Oh, alright. I was like don't worry, I won't leave you hanging. So they showed this off at c e s. This is a presence detection sensor. Ah, what's cool about it is instead of like a traditional p i r sensor, what it has with the radar, you get a little bit more granularity. So this will actually detect the number of people in a room. It also can be placed on the ceiling and used as a fall detection marker. Oh. And just for fun, it measures luxe. So the amount of light you've got in a room.
Leo Laporte (02:18:50):
So p i r is infrared. So when I have friends on my hue lights have a motion sensors that's just an infrared beam. And if I break it, then they know I'm here and they turn the lights on, right? Yes. This is, this is and this is like radar.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:19:04):
Yeah. This is radar. And so they what it allows you to do, like I said, multiple people. So that's pretty cool. It also allows you to finally kind of block off an area Oh. And create different zones. Oh,
Leo Laporte (02:19:16):
I'd like that. Cause sometimes the lights turn on when, when I don't want 'em to Cause it's just cause I'm in the room. Yes.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:19:21):
Yeah. Or you could have your lights turn on when you hit a specific zone or Yes. Like if your bed, if it's in your bedroom and your bed is the zone. Yeah. You could be like, when two people hit this zone lights out.
Leo Laporte (02:19:33):
The other thing is that sounds romantic, <laugh>. Where are we? What happened?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:19:39):
You could, you could also do two people hit this bed, play romantic music, whatever.
Leo Laporte (02:19:46):
Oh, so it, so, so it can tell how many people are in the room. Right? Oh, that's really neat. Up
Stacey Higginbotham (02:19:51):
Two. It does best with three, but it is up to five. The downside, you're the downside. Three.
Leo Laporte (02:19:56):
If you have five people in your bed, you, maybe you should consider <laugh> Maybe
Stacey Higginbotham (02:20:00):
Because your living room, like if everyone's sitting down, if one person's at the like dining room table, maybe it's your kids studying and you know that. So then you have brighter lights.
Leo Laporte (02:20:09):
I do like the fall detection idea cuz I don't, my mom 90, I, you know, I'm worried, very worried about her falling. I'm not gonna put a camera. She wouldn't want a camera in there. So this is, I can't see her, but I will find your own business. Yeah, exactly. Oh
Stacey Higginbotham (02:20:23):
Yeah. So here comes, here comes a couple caveats so far and I've been playing with this only for like 24, 48 hours. So I have not gone through all of them. I'll have a review up soon though, like next week. Okay. Caveat one, it's wired and caveat two is four fall detection. It will only be used for fall detection. You can't use it for anything else if you're using it for that. Oh. Cause the best placement for fall detection is on your ceiling. Provided your ceiling is only nine feet tall. A
Leo Laporte (02:20:54):
Caveat. That's in old houses, right?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:20:57):
Yeah, these are, I mean it won't work in my living room cuz it's a cathedral ceiling. But for my study we could have fault detection in here. So falls. So those are some
Leo Laporte (02:21:08):
Of, we've made her laugh so hard. Yeah, we'll
Stacey Higginbotham (02:21:11):
Go off. Or I just swooned <laugh>. So, but this is like literally like it's sold out already. It, it is an 80, like it's $83. It's 82.99 over at Amazon. Where I believe it is still sold out. But it's a really interesting device and I'm really excited to play with it cuz it's gonna allow way more complicated smart home integrations and all detection.
Leo Laporte (02:21:37):
And we have established that there is nothing to fear from millimeter wave radar.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:21:46):
Well what do you mean nothing? Like what kind of fear
Leo Laporte (02:21:49):
Would, I don't know. Radiation not, it's like a scramble My eggs or anything. Okay. Something. Is it
Stacey Higginbotham (02:21:54):
Oh no, no, no, no. Millimeter wave's pretty. This this isn't even as strong as the airport machines, but Oh, okay. Also let's
Leo Laporte (02:22:01):
Crap on my eggs. <Laugh>
Stacey Higginbotham (02:22:04):
There is something like it's worth thinking about this honey breakfast
Leo Laporte (02:22:08):
Is ready and I didn't do anything <laugh>. Oh yes. That's thanks to the present sensor fp two egg scrambler. When it sees people in the room, it scrambles their eggs. I'm sorry. It's not that powerful with
Stacey Higginbotham (02:22:22):
Sort of like when it's detecting falls, it's detecting a specific, this type of disruptive pattern in the millimeter waves, right? Yeah. So shooting out the waves, it's like, oh, a fall looks like this. It is possible because these are high precision to detect things like people doing things or people, I always use the example of if they wanted to, they could create an algorithm to measure if you kick your dog or not. Yeah. so just because it's not a camera doesn't mean it can't share information that you still wouldn't like having out in the world. Interesting. But they do have to build it an algorithm for it.
Leo Laporte (02:22:58):
It's got a u s BBC port. Is that where it gets its power from?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:23:02):
Yeah. And I mean if you gotta mount this on a ceiling, you're gonna have to, I'm like, when I'm gonna test that, I'm gonna have to put an extension cord in. Yeah. Because the cord is probably,
Leo Laporte (02:23:12):
I have p oe in my ceiling. I guess I could get there must be. It does not something that will take ethernet and turn it into regular electricity and it only needs five watts. So that would probably be, yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:23:23):
And it's got a, it's got a micro sb, oh I guess hold on. That was terrible. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:23:32):
U s bbc. It says, yeah,
Stacey Higginbotham (02:23:34):
Sorry. U S B C and then it doesn't have matter. It does support home kit. And then, so home kit, the acquire app, if you want fall detection, you have to do it only through the A acquire app if you want, if you put it through Google and Amazon, it supports only presence, not lux. And if you do it through IFT and home kit, it supports presence and lux. Here's
Leo Laporte (02:24:02):
A question. You think we'll see more of these kinds of things. I mean this is the first I've seen, but I presume it must be doable. I've been
Stacey Higginbotham (02:24:12):
Talking about this for years. Yeah. RF sensing is the new hotness in smart home and actually the new, the latest Eco B, the presence detection, the people detection and the latest Eco B thermostat is radar. It is millimeter
Leo Laporte (02:24:24):
Radar. Ah, nice.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:24:25):
Because it's, it's more precise. It I mean p i R works in the dark but it really works in the dark <laugh>. Right, right. So there it has a lot going for it.
Leo Laporte (02:24:38):
It's very interesting. How much?
Stacey Higginbotham (02:24:41):
This one's 82 99.
Leo Laporte (02:24:43):
Ooh. It's a little pricey but I guess you wouldn't get more than one. It's a little pricey per,
Stacey Higginbotham (02:24:47):
Well if you wanna do fall detection, you have to put one in each room that you care about
Leo Laporte (02:24:50):
Falling in that you care about it. You can fall in the kitchen, mom, but don't fall in the living room. Cuz I couldn't afford to have a sensor there. Yeah. My pick of the week is a mouth pad for your mouse. So it's like a mouth, mouth pad. Wait, what a mouth. What? So you put <laugh>, I'm not gonna actually pick this. I thought it was kind of interest. Let thing It's not available or you'd be buying. It would actually, this is really for people with with injuries that affect their mobility. Yeah. Which doesn't, but, okay. You could, I mean, and you could in theory use it. It's a tongue driven interface that basically acts like a track pad. So you could do your computer, your smartphone, your tablet Oh. Uses Bluetooth. It's invisible. You run your, this goes in your you know, on your pallet your upper mouth. And then I don't know what Peter
Jeff Jarvis (02:25:40):
Butter does tongue
Leo Laporte (02:25:41):
Don't take it out before. It only goes for five hours too. So you probably want to take it out before you have a peanut butter sandwich. But it's a kind of an interesting idea. Yes, it absolutely could be an accessibility thing, but I don't think they're pushing it that way. I think they're promoting
Jeff Jarvis (02:25:58):
A goal will be used this before you know it.
Leo Laporte (02:26:00):
Yeah. Yeah. Scoble walk around. Can you,
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:02):
Such a scroll twi, TikTok, when your hands are busy
Leo Laporte (02:26:05):
Well or better yet surreptitiously with your, now that you're wearing your specs and you need something to control them, I think we're gonna see some surreptitious ways to control stuff like that. Right. Okay. Jeff free. Nevermind. This is the mouse pad.
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:23):
It's not gonna be very subtle
Leo Laporte (02:26:24):
From Augmental dot.
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:25):
How do you click?
Leo Laporte (02:26:27):
There's a click. You could tap your tongue.
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:30):
Yep.
Leo Laporte (02:26:31):
And Jeff should really push that. Give us a number. <Laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:36):
Okay. I
Leo Laporte (02:26:37):
Was gonna do creases cargo pants, but I feel like that that's probably, oh, sorry
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:41):
We took that away for you. You stole enough from me over the years. So I'm actually gonna give a book to, I I had, I had Ben Smith's book in there cuz it's coming out.
Leo Laporte (02:26:51):
I pre-ordered it. Thanks to you. Thank
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:52):
Kayla Lorenz has her book coming out. Oh. Imminently.
Leo Laporte (02:26:57):
Maybe we can get her on the show
Jeff Jarvis (02:26:58):
Online. What's her book about? Story? Extremely online. The Untold Story of Fame, influence and Power on the Internet. Just up our
Leo Laporte (02:27:05):
Alley. Is it a bio or is it about other people? I think
Jeff Jarvis (02:27:09):
It kind of is. Probably, I don't know. It's coming out later. And then I of course then I just saw, I just saw a book that we might all like called Keith Houston's Empire of the Sum, the Rise in Rain of the Pocket Calculator coming
Leo Laporte (02:27:21):
Up. Oh, I gotta read that.
Jeff Jarvis (02:27:23):
And then of course I have a book coming out in June called the Gutenberg Parenthesis. So two tricks here. One, you can go to Barnes and Noble between today and the 28th of this month. And you use the code pre-order 25. And any book that's not out yet, you can get 25% off. Oh.
Leo Laporte (02:27:42):
Including your book.
Jeff Jarvis (02:27:44):
Read my book. You bet. Now the other thing,
Leo Laporte (02:27:46):
You're cut though, <laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (02:27:48):
I don't care. I don't care. I'll look familiar. You don't, authors don't care. You know what
Leo Laporte (02:27:51):
You if and if you don't wanna do that, if you go to Bloomsbury directly, they'll give you 10% off. So you, they
Jeff Jarvis (02:27:57):
Give you 10% off. Yeah. But now the other thing is, the other trick that I have out there is I've come to love the British book company. Blackwells. I love going to their bo their store in Oxford or loved it. Turns out you can buy most any book from Blackwells and they give you a good discount and free shipping. You can buy American books and British books. So if you buy the Gutenberg parenthesis, $27 MSRP p they take $3 off. But free shipping versus Barnes and Noble, they take 25% off, but they charge for shipping unless you hit a certain amount. So shop around, figure it out. But in any case, all of us folks who are gonna be pushing our books to you, here's Ben's book. Taylor's coming out, Keith's coming out and mine coming out. The Gutenberg parenthesis today to what's today? Friday I guess is a good time to pre-order anything you want out there, including
Leo Laporte (02:28:50):
Mine, Barnes and Noble. 25% off with a code
Jeff Jarvis (02:28:55):
Pre-Order 25
Leo Laporte (02:28:56):
Preor 25 and Blackwells. Just cuz we wanna support Blackwells. Cuz they're great
Jeff Jarvis (02:29:01):
Cuz they're really great. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:29:03):
And they
Jeff Jarvis (02:29:03):
Will. So, and by the way, the other, the other number I was gonna have is in the story about Sundar's income of 266 million, which is kind of ridiculous cause it's a whole bunch of stock. Who cares? But they calculated the it's 800, was it 800? The calculation of what it is to the median income in the company. It's an 8 0 8 to one ratio. Oh boy. And the company used as their median for all employees. You guys want to guess what that is?
Leo Laporte (02:29:30):
Oh, $183,000 and 72 cents.
Jeff Jarvis (02:29:35):
$279. Whoa. Jordan. $39,800.
Leo Laporte (02:29:40):
That's a good median salary.
Jeff Jarvis (02:29:43):
Yeah. For those of those,
Leo Laporte (02:29:44):
I mean, half of Googlers make more, half of Googlers make less.
Jeff Jarvis (02:29:47):
Right,
Leo Laporte (02:29:47):
Right. There's one guy right in the middle. He's the Mr. Median. Well, who by the way, I wanna clarify Taylor's book is not about her. I'm just reading the summary. It's a history. It's a history. The untold story of fame, influence and power on the internet. But not of her <laugh>. It's a history Uhhuh of of, but she
Jeff Jarvis (02:30:08):
Certainly has
Leo Laporte (02:30:08):
Perspective. Oh yeah, she's, that's why I ask because she's been a that's great. Yeah. a target. But yeah, she certainly has an experience of, of what unwanted fame on the internet can lead to too. Extremely online. All right. And what was, what was the other one that Keith's book
Jeff Jarvis (02:30:28):
Is The Houston's book. Keith wrote the book, the book, which is a really well produced book about kind of the, the object of the book. He does good stuff. Empire of the Sum, the Rise and Rain of the Pocket Calculator.
Leo Laporte (02:30:41):
I love that. That's a very, I
Jeff Jarvis (02:30:42):
Just, I just saw that two minutes ago on, cause all the authors are out there on Twitter right now saying you could pre-order me.
Leo Laporte (02:30:47):
All this stuff comes out in May for some reason. Like, it's the Magic Month.
Jeff Jarvis (02:30:52):
I don't know why. Well, this is all, they're all put out there. Cause Barns and Noble did, did your offer for any
Leo Laporte (02:30:57):
Oh, I see.
Jeff Jarvis (02:30:58):
That's the thing. It's any pre-order.
Leo Laporte (02:30:59):
Right.
Jeff Jarvis (02:31:01):
There's another book. You will a
Leo Laporte (02:31:02):
Lot of books coming out in May for some reason.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:31:05):
It's ahead of summer travel,
Leo Laporte (02:31:06):
I guess maybe. Yeah.
Stacey Higginbotham (02:31:08):
Those beach reads like the sum of all history or Right. Folk. The Gutenberg <laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (02:31:13):
Some, some doesn't. September.
Leo Laporte (02:31:15):
Oh, some's out in September for the beach. Oh, okay. This is a fascinating, I know a little bit about the story of the pocket calculator. It's fascinating. So I yeah, I will absolutely read this. Aunt Pruitt, what's what you got for us?
Ant Pruitt (02:31:30):
Well, since he was talking about books, I just added one real quickly. From Sean Powers co-host on Floss Week.
Leo Laporte (02:31:38):
Oh yeah. And he's coming up to do a special AMA with you right on N Club Toit.
Ant Pruitt (02:31:42):
That is correct, sir. That is correct. He wrote a kid
Leo Laporte (02:31:45):
Book.
Ant Pruitt (02:31:45):
Looks like he wrote, he started writing comments back when the pandemic kicked off. You know, it as part of his own mental exercise and for his own mental health. And it was, it was a lot of fun for him. So he turned it into a book and it's out for pre-order today. And I believe, just like you said, the whole Barnes and Noble discount is effective on it too. And it's called My Big Round World and it's pretty good. Pretty good stuff. So shout out to Mr. Sean Powers. He, he, he's a good dude.
Leo Laporte (02:32:16):
It started out cuz he couldn't draw arms <laugh>. Right. <laugh> getting a square personality into a round world, not just for kids, for everybody.
Ant Pruitt (02:32:27):
Yeah. What else? It's good stuff. I next I wanna just give a shout out to Mr. Sharp. I know most tweet listeners don't know who he is or Care, but Mr. Shannon Sharp is a Hall of Fame, n f l Tight end. And I love his story and he's got his own show, but I've been just watching his journey as a hall of fame athlete. Then he is getting into the, the tech com not tech commentary, sports commentary side of things. And he just does so much work, so much research, and it, it really shows in this latest episode on there, he is speaking with Steve Harvey. And that conversation between them just resonated with me personally just because of how they came up growing up in the south and just the hard work that they did as just regular everyday life. Sharp talks about, you know, being like 19, 20 years old before he used the bathroom inside. Wow.
Leo Laporte (02:33:23):
<Laugh>,
Ant Pruitt (02:33:24):
You know, and that was in the eighties. Yeah. You know, because they grew up poor.
Leo Laporte (02:33:28):
That's
Ant Pruitt (02:33:28):
Like living in New
Leo Laporte (02:33:29):
New Jersey. I mean, it's just tough. Right? <laugh>. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding.
Ant Pruitt (02:33:34):
But it's just, I love the stories because he said a lot of things that were, it made me think about my grandparents and, and I was like, yeah, I, I remember going to the farm and, and having to slaughter the hogs and wow. It's, it was a whole process. And I was like, yeah, these, these guys get it. And just seeing where they are now, you know, going through all of that hard work and all that struggle, nothing but respect for, for him and his journey. And lastly, I just wanna say share hardhead videos with everyone you know, please. Because that is part of my campaigning for said Hardhead because dad does not want to pay for
Leo Laporte (02:34:07):
College. How's it going? Very much. How's it going? You got any bites? Lots
Ant Pruitt (02:34:10):
Of phone calls. Lots of phone calls, but hey, ain't nobody showing me the money yet. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:34:16):
So, and you're a tough negotiator. I bet I can just see that coach sitting on your couch in your living room and you're going, well, yeah, what are we show? What are you gonna do for it? I'm a Mercedes.
Ant Pruitt (02:34:25):
Well, you know, and, and the thing is, hardhead said it best himself. He's like, man, it's like everybody's trying to take me out on a date just to make someone else jealous.
Leo Laporte (02:34:34):
Oh, that's not good. That's not, I
Ant Pruitt (02:34:36):
Totally get that.
Leo Laporte (02:34:36):
Poor dude. Poor Jacob. So this is his huddle and I'll have to go. Yeah, that's huddle udl.com and search for Jacob Pruitt and then share those videos. Send 'em to every coach. You know, lots of good. You know what, they're fun to watch this. This kid's good. He's good. His kid's good. He's
Ant Pruitt (02:34:54):
A good citizen.
Leo Laporte (02:34:55):
He's a nice kid. Good citizen. I'll vouch for him. I remember Jacob very well. <Laugh> loved ha hanging with him when you first moved out here. He came over to dinner with a famine. Just the nicest boy.
Ant Pruitt (02:35:07):
That's Brown has reached out recently and Columbia be a call today. Brown
Leo Laporte (02:35:11):
Couldn't be a better send him to Brown. I know some people in Providence that would be a great school. Columbia. He'd be in New York City,
Jeff Jarvis (02:35:18):
New York at Columbia. You
Ant Pruitt (02:35:20):
Know, somebody there. Ivy Leagues have been phone calling him. Dartmouth has a couple times because
Leo Laporte (02:35:26):
He have, he must have these good grades. He's got great grades. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (02:35:29):
You know, so that's, they're
Leo Laporte (02:35:30):
They're looking for scholar athletes. That's, you know, the football programs aren't as important at these Ivy's but they're important, but they're not as important. They want a scholar athlete. So that's a, that's boy, that's high praise.
Jeff Jarvis (02:35:42):
Oh, that could be, that could be life changing. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (02:35:44):
Brown Columbia, Dartmouth and,
Jeff Jarvis (02:35:47):
Oh, he's smarter than you. Oh,
Ant Pruitt (02:35:50):
It depends, depends on the question. I'll just say that. Depends on the question. Hey, have you done the dishes a day? You can't answer. What do you mean
Leo Laporte (02:35:58):
<Laugh>? What? Dishes. Dishes. What is that Jacob? Yeah. Go Jacob. Yeah. Jacob go Jacob huddle.com.
Ant Pruitt (02:36:08):
Thank you Twit family. Nice.
Jeff Jarvis (02:36:09):
So, so one more, one more quick mention if I may. Yes. So I, I had a guest appearance on, and this is gonna be, you're gonna know it, and I didn't know the Dan Luard show. You ever heard of him?
Leo Laporte (02:36:21):
Sure, I
Ant Pruitt (02:36:21):
Have. Yeah.
Jeff Jarvis (02:36:23):
So he's a, he's a jock. Right? It's a sports podcast. They want me on. I said, I don't know, s h i t about sports and No, no, I wanna talk to Tucker. It's fine. So I go on, I do do my, you know, sch spiel. Like four or five people came and said my podcast streams crossed
Leo Laporte (02:36:40):
<Laugh>. Yes. About
Jeff Jarvis (02:36:41):
That. You're on this one.
Leo Laporte (02:36:42):
Yes. We should know who Dan Libtard is. Yes. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (02:36:46):
Batar
Jeff Jarvis (02:36:47):
Fans. String fans are everywhere.
Leo Laporte (02:36:49):
Nice.
Ant Pruitt (02:36:49):
That's awesome, man.
Leo Laporte (02:36:50):
I agree. And we, we should catch up with that show so we can hear about you talking about sports. That'll be fun.
Jeff Jarvis (02:36:58):
Oh no, you're never hearing me talking about Sports <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:36:59):
Okay. <laugh>
Ant Pruitt (02:37:00):
<Laugh>.
Jeff Jarvis (02:37:01):
I, I, I listened before I went on and I had this flashback to why I hated going to the barbers.
Leo Laporte (02:37:08):
Oh, it's like going to barbers.
Jeff Jarvis (02:37:09):
Yeah. Oh, he is a boy. How about, how about those Phillies? I was scared
Leo Laporte (02:37:14):
To death on the chess club. I don't know that exactly.
Ant Pruitt (02:37:18):
<Laugh>. I could do AV for you.
Leo Laporte (02:37:20):
Yeah. Mr. Barber. Ask me about films. I could tell you everything There is no
Ant Pruitt (02:37:25):
Dang, Mr. Jarvis. That's awesome. You're on there.
Leo Laporte (02:37:28):
You know who he is. He's a big famous, big famous sports podcast. Nice. Yeah.
Ant Pruitt (02:37:34):
Yeah. It's cool.
Leo Laporte (02:37:35):
Thank you. Aaron Pro it Hands on photography twit tv slash hop. I will be watching the Rick Salmon interview about travel photography now that it's, it's too late. But you got coming up <laugh>.
Ant Pruitt (02:37:48):
Well, again, we're going to continue to talk about smartphone and, and smartphone photography and videography and just getting some use out of that. I have a special guest joining me this week, Ms. Suzy Botello, which is great. Talk about the Mobile Film Fest. It's gonna be be a good show. I
Leo Laporte (02:38:05):
Have to say. Cameras, phones have gotten so good, whether it's the Pixel seven or the S 23 Ultra or the iPhone 14, I felt like I got every shot I wanted.
Ant Pruitt (02:38:18):
Yeah, it, it's, I can't knock 'em. There are some things that I want a full frame sensor for, but Sure. Most people phone would do just fine. Low light,
Leo Laporte (02:38:28):
Low lights, Lightsy the, you know, if it was dark out, I wasn't able to get great shots. Right. And zoom ultra Zoom. And fortunately Lisa brought her om one, which is a very nice micro four third scammer. So she was able to get that full.
Ant Pruitt (02:38:42):
She kills me. How humble she is. She, she's really good.
Leo Laporte (02:38:44):
She's a photographer, isn't she? Yeah. And
Ant Pruitt (02:38:46):
She's so dagum now, now I'm just hobbyist. No, whatever. You can shoot
Leo Laporte (02:38:50):
<Laugh>. She could shoot. Thank you aunt. Bye. Stacy. Stacy on iot.com as our website, the iot OT podcast with Kevin Tofl. Thank you. Have a wonderful week. Well, you, you're not gonna be here next week, I think, right? Or you are. I, I am. Oh, good. Thank goodness. I be here next week. Okay, good. Okay. All right. All right. Bye. Sometimes I forget. Bye. She wants to go. Bye. And Jeff Jarvis. What? Dude,
Ant Pruitt (02:39:15):
He's the watch the time. He's,
Leo Laporte (02:39:17):
He's the director of the town night. Oh yeah. She's gotta go do that. Phone call. Yeah. Yeah. How get so late? Hi
Ant Pruitt (02:39:23):
Dude. I have no idea what we
Leo Laporte (02:39:25):
Do. Darn it. He's the director of the Town nine Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism. You have too
Ant Pruitt (02:39:30):
Much fun
Leo Laporte (02:39:31):
At the Craig Newmar Graduate School of Journalism at the City university in New York. They made you a new card because you have so many additional titles. I was not
Ant Pruitt (02:39:45):
Boss boy. I was Kitchen manager at Ponderosa's Steakhouse. I just wanted that corrected.
Leo Laporte (02:39:49):
Oh, well. Gotta make a new one. Wow. New card. Yep. There you go. New card. New card. Thank you Mr. J. Good to see you. J
Ant Pruitt (02:39:56):
Jro,
Leo Laporte (02:39:57):
Jess Jack J Roast <laugh>. That's his superhero name. We do twit of a Wednesday afternoon about 2:00 PM Civic. 5:00 PM Eastern. That'd be 2100 U T c. If you wanna watch us live the live streams at twit tv slash live, you could chat with us live at irc, do TWI tv course. If you're in the club, you can always chat with us in our club. Twit Discord, a wonderful place to hang after the fact on-demand versions of the show available at twit tv slash TWiG. There's also a YouTube channel. In fact, there's a link there that tv slash TWiG that'll take you to the YouTube channel. If you wanna share the video or you wanna just watch it on YouTube I think the easiest thing to do is subscribe in your favorite podcast player. That way you'll get it automatically as soon as it's done.
(02:40:47):
Thanks to our our producers and our staff and our team, all of who held down the fort while Laise and I were joing about, they did a great job. Thanks to all of you for that. And Jason Howell and Michael Sergeant and of course our studio manager, John Lenina bonito. Thank you Jammer. B Jammer. B bonito. Thank you for doing a great job on the board. Burke McQuinn for bringing a dog to work <laugh> and doing all the things that Mr. Burke does. Did I call the show Twit? You know, it's not twit, it's TWiG, T W I g. And I hope you'll be here next week. Bye-Bye.
Jason Howell:
If you love all things Android, well, I've got a show for you to check out. It's called All About Android. And I'll give you three guesses. What we talk about. We talk about Android, the latest news, hardware, apps, we answer feedback. It's me, Jason Howell, Ron Richards wins with Dow and a whole cast of awesome characters talking about the operating system that we love. You can find all about Android at twit.tv/aaa.
