This Week in Google 779 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
0:00:00 - Leo Laporte
It's time for Twig this week in Google. Guess what? Paris Martineau's not here, aww, but Aunt Pruitt is Yay. Also Jeff Jarvis and a special visitor from Pigeon Park. Amazon spent a billion dollars for Twitch in 2014 and it's still not making money. Microsoft spent 19 billion dollars in the last three months trying to make AI work and it's still not making money. We'll also talk about the Senate passing one of the worst bills ever. We're so depressed that. And some cheerful stuff, too, coming up on this Week in Google Podcasts you love.
0:00:44 - Craig Newmark
From people you trust.
0:00:47 - Leo Laporte
This is twit this is twig this week in google, episode 779, recorded wednesday, july 31st 2024. White friend in a box. It's time for this Week in Google, the show. We cover everything but Google and we're going to do it this time with Ant Pruitt. Yay, he is now an Oregon Duxter.
0:01:20 - Ant Pruitt
Yes, yes, yes, it's great to see you.
0:01:21 - Leo Laporte
Photographer. Model. Creator for hire. That is me Antpruittcom. Slash social Emphas. Creator for hire. That is me At Pruittcom.
0:01:26 - Jeff Jarvis
Emphasis on hire him. He's brilliant, he's wonderful, he's beautiful.
0:01:30 - Leo Laporte
We had Jason. Heiner on on Sunday, you still working for them a little bit.
0:01:33 - Craig Newmark
I saw he was on Sunday.
0:01:35 - Leo Laporte
I see your name on the masthead there.
0:01:37 - Ant Pruitt
That's good. Yes, sir, I'm actually working on a piece right now that will. That'll probably be out Friday. There's a little camera I've been playing with.
0:01:47 - Leo Laporte
Well, I got a little something I'm going to show you in just a minute. I'm going to do a little unboxing, but first let's also say hello to this man right here.
0:01:56 - Jeff Jarvis
Oh, you've been cleaning out the files, yeah.
0:01:58 - Leo Laporte
I think this one's maybe not going to make it to the studio. Jeff, you bought it, you paid for it. No-transcript you paid for it the high value. We're talking about a headshot of Jeff in his younger days, when he was editor-in-chief.
0:02:11 - Benito Gonzalez
When he was the most eligible bachelor in San Francisco. Most eligible bachelor in San Francisco.
0:02:14 - Leo Laporte
By then I was married Founding managing editor of Entertainment Weekly. Yeah, I really I feel like I should keep this with me, you should.
0:02:23 - Jeff Jarvis
You should. Yeah, I mean geez man, you know.
0:02:26 - Leo Laporte
Now he's merely the emeritus Leonard Towne professor for journalistic innovation at the Craig Newmark.
0:02:37 - Ant Pruitt
Graduate School of.
0:02:38 - Leo Laporte
Journalism at the City University of New York. That's the one we framed. This is the reject that we didn't frame. It's you and some other guy. Wow, michael Klingensmith.
0:02:54 - Ant Pruitt
Klingensmith.
0:02:56 - Ant Pruitt
I thought we had a marriage pop up on the screen.
0:02:59 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, we did. Did you see it? I didn't see it this time. Oh, maybe they. You know, we're trying new things, that's on the new system man. The new system.
0:03:06 - Ant Pruitt
Oh, it's on the new system. On the new system, okay, okay.
0:03:09 - Leo Laporte
Oh, this is from the Houston Chronicle Library.
0:03:11 - Ant Pruitt
Yes, I still watch.
0:03:11 - Jeff Jarvis
I didn't notice that I feel bad that I got rejected from there.
0:03:25 - Leo Laporte
The Houston Chronicle decided you know we're going, we could sell this on eBay. That's hysterical. February 14th, valentine's Day, 1990. Oh my goodness, houston Chronicle Library Wow, that's cool. So Amazon now is admitting. According to the Wall Street Journal, they may have lost as much as 25 billion dollars on amazon's echo. And how do?
0:03:50 - Jeff Jarvis
you lose that much money. Stop right there, just if I may. I don't understand how you lose money on it's, because you're losing money on every one you sell. It's not on what you actually provide as I guess.
0:04:00 - Leo Laporte
So I mean they, um, they were kind of giving them away for a while it's like they were giving them away.
0:04:05 - Ant Pruitt
But what? What about?
0:04:05 - Leo Laporte
developer costs too. Yeah, and bandwidth.
0:04:08 - Jeff Jarvis
It can't be $20 billion for developers.
0:04:11 - Leo Laporte
According to the Wall Street Journal, $25 billion over the whatever it is 10 years that they. Yeah, that's ridiculous. But you know, and Microsoft just revealed in its quarterly results, that last quarter, three months, they spent 19 billion dollars on ai that's not a surprise, though.
0:04:31 - Ant Pruitt
Everybody's riding that ai horse though right.
0:04:33 - Leo Laporte
I guess they figure. I mean, look, they got the money right. They made like 24 billion.
0:04:37 - Benito Gonzalez
So yeah, that's what richard campbell said. What?
0:04:39 - Leo Laporte
are they gonna do? Buy cds?
0:04:42 - Jeff Jarvis
they're gonna use it for something I I was talking to Jason today and you know, for all the excitement about chat interfaces, the only known chat interfaces that existed before have been a flop. Right, yeah, Right, Every one of them. Nobody wants to use or use.
0:05:00 - Leo Laporte
You're talking about Echo Siri and Google Voice. Yeah.
0:05:03 - Jeff Jarvis
Yeah, and.
0:05:05 - Leo Laporte
I'm not convinced. Maybe you know it's nice because we have a real person on the show again. I should ask the real person Sure, do you want, do you think it would be improvement to have Siri or Google Voice or Echo be a chat assistant?
0:05:21 - Ant Pruitt
No, not at all. It would be Gabby. Not at all, don't want all of that. Nobody wants that it already gets in the way of just doing my regular search stuff in the browser. Yeah, you know so. No, I don't know the extra bells and whistles and the real person has spoken yeah it, these tech companies are all in on ai and sure have at it, but I don't think regular folks don't. I just don't think regular folks care about it that much.
0:05:45 - Jeff Jarvis
Speaking on behalf of all regular folks, as he should, as he is licensed to do. Yes, damn right, I am.
0:05:51 - Ant Pruitt
He's regular folks, also known as everyday people.
0:05:55 - Leo Laporte
Everyday people. That's a song, wasn't it? So also now we're learning Amazon. I don't know how Amazon survives lost. They paid almost a billion dollars for Twitch Remember Twitchtv in 2014? And it's never made them any money. It's still losing money that is surprising. Benito, you worked there before Amazon. I worked there during Amazon, during Amazon. Are you surprised that they have never made money? Not at all.
0:06:26 - Benito Gonzalez
I think the play here for Amazon was really to own a slice of culture and not so much to make a bunch of money.
0:06:33 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, that's what they say about things like Prime TV and Apple TV and stuff like that is that it doesn't have to make money.
0:06:41 - Benito Gonzalez
Yeah, exactly, it's more about having people.
0:06:47 - Jeff Jarvis
Amazon stock is up 2.9% today.
0:06:48 - Leo Laporte
See, it doesn't hurt the stock. Insiders at twitch say they worry that they're becoming what they call a zombie brand at amazon internal product projects or acquisitions that have been sidelined because they haven't lived up to expectations that happens all the time.
0:07:02 - Ant Pruitt
Is that what happened with the likes of Waze in Google? Is Waze pretty much a zombie too, Although?
0:07:07 - Leo Laporte
you know, every time I say that I can hear from chat room and listeners who love it and use it every single day. I still hear people talk about it and honestly, I think that it's important to Google in the sense that the because I now see in my Google Maps oh, you know, red light camera head. All the stuff that was in ways yeah, yeah, so and that's got to be coming from ways.
You don't have any habit in google maps of telling people that right, you can, but it's nobody else if he does it. So uh, they say. Goodreads is an example of a zombie brand at amazon oh yeah, I forgot about them too I love goodreads. It was very sad it's I mean it's still there but online task finder the mechanical Turk Remember that. But it was real humans, though right and discount website Woot.
0:07:54 - Ant Pruitt
I definitely can't forget about Woot, considering they email me about every two hours.
0:07:58 - Leo Laporte
John buys stuff on Woot all the time. Right? Do you still buy stuff on Woot? No, not anymore. You don't want the best of tools and lawn and garden the daily deals. Look, you can get an echo show for 59.99. Is that that they pay me 59.99? Because that's the only way I would consider what did john used to buy there?
i't know. I feel like John used to get stuff at Wooten T-shirts Long time ago T-shirts Long time ago but I've known John a long time, long time. By the way, john's last show with us will be one week from today, on this Week in Google. Oh, hammer B, you're happy, right? You're voluntarily retiring, right you're? You're voluntarily retiring, we're not forcing you out. He's retired once before from cal state, los angeles, and now he's uh so he's got practice.
0:08:53 - Jeff Jarvis
He retired 15 years. I know the feeling generally.
0:08:57 - Leo Laporte
He's their studio manager emeritus. You're emeritus now. Congratulations, this is hilarious. What's?
0:09:02 - Jeff Jarvis
what's he got? I got my Discover Pass. I got my Lifetime Senior.
0:09:08 - Leo Laporte
America. The Beautiful Senior Lifetime Pass to our national parks. That is so sweet. And the Discover Pass means you can drive your car into it. That's Washington State. Oh, the state parks. Wow, is it bad to show the number?
0:09:28 - Jeff Jarvis
I start getting my Social Security next month.
0:09:32 - Leo Laporte
You decided to finally take it. Huh, I'm doing it While it still exists. Maybe you'll get yourself a pancake machine while it still exists.
0:09:41 - Ant Pruitt
Use all that extra money.
0:09:43 - Leo Laporte
Did you see that?
0:09:43 - Ant Pruitt
last week. That was hilarious. I'm trying to figure out where does the batter go off hours.
0:09:50 - Benito Gonzalez
What's the point? It just seems so weird If you've got to make the batter, just throw it in a bag.
0:09:54 - Leo Laporte
You've got all the money in the world and what do you do? You buy a pancake machine. I guess that's that, wouldn't you, I guess?
0:10:02 - Ant Pruitt
that's just another man's simple pleasures.
0:10:03 - Leo Laporte
I'll I guess that's just another man's simple pleasures. Wait a minute. I'm hearing something Coming in from somewhere in Pigeon Park. Ladies and gentlemen, oh, he's up in the game, craig Newmark. How you doing, craig? You want to set the record straight, I understand.
0:10:31 - Craig Newmark
Correct me please on the pancake machine. I own no pancake machines. I just think of how tough they'd be to clean. Plus, mrs Newmark makes better. That's the truth. Pancake machines are in airport lounges and the first thing I do is push the start button even before I put my luggage down.
0:10:57 - Ant Pruitt
Because he's got priorities, you do it for the food, or you do it for the fun.
0:11:03 - Craig Newmark
Food fun and to remind myself that I have the tastes of a peasant. I was raised that way, in a neighborhood with junkyards. I may be a peasant with money now, but I'm a peasant.
0:11:21 - Ant Pruitt
This is everyday people right here.
0:11:24 - Leo Laporte
You can take the boy out of the junkyard but you can't take the pancake machine out of the boy, I guess, or something.
0:11:31 - Jeff Jarvis
So you spend, I think, too much time in Alaskan air lounges Apparently. Considering how often you have marked in social. I thought it was so often it had to be at home.
0:11:45 - Craig Newmark
I've been traveling back and forth more than you think between New York and San Francisco In New York now, but the deal is that you know the lounge is a nice indulgence. Like private jets are out of the question, but free pancakes are out of the question, but free pancakes not bad. But again, I commit to the statement that Mrs Newmark makes better pancakes than the machine does.
0:12:14 - Leo Laporte
I honestly would hope so. These are disgusting. That's horrible they're pretty good, I've had them too, are you saying, craig, they're better than you would expect, but not as good as Mrs Newmark's.
0:12:26 - Craig Newmark
They are considerably better than you'd expect. They seem to be sanitary.
0:12:32 - Leo Laporte
So they are. They're touchless, some things you just want to know.
0:12:35 - Ant Pruitt
Seem to be sanitary.
0:12:37 - Jeff Jarvis
How many do you have at a city?
0:12:41 - Craig Newmark
Generally two, Sometimes more. As you see, I'm very efficient and I pre-syrup the plate before the pancakes drop.
0:12:51 - Jeff Jarvis
I respect that game. I'm anal enough that I actually get upset. See, it's a little off there. It's a little off, Greg. Pre syrups. Your target practice is pre-gaming if you pre-syrup.
0:13:02 - Ant Pruitt
I respect that. I have to try that. I've never even thought about that. All right, queen Pruitt, tomorrow we got pancakes pre-serve in the plates.
0:13:11 - Leo Laporte
Now, Greg, I guess really it does beg the question. You know, maybe you don't have it in the kitchen, but you could have it in your office or something, just in case you had a craving for pancakes.
0:13:28 - Ant Pruitt
If I did that, then the pigeons would get to it.
0:13:30 - Leo Laporte
Just don't confuse it with the shredder. How are? How are the? By the way, I share your fascination with how these things work there. There are kind of an amazing scientific scientific achievement. It's a genius invention craig is now we're. We're looking at craig's insta. Uh, he's craig invention. We're looking at Craig's Insta. He's Craig Newmark on Instagram and he's got close-ups of the insides. He's following the pancake.
The world-famous pancake printer from Alaska Airlines. My favorite one was the very sad one of the pancake machine all closed up for the night. No access to the pancakes. That was tragic, very tragic. How are the pigeons these days, by the way? Are they doing well?
0:14:15 - Craig Newmark
the pigeons are well. We saw a ghost face killer this morning and, although I was surprised, I he uh. There were a couple of rivals for his boss of the pecking order and we thought Scarface and Big Face were in a shallow grave someplace. Oh wow.
0:14:36 - Jeff Jarvis
It being New York, they were sleeping with the fishes when you say Ghostface Killer.
0:14:41 - Leo Laporte
It's not a euphemism, he might well be oh gosh.
0:14:46 - Craig Newmark
Well, he's tougher than I am, but apparently I saw Scarface in front of the coffee shop today oh, thank God. And apparently Scarface was exiled. For a moment I thought it might have been a vision from Pigeon Heaven, but apparently it was real, you saw.
0:15:03 - Jeff Jarvis
Scarface outside your home, out in the wild outside of Joe's coffee in the village.
0:15:12 - Craig Newmark
So I was pretty glad to see him because, again, I didn't want it to be a seance a pigeon seance is kind of a pathetic event, I must say how many regular pigeons do you have?
0:15:28 - Jeff Jarvis
I mean, it's a regular cast of characters in your atrium there if you're here, I don't know, hit the table.
0:15:39 - Craig Newmark
There's only a limited number that are visibly distinct. Pigeons mostly look the same, like the big.
0:15:47 - Jeff Jarvis
They say the same thing about us, but yes, I wasn't going to go there.
0:15:52 - Craig Newmark
There's a big pigeon idol going up on the high line and it conforms to the pigeon ideal.
0:15:59 - Leo Laporte
Ah, the platonic ideal of a pigeon, a perfect pigeon on the high line, craig, does people, of course, know who Craig Newmark is Craig's List you ever hear of that and his philanthropies are at craignewmarkphilanthropiesorg. That's a sweet shot of you, craig.
0:16:17 - Ant Pruitt
Love that. Such a cute shot, love that shot.
0:16:19 - Leo Laporte
Says I'm an old school nerd helping to protect people, protect our country and the donations that you have given not just to Pigeon Rescue, but to journalism. You gave another $10 million to CUNY earlier this year. Well done, that's really great, and in fact I don't think Jeff would have had a job If it weren't for you.
0:16:41 - Craig Newmark
You might be able to hear me. Someone just tried calling me and it knocked Zoom off the air.
0:16:47 - Ant Pruitt
No, we hear you.
0:16:47 - Leo Laporte
No, we got you. Oh, we hear you. Yeah, we're good. Yeah, we're going to let Craig push some buttons here. Other donations a million dollars to military-connected families. Late last year that was after the Lahaina fires, f Fires. This is just Craig. You are in every way kind of what we hope successful people become in this country and what unfortunately so rarely successful people become in this country. So thank you for being a mensch.
0:17:21 - Craig Newmark
That's nice to hear, it's flattering, but on a gut level I don't really understand it because I don't understand the need to buy lots of houses, jets and all that. I just don't get it. But remember, I really do have the taste of a peasant just one that hasn't lost its mind.
0:17:44 - Leo Laporte
You know what's interesting, and I don't know if people know this. Before you started Craigslist, you actually were studying artificial intelligence, weren't you? You wanted to do LLMs.
0:17:54 - Craig Newmark
Well, you'd have to go back in time about 20 years before that, in 73, in college. I thought neural networks were the way that we could understand natural language. There was a great book by Terry Winograd which I started getting into, but I realized two things. It was too hard for me and I wanted a job someday. And now, of course, it's a great job field, but I lost track of what was happening.
0:18:28 - Leo Laporte
Well, that's just as well. That was kind of in one of the AI winters in the early 70s, and so it made sense that well, there's. You know there's no future here and, as you know, probably you're right. But what do you? Are you surprised by the progress it's made now, or where do you stand on what's happening with AI today?
0:18:50 - Craig Newmark
I'm shocked and fascinated by the progress in generative AI. My concerns are safety, particularly for kids. That's why I support the work that Common Sense Media is doing, particularly rating AI sites. My concerns are like AIs are now being trained on the output of other generative AI systems. Plus, a number of them are trained using sources which they know are full of misinformation.
0:19:23 - Jeff Jarvis
I don't want to ask you this Craig of misinformation. I don't know if I'm asking this correctly.
0:19:33 - Craig Newmark
Does generative AI cause new kinds of cybersecurity issues? People talk about generative AI being used to both attack systems and to defend systems, but I haven't heard much specific about either of those, so I'm trying to focus on problems in the here and now. For example, right now, our whole country and most of the world relies on computers to run infrastructure like water power, hospitals. Many of them are poorly defended and already compromised, so I'm already engaging people and funding people who can help defend the country. Not ready to announce much of anything, but I'll be at the Cybersecurity Summit run by Aspen Institute and others that September 18th, nice.
0:20:23 - Leo Laporte
I mean, that's just again. I want to just say it's so refreshing to see somebody like you who remains humble, remains true to your roots and tries to do good in the world instead of trying to use your, your fortune to influence our politics, our information ecosystem in a way that's good for your pocketbook. And that seems to be not everybody, but it seems to be lately pretty common in Silicon Valley and along Sand Hill Road.
0:20:56 - Ant Pruitt
It's all about exit strategy.
0:20:58 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, and what can we do to get our side some more money? Like you, need more money.
0:21:07 - Jeff Jarvis
Right, when did you move to san francisco?
0:21:09 - Craig Newmark
craig, I moved in 93 and I spent nearly 30 years there, so what changes how, how?
0:21:16 - Jeff Jarvis
how is it different today than it was then?
0:21:20 - Craig Newmark
um well, by then the I guess bohemian spirit had faded. I had read Tales of the City and didn't expect it to be like that anymore, but that had completely faded. Now the people who want to use the Internet to make things better for everyone are still around, are still around, but now. Now, maybe the whole thing is dominated by people who just feel that they need a great return on investment and figure that their duty is to return value to shareholders. That's actually based on a misinterpretation of Delaware law and the opinions of Milton Friedman.
0:22:09 - Leo Laporte
What should CEOs be focusing on, if not returning value to stakeholders?
0:22:17 - Craig Newmark
Well, acts have consequences and we should try to figure out what might happen and do something about that, and we need to focus on real problems. Some of the real problems I'm focusing on again have to do with threats to our infrastructure. You know I've read science fiction all my life. A lot of it is dystopian and it talks about what happens when our supply chains fail, like for food and water. I'm also focusing on well treating the people well who would defend us all, so I'm doing a lot for military families and vets. Uh, I need to renew that focus because the resources I've devoted are getting exhausted relatively quickly. I thought they would last till 2026 sometime, but it's faster than I thought and I have to make some decisions soon. One of those decisions will be announced at the Cybersecurity Summit. I'm sorry, I meant the Cyber Civil Defense Summit. My model is civil defense in the 50s, but also like World War II, when we were all called on to help the country in whatever way we could.
0:23:40 - Leo Laporte
Are you organizing this event yourself?
0:23:43 - Craig Newmark
Are you organizing this event yourself? No, well, I'm building a network, or I could say I've built a network, which I'm expanding, which does all this stuff. I mean, this requires people who are a lot smarter than me and who have what they call social skills. What's that social skills? And uh, what's that? I can fake them, but uh, I really am a 1950s nerd and that's reflected in uh, oh, so much that I do.
0:24:16 - Leo Laporte
I like it. We love the 1950s nerds. So this event was last month in, uh, at the I love it at the International Spy Museum in Washington DC. Good choice, and are there going to be more? Is this the last one? Is this the first one?
0:24:31 - Craig Newmark
Well, that's one of them. There's going to be a renewal of this, something very similar, in mid-September.
0:24:39 - Leo Laporte
Oh good.
0:24:40 - Craig Newmark
The idea is, a lot of people are doing a lot of good work, a lot of nonprofits, a lot of volunteers working with people in the government, and we just need to get our act together as a group of organizations and as a country. The World War II thing is for real. We were expected all to play a role in World War II, to do what we can, and I wasn't alive then, although I do complain in that manner. But, like you know, my dad fought in the Pacific behind a desk, like I do. My mom learned accounting so she could replace the accountant who had, I guess, picked up a gun and gone overseas to fight. And in the 50s this kind of thing was expected of us, and that's when I was raised. I don't want to frighten anyone, but I'm actually older than Jeff. No, you're not. No way, that's not possible. No, you're not, no way, that's not possible. As the kids' neighbors remind me, I'm 71 and a half.
0:25:52 - Leo Laporte
You are older than Jeff. Wow, you look great, craig. I would well. Maybe it's just by comparison?
0:25:57 - Ant Pruitt
I do, don't I? It's on a catch-all pippy, catch-all pippy.
0:26:02 - Leo Laporte
No, we're just teasing Jeff. He looks good too, but I'm impressed, impressed. I did not realize that you were that old craig. I just very grateful to what you've done. Uh, you, you get maybe a little heat for craig's list hurting newspapers. Obviously that's not the case. We know better.
I love what you've done to support journalism yeah and I know jeff very much appreciates what you've done and we thank. Thank, jeff, for bringing you in and I agree, maybe we should get back to what was now considered kind of an old-fashioned patriotism where instead of working for ourselves, we work for our country and for our fellow men and women.
0:26:39 - Craig Newmark
Yeah, I feel that the well Vietnam kind of messed up the word and the idea of patriotism. I still have to work to get over that and I think as a country we got to get over that and we have to find ways to enlist everyone in the country.
0:27:00 - Leo Laporte
Basically, I agree, I agree, I agree, I agree Maybe with compulsory service of some kind, not necessarily military service, but I feel like we need to get back to that kind of notion of serving, serve, serve each other, yeah, and being a part of a society instead of just looking out for number one.
0:27:23 - Craig Newmark
Number one. I'm maybe more pragmatic in the sense that I'm working with Blue Star Families and also the Bob Woodruff Foundation on basics like military families don't get the compensation they need for good housing, good food, child care, medical and military families yeah well, they just get relocated uh way too often, and when you're moved to another area, you don't know anyone right?
you don't know the schools, you don't know child care. The military spouse needs a job and this is really tough. So I'm supporting people who are smarter than me about it and mostly what I do is repeat what they say, like a smart person.
0:28:12 - Jeff Jarvis
Craig always. He made the mistake of coming out to me, but other than that, craig does a good job of going and finding people who know about the topics that matter to him yeah, and reaches out to them regularly and asks them questions about what to think about things, and there's a mailing list of all the people that Craig has contributed to and brought together and it's a phenomenal network that cut across all these interests and there's a lot of stuff that roils around there of new things people are doing and it's kind of wonderful to see, which makes me ask, craig, did you have anything to do behind the giant pigeon going on the high line which I put in the discord?
0:28:51 - Craig Newmark
I, I wish I uh had. Yeah, I bet you didn't. I can't take any credit, but I for one welcome our pigeon overlords this is uh, this is the uh, the oh god, no, that's not that.
0:29:04 - Ant Pruitt
Oh, not that. Okay, that's the giant pigeon poop prank.
0:29:09 - Leo Laporte
It's a nice pigeon Prank. There you go. That's a beautiful exotic pigeon on the way to the Lincoln.
0:29:16 - Ant Pruitt
Tunnel Expressway. That's a great photo.
0:29:18 - Leo Laporte
That's really cool.
0:29:20 - Ant Pruitt
Yeah.
0:29:21 - Leo Laporte
You can hear him. Oh my gosh, how did you get so interested in it? I do hear that sound out here frequently. How did that come about? Is it because you moved to the city?
0:29:35 - Craig Newmark
The giant pigeon. Nothing to do with me, but I love birds and I do have a sense of humor and the pigeons here do have personality, and I actually do support pigeon rescue, particularly a group called Paloma Sea in the Bay Area and Wild Bird Fund in New York. They both do a really good job. However, I think the idea of me adopting a couple of pigeons has been vetoed by Mrs Newmark.
0:30:10 - Leo Laporte
Now, the last time we talked, Craig, you were studying stand-up comedy. How is that going? Oh, that's right.
0:30:18 - Craig Newmark
I'm very committed to keeping my day job. I know that I'm not as funny as I think I am and I I do ask you know my nonprofit grantees to tolerate my sense of humor while never encouraging me, which is a pretty tough.
0:30:39 - Leo Laporte
I wish to encourage you right now. Is there you want to try a bit out on us?
0:30:43 - Ant Pruitt
Do you have a solid three minutes us do. You have a solid three minutes do?
0:30:47 - Craig Newmark
you have a solid three minutes no, you don't, I do uh I do reflect on what's going on with the world and my life, realizing that I could only be a successful spokesman of any sort if I acquired what the kids call riz. Oh, oh, yes, oh, boy.
0:31:05 - Jeff Jarvis
And my advisors tell me but is Craig Bratt?
0:31:12 - Craig Newmark
I would say Craig Bratt. I aspire to Bratt, but I'm told my chances of Riz are much greater, and this is per advisors. If I were to start dating Taylor Swift, that would help your Riz oh boy. Definitely. But I vetoed that knowing that Mrs Newmark would immediately veto that she has things to say about that as well.
0:31:40 - Leo Laporte
That's even worse than having a pigeon for a pet. Craig, it's an honor, as always, to talk to you. We love talking to you. We really appreciate you taking the time to set the record straight on the great pancake machine fiasco, and we wish you all the best. You're doing such good work. People should go to craignumarkphilanthropiesorg to find out more. And is there a way for people to get involved?
0:32:04 - Craig Newmark
Are you looking for volunteers or Well, at some point, as part of cyber civil defense, I think we're going to ask people to do reasonable things they can't protect themselves like a move to pass keys and single sign on Love it, we always protect the DNS yeah.
But the hard part will be where we ask everyone to respectfully remind their bosses and the people who run utilities that they need to both protect those utilities better and to prepare for resiliency. And that may cause a lot of extra work for a lot of people who work too hard already and I guess, well, they can blame me.
0:32:55 - Leo Laporte
Well, and we're with you on that and we talk about it all the time, and if there's anything we can do here on Twit to help you with that cause, we would be glad to. Yeah, because it's the right audience here. This is the audience, and we certainly do talk about that all the time. I mean, that's, that's a core part of our mission. I think the time is coming. Yep, craig, bless you, craig.
0:33:17 - Ant Pruitt
Newmark philanthropiesorg friend, take care, mr craig. Great to see you.
0:33:20 - Jeff Jarvis
Thank you, craig say hello to ghost folks I appreciate it stay away from ghostface killer.
0:33:25 - Leo Laporte
He's a killer. Take care, craig Newmark, everybody, the crowd goes.
0:33:31 - Benito Gonzalez
We actually got requests for jokes from you, Craig.
0:33:35 - Leo Laporte
One of our staff members said get him to tell me a joke, please, we beg of you. Thanks, craig, take care Outstanding Before we go on. I have an unboxing to do. Take care Outstanding, before we go on. I have an unboxing to do a little something. Something Just came in the mail and I want to show you that. Is it your friend? Is it my friend? Yes, I have my friend's mail to me in boxes.
Yes, that's exactly right. No, it's not my friend, my little friend. Say hello to my little friend. But first I want to take a little break. It's really nice to have Aunt Pruitt in studio with us. Thank you for having me Jeff.
Jarvis here. Paris has the day off. Unfortunately, I'm sure Paris is going to be a little verklempt that she couldn't be here for Craig. Take that, paris See. No days off. No days off, lamb. Our show today, brought to you by BetterHelp I know this is something Craig could get behind as well which is getting some input into you to make your life better. Is that a good way to put it? What are your self-care non-negotiables? I know for Ant, never skip a leg day right Chest day.
0:34:41 - Ant Pruitt
Chest day. Get it right now, chest day.
0:34:45 - Leo Laporte
You'll be very proud of me, ant. I actually now do the cold plunge, but I have to get really hot first, so I get steamed up. Yes.
0:34:52 - Ant Pruitt
And that's the way to do it.
0:34:54 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, and then I love it. So it's little things like that. When your schedule is packed with you know work, kids, activities, projects it's really easy to let that those you know mental health days slip. Even when you know what makes you happy, it's hard to make time for it. But when you feel like you have no time for yourself, non-negotiables like therapy become even more important than ever. I cannot tell you how valuable it is to have somebody to talk to to say am I nuts, is this real how I feel? This way, I, I and and have some really responsible, intelligent, helpful person help you through it. If you're thinking of starting therapy, I've got a really good way for you to do it.
A lot of people embarrassed, perhaps, to even make that call or to look around, even to check the internet for a therapist. Maybe you're worried about the costs. Maybe you're worried about making time for it. Betterhelp is here and is really the solution. It's entirely online. It's designed to be convenient, completely flexible, suited to your schedule, nothing to be embarrassed about. You're going to talk to really quality people who care about you and your mental health. All you have to do is fill out a little questionnaire, just enough to get you matched with a licensed therapist.
Now I want to give you this advice because I really believe it myself. You don't have to stick with that first therapist. Now I want to give you this advice because I really believe it myself. You don't have to stick with that first person. You can if you say, wow, we're clicking, I'm getting great information. You can, but it's okay to shop around as well. No therapist will mind that and BetterHelp makes it easy. There's no additional charge to switch around. So you really want to find that right person Now, once you find the right person, it's great because then you've got a partner and it's one low flat fee for both live sessions as well as messaging Very, very convenient. Never skip a therapy day. Get BetterHelp H-E-L-P. Visit betterhelpcom slash Twig today to get 10% off your first month BetterHelp H-E-L-Pcom slash Twig. I'm a big believer in this and I also know how hard it is for people to kind of say, yeah, maybe I want to talk to somebody. Once you do, you're going to go wow, why did I put this off? Betterhelpcom slash twig You're nodding, you agree?
0:37:28 - Ant Pruitt
I agree 100% the Pruitt family. We take mental health very, very seriously.
0:37:33 - Leo Laporte
Especially with young people. I think today it's been a very hard few years with COVID, all the weirdness going on in politics, climate change. There's a lot of stress to be a young person today Very.
And I think that that's one way you can help them get through. This is to get them a little mental health help. I have in my hands my Galaxy Z Flip, the folding phone. The folding phone is here. You know, I thought I would skip this one, but then Samsung said you know, if you send in your old Galaxy Z Flip 5, it's only going to cost you a couple hundred bucks. I said, well, I could keep doing that for a while. What the heck. So here it is.
0:38:18 - Jeff Jarvis
I saved it for you, it looks like a phone.
0:38:20 - Leo Laporte
It looks like a phone. Well, what's cool is, on this side it does look like a phone, right Unfolded that looks just like a Move it around.
0:38:29 - Jeff Jarvis
Okay, if I get it just right, you can see. Yeah, you can see it Right there where it's going to fold.
0:38:34 - Leo Laporte
Let me make sure I don't have anything hindering the fold. Look how pretty that is, but you hindering the phone. Look how pretty that is, but you see it folds like that. And this is what I like about this. Compared to other folding phones, it's small enough to fit right here in my pocket. I just slip it into my coat pocket. What was that old man? You not have pockets?
0:38:55 - Jeff Jarvis
he's wearing a t-shirt pockets on their chest jeff, do you have a pocket on your chest? That's where the cigarettes go in.
0:39:05 - Leo Laporte
And the pocket watch. Don't forget the pocket watch. I have two pockets on my chest.
0:39:11 - Jeff Jarvis
And where do you put a pocket protector if you don't have a pocket? Jesus, I feel like you know. When Craig generously gave his endowment to the school, we had Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism pocket protectors. I love that.
0:39:28 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, we used to have Twit pocket protectors. Yeah, it was really fun ZDTV pocket protectors Booting it up. Now I am going to notice it boots up. There's two screens and that's one of the things.
0:39:39 - Benito Gonzalez
That's cool about this yeah.
0:39:41 - Leo Laporte
You can even set it like on a desk and make a phone call like this. I think that's kind of cool.
0:39:48 - Jeff Jarvis
What does that screen do to the battery? On these things.
0:39:52 - Leo Laporte
They're fine. It's good Really. Yeah, I don't ever have a problem with that Easy setup with another device. Oh, I don't have my Pixel 6 here.
0:40:00 - Ant Pruitt
It's pretty cool to see where these foldable devices have come over the years.
0:40:05 - Leo Laporte
You can fold it up a little bit and just see.
0:40:07 - Ant Pruitt
Mr Jarvis asked about the crease. That's the first thing you asked about and that's the last thing on my mind, because it seems like they've addressed that.
0:40:15 - Leo Laporte
It's not as bad as it was. It's visible, but you have to look for it.
0:40:19 - Ant Pruitt
I mean you really have to look for it. I don't see it now and I just barely feel it there. That was the other thing. I in the past.
0:40:26 - Leo Laporte
have not liked about these is the rubbery texture of the screen. Because it is a folding screen, it doesn't feel like glass, no. But it's not bad. They've gotten much better, I think.
0:40:36 - Ant Pruitt
This is and that hinge is secure, but the back screen, there that's. I totally dig that.
0:40:46 - Leo Laporte
And being able to just look at stuff really quickly. So even the last years and I had the Fold 4, I think a couple of years ago I was always concerned about durability. Never in the more recent years have not had a problem. I think I had a Galaxy Fold 3 that the screen protectors kind of started coming up and I peeled it off.
0:41:05 - Benito Gonzalez
Yeah, I remember that.
0:41:06 - Ant Pruitt
Oh, you should never do that.
0:41:08 - Leo Laporte
Do that.
0:41:10 - Ant Pruitt
Whoops. Well, that was Samsung's fault. It looked like a screen protector.
0:41:13 - Benito Gonzalez
It didn't look like something that was supposed to be there.
0:41:15 - Leo Laporte
You're not tempted to peel anything off.
0:41:17 - Ant Pruitt
No, not at all. This feels nice, man. I sort of hate seeing it, but the way they designed these bezels it just sort of looks like the old school iPhone 4 to me.
0:41:28 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, but look how thin it is. Too right, Doesn't it? It does feel like it's very thin. You have a Samsung, no this is a Pixel.
0:41:35 - Ant Pruitt
Let me compare it. Oh yeah, I have a Google Pixel. Okay, it's about the same. Pretty oh yeah, of a Google Pixel, Okay.
0:41:38 - Leo Laporte
It's about the same Pretty Screen size is a little smaller, yeah.
0:41:43 - Ant Pruitt
Yeah, it's about the same.
0:41:44 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, that's not bad dude. Well, I'll give you a more long-term report, but I thought, well, we should give this a try. Pixel of course, the new Pixel's just about out, and of course there is no. There's nothing. We don't know about it already which is hysterical.
0:42:00 - Ant Pruitt
I'm glad to see that you all have embraced my theory that google is finally just leaking this stuff themselves. Yeah, you know, I kept telling this you were right. Okay, that's what I wanted to hear. Thank you, you were right I think it.
0:42:16 - Leo Laporte
I think they figured. Well, we're not gonna. You know, apple makes a lot of hay by not telling anybody. And get they, get all this. Know all the speculation for months, do they, don't they?
0:42:26 - Jeff Jarvis
Yeah, that's a good point, Ant. I think that's died down too.
0:42:29 - Ant Pruitt
I mean, I don't see people sleeping overnight.
0:42:31 - Jeff Jarvis
No, nobody goes to the line.
0:42:34 - Ant Pruitt
They barely watch the keynote now. People watch the keynote on the rerun the next day.
0:42:43 - Jeff Jarvis
Normal people.
0:42:44 - Ant Pruitt
But you know, ant, it's almost fall, the new Oldsmobile line will be out, you mean the Delta 88 or the 98?
0:42:48 - Jeff Jarvis
Which one Do you wait? The 99 this year we'll have to wait and see.
0:42:53 - Leo Laporte
Okay, I do Now. This is where I really feel old, and I know you'll remember this, Jeff, but September was when the new TV shows came out.
0:43:00 - Jeff Jarvis
I had to delay my honeymoon because it was the fall, because I was a TV critic and you had to see. Oh, of course.
0:43:07 - Leo Laporte
You didn't Now, and that was before videotapes. So you really, how did they? Did they preview these to you? Do you have screens?
0:43:13 - Jeff Jarvis
No, no, I got videotapes.
0:43:19 - Leo Laporte
Oh they did. I can't wait to find out who shot JR.
0:43:24 - Ant Pruitt
That's right, that's Patrick Delahanty Was that.
0:43:28 - Ant Pruitt
Dallas, that was Dallas, yeah.
0:43:32 - Leo Laporte
Now. I think it's okay to say this now. It's not a spoiler anymore, Not anymore. It turned out to be a dream, right? That was the biggest letdown ever. I don't remember.
0:43:40 - Benito Gonzalez
They spent a whole season.
0:43:43 - Leo Laporte
The whole right. That was the biggest letdown ever. I don't remember they spent a whole season, it was the whole season.
0:43:45 - Jeff Jarvis
Who shot jr? They couldn't dig themselves out of the hole. It was a plot hole they couldn't get out of, so they just made it.
0:43:49 - Leo Laporte
That's correct oh, it didn't happen ever.
0:43:51 - Jeff Jarvis
I that is one of the cheesiest outs which, of course, then became the greatest clever lighting ever from bob newhart.
0:44:01 - Ant Pruitt
Oh yeah, rest in peace.
0:44:04 - Leo Laporte
All, whatever years, was a dream, right, right, it was brilliant, brilliant. He was in the shower. As I remember Newhart was Right In. Dallas, yes, in Dallas. And Bob Newhart, it was at the end of his the New England show, newhart. Oh, the New England show, newhart. Oh, the New England show, newhart.
0:44:25 - Ant Pruitt
Where he had the hotel. That was the dream.
0:44:26 - Leo Laporte
That was.
0:44:27 - Ant Pruitt
Yeah.
0:44:28 - Leo Laporte
Here. It is from 1990. It's going to get us taken down, isn't it? There they are in the hotel. He's yelling. He got hit by a golf ball. He passes out. This show was so good, man, you know what. He will be missed he was a wonderful God rest his soul. A wonderful talent Never worked, blue, oh man they played this out.
0:44:54 - Jeff Jarvis
He's falling down Long way down.
0:44:57 - Ant Pruitt
And then he wakes up and they go hi, bob. And then he wakes up and they go hi.
0:45:04 - Leo Laporte
Bob, I forgot about that. Thank you. Tv critic Jeff Jarvis Such a great show.
0:45:12 - Ant Pruitt
Now back to the pixel. No, no, no. The flip, the flip. Well, we did the flip.
0:45:17 - Leo Laporte
I just put it in my pocket, my front pocket. Jeez, old man, put it right there. I just put it in my pocket, okay, my front pocket. Jeez, oh man, put it right there. I can't, how do you live without a breast pocket?
0:45:28 - Ant Pruitt
Actually I've changed my tune slightly. I did get a fanny pack that I wear across my chest.
0:45:33 - Leo Laporte
Oh no, that's, awful. Oh no, that's the worst.
0:45:36 - Ant Pruitt
I only do that when I'm shooting.
0:45:38 - Leo Laporte
Oh no, he's old now. I only do that when I'm shooting because I'll need like a. Photographers are allowed to wear anything strapped to their bodies.
0:45:45 - Ant Pruitt
I'll need a battery or I'll need a new car. No, no, he's going to star in that insurance commercial.
0:45:51 - Jeff Jarvis
Insurance commercial For fanny packs, for the one where, when people buy a house, they turn into their parents.
0:45:57 - Leo Laporte
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a great commercial. Ant turned into my parents a long time ago. Yeah, it's definitely. Yeah, ant's surprising. It's so funny. You expect something and then he really. You know, he's a dad, I'm an old dad, he's a dad. He's an old dad, I'm an old dad. Anyway, this is from Ben Schoon 9to5Google, and this was we already know about the Google Pixel 9 series. It's only two weeks away from the event. Jeff, you're going to join me for that Tuesday.
0:46:24 - Jeff Jarvis
Yes, I am, and I might actually buy this one because my battery is shot on my 6.
0:46:28 - Leo Laporte
Well, it's funny because I was going to and then I thought no, this year I'm going to flip Back and forth right Every year. So you do the Pixel, you should get a new one. I think you made the right choice. I kind of think this is cool. I think you made the right choice, even if you don't have a breast pocket.
0:46:46 - Jeff Jarvis
The other thing I'm thinking about getting. I wonder if I'm not saying new, yeah, is I I? I got attacked by somebody last week online and it upset me and I, my heart went and it's, I think, this after a week. It's finally better, all of which is to say because I'm an AFibber. I'm thinking about getting the Google Watch. Ah, because it checks that right. You have the Apple Watch. Does it do a good job of checking your heart? Or you don't care because your heart's fine?
0:47:15 - Ant Pruitt
I'm on the Pixel Watch 2. I don't know if the 2 does that.
0:47:20 - Benito Gonzalez
Yeah, the Apple did, but I don't know, if the 2.
0:47:25 - Ant Pruitt
Does that? Yeah, um, there's no, did, but I don't know if the pixel one did that?
0:47:29 - Ant Pruitt
I thought it did scooter x. Why do you ask he would know?
0:47:31 - Leo Laporte
he's the king, he knows everything so the base pixel 9 will be 6.3 inches in four colors. Here's the thing. It's a little disappointing. It's really kind of the same camera Shocking, set up as a Pixel 8. It's a Tensor G4, only 12 gigs of RAM, matte rails and a glossy glass back set to be the cheapest at 8. Now, this is, I guess, the European pricing 899 euros. The US pricing has not leaked leaked but that probably means about 599 to 799 in american dollars and greenback dollars. Oh, that's good. Yeah, it's a little more expensive. Uh, about 100 bucks more than the pixel 8 for the base model.
Then there's the pro and the pro xl, which is what you kind of, I think, mostly want, right? Yeah, they run on the same Tensor G4 chip but have 16 gigs of RAM, which is kind of the largest yet on the Pixels yeah, it's pretty incredible. And 9 to 5, google says it's a new minimum for the series Slightly better camera sensors, and I think the normal camera is the same, but the longer camera is better. Yeah, they've added a telephoto lens. The main shooter appears to be the same, according to nine and five google, but the ultra wide and selfie cameras are both upgraded. Google's pro series is also getting a four color launch lineup. This is the uh according to the leaks. These are the colors. This is a kind of a ivory white, the new uh camera. Uh, back is a lozenge. There's a pink and a green, a black and a white. Which one did you get?
0:49:08 - Jeff Jarvis
Pink Ant. Which one did you get?
0:49:12 - Ant Pruitt
Black. I'm out of getting colorful phones now because they get so dirty even with the case on them. You know why I go pink. Why?
0:49:20 - Leo Laporte
Because no one borrows your them. You know why I go pink? Why? Because no one borrows your stuff.
0:49:25 - Ant Pruitt
You know where it is.
0:49:27 - Leo Laporte
It's never a question. Where's your water bottle? It's pink. Good point. Same thing with a phone Good point.
0:49:34 - Jeff Jarvis
Someday I'm going to surprise you and wear a shirt with color on it, but your son isn't Jacob Pruitt.
0:49:38 - Leo Laporte
Oh look, jammer B, you're not allowed to have a pink water bottle, jammer B, now we're confusing ourselves. It's a terrible thing, ant. They took the bottled water out of the studio. This is when I really realized we're closing the studio. When there was no longer any fresh water, I had to drink it like an animal out of the tap, like a Craig.
0:50:02 - Ant Pruitt
Newmart Like a peasant.
0:50:04 - Ant Pruitt
Like a peasant.
0:50:08 - Leo Laporte
So I brought my own from home. Oh man, I'm bringing my own water now. John, you brought in a Brita pitcher. It's getting real. I feel like a little sippy cup, I feel like a little this is like a little sippy cup. I feel like an infant take your juice, leo.
0:50:30 - Jeff Jarvis
What was your nickname when you were a little? Lele.
0:50:34 - Leo Laporte
Lele, because my father was Leo as well. So it was either little Leo which I did not like thank goodness or. Lele. So it was either little Leo, which I did not like Thank goodness I did not like or Lele, which I still. My sister still calls me Lele. My mom will call me Lele. That's pretty cool.
0:50:49 - Jeff Jarvis
When you went to school, were you Leo or Leo?
0:50:51 - Leo Laporte
I was Leo. I never even thought about being Leo until I told you, until I was radio. Oh radio For broadcasting yeah, in San Francisco. But teachers would presume the name was Leo. Yeah, but I was always at great pains to explain and actually the sad thing, never name your kid with an accent or weird French names.
0:51:11 - Ant Pruitt
Imagine doing that in the Carolinas.
0:51:13 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, exactly. In fact, even in San Francisco I said you can't have that name, it sounds gay. Oh yeah, and it wasn't anti-gay, it's just that we don't want you know. The radio station said no, no, be Leo. Yep, that sounds German, that sounds good. Yeah, I am Leo, anyway. So I stuck with it. But it's actually Leo. My father's name was Leo, my grandfather's name was Leo, my great-grandfather's name was Leo. They were all Leos, it's a legacy, oh wow. Yeah.
0:51:42 - Jeff Jarvis
Are you the 87th?
0:51:44 - Leo Laporte
No, I'm the 6th, I think I can't remember. But in school you have to go. No, it's not Leo, it's Leo, as in Mayo. That's my great humiliation. I'll never get over it.
0:52:00 - Jeff Jarvis
now Spending your whole life saying Leo is in the name. Wait, wait, wait. I got to back up for a second. You are Leo Laporte VI.
0:52:07 - Leo Laporte
I would be, but it was Leo Frederic Laporte until me, right. And then my mom insisted on me taking her father's name Gordon. Oh, I see Her Scotch name. So I'm Leo Gordon Laporte, which, by the way, means now I have to go out and change all my secret question answers.
0:52:26 - Ant Pruitt
Thanks for the devotion, Matt. Thanks for the devotion, Matt Shoot.
0:52:31 - Leo Laporte
So what else is a Pixel 9? They think the price will be about $1,000 for the Pro and the Pro XL will be $1,099.
0:52:43 - Jeff Jarvis
Yikes. So since I'm not a camera professional like Ant and so I take pictures of whiteboards, so I'm okay with the camera being whatever. The camera is on the lower model of the 9. Will there be a difference in the AI abilities of the lower models? What do you?
0:53:02 - Ant Pruitt
think Ant. I still doubt it Because eventually they both catch up to each other in the past models, right yeah?
0:53:11 - Leo Laporte
And honestly, yes, we know they now have more of the magic eraser style stuff. They had that thing where you could change people's heads, like you take four pictures and on picture one john was smiling yeah then they mix it up and there's a. There's a lot of that.
0:53:30 - Ant Pruitt
That's, I guess, more like ai than computational photography but then, like six months later, the other phone has that too, right, yeah?
0:53:38 - Leo Laporte
if I remember exactly, you won't. You won't lose out in the long run. I think you'd like it, just because how long have you? How old is your phone, jeff oh no, I'm gonna.
0:53:46 - Jeff Jarvis
I'll probably get one, but what I'm asking? Do I have to get the expensive one? Oh, no, no, no, no I don't think so okay, that's all I'm asking yeah, you don't.
0:53:54 - Leo Laporte
You don't because you're not pushing it right. No, we. Honestly, I don't need to get the expensive one, but I do just because I always want the best.
0:54:04 - Jeff Jarvis
Yeah, and my question is you want to judge that too?
0:54:09 - Ant Pruitt
Do phones excite you at all anymore, not anymore, not anymore. Okay, cool.
0:54:13 - Jeff Jarvis
But the Oldsmobile 99. I keep rubbing it on my breast pocket, but it just can't. It doesn't get me excited.
0:54:19 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, the Oldsmobile 99. Now that's hot, it doesn't get me excited.
0:54:23 - Ant Pruitt
Yeah, the Oldsmobile 99. Now that's hot. Give me a Cutlass. Yeah, oh, cutlass.
0:54:26 - Leo Laporte
You drive nice cars, you like your cars, I like nice cars. Yeah, he drives nice cars.
0:54:32 - Jeff Jarvis
I see, I thought I liked it and then I thought it was a Beamer driver man. Yeah, Not all.
0:54:38 - Leo Laporte
Beamer drivers are bad.
0:54:40 - Ant Pruitt
I use my turn signals.
0:54:42 - Leo Laporte
Yes, it's you Prius drivers that really are the problem. Oh man, no, you don't drive a Prius. What do you drive, jeff?
0:54:53 - Ant Pruitt
Boring Mazda it is boring, it is.
0:54:58 - Leo Laporte
It is. It is so boring.
0:55:01 - Jeff Jarvis
My wife's car is much older than mine and it has more miles and she's prideful about it. Oh, I'm not going to try. So it means I can't get a new car until she gets a new car.
0:55:08 - Leo Laporte
The only thing more boring than a Mazda would be a Taurus yeah, that's really or a Corolla.
0:55:16 - Jeff Jarvis
Or an Impala.
0:55:18 - Leo Laporte
My grandma had an Impala I liked her.
0:55:20 - Jeff Jarvis
So my grandparents had Impalas too.
0:55:21 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, I liked her Impala. That was the doctor's car.
0:55:24 - Ant Pruitt
The old ones were better.
0:55:25 - Leo Laporte
Do we have?
0:55:29 - Jeff Jarvis
a rundown.
0:55:30 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, I got a rundown and I got a really annoying story. That, I have to say, put me in a blue funk. Uh-oh A few this is from the Wall Street Journal. A few blockbuster podcasts are making all the money this is what this is seriously.
0:55:45 - Jeff Jarvis
What has ruined it all is this is this search for scale.
0:55:49 - Leo Laporte
You have to be huge, but that's not what podcasting is about yeah, uh, alex cooper, so you remember, call her daddy, and I was a little saddened when spotify gave her $60 million for three years. Well, that's three years are up. She is now nearing a $100 million deal, wow.
0:56:08 - Ant Pruitt
Or call her daddy.
0:56:10 - Leo Laporte
Wow Joe.
0:56:12 - Jeff Jarvis
Rogan, there's no way they're profiting from that. No, way.
0:56:16 - Leo Laporte
Well, this is serious. This is the satellite guys. Spotify is working for a second season with Trevor Noah. He probably produces If you're a celebrity on TV, even if you're a B-list celebrity on TV, that brings some audience along, Still getting millions of downloads I was like an H-list celebrity on TV and even I got some bang from that. Joe Rogan inked a deal with Spotify worth up to $250 million. Kelsey Brothers are the next Jason and Travis Kelsey. This is the Taylor Swift effect. They do it.
0:56:50 - Ant Pruitt
No, nothing to do with Taylor Swift. It's a great podcast. Nothing to do with her. Nothing to do with it. She's a hell of a talent but there's nothing to do with her.
0:56:59 - Leo Laporte
I like how Ant really stepped up on that one.
0:57:01 - Ant Pruitt
Oh, I'm so sick of that.
0:57:07 - Ant Pruitt
If he weren't dating.
0:57:08 - Leo Laporte
Taylor it would still be a big podcast. He wouldn't be. Is it a great why I haven't?
0:57:12 - Ant Pruitt
listened to it, Him and his brother they have a great dynamic and they have great stories because of the path that they both chose. Neither one of them went on the same path, even though they both ended up in the NFL and probably going to both end up in the NFL Hall of Fame. That's cool, but do they have a pink sippy cup water bottle? They probably have several, sir.
0:57:32 - Leo Laporte
That's my secret.
0:57:33 - Jeff Jarvis
They're headed a curve on that they can get away with that, Leo, because they are who they are.
0:57:37 - Leo Laporte
They are the number four podcast in the US according to Edison Research. They're legit, According to the Journal. The podcast always cracks me up. When the podcast industry began five years ago.
0:57:50 - Ant Pruitt
Five years Jeez.
0:57:54 - Ant Pruitt
It always cracks me up when it began during COVID. It was a hobby before that.
0:57:59 - Leo Laporte
Listen. After a costly boom and bust cycle that spanned about half a decade that's five years the podcasting business is growing up.
0:58:09 - Ant Pruitt
Allegedly oh FB.
0:58:12 - Leo Laporte
Podcast is turning into this is again the Wall Street Journal into an industry of megastars who command the most money and the biggest audiences. There are still nearly half a million active shows, according to Podcast Industry Insights, but the top 25 podcasts reach nearly half of the US weekly listeners. The top talents have tours, merchandise and multi-year deals in the nine figures. Wait a minute, one million dollars, that's $100 million Big advertisers want in. Oh, so that's the other thing that's happened and, by the way, I this is absolutely true. Everything I'm saying is absolutely true. The what's happened is that our shows and many of the early podcasts were driven by startups. Uh, some startups peppered most of the podcast ads for years Mattress makers, health supplement brands, mindfulness apps and meal kit delivery companies.
0:59:09 - Ant Pruitt
What are you laughing at?
0:59:11 - Ant Pruitt
You know you've done the ads.
0:59:12 - Leo Laporte
The truth, the truth, we've had all of them. But now? But now? Podcast distributors like Spotify and Amazon are capitalizing on this dynamic. Some are experimenting with selling subscriptions for their top shows in hopes of persuading audiences to pay more to listen without ads.
0:59:32 - Ant Pruitt
Huh, get early access to exclusive bonus content.
0:59:36 - Leo Laporte
I wonder where they got that idea. They're making video versions of podcasts oh really, why didn't we think of that? And some are selling more ads to bigger brands like oh, this is when we aren't doing car manufacturers and alcohol distributors you had car manufacturer, I had my, and we have had conversations with other car manufacturers.
The problem is we're so small potatoes compared to Dax Shepard you know, that if our numbers, which are in the tens and hundreds of thousands, pale compared to Call Her Daddy and Joe Rogan, you see that's what's going to drive me nuts.
1:00:16 - Jeff Jarvis
I wrote this in my book the Gutenberg Parenthesis, which didn't sell millions either, because I'm arguing that mass is what's ruined all of this. We've had a long century of mass media that made scale the most important thing, that tried to put us into huge buckets of people we didn't want to be in. And media still demand to go there because the advertisers still demand to go there, because they're lazy suckers. And that's not the natural state of media. It shouldn't be and it will end because that business model is bankrupt, but in the meanwhile we're going to suffer right here.
1:00:50 - Ant Pruitt
We're going to suffer. In my podcast list, my regular podcast list, I believe three of them are, quote big celebrities and when I was listening to one on the way into the studio, I heard an ad. Celebrities. And when I was listening to one on the way into the studio, they I heard an ad and it made me wonder. Okay, so they did an ad for so-and-so sponsor with slash their podcast name and I'm like how many people are actually doing those following? Well, we've always done that, you know like yeah, yeah, but we have a more. I feel like we have a more genuine audience versus well, it doesn't. We only do it because the advertisers always demanded it. This is in the early.
1:01:20 - Leo Laporte
This is, I feel, like we have a more genuine audience versus the masses. We only do it because the advertisers always demanded it. This was also true at Tech TV. In the early days of a cable network, you do what's called direct response advertising where, because they don't have metrics and they don't have numbers, they can measure the response by having caspercom slash twig Right and then they measure the response that way. But, as you know, that's a very imperfect measurement because most people just type caspercom or they don't think about it until a month later. And now we're looking for a mattress and they just go to Casper Right. So it doesn't capture the impact of the advertising.
1:02:00 - Ant Pruitt
And I'm like these cats. They're getting these sponsors week in and week out and I don't think that metric is is really going to work. But for whatever reason, because they're a celebrity, let's go ahead and sponsor them.
1:02:12 - Leo Laporte
Honestly, I'm very happy where we are. I like being on the long tail as long as you don't step on it. Yeah, I like the uh, the fact that we serve a specific dedicated maybe not huge, but it's a decent-sized audience.
1:02:29 - Benito Gonzalez
It's as big as Tech.
1:02:30 - Ant Pruitt
TV was and.
1:02:31 - Leo Laporte
I'm happy with that. That's fine and I don't want more than that. But it is one of the reasons we had to start the club and we're closing the studio, the studios because the revenues are just going. It's headed upstream. What was tech tv's revenue? At the max um, they lost 150 million dollars a year for six years, I think based on what revenue?
uh, you know, I don't. I don't know if I have the revenue numbers. I, I know that. So paul allen, uh, was the chief investor. Later it was sold to soft bank and then comcast and so forth. But uh and ziff davis started it with soft bank, but uh, I think paul allen, they said he lost 600 million dollars and um, yeah, so obviously it was a bad bet. One review I'll remember, that I'll never. That stands out in my mind. I'll never forget.
Uh said the screensavers has the audience of a largest high school in an urban center, so it was about 123 000, something like that. Well, we've, we doubled that in the early days of twit easily. So I felt like well, we're doing okay because we're costing a 10th or a hundredth of as much and have a 10 times larger audience. But what happens if the advertisers migrate up? Or the startups? And that's one thing the journal says these startups, these direct market advertisers, have kind of pulled back because of raising interest rates and economic uncertainty or whatever, and so they're getting out of podcast advertising. So we're losing that backbone and we're not getting the Coca-Colas or the Bacardi rums. Joe Rogan's getting those, according to Edison, who does a pretty good job with this kind of stuff.
Nearly 100 million Americans, 12 and older, listen to podcasts every week. 100 million Podcast advertising revenue projected to grow. See, this is the thing that hurts us. It's supposed to grow 12% to more than $2 billion this year, $2.6 billion by 2026, but we're not seeing that. We're not. We're seeing what it's fortunate. I have to tell you where we're fortunate there is nowhere for uh, cyber security companies to advertise anymore. There's no magazines, there's only a handful of podcasts and they're not going to go on joe rogan. Well, sometimes they do, sometimes even by the super bowl. I think crowd strike was on the super bowl well, that makes sense.
They had the pockets for it, yeah but honestly, thank goodness, because they're mostly coming to us and podcasts like us, so so there are some niche audiences that we can we can, uh benefit from I've always loved the the, the idea that you could have a.
1:05:14 - Ant Pruitt
You could have a million followers or a thousand, like rabbit loyal followers right, yeah, problem is yes, but a thousand rabbit loyal followers.
1:05:27 - Leo Laporte
What was that it was? I think jeff just flushed. It's okay, jeff, I moved my chair what kind of seat are you sitting?
1:05:36 - Ant Pruitt
in something you don't hear?
1:05:38 - Leo Laporte
on smartless uh, jeff's got a little potty chair, it plans. Here on Smartless Jeff's got a little potty chair, it plans. Jeez, it just caught me off guard. I'm sorry, dax Shepard, I like Dax, but he's not an A-list celebrity.
His wife is, but His wife is, but not him Just did an $80 million deal. Oh je, oh geez. Video episodes of armchair expert wow, 80 million. The company will co-own two new podcasts it will create with shepherd sell ads and hawk exclusive, hawk exclusive merchandise a word that's now ruined. It's ruined. It has the right to live stream a show once a year.
Wondery, you know, one of the things Wondery did is they have great relationships in Hollywood so they get TV shows made about their podcast. That doesn't hurt. Nfl star brothers and New Heights hosts, jason and Travis Kelsey, don't look Nothing to do with that Seeking a deal in the $100 million range. I mean, I know they get good money as NFL stars, but that's not jump change. Wow For doing a podcast. Smaller and less proven stars can make deals with the distributors, but the checks are much smaller and some don't have deals at all. Making merch sales and touring. Even more important, many hosts do their podcasts on the side. Yep, anyway, thank you.
Wall street journal for making my day direct consumer. Uh, so they're talking about how spotify had to consolidate cold shows under wall. Wall Street Journal for making my day Direct consumer. So they're talking about how Spotify had to consolidate cold shows under Wall Street's pressure to make money. Then the ad market slowed. Direct consumer brands that had anchored the podcast ad business struggled early last year amid rising interest rates, and a software update from Apple late last year hindered the podcast industry's advertising efforts. You know why? Because all those inflated download numbers turned out to be bs exactly bunk.
over the past year, big brands like bmw, hey draft kings and home, bmw DraftKings and Home Depot began advertising primarily on the podcast, with bigger audiences. I drive a BMW, do you?
1:08:06 - Benito Gonzalez
drive a. Bmw Hello.
1:08:08 - Leo Laporte
BMW, BMW right here, right here, that's Jordan Fox from AdResults Media Arm. One of the agencies we work with says that's going to be a big driver of the next wave of podcast advertising growth. Molson Coors FanDuel fan duel better help, all right, we got one. And liquid death, which is water. What are you getting there? What are they giving you? Nothing, carry on. It was off camera. Is it a pink, pink water? Tippy, tippy. Sirius is planning to launch a subscription that bundles some of its shows together for $6 a month, undercutting us, including, perhaps, conan O'Brien's podcast. That's a good podcast, right? Freakonomics. See, if you're Conan O'Brien, guaranteed audience if you do a podcast, even if only a fraction of his TV viewers listen to the podcast, you're golden. Freakonomics Radio Crime Junkie, which is, I think, the number two podcast in the nation right now. Here's the top ten by audience, according to Edison. Nobody really knows because nobody really has numbers. Number one Joe Rogan. That's probably true.
1:09:16 - Jeff Jarvis
They get to make up numbers and it's okay, because it sounds really big, you don't get to make up numbers, and it's okay, because it sounds really big, you don't get to make up numbers unless you have it right.
1:09:26 - Leo Laporte
Joe rogan, number one, that's probably true crime. Junkie. Number two, that's probably true. The daily, of course. Number four new heights with jason and travis kelsey. Dateline nbc. Doesn't hurt to have a network behind you. Number six this american life, which I mean, I'm gonna argue a podcast is the best.
1:09:42 - Jeff Jarvis
That's not a podcast radio show.
1:09:44 - Leo Laporte
That's a show that's repurposed but it's a great radio show caller daddy. Number seven smartless. Number eight morbid, I don't know what that is. Number nine and stuff you should know.
1:09:54 - Ant Pruitt
Number 10 and see I see stuff you should know all over youtube. Never really you know why there's a podcast.
1:10:00 - Leo Laporte
They're why they're owned by iHeart and the guy who runs iHeart Podcasting founded it. Okay, iheart bought them and promotes the hell out of them. So that's the other thing. It helps to have somebody like iHeart or Amazon or Spotify really promoting you. That's huge value. I don't know, I sound like I'm bitter. I'm not bitter.
1:10:25 - Ant Pruitt
We're just a different thing. It just seems like the bottom's got to fall out at some point on these right.
1:10:30 - Leo Laporte
You know I actually think of the other way it fell out of the bottom is where it fell out. Yeah, I think of it the other way. I think it's a new medium and it's finding its way, and what's good is that half of america listens and so it's now taking. We talked about this on mac break weekly yesterday about how nobody watches tv anymore they watch youtube.
1:10:48 - Ant Pruitt
This is true definitely in my house.
1:10:50 - Leo Laporte
I mean, if you want to talk about money, yeah nothing got ruined, it's just like blogging it just the little guys are just little guys now, and the big guys take all the money.
1:11:06 - Ant Pruitt
I just don't know where Spotify or whomever is going to make that money back. The same way with Netflix, and how they've paid all of the different creators these gazillions of dollars, and it wasn't coming in until they started raising the monthly rate for the subscribers. Basically, you know yeah.
1:11:28 - Leo Laporte
I think we just have to and I think we've done that find the right level of support, the right level to spend and continue to serve our audience as best we can. It's one of the reasons we're shutting the studio down. That saves us tens of thousands of dollars a month. I don't want to cut. You know, we cut you and we cut Jason and Victor. I don't want to cut any more staff if we can help it. So by shutting down the studio we're kind of giving them some leeway. And then, with any luck you know, advertising seems to be picking up a little bit, which is good With any luck we can kind of keep our head above water. I'll be happy. I mean, I'm not getting paid right now, but eventually I think I'll make some money a little bit. It won't be like it used to be, but that's fine and I just hope we can keep our head above water and keep doing what we want to do and everybody can make a little bit of money. Nobody's going to get rich here.
1:12:26 - Ant Pruitt
And also, sir, who knows what's going to happen after November too? Please don't bring that up. You know it could probably be. It could very much change. It could probably get better. It could get better, you know, who knows I?
1:12:38 - Leo Laporte
like that. It's going to get better. It could get better. So, yeah, I love you, man. I miss the hell out of you, dude.
1:12:46 - Jeff Jarvis
It's going to get better, that's Ant. You know what Leo I?
1:12:51 - Leo Laporte
think you need a friend. Okay, I'm open. Who's my friend? Alicia.
1:12:56 - Jeff Jarvis
Alicia, number 70. No, where is it? Number 71.
1:12:59 - Leo Laporte
I thought you were going to talk about the man who scanned hundreds of people online as Alicia.
1:13:04 - Ant Pruitt
No, that's a weird story. I'll talk about that later. 71. Oh, my AI friend.
1:13:14 - Leo Laporte
Oh, friend, how it works. Talk, speak your mind or gossip about what your friend overheard.
1:13:19 - Jeff Jarvis
Oh, you wear this around your neck. Pause. You wear it around your neck, on your neck. It listens to you constantly and then it makes comments to your phone. I see it, you're hiking.
1:13:30 - Leo Laporte
it's 99 dollars all right, I'm gonna buy it okay um, no subscription, no subscription.
1:13:38 - Jeff Jarvis
Uh, but it it's supposed to be your friend, it's supposed to make comments on what it's heard from you all day.
1:13:43 - Leo Laporte
This is such a Woody Allen movie in real life. It really is.
1:13:48 - Jeff Jarvis
So the thing is it comes from go to the blog page. It comes from a young man who's very smart, who made his name doing the COVID tracker.
1:13:58 - Leo Laporte
Oh, I remember him when he was a teenager, right?
1:14:02 - Jeff Jarvis
Avi Schiffman yes, yes, so he managed to run. I think he has a reputation for that and god bless him and he's a smart guy and we we really need him during the pandemic and somebody should have helped him out here. So he raised like 2.5 million dollars, of which he spent 1.8 million dollars to get the url you see Friendscom, that must.
1:14:21 - Leo Laporte
Yes, I believe it. Was it worth it? Do you think no?
1:14:26 - Jeff Jarvis
No, so it listens to you all day and they insist it's local and if you lose it then there is no recovery oh.
1:14:36 - Leo Laporte
It doesn't save anything.
1:14:40 - Jeff Jarvis
Go to. If you would go to the FAQ, and where it says what do you get in the box?
1:14:45 - Leo Laporte
I will in a sec, but I'm ordering it first. He's seriously ordering it right now.
1:14:48 - Ant Pruitt
No, no like come on no money stop dude but I want a friend, no okay, someone stop this dude, he's got to stop Take away his mouse FAQ.
1:15:05 - Leo Laporte
Where is he? Okay, here he is. When will I receive my friend?
1:15:09 - Jeff Jarvis
Well then, what's included in the box? What's included in the box? Okay, this is a moment.
1:15:12 - Leo Laporte
What's included in the box? Your order includes A white friend. A white friend. I want a black friend. How do I want a black friend? How do I get a black friend?
1:15:24 - Ant Pruitt
because it only works with the IOS and IOS works with white people that's just the way it is. I got my share of white friends. I have enough.
1:15:31 - Jeff Jarvis
I have enough white friends, you don't need to buy one, they come to you phone to be able to use a device.
1:15:39 - Leo Laporte
Friend is supported on IOS. What happens if I break it? Nope, no recovery. No audio transcripts are stored, so it's just you know. I probably could make this yeah right.
1:15:51 - Ant Pruitt
The question is why this device? Why why?
1:15:55 - Leo Laporte
I predict he will sell a million of them.
1:16:00 - Ant Pruitt
A million of them, Because everybody needs a friend oh my gosh no A white friend, a white friend, in a box. Oh, what a world.
1:16:12 - Leo Laporte
What a world Great show title Charger.
1:16:13 - Ant Pruitt
Great show title.
1:16:15 - Leo Laporte
I am not making this show, white friend in a box. It will be too much title. Too much time will go by before people understand it.
1:16:25 - Jeff Jarvis
The white dudes for Harris called.
1:16:27 - Leo Laporte
Did you go on that call? Did you go on that?
1:16:31 - Jeff Jarvis
Now we can talk about being white. It's alright, I forget who it was.
1:16:37 - Leo Laporte
If Ant had showed up, would they say no, you can't be here. No, no, no, it wasn't like that.
1:16:42 - Ant Pruitt
By the way, I'm sure Dax.
1:16:44 - Leo Laporte
Shepard was on that. I think there were quite a few celebrities on that right.
1:16:46 - Ant Pruitt
There were a lot of celebrities.
1:16:47 - Jeff Jarvis
We're going to read Hoffman, but somebody said, when white people start thinking about their race, bad things happen. Yeah.
1:16:54 - Leo Laporte
I was.
1:16:55 - Jeff Jarvis
That was the Daily Show that was my reflex, but I think the dudes helped.
1:17:01 - Leo Laporte
It made it ironic and the dude was there right.
1:17:05 - Jeff Jarvis
Jeffrey Bridges. Jeffrey Bridges, yeah, he started off.
1:17:13 - Leo Laporte
That was where it came from. I gotta watch this rerun Can you watch it still Is it over, oh yeah, you can watch it.
1:17:18 - Jeff Jarvis
He's on at the beginning. And then Bradley Whitford from the West Wing said this was a rainbow of beige.
1:17:27 - Leo Laporte
Everything from lily white to pale white and everything in between. Pink was there too.
1:17:33 - Ant Pruitt
That's a good line. Rainbow of beige.
1:17:36 - Jeff Jarvis
It was a very good line. Yeah, it was.
1:17:40 - Leo Laporte
Let's take a break. Then we have some serious news. I don't know if we do actually, but we'll find out. This is so nice to see you have Pruitt. He is a contributor to ZDNet, that's right. He's a photographer, he works as a model because he's beautiful and he is a creator for hire, that's right. I have a shoot tomorrow, actually a modeling shoot. Oh, you're the. How does it feel being on the other side of the camera?
1:18:07 - Ant Pruitt
I told Queen Pruitt. I said if people want to pay me to be in front of the camera, I'm all for it.
1:18:11 - Leo Laporte
If they don't want to pay me to be behind it. Was it a little uncomfortable, though, at first, when you first did it Well it.
1:18:16 - Ant Pruitt
It's been 20-something years since I've modeled, but I just yeah your boys are your models.
1:18:24 - Leo Laporte
You know you have some beautiful pictures of them.
1:18:26 - Jeff Jarvis
yeah, what are you modeling, if we may ask?
1:18:29 - Ant Pruitt
I can't say but I've done a lot of corporate stuff.
1:18:34 - Leo Laporte
Are you my black friend in these?
1:18:36 - Ant Pruitt
corporate brochures. I've even done some.
1:18:38 - Jeff Jarvis
No, he's the president and CEO.
1:18:41 - Ant Pruitt
I've done some Silicon Valley stuff as executives.
1:18:45 - Leo Laporte
You are the executive.
1:18:47 - Ant Pruitt
Yes, they don't have real executives Not to look like me. That's the problem, isn't it? I mean, if you really want to be frank, they're looking for some black executives. Actually, they're looking for good-looking black executives.
1:19:01 - Jeff Jarvis
Yeah, that too. How do they wardrobe you?
1:19:05 - Ant Pruitt
Very carefully. A lot of times it ends up being my own gear because stuff doesn't fit, stuff doesn't fit, so I bring my own stuff most of the time.
1:19:14 - Leo Laporte
And for those not watching video. It's not because he's fat folks, it's because he's ripped. No no. It's because he's bigger than Travis Kelsey.
1:19:21 - Jeff Jarvis
His forearm is bigger than Leo's thighs, that's actually literally true, and I have big thighs.
1:19:31 - Ant Pruitt
They call them thunder forearms. It's been fun.
1:19:33 - Ant Pruitt
Like. I said it's been so long.
1:19:36 - Leo Laporte
Wait a minute, though. That is blowing my mind that a company that doesn't have any black executives will import them yes yes, what are they? How do they identify you? Or you just have you in the background looking like an executive. It ain't been background. You're posing as a board member or as an as an executive of some sort.
1:19:58 - Ant Pruitt
It hasn't been background Unbelievable. Now I've done some background work but those executive jobs were not background, I was primary. That is wild or principal.
1:20:16 - Leo Laporte
But doesn't it? When somebody comes in and actually meets a real executive, they go well, you don't look anything like your picture, don't they? I mean, don't they?
1:20:20 - Jeff Jarvis
notice no, this is a Seinfeld show. This is crazy. Well, you got to discharge.
1:20:26 - Ant Pruitt
Okay, maybe I think maybe you're thinking about this the wrong way. They're a Silicon Valley company trying to market to other.
1:20:33 - Leo Laporte
Oh, you're a potential customer, right, you're not pretending, you're one of their executives no, I'm not one of theirs.
1:20:39 - Benito Gonzalez
That's what I thought.
1:20:40 - Jeff Jarvis
It was like you know, we got a problem here, Our entire board is white men, no problem, we can hire them for a day.
1:20:49 - Leo Laporte
We got some variety in this shot. Hey, it's nice to see Retcon 5 in the person in the studio. Good to see you, sir. How are you? Pretty good, he's representing all club members today in the studio. Don't you be coming down here? We are, though, going to allow people to come into the studio on August 11th, 12th sorry between 10 and noon Monday and take anything you want. But, retcon, just for you, take anything you want. Give them the bat Me first. Do you want the bat?
1:21:24 - Benito Gonzalez
$24,000 switch. No, you can't have this. We already sold that.
1:21:32 - Leo Laporte
But please go in my office and anything that's not. There's a box there of stuff I want to keep. The rest of it is up for grabs. Yeah, you can even have this Dr Evil chair, but not while I'm sitting in it, you're not taking the evil chair with you. Oh yeah, Give him this. No, I took one.
1:21:47 - Ant Pruitt
Oh, yes, please give him this.
1:21:50 - Leo Laporte
Here We've got something just for you, Retcon5. How much would you pay for this Painting of Leo Laporte?
For those of you who are not watching's psychedelic it is as if you were watching this show but you had taken an extremely large amount of acid, lsd, several and and maybe some mushrooms and mescaline on top of it, because my face is like colorful and it's a wild. Maybe it's an, a, maybe it's ai, before I got good anyway, somebody I shouldn't say this because some very nice person painted this. Oh yes, absolutely, and I really appreciate it, and we're not giving it to matt because he won't take it. Is it a high old microphone, though? That's?
1:22:38 - Jeff Jarvis
what I want ah that's a good question.
1:22:40 - Leo Laporte
You cannot take any high old microphones. Those are in short supply. What are you trying to give him? John Ashley's going around, he's just grabbing stuff. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Oh, you can give him the bad Heil. The bad Heil. Is that the bad Heil? Don't give him the good Heil, anyway, don't let me interrupt the show?
1:23:02 - Jeff Jarvis
No, of course not. This. Is there an?
1:23:03 - Leo Laporte
aftermarket for this stuff. That you're some of it. So we found lisa, found a liquid company that does liquidations oh nice, and what they do is they sell what they can and give you half. You're right then they donate what they can and give you nothing. And then they, they recycle the rest. So I think that's a good. We're going to get a penny on the dollar. We're not going to get much money.
But credit to John Slonina we bought last year. Last year we had a failure of a key element, key device. I remember that and it freaked people out and so the decision was made against my better judgment. I really I said, no, we're not doing this, but we did it to buy a second one for $24,000. I remember that, yeah, and I was like we don't need it, we're not mission critical, this is not a hospital.
I remember that If we go down, it's okay, we'll come back, but you know it was deemed for a variety of reasons that we should get this. The good news is the really good news. John, as kind of one of his final acts as studio manager, found a buyer for it for like 80% of the value. Ooh, nice. So we're going to get our money back out of that. Nice Some things. And then there's some things we're donating. John has a good friend who works at a public broadcasting public access broadcasting, right, is that what it is? It's an NPR radio station. Oh, it's an.
1:24:31 - Benito Gonzalez
NPR radio station.
1:24:32 - Leo Laporte
Good, even better, and we're going to donate some of our audio devices to him. The Axios system, cool yeah, which really belongs in a radio station. We got any more Mixpreys Guy wrote to me from. Yeah, actually, ant can have the Mixprey in my office. I'm not going to take that unless you are.
Anybody want the Mixprey. It's a really tricky situation right now because we are still here and we will be here for another week, but people are starting to take things and we're trying not to let anything from the key critical Nobody wants espresso here. You can have that. You've been wanting that coffee machine. As long as I know, there goes the camera.
1:25:17 - Ant Pruitt
John.
1:25:17 - Leo Laporte
Ashley's taking the camera off the.
1:25:19 - Ant Pruitt
Leave that alone. No. I need a little squirt bottle. John Ashley's taking the camera off the phone. Leave them alone no.
1:25:23 - Leo Laporte
I need a little squirt bottle so that when people go up to things they squirt them. Anyway, in a week you can have anything that's still here and I've kind of earmarked it, but I don't have room for everything. That's the problem. You know, what I'm leaving a lot of behind is my awards. It's like I have a lot of podcast awards.
1:25:42 - Jeff Jarvis
Yeah, I don't have my bowling trophies anymore either.
1:25:45 - Leo Laporte
It's like a bowling trophy. I don't need it. I am keeping the Emmy. I'm keeping token awards An Emmy, a Webby and the Podcaster's Hall of Fame award. I'm keeping those three. That's enough Of course Not for anybody, yeah.
1:26:00 - Jeff Jarvis
But then you have to act humble and put them in your bathroom.
1:26:04 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, yeah, you don't have an awards wall for yourself there, no, anyway, somebody did take the giant sword out of my office, which worries me a little bit. Uh-oh, is that a Burke? That may have that sword. I don't mind, I don't want it, but it's this long and I'm a little worried. I don't want Mr.
1:26:23 - Ant Pruitt
Burke to have it. You see what he does. I'm a little nervous.
1:26:29 - Leo Laporte
It's a big old sword, but the baseball bat for our 100th episode Isn't that sweet.
1:26:34 - Benito Gonzalez
That's pretty cool.
1:26:35 - Leo Laporte
See the problem. I don't want to hurt anybody's feelings, that's true. I want to keep it all and we did for many years, but I don't have the space.
1:26:47 - Ant Pruitt
There's no place for it, yeah. Unfortunately I just have a small.
1:26:50 - Jeff Jarvis
What about the gear behind you?
1:26:53 - Leo Laporte
So this gear? That's a good story. That was the one that Craig New, so he could appear in the gear that actually was double-sided in the brick house. You could see it from either side.
It's only single-sided here, so somebody took the back off. I have taken it home and it is in my house hanging on the wall and it is lit and it will be in the shot in certain shots. That's pretty cool. Oh good, yeah, and that look humble. Needle needlepoint. Somebody did john I, you'll be happy to know. I I did save. I met jammer b when he came up here. He was a long-haired hippie dude.
1:27:29 - Ant Pruitt
Look humble now he's just a short-haired. He was a long-haired.
1:27:32 - Leo Laporte
He came up and he came up and he gave me an old telephone, one of those old telephones. I still have it and I'm taking that with me yeah, you making fun of it. And John's old 128K Mac I'm taking with me. Wow, he donated that. But I only have a little attic. Right, I have a tiny little attic. Well, it's not that tiny, it's 400 square feet.
1:27:55 - Ant Pruitt
That's decent size, it's actually as big as a studio apartment 400 square feet. I could live there. That's decent size and I might.
1:28:03 - Leo Laporte
Me. If I don't do this ad right now, we'll have more with this Week in Google Ant Pruitt and Jeff Jarvis. I'm very happy that I will continue to get to do this show with you guys. Oh, I'm ecstatic. Yeah, and Ant, I personally hope to have you on. One of the things we're going to do in the attic is have many more kind of informal I'd love to talk photography with you, things like that. Sure, we'll get you on stuff like that. Just you know, our show today brought to you by and this is quite literal literally brought to you by CacheFly. We've been doing this for a long time 20.
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that's wild somebody very happy today yeah, for real found a new friend one of the guys who, uh, I think it was my second or first or second employee at Twit Dan Golden owned heycom, h-e-ycom, oh yeah, and he always said this is my retirement. Someday people would try to get from him.
1:31:28 - Benito Gonzalez
And eventually, I think he did sell it.
1:31:30 - Leo Laporte
You know who got it. Was it Livin? No, you know the folks David Hennemeyer, hanson and Jason Fried from you know they have the mail service heycom. They even mentioned it. They spent a lot of money for it. So I hope Dane got it. I think he probably got a million dollars Outstanding yeah.
1:31:52 - Ant Pruitt
Isn't that nice.
1:31:53 - Leo Laporte
That's a nice story. Hey, here's another nice story, but I don't know how seriously to take it. A federal court has ruled that in New York that border agents have to get a warrant before they search your electronic devices, whether you're American or international coming over the border, whether you're American or international coming over the border. This came about because, well, as you know, the practice has been just to take it. You go into the border and the Border Patrol has always felt like you don't have the normal, you're not in the country yet.
1:32:28 - Jeff Jarvis
Yeah, you're in our space Normal rights against unlawful search and seizure.
1:32:32 - Leo Laporte
You're not protected by the Fourth Amendment, so they just look at what you got. They did that to somebody at JFK, kirbinali Sultanov. He's a US citizen. He entered the country in 2022. His phone was taken by border agents. He was told to provide his password, which he did when officers told him he had no choice. I mean, he had a choice. He could probably spend some time in airport jail, which is even worse than airport waiting room.
Uh, sultan of later moved to suppress the evidence taken from his phone, arguing. Arguing the search violated his Fourth Amendment rights. And weirdly, because in the past, courts have upheld the rights of the CPB to do this. But your friends, the Knight First Amendment Institute of Columbia and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed an amicus brief. Uh, the judge agreed. He relied in part on the brief filed on the defendant's behalf that argued that unwarranted border searches also violate violate the first amendment on the grounds of presenting an unduly high risk of a chilling effect on press activities. That's why the knight foundation was involved. Oh, and journalists crossing the border. Hey, we don't like you and you're kind, so give me your phone and let's see what you've been up to, especially under a certain president who was a president not too long ago and could be again um the.
So the court also shares the group's concerns about the effect of warrantless searches of electronic devices at the border on other freedoms protected by the first amendment speech, religion and association. The judge said uh, the court sided with the government's argument. The device searches at the border do not require any suspicion. He agreed with that. But he also said the targets of political opposition would only need to travel once through an international airport for the government to gain unfettered access to the most quote intimate window into a person's life. That's quote comes from an earlier supreme court ruling on cell phone privacy. So the court ruled the warrantless search was unconstitutional. They concluded the government had acted in good faith at the time of the search, dismissed the motion to suppress the evidence but did rule that the CPB cannot do this.
It only affects the area governed by this federal court, which is basically New York, but that it does include JFK it's the Eastern District of New York and I presume, newark and LaGuardia. So it'll be interesting to see. The CPB says well, we're going to look at this and see what it means, but it'd be interesting to see. Imagine what they could do with your white friend. So if you say well, you know, I and I do. I said I go through, I go through the border and I never get.
1:35:42 - Ant Pruitt
They never do nothing to me and he, the person involved in this, is an american yeah, is that?
1:35:46 - Leo Laporte
what you said so, but they just prejudged, there was evidence that he might be involved in child sexual abuse or sexual abuse of material, and so they, I guess from prior information. So they had some. I don't know if it was reasonable cause, but they had some cause.
1:36:04 - Ant Pruitt
Okay.
1:36:07 - Leo Laporte
According to the CPB, you may never have been searched, but they searched more than 41,000 devices during 2023, last year 41,000. And it really is an invasion of privacy. That's the thing. That's what's changed. It's not like a pat-down. They're going into your most intimate details. Your phone has it all.
1:36:28 - Ant Pruitt
I'm pretty sure I would be in lockup, because I'm not giving out my password. That's just not happening.
1:36:33 - Leo Laporte
Oh, you don't want to go to airport. Jail baby.
1:36:36 - Ant Pruitt
That's worse than Rikers I'd have to take one for the team, I guess.
1:36:40 - Leo Laporte
You know it really would be interesting if you said no. I'm not going to do it.
1:36:43 - Ant Pruitt
My family don't even know my passwords.
1:36:47 - Leo Laporte
And now you could say you know, according to the US District Court in the Eastern district, I don't have to. That's right, that might give them pause. Yeah, um, the night. First amendment Institute says the ruling makes clear the border agents need a warrant before they can access the phone. But see, that's hard to get a warrant.
1:37:09 - Ant Pruitt
They have to hold you, You're not going to get a 20 minute warrant right.
1:37:14 - Leo Laporte
I I'm in favor of this. I think that we really do need to protect the phone. I don't want to protect child abusers, but the phone is such and it can be used against you, as the court said, even if you're just a dissident. Yeah, have you been watching the?
1:37:30 - Ant Pruitt
Olympics I've been trying, my schedule's been weird and plus it's in France and we're over here on the Pacific Coast and it's so weird trying to watch it live now, you know.
1:37:42 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, we had to watch the women's team finals at 9.15 in the morning, but that was okay, I think I watched something at 2 am.
1:37:51 - Ant Pruitt
It was worse than.
1:37:51 - Leo Laporte
Tokyo, though, remember, yeah, yeah, a great piece in the Verge by Dvorah Myers on how AI is being used in Olympic judging.
1:38:05 - Ant Pruitt
Oh gosh no.
1:38:08 - Leo Laporte
The governing body of international gymnastics has pushed for an AI-assisted aid for judges. But what justifies the tremendous expense for such a system? The World Gymnastics Championships held an answer, and it might not have anything to do with gymnastics at all. This was from Belgium at the championships. At the championships, they had cameras on the four corners of the mat where Simone Biles was doing her vault, and they were set up by Fujitsu, which has been working with the International Gymnastics Federation for seven years to create an AI gymnastics judging system. In the early days they used LiDAR. They would create 3D composites of the gymnast in action.
Now, according to the Verge, it uses an even more sophisticated system with high-def cameras to capture the motion of the athletes, make 3D models and identify whether the elements they're performing fall into the parameters established by the judging bodies. Now, that doesn't score, but it's deployed when there's an inquiry from the gymnast or the coaches or dispute within the judging panel itself. It's called the Judging Support System, jss. It can be consulted to calculate the difficulty score of an athlete's exercise. All right, now I feel better. Mostly they say it's. She says Devorah says it's used for edge cases In the case of Biles Vault in Antwerp. Okay, there was no question.
1:39:43 - Ant Pruitt
Yeah, it was like oh yeah, that was good. Yeah, that was impossible, nice yeah, but you did it Well done.
1:39:50 - Leo Laporte
You know I'd like to see the video, though. Wouldn't it be cool to see the 3D video? Yeah, the calculations.
1:39:57 - Ant Pruitt
I'm glad that this is a support system, because I was assuming they were going to just basically get rid of a judge and throw in a computer to handle that. That would be bad, I think that's horrible.
1:40:08 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, in tennis they have the Hawkeye right. That's a line calling system.
1:40:12 - Ant Pruitt
But that's for the line, but that's appropriate because that's a very hard thing to see.
1:40:15 - Jeff Jarvis
Right Binary yeah it's either in or out Right and also in the Olympics. I like how they've added in Wimbledon they added grass animation.
1:40:28 - Leo Laporte
In the.
1:40:28 - Benito Gonzalez
Olympics they added a challenge, so that like first, it's the judge's call and then if the player thinks the judge was wrong, they have a challenge. Interesting, and then they go to the computer for that.
1:40:37 - Leo Laporte
That's fair, we've seen, you know. I mean, when Instant Replay came into football, it was you know people Very controversial. Yeah, didn't like it, and it's now a big part of the game, for better or worse. Now, in baseball, you see it, it's in basketball too now.
1:40:53 - Ant Pruitt
Really, it's ruined basketball. I'll say that Because it slows you down. Basketball has already gotten too soft in my opinion, and now you're just slowing it down even more.
1:41:04 - Benito Gonzalez
You should watch Olympic ball. Watch Olympic ball.
1:41:06 - Ant Pruitt
Oh no, I haven't seen any Olympic ball yet. It's so rough. Okay good, I'll look forward to that then.
1:41:15 - Leo Laporte
I'm going to run right through that guy. You know for all we talk about how AI is unreliable and there's certain, if it's being done in conjunction with humans and you understand those limitations, I think it could be very valuable.
1:41:28 - Ant Pruitt
I'm totally fine with that Conjunction, totally fine with that.
1:41:32 - Leo Laporte
Good article in the Verge and it covers the history of all of this, the controversies of all of it and I I know I feel like it was.
1:41:41 - Benito Gonzalez
It's probably okay the way they are using it right, this implementation is no different from having multiple cameras angles yeah, exactly yeah, judges consult video replays and the new JSS system.
1:41:54 - Leo Laporte
It's unclear under which conditions the JSS rather than the video review was used, but ultimately it was always the judges. The judges made the final call. It was in response to an inquiry. That biggest complaint is the same as it is in football, basketball and baseball it slows everything down. Now we got to wait.
1:42:11 - Ant Pruitt
But football has come around. At least the masses have said well, at least they get it right.
1:42:17 - Leo Laporte
See, that's the thing, and I would think in basketball it would really be an issue. All the time you see fouls not called and then called, and it's random sometimes Maybe that's because they're not Well, that's football too, Football there's holding on every play.
1:42:36 - Ant Pruitt
There's face masking on every play. Yeah, it's so fun to watch football with Lisa.
1:42:39 - Ant Pruitt
All of the swearing.
1:42:42 - Leo Laporte
Well, there's that. I love her. She's a big one on. When it's our team, let them play Instead of calling a bunch of penalties. And then, when it's them against us, it's them. It's like what? Are you blind?
1:42:57 - Ant Pruitt
She's a fan. She is a passionate, loyal fan.
1:43:01 - Leo Laporte
She is it makes it so much more fun than just watching and not caring, which is what I used to do. Shh, don't tell her that when I sat this is Devorah again when I sat down with the Fujitsu technicians in Antwerp in a room somewhere in the bowels of the sport palais, I got to see just how precise the JSS can be. I was shown recordings of the switch ring leap, a skill that was also highlighted during the press conference the day before Notoriously tricky to perform and judge. A lot of boxes to tick. The split of the legs, the position of the back leg relative to the crown of the head, uh, the arch of the back, the head release. The judge has to be able to register all that like that. I mean, that's a that is quite skillful, yeah, uh, but that's what they're trained to do.
Well, I understand, but maybe there's a little subjectiveness in it. You know, jss looked a lot like a video replay, except the gymnast is transformed into an unclothed mannequin performing the elements. The apparatus is there, but all the trappings of the gymnasium are gone. It looks like the holodeck on Star Trek. To the side you can see key measurements, like angles, to help determine whether the gymnast met the demands of the elements. You know I hate it in football, where they have the aws, they do this though amazon. You only had 23 percent chance of catching that like that's a meaningful. Sometimes I think we go a little too far in this statistical analysis.
But amazon paid a lot of money for that package, so you better mention aws. You only had one chance of five of catching that. Anyway, I thought that was interesting and I'm sure we'll see an up close and personal on how the ais and this is only mentioned for gymnastics, correct?
1:44:42 - Ant Pruitt
right? Um, because I'm thinking about, say, diving and ice, and uh figure skating as well yeah, I think so.
1:44:49 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, you know, those are very, very, very quick events uh, eric duckman in our uh youtube chat says they had the animated robot thing in the swimming. What was that? I don't remember that. I haven't watched much yet, but I got it all on YouTube TV. I can go back. Nasa, john, sit down. Are you sitting down, john? Okay, nasa is going to shut down NASA TV on cable. Why? Because people are watching the streaming more. Nasa Plus is huge, so they're taking NASA TV off the cable. It was on DirecTV and DISH and similar services, some local cable companies, but now it'll all be NASA Plus. It's on-demand streaming service.
1:45:31 - Ant Pruitt
I would love to know their demo. Who's watching it? Do you think young people watch? That's my question. Yeah, I give Mr Rod Powell a hard time all the time about his affinity for space and I'm like dude, I don't care. I mean, his show is great.
1:45:50 - Leo Laporte
We grew up Rod's my age and Jeff's age and we grew up watching Walter Cronkite. Yeah, you know the Gemini.
1:45:59 - Jeff Jarvis
Actually I was Huntley Brinkley in my family.
1:46:01 - Leo Laporte
Oh yeah, we were Huntley Brinkley too oh okay. That was an interesting class distinction back in the day. Oh, it was Whether you watched Huntley Brinkley on NBC, Walter Cronkite on CBS or, if you're really down market, you'd watch Frank Reynolds on ABC.
1:46:17 - Jeff Jarvis
Were you Colgate or Pepsodent?
1:46:21 - Leo Laporte
Oh, we were Crest. What are you talking? Pepsodent? Oh, crest, I mean Colgate, I was Colgate. This isn't the 30s I was Colgate. Were you Mayo or Miracle Whip, miracle Whip all the way, but that was our one.
1:46:39 - Jeff Jarvis
You're so American A one concession.
1:46:41 - Ant Pruitt
I'm a southerner. It's Dukes, dukes.
1:46:44 - Leo Laporte
Come on, dukes is good. I've had Dukes, in fact, I've sought it out for that reason yes, it's good Coke, coke or Pepsi.
1:46:50 - Jeff Jarvis
He's a Coke guy.
1:46:52 - Ant Pruitt
No, no, pepsi is bigger than Black. Is Pepsi bigger than Kakalaki, bigger than the Black community, really, mm-hmm. And Pepsi knows that Atlanta is the home of Coca-Cola and Pepsi went in. I believe it was in the 90, was it 94 Olympics? When the Olympics were in?
1:47:12 - Leo Laporte
Atlanta.
1:47:12 - Ant Pruitt
Oh, I remember that they bought a lot of in there and yeah oh my, and it worked, it worked, wow.
1:47:22 - Leo Laporte
Oh, that's gerald. Gerald tompkins in our youtube says yeah, I am correct oh, it's 84 olympics 84, that's right.
1:47:30 - Ant Pruitt
Yeah, matt thank you, I knew that one uh.
1:47:35 - Leo Laporte
So, as we know, google took a u-turn on third-party cookies. Uh, saying it's not our fault, the eu made us it isn't their fault.
1:47:46 - Jeff Jarvis
Everybody was screaming get rid of cookies. They said, okay, here's one way to get rid of cookies. Then we said no, no, no. They said okay, well, here's another way, no no, no, no, no, no, no, it's too fast. No, no, no, no. They couldn't win on this one. They could not win.
1:47:57 - Ant Pruitt
Did anyone explain the fundamentals of cookies?
1:48:09 - Leo Laporte
Oh, I did last week for about an hour, Just that at least. Oh my God, I went on and on tracking cookies and that's what people are upset with and that was what Google was going to kill. The World Wide Web Consortium has expressed disappointment with Google and their decision to retain third-party cookies, saying it undermines collaborative efforts. So for five years the W3C has been working with Google to develop an alternative. Third-party cookies, they say, are not good for the web, and I kind of agree.
1:48:42 - Jeff Jarvis
Okay yeah. Yeah, and Google was going to get rid of them and they had a plan, and even Steve said it was a good plan. And then publishers and some regulators, oh, missed the.
1:48:50 - Leo Laporte
Gibson comment spent on it. Yeah, oh yeah, Steve liked Topics was the google yeah, the whole idea was your browser. It would only worked in chrome, but they were hoping other browsers would have thought this would watch what you're doing. Make a list of uh, the top, I can't remember 10 topics you were interested in like two, three years right, yeah, they've tried flock.
They've tried a bunch of things. Topics was the most recent and it was the browser did the auctioning. Which was weird, not Google or somebody in the web, but the browser, because it stayed local. It stayed local. The browser would say well, ant's really interested in Plymouths and he needs more RAM.
1:49:29 - Ant Pruitt
No, this browser needs RAM.
1:49:31 - Leo Laporte
And then it would say anybody want to buy an ad to show Ant in this category?
1:49:38 - Jeff Jarvis
Why we should instead buy a Rambler.
1:49:40 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, right, it would be. It would be somebody like that saying, no, no, dude, you want a Silverado. Anyway, the W3C took this opportunity to put an image of a cookie on their website, ai.
1:49:56 - Benito Gonzalez
Can we?
1:49:57 - Leo Laporte
stop that. Can we just stop that? Third-party cookies have got to go, says Hadley Beeman writing. That's an AI name, if ever I heard one. You think Hadley Beeman, hadley Beeman, even her picture looks a little phony. I'm sorry, hadley, I know you're a real person. Well, I don't, but I'm hoping you are Okay. This is the really bad news we're going to have. I'll save that for a moment. You're watching this week in Google. Aunt Pruitt is sitting in for Paris Martineau. This is good. This is a good thing. Thank you, ant, for being here. Thank you for having me and thank you, jeff Jarvis, the professor Meredith, can we yet say where you're going?
1:50:41 - Jeff Jarvis
Nope.
1:50:43 - Leo Laporte
Is there.
1:50:44 - Ant Pruitt
Each week is a tease, folks. Is there a time?
1:50:46 - Ant Pruitt
Bureaucracy takes time.
1:50:48 - Jeff Jarvis
Okay, there was a discussion this week of what title?
1:50:51 - Leo Laporte
Oh my God, that must be fun for you. Man this week, of what title? Oh my God, that must be fun for you. Do you get to go to?
1:50:59 - Jeff Jarvis
those? What title should we give him? Oh okay, no, no, I went for simpler.
1:51:02 - Leo Laporte
It was a little over. You wanted the simpler title. They wanted it. Lord Master, High Commander of the, the Marquesa of Journalism it was a little much.
1:51:12 - Jeff Jarvis
Or I guess, is that female the Grand was of journalism.
1:51:14 - Ant Pruitt
It was a little much, or I guess is that female Grand Marquis.
1:51:18 - Jeff Jarvis
Grand Marquis, that's a car.
1:51:23 - Leo Laporte
Does it have fine Corinthian leather?
1:51:25 - Jeff Jarvis
That's the question. I have fins Curb feelers, curb feelers.
1:51:30 - Ant Pruitt
Remember those.
1:51:32 - Leo Laporte
Remember those. You don't need curb feelers anymore. Actually, I wish I had curb feelers.
1:51:34 - Ant Pruitt
Remember those, remember those. You don't need curb feelers anymore, oh man.
1:51:34 - Leo Laporte
Actually I wish I had curb feelers, because the driveway has a curvy curb and I'm trying to back out and I can see it on the camera, but the car's going crazy, going beep, beep, beep, beep, and I know I got a little clearance and I've hit the curb a couple of times. No, I get curb feelers. I need curb feelers. Can you buy aftermarket curb feelers.
1:51:57 - Ant Pruitt
I'm sure somebody has it. Scooter X you got those too.
1:52:04 - Leo Laporte
Here's the bad news the Senate Curb feelers on Amazon. Are you serious Curb feelers on Amazon Aisle 5.
1:52:15 - Jeff Jarvis
No way. Wikipedia, though, goes to the old-fashioned curb feelers, which is fun, nice picture.
1:52:20 - Ant Pruitt
Wow, a rambler. A rambler with curb feelers Are they spelling curb K-E-R-B or C-U-R-B.
1:52:28 - Jeff Jarvis
C-U-R-B Okay $18.
1:52:30 - Leo Laporte
$18?. These are the. These are where. There it is. Oh, you know what I would kill for that car.
1:52:39 - Jeff Jarvis
Yeah, yeah, it's got the fuzzy dice.
1:52:42 - Leo Laporte
It's got American flag on its antenna. It's got this little wing. Remember those wing, oh?
1:52:49 - Jeff Jarvis
that's my that's my father smoked that way, the smoke went out.
1:52:52 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, you blew the smoke out the wing.
1:52:54 - Benito Gonzalez
That's what the wing is for, literally yeah yeah, and then the curb feelers.
1:52:59 - Leo Laporte
What do they call?
1:53:00 - Jeff Jarvis
the big white walls.
1:53:03 - Ant Pruitt
I don't know White walls.
1:53:04 - Ant Pruitt
White walls, that's all I ever know. Curb feelers Sorry for distracting. 1-800-curb-feelers-for-kids.
1:53:15 - Leo Laporte
That is the nature of this show. 1-800-kirp-feelers-for-kids Senate has passed. I am so sad, uh-oh Disgusted, in a kind of omnibus legislative vehicle that included both the Kids Online Safety Act COSA, cosa, both the kids online safety act, cosa, and the children and teens online privacy protection act, coppa 2.0, 91 to3. Only three senators opposed. One was ron wyden, which should tell you everything you need to know. If ron wyden did a guinness, I'm a guinness, yep, but then. But then Rand Paul was one of the other ones, so I don't know. Chuck Schumer, who ought to know better, called it a momentous day. The Senate keeps its promise to every parent who's lost a child because of the risks of social media. He called for the House to pass the bill as soon as they can. I'm speechless. We've fought this bill for years.
1:54:21 - Jeff Jarvis
It's awful. I don't know what the fate is going to be in the House, though.
1:54:26 - Leo Laporte
Well one of the reasons you get 91 to 3 is because it's a bipartisan thing. The right thinks social media is bad for censoring conservative voices. The left thinks social media is bad because elon and and nobody was going to vote against something to protect the children. Never did you see the alito story today on cnn.
1:54:49 - Jeff Jarvis
No, the majority was going to go against social media in the supreme court case and alito, and they pushed too much, and so the two republicans switched sides. Then alito got all mad and and stomped off in a tantrum we don't know this.
1:55:06 - Leo Laporte
This is all. That's what cnn gossip. Okay, cnn okay, so so did they. This was when they were deciding on the Texas and Florida social media laws. Yeah, okay, which they basically I don't know. I wish Kathy Gellis were here. They sort of kind of threw out Anyway, marsha Blackburn, who is one of the co-sponsors this quote man Said we should be protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture. Oh, that's the big problem we've got to protect children from.
1:55:40 - Jeff Jarvis
That's exactly what this is all about. It's a way to go after. The Democrats are being stupid because they're being used, dick Blumenthal on the other side says we're simply creating an environment that's safe by design.
1:55:53 - Leo Laporte
At its core, as I said, at its core, this bill is a product design bill. You moron, you maroon. So what are the problems with COSA? One is age verification is inherently privacy violating, for adults as well as kids, I mean. Everybody has to age verify right, because otherwise, you know, you have to prove you're not a kid. Companies all the time sell this snake oil to members of Congress and other politicians. Oh, no, oh, we could do it with heat maps, or we could tell by just the shape of your head or something, but no, they're going to need an ID.
1:56:32 - Benito Gonzalez
There's also growth plates in their kneecaps too I feel like someone sold this to them using ai right like oh yeah ai, ai is going to fix this it's just.
1:56:41 - Leo Laporte
It's such an easy thing to target, to say all our ills are because it's big tech and we could fix this if we just slap big tech around. Marcia blackburn says while there are laws that protect children from buying alcohol, buying tobacco, buying pornography, the same kinds of protections are lacking on the internet. When you look at the social media platforms, there are no guardrails, so basically there's a duty. So they're saying that social networks have a duty of care, which is a very vague is there. Is that a legal term that has some legal meaning?
1:57:21 - Jeff Jarvis
it's yes, it is and it's it's. It's part of the um. Online harms now online safety, uh act. In the uk, duty of care says you figure out what you're supposed to do and if you don't do it, your ass is a grass you must take quote reasonable measures.
1:57:36 - Leo Laporte
They don't say what reasonable measures are and how you design your product to mitigate online bullying. Look, I'm not in favor of online bullying or sexual expectation or drug promotion or eating disorders. I'm not saying this should be going on, but putting the burden on social media to figure out how to do that without just saying, well, you got to do something reasonable. It also doesn't prevent platforms from letting minors search for specific content or providing resources to mitigate the listing harms, including the listed harms, including evidence-informed information and clinical resources. One of the concerns is that if you're, you know a poor kid who's having some gender dysmorphia, not really sure what's going on, and you look for these resources, you'll be prevented now from finding somebody who can help you or talk to you. Cosa requires safeguards for kids on the internet, like preventing unknown adults from communicating with kids. Again, great idea. How do you do it? Viewing their person? It's it's. I think the problem I have with this is it's it's putting the government in place of parents. Right, this is what parents are supposed to do.
I want no part of that restricting the ability to share minors geolocation data. Letting the accounts of children opt out of personalized recommendations or at least limit recommendation categories. Platforms would need to default kids accounts to the strictest level of privacy settings. That's fine. I agree with that. I mean, there's some things in this that make sense make it easy to delete their personal data, limit the time they spend on the service. They also would require parental control tools allowing parents to view their child's privacy and account settings. Restrict their purchases, limit how much time they spend Reasonably. Coppa, which is based on the original COPPA, coppa 2.0, mostly just moves the age for the Online Privacy Act from under 13 to under 17.
So don't you know which is ridiculous 16-year-olds should not be staying up late, smoking cigarettes and talking trash. It would also ban targeted advertising to the kids covered by the bill. Oh, that's you know what? If we could just stop getting targeted ads to our kids, everything would be fine.
1:59:50 - Jeff Jarvis
Right. Well, that's the essence of what Shoshana Zuboff has done in demonizing advertising, which has been media forever.
1:59:59 - Leo Laporte
And our own, shoshana Weissman, who works for Our Street, has written some very good opinion pieces on why this is unconstitutional, cannot work, will not work and will in fact have the, and this is why it's upsetting to me the opposite effect. That's the problem, it's the. It's the opposite of what they think they're agreeing. I think there's a problem.
Now wait yeah, just wait uh, so the house does have to pass it. But even if they do, there will be court challenges. Net choice, which represents google and other online groups. Meta uh has already said they will sue and they have sued in the past. They were the. They were the party in these florida and the texas uh supreme court cases.
Uh, they argue that such a bill poses a risk to freedom of expression and will not withstand first Amendment scrutiny, although Depends on the court though, and whether Alito is bad or not, yeah it is going to, I'm sure, make its way to the Supreme Court and remember that in their recent opinion they said content, moderation and curation are a I don't know if this is good or bad are protected forms of expression.
Yes, that's good, that says that my choice of what to carry, is my expression. Yeah, so, in other words, the job that X or you know, and I don't want to protect Elon Musk in any way, form or fashion, but at the same time he is exercising his First Amendment rights to moderation and no government body should be able to tell me.
2:01:43 - Jeff Jarvis
And so do you when you moderate?
2:01:45 - Leo Laporte
Yes, I should be allowed to moderate our tech community. Right, you know, twitcommunity, our forums, twitsocial, our Mastodon. We now have many chats because we stream now to YouTube and the chat's there and Twitch the chat's there. We have our Discord chat. I would have to turn all of that off. If you know, section 530 were eliminated 230. 230. 230. I think it's three times better, but anyway, at least twice as good. Yeah, if 230 were 230.
2:02:27 - Jeff Jarvis
230. I think it's three times better, but anyway, at least twice as good. Yeah, 230 were eliminated. And gosh, do I have an obligation to check your age when you come into our chat room? Now gone, we're going to be using potty words all the time. Oh, you know what we're good on that.
2:02:34 - Leo Laporte
He gave me a usb key with featuring his voice, did you give me a variety of reads saying hey, hey. So I will have that on a button on the stream deck I would have thought john jeremy would be a yo guy yo, can you give me some yo's? No, hey is like hay is perfect, because I know that he's mad when he says that's true, it's like that's true I'm in trouble and you don't want to make jammer be mad.
Yeah uh, oh man, we're almost out of time and we've just scratched the surface. Did you see jensen huang and mark Mark Zuckerberg exchanging leather jackets which they've done twice now and they still can't find one that fits? It's amazing. I didn't see this story. Where is that? Oh boy, it's line 52, but I'm not going any farther with that one how much does the Jensen jacket cost? We determined that last week no, did we talk about it we?
did briefly who's the guy on determine that last week? No, did we talk about it? We did briefly. Who's the guy on Twitter on X who does all the fashion stuff he says you'd think these billionaires could afford to get tailored jackets. Anyway, they had a nice little conversation at SIGGRAPH, but you know nothing important.
Jensen Wong, who runs NVIDIA said, every single restaurant, every single website will probably, in the future, have these AIs, just like every and this is probably true just like every business has an email address and a website and a social media account. I think, in the future, every business is going to have an AI. And, of course, mark's response was and you're going to have a personal AI to interact with those, and I think that's a I agree you know.
2:04:21 - Jeff Jarvis
By the way, I thought it was interesting that Jensen Wong, I think in the same conversation in the last week or so he is positioning NVIDIA as a software company.
2:04:30 - Leo Laporte
Which is interesting, isn't it? Yeah, they're. They're widely used in the building of LLMs.
2:04:36 - Jeff Jarvis
And today on AI Inside, we interviewed the head of product for Qualcomm AI and I said are you a software company or a hardware company? He said we're an AI company.
2:04:51 - Ant Pruitt
I was going to ask do you think the nvidia being pushed as a software company is inaccurate, or should they just now call themselves a silicon company indicates something to me, you know well, that's, that's hardware, right, I mean what?
2:05:06 - Jeff Jarvis
what struck me about it was that it it's. I guess it said that it's the kind of Reid Hoffman software eats the world that you want to position yourself there.
2:05:17 - Leo Laporte
So Apple got a lot of hate for the ad that squashed all the things we use to create beautiful music and art and turn it into an iPad Now. Google's getting a little bit of the same for their ad their AI ad about the Olympics. Can I show this or no?
2:05:34 - Ant Pruitt
You should be able to show that. Just turn the volume down. You can show it with.
2:05:37 - Jeff Jarvis
I think it's got captions so you don't have to have the sound. All right, I'll turn the captions on.
2:05:41 - Leo Laporte
It's the voice of a dad, always been a runner, just like me, mwah, she says. I've always thought she was following in my footsteps. Hey, go get them, baby, she's been.
2:05:51 - Jeff Jarvis
Obviously we're talking about an Olympian Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone she is so the little girl is a great fan of the Olympian.
2:05:58 - Leo Laporte
Go Sydney, I love you. And, like Sydney, she's focused on her technique, but it's sure helpful that she's got an AI overview telling her everything like eat more rocks and, elmer, glue your shoes onto your feet.
2:06:15 - Jeff Jarvis
But of course it's more than that, when the daughter wanted to write a letter to sydney. Oh yeah, have ai write the letter.
2:06:21 - Leo Laporte
Why should I learn how to write when I can have my little right? Sorry, not sorry. Let's write a fan letter to sydney, just like you, uh, and of course, google has turned off. As you can see here, comments are turned off, and I'll tell you why there were people had a fit pretty negative I wish I'd seen those let me see, uh, if I can, oh you can see them on twitter and they're all over the tweets. Uh, yeah, let me see, ed, they're all over the tweets, yeah, yeah that's probably there on the tweets.
Let me look it up. The Apple iPad commercial and the Google Gemini AI commercial are different versions of the same thing. They both give the same feeling that something is very off, a sort of tone deafness to the valid concerns and fears of the majority. Both spots developed by the companies in house. That's Michael Miraflor on Twitter. I think that's probably the best way to say it. That's exactly what it is. It's just tone deaf.
2:07:25 - Benito Gonzalez
It's like you know you're scaring the hell out of people.
2:07:27 - Leo Laporte
This is not how you should be promoting these.
2:07:30 - Jeff Jarvis
But it's interesting. I I happen to be writing the typewriter chapter for my next book on the line of type and there was a similar concern about typewriters when they came, that it was going to mechanize writing, that it was inhuman and impersonal and you shouldn't use machine to write. And Sears I got this little bit from Daniel Burstyn book. For years after the typewriter, after it was in businesses all over, sears still insisted on sending handwritten letters to its customers because it didn't want to insult its customers who would think that Sears thought that they couldn't read handwriting.
2:08:06 - Leo Laporte
Interesting. Well, it is more personal. I still will handwrite notes when I can. I handwrote you to Know I think will hand write notes when I can. I hand wrote you to know I think I still hand write some notes because there is something about it that makes it extra special. You took the time to uncap a pen.
2:08:23 - Jeff Jarvis
I agree, it's the worst thing that I could do to anyone, because my handwriting is god awful.
2:08:30 - Leo Laporte
I practice it. It's illegible, I practice it. Did you do well in palmer handwriting?
no, I was terrible because I'm a lefty and the teacher was yelling and I dragged my fist through the ink and but I have learned it was actually a good practice because I did that thing, that hoffman thing, where we did a lot of journaling every day, lots of handwriting, and I learned my handwriting is not bad if I slow down, so I don't try to write it as fast as I can and think about the letters and actually I have I have better hair, so I'm able now to write letters, but it takes me, it's long, it takes an hour to write. You stick your tongue out while you do it, dear olympic athlete Olympic athlete.
I think this would be a good time for us to pause and when we come back, if you would like, Ann, I know you've probably forgotten that we do this, but I wouldn't mind to pick if you've got one.
2:09:29 - Ant Pruitt
Prepare it.
2:09:30 - Leo Laporte
I think you put something down here. Hold on Same thing for you, jeffrey. You're watching this week in Google. Paris will be back next week. Jeff will not. Oh shoot, what are?
2:09:39 - Jeff Jarvis
you doing? No, I think I will now. I will. Now I'm going to be at a journalism educators conference, so I just looked at this guy they could do it from the hotel. Okay, it ends at 3 30 so I can get to the hotel okay I would love that only because it is the last show from the studio.
2:09:52 - Leo Laporte
I know, by the way we are doing something special that only a handful of you will be able to watch. On Sunday, alex Lindsay is working with StreamVoodoo to produce a Vision Pro version of this Week in Tech. All live in studio. Wow, I know, all live in studio. You need to go to StreamVoodoo uh and sign up and get you know the beta version of their uh software. It's stream voodoocom. Join the beta right here and put the software on your vision pro and then you will. It would be like you're in here in person. You know what's so weird?
I thought, oh, because the last time we did this, alex brought in a $60,000 3D camera and I thought well, surely he's going to bring in some fancy gear. He's shooting it with an iPhone, multiple iPhones, no just one, that's all you need.
2:10:51 - Ant Pruitt
Interesting. Well, he understands that tech though.
2:10:55 - Leo Laporte
Oh, he does, that's his thing all right, we're gonna have more in just a moment. Pics of the week coming up. I will see you, I hope, on sunday, for wearing your wear your head nerd helmet, and I'll be able to see you. Actually, somebody gary Gary has to come in and wear his nerd helmet in the studio. He could, if you want. I think they told you no, but since you have a nerd helmet, anybody who owns a nerd helmet can come in. You don't need to, though. That's the beauty of it. You can watch it at home and it's as if you're here, I think. Are you yet a member of the club? Dear listener, dear viewer, I hope you are.
The club is important in a lot of ways to us. On the one hand, of course, it's financially vital to our continued survival. As advertisers and advertising dollars dwindle and, frankly, audience goes down too, we need additional revenue. So we don't have to fire people. We don't have to. We are closing down the studio, but we're hoping we can continue on with your help. We can.
But it's not just that, it's also you're joining a community, and that one of the things I think is very exciting about Twit 4.0 is we are going to focus on community, uh, and having you be part of our shows, part of what we're doing and it. If you're in the club, you'll have much easier access to all of that. Uh, so you also get we give you benefits like ad free versions of the shows. You're paying us, so we're not going to show you ads. You also get, uh, special versions of the shows that right now are in public only as audio. We have video of Hands on Macintosh, hands on Windows, untitled Linux Show, Scott Wilkinson's Home Theater, geeks, ios Today and more, so you'll be able to watch those as well as listen to them. Special events like Stacy's Book Club.
I think we're going to do more and more in the club ad hoc broadcasts, reviews. That will be something you'll have access to through our Club Twit Discord, which is where the community gets together. It's really a lot of fun. We're very proud of the community we've built here and we want you to join it. Seven bucks a month. You can pay more if you feel like it. Twittv slash Club Twit, and I thank you in advance. We really appreciate all our club members. Now, mr Ant Pruitt, what is this camera you are using to take?
2:13:23 - Ant Pruitt
pictures. I found a pic. Okay, I'm putting it in the rundown right now. I would like this.
2:13:32 - Leo Laporte
Did you see the picture of the canon support shelving for the olympics man?
2:13:38 - Ant Pruitt
all those r1s and no, all of those fifteen thousand dollar lenses, just right, oh gosh, oh it's it's uh, I'd say nerd gas Petapixel called it canon heaven Nerdgasm.
2:13:55 - Leo Laporte
Now do you get to just take one of those off the shelves? It's Canon Professional Services. Yeah, cps.
2:14:04 - Ant Pruitt
Wow that, oh my gosh. All of the people at the Olympics are just.
2:14:09 - Leo Laporte
You know why it's good for Canon, though Canon lenses are distinctive, that gray color. You see them on the sidelines of major sporting events and it's a way of saying, yeah, we kind of own these.
2:14:20 - Jeff Jarvis
So what's the deal? Is it for Canon employees, or they loan them out to journalists, or why do?
2:14:25 - Ant Pruitt
they have. It's the sports journalists out there for the Olympics, and this is perfect timing, because they just announced their latest flagship camera. They tend to do that usually around the olympics each time wow. And they announced some more lenses too, so that is your pick. No, no, no, you're on the wrong line. What line are you on, oh? What is your pick that. My pick is that old lens that you just clicked on this, this one not a new one, but a Butte, the 400 millimeter. Mine died.
2:14:59 - Leo Laporte
And.
2:14:59 - Ant Pruitt
I realized yeah that thing was old but man, I freaking loved it and I realized how much I loved it when I needed it this past weekend and the pictures came out great. But that old lens, there's still some value in it and I highly recommend people that can afford some old Canon glass and you're interested in shooting, wildlife or sports. Not that expensive Refurbished, exactly, it's $800. It's $800.
2:15:28 - Leo Laporte
Which you may say, well, that's a lot. But if the camera costs $3,000. Oh my gosh.
2:15:32 - Ant Pruitt
And this lens probably costs 10 times that yeah, the new camera is about the new lens is about 12 grand. Okay, but that right there, wow, that thing. That lens is old but man, it still looks good. And if you go to line 150, that is an image that I shot with that lens and this is you shoot a lot of sports. If you want to shoot sports or wildlife, that 400 millimeter is a freaking steal. By the way, the bokeh on that is beautiful. Yes, 5.6.
2:16:01 - Leo Laporte
F5.6. That's amazing. It's because it's so long, you're so far away. Yeah, yeah, so that's definitely my pick. That is gorgeous.
2:16:10 - Ant Pruitt
And also I want to tell folks to follow my ZDNet stuff that I'm writing over there. Oh, this is what you're reviewing. Thank you to Mr Jason Heiner. I get to have fun playing with cameras. In general, this is an old.
2:16:25 - Leo Laporte
Canon camera, because I don't necessarily— we're using the M200 in the new studio.
2:16:28 - Ant Pruitt
Is that it?
2:16:28 - Leo Laporte
That's a good one. Yeah, that's kind of a vlogging camera. You know what it's going to be. It's going to be it's going to be my over-the-shoulder shot.
2:16:34 - Ant Pruitt
It's a damn good webcam it's going to be. Does it get clean HDMI out it?
2:16:37 - Leo Laporte
has HDMI, so it's on a mic arm so I can do it like a dentist, Like I can say aim it and shoot down and stuff. It is a damn good camera.
2:16:57 - Ant Pruitt
That was, I think, Anthony Nielsen came up with, but this is basically a point-and-shoot and it's a PowerShot V10. Do they still make those this thing? But they're aiming it more towards vlogging people. I'm not a vlogger, but I like what they're doing with this, with this little kickstand here. You reviewed the ZV-1, too. I have that and I haven't done it yet. That is a vlogging. I have it at the house but I haven't opened it yet. But yes, so check me out on ZDNet. And again, thank you to Mr Jason Heiner for continuing to give me a shot and let me just write and create and play with cameras and you know. And thank you to Canon because, again, I'm not one of those big influences that wants to get the R1 to date, it it comes out. I think those are bull crap.
I should be still there, respect. I hate watching those videos and reading those reviews because you had the camera for 10 minutes. What do you really know about it?
2:17:52 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, it takes time to really appreciate a camera.
2:17:55 - Ant Pruitt
Right, so I never rush to it. And my contact at Canon they get that and I'm fine with that Nice.
2:18:03 - Leo Laporte
The wonderful, the legendary, the one and only Ant Pruitt, antpruittcom A-N-T-P-R-U-I-T-T. That's me. His socials are at antpruittcom slash social. His prints are at antpruittcom slash prints. Yep, yep. And you even have jigsaw puzzles. You sent me one.
2:18:20 - Ant Pruitt
They're too hard. I'm waiting on y'all to get that assembled man. It's too hard.
2:18:23 - Ant Pruitt
We're going to do it.
2:18:29 - Ant Pruitt
I was like I'm going to make a puzzle out of a photograph that no one should make a puzzle out of, Because it all kind of blends together.
2:18:37 - Leo Laporte
You're killing me. It's like you're trying to torture me.
2:18:40 - Ant Pruitt
For those who don't know, the puzzle is an astrophotography shot of mine, and most of the image is two-thirds. The Milky Way, yeah, oh great.
2:18:52 - Leo Laporte
Oh, that's just what I want A thousand-piece puzzle of the milky way two-thirds of the milky way, so it's beautiful, is it this?
2:19:00 - Ant Pruitt
one. No, that's not it. It's not it. You have some it's called sky fire some beautiful, there it is.
2:19:05 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, I see this, I'm getting ptsd just looking at it, that's more than two-thirds Sky.
2:19:11 - Ant Pruitt
Every piece looks the same.
2:19:15 - Leo Laporte
So you want a puzzle that you can never solve. Every piece has one white dot on it. They're going to kill you, Aunt Pruitt.
2:19:26 - Ant Pruitt
I figured Jammer B would have been all over 500 pieces.
2:19:30 - Leo Laporte
Oh, you know, I didn't even think of setting it up here. I took it home.
2:19:33 - Ant Pruitt
I figured he'd been all over it. Oh, you know, I didn't even think of setting it up here.
2:19:34 - Ant Pruitt
I took it home. I figured he'd been all over it.
2:19:35 - Leo Laporte
Oh, we could have it's not too late. Alright, we got one week in the studio. I'll bring it out. We'll try to solve it.
2:19:42 - Jeff Jarvis
Did you know that there is speed puzzling?
2:19:45 - Leo Laporte
Really, that takes the fun out of it. You should be relaxed when you're puzzling. You know a lot of these puzzle makers.
They use the same jigs to cut the puzzles, so you can put two different puzzles together that's an interesting concept yeah, because they all use the same template yeah, actually, if I look at the pieces, well, no, that's just because the way they showed the picture, your pieces are not all the same. Uh, that's cool, be fun, wouldn't that be fun? I to make a puzzle of three different images that That'd be, crazy right.
2:20:13 - Ant Pruitt
Yeah, and they're all the same jigs. I didn't know that Interesting, but thank you for the plug, sir. Thank you for everything.
2:20:23 - Leo Laporte
You're the best, mr Jeff Jarvis. What you got for us, let's see here Jeff always puts like 12 different links. We really should put them all in here.
2:20:39 - Jeff Jarvis
No, you don't want to do that. No, I find something better and I just don't think the old one's out plus it's my memory.
2:20:43 - Leo Laporte
I put things there for you know my, but I get old. Do you want a tiktok, a tech dirt? I could, I think, a large language model brat last week.
2:20:50 - Ant Pruitt
Yes, and one of my favorite accents of yours is the scottish so I think we have to have do you know about brat and you know about brat right I'm trying to, I'm trying to figure it out through you all in this pair, so no, it's uh, was it?
2:21:04 - Leo Laporte
was it cardi b who did brat?
2:21:05 - Jeff Jarvis
I forgot no, it was uh charlie, charlie xcx so is that I don't know.
2:21:11 - Leo Laporte
It's a song and it was a green album, and now it's a thing. I texted my son, you remember, during the show.
2:21:17 - Ant Pruitt
Yeah, yeah, did he answer, yeah, he did let me read you his uh his response because you only said like one word in a question mark, right?
2:21:25 - Leo Laporte
I sent, I sent uh. I said I said uh, wait, where did I say where is it? Okay, said I sent drip question mark, that was, and then brat question mark. And then he said haha, are you doing a gen z slang quiz? And I say yep, and he did say now, he's 30 now or will be in a couple weeks. Drip definitely gets thrown around in conversation unironically. Brat is like brand new. It's not even an adjective or descriptor, really it's a very vague. People just say brat summer because they love this album that came out called brat, and he was very impressed with how now remember henry, for those who don't know is a tiktok celebrity. He's got two and a half million followers for his tiktok. He calls it now asmr cooking, um, but he, uh, he was very impressed with how quickly kamala's marketing team got on that. Yeah, he got on tiktok and really and really nailed it. He and I know he's serious because he says every time I see him your social is awful Dad.
2:22:35 - Benito Gonzalez
Your social sucks, so bad.
2:22:38 - Leo Laporte
So what are you talking about? It's vertical, it's got big tags, I got MySpace. What are you saying, dad, let me do it All right. So this is a Scots talking about this is a language lesson in Brett.
2:22:56 - Jeff Jarvis
Of course your sound is not on sigh it is.
2:23:00 - Leo Laporte
Though it is, it is. I promise you. We didn't check sound Benito before we began.
2:23:06 - Benito Gonzalez
I don't hear it here yeah.
2:23:09 - Jeff Jarvis
Benito, can you play it no?
2:23:11 - Benito Gonzalez
he's trying yeah, let me get a little up on my side. Oh, forget it, it's not that good.
2:23:17 - Ant Pruitt
It's not that good. It's not worth it.
2:23:22 - Leo Laporte
I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it, I'll do it. I'll do it for you. Hello, you can't match her. You cannot match her. Hello, and a very warm welcome to my girlies, my brats and my besties. I appear to have misunderstood what the meaning of brat summer means. Please allow me to. Oh, that's coming out of the wrong hole. That's why oh, I can fix this. Wait a minute, I want to hit her, okay now we're going to do it.
2:23:51 - Ant Pruitt
Now we're going to do it. I love Scottish accents.
2:23:52 - Jeff Jarvis
See how close I was. Yeah, she's great.
2:23:56 - Leo Laporte
Now you should have it Benito, no.
2:24:01 - Jeff Jarvis
Nope, this is a technology show.
2:24:04 - Leo Laporte
I hate technology.
2:24:07 - Ant Pruitt
I'm going to vote in favor of Kosha. Just don't open the terminal, please.
2:24:12 - Leo Laporte
Let's go to the terminal.
2:24:13 - Jeff Jarvis
No, it's not my fault now it's their fault, john's going over, we can go to line 78, though this, by the way, the new audio chain in my attic is completely impenetrable to me.
2:24:31 - Leo Laporte
I have no idea how this works and it's all on me. There's not going to be a John to come over and say, well, you just fish. It's not. I have no idea what's going on. We're going to have to have many rehearsals, all right, yeah, what are there? Give me another line 78. It's a visual watch because Scott stuff will come out of the speaker pretty soon, I think. But anyway, all right, visual Visual we can handle.
2:24:58 - Jeff Jarvis
I think this is somebody tied a MIDI controller to generative AI art.
2:25:04 - Ant Pruitt
This sounds like Jason, so you can pot. Yeah, that sounds like it. This came from.
2:25:07 - Leo Laporte
AI inside the show that you do. Oh look, he's got sliders.
2:25:14 - Jeff Jarvis
Oh oh, he's got. Faders do, oh, look, they've got. They've got sliders, oh oh. So what's happening is the red brick building is becoming flowery green, but but in a range, which is cool, that is that's very cool.
2:25:27 - Leo Laporte
I wonder if you could do something like that with loop deck I bet you you could, if you knew what you were doing and you were really smart and you could write software code.
2:25:37 - Ant Pruitt
Well, I mean Loop Deck ties into a lot of different apps. Already you could make your music.
2:25:43 - Leo Laporte
Like you could have beats and AI illustrations to the beats.
2:25:47 - Ant Pruitt
No, you know, loop Deck is not a music device, right?
2:25:51 - Leo Laporte
Oh no, what is Loop?
2:25:52 - Ant Pruitt
Deck, it's an editing console.
2:25:55 - Jeff Jarvis
That was just one step from Bless your heart, bless your heart I was right, there you're right, I was right.
2:26:01 - Leo Laporte
He was right there. Well, it sounds like loops is music, right?
2:26:05 - Ant Pruitt
yeah, it's called loop deck, um, but it's an editing console. You use it for for mostly photography, but you can also edit. Oh yeah, I remember this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, they tie into a lot of different packages.
2:26:19 - Leo Laporte
So it's kind of like the Stream Deck and I wonder if my Stream Deck would work with that. I got the Stream Deck with knobs and I got the red knobs. You get your choice of colors.
2:26:28 - Benito Gonzalez
It's just MIDI control, so any MIDI control.
2:26:31 - Leo Laporte
Any MIDI. Okay, let's try the Scottish lady one more time. She's turned all the way up. She's coming out of the right hole. She says it appears the correct definition of brat is a girl who's a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. It always has been my deeply held belief that girlies deserve nothing more than the highest level of linguistic accuracy. I have skewered the Scots language to find you a word that I feel represents brah. I'm sure Clip Mumbador.
2:27:07 - Jeff Jarvis
Now you've lost the word.
2:27:09 - Leo Laporte
I don't know what the word is. Anyway, okay.
2:27:12 - Benito Gonzalez
Watch it on TikTok and enjoy.
2:27:14 - Leo Laporte
We leave it as an exercise for the listener. Thank you for the show notes. Thank you for the show notes. Mr Jeff Jarvis is the Emeritus Director of the Townite Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at the City University of New York.
2:27:34 - Jeff Jarvis
Thank you, Craig, for coming on today.
2:27:36 - Leo Laporte
That was really fun to have him on, wasn't it? That was really sweet, Indeed. Aunt Pruitt is a creator, a photographer and a model for hire. Auntpruittcom Great to see you both. Thank you, good to see you, friend, you too, sir, and I know he's not talking to me.
2:27:57 - Ant Pruitt
You too, mr Jarvis and you too, Mr. Laporte.
2:28:00 - Leo Laporte
Thank you all for being here. Thanks especially to our Club Twit members who make this show possible. Tune in next week, our last week. It'll be our very last show in the Eastside Studios as we move to the Attic Studios. It's funny because I'm moving into the Attic Studio and Mike is moving into a basement studio oh really, so that should be really intriguing. I don't know how that's going to work, but this next week we'll be able to say sadly goodbye. And, of course, don't forget Sunday, our special Vision Pro version of this Week. In Tech, we do Twig and we'll continue to do Twig every Wednesday around about 2 pm Pacific, 5 pm Eastern, 2100 UTC.
The live streams now are. There are literally seven different ways. You can watch us live If you're a club member. Watch in Discord, youtube, youtubecom, slash twit, slash live. We've turned on the chat there. We may regret it, but so far so good. Uh, twitchtv, slash twit. We've turned on the chat there. I know we're gonna regret that. Uh, we're on kick, facebook, linkedin and xcom. The weird thing is I think you can chat on. I don't really understand how xcom works. Yeah, we have 328 people supposedly watching. Yeah, you can chat in there, but nobody says anything, hello. So I'm just saying hello into the void. Maybe someday somebody will say something back. Thank you everybody for being here. We'll see you next week on this Week in Google. Bye-bye, thank you everybody for being here.
2:29:41 - Ant Pruitt
We'll see you next week on this week in google. Bye.
