This Week in Google 797 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. Paris Martineau's here. Jeff Jarvis has the week off, but hey, good news, Mikah Sargent joins us. We'll talk about Australia's social media ban. How is that going to work? Meta's private internet cable and why? Brain rot is the word of the year Strikes me as two, but hey, we'll talk about that more when TWiG comes next.
This is TWiG this week in Google, episode 797. Recorded Wednesday, december 4th 2024. Nil Coin: It's Good For Nothing. It's time for TWiG This Week in Google, the show we cover the latest news from Google, the Googleverse, the Twitterverse, the Xverse and the Inverse and the Obverse. And joining us today, paris Martineau from the weekend edition of the Information theinformation.com. That's me. Hello Paris, hello Leo, you're back from Florida.
0:01:11 - Paris Martineau
I know they let me leave, thankfully.
0:01:13 - Leo Laporte
We have video of the turkey, that is true which we will get to in the fryer.
0:01:18 - Paris Martineau
My dad has been asking do your friends online have any comments on the turkey? And I'm like just wait.
0:01:24 - Leo Laporte
You mean your grandpa's online? Yeah, friends online have any comments on the turkey? And I'm like, just wait, you mean your grandpa's online? Well, the grant one grandpa is in san francisco right now doing a speech at the commonwealth club, so he couldn't be with us. Fortunately, Mikah sargent has agreed to fill in, so it's great to see you, Mikah my old friend hi.
It's been a while tech news weekly uh and hands-on tech uh. Yes, I kind of miss doing the tech guys with you every sunday morning, but I like having my sunday mornings free, so that's nice I can go to church, temple, synagogue and the mosque.
0:01:56 - Paris Martineau
I do that all at once busy morning. It's very busy just popping into each one.
0:02:00 - Mikah Sargent
But you know how devout I am, entirely, entirely A man of many faiths.
0:02:05 - Paris Martineau
None of them strong, all of them weak.
0:02:07 - Mikah Sargent
Wow Jack of all faiths.
0:02:10 - Leo Laporte
Jack of all faiths. I like it. That's me. Wow, let's see. Should we start? Okay? So here's the question Should we start heavy or light? Should we start with the big news or the little news?
0:02:22 - Mikah Sargent
Little little. I'm actually waiting paris to blow my mind with some weird coin that has some oh, oh, we got, oh, I got a story for you with that, oh good so first of all, I have to confess I've never seen the hawk to a video well, it's pretty simple.
0:02:41 - Paris Martineau
It's a girl who says hawk, we're. Well, I don't know if I'm going to describe it.
0:02:46 - Leo Laporte
Don't describe it, because then people want to know what it means.
0:02:49 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, listen, don't search it unless you're willing it's sexual in nature?
0:02:52 - Mikah Sargent
I have not seen it either. I just thought it was somebody who was just spitting. I didn't realize that. Well, think about it.
0:02:58 - Paris Martineau
They're spitting on. That thing is what it's described as. That thing, okay thing is what it's described as um okay that that's. That's the full praise hawk. Do a spit on that thing. I'm sorry. I'm sorry for whoever has to bleep this out.
0:03:12 - Leo Laporte
I don't know what you would believe so it was a meme in the summertime, was it? Even how recently, was it? It was a while ago like this summertime.
0:03:20 - Paris Martineau
It was a while. The girl behind it has turned what was a small video clip into a huge brand. Uh has podcasts, has merch, she has a costume line all these she's actually had mark cuban on her podcast and, yeah, she had a whole halloween costume. You could be hawk to a for halloween. Now she has a cryptocurrency meme coin oh what?
0:03:45 - Mikah Sargent
Oh no, what's it called?
0:03:48 - Paris Martineau
You know that's a great question. I can't see it because there's a paywall. Yeah, I'm not going to pay for fortune just to see this.
0:03:57 - Leo Laporte
But it's on the Solana blockchain. She says it is not a cash grab.
0:04:02 - Paris Martineau
It's the. Hawk token, oh the hawk Good good.
0:04:11 - Leo Laporte
We live in such a weird world. I don't know if our forefathers and mothers could have grasped what has happened to the world.
0:04:23 - Paris Martineau
Here's a statement shared with Coindesk coin desk. She says who doesn't love a good meme? Becoming part of meme culture interested me in the world of crypto and I've learned so much along the way. Launching my own token feels like the perfect next step, not just to create something meaningful for my fans, but to also protect my community from scammers.
0:04:44 - Leo Laporte
In her distinctive Southern twang Fortune writes Welch explains she wants to change the public's view on crypto through her manager. There's the key, johnny.
0:04:54 - Paris Martineau
Forster.
0:04:56 - Leo Laporte
Oh, though her manager, johnny Forster, interceded when asked about Hawk's valuation and legal uncertainty. We don't want to break security laws, he told fortune. We would just say that we're almost like, uh, tokenizing, in a sense, haley's fan base. How do you pronounce that name, by the way? H-a-l-i-e-y I assume haley haley, welsh but it should be pronounced she's hawking crypto.
The world of meme coins seems a fitting place for Welsh fortune rights, whose TikTok video describing well, you just use your imagination garnered millions of views and vaulted her to sudden stardom. After her initial burst of fame, she stayed in the news with acts like throwing out the first pitch at a mets game and through her podcast oh now I'm just gonna kill myself, which debuted as the third most popular on spotify okay, debuted, though.
0:05:58 - Paris Martineau
Anybody can debut as a popular podcast. You gain a lot of followers at first because you're going from zero just gonna something just to retire right now.
0:06:06 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, it's sort of what velocity right.
0:06:08 - Paris Martineau
Retire on that thing.
0:06:10 - Mikah Sargent
As a fun thought exercise, I have a question for the two of you. If you were to release your own meme coin, what would your meme coin be called?
0:06:23 - Leo Laporte
I've got Twitcoin, obviously, yeah, yeah.
0:06:27 - Paris Martineau
For twits, only for twits I guess it would be something about nihilism. Maybe it could just be like nil coin that's good.
0:06:36 - Leo Laporte
I'd buy no coin. Yeah, she told fortune and the.
The line could be invest in nothing invest and it's true, you will be investing in nothing wait a minute, get jamie forster on the line. I think we, I think we've got something. I think you need to represent this young lady. She's got a future. Uh, she said other celebrities like rapper lil pump. Is there a rapper named lil pump? Yes, introduced her to crypto. She scored an invite to the crypto powered fighting league, karate combat. She used to think of, I don't know, crypto is just a scam, what I don't know, I don't. They eat crypto coins.
0:07:18 - Mikah Sargent
That's how they gain their power I got karate coin.
0:07:23 - Leo Laporte
Um, it's oh interesting. They've exploded popularity as a form of social gambling. And actually andreessen horowitz, who is invested in real crypto, says we don't like it because it's undermining the long-term vision of crypto. Wow, no, it's. Exactly what crypto is? It's bunk?
0:07:43 - Mikah Sargent
No, it's exactly what crypto is it's bunk? It's all Nilcoin.
0:07:47 - Leo Laporte
It's all Nilcoin. Oh, I love that. Invest in nothing, nilcoin, I love that.
0:07:56 - Paris Martineau
Anyway, her 15 minutes of fame has really expanded dramatically. I will say it's been astounding to me her ability to maintain some sort of relevancy despite the fact that she did literally nothing.
0:08:08 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, it's a capital. She also launched an.
0:08:11 - Paris Martineau
AI powered dating app called Buki Tools, which is a reference to another Internet meme we're not going to get into, but she.
0:08:21 - Leo Laporte
You know, I think about my son, who's, you know, all into this culture, and I think you know that's I could totally see him going. Oh yeah, that's, that's good. By the way, at least give her credit. She's got the good taste to be using a Heil PR 40 with the appropriate pop filter.
0:08:37 - Paris Martineau
So well, you know who's probably responsible for that. I believe she's part of Jake Paul's podcasting company, so you can thank the paul brother for that oh, of course she is okay nice looking hiles though that's good, all right, there you go.
0:08:53 - Leo Laporte
We did start with a light story. I can't, I don't blame her, right? You what I mean? No, get every second. You can get it.
0:09:00 - Paris Martineau
Go, you go, get it girl yes, what would your son's cryptocurrency be called Hank coin?
0:09:07 - Leo Laporte
Or Sando coin.
0:09:08 - Paris Martineau
Something like that oh Sando coin could be good yeah salt coin.
0:09:12 - Leo Laporte
Good news he acquired his lease to the Salt Hank Deli. You're going to be able to go to it in New York City later this in early 2025.
0:09:22 - Paris Martineau
Leo, get me an invite to the opening.
0:09:24 - Leo Laporte
Oh, I will. I totally will get you an invite to the opening. That is, that is a done deal. He's gonna have a little studio in the back. It's in uh, it's in my favorite part of new york city, just just near washington square park, um oh, in the village, in the grinch village.
0:09:40 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, so is he gonna. He's taking over this. Is he gonna work there?
0:09:43 - Leo Laporte
he's gonna be the executive chef yeah, he's gonna move to new york. That he gonna. He's taking over this. Is he gonna work there? He's gonna be the executive chef? Yeah, he's gonna move to new york. Yeah, that's awesome. He's taking over the um the uh play the slutty uh vegan shop oh do you know where slutty vegan is?
0:09:57 - Paris Martineau
oh, do I know where slutty vegan is. I didn't know. There was one in manhattan. There is one in brook. I forgot if we've talked about this in the show, but Slutty Vegan is an honestly fantastic vegan fast food place in New York City. But I've discovered they have one downside, which is anytime somebody walks in the door, one of the employees has to go. Another slut just walked in and then all the employees have to go. Hey, slut, and it's awful, it's terrible, it it's a nightmare every time.
0:10:26 - Leo Laporte
So it's a public good that he's taking over that spot I think maybe you should get hailey welch at the grand opening and they could say hawk to it.
0:10:34 - Mikah Sargent
Everyone walks on the door I don't know if you want to think about spitting when you're eating food, yeah, yeah, greenwich village, nice area.
0:10:44 - Leo Laporte
I love the village, uh and uh, so it's on bleaker street, just so you know, uh, and watch for it soon opening, probably mid-year next year. They gotta, you know, build it and stuff that's exciting, I know very exciting.
Here's an interesting story. Amazon is now being sued by the District of Columbia's Attorney General because they won't send prime delivery to certain zip codes Low-income zip codes. Maybe they're afraid, I don't know. They say, oh, let the Postal Service do it. Amazon deliberately and secretly stopped its fastest delivery service to the 50 000 prime subscribers in low-income zip codes in dc. That gave them slower deliveries. I wonder why if that's why my little bottle brush christmas trees aren't coming to friday I think you aren't in one of these places I am not bad zip code now, of course, this is this is the accusation right.
0:11:48 - Mikah Sargent
It's not proven right yet they'll go to.
0:11:51 - Leo Laporte
They'll go to trial exactly go to trial, for we're suing to stop this deceptive contact. Make sure district residents get what they're paying for. I'm not surprised, and I'm sure amazon wasn't doing it to discriminate, but was. Oh, we don't want to send our drivers down into the hood.
0:12:05 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, amazon said that it disagreed, that it had deceived customers and that it had told prime subscribers in those areas during each stage of the delivery process, and it said it's worked with the office of the attorney general to support crime prevention and improve safety for drivers in those areas.
0:12:23 - Leo Laporte
I can. You know I understand that, but you know it's kind of sad that they're saying, yeah, let the postal service do it, right? They're going there anyway, I guess.
0:12:31 - Mikah Sargent
At first I didn't think this was it's like well, but now I understand, because these are prime paying members they, they and yeah it is a form of redlining.
0:12:41 - Leo Laporte
It's redlining. It's saying we're not going to serve them Four dollars worth less than the other.
0:12:44 - Mikah Sargent
Exactly, yeah, in 2013,.
0:12:47 - Paris Martineau
for example, the New York Times writes the rest of the city's prime members received their packages within two days of checkout 75% of the time, but subscribers and these affected zip codes received their packages within two days only 24% of the time, according to the suit.
0:13:02 - Leo Laporte
It feels to me this is what Amazon's doing globally. I don't know about you, but every time I buy something on Amazon, I say it'll be here tomorrow, it'll be here day after tomorrow, like these little bottle brush. Christmas trees which I ordered two days ago, are now not going to come till Friday. They promised they'd be here today.
0:13:18 - Mikah Sargent
This happens again, and again, they don't do the under promisepromise over-deliver at Amazon, do they? They do the over-promise under-deliver at Amazon.
0:13:27 - Leo Laporte
Of course we've been beating them up over driving their delivery people crazy with demands. The last thing was the Amazon delivery trucks were being equipped with cameras to keep their drivers.
0:13:41 - Paris Martineau
It's worth saying delivery people in quotes, because while these people are held to all these extremely high standards by Amazon and, like you're saying, have cameras installed in there that have Amazon employees watching them, the actual drivers are not legally considered Amazon employees. They're third-party contractors hired for full-time work by Amazon so they can be paid less.
0:14:03 - Leo Laporte
Oh, they don't actually work for the company, yeah right, they don't have to give them benefits. Here's the story from September in Jalopnik, amazon drivers complained their ability to sing along with the radio is being stifled.
0:14:17 - Paris Martineau
They're God-given right to sing along with the radio.
0:14:21 - Leo Laporte
Singing. But again, Amazon has kind of a good reason they say it it's a cause of distracted driving and it causes more accidents so was it what they can't turn the volume up, or that they can't? There's a camera in the. There's always been, for the last three years, a camera in these trucks watching them. Um, now amazon says uh, amazon has never issued guidance or communications to delivery service partners. That prohibits singing in the vehicle.
0:14:50 - Paris Martineau
I can understand how this might ding them, because this camera system it's very precise. It will often. It's precise but also inaccurate in what it does. In what it does, it tries. It will sometimes ding people for having their eyes closed when really they are asian or non-white in some way, that the camera is not moving your eyes correctly. Also, in the past I've seen examples of people getting dinged for uh, potentially distracted driving when they yawned once um in the cab while driving um yeah that's it, so I could see how singing might flag the same sort of things.
0:15:30 - Leo Laporte
Somebody posted on Reddit saying yesterday was the last straw I quit after my route last night. Why At the morning safety briefing? Now, remember, these guys are contractors. Probably the briefing isn't an Amazon employee, right? So this is why Amazon can plausibly say oh well, no, we don't tell them that Somebody else does. We go through all the normal, remember to stop at stop signs, stuff. The guy the Redditor writes. Then they tell us Amazon's really trying to cut down on distracted driving so we can't be singing along to the radio because the camera will ding you. For distracted driving, we were told a lot of mouth movement will set off the camera. So keep mouth movement to a minimum mouth movement will set off the camera.
0:16:08 - Mikah Sargent
So keep mouth movement to a minimum. Probably it was programmed to see if somebody was taking a call or something while they're driving, and then it's being it's, it's not being paid close enough attention to to say to audit it and go.
0:16:17 - Leo Laporte
Oh no, this is just singing in the car, which arguably is not very amazon says look, the cameras are there, so if there is an accident we can roll back and see if they're, if the driver did something dumb but see, that's the other problem with you.
0:16:31 - Mikah Sargent
If you have a third party, then you sometimes get these rulings in place that aren't actually there, but it's because, some manager thinks that that's what they're supposed to do.
0:16:42 - Leo Laporte
Apple didn't used to have that problem, right with the companies that were making iPhones, would be, you know very hard yeah. But uh, apple would say well, hey, it's not us, they finally got all right. You've been waiting for it, you deserve it. Now, ladies and gentlemen, little drum roll, please. Paris is Little drum roll, please.
0:17:04 - Paris Martineau
Paris' dad deep frying a turkey in the driveway.
0:17:09 - Leo Laporte
Should I turn the audio on? Is your dad going to take us down for this?
0:17:14 - Paris Martineau
No, he will not.
0:17:15 - Mikah Sargent
He's thrilled, all right, this is the moment we've all been waiting for.
0:17:22 - Paris Martineau
Happy Thanksgiving to everyone across the world People are playing cornhole in the back.
0:17:31 - Leo Laporte
He knows, he has fans in?
0:17:32 - Paris Martineau
where is it Brazil? Yeah, he's got fans in Brazil.
0:17:36 - Leo Laporte
He's thrilled to who is this guy? Who's decided he wants to be on camera? Is this your grandfather?
0:17:39 - Paris Martineau
He's a local pastor that my parents play tennis with.
0:17:43 - Leo Laporte
His name's.
0:17:43 - Paris Martineau
Kim.
0:17:44 - Leo Laporte
Oh, that looks good.
0:17:46 - Paris Martineau
Right.
0:17:47 - Leo Laporte
Was it delicious? It was delicious.
0:17:50 - Paris Martineau
How long had it been in? There for 45 minutes, that's a bird.
0:17:55 - Mikah Sargent
We're going to take it and let it rest for about 10 minutes, and then we're going to carve it up.
0:17:59 - Leo Laporte
Is it greasy at all it?
0:18:00 - Mikah Sargent
looks this good, I hope it tastes better, but that's going to be very hard to do. This is a perfect work.
0:18:06 - Leo Laporte
Happy thanks. Doesn't your dad look like a movie star Mikah?
0:18:08 - Mikah Sargent
yes absolutely, he's a total movie star, ponytail and everything.
0:18:12 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, yeah, he decided to grow up about his hair during the pandemic and it's really led to an entire change in his persona.
0:18:18 - Mikah Sargent
Um well, he is rocking the person you saw the.
0:18:21 - Leo Laporte
You saw him in brazil, right being chased by fans oh there's a great video.
0:18:26 - Mikah Sargent
Yes, oh yeah yeah, no, I saw that. I.
0:18:29 - Leo Laporte
That was amazing, it's put him in a tux, give him a couple of security guys in sunglasses talking into their sleeves. I'd be, convinced he's indistinguishable from any major celebrity in the world it's true I know she posted that on blue sky. Is that your new um?
0:18:47 - Paris Martineau
I've really been enjoying blue sky. I mean, it's just been a lovely week I.
0:18:50 - Leo Laporte
There's so much more engagement I found on blue sky um inevitably they are now, because, uh, x and x is really, I think, is it fair to say xcom is is tilted slightly to the right, inevitably, as a result, post analysis has found that yes okay, so, so actual studies show, so naturally people are saying well, that means blue sky must be left-leaning in comparison, I guess yeah, uh, 10 million new users since the election.
Um, I think it's more than that by now. This story came out a couple of days ago, so it's maybe it's that's. That's roughly right. Chief operating officer rose wang says we are not anti-musk and we are not politically left-leaning. It's a us centric left-leaning. To say that it's us centric left-leaning is not correct, but we know there are a lot of brazilians in there. Uh, since when x kind of had a problem in brazil um, blue sky, I will say.
0:19:59 - Paris Martineau
I mean obviously the coo can speak to this more than I can, so some of somewhat discounted, I would say. There is one of the many feeds I subscribe to on Blue Sky which I love that I have custom feeds is one called Most Liked. That claims to just I haven't checked out the GitHub code, but it just claims to list the posts with the most likes on Blue Sky over the last 24 hours. And I will say whenever I do look at that it is almost exclusively left-leaning posts that are getting the most likes. But perhaps that is like an English-centric metric. I'm not entirely sure, but I do think there is some perception that is perhaps accurate, that a lot of the recent users joining seem to have a bit more of a left bent than a right wing.
0:20:46 - Leo Laporte
Here's the here's the real question yeah, but the real question is if you went in in there as a conservative, would you be, you know, shadow banned and and yelled at and would you be chased off the platform?
0:21:00 - Paris Martineau
I don't think so people would probably block you but it would be, you would be blocked. Yeah, they'd probably do that on twitter too, but so it's the msnbc of social networks is what you're saying that seems a little too far, in the sense that that indicates to me that all of the posts are of one uh you know political persuasion. I certainly don't think that's the case. Like we said before, there are a wide array of communities across the political and geopolitical spectrum on blue sky.
0:21:31 - Leo Laporte
It does seem like the posts that get the most numeric likes all at once are often like american left-leaning posts, um, but I don't think that those two things are like totally mutually exclusive I mean, I don't know why it even matters I mean yeah, we're not having this conversation about like parlor or gab or yeah or truth, social president's own social network which, despite the fact that it's losing money bleeding money because it has so few users, uh is valued in the billions of dollars and I mean similarly, like what we just talked about.
0:22:09 - Paris Martineau
Twitter like independent analyses of how twitter ranks posts and uh promotes posts has found that it, since musk's takeover, seems to favor uh american conservative politicians over you know more left-leaning posters, and it's also owned by a close uh advisor of the incoming republican president, so I would say that that makes it right-leaning um, do you worry?
0:22:42 - Leo Laporte
because she also said blue sky plans to launch a subscription service by the end of the year, which is only three weeks off. Um, they will charge for services like higher quality video uploads and profile customizations. I think it's probably good, because I don't. Uh, how do they make money?
0:23:02 - Mikah Sargent
otherwise, exactly, you've got to keep it going, especially if it's going to continue to grow. How do you make money? And if it's, it's the concern, of course, of the eventual inshortification that always takes place. But we're still in those early days. But, yeah, you've got to make money somehow, do they have ads.
0:23:24 - Leo Laporte
Have you seen ads? I haven't seen any ads. I haven't seen ads, no.
0:23:29 - Mikah Sargent
Well, one of the things the COO has to say hey, we're neutral, we're a neutral milk hotel because we want you all to come here. Everybody should be able to be on this platform. So it's within the COO's best interest to not try to label I'm not in a box because I want to attract as many users as possible so that I can get that daily active user count up. And, at the same time, you we saw a lot of positive response to the incoming presidency for the sake of making sure that everybody's big businesses are not targeted in any way, and I think that there's an aspect there too where it's like oh, no, no, no, don't, please don't look at us as the left-leaning social network that's not something we wanna be.
0:24:20 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, exactly Not now. Yeah, don't put us on that list. Hey, have you ever stayed at the neutral milk hotel? I personally know. I'm just curious if it's a good place, is it three star, four star?
0:24:32 - Mikah Sargent
did you say the milk hotel.
0:24:34 - Paris Martineau
Did you actually say that that's a band?
0:24:36 - Mikah Sargent
oh, okay I was hoping paris would.
0:24:40 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, I, I got it so I at first thought leo was a joke, but that's how much I got it.
0:24:46 - Leo Laporte
But no, and you should understand, Mikah, that Paris works with her two grandpas, and so a lot of this show is Paris. And now you explaining.
0:24:59 - Mikah Sargent
That's true, the little jokes.
0:25:01 - Paris Martineau
And I love that.
0:25:02 - Leo Laporte
Yeah.
0:25:03 - Paris Martineau
I've had to explain what Yossified means to Leo multiple times on this show.
0:25:07 - Leo Laporte
I'm glad that you are explaining he keeps forgetting that was Mikah's job, so he's glad to hand it off.
0:25:15 - Mikah Sargent
Although I feel like, if anybody, john Ashley is the knowledge guy when it comes to online meme culture.
0:25:24 - Leo Laporte
It depends on the meme.
0:25:26 - Mikah Sargent
I'm going I have no idea who he's talking about and he's like, yeah, that guy's pretty bad, or that gal.
0:25:33 - Leo Laporte
Have you ever heard of the rapper? What was it? Little Ropper, little Hopper, little Robber? What was his? Are we talking about Little Pump? He?
0:25:44 - Mikah Sargent
is a stain on the earth. I don't know who Lil Pump is.
0:25:48 - Leo Laporte
Don't look it up.
0:25:49 - Mikah Sargent
Don't bother, it's a terrible name Lil, followed by anything, and there is a rapper somewhere with that name.
0:25:55 - Paris Martineau
He's a SoundCloud rapper.
0:25:57 - Mikah Sargent
He's a SoundCloud rapper who is a huge I'm going to go political. He's a very huge Trump fan. Oh, all right, he's right. Leaning then he's very right leaning.
0:26:07 - Leo Laporte
He's very into crypto. Um, he's his uh. First hit was called gucci gang.
0:26:12 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, he, it's, it's it's not worth talking about.
0:26:15 - Leo Laporte
That's all I'm gonna say all right, but I now know that haktua learned about crypto from lil pump and I can't believe I said that sentence you're watching this week in google with an old guy and two young people. That's a switch used to be a young person and two old guys.
Jeff has the week off. If you are in the san francisco bay area, don't forget he's speaking tonight from his book, the web we weave at the commonwealth club and I think tickets are still available. If you go to the commonwealth club and search for jeff jarvis, go see him in person if you want, or online. They have online only tickets. Uh, this week in google continues with the big one of the big stories that we talked about a lot on sunday australia has passed a law banning everyone under 16 from social media. How is Neutral Milk Hotel or Little Pump going to get out there with the youngs if you don't have social media? Can they even enforce this?
0:27:19 - Paris Martineau
They can access YouTube Isn't that weird.
0:27:23 - Leo Laporte
Wait a minute.
0:27:24 - Paris Martineau
They ban social media, but they allow you to categorize it because they said it's can be educational.
0:27:30 - Mikah Sargent
So, okay, hold on, hold on. Does that mean that there is a team of five or six people, but I'm guessing who their sole responsibility is to go through the list of continually adding social media networks or online sites and say that one goes, that one can stay, that one goes, that one can stay. How are they deciding between what is what? Because, yes, there's a social media aspect to youtube and you could also argue that people learn a lot on tick tock. There's a lot of educational content there, of course.
0:28:03 - Leo Laporte
Why is tick tock different than youtube? Maybe because it's chinese? I don't know. Here's a lot of educational content there, of course. Why is tick tock different than youtube? Maybe because it's chinese, I don't know. Here's a funny little bit in the law. This is from the new york times. After, uh, after privacy rights came up, the law specifies users will not be forced to provide government identification, so social networks have to ban people under 16, but they can't ask for id. Good luck, I guess that this is good for yadi forced, I think it says.
0:28:36 - Paris Martineau
I'm interested to see whether or not users can't be compelled to provide id can't be compelled.
0:28:43 - Leo Laporte
Users will not be forced to provide government ID. So somehow this is really a lot of hand waving from the Australian parliament saying, well, we don't know how you're going to do it. We don't even know when platforms will be covered. The prime minister said Snapchat, tik TOK, instagram and X will be included, but YouTube and messing and messaging X messaging apps are expected to be exempt. I don't by the way.
0:29:14 - Paris Martineau
This is a Rupert Murdoch joint.
0:29:16 - Leo Laporte
This is because Rupert Murdoch's newspapers in Australia started a campaign to get this law passed, to get this law passed in the summer to protect the youngs what do you think the real reason was why?
0:29:32 - Mikah Sargent
what?
0:29:33 - Leo Laporte
well, I think rupert uh is for a long time and he certainly pursued this agenda in the wall street journal and his other newspapers. Not liked the internet because it takes away readers, readers eyeballs, yeah yeah, so they'll come, doesn't like google, because google gives you search results and then you don't ever read the wall street journal or the sun or any of his other newspapers. I think he just doesn't. He just does not like the internet.
0:29:59 - Mikah Sargent
Uh, of course it also, and uh is the case that teenagers will immediately get around it exactly because, even Because, even in the US, where Facebook and other platforms have for a long time had an age restriction, we all just put a different date of birth in in order to be on those platforms. So they'll just do that here. It doesn't really have an impact, but they get to claim that they've made a change and they've done it for the and they're making the world a better place because of it. And it's just ridiculous. It's not, especially if you're not going to enforce it at all by not requiring some sort of identification. What's really happening here other than, as you said, some hand-waving?
0:30:52 - Paris Martineau
waving. I bet what's going to happen is um instagram or meta and tiktok are going to end up using facial age verification, which they already have in place currently, like yodi, the company we spoke about last week because it doesn't require an id, but it's slightly more.
You know, it's more more accurate than just putting in your date of birth and that could have unintended consequences, because I think there should be a small differences for people who are not white and are not male, and while they're only a couple tenths of a percentage point if you trust the data from Yodi, even if that's true on a massive countrywide scale, that could have a considerable impact on the population so I'll give you two points of view quoted by the New York Times that both kind of add to this conversation.
0:31:34 - Leo Laporte
One adult said look, it's obvious. An adult with teenagers said it's obvious, this isn't gonna stop everybody, but what it is gonna do is kind of take away the magic of social media so that parents it'll change. This is a Danny El Alaki who has five children between the ages of seven and 15. We know what Danny has not been doing. Said the law would help change the norms around social and media usage so that many parents concerned about the harmful effects, who feel they have no choice but to let their children use it, won't feel that pressure. And that's probably the case. Even if it doesn't stop everybody, at least it will make it less, uh, buzzy among young people. But then they also quote a 17 year old who runs a news site in australia, leo pulisi. And uh, he says first of all that his 14 year brother will easily find a way around it. But I think this is a really good point None of the harmful content will be removed, he says. He just kicks the can down the road and throws you into the deep end at 16.
0:32:39 - Mikah Sargent
That's an interesting point too, which is sort of the argument to be made about, like sex education, for example, right, right, the abstinence teaching that is in the same, in the same vein of tell them don't do it or you'll die and see what happens. It hasn't worked. Has education exactly?
0:32:57 - Leo Laporte
you come from an area of the country where that's probably how they taught.
0:33:01 - Mikah Sargent
It was when I grew up. I don't know if that's still the same way. It definitely was for my generation, and guess who had me at 16 years old? My mother, so that stuff doesn't I know you should be pretty glad actually that they're.
0:33:18 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, I am very glad that they're pitching abstinence. Yeah, it's a good thing.
0:33:24 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, no, I um it's a really good point I mean it.
0:33:29 - Leo Laporte
You know it's like it's. It's like abstinence teaching it does. I can't don't look, don't look, don't look. Okay, now look. That's a terrible thing. Plus, it also ignores the fact that you know they're they're going off of jonathan height and other.
I I think pretty specious uh, writing saying that there's a mental health crisis among teenagers and it's all down to social media, which makes sense. I guess you know. If you don't think about it kind of well, I guess that sounds reasonable. But those kids are not necessarily isolated. For many kids that's their social. We can't judge it because it wasn't that way when we were growing up, but that's their social network, right? Are you guys young enough that you had in your teen years a social network online?
0:34:12 - Paris Martineau
I remember using facebook towards when I was older.
0:34:15 - Mikah Sargent
Uh, I guess mine would have been like myspace zenga sort of era my 32 year old daughter, abby, used neopets.
0:34:25 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, definitely neopets, but I don't know if that was a social. Yeah, it wasn't social for you how about myspace?
0:34:31 - Leo Laporte
did you create a myspace page?
0:34:32 - Mikah Sargent
and definitely, I have myspace and my friends were all there, but yeah, yeah, it's a clubhouse social media.
Yeah, yeah, I also take umbrage with the uh parent who was in who's quoted in this, because that really smacks of I don't want to talk to my kid and explain things. I just want to say, well, that's the law, kid, and I don't like that, that parenting style of trying to avoid any sort of let me have a real conversation with you and explain the possible consequences and treat you like a human being. Instead, I'll just go ah, it's the law, so we don't need to worry about it. I get the idea that there's less social pressure, but I don't like the idea of just saying, okay, well, the only reason yeah, I don't make the rules, I don't know, I don't make the rules is kind of a cop-out, in my opinion.
0:35:29 - Leo Laporte
Government made that rule. Government, by the way, says companies have a 12 months to figure it out. You can't use I can't use ID, but you'll figure it out they. They quote Julie Inman grant, who is Australia's e safety commissioner. She said I have no doubt the tech giants will find a way to comply. They've got financial resources. Technology is some of the best brain power. If they can target you for advertising, they can use the same technology and know how to identify and verify the age of a child. Is that reasonable? I think maybe that is actually.
0:36:01 - Paris Martineau
I mean, I do think it's reasonable that tech companies can reasonably estimate that most people under 18 are probably under 18 or like are under 21, at least you know like. I think that they can make broad assumptions through minor technical and privacy intrusions, as we've seen so far.
0:36:22 - Leo Laporte
What we really need is a technology, that is, that understands the emotional age of these people, whether social media is appropriate, not the physical, chronological age, but there are some people who are older than 16 who aren't emotionally ready for social media and there's some people under 16 who are Speaking of people who are perhaps a little emotionally immature.
0:36:42 - Paris Martineau
Reuters had a good point in their article on this, which said the ban could, however, strain Australia's relationship with key ally of the United States. Where ex-owner Elon Musk, a central figure in the administration of President-elect Donald Trump, said in a post this month it seemed a quote backdoor way to control access to the Internet by all Australians. End quote. I mean, I think we could certainly see Elon Musk trying to push for this to be a public policy priority of the us, to kind of well he would.
0:37:14 - Leo Laporte
He would be affected. I mean, x is one of the social networks they're talking about.
0:37:18 - Paris Martineau
He would have to figure out a way to to age I mean yes, but also how many 13 to 16 year olds are on twitter? No, they don't care, not that many. It's really snap and insta um those are the big two, I guess tiktok.
0:37:32 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, oh well, you will watch with great interest as australia tries to figure this one out yeah, I read somewhere it's been a long time, I think it may have been a new york times piece talked about how Australia is in many ways a testing bed for eventual US legislation and that at times, through the work of lobbying efforts and some other means, they can kind of let loose some of these, especially in big tech, let loose some of these laws and see how it's impacted there and use that to shape what goes on elsewhere. Um, and I've always found that fascinating, from the point that I read that on seeing what australia, uh, you know, pushes through and doesn't, and how it's it's impacted there it could be as simple as rupert murdoch using australia yeah, yeah, it's a test bed could be.
0:38:30 - Leo Laporte
Uh. So the australian social media ban this is from reuters started with a call to act by a politician's wife. Uh. The spark that ended that was when the wife of the leader of australia's second smallest state read the anxious generation there's jonathan hyatt's book, okay, and told her husband we've got to do something about this. I remember precisely the moment she said to me her husband said you've got to read this book and you've got to do something about it. He's the south austria, australia premier, peter melansauk, melanoscus.
Um, I didn't reasonably anticipate it would take on so quickly. So part of it, though, was because the rupert murdoch news corp uh, and the country's biggest newspaper publisher began an editorial campaign in may to ban children under 16 from social media, calling it their campaign Let them Be Kids. Through the middle of the year, news Corp mastheads and the parliamentary inquiry aired emotional accounts from parents whose children had taken or lost their lives as a result of bullying and body image problems tied to social media. It was a big propaganda campaign, and I feel for those parents. But but that?
0:39:53 - Paris Martineau
but they were being used by murdoch it is interesting though, because murdoch has been so vocally in favor of stuff like this in australia. Meanwhile, um in the us news corp has spent like two million dollars lobbying against cosa and similar like provisions um, oh, really have they. I didn't know that this was disclosed in a wall street journal article the other week about, um, uh, just lobbying efforts on the kids online safety bill, and I found it so fascinating. I was like wow what did they explain?
0:40:33 - Leo Laporte
that's yeah. They said no it.
0:40:36 - Paris Martineau
The only, the only line in the story is this non-tech company. They're talking about objections to cosa. Uh, non-tech companies are also objecting for reasons including concerns about determining the age of users. News Corp, which owns the Wall Street Journal, has spent about 1.9 million lobbying in the past two years on topics that included the bill. That's it Very sparse, but interesting.
0:41:00 - Leo Laporte
Well, but that's interesting. Topics related to the bill, not the bill itself.
0:41:04 - Mikah Sargent
Does that mean against it also, or does that I?
0:41:06 - Paris Martineau
mean? Why would it be? I feel like the Wall Street Journal. People probably have an accurate estimation of what News Corp is, whether they are lobbying for or against. Why would they include it in the?
0:41:17 - Mikah Sargent
non-tech companies are objecting section. That's true. That's true. I missed that part. Hmm, Hmm, See, and that's where I'm going. What's the actual motivation? What is it? Because it's not. It's not what. It's not your first thought of what it is. It's not the second thought of what it is. There's other 4D chess going on here.
0:41:34 - Paris Martineau
I mean it could be as simple, as the Australian law specifically targets social media companies. Cosa targets internet service providers generally, so it would potentially implicate or require companies like the wall street journal to make sure that its users are above 16 or something, not that I feel like many 14 year olds are reading the wall street journal and, if they do, encourage them, because that's a good thing you want your 14 year old to read the wall street journal.
0:42:05 - Leo Laporte
It's uh. What was the family? Ties was the one with michael j fox and he was. He was wear a suit and he was very serious and his parents were hippies.
0:42:16 - Paris Martineau
Uh, is this another 60s sitcom?
0:42:19 - Leo Laporte
you don't remember that show, do you?
0:42:21 - Paris Martineau
remember?
no, it's the 80s I don't, yeah, I don't know oh my god, I thought I was being young and hip and referring to that, I I, I know, I know that show referring to a young to a show that aired in before you were born in the 80s oh my god, yeah, I'm only steven elise keaton once 1960s radicals now find themselves in a reagan era america trying to raise a traditional suburban family. Son alex p keaton is an ambitious young republican and his sister, mallory mallory, is a shallow victim of the corporate culture and I'm pretty sure alex p keaton read the wall street journal.
0:43:02 - Leo Laporte
I'm pretty sure he did all right. You're watching, uh, the old guy and two young people on this week.
0:43:12 - Paris Martineau
Oh how the turntable yeah I feel like.
0:43:15 - Leo Laporte
I now understand how you feel being in Paris being like that was a reference.
0:43:20 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, was it. That was a reference to the office.
0:43:23 - Leo Laporte
Oh, how the turntables? Yeah, did Michael Scott say that I bet?
0:43:28 - Mikah Sargent
he did.
0:43:28 - Leo Laporte
Good.
0:43:28 - Paris Martineau
Very good oh how the turntables.
0:43:30 - Leo Laporte
That's good we're proud of you you know, Mikah used to do an office podcast.
0:43:33 - Mikah Sargent
I did yeah, yeah, it was called.
0:43:38 - Leo Laporte
Somehow I manage that's just a great name for a show that is a wonderful name. I might steal that from office podcast, dnd podcast.
0:43:46 - Paris Martineau
What can't you podcast about? Does it all.
0:43:48 - Mikah Sargent
I did a podcast on sleep science and dreams at one point, called Lucid, you can do it all. That's a good name.
0:43:58 - Leo Laporte
This is completely parenthetical, but I have for years, not been able to sleep through the night. I'd wake up and buy stuff on Instagram, as you know, as you well know.
0:44:06 - Paris Martineau
That's probably the Ambien you take.
0:44:09 - Leo Laporte
I don't take anything to go to sleep at all. Uh, I just have a hard time uh falling back asleep. If I wake up, and it's usually around three or four in the morning, but it's over the last two weeks. It stopped and I started taking a magnesium supplement. I wonder if it's that I was gonna.
0:44:24 - Mikah Sargent
I was go wow, that's wild. I was literally going to suggest if you're weird about melatonin or anything else, try magnesium. I'm so glad you're doing that. Yeah, it makes me wonder if, in the middle of the night, what's happening while you're still asleep has to do with some form of restless muscles or even aches in the body that are waking you up, and magnesium helps to calm your muscles down and if you want to get that, supplement listeners go to Infowarscom.
0:44:53 - Leo Laporte
Well, wait a minute, I'm going to get even more detail, because it's got some name like brain magnesium, because it is a form. Magnesium can come in a variety of forms, and this one is designed to pass through the blood-brain barrier. Oh, brain magnesium. It's brain magnesium In fact. Let me just pull it up so you can see it. I'm looking for it now on my it's called Neuromag.
0:45:24 - Mikah Sargent
Neuromag L-threonate magnesium Magnesium L-threonate, magnesium Magnesium L-threonate. They attach it to some sort of what is it Second generation or first generation antihistamine, so that it'll actually cross the blood-brain barrier.
0:45:38 - Paris Martineau
Wow.
0:45:39 - Leo Laporte
Here's the problem. I started reading the supplements subreddit.
0:45:44 - Paris Martineau
Don't do that I don't know, but now it's working.
0:45:49 - Leo Laporte
What's weird is, and I didn't associate the two. It wasn't like I thought oh, now I'll sleep well, but I realized that that's the timing.
0:45:57 - Mikah Sargent
And I have heard that magnesium is helpful in sleep. Yep, you were biphasic before and now you're back to-.
0:46:04 - Paris Martineau
Now you're sleeping through the night.
0:46:06 - Leo Laporte
I literally sleep like a little baby. I slept through the night two things.
0:46:12 - Paris Martineau
One, that's great people should use supplements if they feel like it's good. But also, everyone be aware that supplements could contain anything. They're not regulated by the fda. Three, when I was at right as I was about to film my dad taking the turkey out of that pot in our driveway, I was really tired, I realized later because I had been drinking on the non-drinking antibiotics. That's beside the point. I was really tired. I was like man, I'm so tired. And my dad was like, oh, have you tried Joe Rogan's NeuroGum? No, and I was like, oh, were you being trolled? No, no. And I thought. And I was like, well, one in Florida, I guess. And so I did try. It's not by Joe Rogan, I guess. He just promoted it once. I wouldn't recommend it. It didn't really do anything for me, but I thought that's where you're going when you said neuro-something. Oh God.
0:47:03 - Leo Laporte
Neuro-gum.
0:47:04 - Paris Martineau
It didn't taste good and it didn't really make me that much more awake, but I just the phrase. Have you tried joe rogan's neuro?
0:47:11 - Leo Laporte
does your dad chew it? Yes, oh have you tried joe rogan's neuro gum?
0:47:19 - Paris Martineau
I was like you know I haven't, but oh yeah this is the future of gum and mints you know, you may have wondered you may have wondered what is the?
0:47:28 - Mikah Sargent
future of gum. I've always wondered what the future of gum and mints is.
0:47:34 - Leo Laporte
There's a science to the science, there you go. That's a phrase that really encourages you Wait?
0:47:39 - Mikah Sargent
are you kidding me? There's a science to the science.
0:47:44 - Leo Laporte
And you know what?
0:47:45 - Mikah Sargent
the science is.
0:47:46 - Leo Laporte
We've gone through dozens of formulations, processes and tests to ensure each gum and mint we make delivers on the promise of getting you in the right state at the right time. Trademark.
0:47:56 - Mikah Sargent
Which one did you have? Energy and Focus, Sleep and Recharge, or Calm and Clarity?
0:48:00 - Paris Martineau
I think Energy and Focus. It had caffeine. I looked it had caffeine in it. It was caffeine.
0:48:04 - Leo Laporte
This guy's been chewing it so long he stopped wearing clothing. This guy's been chewing it so long he stopped wearing clothing, so that's impressive.
0:48:11 - Paris Martineau
It warms him up too much.
0:48:16 - Leo Laporte
Joe Rogan endorsed it for energy and focus Well, okay. I might as well reveal that, now that we don't have ads anymore, I am going to start selling gum and mints. Gum and mints, no, no.
0:48:29 - Mikah Sargent
I love the idea that you reach into the package and you don't know if you're going to pull out gum or mint.
0:48:33 - Leo Laporte
Is it a gum? Is it a mint? I know. Should I chew it, should I suck it?
0:48:35 - Paris Martineau
No, the thing is, Mikah, I did that. I reached in and I pulled out what looks like a mint. It's like one of those big circular like white flat things, and I was white flat things and I was like, oh, I guess this isn't a gum, it's a mint.
0:48:53 - Leo Laporte
But no, it was, it was it was. No, it was it was gum, it was gum masquerading as a reading, as a mint, yes, okay. So I think we should probably say at this point, as you started to do not listen to us, yeah, do not buy this crap I will say I had it, wouldn't recommend it.
0:49:08 - Paris Martineau
I mean it was fun for a moment to just live in the uncertainty of will this do anything for me?
0:49:15 - Leo Laporte
it didn't we haven't used science in our science um there's science, as you point out you're really. Uh, you're right when you say the fda does not regulate supplements.
0:49:26 - Paris Martineau
It's exempt yeah, there could be anything in there, especially if you're buying them from Amazon. Leo, there could be anything in there. I don't buy even like toiletries from Amazon, because there could be anything in there.
0:49:36 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, paris makes her magnesium herself. I could be sleeping so well because it has heroin in it. It could just be it's got a new. It's made from poppies, microdosing poppy seeds, seeds, we don't know. Yeah, we don't know feeling something but where did?
0:49:52 - Mikah Sargent
where do we draw the line? We got to trust somewhere, people, well, that's actually the question of the era and facts.
0:49:59 - Paris Martineau
All a myth.
0:50:00 - Leo Laporte
The human language made up but don't you think that you have to at some point, as an adult kind of, make a decision about what sources to trust and what sources?
0:50:11 - Mikah Sargent
not to trust. Yes, this gets frustrating for me talking to other people. It frustrates me talking to other people no, talking to other people, who will just decide that they don't trust anything unless they've discovered it or figured it out themselves. But the problem with that is they then won't go discover it or figure it out themselves, so they just are left not trusting and believing in anything. And so it's like science is out the window. Research studies are out the window. Well, they could have lied about this, because one time I was part of this thing where we were supposed to be collecting data and all of the data was fudged. So obviously all data must be fudged across everything.
0:50:55 - Leo Laporte
Well, it might be, it's true. Eric Duckman in our YouTube chat says he trusts Mayo Clinic, webmd and maybe Healthline. Those all have been, in the past, reasonably trustworthy sources of medical information, right.
0:51:10 - Mikah Sargent
I think it's about how of medical information right. I think it's about how you use those right, because WebMD can very easily tell you you've got a brain tumor when you don't, depending on what symptoms you pop into it. And so it's about what you do when you're using them, and for me, I tend to. If it's an article from one of these sites, I will look at the person who wrote this article and at least do a little bit of clicking and searching, due diligence, to kind of try to find where they came from and if they've got their hand in the cookie jar of big sugar, whatever it happens to be, whenever it's a story about sugar replacements.
But yeah, I trust you actually of big sugar, whatever it happens to be, whenever it's a story about you know sugar replacements, but, yeah, you pay.
0:51:57 - Leo Laporte
I trust you actually. Yeah, I am one person you listen to. I listen to you because you do look into all this stuff, but I think increasingly it's difficult for us all of us to know who to trust. You know the minute private equity buys webmd, or uh, or you know the mayo clinic starts using ai to generate its articles and you know that both things could happen, and then all bets are off then we have to.
Just I don't know what we do at that point this brings me to our word of the year, ladies and gentlemen, which is brain rot which is not, I guess.
0:52:30 - Mikah Sargent
I guess it counts as a compound word yeah, it's not a word.
0:52:33 - Leo Laporte
First of all, oxford university press it's two words.
0:52:38 - Mikah Sargent
Those should be phrase of the year, right, yeah, uh, I mean I would argue that brain rot should be spelled without yeah just a space.
0:52:45 - Leo Laporte
Oh, it's one word brain rot brain rot they call it. It's the phrase or word of the year. It's a term that captures the concerns about the impact of consuming excessive amounts of low quality online content, especially social media.
0:53:03 - Mikah Sargent
The usage podcast brain rot, how dare you?
0:53:07 - Leo Laporte
this is from the bbc. The usage saw an increase. The usage of the term brain rot saw an increase of 230 in the last year. Uh, it's a symptom of the times we're living in, says a psychologist in oxford university. Professor, brain rot beat five other phrases. Uh, on the dictionary publisher's shortlist including are you ready for this? You're gonna have to explain it to me. Demure, oh god, very mindful that's very mindful yeah, demure and mindful.
That's the tiktok meme that they're suing somebody's suing somebody else over stealing well, that's the clean girl lifestyle suit, oh that's the clean girl lifestyle.
0:53:42 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, romanticy I've never heard that actually Romantasy is romantic fantasy novels, it's big on book talk. It's a subgenre.
0:53:52 - Leo Laporte
Okay, is it a commonly used phrase?
0:53:56 - Paris Martineau
I've heard it actually a lot in the last six months.
0:53:59 - Leo Laporte
Dynamic pricing? I've heard that one. What is that?
0:54:02 - Paris Martineau
That's clearly two words.
0:54:04 - Mikah Sargent
It's not even close to one word Price changing. Dynamic pricing is just a price changing.
0:54:10 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, it's the flip side of surge pricing, right, it's just the pricing changes depending on demand.
0:54:17 - Mikah Sargent
Okay so.
0:54:19 - Paris Martineau
I don't like that. That was included Anyway, they crossed those off.
0:54:23 - Leo Laporte
Brain rot is the winner. Defined as the supposed deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material considered to be trivial or unchallenging like this show. Henry david thoreau actually included the phrase in walden in 1854 wow, they were worried about brain rot.
0:54:47 - Mikah Sargent
Even back then he wrote although it was very real back then.
0:54:51 - Leo Laporte
For England endeavors to cure the potato rot will not any endeavor to cure the brain rot which prevails so much more widely and fatally.
0:55:02 - Mikah Sargent
I still think that he could have been talking about a disease.
0:55:04 - Leo Laporte
It could be actual brain rot. Is what you're saying? Some sort of amoeba it?
0:55:07 - Mikah Sargent
could be actual brain rot?
0:55:09 - Leo Laporte
is what you're saying, some sort of amoeba? There is no evidence of brain rot actually being a thing, says the same professor. Instead, it describes our dissatisfaction with the online world. Oh, it's a meta world.
0:55:20 - Mikah Sargent
That's true, because it is. It's people complaining about the things they don't like online.
0:55:32 - Leo Laporte
It's a word we can use to bundle our anxieties that we have around social media.
0:55:33 - Paris Martineau
That psychologist, knoxville university professor andrew prisbilsky prisbilsky, uh, yeah, the other two words on the short list were lore and slop, which I both think are good. Those are good words. I feel like. Has a bing? Has it been a big one this year? Slop as in like l-o-r-e lore yeah, but but used in like the sense of I've got lore or let's like yeah and talk about our lawyer like your background history anything. I kind of just as a shorthand for a lot of information.
0:56:09 - Leo Laporte
So last year's word was Riz. I hate that.
0:56:13 - Paris Martineau
I do remember having to explain that to you guys.
0:56:16 - Leo Laporte
You explained Rizing up and all of that stuff and I'm glad you did, because I've been seeing it a lot in TV ads.
0:56:20 - Paris Martineau
I showed you the Baby Gronk Livvy Riz video, which still, to this day, means nothing. That's brain rot.
0:56:30 - Mikah Sargent
That is total brain rot.
0:56:31 - Leo Laporte
That's funny. It's because Riz and brain rot kind of go hand in hand, don't they yeah? Demure dynamic pricing lore, a body of supposed facts. Lore is a real word, okay.
0:56:42 - Paris Martineau
Romantasy not.
0:56:44 - Leo Laporte
What is slop?
0:56:46 - Paris Martineau
AI slop.
0:56:47 - Leo Laporte
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
0:56:49 - Paris Martineau
Art writing or other content generated using AI.
0:56:52 - Leo Laporte
Okay, but low-quality stuff. This is from the Oxford University Press, who publish the OED, which is widely considered the definitive. I have the long big one.
0:57:06 - Paris Martineau
Oed is fantastic. Honestly, online is is phenomenal too. You can look up the etymology of words, yeah.
0:57:12 - Leo Laporte
Crazy. Yeah, that's what I have. The 25 volume set on my, my, my library. Manifest was the winner last year, last month, according to Cambridge manifest, manifest, cambridge dictionary.
0:57:26 - Mikah Sargent
It just means, yeah, it's like not manifest, like a plain manifest. But to bring something about, you're saying, oh, I am manifesting happiness.
0:57:33 - Paris Martineau
This year I'm manifesting more advertisers for next week.
0:57:37 - Leo Laporte
Yes, Dua Lipa manifested her performance at Glastonbury.
0:57:42 - Paris Martineau
No, that would be a more traditional use of the word.
0:57:46 - Mikah Sargent
I'd say you could say she manifested a great performance, I guess yeah, a little bit more yeah, or like uh manifested, uh rave reviews of her.
0:57:58 - Leo Laporte
They say manifested her headline slot at glastonbury as an example. Well, I they're wrong, they're wrong, okay. Collins in english dictionary last month said the word of the year was brat. Oh, I think brad, I mean okay, album wait last month yeah, they announced that in november that brat was the word of the year I don't.
0:58:19 - Mikah Sargent
Is this a different dictionary?
0:58:21 - Leo Laporte
yeah, collins, these are all the other.
0:58:23 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, these are for the for the year. That's wrong. Brat was the word of the summer, summer, brat summer. But it is not a year.
0:58:31 - Leo Laporte
And once Kamala Harris lost the election. I know everybody denies any knowledge of the word Brat. It's over, sorry.
0:58:39 - Mikah Sargent
Charlie, we actually started pronouncing it Brat Brat, short for.
0:58:43 - Leo Laporte
Bratwurst. Yeah, Demure took off after content creator Jules LeBron posted on TikTok about her demure work outfit and mindful makeup Very demure.
0:58:53 - Paris Martineau
Very mindful, very demure.
0:58:58 - Leo Laporte
There you go, ladies and gentlemen, the latest in etymology. What is the study of words? Etymology is a study of words. Dictology, dictology the latest in dictology on this week in google.
0:59:16 - Mikah Sargent
I like dictology.
0:59:18 - Leo Laporte
I have one thing to say to that very good, very good, very good very much thank you running away from the podcast lexicology no brain rot here, not dictology.
0:59:33 - Mikah Sargent
I have so much brain rot listening to you all talk about all this.
0:59:37 - Leo Laporte
We have created brain rot.
0:59:39 - Mikah Sargent
I'm manifesting that as the word of the year next year dictology, Dictology.
0:59:45 - Leo Laporte
Could we I mean, if we, you know really created a campaign.
0:59:48 - Paris Martineau
Could we?
0:59:48 - Leo Laporte
create a word of the year? No, because the people even who create it don't have any control over it. It just kind of becomes a life of itself, right, Like demure and so forth. Yeah, and does anyone yet know how to make something go viral?
1:00:04 - Mikah Sargent
Right, I don't know that it's possible. I mean they come close. There are some who work their formulas. Mr Beast tries really hard, but I don't know that it's possible. I mean they come close. There are some who you know work their formulas. Mr Beast tries really hard, but I don't know if that, but part of that is just building on what fan base you already have right, and so it's different from just coming up out of nothing and suddenly Demure Mindful is on the waves. Yeah.
1:00:26 - Leo Laporte
All right, You're watching this Week in Dictology. It's WID. It's a new show. It's very exciting this week in Google.
1:00:34 - Mikah Sargent
Mikah.
1:00:34 - Leo Laporte
Sargent filling in for Jeff Jarvis. Great to have you, Mikah. Thank you. He's the host of Tech News, Weekly Hands-On Technology. When's the next crafting corner coming?
1:00:42 - Mikah Sargent
up. That will be December 19th. We're doing a special early episode because I heard from some European folks who said please let me tune in. So 9 am on Thursday, december 19th, you'll all be able to join me for Crafting Corner and we'll continue working on Jason's Kitchen, which is the name of the little wow I'm breaking it apart little miniature that we're building together. Oh jeez.
1:01:06 - Leo Laporte
So you're not doing crew work now You're building a miniature kitchen.
1:01:11 - Mikah Sargent
Oh, that's one that I made. It is plugged in so I can't really bring it over, but it's a coffee shop.
1:01:18 - Leo Laporte
Yes, it's got little lights in it. Do you play lo-fi music out of it?
1:01:21 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, exactly Lo-fi coffee shop music. I ended up so, basically, I was building it, for I was building one Jason's kitchen for Crafting Corner, and I was enjoying it so much that I said I just want to get one to do on my own time. And I ended up getting sick and so while I was not feeling well, I just sat there at the kitchen counter like wrapped in a blanket building for hours.
1:01:44 - Leo Laporte
I had so much fun. It was great Perfect.
1:01:46 - Mikah Sargent
That's lovely I've been staying up late doing a advent of code, coding challenges and common lists and you're doing it in on stage, that's in real time, yeah, with real people watching me make stupid mistakes that this is your practice for finally just saying I'm gonna do jeopardy, isn't it? Oh god, no, if you can do this, then you could not do jeopardy.
1:02:07 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, jason snell, by the way, we need to.
1:02:10 - Paris Martineau
Uh, finally do our baldur's gate three. Uh, yes, and now john ashley says we're going to do a marathon.
1:02:18 - Leo Laporte
Uh network, uh marathon. Okay, hold on. You said. Well, you backed it up immediately.
1:02:25 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, I didn't say, I didn't actually.
1:02:30 - Leo Laporte
What is?
1:02:30 - Mikah Sargent
marathon, though, because I well, it's a very old game Predates you.
1:02:35 - Leo Laporte
It was big in the mid-90s. It was the folks who did that.
1:02:38 - Mikah Sargent
No it does not predate me the folks who did that it came out in 94.
1:02:43 - Leo Laporte
Okay, well, that's about when it came out in 92 oh, okay, so you were two years old when you played marathon exactly it does predate me yeah, it does predate her.
Uh, it was the folks who did it were bungie, who eventually were acquired by microsoft. Did halo? Oh, okay, halo really was the descendant of marathon and was one of the first uh multiplayer online games. You could do it at a land party kind of thing, and we used to do it on uh the site on msnbc back when I was working when you were dev null when I yes, very good, and it turns out, carsten bondy, who was part of the dev null team and a producer at the show, told me much later.
He said yeah, we all hated you, and so we, we all decided to gang up on you in Halo or a marathon and frag you with the rocket launchers.
1:03:32 - Mikah Sargent
Wow, what did you do? Were you just annoying because you were Dev Null?
1:03:37 - Leo Laporte
I guess I was annoying. Yeah, I don't know, I mean Dev.
1:03:39 - Paris Martineau
Null did seem like a tough gig.
1:03:44 - Mikah Sargent
You wouldn't offer Dev Null any of your drugs if you had them.
1:03:48 - Paris Martineau
No, give me some magnesium now.
1:03:52 - Mikah Sargent
You're not hanging out with us.
1:03:53 - Leo Laporte
I will do. I think I'm going to do some Valheim too. I think it's just. You know, it's a very easy thing for me to do is to, when I'm I'm doing this anyway, turn on the camera and chat with people. The coding has been a lot of fun Been really, really rewarding for me. I really enjoy it. Also here, paris Martineau, that's, by the way. That's my kind of crafting, paris. What do you have? A craft that you do? You?
1:04:17 - Paris Martineau
besides pruning trees, not right now, I'm kind of craftless. I've been doing some painting, oh, that's neat. Kind of fun. Yeah, you seem like a knitter. I know I do, but I'm not.
1:04:30 - Leo Laporte
I wish I was.
1:04:31 - Paris Martineau
I would like to specifically be an embroiderer, because I make a lot of very silly hats and if I knew how to embroider then I could cut out the middleman for making my gimmick hats what's your latest hat. What is my latest?
1:04:44 - Leo Laporte
hat. Do you wear one to Thanksgiving?
1:04:48 - Paris Martineau
One of the latest ones I got. I got a strange joke embroidered on a baby onesie for my friend.
1:04:57 - Mikah Sargent
I'm glad you finished that.
1:04:58 - Leo Laporte
I'm thinking brain rot on a hat would actually be pretty good.
1:05:02 - Paris Martineau
Brain rot would be good, brain rot on a hat would be kind of good, I think also gum and mints would be good. Gum, and mints Very demure.
1:05:10 - Leo Laporte
Very mindful mints would be good. Go mint mints Very demure.
1:05:12 - Paris Martineau
very mindful the thing is once you start thinking of things that would be good hat ideas you just have too many good hat ideas.
1:05:17 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, you're right, we do need to learn to embroider. We can all work on it while we're podcasting.
1:05:22 - Leo Laporte
This is. This Week in Google.
1:05:27 - Paris Martineau
This Week in Gum and Mints. Gum and Mints.
1:05:31 - Leo Laporte
That could be TWiGgy, TWiGgy, TWiGgy. Somebody said you can't have twit, it's already reserved for this weekend.
1:05:36 - Mikah Sargent
Donuts, oh that's right donuts donuts.
1:05:43 - Leo Laporte
So um, big shock earlier this week when intel's ceo I'm going to put this in air quotes retired Pat Gelsinger, who had been hired just a few years ago to turn the ailing chip maker around, announced that he was retiring effective immediately. In other words, the board fired him early Monday. Fired him early Monday. The board brought him in to try to save the company. Pat Gelsinger's plan with Intel was to kind of focus on two different businesses Instead of being an integrated chip maker that both designed and built his chips. Separate out the design and foundry business, build chips for other people. He said at one point we want to build Apple's chips, we want to build everybody's chips.
Intel did in fact get almost $ billion dollars in funding from the chips act to build those fabs in the united states, but their stock has been very weak over the past year. Their profits have been down and just a few months ago they were delisted from the dow, replaced by nvidia, and that's one of those kinds of things the board doesn't like at all. So gelsinger is out uh, clearly fired because they didn't have an immediate replacement. There was nobody groomed to take over. Really, uh, sad to see this dominant. What was in my time in my day. A dominant chip chip maker on its back foot.
1:07:12 - Mikah Sargent
How long do you think the company has recognized that it was on its back foot? Do you think it was caught off guard by its own, do you?
1:07:25 - Leo Laporte
think it knew the writing was on the wall. I think it's the innovator's dilemma where you're so successful in a certain area, it's very hard for you to start over. They realized early on that mobile processors low power, low heat, mobile processors were the future. They created something called X-Scale didn't take off as an ARM-based mobile processor didn't take off. They've been so successful with their x86 chips that it's been hard for them to to to turn the corner. Uh, in fact it was interesting. There was a.
The autobiography of the guy who founded tsmc, the taiwanese chip maker who's been eating intel's lunch, came out a couple of days ago and in it one of the things he said is I met with tim cook as early as 2011. Apple came to TSMC and said can we help you develop chips for our phones and our computers? So as early as 2011, 13 years ago, apple said the writing's on the wall. Intel's not going to deliver what we need to move forward. We're going to have to do it ourselves. They started the conversation with TSMC and kind of in some ways it's self-fulfilling prophecy, because they also poured so much money into TSMC to develop new technologies, like EUV, to develop these chips. They, in effect, gave them a head start. They kind of pushed them forward and Intel, as a result, has really suffered. It's a sad end to a company that, uh, you know, for many, many years was synonymous with computing is it still in the, the computer builder space?
1:09:04 - Mikah Sargent
I mean, do you have anyone else you can turn? Yeah, there's amd.
1:09:08 - Leo Laporte
But amd is, you know, also x86 and it's it's a. It's a fraction of the size of Intel. I think the writing on the wall. With Apple's success with its M series chips and now Microsoft really pushing its Qualcomm chips, its ARM-based chips. In fact I don't know if you've seen the ads this past week Microsoft's pushing their Copilot Pus, pcsuss, pcs based on snapdragon, not intel, saying they're the smartest, fastest computers they've ever made. It's a real kind of kick in the pants to intel. Um gelsinger said leading intel has been the honor of my lifetime. This group of people is among the best and the brightest in the business. I'm honored to call each and every one a colleague. And now I'm going to take my little cardboard box and go home. He's 63. It's a little early to retire, but I bet you he's a little relieved.
1:09:58 - Paris Martineau
I'm sure he's getting a golden parachute.
1:10:00 - Leo Laporte
Probably. He certainly made some money, but it really is kind of a we were talking about this on Windows Weekly. It's like when Yahoo brought in Marissa Meyer to save the company. There's a point beyond which you can't save a company, right? Nobody's magical enough to turn a company around, and I think it's not Pat Gelsinger's fault. He's been at Intel forever. He studied under Andy Grove, intel's legendary CEO. He was a chip engineer himself, so he knew the technology. He just could not make it work. So yeah, lava being says in our discord, me and my boatload of money are going to take some time to plan our future.
They always say spend more time with our family right it's got to be, you know, a little bit of a relief when things like that happen. You know it's just I've been pushing and pushing and we're just not making any progress. It's getting worse and worse. And you go into the meeting and they say you know, pat, we appreciate everything you've done, but this is your last day here. We're going to put out a press release that you're retiring. It's got to be, at first, like yeah, there's a part.
1:11:06 - Mikah Sargent
You're like oh my goodness, I no longer feel like atlas, yeah I think that's not unusual when you get fired, to have that.
1:11:17 - Leo Laporte
It depends on how it's been going. If it's completely out of the blue, no, but for a lot of people I think it's like ah, free at last. Right, I can now.
1:11:24 - Paris Martineau
Well, a lot of people who have the financial security of a ceo, certainly that's's true.
1:11:30 - Leo Laporte
That's true. Have you ever been fired Paris? Nope, Never.
1:11:34 - Paris Martineau
I've been laid off twice though.
1:11:36 - Leo Laporte
Well, yeah, that is very different, right? If you're laid off with other people because of financial downturns and in your business, that's not unusual, sad to say. Mikah, have you ever been fired?
1:11:47 - Mikah Sargent
No, laid off though, once yeah yeah, I was fired once.
1:11:53 - Leo Laporte
At least once I worked it when I was a young guy, in my 20s. I worked at a record store and I came into the record store and the guy said don't take off your jacket whoa, whoa, what you didn't get to work one day, he said well, I didn't get to work that day, I'd been working there, you, I didn't get to work that day, I'd been working there. Oh, you had been working.
1:12:13 - Mikah Sargent
Okay, I had been working there.
1:12:14 - Leo Laporte
What did you do? I said, oh, and he. So he fired all. This is a little I don't know. You couldn't do this in this day and age. He fired all the male employees and hired attractive young women to replace them in the record store. Oh boy, so I didn't. I didn't feel like I didn't take it too personally.
1:12:34 - Paris Martineau
Um, yeah, that was in college. I had a uh, a really wealthy roommate, um, like one of those people who would just at the end of every semester, would like buy a whole new wardrobe rather than carrying it to and from her parents house. But she told me one day she was like oh, I'm gonna get my first job, I'm gonna work at boba guys, the hot new like pop-up shop, yeah, boba tea place. And she was like oh, I'm going to get my first job, I'm going to work at Boba Guys, the hot new pop-up boba shop.
Yeah, a boba tea place and I was like good for you, man. She goes in for her first day, comes back a few hours later. I'm like how was it? And she was like oh, I was there for like an hour or two.
1:13:12 - Leo Laporte
And they told me they just don't need me anymore, that they have enough. Not fired for being so bad in your first hour. I never figured out exactly what she did. One of these things at the bottom of the tea. Do I leave?
1:13:17 - Paris Martineau
those in or take those out, and I was like that's classic. I've never had a job before, yeah that is incredible.
1:13:23 - Mikah Sargent
You almost think there should be awards for things like that, yeah shortest, that's.
1:13:28 - Leo Laporte
Uh, that's less than a scaramucci that is less than that's, that's starting fast.
We also talked on windows weekly uh today about, uh. This was an interesting, weird story and I, you know I didn't talk about it on sunday on twitter because I felt a little strange about it. The ap, bloomberg, the new york times and others reported that the FTC had opened a antitrust investigation against Microsoft. Of course, microsoft was famously sued in the late 90s by the Department of Justice, which effectively won that. That suit went on for years and I thought, oh, this should be a big story, except that the ftc and mike did not confirm, would not confirm it.
1:14:13 - Mikah Sargent
That's weird oh, and usually usually correct me if I'm wrong. A government agency that gets caught out? Well, okay, a non-clandestine government government agency that gets caught out doing a thing, they admit it if they're asked directly in the us. Yeah, like that.
1:14:33 - Leo Laporte
Usually they're not required to say when a company's under investigation okay, microsoft declined to comment, the ftc declined to comment. Uh, here this is the ap story. I mean, a lot of people ran with it. I didn't because, first of all, it's an investigation, not a lawsuit. It's. They didn't actually take action and it was.
1:14:56 - Mikah Sargent
It was a report that there was an investigation, but given that the ftc would refuse to confirm it, yeah, I thought I wonder what's going on there, yeah, yeah, here's the ap story ftc opens, opens Microsoft antitrust investigation maybe because it's, uh, we're in the middle of, you know, changing of the guard, so that's what I think it's going to be that way.
1:15:18 - Leo Laporte
That's what I think yeah, I just don't uh, I don't know what it means. I mean, it's got to be the case because there were so many different sources reporting it, but I just uh, I I feel like that's not a story until it's a story exactly you know what I'm saying hey, here's some good trust us. Here's some good news. Did you know that it's legal for data brokers to sell your social security number? Did you know that that's legal, that they, if they could get it, they could sell it?
so the consumer financial protection bureau is thinking of maybe banning them from selling your social security number maybe, maybe that would be a consumer protection I should point out that the cfpb, which was started by elizabeth warren, is one of the agencies Elon Musk has announced is going to delete because we don't want to protect consumers. We don't want to do that. So, uh, they're proposing a rule limit I this stunned me limiting data brokers ability to sell Americans sensitive personal financial information their income, their credit history, their credit score, their debt payments information, their income, their credit history, their credit score, their debt payments or social security. And if they did sell that information, they'd be required to comply with the fair credit reporting act, which, of course, they don't want to do. They'd be treated like you know experience, equifax and transunion. There'd be a credit bureau instead of a data broker I.
1:16:49 - Paris Martineau
I was always so in newsrooms I've worked at over the last decade, I have always usually had access to a service called LexisNexis.
1:16:59 - Leo Laporte
Right.
1:16:59 - Paris Martineau
It's often used by legal professionals. And one thing I always found wild about that is you could look up anybody's name and get like the last four of their social. Obviously, you know it's not the other numbers, but I was like like how can I obtain this about anybody's name that I put in here?
1:17:14 - Leo Laporte
it's crazy yeah, and yet it's legal and it's been legal to sell the entire social security number. And meanwhile Congress is saying, well, we gotta ban tick-tock because they could be spying on us. But all the Chinese have to do is go to National Public Data or one of the other data brokers and say, hey, I'd like some information on paris martineau, and they'll sell it to them for not much, by the way, it's cheap well, I assume part of the reason why something like this hasn't passed before is because, um, there's been a lot of reporting showing that uh law enforcement all around the us.
Use this yeah, uh, the immigration and customs enforcement ice and the fbi both rely on data brokers, and they do it because they can get around surveillance restrictions, laws preventing them from surveilling people. Oh, we don't have to surveil them, we'll just buy it. We'll just buy it anyway. Uh, of course, one of those. I think you're seeing all this stuff. You're going to see it for the next couple of months, and then there'll be inauguration, and then I don't know what's going to happen after in the new administration. It may well be that Elon Musk gets his way and the CFPB gets deleted. There are a lot of people who would like to delete it. Actually, I think Trump has just nominated for the sec a pro crypto. Yes, a crypt bro. Yeah, bro. Let me just look up this name, because I just saw that as we were starting the show, paul atkins um thought that he would be much more pro-crypto than the current SEC chair, gary Gensler. Trump announced that this morning Atkins was an SEC commissioner under Bush, george W Bush.
So he's not a crypto, bro, he has worked in the SEC during Republican and Democratic administrations, but he has, according to the New York Times, been seen as a strong advocate for looser regulation of crypto assets. Shortly after his term as an SEC commissioner ended in 2008, he founded a financial services consulting firm that provides advisory services to banks and investment firms. More recently, the firm has advised clients on issues related to crypto and digital assets.
1:19:40 - Paris Martineau
So he's, I think, oh boy widely believed to be uh and uh stand with cryptoorg, a group that's been tracking um crypto electoral victories, has it that 278 pro-crypto candidates have been elected to the house of representatives and 20 to the senate?
1:20:02 - Leo Laporte
yes, so this is going to be a good year for crypto. In his post, mr trump said paul is a proven leader for common sense regulations. He recognizes that digital assets and other innovations are crucial to making america greater than ever before. Oh, that's a new m-a-g-t-e-b like the hot coin yeah, the hot coin crypto industry spent tens of millions of dollars.
During this year's presidential campaign to promote softer regulation, biden was seen as cracking down on crypto. Gensler, especially, was seen as an enemy of crypto because he advocated for regulating it like a security, and they didn't want that. Not for bit. Paul, a former colleague, says paul will embrace technological innovation, especially crypto and digital finance, after years of sec hostility and regulation by enforcement. All right, well we'll, we'll see, uh, what that means. Uh, should you go out and buy more bitcoin? Yeah, I'm not gonna make any recommendations recommendations.
1:21:11 - Mikah Sargent
I wonder what that does mean, because HawkCoin can exist right now, so it's not as if it's I don't know. It already seems very free, like the market seems real open and available for anybody to plunder. So the idea that you know we're putting someone in charge who is going to somehow make it even more open?
1:21:38 - Paris Martineau
yeah, it seems pretty open right now.
1:21:39 - Leo Laporte
You talked about Mike, a hot coin is secure and highly regulated uh securities, uh project. Really does it say that in the end prospectus no?
1:21:45 - Mikah Sargent
I'm just playing the the lawyer for to a gal.
1:21:50 - Leo Laporte
It is demure and mindful though.
1:21:53 - Paris Martineau
That is true.
1:21:55 - Leo Laporte
Canada's going after Google. Canada's antitrust watchdog this just in is suing Google alleging anti-competitive conduct, in particular in advertising, which is the same thing that Google's been in trouble for here in the States. In fact, they lost that court case in the States. Canada's Competition Bureau suing Alphabet saying let's see, asking Google to sell two of its ad tech tools. It's also seeking a penalty from Google to promote compliance with Canada's competition laws. One more country that Google's in trouble in.
1:22:36 - Mikah Sargent
Piling on.
1:22:39 - Leo Laporte
Monday, the closing arguments in the US case were made. The judge, I think, has a few months now to decide how to penalize Google. Remember, the government wants them to sell Chrome, among other things. Earlier this year, google offered to sell the ad exchange its ad exchange to end an EU antitrust investigation, but European publishers rejected the proposal as insufficient.
1:23:05 - Mikah Sargent
Boy, it's starting to heat up yeah, it really is, I think, think, especially now we're seeing these different countries all hop on board. These big tech companies have to be sweating a little bit president-elect trump said, uh, google.
1:23:32 - Leo Laporte
He liked google now because they're scaring the chinese. But it's not just the us you got the eu and you've got exactly. You've already got a car case. You lost it's uh yeah, there's precedent.
Now there's precedent one more ftc story. They have changed. This is wild. They've changed their telecommunity, their telemarketing rules to go after tech support scam calls. Now here's the thing They've always been able to go after you after a tech support scam call if they call you. If they call you and say, hey, is your computer running? Well, go catch it, they can go after them. But that's why most of the scams now involve getting you to call them. They put a pop-up on your windows machine that says you've got a virus, call this number. And I didn't know this. But the regulations say if you call them, the ftc can't go after them. The ftc could already go after them if they called you, but not if that you called them. They're going to change that rule.
1:24:30 - Mikah Sargent
That's good.
1:24:31 - Leo Laporte
Yeah.
1:24:32 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, what they're doing is finding some other way to reach out to get you to call that number, and so, up to that point, yeah, they were kind of using that little gray area there, that loophole, where, well, it's your fault because you called them.
1:24:52 - Leo Laporte
No, no, that's not not going to. The loophole was put there by the supreme court, which ruled in a 2021 case called amg capital management versus the ftc. They ruled that the that they limited the ftc's ability to go after scammers. If the, if you called them, so the ftc had to rewrite rules because they weren't able to go after outbound calls. Now the TSR that's the name of the rule the telemarketing sales rule. The TSR has been changed to remove technical support services from a list of services that are exempt. Great, the FTC says older consumers over the age of 60 why? That's just a spring chicken. Those are youngsters. We're five times more likely to be victims of these scams. 175 million dollars in losses this year. This year, uh, the the big one was the fake geek squad call call. Did you ever get a text from the geek squad?
oh, absolutely I get a lot of them say, hey, this is a geek squad call us. Well, now you know why they want you to call them fake geek squad calls topped the list of fraud in 2024 15 million dollars in losses this reminds me squad in 2024.
1:26:06 - Mikah Sargent
you'd be surprised. You'd be surprised. Um, if you want a nice feel good, maybe make you tear up a little bit. Movie that involves some of this. I'm telling you, go to hulu and watch thelma. You can also buy the movie or rent the movie, but it's called thelma is this after she and louise drove off the cliff.
1:26:22 - Leo Laporte
It's her story no it's not.
1:26:25 - Paris Martineau
That's what I assumed yeah no, it's, it's about I.
1:26:28 - Mikah Sargent
The basic plot is 93-year-old grandmother loses some money to one of these con artists and then decides to try to get it back. And it is delightful and sweet, do not?
1:26:42 - Leo Laporte
we do not recommend that, by the way, do not?
1:26:44 - Mikah Sargent
No, no, no, Do not, but watch the movie. We do recommend that, yeah.
1:26:48 - Leo Laporte
Thelma, thelma good, does it have a happy ending?
1:26:52 - Mikah Sargent
It does. Yeah, I don't want to. I will spoil it for the sake of that, because I can see people.
1:26:56 - Leo Laporte
So it's fiction, because most of the time there is not a happy ending Right. And in this case there is and it's just Scooter X says I'm helping an older customer right now who lost about six thousand dollars in one of those scam pop-ups. She's not been able to recover her apple id either, because the recovery number and email were changed and apple says we can't help you. They can help the other people, they, they can help the bad guys. I guess they can't help you. That's too bad.
1:27:25 - Mikah Sargent
That's too bad it's really frustrating and's there's no good answer for how to correct things after the fact other than trying to use one of these.
1:27:39 - Leo Laporte
you know huge agencies and so often many people not so many, but I know a number of people who've been bit by these lost thousands of dollars and it's just uh, it's understandable. There was a story on tv, uh in our local news uh, woman up uh the road a piece I don't know why, how it made it to the local news, but she was uh scammed by somebody who called, claiming to be her grandson, saying he was in jail and he needed bail money literally what the film plot is oh really, yes, wow well this happens a lot, because and this, by the way, this goes back to the data brokers, because they get this information, you know, from a variety of places.
They learn who her grandson is, what his name is, and then the facts that they can convince her that, oh, I'm calling from jail. Grandma, I got arrested. If you could just wire me $6,000 for bail, I'll pay you back.
She did, by the way, lost the money and all you could do is go to the police and say, hey, it happened to me, and there's not much they can do about it yeah, they're not gonna get your money back ah, what a world, what a world yeah, ladies and gentlemen, you are watching this week in google. So glad we get Mikah sargent in for the uh day. We appreciate you taking it I don't like to ask Mikah too much because he has a full-time job, you know.
1:29:09 - Mikah Sargent
But uh, every once in a while but when I can, I do enjoy joining you all really appreciate it.
1:29:15 - Leo Laporte
Paris Martineau has a full-time job too, but it's not that's true. Yes, yes, do you do any other podcasts?
1:29:21 - Paris Martineau
no, I do not.
1:29:22 - Leo Laporte
This is my one and only you want to do the Baldur's Gate 3 podcast, though I know you want to do that.
1:29:27 - Paris Martineau
I mean that would be a vodcast. But yeah, I guess this is a podcast as well, but that would be a vodcast but, yeah, I guess this is a vodcast as well.
1:29:32 - Mikah Sargent
Oh wow, vodcast, is that what the kids call it? That's brain rot. I'm going to do a vod.
1:29:37 - Leo Laporte
Let's do a vod.
1:29:39 - Paris Martineau
A vod A video podcast.
1:29:41 - Leo Laporte
A vod. Well, people call them pods, right, I hate that yeah, they do by the way, uh-uh.
1:29:46 - Paris Martineau
No, really.
1:29:47 - Leo Laporte
It bothers me. I don't know why pod bothers me.
1:29:50 - Paris Martineau
Don't like pod, it seems wrong.
1:29:51 - Leo Laporte
I'm not, it's a podcast. The pod is being cast. I had Paris and Mike on the pod today. It was great Okay.
1:29:59 - Paris Martineau
I do say that sometimes, but I'm usually being kind of facetious. On the pod today, specifically on the pod today, on the pod today. Yeah, that's the one use I will use it for On the pod today. Yeah, that's the one use I will use it for?
1:30:11 - Leo Laporte
Hey, we do think you may notice the ads on this show. If you're hearing, ads are inserted which can be painful, but that's because we were unable to sell any ads on the show for this episode and it's really not a reflection on this show. I hope it's not a reflection on our network. It's really is what's going on in the podcast industry these days. There are the big hits they're the call her daddies and the joe rogans but the long tail there's, uh, there are far fewer advertising dollars than there ever have been, and we've been in this business 20 years. We've been able to see it come and go. Uh, it's why we started the club a few years ago and boy it's been a success. We really love our Club Twit members, 12,000 strong. That's a good group of very smart, interesting people who like Twit enough to pony up $7 a month. There are benefits. You don't get those inserted ads. You don't get any ads if you pay ad free versions of all of our shows. You also get, uh, of course, the special stuff, like we were talking about Mikah's crafting corner, and we have the coffee show, the photo show, photography show. Uh, I've been doing the coding, the late night coding live streams. Um Stacey's book club's coming up in a couple of weeks it's the new James S A Corey novel I'm reading. It's quite good, very interesting. So so many good things go on in the club. We want to make it fun for everybody and, of course, there's the Club Twit Discord, where you can hang out any time of the day or night. There's always somebody in there. There's something going on talking about all kinds of things, including, of course, our shows. If you're interested, find out more at twit.tv/clubtwit. There's a two-week free trial if you want to see what it's like before you sign up. There's also a referral code. Everybody who signs up gets a referral code they can post on their socials or wherever they you know, with their church newsletter or whatever. Get other people to join the club, and everybody who joins using your referral code gets you a free month. I think that's a pretty good deal. Help Help us keep doing the job we do. I think it's really important. I really I love the job we do, I want to keep doing it and we think that we give you value for money. So if you think seven bucks is worth it, please go to twit.tv/clubtwit and join the club and we thank you so much. Streaming thanks to club members, streaming on eight different platforms, including Discord, Youtube, Twitch, Kick, Tiktok, x.com, Facebook and LinkedIn. It is a bonanza twit.tv/clubtwit You're watching this Week in Google.
You know Meta. Some years ago I don't remember if they wanted to start something called internetorg, which was basically their own internet which they would provide at low cost to developing nations that would feature a few public internet things, mostly Facebook, instagram, maybe a little Wikipedia thrown in. I know India turned it down a few years ago saying we already know what colonization is like and thanks, but no thanks. Uh. Well, now meta's got a plan this is from TechCrunch to build a round the world subsea cable. A cable that will carry a 40 000 kilometer cable could cost as much as 10 billion dollars.
1:33:34 - Paris Martineau
Critically, meta will be the sole owner and user of this cable ah, it is literally.
1:33:40 - Leo Laporte
The meta internet starts in virginia beach goes to cape town, durban, mumbai, chennai, india is very important, darwin, yeah, in the in australia then, uh, eureka, california it's. They call it the w cable. Can you see why it looks kind of like a w?
1:34:01 - Mikah Sargent
I see that sort of sort of it means wow I was going to.
1:34:06 - Paris Martineau
When you first started reading the circle, I was like oh, I'm always amazed and awe in awe by undersea cables carrying the internet. But I don't know, this doesn't interest me because it isn't the internet, it's just, it's just meta it's just meta it's.
1:34:23 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, it's kind of a bummer according to tech carrying features they've copied from other apps right according to Ingrid Lundgren of TechCrunch she's writing about it uh, the reason they want to do this? Um, well, there's two reasons. The first reason is um, let me see here uh, sole ownership of the root and cable will give meta first dibs in capacity to support traffic on its own properties. And don't forget, it's not just met in instagram, because eventually the metaverse will ride on this right that this is all those legs yeah, if you're building a 3d virtual uh society, you're going to have to need a lot of bandwidth to make it work.
Uh, but that's only one reason. The other is geopolitical. Several times in recent years subsea cables have been taken down as a collateral or direct damage from warfare okay, so then yours will just be another one of them that can be taken down.
1:35:24 - Mikah Sargent
That's kind of silly they're.
1:35:25 - Leo Laporte
They're well, that's why they are trying to avoid areas of geopolitical tension, why it's a w they are trying to avoid areas of geopolitical tension. I see they're avoiding the red sea, the south china sea, egypt, marseille, the strait of malacca and singapore. Okay, that's why it's a w.
1:35:42 - Mikah Sargent
I guess llama told them llama. Ai said these are the places where you should put it to stay out of trouble yeah, that's just uh you know it's.
1:35:52 - Leo Laporte
It's amazing they have that, that kind of world conquering. He's kind of an alexander the great for the digital yeah, isn't he?
1:35:58 - Mikah Sargent
don't let him hear that, come on it's a new t-shirt.
1:36:03 - Leo Laporte
He'll have a new t-shirt. India is is actually the biggest market, uh, for for facebook 375 million users. 363 million instagram users 536. More than half a billion users of whatsapp I forget about whatsapp.
1:36:20 - Mikah Sargent
So I know that's weird to say, but I do, it's really, it's part of it.
1:36:23 - Paris Martineau
I do forget about whatsapp and that's definitely our american.
1:36:26 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, we're very centric uh, but that actually makes more sense when it comes to having this undersea cable, more than anything else. In my opinion. Given that and not that it's any better, but the fact that there's such a huge swath of the world elsewhere that is using it as a communications platform, that is kind of good.
1:36:46 - Paris Martineau
And their primary communications platform.
1:36:48 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, that there's going to be one that will hopefully not be disturbed by wartime nonsense in theory, and that way I kind of see the the good of this, even though it's got, you know, the underlying tang of zuckerberg the uh and of course this is uh.
1:37:08 - Leo Laporte
this was all done before this recent cable cutting two internet cables, cut in the Baltic, they think by a Chinese flagship that had just left Russia and dragged its anchor for 100 miles intentionally perhaps intentionally to cut those two cables from Lithuania to the rest of the world. It is seems like the kind of thing Russia might want to do. So I understand uh, you know uh really what Meta's building is. A direct cable, a direct, safe cable to India. Yeah, avoiding the Middle East, avoiding uh any danger areas, wow.
1:37:51 - Mikah Sargent
I wonder if that could mean, though, in places where the internet is far more, uh you know, censored, that having meta be in charge, assuming that it chooses to take a lighter hand, if that could be a positive thing as well. Um, you know, hard to say for sure, but that would be interesting yeah and potentially positive in that way this.
1:38:19 - Leo Laporte
This is kind of an ironic uh story. Us intelligence officials are urging americans to use encrypted apps. To use encrypted apps. You know you ought to start using Signal or WhatsApp, says the FBI and CISA, and this is because Chinese hackers are in our phone system. We've talked about Salt Typhoon and they say until we can secure the phone system, why don't you use those encrypted apps we've been trying so hard to break over the last 20 years. Oh, now you want encryption huh, or it's just.
1:38:57 - Mikah Sargent
I don't get this. This is the second time today, whenever we're going against what you would expect from whatever organization. In this case, the official is saying this Is it because they're saying that is the only quick way for people to they're?
1:39:14 - Leo Laporte
saying your telecommunications are not safe because chinese hackers are sitting. Not, they're not chinese hackers, let's face it. Chinese intelligence officers are sitting in our phone networks monitoring whatever they want to monitor because it's not not encrypted. Two officials in a call on tuesday. A senior fbi official asked not to be named in jeff green, who's assistant director, executive assistant director for cyber security at sisa. Both said use encrypted messaging apps.
Our suggestion, what we have told folks internally, is not new here. Encryption is your friend. Wait a minute, what? Whether it's on text messaging or if you have the capacity to use encrypted voice communication, even if the adversary is able to intercept the data, if it's encrypted it'll make it impossible. That's jeff green from sisa. The fbi person said people looking to further protect their mobile device communications have benefit from considering using a cell phone that automatically receives timely operating system updates, responsibly managed, encryption and phishing resistant. They've changed their tune huh, yeah, yeah, or maybe it's. You know. This is actually how the NSA was. Where there was. Half of the NSA was spending its time telling people how to stay secure using encryption. The other half was trying to figure out how to break encryption.
1:40:38 - Mikah Sargent
Maybe they've got it so far into the future they've got quantum computing working there that they don't care.
1:40:44 - Leo Laporte
They're like, yeah, encryption for everybody else because we're good, we can get in if we want to. Actually, you're not far wrong there, young Mikah, because remember, the NSA built that giant data center in the midwest. Their plan was and I think it still is, to gather all electronic transact transmissions, knowing that many of them are encrypted, but also knowing down the road they might have the tools to decrypt it.
1:41:08 - Mikah Sargent
So best, just store it all yeah, that's hanging out in the midwest lots of nation states apparently have held on to lots of encrypted data for this particular reason that one day there may come a tool that can actually break it, and so when new, better uh encryption is made available, we're supposed to hop on it as quick as possible.
1:41:38 - Paris Martineau
To that note, the president of Signal, meredith Whitaker, had said this week the company is planning to support encrypted backups in 2025, which I mean for anybody who uses Signal is a feature that people have been clamoring for for a bit. So I mean that's one way to have your data stored in the big security cloud be at least encrypted.
1:41:54 - Leo Laporte
Well, in fact, it's important because we know that WhatsApp, if you weren't paying attention, would back itself up unencrypted to Apple's cloud, and so we actually know that law enforcement has used that data by subpoenaing Apple. Even if you're using WhatsApp and the transmissions are encrypted, it's being backed up unencrypted to Apple's cloud, so that's why it's important that Signal says no, no, our backups are going to be encrypted as well.
1:42:22 - Mikah Sargent
I wonder if that's part of the reason why Apple jumped so quickly onto having more of iCloud be encrypted, that that was a major factor in them doing so, because they introduced that enhanced encryption for iCloud. That would help with that situation. Yeah.
1:42:41 - Leo Laporte
This is the Utah data center that was completed in 2014 at a pretty vast cost I think it was one and a half billion dollars with huge, huge capacity. Nsa has always said, no, don't worry, we don't spy and we're not spying on you, but it has. It has the capability of storing all electronic emails, cell phone calls, internet searches, personal data trails, parking receipts, travel itineraries, brick store purchases. Uh, some have said it will be used to illegally monitor email of us citizens. Nsa says no, no, no, we're not allowed to do that.
1:43:18 - Paris Martineau
However, if we've never done anything.
1:43:20 - Leo Laporte
We're not never done that. If a us citizen is communicating with a foreign national, then those communications can be saved um anyway ah.
1:43:33 - Mikah Sargent
So if I'm talking to rosemary, then that's right, she's a foreign natural national.
1:43:40 - Leo Laporte
Who knows, she could be a terrorist cell? Oh don't say that?
1:43:45 - Mikah Sargent
no, she's not. I'm sorry did I say that she's not this just got saved into the nsa's bank in utah, or whoever it is, yeah right uh, let's see what else paris.
1:43:58 - Leo Laporte
You put some stories in. Let me see here. No one's talking about chat gpt anymore. It's so boring is that true?
1:44:07 - Mikah Sargent
they're all talking about what instead? Sherwood Media, sherwood Williams.
1:44:13 - Paris Martineau
Sherwood Williams did an analysis of monthly mentions of ChatGPT it really has declined On earnings and conference transcripts. And it's gone quite a bit down. This is data from FactSec.
1:44:26 - Mikah Sargent
Huh.
1:44:26 - Paris Martineau
I don't know Interesting. I do feel like this is something I've noticed. It's been about two years since ChatGPT.
1:44:33 - Leo Laporte
That's true. We spent the whole show talking about AI in the first few months, didn't we?
1:44:37 - Paris Martineau
Yes, and we're all like in one to two years it's going to be crazy.
1:44:41 - Mikah Sargent
The world's going to be so different and it's pretty much the same, except for you sometimes see people using ChatGPT out in the world using chat gpt out in the world, do we wonder if part of it is just it's it's going to reach sort of proprietary eponym stage where or I guess, not that, because that in that case that would work, but it's, it's more standard. I used ai for this. I used ai for that as opposed to right that's the thing.
1:45:03 - Leo Laporte
We're not saying chat gpt.
1:45:04 - Paris Martineau
We're just saying I suppose that's right.
1:45:06 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, yeah, it could be ai and soon we won't even say ai, which is is you know, I don't know?
1:45:12 - Mikah Sargent
I generated this or something, my little pal.
1:45:16 - Paris Martineau
When I was on a flight back from Florida this weekend, there were three children in the row in front of me and I was like oh, and they spent the entire flight crying and screaming. I realized halfway through that their father was sitting on the row across from them. He was furiously typing something on his computer and I looked over because I'm a nosy person and he had chat GPT open on his phone, an empty Word doc on his laptop and was just curdlingly typing whatever was on his phone.
1:45:42 - Leo Laporte
He was transcribing it, yeah, and he got a good couple pages done by the end of the flight.
1:45:47 - Paris Martineau
But those kids were not happy about it. It was some legal brief, I'm sure. I'm sure I was like, oh, I don't know what you're doing but doesn't he know about cutting paste. I mean that I know I was like come on.
1:45:59 - Mikah Sargent
That's the other thing.
1:46:00 - Paris Martineau
Come on, people like it seems like maybe at first he was trying to paraphrase, but then by the end he was clearly just like writing it right down and he's probably somebody who works for the f FDA and is writing up about why they should use some new chemical, why magnesium supplements should never be regulated.
1:46:18 - Mikah Sargent
That's it.
1:46:20 - Leo Laporte
That's it. How often do you think of the Roman Empire? Daily?
1:46:24 - Mikah Sargent
Well, I'm not Mark Zuckerberg, so very rarely, although I do see those memes. My Roman Empire is this I still don't really understand what people mean I memes. My Roman Empire is this yeah, I still don't really understand what people mean.
1:46:34 - Leo Laporte
I think about the Roman Empire a lot. I do.
1:46:36 - Paris Martineau
There was a like viral post of some sort. That was like men think, ask the nearest man in your life how often they think of the Roman Empire and the answer will surprise you. And so there's all these tick tocks, people asking their boyfriends and husbands like, do you think about the roman empire? Like when's the last time you thought about the roman empire? And they were like today, um, and so now it's taken off of. What is something you think about regularly is your roman empire oh, got it, thank you I think that's kind of charming.
1:47:09 - Mikah Sargent
I don't have any problem with that yeah, no, that is charming and these are thinking about the roman empire very evanescent.
1:47:14 - Leo Laporte
They come and go. They don't last these little memes. They're kind of fun like demure and whatever it's fun.
1:47:22 - Paris Martineau
How often do you think about the roman empire?
1:47:24 - Leo Laporte
yeah, lots frequently.
1:47:26 - Paris Martineau
I was gonna say you fit the, the bill, you do maybe it's because I was in rome last year.
1:47:34 - Leo Laporte
Maybe it's because I read a lot of books about the roman empire, but I just it's. I find it fascinating. Maybe it's because I take a sauna every day. I don't know, there's something. Maybe it's my magnesium. What?
1:47:43 - Mikah Sargent
do you do on your way to the forum?
1:47:46 - Leo Laporte
well, here's your chance to spend the night in the coliseum. How'd you like to be a gladiator for a night? Uh, some romans, according to the new york times, are up in arms. Get it. Uh, airbnb is planning a night in the coliseum.
Wow, uh, a few people have a chance to unleash their inner gladiators the most at the most visited site in italy. Two nights in may, a total of 32 people will learn the art of gladiator fighting inside the coliseum, taught by roman history buffs who specialize in historical reenactments hang on, they're just buffs.
1:48:25 - Paris Martineau
They're not professionals they're not, no, they're guys that really like, like roman history, that's very the ones who think about the roman empire all the time yeah, uh, the aim airbnb says was to they.
1:48:41 - Leo Laporte
They could. They could donate a one and a half million dollars to spruce up a permanent exhibit inside the arena. The inside of the coliseum I was there a year ago is pretty ratty because Romans for centuries used the marble from the Colosseum to build their houses Lovely, so it's all kind of crumbling down. Airbnb put that money in to support the Colosseum's ongoing conservation work, to find new ways to inspire and educate visitors on the historical significance of this bygone era. I want to do this.
This is cool well you, you would not be a massimiliano smirgilio, says a member of the rome city council responsible for culture. Says we are against transforming the coliseum into a theme park for Mikah he said he would soon meet with airbnb to try to get the company to change its mind I mean, part of this is all about, uh?
1:49:40 - Paris Martineau
rome is one of the many cities that has had a deluge of short-term rentals pop up, displacing residents. It's a real problem, exactly, and so a lot of the anger, um from the average people is oh, here's airbnb, who's already made it impossible for me to afford to rent a place in the city where I work. Uh, putting on a show in a coliseum for a million dollars for a bunch.
1:50:03 - Mikah Sargent
Does it help, though, that they are also, you know, rehabbing the coliseum itself, though?
1:50:08 - Leo Laporte
they say that's a good thing, but it's you know, it's greenwashing, it's just trying to get their corporate reputation. Apparently they really don't like Airbnb. In Rome, they passed a law last month. The interior ministry issued a regulation that requires guests be physically identified when they check in, somewhat like they are in a hotel, so that Airbnb lockbox that your landlord, your landlord, leaves outside that does not comply. They have to personally check you in so basically you have to be there.
1:50:38 - Paris Martineau
Minimum citizen right yeah yeah, no, there has to be a person there checking you in being like here's your keys, Mikah, which requires the person who owns the airbnb to be, as opposed to being able to be across the country and just making money in.
1:50:54 - Mikah Sargent
That incentivizes having. Well, it doesn't incentivize. It requires having to actually be there and contribute to the economy, which I think is good.
1:51:03 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, certainly.
1:51:04 - Leo Laporte
The last time Romans were this upset was when Elon Musk challenged Mark Zuckerberg to a cage match in the Coliseum.
1:51:13 - Paris Martineau
Why, you know, I would prefer the reenactors to Musk and Zuck, mixing it up on the Coliseum floor, Mikah if you do want to live out your gladiator dreams, may I direct you to gladiatorsnyc, which is the website of a new york city group. I've mean. They describe themselves the oldest and most premier league school and team slash club of armored combat in new york city. If you scroll towards the bottom of the page, you can see a video of what we recommend a nine inch burhart axe of high carbon steel scroll down, it'll make a little bit more sense.
1:51:55 - Mikah Sargent
Uh, keep going, all right don't bring that to your next a little bit more I brought an axe to a gunfight, this one go to one of the uh, yeah oh, here they are larping, they're larping in central park looks like a medieval fight and it's a little bit more than larp right, because those look, no, those are real swords, they're teaching people how to use swords.
1:52:15 - Paris Martineau
They do a whole thing.
1:52:16 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, it's complicated oh, this looks intense it does seem kind of intense.
1:52:23 - Paris Martineau
Uh, they all make their own chain mail.
1:52:25 - Leo Laporte
They fight for you know it's full contact, mma with steel weapons. For you know, it's full contact, mma with steel weapons. I don't know if that's such a good idea, and don't do that on this floor of the coliseum. Look at these weapons. You've got your battle axe, your viking axe, your carbon steel axe, you got your handmade sword, you got your camera.
1:52:50 - Mikah Sargent
Just how many people died just regularly because they were all going at each other with swords and axes and stuff not nice like just so many people, so many humans wiped out from these.
1:53:04 - Paris Martineau
What else? We can get stabbed with a bayonet or something.
1:53:07 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah just right, you know and and like cavalry charges and stuff.
1:53:11 - Leo Laporte
All of that is just so brutal well, now you can relive it in central park. Have you ever seen these guys?
1:53:20 - Paris Martineau
uh, no, but I follow them on instagram and I've been wanting to go for a while. It's just annoying to get out to central park from where I am, but it seems really fun to watch.
1:53:28 - Mikah Sargent
I don't know yeah, cheer, and then you could maybe get they. Uh, you could pull out like the handkerchief and hang it on there yeah, that could be fun yeah, or whatever, what do?
1:53:39 - Leo Laporte
you mean she's gonna be in the suit she's gonna be.
1:53:42 - Paris Martineau
I would like to be in the suit, ideally um although I don't know. I mean, they are wearing full armors you have to make kind of custom chain mail, basically yeah, they're like.
1:53:49 - Mikah Sargent
You can't buy chain mail if you want to be. You better know what you're doing. Look at this guy's got a huge axe he's swinging at him. Leo, don't objectify him, come on oh, it could be a woman.
1:53:59 - Leo Laporte
Is that what you're? Saying no, no, no, oh, but um, um, let's see what else. Anything else? I think we've covered a lot of the stories that are in here. We've got Scooter X's changelog.
1:54:17 - Paris Martineau
Oh yeah, Is there a Scooter X? Changelog.
1:54:18 - Leo Laporte
Oh, there is. Who put this in? Oh, john, thank you. All right, ladies and gentlemen, you're watching. We're going to take a break when we come back this week in Google Mikah Sargent, Paris, the Google Changelog, google Chat, is rolling out audio huddles powered by meat.
1:54:51 - Paris Martineau
That's how every update Google makes sounds to me.
1:54:56 - Leo Laporte
M-E-E-T. What's strange is, I would have assumed that Google chats audio huddles were powered by a Google meet, but I guess not. We do huddles, we do huddles but, they're.
1:55:07 - Mikah Sargent
Slack huddles. Oh cause it's a huddle, it's a huddle, yeah, got it, which is basically a video call, right. But quick, apparently. Yeah, you don't want huddles integrate directly Audio huddles.
1:55:20 - Paris Martineau
integrate audio huddles or audio they're not.
1:55:23 - Mikah Sargent
Oh yeah, not video, but you could turn on video if you wanted nice, wow.
1:55:27 - Leo Laporte
We've gone more into this than I really expected. I'm just going to suggest you not spend so much time because there are a lot entries in scooter x.
1:55:36 - Mikah Sargent
Here we go google change law.
1:55:38 - Leo Laporte
Google maps app showing incident reports from ways again surprised that this hasn't been going on a long along. Google acquired ways 10 years ago. Now it's finally showing the ways. Instant reports in google maps started in mid-september. Uh, that's, I mean, that's the reason you do Waze right, so that you can know what's going to happen. There is a from Waze drivers attribution. So when you see one of those little like here's a policeman and a are they still there? Question with a large yes or no button, the panel disappears automatically after you pass by it. Police reported ahead from Waze drivers Are they still there? Yes or no button. The panel disappears automatically after you pass by it. Police reported ahead from ways drivers are they still there? Yes or no? I? That's one of the reasons I love ways, so I, but I thought that was already in google maps I, I guess. Yes, it's also happening on android auto, that's nice.
1:56:32 - Mikah Sargent
Oh, leo, can I recommend you don't spend uh too much time on these, because yeah, leo, keep it, keep it moving, please gemini app rolling out, make calls and send message without unlocking.
Woohoo, it's about time yay we all love this google wallet for where os adding corporate badges, campus ids and now, that is cool, I want apple to do that in the apple wallet oh for, like a lock, so you know where you're going so and if, like, if you're on campus and you have access to the, the school's gymnasium through your id, to be able to just tap your watch instead. It's a pretty cool thing. Plus, wouldn't it be cool if we still had a studio? I could use my apple watch to get in instead of, in this case, my wear os watch to get in, instead of having to use the little uh RFID tag?
1:57:21 - Leo Laporte
even John Ashley is getting in on it there he's put the note don't spend too long on these, Leo. Pixels six through nine. Now let you check device temperature. How hot is it in there? Nice, nice. There are four color-coded labels cold, normal, warm and elevated.
1:57:47 - Mikah Sargent
This is my problem with this. I get so many questions on Hands-On Tech, about battery management and battery health, and this is just going to make people more anxious about their battery.
1:57:53 - Leo Laporte
Oh my God, my phone is slightly warm. Yeah, exactly. Oh no, you feel like a fever. Please keep it moving if they had this for iphones, my phone would just be stupidly hot anytime I charge all the time I don't know what I do, it's just too warm how would I which you have, a new iphone or an older iphone? Newish, iphone, not shouldn't be hot right Mikah listen I know it.
1:58:16 - Paris Martineau
I know it shouldn't be hot, it is regardless I wonder if you've got like a weird charger.
1:58:21 - Mikah Sargent
Are you using wireless charging or wired charging?
1:58:24 - Paris Martineau
Wired.
1:58:26 - Mikah Sargent
Oh, that's weird.
1:58:28 - Paris Martineau
It's.
1:58:29 - Leo Laporte
I mean, yeah, Mine's as cold as ice Just doesn't have any temp. Google is now adding video generators to business customers.
1:58:41 - Mikah Sargent
Yes, this is big actually. Is it VEO, V-E-O? They beat OpenAI to the table. Openai was supposed to come out with whatever it's called. The name escapes me at the moment yeah. Sora first, and Google ended up coming out with their version first with its version first, and then, right after that, sam Altman was like we're going to do the 12 days of announcements yeah of announcements exactly, and said Sora would probably be one of those. So yeah, google got there first, which I thought is interesting. Only for businesses, though.
1:59:18 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, it's a limited release.
1:59:22 - Mikah Sargent
The AI model, it's got a big impact, though, yeah, it's a limited release. It's going to have a big impact, though it really could.
1:59:25 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, vio will generate short clips from images and prompts. It'll be available in private preview for customers using Vertex AI. One customer the launch will enable one customer, quora, to bring Vio to its Po po chatbot platform and another, oreo owner, mandalas international, to create marketing content with its agency partners see, that's what I'm saying.
1:59:50 - Mikah Sargent
Suddenly they're not needing people to make marketing content anymore.
1:59:54 - Leo Laporte
Well, you saw, we talked about it. I thought the uh, the coca-cola commercial, the christmas commercial this year is all ai oh boy have you seen it? No, no, did we do it on this show or did we do it on? But people?
2:00:06 - Paris Martineau
just aren't watching commercials regularly leo. Yeah, this happened last week they were like paris. Have you seen the new coke commercial? You've seen it right?
2:00:15 - Leo Laporte
that was like no why would I have seen? I saw it in the football game the other day and I thought it was good. It was beautiful. They got a polar bear and the whole thing. It was cute.
2:00:24 - Mikah Sargent
See, and you've described it perfectly.
2:00:26 - Leo Laporte
I don't need to see it I don't know why businesses would want the ability to generate short video clips in their-.
2:00:33 - Mikah Sargent
Because they don't want to pay creatives to make it and everybody needs to have short video clips because the that's literally the internet is short video clips so you've got to have them of your cat, of your cat climbing your shoulders, of my cat.
2:00:48 - Paris Martineau
I have to stay on this shot.
2:00:51 - Leo Laporte
It's a cat. We might get katanas we can't.
2:00:55 - Paris Martineau
She's really trying, but I can't let it happen really trying, but I can't let it happen.
2:01:03 - Leo Laporte
You know what I say to that google's beefing up android's app security, but not everybody's going to be happy, says. Android authority play integrity is getting a shot in the arm, but power users may end up butting heads with it.
They must be talking to gizmo, they're mad because it's going to be more nanny state like apple oh, the apps will be able to make sure your phone is not rooted, for instance, or that you're not running a custom rom, which a lot of android users do. I do, I like well, I did. I don't do it anymore because I'm old.
2:01:39 - Mikah Sargent
Google photos is rolling out undo advice backup setting no device backup, not advice undo advice that's what I say to my therapist whenever I don't like that advice undo device backup setting why would you want to undo your device? Backup wouldn't?
2:02:01 - Leo Laporte
you okay, would you?
2:02:02 - Mikah Sargent
want to undo your device backup.
2:02:04 - Leo Laporte
Why would you not want it to back up? Oh, okay, so you know that when you open up your you know, when you have a Pixel, say, or even an iPhone, and you open up Google Photos, it backs up those photos. Maybe those photos don't belong in the cloud. So now you can say do not do, don't delete them off my device, but please delete them off the cloud. Do not got it yeah, that actually makes sense.
2:02:32 - Mikah Sargent
All right, if you're. If you're somebody out there who needs that feature, let me know so I can not send you any pictures I just am curious, what that? Yeah, oh, I guess.
2:02:41 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, okay, oh, I get it you know, what I'm saying you know what I'm saying, you know where I'm going with that.
2:02:46 - Mikah Sargent
If the cat's showing a hole, you don't want it on Google Photos.
2:02:48 - Paris Martineau
I get it, that's true.
2:02:51 - Mikah Sargent
Undo device backup and undo advice backup.
2:02:54 - Leo Laporte
Can we undo the?
2:02:55 - Mikah Sargent
advice of trying to hawk two on that thing please.
2:02:59 - Leo Laporte
What do you think that tells us, though, about what people are doing with their camera phones? It seems to me that a large percentage of people have pictures on their camera phones they do not want their grandmother to see.
2:03:11 - Mikah Sargent
Am I right.
2:03:12 - Leo Laporte
Yes, how common is that?
2:03:16 - Mikah Sargent
I am an exception as far as speaking to other people. I am an exception in that I do not have those things Same.
2:03:24 - Paris Martineau
I don't put anything on my phone that I wouldn't be comfortable with leaking online.
2:03:29 - Mikah Sargent
That's smart, but I think it might be by the nature of the work that we do.
2:03:34 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, I'm paranoid.
2:03:36 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, I think most normal people. Paris short for paranoid is true, yeah I really want your nil coin is what I really know the more I think about that, the more I know nothing.
2:03:49 - Paris Martineau
The cryptocurrency actually yeah, it exists, uh the uh.
2:03:53 - Leo Laporte
You can just send the money right to my venmo and I'll get you some milk, I'll send you some milk coin I meant some milk coin for you and that's the google change log that wasn't by. Thank you, scooter x, for those fabulous suggestions we got there, we were quick yeah yeah, thanks for not spending too long on those leo no, I followed your advice.
Tiktok uh, have you noticed? On tiktok there are adverts every third. Tiktok now is trying to get me to buy. Well, for a while it was that that credit card device that records conversations and ai processes them. The plod, have you noticed?
2:04:36 - Paris Martineau
it's not normal yeah, wait, what devices have you ordered from instagram ads that you haven't gotten? You definitely haven't gotten the ar glasses that were supposed to come in april no, you're recording, it's always listening.
2:04:47 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, never got the recording pin that's so sad, oh wow, okay, so to paris, here's. Here's an ad on tiktok.
2:04:56 - Paris Martineau
This is like the seventh ad thing he bought that month.
2:04:59 - Leo Laporte
For a bicycle wheel that doesn't roll.
2:05:03 - Mikah Sargent
I've always wanted one of those. It's called a stationary bike.
2:05:07 - Leo Laporte
From Rock Bros. Okay, that's one, let's see.
2:05:10 - Paris Martineau
Well no, those are TikTok shop things, so they are ostensibly posted by individual TikTok creators. They're not sponsored posts like ads.
2:05:19 - Leo Laporte
But they are things.
2:05:20 - Paris Martineau
You see, the shop, the shop they get an affiliate link and you, if you click, and buy them through tiktok what's that?
2:05:28 - Leo Laporte
that's what you're supposed to ask, can you believe that a small fan has so much power but, powerful small fan what, what is that that was? And then one one I just went one more by, and then I have some sort of calendar thing, also a tiktok shop most of my tiktoks are shops. Well, do you?
2:05:51 - Paris Martineau
have you bought anything on tiktok shop?
2:05:53 - Mikah Sargent
no, oh, maybe oh, so the yeah they're like oh, we can get him so you don't see this.
2:06:02 - Leo Laporte
This is not your I'm looking.
2:06:04 - Paris Martineau
Right now, let me go through. I've got a professional cheese monger. I've got an ad for oreos. I've got a veterinarian sketch about cats.
2:06:12 - Leo Laporte
I've got someone talking about birds this is a tiktok shop ocean videos but that's what's interesting about these are like tiktoks created by creators, but they're selling something on the tiktok shop so like it's etsy, but for tiktok no, they don't. They're not creating, they're not, they're not. Oh, they're a middleman. Basically, basically, they are hawking products but getting an affiliate link do we have. It's literally just an affiliate.
2:06:40 - Paris Martineau
Oh yeah, hawk doing products this is sorry, we should membrane a membrane water filter a lot of these things.
2:06:51 - Mikah Sargent
Why would I need this?
2:06:53 - Paris Martineau
I mean, why wouldn't you?
2:06:56 - Mikah Sargent
a wait hold on what's it called. Well, I had leo's looking down and he really does you really have to see it.
2:07:02 - Paris Martineau
That's nice, or is that a unit?
2:07:05 - Mikah Sargent
it is men's adjustable strap. Oh, it's shapewear. Okay, it's a girdle for men.
2:07:11 - Leo Laporte
It's a, it's a, yes, it's a myrtle anyway, the reason I bring this up is TikTok has been huge for Black Friday. It tripled. It tripled its Black Friday sales in the TikTok shop $100 million.
2:07:29 - Paris Martineau
In just the US.
2:07:31 - Leo Laporte
On one day, wow. So whatever they're doing is working. That's why I was surprised that you guys don't see all of those posts, but boy, I sure see a lot of them.
2:07:42 - Mikah Sargent
Well, I definitely need this tapestry.
2:07:44 - Paris Martineau
Whoa.
2:07:46 - Mikah Sargent
It's Jesus and the devil. Basketball against the devil.
2:07:52 - Leo Laporte
Oh, he's playing hoops.
2:07:53 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, you got to get that, it's one-on-one Jesus one-on-one.
2:07:57 - Mikah Sargent
And it's only $7.19 to $17.99. Don't know which one.
2:08:12 - Paris Martineau
If I do go on the TikTok shop, it's trying to show me a t-shirt of a weird photo of a cat that says Benadryl on it.
2:08:15 - Leo Laporte
I like it. It goes with your hat.
2:08:16 - Paris Martineau
It does kind of go with my hats. A bunch of supplements.
2:08:21 - Leo Laporte
A zine about sewing. No, I've never done what you just did. You actually went to the tiktok shop. Those are in my regular feed, my four I was gonna say I've never.
2:08:28 - Mikah Sargent
I've never opened the tiktok yeah, that was my first time opening the shop.
2:08:32 - Leo Laporte
Oh, it looks a lot like alibaba or your standard teamu yeah, you had, there's a dress that would make you look like a Christmas tree.
2:08:41 - Mikah Sargent
I don't know if you can, oh, I should own that, you should.
2:08:44 - Paris Martineau
You could match Leo's tiny Christmas trees.
2:08:47 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, that'd be a good holiday thing, all right. Well, anyway, it's a success. Now a top court in Washington is expected to rule this week on the bill to divest or ban. Expected rule this week on the bill to divest or ban. There is also some speculation that Trump could step in and try to thwart a ban.
2:09:06 - Mikah Sargent
This is from Bloomberg oh yeah, remember that.
2:09:08 - Leo Laporte
The whole ban yeah they have till January 19th to find a buyer or else they'll be banned in the US.
That's still the law, that's going on, that's happening while a third of the user purchases on shop between oh, this is november 13th to december 2nd I thought it was black friday. We're from small and medium-sized businesses. Household names like crocs, fenty, beauty and estee lauder were among the top selling brands. This is this was huge in china years. A few years ago, remember, we would see these chinese influencers trying to sell something uh on Douyin or whatever they were using. That's really fascinating it is quite interesting.
This is for the two days between Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Seven billion views of posts that include the hashtags TikTokiktok shop black friday or tiktok shop cyber monday I.
2:10:05 - Mikah Sargent
I just don't know if I'd want to. I I would feel concerned about my financial information being popped into tiktok.
2:10:14 - Paris Martineau
I don't want more so than um facebook well, instagram, I don't do a lot of instagram either for a lot of young people, tiktok's how they make money. Their bank account information is on there because they need to get their TikTok shop payments from selling you those goods, or their creator fund payments.
2:10:31 - Leo Laporte
It's also one of the reasons I use Apple.
2:10:35 - Paris Martineau
Card whenever.
2:10:35 - Leo Laporte
I can, or the Apple. Pay Because they don't give any information over to the seller. Although the seller does get your address right, they have to ship it to ship it to you. In theory, they ship it all right, yeah, they may ship it. I I'm trying to remember. I think I did buy a life organizer which I've never opened up off the tick tock shop.
2:10:57 - Paris Martineau
Do you feel like your life is organized?
2:10:59 - Leo Laporte
uh, let me show you, let me show you because he was already organized.
2:11:03 - Mikah Sargent
There's life hyphen.
2:11:05 - Paris Martineau
Organizercom and we never saw him again, everybody that I've never opened it.
2:11:12 - Leo Laporte
It's still sealed. You can do an unboxing you want to do the little tips.
2:11:16 - Paris Martineau
Tap, tap noises, tap your nails tap with your nails it was, it was pitched he doesn't know what we're talking about.
2:11:24 - Leo Laporte
Mikah oh, what did you say?
2:11:25 - Mikah Sargent
tap it with your nails. You've got, we're gonna do an asmr unboxing you there you go. That's part of the yeah, if you've ever watched a modern there you go yeah, yeah, that's a big, that is a big part of it.
2:11:36 - Leo Laporte
I really like the fabric binding.
2:11:39 - Mikah Sargent
Is this the one that has like the documents for your when you die?
2:11:44 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, I thought it was. That's how it was advertised.
2:11:47 - Paris Martineau
You bought a holder for death documents on TikTok.
2:11:52 - Mikah Sargent
But it has them in there already, right or no? It has nothing, it's just a binder.
2:11:56 - Leo Laporte
Oh, no, Leo.
2:11:57 - Mikah Sargent
It's just a binder oh no. On Instagram, I've seen this really cool ad for it's just oh no, leo, it's just a binder oh no. On instagram, I've seen this really cool ad for it's a. It's a box, and inside the box it has all of your past life documents. That's what I thought I was buying and instead you bought a scrapbook well, basically it's a.
2:12:13 - Leo Laporte
It's a binder with a manila folders in it and it comes with stickers oh no. So the stickers you put on the middle of folder say things like bucket list social security cards oh no, like how many social security cards do?
2:12:29 - Mikah Sargent
I have? Do I need a whole?
2:12:30 - Leo Laporte
folder for that to file travel passports, holiday pass.
2:12:37 - Mikah Sargent
This is a very low effort product this had to have been an Ambien purchase.
2:12:41 - Paris Martineau
That you had to be. Did you buy this before or after you got your death date from that AI thing?
2:12:50 - Leo Laporte
before, but, as at my age, you start to think about these things and I thought I saw what you saw.
2:12:55 - Mikah Sargent
But this is what it is that is not the thing that I would want. It's very disappointing.
2:13:03 - Paris Martineau
What does it say on the edge?
2:13:05 - Leo Laporte
The folio, not my life documents. Not like open this when I Life and death. I think I got it.
2:13:18 - Paris Martineau
Mashed potato. On the Discord chat said the Faux Leo.
2:13:24 - Leo Laporte
Yes, the faux, leo, it's F-A-U-X-L-E-O.
2:13:29 - Mikah Sargent
The knockbox is the one that I was talking about.
2:13:34 - Paris Martineau
For when you knock it.
2:13:36 - Leo Laporte
I must have confused those. And then I can't remember if I got my Instagram gum on Instagram or TikTok. I think it was. Maybe TikTok, is it gum?
2:13:46 - Mikah Sargent
or mints.
2:13:48 - Paris Martineau
It's a good question.
2:13:49 - Mikah Sargent
Thank you.
2:13:52 - Paris Martineau
Wow, I love that. The knockbox says are you leaving a scavenger hunt for your next of kin?
2:13:58 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, well, that was the thinking was I, I wanted to?
2:14:02 - Mikah Sargent
yeah, and this always happens, anytime someone passes in your life, then you are stuck oh, this is much better.
2:14:08 - Leo Laporte
Maybe, maybe I should get this instead.
2:14:11 - Mikah Sargent
It's only, it's 99 but it has like all of the documentation already in there, and so it has like these little workbooks that you can fill out, and so it's not just. I don't know why I'm trying to sell this to you. I just thought it was really cool, um, because it has stuff like your, your pet, um yeah, all the stuff.
2:14:28 - Leo Laporte
You're all the stuff you need the next of kin to know. Yeah, okay, but the box, is it just a plastic box?
2:14:38 - Mikah Sargent
No, that's the thing. It's different from that.
2:14:41 - Leo Laporte
Is it fireproof?
2:14:42 - Mikah Sargent
Oh, I wish it was.
2:14:44 - Paris Martineau
They have a fireproof one for $169.
2:14:48 - Leo Laporte
Ah, here it is.
2:14:49 - Paris Martineau
I think you could just probably make all these files yourself.
2:14:54 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, if you knew. Well, yeah, you can, but who's going to do it?
2:14:56 - Leo Laporte
Oh, I did buy this, though the.
2:15:04 - Mikah Sargent
Prepared Hero Fire Blanket. Wait, you should start a fire somewhere and use that.
2:15:06 - Leo Laporte
I could throw it over the oh look, you can also just get the base kit. Oh, $499. Oh, that's a five-pack.
2:15:15 - Mikah Sargent
Oh, so you could give them out to people?
2:15:17 - Leo Laporte
Yes, oh, here's one. I need this in case you go missing.
2:15:25 - Paris Martineau
Here's all the people, I think, did it.
2:15:30 - Leo Laporte
The list contains things like height, eye color, identifiable body markings, where to find your dental records, et cetera. Oh wow, you really have to be planning something if you think you might be going missing. Wow, All right.
2:15:45 - Paris Martineau
I don't know if I'll get that. Put a little baggy for your hair.
2:15:48 - Leo Laporte
This little clip. So the DNA, yeah, uh, there you go. Patrick said after his pop died. Uh, he, he was able to figure out most of it, but behind he left behind a large tray full of keys and they have no idea what any of the keys do.
2:16:04 - Mikah Sargent
Oh no.
2:16:06 - Paris Martineau
You should just keep trying different doors. There's a puzzle somewhere in your life.
2:16:11 - Leo Laporte
All right, let's take a break. When we come back to your picks of the week, we're going to wrap this thing up. You're watching this week in Google with Paris Martineauineau, Mikah sergeant, filling in for the wonderful jeff jarvis, who will be back next week. So glad though to get mic on, it's great to have a another young person on with you, isn't? It, it is good all right, pick of the week time. I'm gonna let Mikah start this one, because he's our guest today.
2:16:38 - Mikah Sargent
All right, I've got something goofy that I love. I came across it in a link in a Verge article to another Verge article from a long time ago, and it is a.
2:16:51 - Leo Laporte
Wait a minute. Don't tell us it's a bar of soap.
2:16:56 - Mikah Sargent
Yes, it's a bar of soap. No, it is the case for a magic mouse. And here's what's great about this, oh my.
God, does it have a charging port? It has a wireless charging spot on the bottom, so I thwock this onto a wireless charger and it has a little thunderbolt or, excuse me, a lightning connector into the mouse, and it also makes the mouse more ergonomic. So the mouse is easier to grip because it's bigger and it has, yeah, wireless charging built in. So when I leave my desk I just put this onto a wireless charging puck and it charges it, and so it always stays charged. Also, it's just 25 bucks.
Oh, and the other thing that I love about this is, from time to time, my Magic Mouse, when it was just on its own, occasionally it'd brush up against something on the desk and get it into the little optics spot and it would be sometimes difficult to find it and pull out the little fiber or whatever was in there, because this kind of pulls the optics away from the base. I have not had that issue once since I've gotten this, and it also comes with a little prism that's built in there to help, like, send it along, uh, to where it needs to go.
2:18:08 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, this thing is really cool and you know what I thought it was, though I, and I was hoping it was. You know how the apple um mouse has the charging port on the bottom and I was hoping it was some sort of thing that you could use the mouse and have the charge come in from the side it's from the side of the back, if you keep it charged, it solves that problem.
2:18:27 - Paris Martineau
If you really needed that, you could just get a different mouse right.
2:18:32 - Mikah Sargent
Oh wow, that's too logical. You're saying something no, no, no.
2:18:36 - Paris Martineau
You can't use a non-Apple mouse with an Apple. To cradle your. I mean, I'm saying this with my that's a good point. Apple Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad put in a custom acrylic thing to mimic the feeling of holding my laptop while I'm using it in the desktop. What in the world that is?
2:18:54 - Leo Laporte
weird. Who made that? You put that in your lap.
2:18:57 - Paris Martineau
Someone in. I mean, I use it on my desk, honestly.
2:19:05 - Mikah Sargent
I use it on the desk like I would a normal desktop.
2:19:06 - Paris Martineau
I don't like the two sliding around and I'm used to the trackpad being the same distance from the keyboard, as it normally is, and otherwise I'll hit it with mine.
2:19:15 - Mikah Sargent
That's quite clever. How's it on there?
2:19:19 - Paris Martineau
It's just a. Oh it goes down in Got it's just, oh, I just hit my it's just a oh, it goes down in, got it. Yeah, okay, so somebody made that, or can you buy someone? I got it on like etsy or amazon or something. It was just some person in china made a little acrylic uh keyboard tray holder I've definitely mentioned it on the show have you.
2:19:35 - Leo Laporte
I don't, I wasn't here. I don't remember that.
2:19:38 - Paris Martineau
That's amazing um, yeah, it's like a magic keyboard acrylic tray, I think you could search and it would come up, so I get you.
My pick of the week is as I was doing my Thanksgiving shopping at the grocery store, I came up to the checkout aisle and I saw the same scene I see every time. That infuriates me, which is all these magazines. But they're not normal magazines. They're like weird special editions, like Taylor Swift or the Magazine of Cats, or a lifetime issue just dedicated to Lord of the Rings, and I always am sitting there waiting to check out. I'm like what happened? I mean, I know that magazines don't work anymore as a business, but how are these racks suddenly filled with single issue magazines and why is it so popular?
So I ended up posting about this on Blue Sky, asking has anybody written about how magazines have been entirely replaced with these single themed issues? Got quite a few responses. Replaced these single themed issues got quite a few responses. Interesting. Eventually, a couple days later, someone responded with a link to this podcast by uh slates decoder ring a podcast about this very topic and I listened and it was the perfect answer to all of my questions and it was also delightful answer.
I won't spoil the answer for you, but there's a whole industry that has fueled this shift and it's just they tackle it in such an interesting way and I'd really recommend the podcast episode about anybody who's interested in learning about this?
2:21:13 - Leo Laporte
My recommendation is a little bookazine called Leo Laporte's Gadget's, gadget gear and gift guide 2005. It's a retro look back at the right holiday gifts for you and you know, because it's a bookazine, it's it's cheap.
2:21:32 - Paris Martineau
I don't know how much it was because these are actually kind of expensive, but I'd like you to open to a random page and then give us the recommendation on there.
2:21:38 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, that's on that page.
2:21:40 - Leo Laporte
There's the magellan spartrac color these are handheld gps devices back in 2005. No one knew how to drive and your car wasn't driving yet, so you had to have one of these. Or what about digital voice recorders, like the olympus dm1? Well, all you have to do is look at the back cover of this bookazine yeah you use one.
2:22:03 - Mikah Sargent
I have a digital voice recorder.
2:22:06 - Leo Laporte
I used to have an Olympus. Look, here's the plexiglass keyboard and mouse holder.
2:22:13 - Paris Martineau
Oh, I love that little Leo, can you do that again?
2:22:17 - Leo Laporte
The little Leo. There's just you going like huh huh, we took a lot of pictures. This is part of the leoville press bookazine line. There were a lot of these.
2:22:29 - Paris Martineau
There were a lot of these every year you write all of that, or did you have a ghostwriter?
2:22:33 - Leo Laporte
I'm sure I had a ghostwriter, I don't. I might have picked the oh, here's a good one. The Palm One, zyre 72.
2:22:45 - Paris Martineau
Leo's pick.
2:22:46 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, even though your Mac can connect to a pocket PC device, it doesn't quite make a pocket PC device the best device for your pocket PC. How about the Sidewinder emergency charger? Absolutely, yeah, yeah, everybody's gonna have that. So this is so old, this is almost 20 years old. Look at this, exclusively on g4 tech TV Canada. Call for my goodness, become a master of Technology with amber MacArthur and Andy Walker. Look at that.
2:23:23 - Paris Martineau
I bet those co-hosts wouldn't have teamed up on you in a game of whatever that marathon.
2:23:29 - Leo Laporte
They were terrified of me actually. So that's it. These have been around for a long time. That's 20 years old, that's 2005. It means it was out probably for 2004. But I don't look a day older, do I not? A day look at that, don't I look? Just it's like I'm saying oh, you guys come over here and learn about tech you silly gooses you silly gooses all right, my gooses All right. My pick of the week is something I've been saving just for a day like today.
2:24:06 - Mikah Sargent
Special occasion.
2:24:07 - Leo Laporte
It is a web page with many, many calculators on it. It's called Calculator Soup.
2:24:15 - Paris Martineau
I love Calculator Soup.
2:24:18 - Leo Laporte
Oh, you know, Calculator Soup.
2:24:20 - Paris Martineau
I use Calculator Soup whenever I need to figure out percentage change, which is often. It's very embarrassing to admit, but I don't want to do that math. I know how to do it, I don't want to do it, and so I will always load up. Calculator Soup's percentage change.
2:24:34 - Leo Laporte
I can't believe it. We're both Calculator Soup users. Look at all the calculators. So many calculators. It's free to use and it's a it's. I should give credit to the author, edward fury, his calculator soup.
Online calculators at calculator soupcom ideal gas law calculator yeah, oh, it's all in here, baby, a yugioh calculator, I don't. If you want to play yugioh, you need that, you need that. It's just kind of mind-boggling. This guy at some point just sat down and said I'm gonna start writing calculators, and uh, and he's come up with literally dozens. Which one do you use it for?
2:25:19 - Paris Martineau
uh, I use it for a percent increase, percent difference and percent change like any of those. I just need to do a quick thing how about a dot product calculator two? Two more vectors.
2:25:31 - Leo Laporte
I don't even know what that means I know you don't have to because it does that's true the displacement of function as an average Wow.
2:25:41 - Paris Martineau
Yeah, anyway, I didn't realize this website had so many other calculators.
2:25:46 - Leo Laporte
You just always go right to the one you want.
2:25:49 - Paris Martineau
I just yeah, it comes up in my browser all the time.
2:25:52 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, yeah, well, that's really funny. Yeah, it starts with a basic calculator. It's the best one.
2:25:56 - Paris Martineau
I've tried a lot. It's got exactly what you need and it basic it's the best one. I've tried a lot.
2:26:02 - Mikah Sargent
It's just got exactly what you need and it's got a good ui few ads tank volume calculator using different types of tanks like horizontal cylinders.
2:26:10 - Leo Laporte
See, you know where else you're going to go to find that out.
2:26:11 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, when I'm trying to make a custom fish tank, where else do I go to learn the volume of a vertical capsule?
2:26:20 - Leo Laporte
There is a competition Out of Sync, says he uses OmniCalculatorcom. Oh sure, it's got a little more color on the page and it does have hundreds of calculators. Oh, it's got animations Ooh, I don't know. I like calculator soup myself, but I'm a soup guy. So there you go.
2:26:40 - Paris Martineau
Yeah.
2:26:42 - Leo Laporte
Yeah, pretty cool know I like that. I like calculator soup myself, but I'm a soup guy. So there you go. Yeah, yeah, pretty cool soup for you, soup for all. Thank you, Mikah sergeant, for filling in for jeff jarvis. If people want to see jeff's talk, he's on, uh, in a like an hour. I think it's about five o'clock, right, so it's half an hour At the Commonwealth Club.
Let me go to the website and I'll tell you. Commonwealth Club of San Francisco he is a guest speaker. Oops, I'm in Discord to do that. There it is Commonwealthcluborg. And just ignore all the other sexier events, like Craig Monday interviewing Sam Altman, and go straight to Jeff Jarvis how we Reclaim the Internet. Yeah, 5.30, so you got one hour, but he's doing it online, so you can get some online-only tickets and watch Jeff's talk. $30 for a book and general admission, so you get the web. We weave just $10 if you want to watch Commonwealth Club at commonwealthorg. Jeff Jarvis speaking there tonight. He'll be back on the show next week. Paris Martineau she's at the information. If you've got a hot tip for a lead that she should follow up her. Martineau.01. And uh, you will. Don't use your work phone kids, no practice good ops in this house sex, everything we we do up sec here.
Thank you, paris, thank you Mikah um. Tomorrow we are going to do a 5 pm civic, 8 pm eastern, 0100 utc. We are going to do which would actually be december 6th, december 5th pst. We are going to do a advent of code roundup with our advent of coders, darren oki and paul holder and sy phase and myself. We'll be talking about the first week of the coding challenges and what we have learned. It'll be a little bit of fun tomorrow at 2 pm you're going to be interviewing emily forlini?
2:28:46 - Mikah Sargent
yes, very excited host for tech news weekly uh an ama. So if you've got questions for emily uh, head into the discord and look for the thread, which you'll find there in the events and you can leave some questions that you might have this is club only.
2:29:01 - Leo Laporte
Yes.
2:29:02 - Mikah Sargent
Yes, club only event.
2:29:04 - Leo Laporte
So for you, club twit folks and you're going to ask her about the family farm, right?
2:29:09 - Mikah Sargent
Yes, please do.
2:29:12 - Leo Laporte
Yes, the Dry Belbis Farm. I'm telling you, I'm telling you, there's a story there. Do you know that Are?
2:29:20 - Mikah Sargent
you talking about.
2:29:22 - Leo Laporte
Emily Dry Belbis, the family farm it's one of. Just ask her.
2:29:27 - Mikah Sargent
Okay, Say.
2:29:27 - Leo Laporte
Leo said I should ask you about the family farm.
2:29:30 - Mikah Sargent
Okay.
2:29:31 - Leo Laporte
I'm not kidding. Okay, I think her.
2:29:33 - Paris Martineau
There is a story there. Oh, there's a huge story, as we've learned yeah. Oh, you's a huge story, as we've learned. Yeah, oh, you know this story right. Why do you know this story? You looked we had a whole tangent on this last time.
2:29:48 - Leo Laporte
she was on the show, he immediately was like dry pelvis. What about your family farm, the dry belbises? Go, listen to the last time she was on TWiG.
2:29:53 - Paris Martineau
if you want to hear more or listen to Mikah's interview tomorrow, yeah exactly.
2:29:58 - Leo Laporte
It will be streamed live publicly, as we usually do 2 pm Pacific, 5 pm Eastern, 2200 UTC on all of those eight channels, but then, after we stream it, it goes into the Club TwitPlus feed for a month and then it becomes public once again. So chance to see it if you really want to watch live. Thank you, Mikah, it's great to see you. Yeah, good to be here. Thank you both. This was fun. Steve Brown I miss working with you and the wonderful Paris Martin. Thank you all for joining us.
We do TWiG every Wednesday, 2pm Pacific, 5pm Eastern, 2200 UTC. If you want to watch live, you can on those eight platforms Discord, Tiktok, Youtube, Twitch, Kick, Facebook, Linkedin and x.com. After the fact, of course, we're on the website twit.tv/twig. There's a YouTube channel dedicated to This Week in Google, a great place to watch, but also a great place to share clips with other people. If you see something that you think you others might want to know about, like the calculator soup, of course, subscribing is the best way to get it. If you subscribe that way, you'll get it automatically the minute it is available, which is shortly after the show finishes. Thanks, John Ashley. Fill it in for Benito Gonzalez this week. Uh, great job, john, appreciate it. He's our producer, director, editor. Everything does it all. Is that your Christmas tree? Yeah, very nice.
2:31:23 - Mikah Sargent
I need to put something.
2:31:24 - Leo Laporte
It's been blank and I figured the tree would be nice.
2:31:27 - Mikah Sargent
It's actually not bad.
2:31:28 - Leo Laporte
It's the holidays.
2:31:29 - Mikah Sargent
Yeah, yeah.
2:31:31 - Leo Laporte
Thanks everybody for joining us, thanks to the club members especially, who literally paid for this show this week. We really appreciate it. Keep joining, keep participating and if you've not yet joined twit.tv/clubtwit and we will see y'all next week on this Week in Google. Bye-bye, bye, bye.
2:31:51 - Mikah Sargent
There we go.
