This Week in Tech Episode 799 Transcript
Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for twit this week in tech. Ladies and gentlemen, I am the Chief Quit. I am the chief. Quit now. And joining me we're Philip Elmer dewitt from P E D three o.com, Davindra OI from In Gadget and from Our Own Floss Weekly in the Linux Journal in many places. Doc Earls lots to talk about. Elon, what's going on at Twitter? Apple's incredible earnings is, here's an interesting question I want to ask these guys. Do you think the tech market is dumping just because they did so much in Covid and now it's a recovery? I don't know. We'll find out. We'll talk about that. Plus an r i p for a legend in computing that nobody's ever heard of, but we will make sure you've heard of her when we do the show. Next on podcasts you love
TWiT Intro (00:00:53):
From people you trust.
Leo Laporte (00:00:55):
This is is
(00:01:03):
This is twit this week in Tech, episode 899, recorded Sunday, October 30th, 2022. It's only fleas. This week in Tech is brought to you by eight. Sleep, good sleep. It's the ultimate game changer, and the pod is the ultimate sleep machine. Go to eight sleep.com/twi to check out the pod and save $150 at checkout eight. Sleep currently ships within the us, Canada, the uk, and select countries in the EU and Australia and buy wealthfront. Visit wealthfront.com/twi to get started and get your free $50 bonus with an initial deposit of $500. That's wealthfront.com/twi and buy express vpn. Stop letting people keep logs of what you do online and protect your online activity with Express vpn. Find out how you can get three extra months free with a one year package when you go to express vpn.com/twi And by Melissa. Poor data quality can cost organizations an average of 15 million every year. Make sure your customer contact data is up to date. Get started today with 1000 records cleaned for free at melissa.com/twi.
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It's time for twit. Yes, we're still called twit, believe it or not, the show where we cover the week's tech news and have been since 2005. This is episode 899, 900th episode. Coming up soon as we continue our celebration of almost 18 years as a podcast. And you know what? I've known you guys for almost all that time. Let's say hello Doc Searles. He is the host of the Floss Weekly Show, our free Libre and open source software show. I've known Doc forever and ever. The author of the co-author of the Clue Train Manifesto, one of the smartest guys out there, docs cys.com. Great to see you Doc.
Doc Searls (00:03:11):
Good to see you too. I I think my reputation exceeds me if you put it that way, but
Leo Laporte (00:03:17):
Oh, no, no. And I've trying to get you on the show for some time, but our schedules have not worked. But I'm so glad, I'm so glad to have Me Too. You here. Great to have you. We, you were the first person I called when we thought we need, we need to get some get some, a host on Floss Weekly. And you were the first person I called. And you have taken that show to the next level with some of the best guests ever. Talking about the most important topics in open source. We've got a few today as a matter of fact. But I also wanna say hello to to Vira. Hardwar. He's a senior editor, adding gadget, also longtime twi, I can't say Twitter. Twitter, Twitter. Twitter. Twitter. Twi twi guy <laugh>.
Devindra Hardawar (00:03:58):
I I will say also longer time listener too, because I do remember when you started this whole thing, Leo, cuz I was coming off of being a fan of you on Twitter TV and every, and the tech TV and everything. So
Leo Laporte (00:04:07):
You, you always mention that. And you make me bless the time. You also make me, I
Devindra Hardawar (00:04:11):
Also wanna say it is yeah, it is also nice to feel like the youngin in a discussion once again. Cause I'm not getting that anymore.
Leo Laporte (00:04:18):
Not, not an un gadget anymore. No. There's a lot of, Yeah. You know, this was, they always said, you know, when the cops seem like they're younger than you, then, you know, you're old and it's, the cops are like, they're like teenagers. Who are these people?
Devindra Hardawar (00:04:31):
Oh yeah, absolutely.
Leo Laporte (00:04:31):
They're teenagers now. He is a teenager in spirit. Mr. Phillip Elmer Dewitt wearing his cap cuz he's so hip. P e d thirty.com, because I'm so bald. That's what <laugh>, keeping the hand warm. He is just down the road from my mom. So wave at her in Cranston. Good to, good to have you on the show again. Great, great to see you. Yeah, good to see you. I think Phillip's been on our show since you were with Fortune, I think. Format. Yeah. Not, I don't think we did it when I was at time. I feel like we did, but maybe not. You know, it's easy to go, easy to find out when you go to twit tv. Twit.Tv <laugh> you can search for somebody's name. Oops. I if you do it right, you could search for somebody. There we go. Okay. And the search Elmer,
Devindra Hardawar (00:05:28):
I love this feature, by the way.
Leo Laporte (00:05:29):
And, and then you'll find them. You click their name and then this is the feature view appearances. So I can see every time you've appeared on our show, by the way, the database is churning, so it's <laugh> it's been it's been a while here. Let's, let's go back in time. I can find your first appearance was 2014. No, that doesn't seem right, but maybe so. Eight years. Oh. And look who was on with you. Eli Patel. I don't know who that other guy is. What a great piece he wrote about <laugh>, about mothers. Okay, let's talk about that. That was the best piece, wasn't it? Welcome mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative> to hell. Elon <laugh>. I think, I mean, many, many things have been written about Elon Musk buying Twitter. Who would've thought that, by the way, six months ago, <laugh>, he fought a tooth and nail.
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He did not want to buy Twitter. Right? Well, his joke was, Well, he did. And then changed his mind. Yeah. Well, he did Bri like, like for five minutes, agreed to it without any due diligence. And then almost instantly back in April was writing his lawyer saying, Can we hold off on this? That his excuse then was, Putin's gonna speak and I don't wanna own Twitter. During World War three, <laugh>, this is what happens when the troll faces their consequences. Yeah. It's it's a beautiful thing to see. But I think maybe even Elon underestimated the consequences. And now that he owns Twitter, it's going to, it's gonna get real as the kids say, Eli's piece, welcome to hell Elon subtitled. You break it, you buy it. You ft up real good kiddo. Twitter is, I'm reading. Twitter is a disaster clown car company that is successful despite itself.
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And this is the salient point. And there is no possible way to grow users in revenue without making a series of enormous compromises that will ultimately destroy your reputation and possibly cause grievous damage to your other companies. And that's just the first paragraph. <Laugh>. Okay. Re read the bit about moderation. Yeah, cuz I think he, he makes the really excellent point. People think, Oh, and I think Elon thinks based on his immediate actions, that the product of Twitter is code or engineering or even the users. Eli says the essential truth of every social network is the product. The product is content moderation, whether it's YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, The, you have people's posts, but it's how you control it, Moderate it, offer it up to the users. That's what you're getting from Twitter. And he says, and every, and this is important. Everyone hates the people who decide how content moderation works.
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It's a no win. Content moderation is what Twitter makes. It is the thing that defines the user experience. It's what YouTube makes. It's what Instagram makes. It's what TikTok makes. They all try to incentivize good stuff, disincentivize bad stuff, and delete the really bad stuff. He says, that's the business you're in now, Elon, the longer you fight it or pretend that you can sell something else, the more Twitter will drag you into the deepest possible muck of defending indefensible speech. And if you turn on a dime and accept that growth requires aggressive content moderation and pushing back against government speech regulations around the country. And by the way, and he makes this point really important, not just to us around the world. Elon's got big business in China with Tesla. Is he gonna listen to Chinese regulators about Twitter? He is. We'll see how your fans react when you do that. Anyway, anyhow, Any who writes neon? Well, Nele <laugh>, welcome to hell. This was your idea. Philip, what do you think?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:09:33):
Well, first of all he's right about content moderation. I, I've done it four or five different venues. This one, I solved it by requiring people to pay. You
Leo Laporte (00:09:45):
Know, you, you nailed it. When we, our discord, which is for club only, we don't have to moderate at all. There are no moderators. Cause
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:09:52):
People pay for it because Right. And also only real names with a few exceptions. You know, because they're,
Leo Laporte (00:10:00):
I we don't do that. I don't need to do that. I don't think, I just, the fact that somebody paid seven bucks to be there, it doesn't have to. It's a one buck wouldn't ma it just doesn't. A little bit. Just a little bit.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:10:11):
Yep. Yep. My other thought is Musk is often compared to Steve Jobs. I hear that a lot. And, and what the thing about Steve Jobs is he was such an, when he was first at Apple and, and then he got pushed out. And then, you know, he was out in the desert for a long time and he learned a lot. And by the time he came back to Apple having, you know, failed at next he was a different person. And he was, he was brilliant. And we were all, we were all the benefits of what Steve Jobs did after he learned the big lesson. Well, Musk hasn't learned anything that I can tell except, you know, he makes good products and he knows how to take on big challenges and how to attract talent and that kind of stuff. But, but I think Twi may be his Waterloo or
Leo Laporte (00:11:00):
Twitter plays. Twitter. Twitter. It's the gun already. I'm the chief twit now. Go ahead. I'm sorry. <Laugh>.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:11:08):
Well, this, this, this seems insolvable what he's up against. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:11:13):
That was NE's point is you can't win these. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Yeah.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:11:16):
He's stuck. And it'll be interesting to see if what comes out of this and if he comes out of it he's got a lot at stake, all of all, you know, he may be the richest guy in the world, but that can go really quickly.
Leo Laporte (00:11:34):
There was the best, I would say the best Steve Jobs's biography is not the Walter Isis and although it's worth reading, but the, the one that talks about how Steve changed after getting kicked outta Apple, and I'm trying to remember who wrote that, but it was easily the best one. I have it right on the show. Yeah. He was a fortune guy. Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. and, and that was, to me, that was the most interesting story, was that you could take a guy who really, you're right, was a jerk and became somebody much better. He is called Brett Brett Slender, Brett Slender, and Rick Tetzel, who I think were, weren't they at the Seattle Times? Anyway, becoming Steve Jobs, the evolution of a reckless upstart into a visionary leader.
Devindra Hardawar (00:12:27):
Even though there, there's still so many stories of him being an asshole after that. Do
Leo Laporte (00:12:30):
You? Oh, he didn't stop.
Devindra Hardawar (00:12:31):
You know. Yeah. Yeah. And in a way, just the more successful one, I guess
Leo Laporte (00:12:34):
In a way, Steve has given permission to a whole <laugh> series of Yeah, absolutely. Famous terrible leaders. Or maybe I often wonder this. They've always been that way. Edison was an ass. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Henry Ford was the worst, but they didn't have
Devindra Hardawar (00:12:51):
To. It's still like myth of genius. Yeah. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:12:53):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, they didn't have Twitter. We didn't know. We really know now about our, our guys. So Devendra Are you gonna leave Twitter?
Devindra Hardawar (00:13:04):
You know, I, I've certainly been thinking about it. I was a Twitter blue subscriber and I am no longer that because I don't wanna give you on any money. But this is, this is kind of a sad story, you know, this whole thing. First of all, I was championing this Neli piece because I feel like it channeled all the rage I'm feeling. And a lot of other people are feeling I could, I could almost like see him like writing that with pure rage fuel. Because everything he's saying is absolutely true. I think normally I would I would kind of embrace watching Elon just kind of drown himself in a really bad decision. But at the same time, I think Twitter is so, it, it is my favorite social network. It's such an essential part of the way I use the internet. It is terribly sad to see it kind of go down this way because we're seeing the effects of what's happening now. Immediately a lot of people who were banned and kicked off we're, we're kind of welcomed back onto Twitter. Is that true? Cuz I know that Kyle Written House has reactivated his account Oh. And has been very public about like, the worst of
Leo Laporte (00:14:02):
The worst, A murderer and who got away with murder. Yep. And then Now's Championed,
Devindra Hardawar (00:14:09):
Championed is a total celebrity for, for many folks. But also the rise of hate speech. Like, incredible rise of hate speech. Like, people are just like out there celebrating this. And it, it's sad to see, because I think when I started using the internet in the mid nineties, like I've always envisioned, like having direct access to everything happening in the world. And I feel like Twitter is the most kind of like most successful product that can give us that, that can connect me with people instantly, even if I don't know them. It is so much more public facing than Facebook or anything else. And it's, it's gonna die. It's gonna die because of one billionaire's toilet tweet decision basically to, to, to buy this thing. Like, Oh, wouldn't this be funny? It's, it's maddening. It's infuriating.
Leo Laporte (00:14:49):
There was some debate about whether Kanye got his, his account was never kicked off. He just was silenced. Yeah. And I was a temporary ban. Yeah. A temporary suspension. Yeah. So, I don't know. And, and Elon says I had nothing to do with that. But Kyle ridden house, by the way, look at this guy's. This is a terrifying profile picture of him with an automatic rifle sitting in a helicopter looking out the, the door, the open door, apparently ready to, to take, you know, action against anybody he disagrees with. And his banner is him actually shooting out that door with the American flag behind him. That is not a guy you wanna celebrate. Not at all. And so that's scary. But I, on the other hand, I have, I'm still a Twitter Blue Pay payer, and I'm, I'm withholding judgment. I, I want to give <laugh>, I don't know.
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I want to give it a chance. I like you. I don't wanna lose Twitter. I le I've left and come back a couple of times cuz Twitter has always been a bit of a cesspool. But there is such a value to it. As a, when Queen Elizabeth passed away mm-hmm. <Affirmative> her family, normally what was supposed to happen is the BBC would play somber music and do an announcement. Then they put an announcement on the Palace gates. No, it was a tweet. The family tweeted it before the bbc before anybody. I mean, that sh in a nutshell, kind of, Twitter's not the town square, but it has, it's, there's what does it talk about Twitter that's important.
Doc Searls (00:16:17):
Yeah. Twitter's a news router. That's basically the biggest function of it. I'm not gonna leave it. I'm pleased enough with it there. The angle on, on Elon I haven't heard, I haven't read much about yet, is that this is his first acquisition. You know, he, he kind of built, you know, Tesla from the ground up. He built SpaceX in the ground up. Starlink. No.
Leo Laporte (00:16:40):
He acquired both
Doc Searls (00:16:41):
These
Leo Laporte (00:16:41):
Other hat. He admire Tesla acquired Tesla,
Doc Searls (00:16:43):
He acquired Tesla. Yeah. But still itt, I mean, it it's
Leo Laporte (00:16:45):
The Tesla we know today. It was,
Doc Searls (00:16:47):
It was the Tesla we know today. And, and I mean, I, I give a giant hats off to him for the, for the original stuff that he's done with those, with those companies. And I agree that he, he kind of bought this thing on a lark, I mean, and, and, and got stuck with it. And I agree with everything Dai says as well. I think there's the, the odds are really against him making it work. I actually wonder whether social media, as we know it now, is already kind of stale. It's
Leo Laporte (00:17:12):
Pretty damaged, isn't it? Absolutely.
Doc Searls (00:17:13):
It's really, it's really old. It's old stuff. And, and I'm not sure the new stuff that we really want or need is here yet either, so mm-hmm. <Affirmative> we're, you know, the older I get, the earlier it seems, and we've only had the internet in its current form where it's commercial. The commercial internet since really? April 30th, 1995. It's 27 years ago. What
Leo Laporte (00:17:33):
Happened on April 30th in nine? I know, but
Doc Searls (00:17:36):
Telephone, The nsf Yeah, the NSF that the NSF that shut down. It was the, one
Leo Laporte (00:17:40):
Of the, the internet was originally funded by the US government and run by the National Science Foundation in
Doc Searls (00:17:47):
1995. Yeah. The National Science Foundation, it's
Leo Laporte (00:17:49):
All yours
Doc Searls (00:17:50):
In the, they said they had an acceptable use policy that aup they call it exactly the acceptable use policy. And, and, and it forbid commercial activity. There was some commercial activity, they weren't able to police it or anything. But as soon as that went down, Amazon explodes, eBay, explodes, ISPs everywhere. You know, it was just suddenly we had the beginning formation of what we have now. It's kind of like, you know, we entered the, you know, a geologic era where life exploded and <laugh> that's what the camera 47 years a can explosion. Yeah. It was, I mean, I remember the dinosaur days of the web. Yeah. You remember at her old microbes, you know, But, but but I, I, I have to say, I mean, I, I have very mixed feelings about Twitter in a way because I was a very active blogger and and an early blogger. And I had up to 50,000 readers a day on my blog. And Twitter came along, Facebook came along. It was down to dozens in about a year. And so you didn't stop everybody. For
Leo Laporte (00:18:50):
Me, I stopped blogging cuz I, I got that itch scratched by Twitter. You didn't stop blogging, your readers stopped reading.
Doc Searls (00:18:57):
Mm. Yeah. And, and my companions, if you look at my old blog, it's still up. It's a slightly different url, but it's there. It's preserved. There's a blog roll. Everybody had a blog roll underwrite. It was, it was a social network, but it was a really small one, you know, And Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:19:14):
That's right. Every
Doc Searls (00:19:14):
Blog, most of those
Leo Laporte (00:19:15):
Most other blogs.
Doc Searls (00:19:17):
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We cross, you know, we cross pollinated a lot. That's not the one that, the one that's showing up.
Leo Laporte (00:19:22):
This is your Harvard, this is your Harvard blog. What?
Doc Searls (00:19:24):
Where's the, This is the one that's host How's hosted at Harvard? I wouldn't call it a Harvard blog, but it is, it's, it's been hosted there. I moved there after from the other one. I'll put the other one in. There's a link in there. So this
Leo Laporte (00:19:35):
Is just your general webpage?
Doc Searls (00:19:37):
Yeah. That's by the way, nothing part
Leo Laporte (00:19:39):
Of the problem. You and I, everybody has 800 different places.
Doc Searls (00:19:43):
Well, you know, the funny thing is that's a, if you could just go toss.com Yeah. That HTML has been there since 1995. You know, like it Yeah. It looks like that's what it is. I mean, it's the, the art is, is new. It was drawn by a friend a few years ago, but I think it's weblog doys.com. That's the short, short link to it. But there's a blog role on that. And most people, Yeah, some of them are still there, but most of them left and most of them went to Facebook and Twitter. And there's some brilliant people writing now on Facebook. And it's all what I call snow on the water. It all kind of floats down, hits the water, and is gone. And, and I just think it's a lousy way for people to be smart and mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, there have to be better ways. And Twitter fills a, an essential role, I think for as, as a news router. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And people call it a spool, but, you know, I, I follow 5,000 people on Twitter. I see no politics cuz they don't respond to any <laugh>. You know, So, So by not responding to politics and not playing politic, not doing any political blogging, I mean, I mean tweeting, I kind of relieve myself of that stuff, so mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, it's kind of interesting that way, the way, you know, following works, but having follow
Devindra Hardawar (00:20:57):
People can be assessed pool. Right. Like, I, I think that's the ultimate thing. And yeah, the argument with Twitter was that they just did a bad job with moderation for a very long time. But to what you guys were talking about, I think the best response I've seen to this is so many people saying like, we gotta go back to the old ways of the old web. You know, like, re rebuild my blog, rebuild my website or something. Because Twitter fulfilled this like, instant gratification, you know, before you'd make a blog post and maybe occasionally you'd look at your traffic and be like, Oh, 50 people read that today. That's interesting. And you move on with your life with Twitter, it's just like instantly you can see what's happening. And that was too addictive for too many of us.
Doc Searls (00:21:35):
Blogging has been taken over to some degree by Sub Stack. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and by, by newsletters in general. My problem there is that what I love about writing a blog is that, oh geez, I want change that I can change it with, with Sub Stack or any of the newsletter outfits. It's already gone out the way it is and you can't go back and correct it, you know, So that one is sitting in people's mailboxes. So I, but it's, and I kind of, I I just hate that it's in yet somebody else's silo. Again, you know, SubT Stack is another centralized system. And Bryan Bell Endorf, who's been a, a guest a couple times on, on Floss Weekly talks about what he calls minimum viable centralization. I think that's really the best way to look at it, you know, and maybe we'll always have that kind of centralization for something.
Leo Laporte (00:22:20):
What about the open source alternatives? We had ramble on on Wednesday on this week in Google. He was Jack Dorsey's boss when Twitter started. He was the lead engineer on od, which is F Williams podcast directory that he shut down to start Twitter. Drae talked a lot about the history of Twitter. In fact, one of the things he told us, you should get him on Floss Weekly. One of the things he told us is that in the early days, the SSH password for Twitter was the company name. And the year it started <laugh> on all of Twitter. So you got, you could get rude on anything. He said they had no, no security at all. But he has started or participating now in something called Scuttle, but which is an open source. There are actually several open source attempts to create some sort of decentralized social network scuttle. But.Nz is one of them.
Doc Searls (00:23:21):
Is is is that Jack Dorsey's, No
Leo Laporte (00:23:24):
Check Dorsey's Blue Sky, which is now taking, and I've applied, but I haven't been accepted yet, taking a beta testers for some sort of decentralized net. Jack wisely before he left as CEO of Twitter, funded that to the tune of 15 million Irrevocably. So that's enough money for them to keep going. I think with or without Elon's support, I doubt Elon even knows about <laugh> him about it, or cares. There's also Mastodon. And we have a very, I think in a great Mastodon instance that I actually have some hopes for because it's, ever since Elon bought Twitter in the last three days we've had hundreds of new people join. And I think that's true for all the Mastodon mm-hmm. <Affirmative> instances. This is a federated, It's actually not using, there's no Macon protocol. It's using Activity Pub to make a Twitter like clone.
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There are other activity pub users like Pixel Fed, Chloroma and, and you can follow anybody on any of these servers, on any other server. You join one server, ours is twit.social. And then you could follow anybody, anybody else's server. What about something like that? Some sort mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, that's what Blue Sky is intended to be, is some sort of federated thing. The one thing that Rabel said was, that's missing from ma it on its portability. So the way Scuttlebutt works, you have a key basically a public key. You could bring anywhere a private and public key here that you can bring anywhere. And, and your entire persona moves there. Matron's a little harder to migrate. What about that stock as a, as a possible solution? I, I, you
Doc Searls (00:25:01):
Know, I've, I've, I've tried ma in several times and, and every time I, I, I mean, did it's great. Here's the problem. Every one of us has a pie chart in our life, which is the time that we have. And <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:25:11):
Is that a pie chart or a bar charter? Oh,
Doc Searls (00:25:14):
It's
Leo Laporte (00:25:14):
Maybe a line.
Doc Searls (00:25:15):
You know, it's a pie chart where, where a quarter of it, or two, a third of it is sleep, It's gone. You know? And the rest of it is, is obligations. And and those of us who are already writers and writing, they're obligated to do things. They have other things they're doing. Like I do Floss Weekly there, there's other things I do. It's like, how, how, how much could we split up our time? You know? So Twitter actually doesn't take out much of my time. It's actually, again, it's just something I kinda look at for some stuff. And if it's there, it's, it is there. It's not, it's not. Dave Weer just created a new thing called Feed Land, which I advise people to look at. Who,
Leo Laporte (00:25:52):
Dave is always a pioneer in all of this.
Doc Searls (00:25:55):
He's a huge pioneer.
Leo Laporte (00:25:57):
Yeah. He's the guy we owe. He did a gratitude for <laugh> for podcasting <laugh>. But, but he, he created rss. He was the one who added binary attachments to RSS that made po podcasting possible in 2000. Yeah. Every podcast is a little trying to him just in a corner somewhere, you know,
Doc Searls (00:26:15):
Everybody's feed land.org. Feed land.org.
Leo Laporte (00:26:19):
He's, he, one of the things Dave does, which is great, is he's always starting little experiments. And I've actually participated in quite a, quite a few. These, I haven't seen Feed Land yet. Let's go see please sign on. Oh, of course. And this is unfortunate, but Dave does this with Twitter, sign on with Twitter <laugh>. But Dave, Dave always does that. He's always, It's easy. It's easy. And I'm sure it's easy for him. It's using OAuth, so it's fine. It's,
Doc Searls (00:26:40):
Yeah. It's an OAuth
Leo Laporte (00:26:41):
Hack. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So subscribe to a few feeds to get started. Okay. he just added without me knowing 44 new feeds. Okay. That's good. <Laugh>, I'll, I'll, So is this a Twitter? What is, Oh, look, this is a RSS feeds.
Doc Searls (00:26:58):
Yeah, it's all RSS feeds.
Leo Laporte (00:26:59):
So I do, I follow something called Sumi News. It's very similar. I wonder if Dave knows about it. Same idea. You add RSS feeds, then you have a webpage with stories in it. So this is in Interesting. He's add some
Doc Searls (00:27:12):
Good ones. Yeah. He's had a little cabal of people working on it. I'm, I'm not working on it, but just sort of testing it out. I'm one of them. And something I don't, I don't think Dave is also like the fodder of outlining online. And he did opm l Opm L is what this runs on. But when he had something called More, which some of us remember very far on the back, very back at the turn of the eighties and nineties that was really the first outliner that turned into a presentation. And in some ways persuasion and PowerPoint knocked it off. So he's one of the fathers of, of, you know, presentations as we know them as well. So that's, you know, these, all these, it all kind of fits
Leo Laporte (00:27:54):
Together. There's no doubt. There's a lot of ideas there's a lot of creativity, but there's, they're all lacking the network effect. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,
Devindra Hardawar (00:28:03):
Can you, that's, that's a Macon problem too, right? Right. Because it's, it's there, it's been around for a while. I know pockets of people who are testing it out, but it's not, it's not like at a global scale in a way that I think is as addictive as Twitter was. It's also really confusing, even like from when you first sign on, like, what am I, I'm making a name for a specific ma on in another way, but I could talk to people, another salons what's happening? This
Leo Laporte (00:28:25):
Is don't, this is the problem with scuttle, but as well, Yeah. It's even more confusing. Twitter works. That's the problem, is that you're making solutions to something that, that continues to work. Now. Twitter doesn't work down the road. And I think people are concerned about that. I saw Annie Lamont really, I thought of great tweet. She's the novelist. She said I'd missed Twitter so much if for some reason we had to walk away. My Twitter people are so good, brilliant and funny. And the pundits I follow, or how I make sense of the chaos, and I'm uplifted by their insight and great humor. So I'm gonna assume we can work this out. She's not leaving. Shonda Rhymes quit, though. A lot of people are quitting. I'm not quitting. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. I think we, I think we all Nice thing about become a hellscape. Go ahead. Different.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:29:10):
Well, I, I thought that quote, you know, that he, let's, let's not let it become a hellscape. Where has he been? It is a hellscape, depending on, on how you filter it. Before we leave Elon, I wanted to talk a little bit about his motivation. I think it was a little bit more than a toilet tweet. The, I've been reading a lot of history lately. I think someone told me that as you get old, you stop reading fiction, You start reading history to try to figure out where, where you fit in. And he, he, the, the princess of the Middle Ages were always looking for ways to project power. And for like Edward iii, when he conquered whales, was to build these horrible, ugly castles all the way down the coast. Or you know, in the, in the Renaissance, you would get a Michelangelo or a DaVinci to paint your portrait
Leo Laporte (00:30:06):
Or to some famous cathedral, Venice. If you travel the Adriatic and the Aian, you'll see all these Venetian fortifications as Venice extended their power out.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:30:16):
Yeah. They were bad. The Venetians. Yeah. anyway, he's like a modern prince. He's the, he's the, you know, richest guy in the world. He's, he's you know, how do you project your power? If you're in the digital world, you buy the biggest thing you can get your hand on. And, and, you know, he, he claims it's too important. He wants it cuz he wants to save the medium to save humanity. Well, as Neli points out, he's got a few things to learn. Anyway. I do think it's there's a lot of ego. There's a lot of, I've got the money. I can do it. I'm gonna do it.
Devindra Hardawar (00:30:53):
I, I also count that as toilet tweeting though. Like, just surely, Oh, this is a good idea. Like, what? I think for many people, your best thinking is done on the toilet. You know, you're just way from everybody.
Leo Laporte (00:31:03):
It's the shower. But okay. You know Sure. What, what, whatever
Devindra Hardawar (00:31:07):
Works. But that is a good point because Elon's cars are taking over the roads, The starlink satellites are destroying our skies. Right. And bad for astronomers and everything. So Yeah, there's, there, he, his influence is far reaching and everywhere. And Twitter just seems like the, the easiest way to like, take over the conversation.
Leo Laporte (00:31:26):
He's not born in the US so he can't become president. Yep. And you might argue that being the owner of Twitter might be more powerful than the President.
Devindra Hardawar (00:31:35):
He is a national security risk. Yeah. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:31:37):
He is gonna face a lot of trouble overseas though. The eu, China, India all are gonna say, No, no this is what we, this is what we want Twitter to be. And they have some clout because Elon has other businesses. That's some of Eli's point is that Elon, for instance, the Chinese are very important to Tesla. They build them there, They sell a lot of them there. He says, if the Chinese government says to Elon, you know, we don't want you banning our propaganda arms, They won't call him that. What is Elon gonna do? Is he gonna give up his business in China? No, he's gonna ow. Just by the way, just like Apple does mm-hmm. <Affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative> that's
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:32:23):
Probably, we told me that, Someone told me that the Chinese leadership think of Apple as a Chinese company.
Leo Laporte (00:32:29):
Yeah.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:32:30):
And
Leo Laporte (00:32:30):
They're not, not surprising any, So China's not gonna invade the us. I mean, people are so worried about tip talking. China's not gonna send nukes to the us. That's, that's the silly, They want soft power. That's their masters of this. So much like Elon, they wanna build influence. They do it economically.
Devindra Hardawar (00:32:50):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:32:52):
They might, they might want Taiwan.
Leo Laporte (00:32:54):
Well, I know they want Taiwan. Yeah, Yeah. They want Taiwan. And so watch closely, because you'll know that's imminent. If you start seeing tweets and ticks that are in some way insinuating that Taiwan has always been China. It's always been a part of China. It's a culturally same thing Putin said about Ukraine, rather it's culturally and, and, and ancestrally a part of the Chinese mainland. And, you know, we just want to, we just wanna bring them back into the fold. If you start seeing a lot of that on Twitter then maybe that's the answer. I
Devindra Hardawar (00:33:26):
Think, I think that's a thing most, most people have no clue about, by the way. Like, I'm not, I'm no expert on Taiwanese history, but I have gone there a lot because of Computex, which is a thing that still happens and was a, is a very important you know, event. But they do the, the air drills every time we're there. And it's a terrifying reminder of like, Oh yeah, China could, could at any second just be like, You're mine again. And it would be hell for everybody in Taiwan, so. Well,
Leo Laporte (00:33:52):
Yeah. It's worse than that. You know, I think in the seventies, the United States ended the mutual support treaty with Taiwan mm-hmm. <Affirmative> because it was obvious that we weren't gonna send troops and launch bombs if China invaded Taiwan. But of late President Biden has twice now said, Oh no, we'll send troops. That's a, So it's more than just something between Taiwan and China. Oh,
Devindra Hardawar (00:34:19):
Absolutely.
Leo Laporte (00:34:19):
That's World War ii. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that's a terrifying prospect in the us The question to me is, and this is the interesting thing you both raised, is Elon interested in political power? In which case he doesn't care if it makes money, or is he a businessman first? And his primary interest is getting that $44 billion back?
Devindra Hardawar (00:34:40):
Historically, he hasn't been to the back grade of a business man, You know?
Leo Laporte (00:34:43):
Yeah. I don't
Doc Searls (00:34:44):
Know. He's a, he's a libertarian. He, you know, he mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, he, that's, that's basically where he comes from. He wants us good for business. And you know, the, that's pretty much his deal. I'm, I don't think he wants more than that.
Leo Laporte (00:34:59):
Is is he now completely accepted the ownership. He fought at tooth and nail and I think only decided to complete the deal when it looked like you were gonna go to court and he was gonna be forced to to be deposed, and then they'll be discovery. And it was starting to look bad. I think you could say he was, he was forced into this purchase, but now he's, he's kind of recognizing, Okay, well maybe it's not such a bad thing.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:35:26):
I, I, I predict he's gonna be out of it before the end
Leo Laporte (00:35:29):
Of the, He won't. He'll appoint a ceo, he's kind of into, or
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:35:32):
He'll or
Leo Laporte (00:35:33):
He'll sell it or sell it. He'll get out of it. Here's my thought. Maybe if he is a businessman, polish the turd as best you can and you'll see a lot of action in that direction. And then ipo. And he knows, probably in his heart, I'm not getting my 44 bill, but if he IPOs, by the way, he can maintain control. If he does what most founders these days do and have super voting shares, he can have his cake and eat too. He can still have Twitter as a personal possession to some degree. But also, Philip, you, I know you're all over the stock market. That's a lot of what your website, PD 30 is all about Apple investors in invest investing. Does that sound like something that could happen?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:36:16):
Well, first it's not anything that, that Tim Cook would do. <Laugh>, we're not talk, we're
Leo Laporte (00:36:22):
Not talking about a company
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:36:24):
Like Apple. Apple's a different beast. Oh, sure.
Leo Laporte (00:36:28):
We're gonna talk about Apple's quarter, by the way, in a little bit. So
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:36:31):
Yeah. That, that's actually the big news. But we can keep talking about Twitter.
Leo Laporte (00:36:35):
Yeah. I don't, I agree with you. I mean, this is all inconsequential and sort of, it might be politically consequential.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:36:42):
No, no. I think it, it's not that it isn't important. The, for me, what happened to the tech companies this week, excluding Twitter. Yeah. Yeah. Was, was remarkable. Well,
Leo Laporte (00:36:55):
We're gonna definitely, we'll get to it. Talk about that for people who are going can with the Elon, I'm sorry. This is a big story. This really is a story. And I didn't even mention the fact that he stole my handle. That's, I'm not even, I'm not going there. I'm not gonna go there. Yeah, it's gonna be interesting. I am not quitting Twitter. I still pay my five bucks to for Twitter, Blue. I will watch with interest. I will. I'm crossing my fingers that Twitter becomes even better and more useful. It certainly is useful today that he doesn't, you know, take it down. Strange and weird roads. He's not, it's not looking good so far. There's a great site, by the way. I just wanna mention, so one of the, one of, there's so many rumors swirling around. One is, you know, remember he fired Paraag Alar, the Aro Wall, the ceo, he fired the cfo, he fired the Chief counsel, and maybe even most importantly, fired the woman in charge of trust and safety.
(00:37:53):
The mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. there is a rumor floating around. We know at least that agro wall had a 40 million golden parachute. The rumor is floating around now that he is claiming ju that he fired them for cause. And they we'll deny them any severance, which would be, Wow. There's also rumor going around that there, he wants to fire a lot of people before November 1st. November 1st is a dead day after tomorrow, right? No. Tu Wednesday is a deadline. That's when stock options are typically offered. And he wants to cut that off and, and get people out of there. And in order to do that, he's looking to fire people for cause because he's asked, everybody initially asked them all the coders to print out everything you've done in the last 30 to 60 days. <Laugh>, cuz I would like to review it.
(00:38:49):
He brought in Tesla engineers we're to, again, it's hard to confirm any of this. So a lot of what I'm saying might just be rumor. Then he said, No, no, you don't have to print it out. You could show it on the screen reasonably. You're not gonna be able to look at this code, walk in the door, look at the code and say, That's good code. That's bad code. But you could perhaps walk in the door saying, Oh, you're producing, Especially in the last 30 to 60 days when everything has been up in the air oh. When you're not producing. And maybe he can use this as a way to fire people for cause and save himself a pocket of money. This is a comedy site. Elon Code review.com. Print your code for review by Elon Musk <laugh>. Most codes reviewed in GitHub.
(00:39:30):
Get Lab or somewhere online. But that's too efficient. Why not print out your code and submit the printout by facts for review by Elon personally. I was curious. I gotta watch the video on this. They've made, they made a video. Oh, it's a rick roll. Nevermind. They gotcha. They got me. Get six months free. No fuss way to review your code. Print your code fact. You can show it again. I I got rid of Aston <laugh>. Fax your printouts. Wait for the mailman. Send your code to space. All code reviews merged after review by Elon Musk automatically reprinted and send a space, abort a SpaceX rocket at a price plan. Only <laugh> get printing today. Get six months free. And by the way, here's some tweets from happy developers. It used to take me forever to get my code reviewed since Friday. I've been printing it all out and getting Elon to look at it. And my God, it's been amazing. And oh, you might wanna check the pricing. <Laugh> starter is $15 billion, 44 billion for the tweet level. Hundred 20 billion for the enterprise plan. So that's, everybody's having a good laugh at Elon's expense. Well, well, did
Speaker 6 (00:40:44):
He actually ask to see the code?
Leo Laporte (00:40:47):
Well, that was a report. Is that true? Again, that was a report. Yeah. These are all reports. I don't know, reports from reputable sources. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, but Davindra, I don't know. Have you tried to vet any of this?
Devindra Hardawar (00:40:58):
I mean, I did. It's not my beat. So that's Carissa be and Gad who deals with social media stuff. But you know, it was Casey Newton who reported this, and there could have been some Casey.
Leo Laporte (00:41:06):
He's pretty reliable, right? He's
Devindra Hardawar (00:41:07):
Pretty good. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:41:08):
He's a good man. I can't read his stuff anymore because it's a hundred dollars a year <laugh> who can afford that? I can't afford platformer. So just just only read the first paragraph of everything he posts <laugh>. But he's good. He's good. He's one of the, one of the good guys who pursued a you know, a career as a newsletter writer and I'm sure is doing very well. Yeah. And he has good sources. But it's one of those, it's like people who in the know have said, Yeah, I
Devindra Hardawar (00:41:40):
Mean, everything's a mess. Look at the people who are, who are the, the, the jokers who are in front of the Twitter office. Right. CNBC in people.
Leo Laporte (00:41:47):
Lima <laugh>. Yeah. Which is a very poor Reddit joke that I am not going to explain.
Doc Searls (00:41:55):
It's pretty self thing is not, one thing, is not a rumor. It's certainty is if he, he is pissed off so many people who work for him, you know, who work for the company, that's gonna turn into a lot of results that are some of them competing. I mean, it's could, it's gonna be a, you know, a, a fabulously wide range of results that none of which he could control. Yeah. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, that'll be really interesting. And there's made a lot of people hate him.
Leo Laporte (00:42:23):
There will be a lot of great engineers on the street.
Doc Searls (00:42:25):
Exactly. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:42:26):
Exactly. That's the good news. <Laugh>. I have heard though, and I don't, again, I have heard that there was a lot of Deadwood at Twitter, 7,500 employees. He had said at one point he wanted to fire 75%. Then he backed down and said, Well, when he, when he did the when he went to Twitter, he said, Nah, I'm not gonna fire 75% <laugh>. We don't know what he's gonna
Doc Searls (00:42:48):
Do. <Laugh> just 7,500.
Leo Laporte (00:42:49):
We don't know what he's gonna do. How many people could you, how many engineers would you need to run Twitter engineers? Not much. Right? A good team. 25, a hundred people maybe. Oh, I don't know. Trust and safety. Thousands. Moderation thousands.
Doc Searls (00:43:07):
Yeah. Zillion. Yeah. Remember when, I mean, early in the early days of Twitter, the failed whale was constant, almost. Well credit to Facebook that didn't crash very much. They did. There are some good engineers. At least made the place run. You don't see the fail whale much anymore. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:43:23):
If at all. No, no. You remember Leia Culver, who wrote a Twitter clone called Ponce, which I personally thought was better than Twitter. Loved it. Failed. She works at Twitter, and here she is, her tweet holding your printout. Oh, <laugh>. So, I don't know, is she joking? Is she telling the truth? That's pretty thin pile. I don't know. Yeah. And, and notice this was July 26th. I don't know. I think you might, you might have some trouble with the the Elon. She does. I, let me see. In her bio, I think she says she does Twitter spaces. Yeah. and iOS Twitter. So she's their iOS coder oth co-author of Oau and o Embed. She's Leah's great.
(00:44:12):
I don't knows maybe another great engineer on the, on the, on the beach. Ready? today, Elon deleted the tweet. He posted earlier today saying espousing, I don't even wanna repeat the la mass conspiracy theory from even more LA mass right wing rag that Paul Pelosi was inebriated when he got attacked with a hammer, which even if true. So what he, it was an attempt to assassinate the speaker of the house, the number three in line for the presidency. Well, two, I guess if you include the pres, don't include the president. That's a, that's a bigger story than I think he even got coverage. That's an assassination attempt.
Devindra Hardawar (00:44:54):
Yeah. The way, it was not the leading story in the New York Times, and it was
Leo Laporte (00:44:58):
Below the fold,
Devindra Hardawar (00:44:59):
Below the fold. Just I, what's happening?
Leo Laporte (00:45:02):
Unbelievable. Musk shared an article that, you know, was just garbage and said, There's a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye. That's a very trollish thing to say. Yeah. Well, I don't, but I hear Yeah.
Devindra Hardawar (00:45:19):
Responding to Hillary Clinton, by the way, who maybe has, has a little information about what's going on too. Ugh,
Leo Laporte (00:45:26):
<Laugh>. Alright. Enough. <Laugh>. This is
Devindra Hardawar (00:45:31):
Why I don't wanna pay him, Leo. I don't wanna pay for Twitter blue with that idiot in charge.
Leo Laporte (00:45:35):
I don't think he's gonna do anything with my 4 99 <laugh>.
Devindra Hardawar (00:45:39):
It's
Leo Laporte (00:45:40):
Not gonna, That's what you think. Yeah. I don't know. You think I should just not? I look, I, you know, Yeah. As, as, as worried as I am and as doubtful as I am about this guy, I drove a Tesla. I'm pretty impressed with SpaceX. They've shown that you can, commercial space, can do what NASA could not do for a fraction of the money. On and on and on. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I'm, I want him to do a good thing with, I want him to turn Twitter into something wonderful. Can he do it? I don't, If
Devindra Hardawar (00:46:08):
If he had just shut up, then we could have enjoyed the, the fruits of Tesla and what the, the good things space has done. But unfortunately, I think, like so many people, he, he cannot shut up. And Twitter is literally a platform for just spewing his garbage out to, to everybody. So it's sort of like, it is kinda like what happened to Kanye, isn't it Just like Yeah. Poor impulse upon of time. Poor
Leo Laporte (00:46:30):
Impulse control. Control. I mean that tweet this morning, you're the CEO of the company. You're not the chief Twi, by the way. You're the CEO of the company. <Laugh>. I'm the chief. Twi. You're <laugh> by the way, on Mastodon, where we don't call 'em tweets, we call 'em toots. I call myself the chief toot tu inchi tu in chief. I'm just saying <laugh>.
Devindra Hardawar (00:46:52):
Just saying only for toilet toots.
Leo Laporte (00:46:53):
Yeah. Yeah. But I have, by the way, I looked back, I was chief twit on Jaiku in 2007. It's been <laugh>, it's been on my business card. It's, I'll show you my bus. It's on my business card for at least a decade. And how does law, how does the law work? No one knows. It's a mystery. <Laugh>. It's a mystery. We have the trademark for twit have had it since 2005, long before Twitter existed. I feel like I own twit, but maybe I might be mistaken. He, he'll, Leo. Leo. He'll settle. Oh yeah, sure. Two, two of them and he'll settle. Sure, sure. That'll, that'll go Well, it's great to have you. I have, I feel like we've got the brain trust here. It's so great to have Doc Searles. I've been trying to get you on for, you've been on before, but not in ages.
(00:47:43):
Yeah, a couple times. Yeah. Host of floss. You could come on as often as you want. You're always welcome. Same to you, to vendor. Oi, love you. Senior editor in Gadget. How old's your newborn? Newborn is now seven months old. Oh my God. She's doing really well. Yeah. And we need, I know we need to get you outta here because your daughter's sprained her ankle. I'm sorry. So, Yep. It's, You got daddy duty. So we'll get, We'll, I'll move quicker, more quickly through this. And of course, the wonderful Philip Elmer Dewitt, who is a legend in the business, p e d3 zero.com. One of the analysts call calls me legend whenever he responds to me. He says, Legend, how are you doing? I like that Michael Krasney, I did an interview with him who is 77 in a legendary broadcaster and the Bay Area, K G and K Q E D said, Don't call.
(00:48:32):
He said, I once called Kirk death this a legend. And he yelled at me. He said, Legends are dead. Do not <laugh>, <laugh>, do not call me. I'll remember that. A legend. Yes. If it's well, and now he is. You can call him that. Yeah. He's dead now. So it's oh God, that got really dark. <Laugh> <laugh> very fast. Let's talk about our fine sponsors cuz you know, the, these are the people who make this show happen. And I am internally grateful to them as always for their great support. Our show today brought to you by my beautiful eight sleep. And if I am at all coherent today, it is because I had a great night's sleep on my eight sleep. Eight sleep makes mattresses, but I have, I don't have, I like my mattress. We have a very nice mattress.
(00:49:25):
So I got the pod, which is a cover that goes over the mattress and it does something very interesting. It both heats it and cools it go either way as low as 55 degrees, which is chilly, or 110 degrees, which is hot or anywhere in between. Why would you want this? Oh, you do. Let me trust, Let me tell you, trust me. In fact, normally Lisa gets up early. She's a very early riser. She likes to get her coffee, go to the, go to the gym, work out, you know, have some me time. So she's normally up six o'clock. I got up about eight. She was still in bed. I, I went and had my coffee. She was, she didn't get up till nine 30. I said, What happened? She slept. She said, Well, I woke up at seven, turned my eight, sleep up a couple of degrees, went back to sleep, all cozy.
(00:50:11):
Woke up at eight, turned my eight. Sleep up a little bit, went back to sleep while cozy, she slept an extra three hours and that's what the eight sleep does. But you know what? She needed it. It's her day off. I'm glad she did. I'm really glad she did. Eight sleep is the only sleep technology that dynamically cools and heats each side of the bed. So her temperature was different than mine. She likes to sleep warmer than I do. But it maintains the optimal sleeping temperature for what your body needs. It knows the room temperature. It knows you. It's got sensors to notice if you're sleeping well, if you're tossing and turning to know how deep your sleep is and literally optimizes the temperature for you. For instance, I like to start warm. I get in bed. It's toasty and cozy, especially in the winter.
(00:50:53):
But the eight sleep brings the temperature down slowly because I go into a deeper sleep as a result. That deep sleep is so important for your health. Sufficient deep sleep can reduce the likelihood of Alzheimer's, decrease the risk of heart disease, lower your blood pressure. Yet more than 30% of Americans struggle with sleep. I bet you do. We all do. Right? Feeling hot at night. One of the primary reasons people don't sleep well. Waking up with the sweats. It's war the worst. In the summer, we had a really bad heat whip. I had my hate sleep and it t did it automatically cool me off. It kept me cool. I never got hot. It warms me up in the winter and it cools me off as I sleep so that I have the optimal sleep. Clinical data shows eight sleep users experience up to 19% increase in recovery, up to 32% improvement in sleep quality.
(00:51:38):
And for me, the big one, 34% more deep sleep. If you sleep an extra half hour of that deep sleep, that sleep that cleans the brain, you'll feel so much better. You will be sharper, you will feel better. Everything is just nicer. Eight sleep. We have the original pod. They have actually, we have the pod two. I think they just launched the next generation, the pod three more accurate sleep and health tracking. Double the sensors. It is the best sleep experience on the earth. It's not magic. It feels like magic. It's incredible. Soft, comfortable, warm when you want it. Cool when you need it. I can't recommend it more highly. And I'll tell you, when we went on vacation last week, went to Vegas for a few nights, I really felt the lack of my eight sleep. We've had it for a year now. So I've been through a winter and a summer and we're going through another winner. Maybe hotels will start getting aids. Sleep eight sleep.com/twi. Sleep cozy this fall. If you're in Australia, sleep cozy this summer, you'll save $150 a checkout on the pod. I apologize, that was terrible. Eight. Sleep currently ships in Australia and the US and Canada, the uk and select countries in the eu. I should say, I really love this. I, it's something you should check out, eight sleep.com/twi. And when you, if you do, please use that address so that they know you saw it here. Eight sleep.com/twi. We thank him so much for supporting the show.
(00:53:06):
Let's talk about Apple, Philip Elmer DeWitt's here. This is the time Apple did two things. They said on Thursday. Their quarterly results came out. The best quarter record quarter did. Great. Don't count on next one. What's, Explain this, Philip, you're muted. I don't know if that's us or you ex.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:53:27):
Sorry. Yeah, that's okay. It, it's always, it's always a record quarter.
Leo Laporte (00:53:30):
Yeah. I knew it would be a record quarter. Now, does this include iPhone 14? It does, doesn't it?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:53:36):
Five days of iPhone
Leo Laporte (00:53:38):
14. Oh, so just a slice. So it's really the next quarter, which is their q3 Q
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:53:45):
No Q q1.
Leo Laporte (00:53:47):
Q1 is the big quarter.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:53:48):
This was q4. They ended their fiscal year at the end of September. Okay. And what we got was the results for that. So we got the, the quarterly results and, and the annual results. I, if, can I ask the, the the tech guys to pull up the chart for one of the charts I sent shows what Apple did compared to the other tech companies.
Leo Laporte (00:54:11):
Yeah. Cuz this was a bad time for tech companies. Here's the performance from p e d three o.com.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:54:18):
There you go. This came from the Wall Street Journal. There's meta that lost a quarter of value in in one day. One of my, one of my subscribers who, who he says, you know, I should have shorted it the day he changed the name cuz I knew he was panicking. And then I finally shorted it just before the earnings. I, I shorted it at 1 35 and it went down to 99. So the guy made a bunch of money, Geez. Betting against this thing. And you know,
Leo Laporte (00:54:49):
Look at these steep declines. Look at Amazon.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:54:51):
Yeah. Oh my God. Amazon went downstairs. Look
Leo Laporte (00:54:53):
At Alphabet. And then Alpha apple, which is exactly the opposite, is slow decline and then suddenly a jump.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:55:01):
What you're seeing is the money pouring out of those other three companies Oh. And into Apple. They needed some place to go. And so it was Apple's only, Apple's second best one day game in, in January. They had another big product.
Leo Laporte (00:55:17):
And that was after they announced their results.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:55:20):
Yeah. Wow.
Leo Laporte (00:55:21):
Yeah. So, but explain to me, cuz I do not buy tech stocks. And for good re you know, as a journalist, I don't want to have a dog in this hunt. And I, and I have some interest in the stock market, but I'm not an expert. Explain to me, the tech companies had a big boon in Covid. Right? They all did Great. Yeah. Isn't this just somewhat of a correction after this growth? Are they below where they were before Covid?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:55:49):
You'd have to look at individual stocks. Apple is down for the year.
Leo Laporte (00:55:53):
I, I know me is Meda is $700 billion off. Its, if its peak <laugh>,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:55:58):
They, they $800 billion evaporated. They, someone called it the, the greatest destruction of capital <laugh> in a long time. No. The
Leo Laporte (00:56:11):
But by the way, I would point out, Yeah, I would point out if you did short them, you know, execute because they're making a long bet. Matt is saying, Look, we know the social's dying. They're agreeing with what we said last break. We know the social's dying. We think the the metaverse is the next big thing, and we're gonna pour all our energies into that. If they're right. It's like, it's just a startup. You're buying low, what could be the biggest company of 2028,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:56:40):
A co a couple things. Jim Kramer was on and, and literally cried <laugh> apologizing for having believed, having believed in Facebook. And he said, When, when I found out how much they were spending on meta, I, I thought there was an adult there that could control this. But they've, they're just out of control. So he, this is, this is an important, this is an influential, the most influential guy on cnbc, which all the investors watch. And and he's saying, you know, to and, and tearfully that I screwed up to answer.
Leo Laporte (00:57:13):
The thing is, let me answer my question. Cause I have the alphabet stock Valentine's Day 2020, right before the pandemic. They were at their peak for the last many years of $76 pandemic. They go down to 53, they've climbed back. This was of course of the pandemic was very, very good to Alphabet. They've dropped since, but they're still well above their pan, their pre pandemic peak. They're at $101. So this is what I say when I, or a 90, I'm sorry, 96, 58. This is what I say when people say, Oh, they're tanking is, well, they're just recovering from what was a big runup because of Covid.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:57:53):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Right. That's true. That's true. The, the what's scary about Facebook and Alphabet is that the, the cloud numbers are going down. It looks like they, they bet on the cloud and the cloud. The investment in the cloud
Leo Laporte (00:58:08):
Seems to be Amazon's eating their lunch, Right? Yeah. Is that what's really
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:58:12):
Happening? A Amazon web services also
Leo Laporte (00:58:16):
Is it down as well? Yeah. But again, anyway, I think you have to look at historic. Now here's historic five years for Facebook, and Yeah, they're well below their peak before the pandemic, which is $214 here down in 99, 90 $9.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:58:33):
They screwed the poop. They're
Leo Laporte (00:58:34):
Done. They're done. They're cooked. At least for short term. I wonder if Amazon, Did Amazon give their results? This, this
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:58:42):
Week? Yeah. Yeah. They were, It was Friday morning, I believe.
Leo Laporte (00:58:46):
Okay. So there's, they're still above. Well, okay. That's interesting. So they're right at their peak pre pandemic. Their peak pre pandemic was 104. They're now 103. So they look it, I mean, this is this big, this Devil's Mountain here. It's c Right.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:59:05):
But
Leo Laporte (00:59:05):
Yeah, it was inevitable that this wouldn't last forever.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:59:08):
Right. And that's, and that's what was impressive about Apple. Despite they got pushed up with Covid as well as everybody else. And they've managed with, you know, the iPhone sales are down a bit and services are down a bit, but they've got, they've got so many cylinders going that, that they, you know, I don't know. It's, it's like printing money. Can, can we show another chart that I offered? It was the mountain of cash.
Leo Laporte (00:59:36):
They have as much cash as they've ever had now, right?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:59:41):
No. Oh, no. They've been, they've been they made a commitment, remember in 2016, Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:59:47):
They, they've buying back
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:59:48):
Stock that Trump was gonna let them repatriate all the cash that they had overseas Yep. For reduced all that reduced money
Leo Laporte (00:59:55):
Tax bill. Yep.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (00:59:56):
Yeah. So they started bringing their cash back and buying it is, they, they're all, everybody who works for Apple and especially the Chief people have a lot of stock, and if they got dividends, they'd have to pay taxes on it. But if they buy back stock, they, they don't pay taxes.
Leo Laporte (01:00:15):
And I should point out some say, I don't know, again, I plead ignorance that buying back stock is in a way inflating the stock because you're reducing the pool of shares
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:00:28):
Out there. No, it's the opposite. It's the opposite. It's making each share of stock represent a larger part of the company. It's deflation, I guess.
Leo Laporte (01:00:37):
Okay. Well, you end
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:00:38):
Up with more valuable stock. Okay. If they, if they buy it back. So it doesn't make that much,
Leo Laporte (01:00:43):
You're, let me put it this way, You're artificially improving your stock price by buying back stock.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:00:49):
That's right. That's right. And the, you know, the argument is, if you have all this money, can't you find something better to do with it, invested in new products and, and do some research something. And IBM made the mistake of, rather than investing in the future, buying back their stock and it hurt them they, you know, they're a shadow of their original shelf sell Apple. They've got some very smart people the smart money people managing this. And I, I have to laugh when I watch the, the analysts, you know, second guessing Tim Cook, they have no idea what he's saying.
Leo Laporte (01:01:22):
No. And I, that's why I say very clearly, I have no, I don't know what I'm talking about. Yeah. <laugh>
Devindra Hardawar (01:01:28):
Missing, by the way, in, in this chart of companies is Microsoft. And I just, I was peeking at their earnings this week, and they also took a hit, but not, not as badly as everybody else. They kind of went halfway because Apple, Apple gain, Right. But Microsoft took a smaller hit than most of these
Leo Laporte (01:01:44):
Other pre pandemic Creek for Microsoft 180 5. They're now 2 35. So they're up almost, They're
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:01:50):
Very well managed company. And they've, you know, they've found their new
Leo Laporte (01:01:54):
People. Well, Microsoft is great. If you look at the stock price over the total history of the stock, going back to 86 was very flatline for a decade. From 2000, well, to maybe 2015, just flatline.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:02:10):
Although in two, in 2000 it looked pretty darn good. I mean, in, in, in retrospect, that doesn't look like much <laugh>. But that was a, that was a good,
Leo Laporte (01:02:17):
But look what's happened in sense since Satya Nadella and the focus on Azure and the cloud, which has I think been a very smart move in pandemic. Yeah. They're down a little bit now. There's, you know, there's a little bit of a recovery put,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:02:31):
Put Apple up, put Apple up
Leo Laporte (01:02:32):
Over. Oh, I, I have all of them here. Let me see. Here's Apple <laugh> I'm gonna do the max again for, for the full lifetime event on this. Ignore this. I don't know even what that, but starting in 2008, they've been steadily climbing. It was really right about year, not so steady.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:02:50):
It gets hit. It's up and down periodically. Yeah. It gets, it gets hit worse. Like Microsoft was a smoother curve than this. I, I can't really understand it, but it, but it's like the people fall out of love with Apple, or they find it's, you know, the, the,
Leo Laporte (01:03:10):
Yeah. I'll tell you what
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:03:11):
It is with Apple is doomed. I
Leo Laporte (01:03:12):
Tell you what it is, by the way.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:03:14):
Yep. I
Leo Laporte (01:03:15):
Should, I, behind the scenes, Philip asked me to join your crowd. You have some sort of broad thing you do, and I didn't understand that they were all Apple investors, <laugh>. So I'm joining and I'm going, Oh, you know, there's no way. This company has a few. And they're like, What are you talking about <laugh>? And, and I was really the cheese in their girl. But I understand
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:03:41):
That was a, that was a fun show, Leo. I enjoyed it. Appreciate it.
Leo Laporte (01:03:45):
But I understand that what, from the outside happens periodically and I'm the, I'm the poster boy for this as you go. Well, they've saturated, they couldn't possibly find anywhere else to grow. There's no, And they consistently make me wrong. Now they've done it with services, right? They, you're right. They can't sell anymore iPhones. They're, they've, that's, they're gonna sell the same number every year from now on. But they're making money in services This, this quarter though. Service is not so hot.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:04:15):
Yeah. I I have to correct you about iPhones. They're, they're growing market share while the others are losing.
Leo Laporte (01:04:21):
So that's where their growth comes from, is the, is people stopping Android and going to,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:04:26):
Right. They have a, except in the us they, they have a a small market share everywhere else in the comp There's
Leo Laporte (01:04:33):
The world. Yeah. There's potential.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:04:34):
There's plenty. Yeah. There's space to grow. And, you know, the watches, it's bel you know, I was at a, a hoop shoot with girls and boys six to 13 and half the girls had Apple watches. Yeah. Where's that at?
Leo Laporte (01:04:50):
Yeah. <laugh>, that's, well, that's the trick for Apple, right? They've gotta find new product categories, because I mean, yeah, okay. There's growth potential. And China kind of saved their bacon for the last few years cuz suddenly that market took off. But at some point, you sell an iPhone to everybody who's ever gonna buy an iPhone, you're not gonna have that same kind of growth. You wanna find the next big thing. And it turned out watches, which at first were really kinda laggard have has turned out out pretty well for them. Notice I'm wearing Leo,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:05:18):
The
Leo Laporte (01:05:19):
$800 Ultra
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:05:20):
Leo. Leo. It's a monopoly. They have a monopoly. They have a monopoly, the Apple ecosystem. And to the extent that you're bought into it, you will, you know, they've got your, they got me for life and Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:05:34):
Yeah. Which I hate, but it's true. It's, it's love it garden. I love it. And I hate it. It, yeah. But it's a Waled Garden. Davinder. Are you are you captive to the Apple?
Devindra Hardawar (01:05:44):
Oh, ab absolutely. Yeah. I mean, I, I'm not reviewing phones and stuff anymore, but certainly once I started with smartphones, like the Apple ecosystem made the most sense. Ipad was always the best. Like, oh, forget about Android tablets. Oh my God. For the past decade. If you wanted anything decent, the Apple ecosystem made the most sense. And now I can imagine why parents would be buying young kids Apple watches. My daughter is four now, but when she's six or seven, when she's going to school, having a lifeline to her, you know, being able to see where she is, that is something a lot of people would really be interested in having. So I, I can imagine that's being super successful. I'm also getting more into, like, car tech and stuff these days. And I can clearly see like why there have been all those rumors about Apple and car stuff, because that is a whole platform where Apple is, is basically partnering with companies now, but having a total solution or having something with more of the Apple branding on it, that would also be another huge hit for them.
(01:06:42):
So yeah, I'm, I'm in the ecosystem and yeah, we'll see how far it goes.
Leo Laporte (01:06:45):
So they do need another product, right? I mean, services have been good. Services wasn't that good this quarter. Why do you think that was Philip?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:06:53):
I think it was a, a tough compare. It, it had grown enormously the year, Yeah. The year before. It's hard
Leo Laporte (01:06:59):
To sustain levels of growth like that year after year after year.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:07:02):
Yeah. Well, you know, it was, it, it was the pandemic growth
Leo Laporte (01:07:05):
And Yeah, yeah, yeah. But there you go. And Apples facing some headwinds on the biggest profit center in their services, which is the App store.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:07:14):
Yeah. Yeah. We, you know, they, they, the, there was some serious activity in Congress to, to crack down on Apple and, and take some of the APIs away,
Leo Laporte (01:07:26):
Or EU as well all over the world. Yeah.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:07:29):
Eu, But EU can get stuff done. Congress, it turns out Canop, <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:07:33):
So
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:07:34):
That thing died. I, I have to add one theory I have about Facebook. You know, the next product that we're supposed to get according to Bloomberg, it's coming in the spring, is are these goggles? I have a, I have a very hard time seeing goggles as an Apple product. It, it just doesn't seem to have the mask. Well,
Leo Laporte (01:07:53):
I felt that way about the card too, actually. I was very surprised to hear you say you think the card event is a, is a good,
Devindra Hardawar (01:07:59):
Just, I'm just looking at like what's ahead to, and also, hey ar glasses. I just tried out the Magic Leap two. Remember Magic Leap. Yeah. And how much money they raise. Yeah. Yeah. Their new headset is actually pretty good, but because of all the bad word of mouth, like nobody, nobody's taking that company seriously anymore. So,
Leo Laporte (01:08:16):
Have you tried I bought the, I set Embarrassed to admit the $1,600 Quest Pro.
Devindra Hardawar (01:08:21):
I haven't tried them yet. It, it, we, we are in the, we reviewed it in Gadget and our viewers like, it's good. It's a good headset. I don't know who it's for. The bet on that market seems weird and maybe out of place, but the idea of having maybe something you slip on or maybe even your own current glasses that could extend your displays, maybe when you're actually sitting at your, Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:08:43):
I love that idea.
Devindra Hardawar (01:08:44):
That is a really interesting idea
Leo Laporte (01:08:46):
Right now. It's
Devindra Hardawar (01:08:46):
To do though, isn't it? I'm, I'm, it's hard to do, but it does seem like the Quest Pro is doing it pretty well. This is, this is like a five, 10 year problem. But the stuff I've seen, like the Magic Leap two stuff, and even a bit of the HoloLens too, like, it can be magical. The question is, who is it for? Will people actually want this? It still seems more like of an industrial trend, like not really what Apple tends to do. Like they are far more consumer focused. But I could, I could see it being a thing eventually, you know, at least for some people, people Yeah.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:09:17):
Glasses for sure. If they could, if they could make the glasses you know, that look like this. Yep. That would be a great product. The Quest, my theory about the goggles is I just can't see it as Apple product. I can't see it this spring. I, I have this theory that they're doing it to drive Facebook nuts. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:09:37):
Shit
Devindra Hardawar (01:09:38):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:09:39):
Oh,
Devindra Hardawar (01:09:39):
Don't, Somebody has to don't,
Leo Laporte (01:09:40):
Don't kick 'em when they're down. That's mean.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:09:45):
I think they may have no intention of doing what? What?
Leo Laporte (01:09:47):
Oh, that's really interesting
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:09:49):
Theory. Bloomberg says they're gonna do, and, and Meta just keeps pouring money into the project. Yeah. The reviews of the people who actually went in that space where they don't have legs and you bump into Horizon World and they're mostly kids. Yeah. That, Oh, that looked like such a loser. Yeah.
Devindra Hardawar (01:10:07):
It did. But you know what? So did, so did the internet in 1996. Yeah. You know, like, it's early. I remember, I remember what that was. I remember I really wanted to watch the trailer for Mortal Combat in like, before that movie came out. And I had to enter this long website, not the, like, not a branded Dona domain name. It was like a dash a tilda. Like 10, 30 seconds later. Once I was done entering that url, I had to wait 30 minutes for the 1996 grade, the web video to load too. So this stuff is really bad, you know, until, until like, there is a shift. And there there's like something that kind of, you remember, hits a big public hit.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:10:45):
Remember, Remember Real, You've seen this before. Remember Real
Leo Laporte (01:10:47):
Networks? Yeah. You remember that? Yeah. <laugh>.
Devindra Hardawar (01:10:49):
I remember Real Networks. It was real networks actually. Yeah. It was a low quality real, Yeah. It was awful. Real player thing. Yeah. but Philip, to to, to what you're saying, like, I, I test horizon work rooms too, like before at Launch. Good. So I haven't seen like, the way normal people have using have used it. There, there is potential there. Like when I'm, I'm living outside of Atlanta now. I'm not near my normal coworkers to be able to hop into virtual space and just like have a meeting with people could be useful. I, I don't know if you guys have seen some of the footage from that, but I was also in a space where Zuckerberg's avatar appeared right next to me. Yeah. Yeah. And I was also, it was, it was a very weird thing where it was like, Oh, when people see this video, it's like, I'm sitting next to Mark Zuckerberg.
(01:11:30):
I should probably be really chill right now. I should probably not to like, don't stare too much. Because it did feel like I was like, Gotta be cool, gotta be cool. Mark Zuckerberg is right there. If you look at playback of that video, my avatar's just doing crazy wild stuff because they're tech for managing my arms and everything just didn't work very well. So I both see the potential in it. And it's clearly early days. Like it's early days, and even they can't make it work when you're sitting next to Mark Zuckerberg, you know, Wait
Leo Laporte (01:11:57):
A minute, I gotta find this video. Where,
Devindra Hardawar (01:11:58):
Look at there, there's video somewhere. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:12:01):
Davindra Horizon World Zuckerberg. Was that, you think that's
Devindra Hardawar (01:12:06):
That's probably there. I I have a, I have a photo in my piece, but we, we didn't, like, I, we didn't do a video
Leo Laporte (01:12:11):
For that one. I don't see the video of that. That's a, Well, maybe better just to imagine it. Yeah. I have to say, have it, I have the Quest Pro. And I, I, you know, no one should spend 1600 bucks on this product. That's not what I would say at all. I mean, no review really should say, ever say, this is a worthwhile thing, but I wanna give VR a chance. I wanna, you know, I bought the first Oculus Rift on Kickstarter and, you know, I got HTC five. It's never, it's always been a cool demo that you lose interest within a day or two. Right. And I'm, and I don't see anything that changed my mind on this, but it's pretty amazing. I don't think I'd want to be in a teams meeting for more than 10 minutes on this thing. Sure,
Devindra Hardawar (01:12:52):
Sure. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:12:52):
That's part of the problem. I mean, we got a long way to go. There's a, I've talked about this before. There's a game called Richie's Plank, which is just, it's very simple. You go up in an elevator, the door opens, you're at the 80th floor, you look down and there's a little thin plank and you're supposed to walk out along it. Now, I know in my brain, I am in my living room. I'm not going anywhere. <Laugh>, I could, my body said, No, no, no, you're not. Go. No. Nope. And my brain said, Okay, fine. I could not walk out on that plank <laugh> much like you thought you were sitting to Mark Zuckerberg next
Devindra Hardawar (01:13:27):
To Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, I, I, in, in a certain reality, I was, You look at video evidence, there I am sitting next to Mark Zuckerberg. So
Leo Laporte (01:13:34):
It is, it is good enough. Let's put it this way. It's good enough to fool my body. Yeah. and to over overrule my rational mind, which knows I am completely safe and say, and my, my pulse rate's going up. I'm sweating. I I could not walk along the plank. Now, by the way, wife said, What are you talking about? She walked right along and No problem. She's like, She's got a better
Devindra Hardawar (01:13:57):
Brain. She, she's a much cooler cucumber than you clearly. Butra, we gotta separate. Yeah. Isn't
Leo Laporte (01:14:03):
The isn't the market games isn't there for the market It
Devindra Hardawar (01:14:09):
Is right now. But I've, you know, so I I I've been covering VR stuff since like the consumer stuff has launched too. And I did. Sundance has done some really good work in terms of getting the, an experience of the festival in VR with your headsets. And you, you could put that on, You can go look at some VR like like VR projects that people have created. And normally you'd have to go to physical space and put on a VR headset to do that. Why shouldn't you just be able to do that, you know, from your own home. There are VR chats and stuff where you could go actually congregate and talk with other people. It gave me a sense of community that I really, you know, have missed from not being able to go to film festivals and things like that. Maybe conversely South by kind of did the same thing.
(01:14:48):
And their VR interface was a ghost town. And it felt very lonely because I was there just staring at these, this like towering virtual Austin by myself, and there was nobody with me. Oh, that's great. So there, there are like, yeah, there's like cost and, you know, cost and consequences of going VR in this way. But I wanted to say, we really need to separate the idea of AR and the idea of VR and what these two things can, can actually mean. Cuz the pass through in the Quest Pro looks really good. Like it does, looks like you can actually see, like, see your desk. And I'm imagining like, maybe, maybe someday if I just wanna throw up a 50 inch or 70 inch video above my monitor when we're watching the Apple Live stream or something I'd love to be able to do that and not, you know, it's weird corner window with
Leo Laporte (01:15:33):
The Quest Pro, cuz they have cameras and it's color now, but the real world looks like it's virtual. It's a little shaky. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> and the virtual world looks real. So I think they, they're, they're up to some,
Devindra Hardawar (01:15:44):
It's so weird. <Laugh> Magical Leap also has this thing that Mount not many people have talked about, but you know, those are ar glasses, Right? So they're transparent and clear, but they've created a way to black out what you're seeing so they can, it can, like, it's almost like a cloud lop in your vision and just blacking out the real world to like, give the virtual objects more, more of a focus. But in a way it was all almost like semi VR when it totally blacks out an area. And that just feels like an interesting space. Like being, being able to hop between an AR and VR like experience could be cool, but it's not for everybody. It's not gonna be a thing anytime soon. But these companies are investing because it's gonna be something. You doc, you don't ignore the internet in 1996 when it's terrible.
Leo Laporte (01:16:24):
You and I were in the internet along with the vendor in 1996. We're a little older than the vendor. Me too. <Laugh> and you too Phillip. But you, we, we, we've seen we're we've been around long enough to see products come along maybe with Promise, but not delivering on that promise and then years later delivering. You think that's where VR is right now?
Doc Searls (01:16:45):
I think it's almost all promise, but I, I have a lot of faith in it for industrial purposes. I think of its like the segueway, you know, Segway is gonna make, it's gonna replace great. It's gonna be, Yeah. You know, when it was still, what was it, Audrey or it had a, a, a you know, a fake name before had a, It was Ginger. Ginger, that's right. Yeah. And Steve Jobs, lots of people say this is just the most coolest thing ever. And, and what's it good for? Warehouses.
Leo Laporte (01:17:09):
Yeah. They said it was gonna, cities were gonna be redesigned to accommodate this thing. I have two in, in my garage, by the way, <laugh>.
Doc Searls (01:17:17):
Oh, is it? There it is.
Leo Laporte (01:17:19):
I realize the problem with, with Ginger on the screensavers, 20 years ago we had Wosniak who would play Segway Polo brought in five of 'em. We all zipped around <laugh>. The problem was you look like a massive dork cuz you're like nine feet tall on this thing. And I think Right. It ended up being mall cops who we make fun of and industrial uses. Andrew
Doc Searls (01:17:42):
Was a tourists and things.
Leo Laporte (01:17:44):
Yeah. I
Doc Searls (01:17:45):
It's very handy in big warehouses. It's hugely handy in big warehouses. And, and there are lots of those going up. I mean, you go along drive anywhere on a, on an interstate and there are these, it's all free forwarding all around you <laugh> and no longer Woods. And those are full of Segways. Some of them. I actually
Leo Laporte (01:18:01):
Think an electric bike might be the future of
Doc Searls (01:18:04):
Electric bikes are is huge.
Leo Laporte (01:18:05):
They're incredibly huge.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:18:06):
Yeah. I, before we leave Segway I have to tell a segue story. John Heman, who went on to become a big political reporter came to time and said he could give us a cover story on this thing that Steve Jobs is gonna be the next big thing. And they sent me up to New Hampshire to check it out, to kick the tires. And I went to the, I went to their headquarters and I took a little ride around the thing and I heard the pitch was, their pitch was, We're gonna solve China's problem. They all, everybody in China's gonna want a car and it's gonna destroy the planet, will give them Segways. But at the price, it just didn't make sense. The price point was just, it was
Leo Laporte (01:18:48):
Wacky. There's $7,000 and oh, by the way, we've had ours long enough, the batteries stop working. So I looked into replacing the batteries. It's like $4,000 each.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:18:58):
Yeah. Anyway, the question was do we put this on the cover? And I came back and said, No, this is not a cover story for Time Magazine. Yeah. You're probably, You did run it inside. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:19:08):
A lot of hype around that. We've, so we've seen that, We've seen, we've seen technologies come along that looked like they might be world, world shaking earth shattering, and they, they don't deliver. But then we've also seen the internet, which more than delivered the iPhone. Who at 2007 only really Apple fanatics thought the iPhone was gonna change the world. It did. In ways. Even, even though optimists could not have predicted.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:19:39):
I waited a, a year before I bought one, but Yeah. Yeah. Same.
Leo Laporte (01:19:43):
Oh, I was in line for the first one. I vividly
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:19:45):
Well, you always buy the
Leo Laporte (01:19:46):
First one, <laugh>. You put it right next to your, your segues. Yeah.
Doc Searls (01:19:50):
It's your job. It's your job. <Laugh>. You know, when, when the iPhone came out, my, my wife who's like a not a tech person at all, very retro about everything, took one look at the iPhone and said this, I can work with that. Yeah. And got one of the first ones that was a hit right there. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And, and I, I don't think Apple, I think Apple likes to make things that are inventions that mother necessity. You take one look at it and say, I can use that. And Yep. That's what we don't, we don't have that with the veer headsets yet. No. Maybe Apple will make one where you get, you'll take one look at it and it's like, Oh, I gotta have that. But I, I can't imagine that, you know, But I remember being at one of Esther Dyson's things a thousand years ago, back when you, in the, in the pre Cambrian times when she said, Nobody's gonna ever write on glass.
(01:20:40):
Oh boy. Was she wrong? Yeah. Yeah. But I mean, she's, you know, she's right about a lot of other things. But that was, you know, we didn't, I wanna say some, There's another thing about Apple though, which is that you look at point of point of sale, point of purchase things. I go through airports and there are restaurants that have easels with iPads in them. You know, Apple's doing hugely well in business with iPads and, and they're, and they're, and they're, you know, there are lots of different Android pads, but there's only one iPad and there's stuff being written for iPads. And you think about Microsoft, you know, they just made the operating system. They didn't make the hardware. They didn't wanna do vertical integration. And Apple's doing it brilliantly and mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, I'm just, I, you know, that may be a saturated market at this point, but I think Apple's probably doing better in business than they ever did before. Yeah.
Devindra Hardawar (01:21:29):
By the way, it's hard to tell like, when something will take off, You know, too, because I, you remember this, Leo, the early criticisms of the first iPhone I think were legitimate. It couldn't make spend that much money for an, it couldn't copy a paste. It was an edge phone when 3G were coming out. Right. It wasn't 3g. I remember that year technology review, like put on the front cover the, the Helio Ocean, which was a phone I ended up buying instead. <Laugh> remember that was the one that, like, it flipped two ways. It flipped a vertically and horizontally <laugh>. And it was a beautiful phone. The beautiful phone is 3g. It had, it had so many of the features of the iPhone, but didn't have a touch screen. It didn't have like a, you know, even the first its iPhone didn't have an nap store. Right. Like that was the whole thing. There's the other,
Doc Searls (01:22:12):
Oh, this was like the sidekick. I bought a
Devindra Hardawar (01:22:14):
Side. It was like the side, but it also flips up vertically for the number pad. Oh. And it's so satisfying. Like, I think that was the best slider phone ever made. It's still in a pocket here. But yeah, we, looking at the first iPhone had so many issues by the next year, most of those things were ironed out. Like Apple started to see like, Oh, we can't just rely on web apps. We need apps, We need a centralized app store, We need 3g. And Apple learned, cuz even Apple didn't have that at the beginning. I just reviewed the Surface Pro nine with lte and you called it talk about why <laugh>, I called it a lie. But talk about a company that has been hammering this idea tablets as PCs, tablets as your laptop for 10 years and not, I don't think really making it happen. You know, like the sales had been okay. Like it took a year, it took a couple years, but they started making billions in revenue from surfaces. But you only ever really see those things on TV when a show, you know, has a merchandising deal with Microsoft.
Leo Laporte (01:23:13):
You see you see Tom Brady throwing them on the sidelines of the NFL <laugh>. And
Devindra Hardawar (01:23:19):
It's like Microsoft will keep trying to make this a hit. Even though, like, I think the consumers as a whole are like, I, no, I don't, I don't want to use a tablet like this. I don't want to have a kickstand on my knee. I want to have a stable surface. And also, like laptops have gotten so light and so, you know so easy to use where the idea of having a tablet PC just doesn't, there's no real win to it, but Microsoft is still doing it. So this
Leo Laporte (01:23:43):
Also shows how hard it is yester Dyson. That makes perfect sense. Nobody wants to write on glass. I think she was right. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But there's so many other things. It's so hard. This is why it's so hard as a pundit, all of us, to, to, to know if something is gonna be the next big thing or not. It's very hard to know. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> all can do, like, tell all, but they do. Right. Who would, Yeah. I thought Cordy would be dead by now. <Laugh>. This is, this is the worst. John c Devork famously wrote a column saying, Nobody wants to use a mouse.
Devindra Hardawar (01:24:15):
Nobody wants to use a mouse. I remember that. Yeah. but also, like, I remember the devor act like pundits too. Like, ah, this is clearly better. Yeah. You know? No it's hard to predict consumer usability. What I can say, like from my reporting is if I put something on and I'm like, That's cool, that's interesting. I could potentially see how that's useful. Like, that's all I can do. That's all I can convey. So like the Magic Leap, nobody is taking Magic Leap seriously now. But that headset is interesting on the industrial level. Who knows like where that tech is gonna go from there. I just, I think it's cool.
Leo Laporte (01:24:47):
Little sidelight on the Devore. Is it Devor Jacque? He's the composer. Dvorak
Devindra Hardawar (01:24:52):
Keyboard. Oh, I, I forget, I forget.
Leo Laporte (01:24:54):
Dvorak's the composer, John c DeVos, the columnist, the Devor Act keyboard is an old school keyboard designed, not like Cordy, but designed to be more efficient. Apple just added the Devor Act keyboard to its iPhone lineup in iOS 16. Oh, wow. So, and you know who loves it? Steve Wosniak, who knew Steve Wosniak is a Devor Act keyboard Fanatic. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. He said he said he, he said, Thank you very much, <laugh> Apple. What I like most about Dvorak then was the feeling of using less energy with your fingers. Oh God. Yeah. He learned, he taught himself Dvorak. He says, I was on a flight to Tokyo. I ran Mavis Beach Beacon teaches typing in Dvorak mode. That's how long ago that was. I spent five hours learning it and never again looked at a Cordy keyboard. That's all it took. So Waz is happy.
(01:25:52):
Anyway. Hey, I gotta take a break. I gotta take a break. This is great conversation. Don't stop. Just put a, put a mental, put a pin in it cuz I want, I, there's so much more to talk about. But I I, but I have to take a break over. We're not gonna get you outta here in half an hour to Vira. And I wanted to. I really did. I promised <laugh>. Thank you. Our show today brought to you by Wealth Front Wealth Front's Goal to make building long term wealth, easy offering both high yield savings and automated investing accounts that do just that all within a beautifully designed interface. Is your bank keeping money that could be yours. If you're earning less, get this wealth fronts. I guess it's, it's a savings account, right? High old savings, 2.55% AP y. Your bank ain't paying you anything like that.
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(01:27:37):
Okay. Go to wealthfront.com/twi to get started. You know what I'm thinking? And get your free $50 bonus with an initial deposit of $500 wealthfront.com/twit wealthfront.com/twit. This has been a paid endorsement for Wealthfront. Okay, fine. The laws in this banking laws in this country, sometimes a little strange, a little, a little weird. By the way, Apple was getting, Apple has added a ads now to their app store. And a number of people, Marco Armed tweeted, I don't like it. That, that my app Overcast, which is a podcast app right below it is, Oh, if you like Overcast, you might like this gambling app. It was at a control. Apple at one point admits there were about 30% of all the ads were gambling. They have halted that now. They have paused app store ads relating to gambling after everybody complained. That's where the money is now. Local radio station. Kgo one of the best radio stations in the country. I worked there in the nineties and again in the two thousands. I was, my show, syndicated show was on KGO until two weeks ago when KGO pulled the plug on talk radio and became sports gambling radio.
Doc Searls (01:28:56):
It's horrible <laugh> that that's, that's just,
Leo Laporte (01:28:59):
Yeah, There's so much money.
Doc Searls (01:29:01):
Gambling is gigantic. Gambling is gigantic in sports and, and Fandule and whatever the other one is are are just, are they're big sponsors of, of nfl, The Ringer of NFL Ringer, all these things. It bothers
Leo Laporte (01:29:17):
Me when I watch NFL football and they're promoting gambling. Can we, let's let Pete Rose in the Hall of Fame then because it's okay now to
Doc Searls (01:29:27):
Gamble. Well, it's okay if you're not playing that that was a problem with, with Pete Rose. But still it's correct. I mean, it, it's not possible almost to, to to follow sport. I'm, I'm a sports fan and I tune out almost everything that's just all about gambling cuz it's not, not interesting to me, but it's a gigantic part of the whole conversation is, you know, what's the line on this? What's the line on that? And are you gonna do a parlay? Are you gonna do, is God the assumption behind it is it everybody's gambling all the time. Yeah. And there's always a house, and the house is always gonna win. And so it, it's kind
Leo Laporte (01:30:01):
A it's amazing.
Doc Searls (01:30:02):
Yeah. Yeah. It's
Leo Laporte (01:30:03):
Kind, it's amazing. It I I don't wanna be the morality police. We're gonna vote on this in California in a week, two weeks November 8th on prop 26th and 27 to allow, it's not legal to sport. Do sports betting in California except at the casino or at a race track. And they wanna make it legal on the phone. Fan. Who's sponsoring this fan? Dual mgm. Yeah. You know, the big, the gambling thing. And there is to me a little moral thing. I don't, I feel like, I don't think anybody who has a gambling problem should have a casino in their pocket. I think that's kind of scary. I guess it's not our responsibility. I also just, I just feel like it's a malign influence. I look at Las Vegas, all those expensive, beautiful buildings, they're built by gambling. Losers.
Doc Searls (01:30:50):
Losers are by losers. And
Leo Laporte (01:30:51):
You're all, and you know what, in the long run we're all the losers. So that's, you know. Yeah. I think it's a big problem. Anyway,
Doc Searls (01:30:59):
It's huge.
Leo Laporte (01:31:01):
So Apple has halted those ads. I don't know if they'll, Philip, have you heard anything about whether that that's just a temporary pause or,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:31:07):
Well, when, when Marco Armit complained loudly, Apple reacts. So I think they, I think they're gonna take it off. They don't like that look and, but
Leo Laporte (01:31:17):
I don't like the look of them selling ads at all. Right. Because all long, you know, they turned off, they, they put that nice setting No application tracking in my phone. Except Apple does And Apple sells adss against what you're doing. Yeah.
Doc Searls (01:31:31):
It on their properties. They do it on their own properties. Don't do it out in the, But
Leo Laporte (01:31:35):
It's okay for me, but not for the Right.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:31:38):
It's different. It's different what they're not. But it's, we're splitting hairs. It's promotion. He's not a good look promotion. It's, but I, yeah, I was actually interested I to discover that they sell, you can sell NFTs now on the app store. Really? And I've got a couple of, I I've got a couple I wanna sell. I have Jean Michelle Basquiat, Receipt <laugh> for the first, for the first article that was ever written about
Leo Laporte (01:32:03):
Him. I don't have a bus yet, but I have his receipt. <Laugh>
Doc Searls (01:32:07):
<Laugh>.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:32:08):
I think it's worth the money.
Leo Laporte (01:32:09):
I
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:32:10):
Think you're right. And, and I have, and I've been do, I've been taking a picture of my latte art every morning and I've made 365 days of latte. I think that's worth something. Wait,
Leo Laporte (01:32:21):
Wait. Is this latte art you are creating or this is
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:32:23):
Zoo? Yeah. Yeah. Every time I make one that I like in the morning, I, I take a picture where this put it up on, on Instagram. On my Instagram. I
Leo Laporte (01:32:31):
Have no idea you were a latte artist.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:32:34):
So, Well, so you
Doc Searls (01:32:35):
Take so on Instagram and you, you, you, you monetize the Instagram latte that way. In other words, you turn it into an nft. Do you insight Instagram? I didn't. There
Leo Laporte (01:32:44):
Just,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:32:45):
Okay. Well I, you know, ideally I would tell each one individually as an nft and then if you want, really spend the big bucks. Did you find it Leah? It's Phillip e d on Instagram. Is it
Leo Laporte (01:32:58):
Well, I see a lot of, Huh? Elmer dewitt 60 eea. Who's that?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:33:03):
No, that's somebody else. <Laugh>. It would be Philip. I think it's Phillip Elmer. Probably. Okay, let, But it's try Phillip Ed. Try
Leo Laporte (01:33:10):
Philip e Philip Ed. Which by the way, okay. Yeah, I see it. I see it. Cuz you got, you got, Oh, look at this.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:33:18):
It goes on. Keep
Leo Laporte (01:33:20):
Going, keep going.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:33:21):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:33:21):
Mostly they look like volcanoes, but
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:33:23):
Okay. They're all the, they're trees. They're all
Leo Laporte (01:33:25):
The same. They're always trees.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:33:27):
Yeah. It's a, that's all I can do. And they're, and they're crappy. I'm not very good at it. But I, but I'm persistent and I've done it now for 360 days. I'm five days away from my goal. And you too can own one of these.
Leo Laporte (01:33:41):
Oh, I wanna own 'em all.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:33:43):
There you go. You can buy 'em all.
Leo Laporte (01:33:45):
You know where the big one
Doc Searls (01:33:46):
Big. So where do you sell them? Where do you sell them? If
Leo Laporte (01:33:49):
I wouldn't,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:33:49):
I haven't sold them at all, But, but
Leo Laporte (01:33:51):
I'll tell you where you go. If you wanna know, there really is only one place open sea@opencdot.io. And you can, The problem is the NFT market is tanked. So you're coming late. If you sold at the beginning of the year, you, it,
Doc Searls (01:34:07):
It cheap
Leo Laporte (01:34:07):
Then. Yeah. You could get it cheap. Yeah. medieval monkeys, you know, if you were tired of board apes, now you can get medieval monkeys. The floor price is 0.028 E. That's I So you can get in pretty, pretty young, pretty inexpensively. See,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:34:25):
I think, I think I have a better product.
Leo Laporte (01:34:27):
<Laugh>. I think you're better. I think you're better than this. <Laugh>. how about how about Jean Simmons? Kiss Incarnate sold out in, you know, who makes the money by the way? Who's really making money on this open sea? Yeah. The gas, the gas fees the money they charge for these transactions are guaranteed. You're gonna get that no matter what. It's like Levi's selling the jeans to the gold miners. You may or may not get a strike, but we're gonna get the money for the
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:34:59):
Genes. It's like the house in Las Vegas.
Leo Laporte (01:35:01):
Yeah. It's the house Open. Sees the house. Okay. Okay. Okay. let's see. Apple, by the way,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:35:12):
I liked your, I liked your story about getting rid of daylight saving time.
Leo Laporte (01:35:19):
So I've gone back and forth on this. We're about to the, the very, very powerful candy lobby in the United States. <Laugh>, this is not a joke. Convince Congress to move the change back to standard time after Halloween. Right. because the theory being that it's better to have more hours of trick or treating cuz we're gonna sell more candy <laugh>. So next Sunday the clocks will then fall back. Right. And I'm sure I will once again go on a tirade about what a miserable idea this is and how more people die on the Monday. Actually fallback, you're getting more sleep. So that's not as mm-hmm. <Affirmative> not as bad as spring where you, you lose an hour sleep. But there's more heart attacks, there's more car crashes on the Monday after blah, blah, blah. It doesn't save energy. The farmers, I know farmers, we've got, they've got electric lights now. They don't care. <Laugh> we give the
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:36:18):
Enough on Le Leo the why. What I like about this story, having been in, in city government now for a while. It's like the, let's get rid of the copper penny. It's an actual easy it'ss easy, achievable goal. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>
Leo Laporte (01:36:35):
And goal have to be, be a political genius to get it
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:36:38):
Right. You might. It's something that you might be able to achieve in your lifetime, unlike most political.
Leo Laporte (01:36:44):
So are you lobbying for the fine? What, what, Where are you the, I thought you're in Bristol but you're not as, are you, Are you like one of those Oz guys? Are you a carpetbagger? Are you out of state now?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:36:56):
No. No. I still, I'm, my residence is in Greenfield. I'm here cuz it's nice on the weekends.
Leo Laporte (01:37:01):
His residence is in Massachusetts. But he lives in Rhode Island. No, no. Rescued
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:37:07):
<Laugh>. I can't wait to get outta city government. I have a year and two months left. What
Leo Laporte (01:37:12):
Are you called? What is, what is the title of this
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:37:14):
Counselor Elmer? They call me Counselor
Leo Laporte (01:37:17):
Elmer. So are you, is this on your agenda before your term runs out to change a greenfield, Massachusetts to a, a little private zone of no daylight saving time?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:37:30):
No. See, I, I don't actually care one way or the other about daylight savings or the copper penny. I just like achievable goals.
Leo Laporte (01:37:39):
Mexico has scrapped daylight. Saving time. By the way, John, you can yell at the AP for pluralizing savings. You'd think the style guide would've stopped them on that one. That's shocking. Shocking. Mexico scraps, daylight saving time except the long border where they're still dealing with the us.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:38:00):
Right.
Leo Laporte (01:38:03):
Sunday when Mexico was scheduled today, this, this morning at 2:00 AM to turn the clocks back for the last time then that's it. It's the health secretary Jorge Aer says Mexico should return to God's clock. <Laugh>.
(01:38:22):
It was, it's a family values thing. Yeah. We voted in California. We had a proposition the past that said, I believe said stay on daylight saving time. Cuz this is part of the debate. Do you want it dark in the morning? All winter? Cuz that's what happens if you stay on daylight saving time. But we are not allowed to do anything unless the feds change our time zone or something. I can't remember what. Yeah, you can stay, you can you, if you want, you can stay standard time. That's your time zone. It's optional whether you go to daylight saving time or not. So you can turn off the daylight saving time. But what we wanna do is make permanent daylight saving time. That's California. That's California. When I say we Yeah, because it's sunnier in the evening. You want that? So we don't need it. Cause Yeah. And if you're in Oregon or Washington state, or God forbid Canada, this is a life saver cuz it's like dark until 10 in the morning, <laugh> a winter. And so you don't want kids going to school in the dark and so forth. So I, I have mixed, I don't know. I've heard from both sides now. And like you Commissioner Elmer Dewitt, <laugh>.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:39:36):
Counselor. Counselor.
Leo Laporte (01:39:37):
Counselor. I am I am now I am now neutral on the subject. But you, we gotta get rid of the copper penny. That's just ridiculous. <Laugh>. It's just absurd. By the way, Jaws, Greg Jaak has, has confirmed there Apple will move to usbc. Well we knew that cuz he had Europe said they had to, but Apple has finally said yes. Did he say though, Philip, whether it was this year, 2015 or is it gonna
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:40:06):
Be he said he would comply with the law,
Leo Laporte (01:40:09):
Comply with the law, whatever that is.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:40:11):
Yeah, that Joanna Stern was great. She she got the two of them. He and Craig Fu Fedi for half an hour at a Wall Street Journal event. She was just working her butt off to try to get them to confirm something and that's what she got. Otherwise they, oh man. They kept ducking the questions.
Leo Laporte (01:40:29):
Talk
Devindra Hardawar (01:40:30):
To Apple is like talking to you. Like, I, I don't know, like, like a brick wall sometimes. Like trying to get them to answer anything. It's amazing.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:40:35):
Like the the worst bureaucrats you ever run into.
Leo Laporte (01:40:39):
Yep. I almost always just chew interviews with chief executive officers and sports figures. Musicians are also pretty bad. They say nothing. They say nothing. And the CEOs are trained to say nothing. I mean like they are adept at saying nothing. Politicians too, in fact, frankly, you know, never want to interview anybody who you think would be interesting. <Laugh> <laugh>. The most interesting people are just normal people cuz they got no nothing to hide, I guess.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:41:10):
I don't know. I always, I made it a point to be interesting. I thought that was my
Leo Laporte (01:41:15):
Job. Well you're great. I found. Yeah, I'll interview you any day. Yeah, it's actually an interesting point though. Cuz it's a good get right? It's a prestigious like Joanna Stern got that's prestigious but it's murder. Yeah. It's like they're not gonna say anything ever.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:41:34):
She gave them goody bags of all old cables. Old
Leo Laporte (01:41:39):
<Laugh> lucky people. She's good at the stunt. Smart. She's the queen of the media stunt. Well she used to have be on TWI until she became a big shot at Wall Street Journal. But she's, she became at the journal because they made her do video. The queen of the stunt.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:41:53):
Yeah.
Doc Searls (01:41:54):
It, I I'm wondering
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:41:55):
She crashed cars to to test
Leo Laporte (01:41:58):
The crashed cars to test the watch.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:42:00):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:42:02):
<Laugh>, which is a stunt.
Doc Searls (01:42:04):
Yeah. And of course you know about the roller coasters though. That's kind of a cool story.
Leo Laporte (01:42:08):
Yeah. We talked about it a couple of weeks ago. Is that oh it did. If you, So I don't know what the upshot, I would imagine by now the nine 11 centers that are near amusement parks are, are, cuz you get you'll get a call from somebody's watch saying, I don't know what happened, but this guy can't be good. You better send, you better send an ambulance. And it turns out the guy was just on the Six Flags rollercoaster. Right. All they had to do is say, Is it his six flags? Oh, it's a rollercoaster. Yeah. But then what if somebody died on a rollercoaster and they didn't and then they'd show up because they thought it was just spurious. So I don't know what you do.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:42:45):
You, you tweak the algorithm. That's what you do.
Leo Laporte (01:42:47):
That's right. Yeah.
Doc Searls (01:42:49):
I wonder, would you, would you guys think about government mandating and interface like usbc? I thought that was overboard myself. I I what, what would, would something better than USBC comes along? Will it be forbidden? I, because you're just like, we're stuck with business. It's the metric system. USBC is a metric customer with that.
Devindra Hardawar (01:43:06):
They, they would update it down the line, but it's one of those things I do remember like going on CNBC or something like when Lightning was debuting and saying that was 2012. Right? So 10 years ago I was like, USBC is right there. Everyone's gonna be moving to usbc. I don't know why Apple's doing this other thing. Now they're kind of forced to do it. I think the lightning connector is kind of at least for me and my phone's kind of a disaster because I don't know if it's my pockets or what, but there's always like a ton of lin that gets in there where, That's
Leo Laporte (01:43:35):
Right.
Devindra Hardawar (01:43:35):
Lynn gets in there and my, the connection with the cable is always a little finicky. So now on my, on my, in my car with CarPlay, no matter which cable I use, if the phone shifts just a little bit, I lose my CarPlay entirely because with the way Lightning is constructed, so yeah, get rid of it. USBC is at least a little stronger I think. Yeah. Doc
Leo Laporte (01:43:51):
It in also the gold, the gold wear is out. Yep. Yep. Your, your point is interesting, Doc, because actually that's what Alex Lindsey on Mac Break Weekly says all the time is you don't want government to get involved in mandating user interface features. But at the same time, I, I argue, and I'm not, I don't disagree with that. I, I mean the government's, the last people who should be specifying tech specs, but at the same time, there is a benefit isn't there to having mm-hmm. <Affirmative> remember when laptops, every one of 'em had a proprietary charger? That was awful. Yeah. Horrible. Should, Well, but the market solved that. I guess
Devindra Hardawar (01:44:29):
Sort of like USBC itself is a, is a messy standard. And a lot of people have written about that, like different voltages it's hard to tell, like, Will my laptop charge on this phone charger? That's all unclear. So USBC is not a huge win, but I think overall, like, Okay, I can plug my phone into this thing. Let's see if it charges, like, at the very least I could do that, You know, and that's better than lightning and everything.
Leo Laporte (01:44:49):
I had a call on the radio show asking that perfectly legitimate question. He says, I bought a a a a dongle, you know, have a lot of ports on it, and it had a little tail <laugh>, he says, And I can't reach the back of my computer with this tail, so I'm gonna get a US B X C extender. But how do I know if the US BBC extender will do all the things the dongle will do? And I said, Well, in theory, there should be a silk screen logo that tells you what it does. But nobody does that. So the, the standard calls for it, but nobody adheres to the standard, I guess. And so, yes, the math, you don't know. And, and, and it's, and it's not just, will it carry data? It's, well, what speed is it? Thunderbolt four, Thunderbolt three, USB 2.1, USB two.
(01:45:31):
Does it charge, Does it do video? What does it do? I don't know. No one could tell. Just plug it in. That's your solution. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. <Laugh>. Okay, let's take a little break. Davinder's got 10 minutes. Woo, 10 minutes. And I'm down and I'm down to 7% batteries. I'm, Oh my God, you're just gonna die. You're just gonna die on us. You mean your, Oh, your headset. Oh good. Okay. I, yeah, My segues down to zero. I'll tell you this. Speaking tech brought to you today by Express vpn. What if there was someone out there who kept a log of all the things you did online? Like you don't even have to show em your internet history. They already know. Well, guess what, <laugh>? Yeah, that's exactly what's happening. If you don't use Express vpn, your internet service provider not only does it, it's legal.
(01:46:22):
They're allowed to log every website you've ever visited. And it is also allowed, in fact, legal to sell that data to anyone, to marketers, anyone will pay. That's just one of many reasons why express VPN is a must. Even if you're at Home Express VPN reroutes your internet connection through their secure servers. So it's scrambled the minute it comes out the back of your computer, your internet service provider can't see, can't log what you do online. They don't see anything but random noise. Now this brings up an important question. Well, if I'm routing all my data through a vpn, that doesn't that just mean the VPN can see what I'm doing? Can't they do the same thing and log my data? You're right. Many VPNs claim to have a no log policy, but they've been caught logging customer activity even worse. Free VPNs. How do you think they pay for that?
(01:47:21):
Server. They, they, they're selling everything they can, but I love Express vpn cuz they don't, you know, it's in their privacy policy. We don't log, we know they don't log. They go the extra mile not to log. We know they don't log because from time to time, it's happened many times, especially in countries authoritarian countries where they don't need a warrant. They'll just come. They, it happened in Turkey. They seize the server. No knock, just come in, take the server. There's never anything on it. <Laugh>, they're frustrated every single time. And that's cuz Xpress VPN goes the extra mile to really protect your privacy. They use something they designed called Trusted Server. In fact, they were the first major VPN provider to engineer all their VPN servers, these trusted servers to run in RAM only. They're running completely in ram. When you open the Vpnn connection, it spins up the trusted server in ram.
(01:48:11):
It's sandboxed in ram, so it can't write to the drive. And when you close the server, it goes away. It's yours and yours alone. No one else is using it. And it goes away. And there's no trace left, nothing left. Furthermore, they use a custom Debian install that automatically wipes the entire drive every reboot. And they do that every single day. So even if somehow they were able to write to the drive, there'd be nothing left the next day. It is impossible for their VPN service to store any data, including logs of any Express VPN customer. So your privacy is absolutely protected. They know that's their business. You don't even have to take my word or express VPN's word for this. They're so confident they know they do this. They've actually had Pricewaterhouse Coopers that one of the biggest assurance companies in the world assurance companies in the world audit it.
(01:49:02):
And Pricewaterhouse Cooper said, Nope, you're right. Trusted Server Works as explained their policy, their privacy policy is absolutely a hundred percent adhered to. They do not log. That's why CNET wired tech radar, countless others, rate Express VPN number one. It's why I use it. It's the only VPN I use. It's the only one you should use. Stop letting people log what you do online. Start watching content with without any geographic restrictions. Start protecting yourself against hackers and malicious actors on open wifi networks at hotels and conferences and coffee shops and cruise ships. Express vpn.com. Go there right now. Express vpn.com/twi. Please use that slash TWI to find out how you can get three months free with a one year package. That's the best price. Look, it's not free. I understand it's a fair price. It's less than seven bucks a month and you get the best service.
(01:49:59):
They use that money to make sure they rotate IP addresses regularly. That's very important for, for eliminating geographic restrictions. They make sure that their servers have the fastest connections possible so you don't feel like you're bogged down by them. I mean that the money goes to a really good cause. The best VPN service out there, E X P r e s s vpn.com/twi. Take advantage of this special offer. Get three months free@expressvpn.com slash twit. We are big fans. The only one I use and I have verified personally that they do it right. Philip Elmer dewitt is here. P e D three zero. His battery has been charged up to 8% <laugh>. Woo for a few more minutes. We got we've got Davindra, Hardwar love having Davinder on. He is at a gadget where he is a senior editor. You liked the for the GTX 40 90, didn't you?
Devindra Hardawar (01:51:03):
I mean, I sure it's, it's crazy powerful. I don't think anybody should buy it. You know, I I don't think a a sane person, you know, would probably wait for the, for the 40 80 and the 40 70. But it is very nice. It's, it's like having a Ferrari just sit in my garage. I'm like, well, I, I can't deny. It's a very fast car's. It does what it's supposed to do.
Leo Laporte (01:51:21):
It's, it's kind of the opposite of what in Vita's done in the past. Usually they'll release like the 30 80 and then they'll, the titanium version, they'll slowly, you know, release better versions. They, they're doing it the other way around. This is the top
Devindra Hardawar (01:51:33):
Of it. I, I think because they needed, they needed the like, big headline of like, just how freaking fast this thing is. Whereas the others may not be as big leap between the 3000 series gpu. So, you know, it kind of makes sense in that respect. Yeah. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:51:46):
How did you, your review says unholy power.
Devindra Hardawar (01:51:50):
Oh yeah. I forgot. I forgot I wrote that <laugh>. It's, it's just, so I, I had to upgrade my power supply. Well, that's what I was asking this
Leo Laporte (01:51:58):
Thing. Yeah. How did you review it? You put it in your computer?
Devindra Hardawar (01:52:00):
Oh yeah. I was, once I saw, So first of all, we don't typically get the, the like 90 cre GPS reviewing gadget. Like we're not as cool as like some of the other PC hardware folks. But once I saw that was coming, I was like, Okay, well I have a 750 wat power supply right now. That's probably not gonna be enough. And also I was rebuilding my system for the new AMD chips as well. So I was doing this whole rebuild. I was like, gotta get at least a thousand watts once that, that fine, that was fine. Like setting that whole thing up. The 40 90 required for, for the, the power
Leo Laporte (01:52:34):
For, And we've heard from some sources that these melt, sometimes
Devindra Hardawar (01:52:38):
The adapter they're using because it's, there's just so much power coming in outta that thing for a couple of people has melted. That's impressive. Newer, powerful. If you
Leo Laporte (01:52:46):
Melted your powers <laugh>,
Devindra Hardawar (01:52:48):
It's, it's too much. It's, it feels like you're, you're you know, doc in back to the future. It just feels like a crazy thing. I don't, I don't know if I should be plugging any of these things in because this, first of all, this graphics card is so big, it's almost as wide as my entire case. It's, it's just a crazy experience. If you have a newer power supply, you can use one cable and actually just learned my modular power supply has, like, I can buy an extra cable to kind of do it for the new power supply standards. Good. You, you, newer ones will be okay. Hopefully, You know,
Leo Laporte (01:53:20):
I I, in a way, I like this. Apple does this once in a while where a company says, Okay, what would you do if there were no limits? Like, we didn't worry about what the street price was gonna end up being. We just put in the best technology we had. What would that look like? And I mean, most, I, you know what, GPUs are one of those things. I could see people spending 1600 bucks for the 40 company.
Devindra Hardawar (01:53:39):
Sure, sure. Especially if, if it's part of your business, if you're in coding video or rendering 3d, it's like, that is a, that is, that's gonna save you time and save you money ultimately. Right? So it's worth
Leo Laporte (01:53:48):
It. Yeah. It's, it's, it's hysterical.
Devindra Hardawar (01:53:52):
<Laugh> gamers don't need it. I, I could
Leo Laporte (01:53:54):
Say. Oh really? Cause that's why we, that's why I would thought would be interested in this. Not gamers. This
Devindra Hardawar (01:53:58):
Is, this is more of like a titan for people who are buying Titan cards. This is probably a better alternative to that. Okay. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:54:04):
It's for Blender and, you know, Cinema 4D and stuff like that. Okay. Okay. I get it. Do you want to take off to Vira? I I, I, I don't want to keep you here. If your daughter is
Devindra Hardawar (01:54:16):
I'll, I'll jet. I just say we're in the middle of bath time and baby put down time. I gotta make sure my daughter's okay. So Yeah. But yeah, I, I do miss doing long Twiss cuz I, since my son was born, I haven't been able to do a twi I believe. So, you know, it's been fun chatting.
Leo Laporte (01:54:28):
Yeah. Aw, it was nice to meet you. Nice to come back
Devindra Hardawar (01:54:32):
Sometime. Nice to
Leo Laporte (01:54:32):
See you all when your kids are in Vegas or something. <Laugh> just, you know,
Devindra Hardawar (01:54:36):
Once once things have settled down a little bit, but yeah, I, yeah, let's do a family trip to Vegas. That'll be eye opening for everybody, right? Oh my God. Oh my
Leo Laporte (01:54:44):
God. Oh my God. Thank you Tora. Great to see you. You vendor hardware senior editor@ngadget.com and a great, great guy. Would love you. Have fun. Last time I missed bath time <laugh>. That was fun. I always liked it. I always liked it, Especially when the kids were really little and they could bathe together and it was just so much, it was so cute. It was so fun. Wired Magazine in their ideas section, and I thought, I've got two senior statesmen of the technology industry here. Three, if you include me, now that we got rid of the kid we could talk, I wanna talk about this. Doc Ss Phillip Elmer dewitt. I thought this was a really interesting article that really pinpoints, I think, a larger problem in the tech industry. Oh, now I have to, by the way, here's another problem. I've gotta log in. Okay, I should have done this beforehand. But the premise is when you have an entire tech industry set up along the notion that in order to make it, you have to raise money with VC companies who then are going to put a lot of pressure on you to make an exit.
(01:56:06):
That maybe ultimately this isn't the best way to run a company. And it kind of got me thinking not just about that and tech companies, but companies in general that are motivated, that feel like their business is to make money for the stakeholders not to serve customers. Now, that's not a problem when those two goals are aligned, but if they're not, and sometimes they're not, then it's a bad for customers. It's a bad experience. The author of this, actually, Author Thirds, there's three people. P Mancini, who's the CEO and co-founder at Open Collective and chair of the Democracy Earth Foundation. That gives you an idea of where we're going with this. Alana Irving, an open source developer who also builds tools for communities for radical participation and cooperation. And Nathan, who's in New York City based fiscal sponsorship, professional governance nerd, local activist, and ambient musician, all three, I think very progressive.
(01:57:15):
Say startups find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place. They need funding to make something special, but their only options are infinite growth or to escape to sell the options for selling, also known as exiting. Or limited companies can either go public via an IPO or work to be purchased by another company through an acquisition. In both cases, if that's your target, the companies at risk of losing focus and being behold in the stakeholders that do not include the community's served, they propose an open collective is, is behind this a different idea where essentially the exit is you sell to your customers. So the example here with Twitter would be, instead of selling to the richest man in the world, what if Twitter somehow could figure out a way to sell it to the users and then be responsible for serving the users, not the financial markets. What do you think, doc?
Doc Searls (01:58:20):
Oh boy. I, it, it, the first thing that jumps back to me with is I was at a party in like 1999 and there was this guy who was a young entrepreneur, and he said and he had, I asked him what he was doing. He said, I have an, we're an arms merchant to the portals industry back when portals were a thing. And I said, That's an industry. I, I, and I asked a bunch of tough questions. I finally asked, How are sales? And he said, They're great. We just closed our second round of financing for 25 million. Wow. And, and even though I already knew this, it, what came across to me is that wow, every company has two markets. One for its goods and services and the other for itself. Yes. And what happened is that, is that the, this, this happened in Silicon Valley for decades, you know, where the second one, where the, the value of the company itself overcomes the value of whatever the company's goods and services are.
(01:59:12):
And, and it, so that's one thing that just sort of sticks in my mind about this. And another is that there's, there always these sta I mean, I don't think most investors want necessarily you to go straight to exit. Although often you get that question, what's your exit? You know, like, I don't have an exit, I just wanna grow. The thing is that, but there are these stages that companies go through which are like new, hot and big, and they're very different. And, and, and I think most of the time when you're talking about exits, when things are not going that well. So I'm wondering, Philip, is that true? That, that if, if you, if you look for the, like a word cloud where exit suddenly gets really big, is it not when companies are in trouble?
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (01:59:51):
No, I don't think it's necessarily that. It, it, it is, I agree that it's not a good situation because if you're aiming for an exit strategy, well if, if an ipo at least the product continues if it, if you're looking to be acquired, often the product disappears. They're buying the IP or they're buying the talent. So it's very, very far removed from serving the users. I hate to keep going back to Apple, but that's what I know about. One of the, one of the things that made it great was they're focused on the user experience. They made an effort to make it, make this stuff relatively easy to use. They had, they had what it was, what your experience was gonna be like as part of their design strategy. I, I think they've gotten away from that. The, the iPhone is incredibly complicated now and has a much higher learning curve than it did. But at least they were initially focused on that. Now they're more about money. Let me, I the Go ahead doc.
Leo Laporte (02:00:57):
I'm thinking about your premise that the exit to sale is always a sign of a company not doing well. I'm thinking about some of the big exits we know of YouTube selling to Google. That probably was necessary. Yeah. YouTube couldn't succeed as a small company because they were gonna get sued out of existence. Maybe not WhatsApp, which was a tiny company selling to Facebook or Instagram for a billion dollars to Facebook. Again, tiny companies probably very glad to get the big check. Here's the counter example, though. This is more recent. Adobe just bought Figma for 20 billion. Figma was not suffering. Figma was about to kill, kill Adobe. Now there's always, I'm sure the founders had reasons. Yeah, yeah. You know, but they, the reason wasn't, oh God, we're in trouble. The reason probably was more like <laugh>. Yeah. <laugh> 20 sh billion six comma Club. It was so much money that they couldn't say no. And I think that happens too. So it isn't an exit. And now I don't think Figma was built to be acquired, by the way. I I doubt very much it was built to be acquired. I don't know what their plans were. But they certainly had a big payday.
Doc Searls (02:02:13):
It's just a sense that I had. I I I, I don't know. I mean, it, there's, there, there are plenty of examples of all these things that just, and of course I, I've dealt over the years with a lot of startups cuz you know, I kind of like push along new ideas that some people pick up on them, most have fail and they're always looking for an exit before they hit the ground, you know?
Leo Laporte (02:02:31):
Oh, so you have a lot of experience with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Doc Searls (02:02:34):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:02:34):
Yeah. And there's no, I
Doc Searls (02:02:35):
IPO's huge. It's biased. Yeah, no, exactly. It's when there's not an ipo, it's like, well maybe there's, you know, you know, some money company or something could buy us or there was some other exit, you know? But
Leo Laporte (02:02:47):
No, I, you know, being a founder myself, there was never gonna be an IPO for twit. But as headwinds started to, to stir up with the ad market, because Spotify and iHeart and Amazon were killing the RSS podcast market by taking these, buying up these companies, buying up these shows and making 'em exclusive advertisers suddenly said, Well, you know, I can tell you exactly who's listened to my ad on Joe Rogan, cuz it's through ex Spotify the app. And so it's worth a million dollars and I'm not gonna buy TWI because all What do you know about your audience? Nothing. They, I know they're, I know they subscribe to our RSS feed. So we too, for that very reason, kind of seeing these headwinds coming, unfortunately pandemic killed us, but we thought about me, you know, we should probably try to get acquired by these guys. Cuz at some point it's, and at that point is rapidly coming where it's almost impossible to sell ads. Because any advertiser's gonna say, Well why should, why should I buy an ad from you? You can't tell me anything about who's, who's
Doc Searls (02:03:53):
Listening. Well, this is, this is a gigantic moral question. And of course this is something I I dwell on almost exclusively which is that, and it is morally wrong to follow people without their invitation or a court order. And there's a trillion, $2 trillion business based on that. And that's what's going on with Spotify and the rest of that, I suppose I would've followed them so much. But
Leo Laporte (02:04:15):
You don't, Spotify spent half a billion dollars acquiring Ad Tech I know.
Doc Searls (02:04:20):
For the podcast. Well, did they, did they? Is that what they did? I mean, I, I could see acquiring the Ringer. I mean, I, I think they, The
Leo Laporte (02:04:27):
Ringer, the podcast broken business, but then more than that, they acquired Anchor FM capability to make podcasts. They acquired charitable and pod sites, the tracking, the, the ad tracking companies that we used and then pulled the plug for us. They said, Nah, you can't use us anymore. So they're going vertical and exclusive. They, Yeah, they're killing pod they're literally killing RSS based podcasting by acquiring it all. Yeah. And, and you don't spend half a billion dollars to acquire stuff like that. And you, unless you have a pretty good plan to monetize it.
Doc Searls (02:04:59):
Well, you know, so, okay, so I listened to a bunch of Ringer podcasts especially, and all of the ads that I don't think those, any of the ads that I hear there are personalized. They're, they're generally people like, like if it's Bill Simmons, he's like, you, you're talk about Express VPN or one of the other sponsors. And they, they, you know, a lot of them are fan du of course because, but they're kind of gambling oriented. But I have a sense that they're personalized at all
Leo Laporte (02:05:25):
To you, but is to you, but to, but they are personalized to these, the, the, the sports fan who would be listening to those shows, I guess.
Doc Searls (02:05:32):
Well it, I mean, if it's generalized that way, and I mean, I don't mind them finding out how, I mean, I don't mind them knowing that I skipped over the ads, but I don't want them knowing it's necessarily me <laugh>. And I don't know what that they do. I, I don't know what the feedback there is. You know, And I mean, if, course I'm, I'm listening generally on Apple's thing and, and though sometimes I've listen to Overcast or one of the others downcast, but
Leo Laporte (02:05:54):
Oh, so, so as long as you can still listen to wrong finger fingered on something besides Spotify, they have
Doc Searls (02:05:59):
A, I never listen to it on Spot. I've never listed then
Leo Laporte (02:06:02):
You are a, have Spotify, but understand Spotify's goal as they did with Joe Ropes.
Doc Searls (02:06:06):
I know they want, they want to suck in the market. Right. And one of the reasons that I, you know, I mean something I have a trouble with less with sports than with some other topics is that, and only because sports is evanescent and it's of no interest two weeks or five weeks from now. But I don't like that all of a sudden all of the archives are available only to subscribers. You know, I I don't like that. And, and I suppose that's the case with Joe. There
Leo Laporte (02:06:33):
Will come a day with Ringer where you will have to download the Spotify app if you want to keep listening.
Doc Searls (02:06:38):
Yeah. And I mean, I will do it. It's out worth.
Leo Laporte (02:06:41):
But that's actually, supposedly, and I, it's hard to confirm this cuz it's a in in internal thing, but I have seen some evidence in it's kind of inductive reasoning that Joe Rogan's influences dropped when he went exclusive, which they think is evidence that the audience dropped. Because there are many people who would not continue to listen if you had to get a podcast app to listen other than the one they liked. Yeah. And maybe that would happen with Ringer too. Maybe. In fact, that's why Spotify hasn't moved Ringer to an exclusive deal yet. They did right away with Rogan. They even took 'em off YouTube. So to get back to my original premise, Figma, which has devoted users, loved it, sold to Adobe. Adobe had to make the acquisition because Figma was basically eating their lunch. Users are unhappy about this, this is how it works. Wouldn't it be nice if there'd been some sort of way that the community that uses Figma could have acquired it and control it and keep Figma focused on its customers instead of focused on making money for Adobe? That's the premise of this Wired editorial.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:07:54):
The SCC doesn't get involved when someone like Adobe buys its competitor.
Leo Laporte (02:08:00):
Oh. Although there will definitely be regulatory approval, I'm sure on this. Look, Facebook just told they can't buy Giffy by the uk so that deal is off for that very reason. It's competitive Facebook slash meta. Yeah, maybe Figma maybe that'll be stopped. But let's face it if you're, if you're relying on the US government or EU or the UK to protect consumer interests in these acquisitions, you've been mightily disappointed over the last 40 years, right? Right. That there's the no, there's been no success in that area. I think,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:08:38):
I think the challenge of getting the users to everybody to pony up would be huge. I mean think about if if every Twitter user was invited to buy Twitter, all you have to do is throw in 10 bucks. I'd be surprised if 10% responded.
Leo Laporte (02:08:56):
Yeah. I mean, in a way that's what a paywall is. That's what a subscription fee is, is you're counting on your users to support you. Right. But it could, I guess the users, no matter how much they paid for Figma couldn't come up with 20 billion. So the community
Doc Searls (02:09:13):
Probably could
Leo Laporte (02:09:13):
Either. Yeah, yeah,
Doc Searls (02:09:15):
Yeah. I don't think it's a, it's real option. But a related fact though, it's not a fact, it's, it's a supposition on my part, but I think it's correct, is that Wired has gotten better lately. And I
Leo Laporte (02:09:27):
Think it's is a really interesting piece. I agree.
Doc Searls (02:09:28):
It's really, it's gotten better and better. And it's since Gideon Lichfield got there, he was at courts before that. I knew him through that. But I actually have one leg over here. There's a Wired that I, I I've been meaningly
Leo Laporte (02:09:39):
Actually, wait a minute. What? A magazine. Actual They
Doc Searls (02:09:41):
Have a Wired, They still do that. I still get it. I get that. Yeah. I, I get that's, it's not real thick, you'll see. But but they're actually selling actual ads to companies, you know, And, and that's, that's cool. The but the quality of the e of the, of the editorial and it is getting better and better. I agree with you hear I like that. Is
Leo Laporte (02:10:00):
The legibility of the page getting better? Cause
Doc Searls (02:10:03):
That was no it, it's, it's always a, it's a triumph of design over readability. It always has been <laugh>, you know, it's the day the day glow colors, the, the, you know, the the type that falls off the page and stuff like that.
Leo Laporte (02:10:14):
I have to say Wired is doing what many paywalls magazines and do, which is essentially saying, Look, just buy access to the digital content. We'll throw in the print version.
Doc Searls (02:10:25):
It's probably true.
Leo Laporte (02:10:26):
Right.
Doc Searls (02:10:28):
<Laugh>, you know. Yeah.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:10:29):
I get Barons and Business Week. They come into my mailbox every week or month and I have to throw them away. I don't want 'em. Yeah. I don't want 'em. Please.
Leo Laporte (02:10:42):
Please don't send me <laugh>. The paper magazine. I got The Atlantic for the same reason. Cuz you're buying the digital access and they just kind of look, just please take the, take the print edition please. I don't want 'em, Who wants 'em anymore? My mom, My mom, bless your soul, 90 years old or will be in January bought me the New York Review of books for a whole year. Oh, is
Doc Searls (02:11:08):
This still in paper? Is this still on newsprint? It's still
Leo Laporte (02:11:10):
In newsprint. It's a tabloid size is huge.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:11:15):
It's hard to
Leo Laporte (02:11:16):
Read. It's hard to read. It's really tiny print. And I find I was, it was hard for me to say this to her, but I said, Mom, I'm just gonna read it online if you don't mind. I don't, I don't, Yeah. Don't get me the print edition. Thank you. But no, the,
Doc Searls (02:11:30):
The, the thing is that I, I mean, and this is, I mean, I'm close to alone. You guys are with me. I think at least I know you are Leo, which is that I, what I like about the Wired magazine or like any print magazine is I know I'm not being followed <laugh>, you know, I'm not being sped on with that thing where, and I have to, while I'll praise Conti Nast for, you know, managing wired well and hiring the right people and all that, their subscription system sucks.
Leo Laporte (02:11:57):
Oh, it's awful.
Doc Searls (02:11:58):
Horrible. And and on top of that, they track the living out of you and, and it's just wrong. It's just wrong. And they don't, and, you know, but, but that's the way advertising is done right now. Actually wonder, going back to the, the start of the show, whether or not that stock drop for Meta and Amazon and, and and Alphabet had anything to do with the fact that Apple is doing a really good job on at least talking privacy well with ATT and Yeah. You know? Yeah. And yeah, I mean, to tell the truth, I mean, I'm an sist. There should never have been an I a, an advertising ID on a phone ever. It shouldn't never have been there. They put it there when they were into business. You know, here's your advertising identifier. I I I don't want that. I think most people are actually wouldn't, but there it is. But anyway, there as several, that business has to collapse.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:12:51):
The att definitely hurt. I mean, Facebook, it was really clear. I find myself saying, Okay, okay, I'll give me your cookies. It's just too much work. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:13:05):
Well, the other poem beneath the Statue of Liberty, Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, your, your cookies. We'll take them all. Yeah, we'll take them
Doc Searls (02:13:15):
All. Well, I, I heard a good one the other day, which is, Well, look, it's not cancer. It's only fleas. Everybody's covered in fleas.
Leo Laporte (02:13:20):
It's fleas, but
Doc Searls (02:13:21):
It, but there's a trillion but 2 trillion. There's a $2 trillion business in fleas.
Leo Laporte (02:13:26):
Fleas. You live with face mics, you know, they're there. What are you gonna do?
Doc Searls (02:13:32):
Yeah, Yeah. It, it's, it's, they, they're Ricky. But, but I, but I have a, you know, I mean there's so many people you could have on the show to talk about this. It's not me, but cuz they have the numbers, but for the most part, they doesn't work. It actually doesn't work. That's
Leo Laporte (02:13:47):
My, that's exactly right. If you say
Doc Searls (02:13:49):
Aren't
Leo Laporte (02:13:50):
Targeting you, that could be because they're not tracking you, but it's much more likely because their targeting doesn't work that well.
Doc Searls (02:13:57):
Well, yeah, I mean, but I, I've always liked the fact that the sports section of the newspaper was sponsored by car dealers and tire sellers. Yeah, that's great. I mean, I, I, and, and I I, and I think that, I mean, there, there's a wonderful piece written by Ambler and Holly are two, two researchers like 20 years ago called the, the waste in the waste in advertising is the part that works. Like I know the 15 minutes will save me 15% with Geico. I don't have Geico. Yeah. But Geico is in my brain. Yeah. Because I've heard that a thousand times. And, and you
Leo Laporte (02:14:29):
Can't let go of the jingle where they say the name of the company four times and that's it. Liberty. Liberty, Liberty. Liberty.
Doc Searls (02:14:36):
That's the, And that little, That's it. Yeah. And the farmer's thing, and I mean the insurance people are doing the best job. They're so good. Mean Geico was nowhere before they advertised. So good. Like they do. And it's, I mean the, the CRE creative advertising actually works for making brands. Most of the brands, you know, were made by advertising. There are a few exceptions like Trader Joe's and Zara, but for the most part, a lot of advertising bought that and was, cuz they sponsor shows. It's what pays too much money to all the athletes you like. Right. That's, that's old fashioned advertising. But it's, it's because the world is digital now. And because we could be spied on everybody in the ad business. I mean, the most quoted thing I've written in the last few years was Madison Avenue fell asleep, Direct marketing ate its brain and it woke up as an alien replica of itself. <Laugh>, that alien replica is running things right now. Yeah. And I mean, behind me you could see it, but over my head there just back there on that, on a, on a, on a blanket. I'm in a basement in Indiana right now, but the, that's a, there's an LA Times that I saved. It was on somebody's front lawn when I was in LA this spring. It had two ads in it
Leo Laporte (02:15:41):
To Oh my God.
Doc Searls (02:15:42):
Just two. And they were small. One was for a lawyer and one was for the art theater chain, the Liley Theater. There was nothing else. Nada. And they like, well they, they still have like 150,000 subscribers to the physical paper. That's not nothing. It's just nobody knows how to sell it. They, they, they don't have a staff there selling it anymore. That's
Leo Laporte (02:16:04):
Gone Exactly what's happening in podcasting. And you know, we have advertisers and the advertisers we have know that their ads work. I mean, they're going after a tech audience. So you notice they're all tech companies. Yeah. But they know they work. They, most of them have been with us for years, audibles with us for a decade. They know it works. And so this lure of, but you could know more about the people listening is really spec. It's, it's, it's kind of evil because what does it matter? As long as it works, it's working. And this whole idea of targeting and all this stuff is a, is I think snake oil. And unfortunately people fall for it
Doc Searls (02:16:49):
Because, because there's lots of 10 inches math that you could put together to say that it works. And for the most part it does not. There's a a really great section of the book, The Filter Bubble by Eli Pariser that came out back in 2012 I think it was. And which he said that all this is ba based on what he calls a bad theory of you, <laugh>, you know, that, that you're buying something all the time. You're not, you're not buying something all the time. Yeah. But you might buy something you've heard about a lot when it comes time to buy that.
Leo Laporte (02:17:20):
When it's thing. When
Doc Searls (02:17:20):
It's time. Yes. Yeah. When it's time. But you're not buying something right now. We're owning things all the time, but they make it really difficult to own something. That's one way that Apple, it just kills. I they, their service, their, there are glitches. Their times is not great. There aren't, they're not, those are aren't all geniuses behind the bar. But I know I can get help. I know I can call those guys up and I get, get a good answer. And nine times outta 10 I do. To
Leo Laporte (02:17:45):
The degree that companies are serving their, I think serving their customers, even though the market would like them to maximize profits and sometimes screw customers to the degree that they win the customer's loyalty and they serve their customers, I think in the long run, maybe not in the quarterly run, but in the long run, that's how you're gonna succeed. Amazon very, you know, that was Jeff Bezos's Credos super serve the customer. I'm not sure that's the case anymore.
Doc Searls (02:18:15):
They, they're, they're playing advertising game and, and Philip maybe you could tell me, tell us more about this, but their margins, I mean their, their profits went way up when they got into the creepy advertising business. And
Leo Laporte (02:18:25):
It's good money. It's hard to say
Doc Searls (02:18:27):
No. Yeah. It's, it's, it's good money. But super serving the customers good. And by the way, I got really good customer service from Amazon the other day when two things weren't delivered. You know, they, they just delivered 'em again. It's
Leo Laporte (02:18:38):
Actually an interesting problem for Amazon because they do wanna make it easy to return stuff, but it ends up, they have a bunch of stuff they can't sell and so they just kind bury it and landfill. And
Doc Searls (02:18:50):
I'm told a guy, Costco told me that you bring, you bring bank anything to Costco, it's gone. It's gone. They, they're
Leo Laporte (02:18:56):
Not gonna resell it again.
Doc Searls (02:18:57):
They, they're not gonna resell it. No. It's just goes somewhere else. I don't know
Leo Laporte (02:19:00):
Where. So there is a high cost to a customer service, I guess <laugh> this just in breaking news from KC Newton's platform where we were talking about 'em. Twitter is strongly considering making its users' pay to remain verified. You like your Blue Check platform has learned, if the project makes forward users would have to subscribe to Twitter Blue at 4 99 a month or lose their badges. I'm sure this is just being workshopped like about a thousand, thousand other ideas.
Doc Searls (02:19:28):
Yeah. well they have for other people who were shopping that. Yeah. <laugh>, you're
Leo Laporte (02:19:33):
Paying for yours, you said? Yeah, but not for the check. I'm paying for the other features. And I actually, like, probably like you doc paid for Twitter Blue cuz I wanted to support Twitter. I never
Doc Searls (02:19:43):
Did. I didn't even, in fact, until you mentioned it, I didn't know what Twitter blew was, didn't even know it existed. And I don't have a blue check mark. There's
Leo Laporte (02:19:50):
A problem right there. I
Doc Searls (02:19:51):
That's a problem. I mean, I've been on them since, since I mean I know F Williams and I got on it like a day too. Yeah. You know, but still, you know Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:19:59):
I too 2006,
Doc Searls (02:20:01):
I don't even know how you get the blue check or what that's about. I mean, no one does. I know it's called Verified. Yeah, but I didn't know what the process was. It looked like work. I didn't need the work, so I never did
Leo Laporte (02:20:10):
Anything. Does it matter? No, I, I did the work and didn't get the check, so. Oh
Doc Searls (02:20:15):
No, it's terrible. Oh, that's
Leo Laporte (02:20:17):
Horrible. Sorry. Well, as somebody with a blue check, I can tell you it means absolutely nothing.
Leo Laporte (02:20:25):
And would I pay 4 99 a month just for that? No. Elon, I wouldn't. Let's take a little break. We'll have some more in just a bit with our dwindling panel <laugh> Phil Elmer dewitt great to have you. P e day three zero.com is the website for the best Apple coverage. And I'm gonna say it with a, with a financial slant. If you're an Apple investor and you're not reading p e d 30, you're missing out. That's really how you keep up on what's going on. It is definitely pitch for investors. Yeah. That's what it's for. Yeah. Stum me. I didn't know I went to that meeting. Little did I know. I I'm just glad they didn't lynch me or burn me or something. I don't know. Also, the great doc Searles, and by the way, one of the reasons I bring up these deep philosophical things about the future of, you know, investing in in companies and community ownership stuff is cuz Doc wrote the definitive book on companies in their relationship to their customers. It res resonates 20 years later. Clue Train Manifestor. You can read it online, Get on the Clue Train. David Weinberger also your co-author.
Doc Searls (02:21:35):
Yeah, I co-wrote it with two other guys. Three brilliant,
Leo Laporte (02:21:37):
Two other guys. Brilliant. Just brilliant. And, and still true. And I've told you this doc, but I'll, I'll say it to the, to our Twitter audience. When I was at Tech tv, I really felt like they didn't understand their business, what business they were in. And they, and they were really struggling. I remember the tech TV guys coming up to me cuz I said, Look, you gotta reach, You're, you're, you're talking to an enthusiast audience. You're acting as if you're espn, but you gotta explain what football is. This audience knows their enthusiasts, serve them, super serve them. Their 14 million programmers in the United States serve them. Them. And this is what the, the boss told me. He said, Leo, Leo, I gotta tell you this. And every advertiser knows it. Brand is the refuge of the ignorant
Doc Searls (02:22:20):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:22:21):
Wow. Advertisers. He said it was his contingent believed that you don't want a smart audience, they won't fall for it. If you want your brand to succeed, you gotta advertise to Dummies. So that was their reasoning for not going after the tech enthusiasts. You guys are too smart. Wow. Can you believe that by the way? Hey, Tech tv, Long gone, purchased by Comcast, merged with g4, their gaming network formed G4 TV fired me. I was gone. That went outta business a few years later. They tried to bring it back last year, they just announced this week, now it's over. G4 is gone. So I, I've survived. I have Outlived now Tech TechTV, g4, and I'm hoping to outlive the Chief Twit over there at the Bluebird site. <Laugh>, I am gonna outlive you, Elon, if it's the last thing I do. Our our show <laugh> show they brought to you.
(02:23:20):
Anyway, everybody should read The Clue Train. I bought the Clue Train after he told me that brand is a refuge of the ignorant. I bought him Clue Train. I bought everybody at Tech tv a copy. I bought 20 copies, gave it to all the executives. I doubt they read it. They certainly didn't learn a thing from it. <Laugh>, what can I say? Our audience and our advertisers know that marketing is a conversation the way we've always treated our advertisers. We're very careful. We pick advertisers we like, and my attitude is I'm introducing this company to you, our users. I'm making an introduction. I'm starting the conversation. Our show today, this week, brought to you by Melissa. For instance, you've heard me talk about Melissa before. It's awesome. A leading provider of global data quality and address management solutions. Now, if you're in business, you have address lists, you have supplier list, customer lists, so forth.
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Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:29:37):
Do actually. I bone up. I wanted to see what you'd said about Elon before I got off.
Leo Laporte (02:29:42):
Oh God, not much. You didn't say much. There was, somebody's telling me now in the chat room, there was a Zoom reunion of the Home Brew Computer Club and Waz was there. That's cool. I would like to find out where that was. That's really neat. That's news to me. We did a long time ago a home brew computer club reunion. I think it was on tech TV actually. That was the original computer club. That's where Waz showed the very first Apple one computer. And he and Steve offered it as a kit for Home Brew Computer Club. Wow. Yeah.
Doc Searls (02:30:22):
Yeah. What about the Model Railroad Club? That was at
Leo Laporte (02:30:25):
Mit. That was, that was even predated. It, it,
Doc Searls (02:30:28):
Yeah. That was like where the internet sort of
Leo Laporte (02:30:30):
Half came out of. Yeah. And the
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:30:32):
Home Brew is where Bill Gates showed up and say, Wait a minute, you have to pay for software. You'll get it
Leo Laporte (02:30:37):
For free. He yelled at them, he said, Yo guys are a bunch of It's <laugh>. Yep. Stop it. And this was back when you had to it produced the letter, pirated it by stealing the paper tapes. Right. Or copying paper tapes. It wasn't easy. It wasn't easy. Anyway, if you could find the link to that Alien 78 in our chat room. I would love to to watch that. Oh, he's looking. He's looking. He says Yeah. Yeah, I'm sure. Yeah. sad note, but I think an important one. I never heard of Kathleen Booth, but maybe we should honor her. Passed away at the age of a hundred this week she invented assembly language language. Oh my God. She was born in Wooster, Wooster, Wooster Shire somewhere. Wooster Shire, England. Worcestershire Shire. Wooster Shire. Like the sauce, like the sauce. Worcestershire. in 1922, she during World War ii, she got a bachelor's in mathematics, became a junior scientific officer at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, a research organization.
(02:31:43):
Two years later became a research assistant at Bebe College. Worked at the British Rubber Producer's Research Association. That's where she met her future husband. Mathematician. Donald Booth in 1940 are these famous Booth. It's more famous. Yeah, probably. Of course. Cuz he's a guy <laugh>. Right, right. In 1946 she collaborated with Britain. I don't know who Britain is. Another, another oh, wait a minute. That's her maiden name. Sorry. Kathleen Britain and Booth, they weren't yet married, collaborated at Bebe on the automatic relay calculator, founding, in effect the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems. If there aren't any computers, you can't really have a computer science department. They built it. She and her fellow researchers, Zia Sweeting built the hardware. They often and did have women build these because they had finer motor skills and they were able to do the fine wiring and so forth on the early computers.
(02:32:51):
Plus women were the first computers back when it was pencil and paper. Women were com you know, computing the tra the trajectories of mortar rounds and things on pencil and paper. Even if you saw that wonderful movie about NASA even doing planetary trajectories. What was that movie? Hidden Figures? Oh God. Such a great movie. Hidden Figures. Hidden Figures. Yeah. so eventually she actually Beal got funding from the Rockefeller Foundation for Booth in Britain to visit the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton. That was where of course Albert Einstein was the only person who talked to them at the time was this guy named John von Noman <laugh>, who explained his concept of computing, which we now call the Von Nouman architecture, the kind of the archetypal computing architecture. They heard this and said, ah, went back to Britain, redesigned their calculator as Aon Nouman machine inventing the first drum memory in 1948.
(02:34:01):
They moved on to this, this next generation, the third generation, the simple electronic computer, and then the all-purpose electronic x-ray computer or Ape xc later sold as heck by the British Tabulating Machine Company. There it is. There's a heck with Ray Bird right there. She married Booth, became Kathleen Booth in 1950, got a PhD and applied mathematics from the University of London. They built the hardware, she wrote all the software for the Arc two and then SEC machines in the process inventing what she called contracted notation. We know it better now as assembly language writing at the level of the actual processor. She also invented asynchronous operation in a book she wrote in 1958 called Programming for an Automatic Digital Calculator. One of the first programming books written by a woman. We, we talked so little about the women who were so important to the early days of computing. And I had never heard of Kathleen Booth, but I think we should. On her passing Mark Herma really amazing contributions to the science 100 years old Kathleen Booth, one of the last of the early computer pioneers, May she,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:35:23):
One story about John von Neuman, who is Hungarian. He also, he didn't think that we should be afraid of nuclear power. And he was invited to watch the bomb go off and he actually exposed himself purposely to the radiation. He
Leo Laporte (02:35:41):
Flashed the flash
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:35:43):
And died of cancer.
Leo Laporte (02:35:44):
Yeah, he did much later. Not immediately.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:35:47):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Well, 1957, he, he died in age 53.
Leo Laporte (02:35:51):
Yeah. But he worked on the Manhattan Project. I just read a really good book about him. They didn't mention him flashing the bomb. Wow. So it cost him What was the book? I just read it. Was it it was,
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:36:05):
You read the whole, Maybe I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong.
Leo Laporte (02:36:07):
No, no, no. I think they probably thought that was maybe a little too salacious of a detail. The book actually was only about half, about John von Newman. It was mostly about his era and the Hungarian geniuses who you know, came out of Hungary pre-war, who were really massively important to everything that we know of modern physics, modern computing. He, the book was by a nayo about a charya called The Man from the Future. And quite, I highly recommend it if you haven't read it. And since you sound like you're interested in John V. Norman and his genitals, you might wanna read this.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:36:54):
<Laugh> <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:36:56):
Well, what did he
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:36:57):
Flash? He said exposed. What else did he suppose? Did
Leo Laporte (02:37:00):
He suppose I
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:37:01):
Had not heard that both his body exposed his body, his body.
Leo Laporte (02:37:04):
Body. He had take off his clothes. He just stood
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:37:05):
There. No, no, no.
Leo Laporte (02:37:07):
Oh, I thought he flashed him.
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:37:08):
No, no. I
Leo Laporte (02:37:09):
Thought he had a rain coat and did like this. Oh, had
Philip Elmer-DeWitt (02:37:13):
His, he hit his lead
Doc Searls (02:37:14):
Line Recode that he <laugh> you
Leo Laporte (02:37:16):
Could help up. Amazing genius. I mean yeah, A brilliant mathematician and yeah, the John v Noman architecture. The v Norman architecture is how we compute these days. He was the guy who thought of stored memory programs, load from stored memory into ram. None of this existed. Run and Ram. He thought about that whole thing. That's the architecture we know as modern computing. So anyway, what else you got? What else you got, Leah? That's it. I like to end with obituaries because as you know, as we get older, those are the things that tell us we're still alive.
(02:37:53):
<Laugh>, somebody once told me that every morning I get, I think George Burns said that every morning I get up and read the obituaries. That's how I know I'm still alive. <Laugh> good though. Good line. <Laugh> Philip, great to have you. P e d three o.com. Good luck with your political career. Are you going on perhaps? Yeah. To the state? Oh, no, no. I've had enough. I've had enough Counselor Elmer really good to have you on the show. I really appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. Yeah, always a pleasure. And thank you for that little trivia about John Vannoy <laugh>.
Doc Searls (02:38:28):
We'll have to search for the facts now.
Leo Laporte (02:38:31):
Sorry. I'll tweet it. That'll
Doc Searls (02:38:32):
Make, there must be some
Leo Laporte (02:38:33):
That'll make it can, and we'll just tweet it. Thank you so much. Doc, you were just saying in the chat room that you'd been on a tech TV with us
Doc Searls (02:38:41):
Way. Yeah, I was, I was on with you and I was on with
Leo Laporte (02:38:45):
Devork.
Doc Searls (02:38:47):
No, no. . But why am I blanking At locker? No oh
Leo Laporte (02:38:51):
Chris Perilla. Yeah. On Chris. Chris,
Doc Searls (02:38:53):
Yeah. Chris Perilla. Yeah. So what
Leo Laporte (02:38:55):
Did you talk about when you were
Doc Searls (02:38:56):
On? I have no idea. Probably Clue Train. Clue Train. Clue train. By the way, I'd rather plug the, the more recent book was the, The Intention Economy. I wrote that one myself. That is not a best seller.
Leo Laporte (02:39:05):
Screw wineberger. Yeah. Let's
Doc Searls (02:39:07):
<Laugh>, Screw it. No, we actually, Weinberger and I together wrote if you add new clues, the word new clues to the, the URL for the Glu Train manifesto in 2015, we wrote some additional clues to the chain manifest. Were very optimistic and I think we were right.
Leo Laporte (02:39:26):
People should listen, Listen to what you guys said. Not with just Glu train, but with the intention economy. About customers and serving customers. Yeah.
Doc Searls (02:39:36):
When customer, Well actually is they, you know, what are things only customers could solve? There are a lot of things actually wanted to point to, you know, before we're off, but maybe doesn't matter, we could bring it up another time to the Linux Foundation has the Open Wallet Foundation. They wanna start, Google has a wallet, Apple has a wallet. They're not compatible. They both work, you know, But I think we need our own wallets that are not given to us by companies that I think that's possibly the most leveraged thing that we can have since the browser. So I'm writing about that right
Leo Laporte (02:40:08):
Now. I see where that goes. Open wallet.foundation.
Doc Searls (02:40:11):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:40:13):
The
Doc Searls (02:40:13):
Problem with it is that a big problem actually on Floss Weekly this week we had Hart Montgomery, who is the CTO for the Hyperledger Foundation, which is under the, under the Linux Foundation and deals mostly with blockchain related stuff. We talked a lot about the wallet and it got me going on it because I, you know, they're, they're a Linux Foundation is a collection of businesses. It's not necessarily you and me. Okay. So it's, they, they work for the companies that pay them in a way. And though they're great with open source, I love them for a lot of things. We need something that's on our side with that one.
Leo Laporte (02:40:49):
I agree. You know, I, I agree. Yeah. lots of great interviews on Floss Weekly. I must recommend you go to TWI tv slash floss. Listen, every Wednesday morning, 9:00 AM Pacific Noon Eastern and go back through the catalog. Cuz some of the most important people in this space, you and you, your co-host have interviewed some of the best and that it's one of the reasons I'm and,
Doc Searls (02:41:17):
And
Leo Laporte (02:41:17):
Go.
Doc Searls (02:41:18):
Yeah, there's some future stuff. Like they see Dave Huey is there, he's one of the S U h u s E B Y and he's talking about authentic data and verified data and data providence and other stuff like that. He's, he's not, he's complicated, but he's really bright. Yeah. And there, and these are, these are a lot of these people here out in the future, you know? Yeah. So there's lot of, well, we gotta think, There's a lot of coming distractions.
Leo Laporte (02:41:42):
This is the time to think about the future. I mean, we don't, you know, we talk, of course we talk about what happened this week but the few, But, but it's not just gonna, it's not gonna happen nilly. We can influence what happens next week. And I think it's really important, especially as users that we do that. And, and of course, I hope you will all vote November 8th. That's probably the most valuable, powerful way you can influence your future, but participate in these other activities like the Linux Foundation like indie web dot org. There's so many people who I think are deep thinkers and are really trying to influence this for good, not evil. Cuz technology is neutral. It's, it's a, it's aor but it can, and it could go either way. And we've seen it. We see it all the time.
(02:42:31):
Go both ways. It's important that, you know, if you care that we influence it in the, in the right way. And that's why we talk so much about Elon Musk <laugh>. Thank you. Thank you Doc. Thank you Philip. Thank you David. So great to have you all. There's another way you can influence the future of technology and that's support us. I talked a little bit about how difficult it's getting to be an independent podcast network. We wanna keep bringing you great slow shows like this, like Floss Weekly, Windows Weekly, Mac Break Weekly. And the, for us, I think the best way going forward, if I think about five years out, it's the Club. It's supporting twit through your direct contributions and it's very affordable. Seven bucks a month gets you all the shows without ads. We don't need you to listen to ads.
(02:43:18):
If you're paying us, you get a TWI plus feed, which includes a bunch of stuff we don't put out anywhere else. Plus access to our remarkable TWI discourse Discord server, which I think is honestly the future of social. These are just all of, they're now, by the way, this week we passed 5,000 members in the club. Not all of 'em in in the Discord, but a good number of 'em all with kind of the same interests, the same passions. People you wanna talk with, you wanna learn from. There are unique shows that we don't put out in public, like hands on Windows with Paul Thro. Micah does. Hands on Macintosh. Jonathan Bennett, your co-host on Floss Weekly does the Untitled Linux show every Saturday. That's a great show for Linux users. The Gaze Fs with d d Bartolo, Stacy's book club, we gotta put it off this week.
(02:44:09):
I can't remember. I guess Aunt, Aunt couldn't make it. So we will reschedule that and we'll bring that back. But those things are only available on the TWI plus feet. And almost all of them are live. Like, I think they are all live. So you can, you can watch live, participate live. The club is the future of Twit. And also, I think the best damn deal out there. Seven bucks a month. Find out more twit tv slash club. And you know what? If you've got a geek in your life, that would be an excellent gift. We do have year long subscriptions. I think that'll make an excellent gift for the holidays to come. Just to hint, just to hint, <laugh>, we do twit every Sunday, 2:00 PM Pacific, 5:00 PM Eastern, 2100 utc. It will change, by the way after in the us we're still on summertime, but next Sunday we will be back to standard time.
(02:45:03):
We, I'm gonna have to do some math now. I didn't, They told me there'd be no math so that we are falling back. So we're moving backwards an hour. So I think we're UTC minus eight. Is that right, John? So Yeah, I know what he's going on. I don't know. So <laugh>, it is minus eight, so it's minus eight. We're currently minus seven. Seven now. It'll be minus eight. It's gonna be minus. Yeah. See, you can do math. You're, you're a math guy. I'm not. No. Minus eight. So I'm a watch, I'm a clock guy. So it is, it is. 21 was 2100. It will be 2200 UTC next week. Okay. Okay. To get that, you can have to do the math for your local time. 2200 UTC next week. Come by, join us. You can watch the live stream or listen. There's live audio and video twi.tv/live.
(02:45:51):
If you're watching Live Chat Live, the IRC is open all day and all night to everybody. To all comers@irc.twi.tv. There's also, of course, the discord for club members. After the fact. Get your copy on demand add supported@twit.tv or on the YouTube channel. All of our ad supported shows have YouTube channels dedicated to them. That's a great way to share content cuz you can easily clip it and post it on Twitter or whatever. That helps us, by the way, by promoting the show. And of course, the easiest way for most people is to subscribe. Find your favorite podcast program like Caster PocketCasts or Google or Apple's podcast app and subscribe. And that way you'll get it automatically. As soon as we're done here, which we will be soon. We just have to cut all the profanities out. Thank you <laugh>. Thank you everybody for joining us. We'll see you next time. Have a great Halloween. By the way, nobody wore costumes today.
Doc Searls (02:46:48):
I wore orange. I wore orange.
Leo Laporte (02:46:50):
That's good. Yeah. And what is your, what does your teacher say? Freedom to connect. It
Doc Searls (02:46:53):
Says freedom to connect at David Eisenberg. It was a, it was a conference, you know, 10 years ago, 12 years ago. It's good. It was great. Great conference, but it was the right color.
Leo Laporte (02:47:01):
Now you're that guy that could say, I've got taste shirts older than you. Yeah, it's good. It's good. We all are. I'm sad to say. We all are. Thanks for joining us, everybody. We'll see you next time. Another twit is it. Bye-Bye.
