This Week in Tech Episode 877 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word.
Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for TWiT this week in tech, the wonderful Georgia Dow is here from consumer reports, Nicholas Dele and Mac break. Weeklys Andy and NACO somebody stole Seth Green's board ape. Uhoh a problem with a new Andrus bill duck, duck don't. If you want privacy and we'll we'll show you Apple's self-repair program and why you probably shouldn't try to do this at home. It's all coming up next on TWiT
TWIT intro (00:00:32):
Podcasts.
Leo Laporte (00:00:32):
You love
TWIT intro (00:00:33):
From people you trust. This is TWiT.
Leo Laporte (00:00:45):
This is TWiT. This weekend tech episode 877 recorded Sunday, May 29th, 2022. First you need bootstraps. This apps. This episode of this week at tech is brought to you by Zapier. Zapier makes it easy to connect all your apps, automate routine tasks and streamline your processes. Try Zapier for free today@zapierdotcomslashTWiTandbyuserway.org user way, the world's number one accessibility solution. It's committed to enabling the fundamental human right of digital accessibility for everyone. When you're ready to make your site compliant. Deciding which solution to use is an easy choice to make. Go to user way.org/TWiT for 30% off user ways. AI powered accessibility solution and buy trade coffee. Right now, trade is offering new subscribers, a total of $30 off their first order. Plus free shipping. When you go to drink trade.com/TWiT that's more than 40 cups of coffee for free. Get started by taking their quiz and let trade find a coffee you'll love and buy privacy.com. Privacy lets you buy things online using virtual cards instead of having to use your real ones, protecting your financial identity on the internet right now, new customers will automatically get $5 to spend on their first purchase. Go to privacy.com/TWiT to sign up. Now
Leo Laporte (00:02:20):
It's time for TWiTt this week@techtoshowwecovertheweeksnewswithwonderfulpeoplelikegeorgiadoanxie…. She is of course on YouTube, youtube.com/georgia Dow where she does those wonderful therapist reacts and therapist explains videos. Hi Georgia.
TWIT intro (00:02:42):
Hi.
Leo Laporte (00:02:43):
I'm gonna do I've. I've watched your how to be a better listener.
TWIT intro (00:02:46):
Oh good.
Leo Laporte (00:02:47):
I'm sure it's completely coincident that you did the day before you showed up here.
TWIT intro (00:02:51):
<Laugh> right, right. It's just a coincidence.
Leo Laporte (00:02:55):
Yeah.
TWIT intro (00:02:56):
Right. Of course it was. It wasn't aimed at anyone. Well,
Leo Laporte (00:02:59):
All right, but I'm gonna do my best to listen to you this week.
Georgia Dow (00:03:03):
Fair.
Leo Laporte (00:03:04):
Thank you. No more interrupting. Anyway, it's great to see you welcome. Why are you wearing a hell fire club? T-Shirt
Georgia Dow (00:03:12):
Okay. So this is for my next video, which is gonna be a stranger things video. And so I painted it myself. I'm really proud. Cause didn't think that it was gonna turn out really well, but I think it turned out like pretty bloody close. Like it was thought it touch, go.
Leo Laporte (00:03:26):
Yeah. I thought this. Yeah. Thank you. It's such a compliment. Yeah. Very
Georgia Dow (00:03:29):
Fancy. No, I, I, I actually put the sheet of paper underneath the iPad, brightness on and then I traced it then painted it all through. It was a relative nightmare, but I think it turned out just
Leo Laporte (00:03:41):
For future reference. What kind of ink do you use to paint a t-shirt
Georgia Dow (00:03:45):
Acrylic.
Leo Laporte (00:03:46):
It won't wash out.
Georgia Dow (00:03:48):
Nope. You, you do have to be a little bit careful if it's very thick, it might crack, but I wash them by hand after
Leo Laporte (00:03:55):
And I take at health fire club has something to do with stranger things.
Georgia Dow (00:03:59):
It does.
Leo Laporte (00:04:01):
Hmm. All right. Oh, in fact they have apparently health fire club t-shirts in stranger things. Okay. So there's a reason. Oh
Georgia Dow (00:04:08):
Yeah. That's sorry. Yeah. There's
Leo Laporte (00:04:10):
A reason. Okay. I didn't know where, I didn't know.
Georgia Dow (00:04:14):
This is their t-shirt for their D and D group, so,
Leo Laporte (00:04:17):
Ah, got it.
Georgia Dow (00:04:20):
So yeah, so they're wearing it.
Leo Laporte (00:04:22):
Awesome. Great to have you also with us he's a regular on w G B H in Boston and on Mac break weekly every Tuesday on this network, Andy and not go. Good to see you. Good to
Andy Ihnatko (00:04:35):
See you on
Leo Laporte (00:04:35):
A weekend. We never get to see you on Sundays.
Andy Ihnatko (00:04:39):
Yeah, you get, you have to see me after seeing like lots of Sunday comics and had a good diner breakfast and even a two hour walk in the sunshine and then half hour pass out after I realize it. Oh my God. It's now like 88 degrees. And you, it hasn't been let way for eight months
Leo Laporte (00:04:52):
Any day in which you can get in a nap is a good day. I think <laugh> exactly. That's my best. My
Andy Ihnatko (00:04:58):
A nap you wake up from
Leo Laporte (00:04:59):
Let's be clear. Good. Yes. <Laugh> important qualification
Andy Ihnatko (00:05:03):
Mission, mission accomplished.
Leo Laporte (00:05:04):
<Laugh> also here from consumer reports. He's their technology reporter. The great Nicholas Delon. Good to see you, Nicholas.
Georgia Dow (00:05:13):
Hey Leo. Thank you for having
Leo Laporte (00:05:14):
Me. Thanks for joining us really good to have you. Yeah, my pleasure. I guess we have to start with Seth Green's board ape. The story of the week Seth green bought a, has a fair, apparently a fairly large NFT collection and he has created a TV show based on his collection called white horse Tavern. The show according to Buzzfeed is based on the question. What if your friendly neighborhood bartender was board yacht club number 83 98. And by the way even though it is an NFT, I'm going to display a picture of board ape 93 98. You do not own this, just you're just seeing it do not get confused. He is a sad looking blue eyed, ape smoking a reefer. It looks like, but well, wait, there's a filter tip. So it must be as the crumpled up cigarette, he has a halo and he has a skeleton and t-shirt.
Leo Laporte (00:06:25):
And in fact, if you look that is his property's purple bone T sad brown halo board unshaven. So why is this important? Oh, notice at the top reported for suspicious activity. Apparently Seth green got fished and I'm not sure, but I'm gonna guess this has to do with a common problem. People have with NFTs, you have a public key, which you can give out. You have a private key, which you should never ever under any circumstances, reveal. Apparently some scammers got his private key and stole stole. I tells you board a yacht club, number 30, 83, 98.
Leo Laporte (00:07:10):
We found out we found this out by the way at the big V con conference, Gary V's NFT shilling conference last weekend in Minnesota. So he says, and I think he it's, the law is unclear that because his ape was stolen, he no longer has the copyright. And the whole show is up in the air. It was purchased by somebody who then sold it on for $200,000 to a doctor in Australia who goes by the handle, dark wing, 84 $200,000. He bought it for, put it in a vault called GBE vault where it sits today. Seth has been trying to get ahold of the guy. The guy says I'm not giving it to you. <Laugh> it's really unclear on what happens now to the whole cartoon show. <Laugh> some say that if Seth makes the show, he'll be sued by dark wing, 84, some say Seth could go after dark wing, 84 all that's happened so far is that open sea has put a little thing on it. So he can't sell it forward reported for suspicious activity.
Georgia Dow (00:08:24):
I would've never heard about the show. Anything if not for his NFT being stolen. <Laugh> yeah. Like this is the best thing for the show because I wouldn't have heard of it. I wouldn't have wanted to watch it. Yeah, I think it's probably worth the $200,000 just in time
Leo Laporte (00:08:39):
<Laugh> could be for all we know. I mean, I think there is a speculation in a lot of NTS are sold kind of by the owner to the owner anonymously just to pump up the value of it. Interesting, by the way, I should I'll stop calling him 83 98. His real name is Fred Simian. Ah,
Andy Ihnatko (00:09:00):
There you go. Yeah. It's
Georgia Dow (00:09:02):
It's not as nefarious sounding.
Leo Laporte (00:09:03):
No, mm-hmm, <laugh>,
Andy Ihnatko (00:09:05):
It's not, not exactly a bond villain sort of thing. <Laugh> but how, how many, how many of the problems of NFTs does this point out that if, if, if we are to, I I've I've when NFTs first became a thing, I was very intrigued by it because there's all kinds of digital art that can't really enter the art market, the way that anything that's actually not simply made out of electrons can, can can manage. And if you've ever gone to like a, a really good city city art museum, you can see there's some rooms where no, this is the it's, this isn't the TV screen isn't and the projector isn't the artwork. It's the video that was created for this artwork and the interaction between the persons and these and these and these sensors is part of the artwork.
Andy Ihnatko (00:09:52):
And really, and it's intriguing to see how far this can go, but it's not gonna go that far. If these artists can't have this, can't plug into the same phony baloney hyper-inflated non-transparent payment and and investment platform that traditional art is, is put in. So that's a great thing, but how, how can you, can you imagine if, if, if an Andy Warhol, if an, if, if the Warhol that sold for for $12 million last week, it got stolen and then sold to somebody else and then sold to somebody else who now has it. And they were able to establish the chain of who bought it from whom and where it is now, and then the person who got it, who originally got it stolen from, could say, well, that's great. So get the guy, no, like, wait a minute. What? You know, we, we found out where it went and Kim, can we go over the first guy who's do bought stolen property? No, because, because there's no present for this. We didn't plan for anything. No one knows what we do. Yeah. All we planned, all we planned on here is how we can charge people money for these
Georgia Dow (00:10:47):
Things. He did give him the information, right? Like, it's kind of like, he gave him the money. So, you know, he said, please give me the money. He said, I, you know, I know your mom, your mom wants the money, but like, no, it's a good point. I don't, there's no laws that
Leo Laporte (00:11:02):
Are a bank is not liable. If you, if you you know, give money, give someone your pin, somebody on the street or give 'em the pin. They're not liable because they didn't, you know, it wasn't fraudulent. I don't, there's a lot of questions
Andy Ihnatko (00:11:14):
To, it's still fishing, although, and also
Leo Laporte (00:11:17):
The good news is the NFT. You made an excellent point, Andy, which is unlike, say a, a stolen Andy Warhol, the Providence, the chain of possession is, is public. Everybody knows who had it, who has it now.
Andy Ihnatko (00:11:30):
Yeah. And, and, and the other component is that the idea that this is one of those rare NFTs, or one of those alternative NFTs where you're not only getting the, you're not only getting the electrons, but you're also getting commercial rights to the thing. And now we have to figure out, okay, does that actually transfer with the theft or did the contract stay with Seth green, even though the item itself has been stolen from him? So can, could he go forward with this and with a person who has it in his possession, who knows he's got stolen property, would they have the absolute guts to Sue Seth green for, for doing, for making a TV show out of a character? Whose property was he stolen as stolen property? That's no, no judge judges, judges didn't go to law school 80 years ago and sit in the Supreme court for 40 years to decide stuff like this. They weren't, they, they wanted design freedom and Liberty and, and rights. And, and this this is not what justice Brandis spend his time deliberating. I don't think this is high on their interest rate.
Leo Laporte (00:12:37):
Do you own any NFTs? Nicholas?
Nicholas de Leon (00:12:40):
Do I own any NFTs? I, I think I owe, I bought one as like an experiment just to do it, just to go through the process of doing it. But I'm, I'm not sure.
Georgia Dow (00:12:48):
Is it a monkey that wears the halo?
Leo Laporte (00:12:50):
<Laugh> tell the, the truth.
Nicholas de Leon (00:12:52):
No, I think it's one of those loot ones where it's just a text of like the, you know, oh, a sword a bag of coins. So, and it's just that text. But it cost me like $200. I, I did wanna add that we did a story a few months ago at consumer reports on crypto wallets. And I only bring that up just to say, because, you know, I don't know what's what this Seth green, you know, what the details are, but just to highlight that this stuff is still kind of hard to use pretty inscrutable. And if you, if you're like the average person out there, like, I, you know, I don't know that I feel bad for Seth green, but like, there's so much spam. There's so much fishing. This whole scene is so like so shady it's, it's just so user unfriendly you know, it's no wonder that we're 10 plus years into Bitcoin and it's still kind of this like experimental thing, you know, where it's not a mainstream tech yet.
Leo Laporte (00:13:46):
I have to say more and more. I become kind of hostile to crypto and especially to NFTs, cuz it really just seems like mostly it's people getting suckered you know, some people are making a lot of money, but if you're making a lot of money it's cuz somebody else gave you a lot of money.
Andy Ihnatko (00:14:03):
Yeah. This is, this is like playing the stock market in 1918. This like playing the stock market in 1918. Yeah. Before, okay. Everything crashed everybody's destitute. We're gonna start to have some rules because trusting people to do the right thing and not over inflate things to, to, to justify their own share that isn't working out for the world economy.
Leo Laporte (00:14:21):
Yeah. Georgia, what did you wanna know?
Georgia Dow (00:14:24):
Do they own the name as well? KACO and Seth just like kill off the character and have it like, you know, resurrected in an, as another animal wearing a halo.
Leo Laporte (00:14:32):
Well, that's an, that's the other interesting point of that because some entities are being created by the artists who are making the art. It's a way of kind of supporting the artist and you're not, you know, with a digital print, what, you know, you can't, you can't say I own the, the, the one copy of it. It's digital. So maybe that makes sense in that context, but this like a lot of them like the original zombies like Kevin Rose's owls, they contracted with some poor artists who drew a thousand board, apes got paid, whatever he got paid. And that was that. Yeah. Yeah. And now really all of the money, it's not, it has nothing to do with the person who designed it. So I kind of feel bad for the guy who did Fred Simian, who drew it, cuz he's thinking, yeah, Fred, Green's gonna do like a national TV show based on my creation. I'm not gonna see a penny of it. So this is really all kind of the aftermarket, not the artist. The artist is, you know, worked for hire in
Andy Ihnatko (00:15:31):
This. Tell, tell, say that to also all the writers and artists who've been writing Marvel comics for the past 20, 30 years. Well, that's true. Who got paid like $800 for a story that became the basis of a 1.8 billion movie.
Leo Laporte (00:15:43):
Yeah. That's a really good point. They probably don't go to Marvel cinematic universe pictures.
Andy Ihnatko (00:15:49):
Hey guess guess what? Who's getting two tickets to the premiere <laugh> you are. No, no, no, absolutely.
Andy Ihnatko (00:15:58):
I, I dunno, just sign the, just sign the sign, this thing on the back of the ticket in order to use it that says that you, you make, you will not actually Sue listen any time for any reason.
Leo Laporte (00:16:06):
I sometimes I feel like I'm just a boomer, you know, they say, okay, boomer you know, Larry David on the super bowl, remember did that ad where he said, ah, that's never going anywhere. And they, they, I guess I, that I'm that guy, but I am very skeptical about this whole thing. I, I no longer see a real value to any of it, including Bitcoin by the way.
Andy Ihnatko (00:16:25):
Well, again, well, again, that, that was just like NFTs when it was first foot forward. The reasons for having having cryptocurrency were so well founded the idea of having a, having a currency that is not tied down to any nationality or any actual bank, the ability, one of the, one of the use cases for it was relief organizations, trying to get relief funds to people who absolute, who are basically in poverty, excuse me, parts of the nation where parts of the world where poverty's ran food is food is scarce where if you send actual relief checks in through the national banks, well guess who owns the national bank, the same person who is, who has been putting these people into poverty, putting these people into, into hunger. Whereas if you basically say, we're gonna create an economy inside this sec, this section that is based on this, this United nations cryptocurrency basic.
Andy Ihnatko (00:17:20):
And what if you were in a nation where that is in a state of constant collapse, where you feel as though at any moment now your currency is your, your savings is gonna be nationalized. That's all this, these are all reasons. And to say nothing of people in this world who don't have access to banking, I mean, it's, we take that for granted, but even in the United States, there're people who are living and working and contributing to our economy who don't have access to banking, who would be able to make transfers from person to person without having to pay exorbitant fees through west well, Wells Fargo or whatever. Yeah. So, but, but again, suddenly you turn this into this bro investor opportunity and now you've basically ruined it. It's terrible.
Leo Laporte (00:17:59):
That's a, that's a very good point. I, I, I hadn't really thought about that. Yeah. well we just, it may be one of those things that happens all the time in technology where the early years are very weird and unpredictable and there's no nobody understand what's going on. And then at some point it settles down and regulations are, are conceived and it starts to become more orderly it's possible. At this point, I would not buy an NFT if I were you <laugh> let's talk a little bit about the new California bill. This is the new thing. Of course, Texas started this way saying individuals could Sue abortion providers, or even somebody who drove somebody to get an abortion. A new California bill could allow parents to Sue social media companies for up to $25,000. If their children become addicted to the platforms now it's not a law yet, but in this day and age, I could easily see this becoming a law in California. I'm sure you talk AB do you ever talk about internet addiction, Georgia? Or what do you think of that notion that people could get addicted to social media?
Georgia Dow (00:19:13):
They are addicted to social media. I don't even have my teens, like even they won't tell their parents this, but even my teens will say that they are a hundred percent addicted and use way too much time on the internet. They're it's, it's, that's what it's made for, right? Like they try to get you hooked up to be able to, this is what makes you feel good. And your value is dependent upon how many people liked the latest thing that you did. So I think that it's, it comes with a huge cost. So should
Leo Laporte (00:19:40):
There be a law that lets people Sue for addiction? Like, should I be able to Sue TWiTtter or actually it wouldn't be TWiTtter, be Instagram, right. Or, or Snapchat that my kid just can't put the phone down.
Georgia Dow (00:19:51):
Yeah. Or, you know, even something like TikTok, like just even media that people are using it's, but I don't think that you should be able to, I don't think that you should Sue them. I don't think that it's the same thing as like, you know, being like, like government being able to, well in like Canada being able to Sue tobacco because of the amount of Medicare costs that it costs the government that's different to be able to
Leo Laporte (00:20:09):
Cover. Yeah. That makes
Georgia Dow (00:20:10):
Sense. It it's a different thing. It's a much more direct line of kind of attack and they already knew the cost to that versus social media. It, you know, it's, it's one of those things that I think that kids shouldn't be on. It is like, you wanna wait as long as possible to have your children on social media, because it does create the same kind of addiction as a gambling machine does that on and off reward makes our brain just go wild. And it's really hard for people to get off of it. Like there are so many like, like, you know, 70, 80 year olds that are the same thing. Like once they're on, they can't get off again, even politicians and people that we know and billionaires they're on TWiTtter and they can't stop tweeting. And you're like, just put down, put down TWiTtter, stop someone, take away the phone. But
Leo Laporte (00:20:57):
So is it ultimately the fault of these companies that design these algorithms to be so sticky?
Georgia Dow (00:21:03):
I, I think that, yes, they, they, they spend, they, they, they hire people like me to be able to make their systems as you know, like, like they're
Leo Laporte (00:21:12):
Doing it on tracks on purpose.
Georgia Dow (00:21:13):
Like they're doing it on purpose because you are all, like, our amount of attention is finite and we can only be on one social platform at a time. And so, because of that, they're trying to fight to make it as addictive and as salient and having people on there as much as possible, because that's really how they make money. Being able to see what we do and what we click and what we don't click. It's not really about using the device, but it's about finding out where we go from what device, right? Like Facebook makes most of its money, not from us being on Facebook, but on being able to track where we go and, and why we're going there.
Leo Laporte (00:21:46):
So it's no different than the why than Purdue pharma selling Oxycontin and encouraging physicians to over prescribe Oxycontin, knowing people will get addicted are, is, is, is like Instagram and snap and TikTok. Are they, are they the Purdue farmers of social?
Georgia Dow (00:22:06):
I, I actually do believe so. Like, I don't think that they, I think that they come with some, like a lot of good and you can send out information and you have direct access to people. And it gives a lot of people, a lot of power. So I don't think that it is just a negative, but just like, you know, using Oxycontin or something else, if you are an extreme pain, it can also be very beneficial. I don't think that it should just be, we can't just throw out the baby with the bath water, but I think that us not knowing that it comes with a severe cost and that like, even people that work in these large companies, they will themselves say that they know that they are causing social damage as well as great benefits. But we can't just say that it's only good.
Georgia Dow (00:22:42):
And we can't just say that it's only bad. So I think that it should be, you know, looked into, I think that it should be legislated. I think that if they're tracking us, we should know what they're tracking and why you know, who are they sending all of this information to? How is it being used? How are we being manipulated? It's kind of the shadiness for me is more about us not knowing there is no transparency. And if you take a look at their, you know, try to read through all of the legalese of all of their privacy policies, it's really difficult to be able to navigate, even if you have a law degree.
Leo Laporte (00:23:11):
And yet, I mean, you could also accuse Starbucks of foisting, caffeine, Starbucks of foisting, caffeine on us, Nicholas. Right. I mean, they're, they, they are in a business where they know, they know perfectly well. They're that they're making a, a somewhat addictive product. That's the beauty of it from their point of view.
Nicholas de Leon (00:23:28):
Yeah. No, this is stuff we discussed internally. Like, you know, let's say we're reviewing the new iPhone we're yeah. Like, are, are we by giving the iPhone a good score when the camera's great. Excellent. Are we contributing to, you know, just kids, just endlessly scrolling through Instagram or just spending all day and discord, like, should we, should we take that stuff into account when we evaluate, you know, the, the the pixel, the pixel six or whatever? I don't know, but it is stuff that we're, we are thinking about, like to what degree I didn't Tim cook say a few months ago that he doesn't wanna encourage like, mindless scrolling on your phone and just think about like how many people are just mindlessly SCR. I mean, but he
Georgia Dow (00:24:06):
Still wants, you wants to use your phone on the
Leo Laporte (00:24:07):
Phone by the phone. He
Georgia Dow (00:24:09):
Still wants you to have the phone. He doesn't
Leo Laporte (00:24:10):
Want
Georgia Dow (00:24:10):
You cause he doesn't make any money from the scrolling.
Leo Laporte (00:24:13):
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. No, it it's great that you actually, it's really great necklace that the consumers union thinks about that. I thought I, from time to time, wonder if I'm culpable, because I mean, we talk about all the shiny new addictive objects and we're always reviewing them and talking about them and ways to use them. And you know, my career as a tech journalist really has been to some degree to foster people's usage of these addictive yeah. Devices.
Nicholas de Leon (00:24:37):
Yeah. I dunno what that, something else
Leo Laporte (00:24:39):
It's like, go ahead, Nicholas.
Nicholas de Leon (00:24:41):
Oh, I was gonna say it's it's like, yeah. It's is, is it, is it my role to say, oh this iPhone is awesome, but don't use it because Facebook is bad or don't use it because Instagram is addictive. I don't know what my actual role there is either. And that's sort of transaction, but we are, we are, we're not ignoring it. We are thinking like, what role do we play here? Should we, should we tweak? Should we not? Should we just leave it as is, you know, I'm not, I'm not announcing anything today, but like we're thinking about all these things that you see that you don't necessarily think of consumer reports, like necessarily weighing in on. But we're, we're thinking about it. I
Leo Laporte (00:25:13):
Guess you, you made a good point Georgia, because all of these things have some benefit. It's not that they're completely without merit. Even casino gambling is entertaining. You know, Starbucks keeps me awake. <Laugh> yeah. I mean, if you're great, K I think is
Georgia Dow (00:25:33):
A boom, right? Yeah. Yeah. But it's that knowledge, right? Like, I think that like shows like this and, and like, you're learning also knowledge about like, that media comes with certain costs and you, how do you know when you're dealing with it? And I think that that is what should be taught in schools. Like there's certain subjects like our school system, our education system hasn't changed much in like hundreds of years, like the subjects that we're teaching, which are important, but like, we need to learn about like becoming media savvy about, you know, how is media used to be able to manipulate us how easily we are manipulated? What are the good and bad? How do you know if you're addicted? Like there's a lot of information that we need to be taught at a much younger age. And when people watch shows like this and read articles about media, they're learning about the good and the bad of that, which I think is really important, cuz I don't think that most people know.
Georgia Dow (00:26:18):
And I think that when you're young, they don't really know how addictive that is, how it's actually changing the wiring of your brain. And that's like, once you start working through addiction centers really quick at a very young age, they become really strong. And some people have addictive personalities where they're already inclined to be able to be addicted to that dopamine center, which makes us feel motivated and excited. It's all those bells and whistles that happen in our head when you, you know, win a jackpot or, you know, open up some tasty, treat on your video game and get the best card that you're supposed to have. So if we knew about that, I think that we would make better decisions.
Leo Laporte (00:26:53):
I mean, I'm addicted to spaghetti. That doesn't mean it's it's, it's Jeff Boyard D's fault. Right<Laugh> I mean humans are by nature addictive. We love stuff. Yeah. And we sometimes love it to our detriment, Andy,
Andy Ihnatko (00:27:10):
But
Georgia Dow (00:27:10):
I
Andy Ihnatko (00:27:11):
Is the same. Go ahead, Georgia.
Georgia Dow (00:27:13):
Oh, I was just gonna say, is it the same though, right, Andy?
Leo Laporte (00:27:16):
It is. I mean, you clearly can see the, the side effects of me being addicted to spaghetti. Yeah. <Laugh> it hasn't been been good <laugh>
Andy Ihnatko (00:27:25):
But the, the, the, the, the landmark decision against the tobacco companies points the way towards every sort of law about this, about addiction. It wasn't so much that they were selling an addictive substance. It was that they knew how addictive it was. They were intentionally ADEP adapting the product to make it more addictive. And they were actively denying and disproving that it was addictive to their, to their customers. So that, that really put the responsibility right. In their lap. Do you
Leo Laporte (00:27:50):
Think the social networks do the same thing?
Andy Ihnatko (00:27:53):
I definitely, I definitely think they, I definitely think they know why why I think that they, why slot machines in 2022, based on digital technology work much differently and much more efficiently than the ones built in 1953, they understand right when to disrupt our, our rational centers. Obviously, Georgia will talk better about this than I can. So I I'm I'm, but nonetheless, I'm, I'm concerned about laws like this. I'm not so concerned about this one, rather. I wasn't, as much as I, as I was after I read the law itself, because it does appear to what, what it does is that it doesn't simply say we are gonna punish you if you as if you're a service and you meet some extremely vaguely defined way of mishandling your your, your, your child customers and making them addicted to stuff, it basically puts some guideposts into what qualifies for for this sort of relief.
Andy Ihnatko (00:28:51):
But most importantly, I think is the section that basically says that, by the way, you get a, you get a, a complete get outta jail free card. If you just do the two thing, these two things, if you do quarterly audits of how your practices could be addicting children, and then if you, whatever you find that can be that seems to be addictive. If you remedy this within 30 days, again, you get, you get, get outta jail free card. So I think that from my reading of this, he said not being a lawyer, it does seem as though the thrust of this is not to open up the gates to all kinds of lawsuits, but to basically say, look, we are, it's not enough for us to simply put into the law that you are required to do quarterly audits and remedy things within 30 days, we're gonna put this rule in place as a way for you to get the escape clause from a whole bunch of hurt that you wanna be
Leo Laporte (00:29:38):
Involved. That is good. Yeah. That just, that just pushes them to be, to do some responsible reporting and accounting. And I think that's good. I think that's good. So yeah, now that you, I didn't read the law, thank you for doing your homework. Now that you say that I'm not so against it, I think that's not such a bad idea.
Andy Ihnatko (00:29:55):
Just I think, I think it could still be a bit more specific. Yeah. But the, the wording basically points out to Hey, to, to they addiction, not li including, but not limited to like depression as, as diagnosed by a professional self-harm all kinds of other things that children are vulnerable to in a state of addiction through social media. And there's no
Leo Laporte (00:30:18):
There's question about that happening, right? I mean, we hear about it all the time.
Andy Ihnatko (00:30:21):
There needs to be some liability. I do. Yeah, I do think, but as long as, as long as you do it carefully, and don't basically torch an entire platform because as in addition to causing harm to kids, social media in giving, allowing very isolated kids who think that they're the only person who are like this, Theyre only, they're the only people who are suffering these problems to find their tribe, to find their people out there. Who can they talk? They can talk to when they don't feel as though they can talk to any of the adults that are in their lives. We can't, there's no number to, there's no numerical index to how much that has helped children over the past 10 or wherever many years, we've had social media. And we don't want to disrupt that right,
Leo Laporte (00:30:57):
Georgia, you would not let your kids use Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok, but you would let them strap on advisor and play virtual reality games all day.
Georgia Dow (00:31:08):
And I wouldn't say that I won't let them use that social media as long as they use it responsibly and they understand what they're doing. And if I catch them that they're not using it responsibly, it's a different story. Like
Leo Laporte (00:31:17):
You're addicted to VR, you're addicted to VR. Let's admit it.
Georgia Dow (00:31:21):
I, I love VR. It's not actually very addictive. VR is, is ex a little bit exhausting. Right? You wear it for a while. You actually wanna get out because you're tired. Your eyes are strained. It's heavy. It, I would love to be more addicted to VR. Unfortunately it is. I'm like after 45 minutes to two hours, I'm done. Like, that's like, good. <Laugh> I need to take a break. That's good. So it, because of that, it has its own effect that you don't really have to worry to it. I think that, you know, social media targeting kids is different than being able to be used by kids. I think that it's like the camel cigarettes where they had this little cartoon character and they realized that, you know, if you don't start smoking by the age of 18, you're probably never gonna smoke. And so they were like, oh, let's make sure that we grab kids when they're young. So they start smoking so we can make our money. And then the governments kind of went down on it and having cool packaging. It works so well for us. Like, we all think that we're not gonna be able to like, get attracted, to being able to use something that's flashy and snazzy looking. And that all of our, you know, people that we looked at up to are using, but we are all very easily manipulated by these things. So, you know, it's funny. Think that's what we need to look at.
Leo Laporte (00:32:25):
You're in California. There's a, you know, we've got a primary election coming up in a couple of days and there's a big battle going on. You see ads all the time on TV saying, don't let these online gaming apps. I think they're going after draft Kings, fan dual and all that stuff. Don't let these addict our children and, and cause great harm in society. But it's being paid for by the Indian casinos in California. And every time I, every time I see it, I think yeah, don't let them addict your kids. We wanna do that. That's gonna be our job. We, they can't do that to our pigeons. Only we can do that to our pigeons. I just it's the, there seems some hypocrisy there. It's, it's a little, you know, a little strange. But on the other hand, who's responsible if, if you use something to access, I mean, everything in our lives can be used to access in some way or another. Ultimately there has to be some for adults, some personal responsibility for kids, some parental responsibility or, or, or not Georgia,
Georgia Dow (00:33:37):
I think. So I think that it really is up to parents. I think it's also up to our education system as well. Like I think that, you know, we should be electing people as officials that will end up making our education system so that you know, it's going to be giving the best education that there is to our kids so that they end up learning about, you know, media knowledge about, you know, what happens inside the brain and what doesn't, because it's, it's really important. And I think that for some parents, it's, you know, it's an easy thing to say that it's parents' responsibility to watch their kids, but especially with the way that the economy is, there are many people that have to work one or two jobs to be able to support their family. And so they're spending more time at school than they are at home.
Georgia Dow (00:34:16):
And it's an easy thing to say that parents should be able to watch their kids all the time, but it's really hard for a lot of families and especially right now. And so I think that we need to make sure that we are enforcing that an education system is going to be teaching the kids, their, the kids, the lessons that they need to be able to survive and have all of those different skills and know the pitfalls that are coming forward because we need to teach them really early. And I, I think that we really have let down a lot of kids about not learning about finance and not learning about what true type of media and the way that advertising works. Yeah. And, you know, the way that fear makes us be able to give up our privacy and our rights. Right. So effortlessly,
Leo Laporte (00:34:57):
It's almost, I mean, look, we're always have always been surrounded by addictive stuff. We tried, you know, in the term the earlier part of the 20th century to ban alcohol that didn't work out so well.
Georgia Dow (00:35:10):
Yeah. Banning is such a horrible idea though, in comparison to, to teaching people the effect, like, I don't know about banning, I like banning seems to do the opposite, right. Like just saying no to something like saying no to drugs is very ineffective method to be able to stop people from actually using drugs.
Leo Laporte (00:35:26):
Yeah. and I think the 20th amendment didn't really <laugh>, didn't really work in, in eliminating there's a fountain downtown from the women's Christian temperance union. It was put in around 1909 that says something like abstinence is the only solution to the drinking problem. It's etched in this it's right next to one of our finer bars. And I think the idea is from the women's Christian tempera union here have some water don't, don't go in there, have some water and it's still there. I, I think it's a fabulous monument to a good and principle idea and a absolutely failed process political process. We also have a, a brewery in San Francisco called the 21st amendment brewery, which is the repeal. All right. Let's take a little break. We've got a great panel. It's so it's so nice to see you, Georgia, Georgia Dow and her handmade t-shirt it's so cute. It's like Dolly Parton and the code of many colors only it's hellfire, but it's, you know, it's close. It's close. I
Georgia Dow (00:36:31):
Don't understand. I don't know if I wanna understand
Leo Laporte (00:36:34):
<Laugh> yeah, you can look it up while I'm doing the end and, and NACO is, is also here. Love to have Andy on, of course, every Tuesday, we're gonna have a lot to talk about in a week, WWDC coming up. We'll talk a little bit about that today.
Andy Ihnatko (00:36:49):
Let, let me just tell you, anytime you wanna compare me with Dolly Parton in any way, shape or form, I would be flattered as hell. I can't imagine ever be offended by being compared with Dolly Parton. She is the Saint is our, our Mr. Roger,
Leo Laporte (00:36:59):
Your sister Jolene, and NACO probably would have something to say about that. <Laugh> also Nicholas Deleon. It's great to have you from consumers union. He's their senior electronics reporter, the consumer reports magazine, which I am proud to see. Thank you. I have been a member of consumers, union and subscriber since I think 1980. So what is that? 42 years. A long time. That's
Nicholas de Leon (00:37:19):
Older than I am. Yeah, we appreciate your support. Thank
Leo Laporte (00:37:22):
You. That's how old I've got subscriptions older than you. <Laugh>
Nicholas de Leon (00:37:27):
It's funny. We've gotten in the walls in the, in the office like all the magazines from issue one issue two and like all the is like, it, it it's oh, I'd love to see. It's almost like a museum, the actual office, the first Yonkers
Leo Laporte (00:37:37):
New York report would be very interesting. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty cool. Where were they reviewing? Like the, like,
Nicholas de Leon (00:37:44):
I don't remember who I, the funniest one. I remember there was an issue in the, I believe it was the 1960s where they looked at mixed nuts. <Laugh> and like the laws regarding the, the percentage, what could be cashews, what can be peanuts? It was a whole, apparently a whole thing back in the day. <Laugh> but that's the funniest one. I can recall
Leo Laporte (00:38:02):
Keeping us honest.
Nicholas de Leon (00:38:04):
Yes.
Leo Laporte (00:38:05):
Yes. Since whenever, when was the, how old is it? I wonder what's the first
Leo Laporte (00:38:11):
19 36 36
Nicholas de Leon (00:38:12):
Something.
Leo Laporte (00:38:13):
All right. Now I'm gonna go on a quest somewhere. Ebay will have it somewhere. I wanna find the first consumer reports magazine. I think that'd be fascinating, fascinating stuff. Our show today brought to you by Zappier. I am a happy, happy Zappier user have been for years. Zappier automates the boring stuff. So you don't have to do it over and over again. Streamline your routine operations tasks that E up your time, things like lead management, employee onboarding, customer support with Zappier. It makes it easy to connect all your apps, automate routine tasks, streamline your processes, freeing up your time to prioritize customer client needs the power of automation made possible for everyone I use Zappier well, for instance, this whole show is produced with a Zappier script. Whenever I go to my news reader or I bookmark something on Pinboard here's my Zapier script that takes it from Pinboard posts it on TWiTtter, then puts it in a Google sheet, a document, which then the my producer, Jason can take and placed into our rundowns.
Leo Laporte (00:39:26):
I have zaps for all sorts of things. You will too. It's a great way to automate. Now, let me show you with Zapier, the, the cool thing about workflows, because you can connect almost any app to almost any other app. It's really kind of amazing. They come with a bunch of sample zap stuff that you might want to use, but it's very powerful. I don't think there's anybody who is, has more connections to more apps and tools and so forth than Zapier. You connect your apps, you can move data, you can copy data, you can process data. It is, it is just an amazing tool. And what I love about them is they've been very good about helping people get started. So they've got videos, they've got samples. Here's, they're more than 4,000 different apps that you can connect with if then statements.
Leo Laporte (00:40:29):
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Leo Laporte (00:41:23):
They have thousands of easy to use templates. You can get. 'em Started right away on average. And I love, this is the other thing. I get an email from Zapp. You're saying how much time I've saved every week. On average, the average user saves $10,000 in recovered time, every year, 10, th 1.8 million people and businesses use Zappier to streamline their work, find out, you know, find some more time to do the stuff that you really care about. Let Zappier automate the boring stuff. See for yourself, why teams at air table and Dropbox and HubSpot and zenes and thousands of other companies use Zappier every day to automate their businesses. It's the best tool ever. I, I <laugh>, I almost wanna just take you and say, look, look what you can do, but maybe the best thing to do is try it for free zapier.com/TWiT, zap I E R zapier.com/TWiT.
Leo Laporte (00:42:18):
You'll find a way to use it. You'll find a hundred ways to use it. If for home automation, you know, the sun goes down, my lights come up, things like that. It's just incredible. Zapier.Com/TWiT. Let's see, back to the show there is speaking of bad laws there, both Texas and Florida have social media, censorship laws. Florida's very famously exempted Disney until the governor Florida decided I don't like Disney. They're a woke company and they took it out. They actually took 'em out of the law. The ninth circuit court has, I'm happy to say blocked the Florida law, of course, the fifth circuit unblocked, the Texas law. So it's not clear what the courts are gonna do. The 11th circuit came to came in response to a lawsuit, brought by net choice and C CIA. These are the same people who sued in Texas.
Leo Laporte (00:43:17):
The court found that Florida's argument that social media giants are not intended to entitled to first amendment rights does not hold up. The court wrote not in their wildest dreams. Could anyone in the founding generation have imagined Facebook, TWiTtter, YouTuber, TikTok. We were just talking about that, but whatever the challenges of applying the constitution to ever advancing technology, the basic principles of freedom of speech in the press, like the first Amendment's command do not vary when a new and different medium for communication appears. We're gonna have a little bit of a collision because the fifth circuit lifted the injection on Texas's law. The Supreme court has not issued a decision, but there was, but justice Ali Alioto for the upheld the fifth circuit or no wait minute that hasn't happened yet. The fifth circuit lifted it. We haven't heard from Alioto yet. I mean, Azo Alioto is a mayor of San Francisco, sorry, Alito. <Laugh> former mayor. And, and I think it's justice, Clarence Thomas, who is the justice for the 11th circuit. So he might also be expected to weigh in if, if they appeal Andy, you, you sound like you have something to say,
Andy Ihnatko (00:44:37):
No, ju ju just that it's, if we're looking for some good news in this, is that the the decision that basically said, no, you can't do that was extremely well reasoned and extremely well explained. And the foundations were extremely carefully laid out,
Leo Laporte (00:44:53):
Unlike, by the way, the Texas courts, the fifth circuits courts. Exactly. Which seemed to think confuse YouTube, didn't think didn't think YouTube was a website. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (00:45:04):
And that, and I don't know if they even really explained their decision basically saying that, okay, it was okay for this to go forward. So basically they did. They didn't make it easy for for this, for this to stay, to go, to, to resist a further injunction in the future. Again, not, not being a lawyer. This is there <laugh>, I, I, I've never had so many people in my Rolodex who are like lawyers and like Washington wants <laugh> to, to advise me on how this stuff works that I have in the past five or six or seven years. But it's, it's not over yet, but it's very, very dangerous. I mean, the God, God help anybody who's lives in a state who's governor wants to be president in two years because they're gonna be doing some wacky wacky stuff in your state. Yeah. And that's exactly what's happening in Florida,
Leo Laporte (00:45:50):
Kinda nutty.
Andy Ihnatko (00:45:51):
It was, I mean, there, there really is the, the, the, the opinions of the people I was, I was talking to about this was that the governor knew and the legislature knew damn well, this is, has very, very little chance of standing up to any scrutiny whatsoever. And it was just basically there so that they can get that notch on their belt and they can campaign on it in the, in the midterms and in a presidential. I think
Leo Laporte (00:46:11):
That it's true. The Texas bill as well. It's really posturing. It's about it really. I mean, let's, let's face it. It's really saying you can't ban Donald Trump from TWiTtter is really what this is all
Andy Ihnatko (00:46:22):
About. Yeah. I mean, there there's, I mean, there's, there's stuff there, there are laws very, very high on the pyramid that have always explicitly maintained and upheld the idea that you can't, you can't treat YouTube as a corporate entity, as somebody who's shouting stuff into the streets and have to be held responsible for the stuff that they ho that they, that they shout in the street that is so well established that you're gonna have to come up with a brand new trick in order to assault that in any way, shape or form. This is, this is why oftentimes like as five outta seven, like really, really scary legislative tech stories that you see coming through, you can basically dismiss because all you have to do is check paragraph one, paragraph two to say, has it okay, it's been proposed, but has it made out of a committee hasn't moved forward at all?
Andy Ihnatko (00:47:06):
There's so many of these nutty laws that you just senators and Congress, they just want to hear themselves talk. They just wanna be able to put some something in a newsletter or, or on a mailing card. And they know this isn't going, going to go forward. Sometimes though these things do go forward and that's why they have to be publicized. They have to be talked about and combated, cuz this would be super, super dangerous. This is I, I, I was, I was saying that the California law about suing companies for social addiction of kids was okay, when you look at the law, it doesn't look so bad. This law is just bad. Yeah. This is basically saying that every, every company that allows a, a allows an individual citizen or entity to speak on the internet has to serve the needs of the state, whatever the state just deems, those needs to be. And if it doesn't cow down to those needs that they can basically be shut down. This is not something that amendment number one on a constitution is, is equipped to, to permit
Leo Laporte (00:48:01):
The Texas law says the first amendment should treat social media companies, less like a newspaper and more like a railroad, a co a common carrier which is, you know, a railroad or a bus or an airline or transportation company that offers their services to the general public. I, the problem is, of course you remember a few years ago, that was the argument for blocking net neutrality laws, which is that ISPs were not common carriers. So it's a, it's a very complicated landscape we live in. And I think it's more, I think you make the point, Andy exactly right. It's more about political notches on the belt than it is about actual sensible legislation. We'll see. I mean, any of these could become a law at any time. Yeah. is, you know, just unknown. I, there was a law, I was kind of excited about Senator AB Oklahoma chars bill she and Chuck Grassley pushing the American innovation and choice online act, which I interpreted as kind of a data portability act. A new version of that bill was released this week, which does only a couple of things really makes sure that the bill doesn't apply to telcos and on financial companies who of course are big donors to the senators campaign.
Andy Ihnatko (00:49:28):
You know, this, this is the thing that's always quite amazing that you it's, it's a bipartisan issue. The base of the idea of applying antitrust in a more thoughtful way towards large tech companies. And everybody wants to break up Google. Everybody wants to force apple to allow side loading of apps. Rah RA, absolutely. It's time to let these get these people down a top notch. But when you say that's great, I'm so glad you're on our side on this because there are communities where you're not allowed to have competition in in selection of broadband providers or phone providers. So you definitely wanna break up that monopoly. Oh no, no, no, exactly. Right. That's the, it's always, there's they're among
Leo Laporte (00:50:06):
The most monopolistic of companies. <Laugh> right. We don't wanna touch them. Yeah. I, I, sometimes that is spare. Let's see, what else? The duck doco, a little heat on duck doco. And I think probably rightly so duck go has promoted itself as a privacy first search engine. But they have also released browsers. And it turns out that the duck doco browser on mobile, according to security, Reacher researcher, Zach Edwards, while it does block trackers from Google and Facebook allows Microsoft trackers to continue running here's Zach's tweet. And then duck go admits it saying, yeah, well that was part of our deal with Bing duck, duck go CEO and founder Gabriel Weinberger confirmed their browser intentionally allows Microsoft trackers, third party sites due to a search syndication agreement. <Laugh> with Redmond, but we're working hard <laugh> to Gabriel says we've been continually pushing <laugh>, but Microsoft says no, so what can we do? Yeah. Well, you can tell people about it and still letting tell people, researcher having a security researcher, put a, put a meter on your app to find out who it's talking to. That might help. Yeah. It would've been nice to it's so dishearten. Yeah, it is. Cuz I like Dr. It's
Georgia Dow (00:51:45):
So disheartening. Yeah. I, I loved it. I was like, oh, I'm so happy I use it. I supported it. I, and then to hear like it's when you find out, I think that Andy you're absolutely right. It's when you find out they didn't share this information upfront somewhere in their hidden, in their privacy policy somewhere where we could read about it. And then you're like, because then, you know, it's, it's one of those things that once you trust something and you give something your trust, then you find out that you shouldn't have, then you question everything else about it. And then people are like, oh, well, you know, might as well just use Google cuz at least we know that they sell everything that you're going to,
Leo Laporte (00:52:22):
At least they're honest about it. Yeah.
Georgia Dow (00:52:24):
Well, you know
Leo Laporte (00:52:26):
You know, Weinberg's statement to bleeping computer basically said, well, but we still block the other guys. It's still better than most. <Laugh> true. Just be forthright. If you're gonna say we're a privacy forward company, then when you, when you aren't doing it, you need to tell people. I think that's
Nicholas de Leon (00:52:44):
Exactly. Yeah. I, I just wanna jump, I, I know some folks who work at duck, doco and, and if they feel like they're one of the good guys in, in this kind of space, this which is not a great space anyway, but like, yeah, this feels like communications. It's like, you can't, you can't. Oh, but it's Microsoft. Yeah. We're trying really hard. I don't know. They just come across kind of, it's kind of sad, I guess. So.
Leo Laporte (00:53:05):
Yeah. I you think it was because if they had said front, we're gonna block stuff, but because we use Bing, we can't block Bing and LinkedIn trackers. That's part of our deal with Microsoft. I could see why they may not have wanted to say that out loud, but you're gonna get caught Nicholas. Right? You're
Nicholas de Leon (00:53:27):
Gonna, yeah. Well, we don't know what, what if Microsoft it's, it's like a national security letter. You can't even acknowledge that this exists. Like, did Microsoft put like restrictions on what they couldn't? Couldn't say, oh, maybe because you don't know. Yeah. but yeah, I, I do think that in this case, if they have just said it, even if they just buried it in, like you said, in just a privacy policy somewhere to have it come out this way with the security researcher who then puts you on blast, and then it looks like your tweet, your tweeted statement is kind of like, well, actually you, you kind of come across a little bit defensive and it doesn't look great. Even, even if you're what you're saying is true, is that like, Hey, look, our hands are tied. Like I get that. I'm an adult. You can tell me that. But they do come across a little defensive. And like I said, I know some folks there and they are, they are pushing hard in this space in terms of like user rights and privacy. So they're, they're, I, I think a force for good in the internet privacy conversation. But in this particular instance, yeah. They come across a little, a little weird.
Andy Ihnatko (00:54:24):
Yeah. So let me step on a rake like that.
Leo Laporte (00:54:27):
I mean, yeah. Stepping on a rake is a good description, but Nicholas, I think you're right. We should at least give 'em credit for doing something it's better than nothing. And I hope they learn the lesson. And I think they are now saying something about it. They updated their description of the browser and the app store and the Google play store. It originally said tracker radar automatically blocks, hidden third party trackers the new description. Well, it doesn't say except for Microsoft, <laugh> it now says automatically blocks, most hidden third party tracking scripts, see notes and link below for more information. So they're at least they're kind of admitting it. It's still in the fine print.
Leo Laporte (00:55:15):
Give them some credit for doing something, I guess. Absolutely. I mean, Firefox blocks, everything, including Microsoft stuff. Right. I use Firefox. I turn on all the blockers I put on other stuff, additional stuff. I am more concerned, you know, I I, I used to, and I've mentioned this before, be a little more Sangin. I don't mind if my information is shared with advertisers, that seems not so dangerous, but then we're starting to learn that government is using this in states like Texas, where I could be sued. You know, if I in any way support abortion and now my location data is being sold to anybody. I just, it makes you a little bit more aware.
Andy Ihnatko (00:56:04):
Yeah, you you're parti you're particularly, we should be particularly concerned about geofence warrants that have always been, have been a huge, huge problem. The ability for law enforcement simply say, hi, Google, we want just every single device identity of every phone that was within this vicinity within this radius. Yeah. I hate that at this date, at this time, that's such
Leo Laporte (00:56:23):
A fishing expedition. That's so,
Andy Ihnatko (00:56:24):
And yeah, exactly. And unfortunately, this is something that Google and apple are big enough to fight these things and basically say, you're gonna have to absolutely. We're not just gonna simply rubber stamp this thing. You're gonna have to absolutely get everything, everything correct. But once the once the, the right files have been fi have been filed, they have to hand this stuff over, which is why I think there was last week, like was a 30 democratic Congress. People basically signed a letter saying, Google, Google, you need to do something to protect this abuse of the, this abuse of geo defense, particularly to protect people who are seeking abortions or at least pursuing abortion.
Leo Laporte (00:57:00):
Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (00:57:01):
Because that's how it's, that's their they're gonna be DAS that are again, they want, they wanna be elected to that next level up that are gonna be seeking and encouraging abuse. I mean, persecution and abuse, if anybody they think might be even considering such a, such an action. And it's just gonna be horrifying.
Leo Laporte (00:57:18):
Yeah.
Georgia Dow (00:57:20):
I know a lot of people that are getting rid of their period trackers for the exact same.
Leo Laporte (00:57:23):
Yes. Yep, exactly. Right. I do believe, I think it's Google and apple are starting to say, ask, you know, for better privacy protection for things like that. Yeah. But we know that PR that at least several period trackers are selling information on to third party data brokers. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (00:57:45):
It's, it's terrible. Yeah. Oklahoma is considering a law. That's the most ridiculous of them. All that, that basically says that, oh, by the way life begins at conception. And that, I mean, I, I don't understand how women can remain free in a state that decides that, no, Ugh, I'm sorry. I'm gonna get off of tangent.
Georgia Dow (00:58:04):
And I, the, the problem, the problem with that is is that then contraception becomes an issue because right. Almost all contraception will stop the egg from being able to be implanted in the uterus, like just like the pill, like and IUDs. And so it makes that a contraception itself besides condoms could also become illegal. And so your own right. To, you know, being able to have any type of contraception besides using a condom also can become an issue. Yeah.
Nicholas de Leon (00:58:37):
I just wanted to jump in and said that consumer reports, not me I was not involved in this story. But we published a story a few days ago about period tracking apps privacy, the whole nine yards and, and their privacy concerns. And what's good, what's bad. And what these apps are actually looking at, what data they're collecting the whole nine yards. So if you just Google consumer reports, period tracking apps, it's again, I had, I had nothing to do with the story. It was written by a colleague called Catherine Roberts published May 25th.
Leo Laporte (00:59:06):
Oh, this is an old one. So Donna Rosado published a piece two years ago. So good on you consumer reports raising this issue two years ago, and now there's a, but we
Nicholas de Leon (00:59:16):
Just published a much more indepth one about a week ago. Again, I, I was not involved. I was writing about office chairs last week <laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:59:25):
But
Nicholas de Leon (00:59:26):
It,
Leo Laporte (00:59:26):
Well, alright. It's okay. This a concern that's important too.
Nicholas de Leon (00:59:31):
Well, I mean, it, it is kind of funny in, in the context of what we look at, but for sure, you know, this is important issue. And we had some folks smarter than me on this issue. Take a look at these apps. So,
Leo Laporte (00:59:41):
Yeah. They, you they, Catherine let's say Catherine, yes. Looked at four different period tracker apps whose names include drip. I'm not sure I'd want to use that one. I'm just saying Yuki, I don't know, lady cycle and periodical. I'm thinking men are naming these. I don't know. That's just, I don't know. I could be wrong. Wow. What trick
Georgia Dow (01:00:10):
One makes me laugh. I don't know. I don't know. That's just kind of funny. That's just kind of funny. I don't know.
Leo Laporte (01:00:15):
Dunno. Anyway, I wouldn't click
Georgia Dow (01:00:17):
It. I don't know. <Laugh> no, one's gonna touch your app. You know, you don't have to worry about someone's. It's just yours. That by mistake,
Leo Laporte (01:00:23):
It's just yours. No, one's gonna use it by mistake. Yeah. The article says we chose these apps cuz they were recommended by the privacy community. And so they compared them with four other apps that are much more popular, like flow, which I think we all are familiar with flow. Got in trouble. As I remember right. For selling information on period calendar period tracker and fertility friend. Ah, yes. Sure. <laugh> anyway, they do recommend drip, Yuki and periodical, which all store local data. And don't allow third party tracking although these days.
Georgia Dow (01:01:02):
So what happens if a government official, if it becomes law?
Leo Laporte (01:01:05):
Yeah. They could be may asked subpoena for it.
Georgia Dow (01:01:07):
There's still, it still becomes a problem if it becomes a law. So
Leo Laporte (01:01:12):
You, I think the ones that your data stays on your phone that doesn't, that don't go to the company. Those are the ones to look at. Yeah. And this I'm glad to say this article is, is not just subscribers. Only anybody can read this article. So that's nice. Thank you consumer union for doing that. We're gonna take a little break and we will be back with more in just a bit. Our great panel, Georgia Dow Nicholas Deleon and Andy and NACO dear friend. Actually, we got Andy. I want to talk a little bit about apple. There's a, there's some good in there's some bad in the apple world. I went into Lisa's office a couple of days ago and she's listening to Drow Brian HR person for apple. Oh, give a speech to apple employees about why the union, they just won't care about you as much as we do.
Leo Laporte (01:02:00):
We'll talk about that in just a little bit. Lisa Lisa's Warren's mother, the chorus father <laugh> I wanna give credit to Lisa who's the CEO and of course runs the company and probably would be if anybody were gonna be given that speech at TWiTtter would be her. She was incensed. She was like, that's ridiculous. So go ahead and unionize John, how many, if there's only one employee do half of you have to vote. Yes. And the other half it's. Okay. I don't know how that works. Our show today brought to you by user way. I am a big fan of user way.org. It's the world's number one accessibility solution. We use it on our website. If you go to TWiT.tv and you go down to the bottom, you will see the user way icon, you know, the Vitruvian man with his arms or her arms straight out you click that and you'll see all sorts of things you can make, do to make our website more accessible.
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I'm I'm proud of our engineers, but adding this little button at the bottom makes such a difference. You can change the font to a dyslexic friendly font, and you can change the colors and the contrast to make it easier for people with vision issues or, or color blindness to see what you're doing. It's just fantastic. And if you have an enterprise level website, huge website, thousands of pages user way even has a managed solution. Their team can handle everything for you. That's that's what the big boys do. User ways, AI and machine learning solutions, power accessibility for more than a million websites, including Coca-Cola Disney, eBay, FedEx, many leading brands and these user usability tools. These accessibility tools are now available to small and medium businesses too. But of course they can scale with you as you grow. In fact, user weigh is the leading accessibility solution in the market today.
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61% market share it's the biggest in the world. Motley fool, good example, big site they had 1,911 pages on their website, 20 million page views a month. They had, they had done the right thing. As many of us do. You structured it for accessibility, but they spent a lot of time keeping the site updated cuz you've got new pages all the time and the standards are changing all the time. So Motley fool went to user way. They added an extra layer of accessibility to make sure their browsing experience was accessible to everybody. It's the right thing to do user way automatically fixes violations at the code level, they autogenerate image alt tags, writing the descriptions for you using their image recognition. You can add to them, you can modify it, but you got a great start right out of the box. They can fix those complex nav menus that stimi all users <laugh>.
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Susan (01:06:10):
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User way, one line of code can make any website fully accessible and ADA compliant with user way. Everyone who visits your site can browse seamlessly and customize it to fit their needs. This is the right thing to do. It's also a great way to showcase your commitment to millions of people with disabilities, 60 million people who otherwise might not use your business or service go to user way.org/TWiT. Get 30% off you. 30% off user ways. AI powered accessibility solution user way, making the internet accessible for everyone. Really great guys, doing good job here. User way.org/TWiT user way.org/TWiT. Thank you user way for your support. Deidra O'Brien has the, you know, I wonder as she might be thinking, I wish I didn't have to do this or, or maybe she's in, maybe she's digging it. Watching companies like Starbucks, Amazon fight unions and still get unionized.
Leo Laporte (01:07:36):
It's sending a shiver down the spine of apple. I'm thinking they don't wanna be unionized. They've actually hired a well known anti-union law firm to come in to support them, to help them in, in preventing this. There are already dates and union drives at three of Apple's retail stores New York, Maryland, and Georgia, Maryland, and Georgia have set dates to hold elections. June 2nd workers in the Cumberland mall, apple store will vote Apple's Towson center store in Maryland do that on June 15th. So a video has been sent and this is what companies do. They have mandatory meetings, not illegal. All the employees come in kind of like an all hands in the store and they play this video from DRO Brian in which she says apple moves incredibly fast. It's one thing I love about our work in retail. It means we need to be able to move fast too.
Leo Laporte (01:08:31):
And I worry, I worry because the union will bring its own legally mandated rules that will determine how we work through issues that could make it harder for us to act swiftly, to address the things you raise. I'm committed to and proud of our ability to act fast and support our teams to support you. But I don't know if we could have moved as quickly under a collective bargaining agreement. It could limit our ability to make widespread changes to improve your experience. And I think that's, what's at stake here. Apple also put their money where their mouth is raising the minimum wage from 20 to $22 an hour. So it's pretty good pay.
Andy Ihnatko (01:09:11):
Yeah. Gosh, I guess, I guess there plan to do that all. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But this is see this, this is why it's important that that employees at least try to unionize because guess what, they, it turns out that apple could afford to give everybody a two, a minimum, $2 raise all along. But I, I guess,
Leo Laporte (01:09:29):
I guess,
Andy Ihnatko (01:09:30):
I guess they, I guess they were planning to do that anyway. And just serendipitously, this was a, since, since I've got your ear anyway and told you not to join a union, this is no exactly. It was the pressure that, that this came, that they was put upon them. And oddly enough, it's this kind of response that kind of represents why unions are very, very important because otherwise a corporation can basically take a paternal attitude towards their workers saying, oh,
Leo Laporte (01:10:00):
We know what's
Andy Ihnatko (01:10:00):
Best children. Exactly's best. We don't, we don't want, we don't want you to do something foolish. That'll just ruin your life. We're looking out for you. We like this system where you ask us for things and based on our own whims, we either say no, or we say, we think about it and it, yeah, this is, and this is I, I, I don't, I don't blame apple for doing this. They are again a $2 trillion company that does that's whenever I say that a lot, but only because a lot of people have this idea of two hippies in a garage who just wanna change the world. And that was actually, there was just one of, one of those people were actual hippies as we find out. But a $2 trillion company is probably always going to react to unionization of their hourly wage employees with trying to slap that down as hard as they can without actually hiring Pinkerton men to Stu to storm each store.
Andy Ihnatko (01:10:50):
So, but so as, as you say this week, I think on the second the Maryland store is voting and then on the middle of June is when the Georgia store is voting the, they, they have to file with the NL NLRB. So you can actually track that sort of stuff and see what's going on. I mean, but re remember that this was the same company that basically was telling all their employees, by the way, after you clock out, you're gonna have to just hang around for a half hour while our store security examines your backpack and examines your bag to make sure you're not shoplifting firm us. And by the way, you're not being paid for that for the time you're waiting for that security sweep to come over again. You need to have you, you need to be able to return the fire against your employers or else you have absolutely no ability to resist when they do stupid things, Georgia, you wanted to say something
Georgia Dow (01:11:41):
It's yeah, it's, it's one of these things where, you know, these are huge companies that you really can't go against, but when people unionize, you become this huge company, that's able to deal with it. And let's just say it like $22 an hour, doesn't even hit inflation. That would be $25 an hour plus. And so apple knows that if there's uni like, unfortunately the us is so far behind with leave sick days maternity paternity sets, like being able to take days off, being able to have your own legal representative, to be able to deal with these companies. HR works for the company. They don't work for you. So you have no recourse. And they, you know, especially huge companies that make all of these profits and wanna keep their shareholders happy. They don't want people to be able to have the power to unionize.
Georgia Dow (01:12:30):
And it seems ridiculous that anyone would not say yes to this and companies try to say, oh, they're gonna take your money. And you can even hear by Apple's approaches. That will be faster. They don't say that this will be better for you, but they really say that, oh, we'll be faster yet. It'll be definitely quicker for them to be able to say no to everything that you ask <laugh> and to not have to raise things, but it's not gonna be better for you. And yeah, it takes more time. If you get a legal representative, every time you get to go see management, they're gonna be much more careful because HR works for the company to make sure that the company is protected. Their legal team is making sure that the company is protected. You don't have any protections at all. And the laws and regulations that are in state are just so very archaic.
Georgia Dow (01:13:13):
It's really sad to see you know, out of all developed nations to see where the us right now is in being able to protect just the regular middle class worker and the protections are just so very sad like that people, you know, can't even spend time with, you know, their newborn baby or premature. Like it's, it's ridiculous. Whereas most parts of the world that are developed countries have a year plus six months to in most places have a year to two years plus that you can stay home with your baby, you know, which companies are able to swallow in governments or be able to protect. So I really hope that they end up unionizing and I hope that most people that are working there are gonna be able to fight for their own rights so that people can eat and stay home and be able to take care of yourself. Cuz let's just say it, the companies are not gonna be there to be able to take care of you. If you're sick, they really, they don't care. You're not any company that says that you are family. That just says that we are gonna be, be abusing that
Leo Laporte (01:14:10):
<Laugh> yeah, that's a good point.
Andy Ihnatko (01:14:12):
And, and, and a very, and a very quick statement. This isn't a, this isn't a, a, a vague sort of notion being a member of the union in the United States. If you are a member of the union, you have real and, and authoritative protections. If you decide to take action against your employer, if they have a store decided to, if, if they're unionized and they went by the numbers and staged to walk out, apple cannot just simply say, great, you're all fired. I we're gonna be moving new people in there. Have fun wherever you're gonna go. No there's procedures that have to be formed there. Now work. This dispute now forms under the, under the oversight of the national labor relations board. That actually has a lot of authority and a lot of power to inflict a lot of pain. So maybe apple will not, will want to make people happy and address their concerns in a very meaningful way before everybody walks out on the day after Thanksgiving,
Leo Laporte (01:14:58):
We should also point out that apple has moved. Every job they possibly could move to low paying countries like China. But they can't do that with retail. You have to be in the us to work in a retail store. So it's just like Amazon Starbucks. These are people who have to work in the us. And so Apple's trying to be as cheap as they can with these people and, and any job that they could move overseas. They did. And they, and they didn't move it to high paying, you know, Canada, they moved, they moved it to China and Vietnam and, and other places where they pay a lot less. So yeah, I think I'm a little disappointed. I mean, apple kind of plays very much on this notion that they are, you know, altruistic and and, and I don't know if hippies is the right word, but you know, people focused, but they went out and hired anti union lawyers from LER Mendelson who are currently working at Starbucks and have worked in the past from McDonald's to prevent immunization you know, they're company.
Leo Laporte (01:16:08):
And it's okay. And didn't they also to unionize it's it's okay. Did
Georgia Dow (01:16:11):
Didn't they also Leo like, you know, try to make sure that, that all of the different companies like them and Google and Microsoft, that they all kind of had this insider thought of much. Oh, I remember that gonna pay different employees so that they couldn't like end up going to other companies to be able to get more. So they're not like, you know, they didn't reach becoming a trillion dollar company. They had trouble for that by being altruistic and kind to their workers and wanting to pay people the most that they
Leo Laporte (01:16:36):
Do, Steve jobs had an agreement with Google and others to not poach employees, which is a violation of antitrust law
Georgia Dow (01:16:41):
And it's salary cap.
Leo Laporte (01:16:42):
Yeah. They got caught. Right. And and I don't know what happened, but they got caught <laugh> did they get fined? Probably not. <Laugh> they get a slap on the wrist? Probably.
Nicholas de Leon (01:16:53):
I just wanted to jump in and say, I was at at vice media from 2015 to 2017 when we unionized
Leo Laporte (01:16:59):
That's right. You were one of the early ones to do that.
Nicholas de Leon (01:17:02):
Yes, yes. Yes. I remember my first day at work was August, 2015. So I was day one day two. My managing editor asked if I was interested in joining a union. I was like, I've literally never thought about that, but sure. Why not? You know, it, it was kind of interesting and I don't know how, how folks, how many folks know how this process works. But we had to meet after work offsite in like the back of like a pizzeria in Brooklyn, somewhere <laugh> and we all sat in a circle and we all kind of like, so do we wanna join union? Do we wanna do this? You know, I had a serious discussion about it. And it was like, not, I believe 99% of people said, yeah, let's do it. And so that was, that was, it was just kind of scary, like, oh, we're signing union cards.
Nicholas de Leon (01:17:37):
This is such a weird, and like this country just like telegraphs, like, oh, a union, what is scary? What a, what a hostile thing to do to your employer. And it was like, whatever. But we signed the cards in about negotiations of the first contradict take about a year as I recall. But after the contract was ratified, like we immediately all got raises. We all got back pay. We all got better leave. Like there was no negative outcome for any of the people who unionized. I don't recall vice giving us those, those scary videos of like, oh, this will slow down the company. I don't recall them doing that. I, to be fair, I wasn't part of the negotiating committee. So I wasn't necessarily privy to all the management stuff. But just as a rank and file employee, there was, there was literally zero downside to unionizing. So yeah, I, and it's funny. I see those comments on like Reddit people talk, oh, unions, they're this they're that they, you know, there there's, there's like weird opinions in the us about like, what unions do with like, they're good for workers. I don't you think that they're the company
Georgia Dow (01:18:38):
To say Nicholas, do you think that is like the company that sends out those? No. No it message politicals. They
Leo Laporte (01:18:42):
Like politic. No, no, no. In the us, it totally, it it's political. It's totally it's communism you know, it's political. Yeah. And I
Georgia Dow (01:18:51):
Still wonder if the lobbyists for these large companies are just sending out from the troll farms to like cuz who all of the workers benefit. I don't see how this can even be like Republican or Democrat because
Leo Laporte (01:19:03):
You don't understand Georgia. You gotta understand Americans I'm
Nicholas de Leon (01:19:06):
Canadian. I'm
Leo Laporte (01:19:06):
Sorry. You're Canadian. I'm sorry. One of the keys to the you gotta understand it. If you wanna understand America, one of the keys to the American psyche is, you know, the Harisha Al show Alger story. You could pull yourself up by your bootstraps with enough hard work and gumption. You could be the boss. And so there's that same feeling that I could be that billionaire, I could be that CEO. So I'm not gonna make any waves for them because what I'm gonna do is pull myself up and become that person. And so it's part of the mythology. And so we actually Revere these companies, these bosses, these billionaires, like they're somehow, you know, special gods that we could someday aspire to be. And we don't want to do anything. We don't want to tax 'em. We don't want to give 'em any trouble. <Laugh> it's okay. And I think that's starting to crack, but it's for a long time, it's been part of our mythology. And I, I think it's unique to America, that idea that anybody can make it here. And, and as a result, you know, you know, I don't wanna pay taxes when I do so I better make sure it's okay right now for the billionaires. Yeah.
Georgia Dow (01:20:14):
It's, it's so much easier to make it there and pull it yourself up by your bootstraps when you can afford bootstraps.
Leo Laporte (01:20:20):
Yeah. First you need bootstraps. I'm a, I'm a member of the American Federation of television, radio artists. I have been most of my life. I remember doing back in the eighties, voting at a radio station to bring in the union. I've been a member ever since. And yeah, it costs you money. You pay union dues, but you also get health benefits. You also get collect. The most important thing is collective bargaining. Just as you said, Georgia, your bargaining is a unit as a group of people, instead of an individual against a big company, they got lawyers. They <laugh>, they got all sorts of people, you know, mm-hmm <affirmative> and it's just you saying, can I have a raise, please? It's much better to bargain collectively. I think 13% more pay for union represented workers in the us than non-union right there. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (01:21:08):
I, I got, I got a site stud Turkel here who was, had so many love stud Turkel he wrote this wonderful book on working. Yeah. And he has this, this, this VI it's a company, a group put together a video compilation of this story that he used to tell a lot during his speaking appearances about about waiting for the bus in Chicago and same, same people, like every single day with someone in Brooks, brother suit. And he finally likes <laugh> and he finally like, oh, my day's coming up and talks. And he talks, starts talking about unions. And the guy in the Brooks brother suits like, oh, I hate unions. And he said, okay, did, did you work 18 hours today? Or did you work eight hours work? Eight hours. Did you work on Saturday and Sunday or did you have the weekend off?
Andy Ihnatko (01:21:49):
Well, I had the weekend off. Okay. Did you start working at eight or 18? Like at 18? He's like, okay. Guess what? There were, let me tell you about the Haymarket affair in Chicago a hundred years ago, where four labor organizers were hanged for trying to form a union because they and your other, other people who were with your great, great grandparents fought for fought for your rights. That's why you're going home at five o'clock. That's why you've got the weekend off. That's why you got to go to school. So don't, don't shad. Don't, don't don't don't shade, labor unions, because they are, we forget all the, all the victories that they won through. Again, I was, I'm not joking about Pinkerton men. There would, companies would just simply hire people with, with guns to simply go in and shoot at people who are protesting people who are blocking the gates and with the, with the perfect permission and, and, and cadence of a law enforcement in the community. So this is, this is why I'm very, very much pro-union. And although I'm sure that there are going to be there, there are stories about how a union was interfering with progress in some way, shape or form. Nothing is ever perfect. If without unions a worker, it stands alone and has no power mm-hmm <affirmative> against, against a, a huge force that has absolutely no interest in giving them anything other than the bare minimum that they're
Leo Laporte (01:23:04):
Legally required to give them, ask your grandpa. Yep. About the battle of the river Rouge, where the Pinkertons through Walter RO, the founder of the AFL CIO off the bridge. <Laugh> yeah. It was a, it was quite literally a battle in 1937 because Ford workers wanted to unionize and the United art water workers were in there to do it. And the Ford brought in the Pinkertons to fight them, literally fight them off. Alright boy, we sound like a bunch of coms here. Let me <laugh> let me move on. There's one other. It was Mayday recently. Yeah. we
Georgia Dow (01:23:49):
It's just socialism. It's not like most developed countries are social democracies. Don't
Leo Laporte (01:23:55):
Say socialism in the United States, you're gonna get birds,
Georgia Dow (01:23:58):
But so many social, but you have social.
Leo Laporte (01:24:00):
No, we only have socialism for the rich here. Get it straight
Georgia Dow (01:24:04):
<Laugh> but you have mail and you have a fire department, you have police department and you have like schools that, that, so these are all social con and social security it's even in the name, like, which I think that most people like,
Leo Laporte (01:24:19):
Oh
Georgia Dow (01:24:20):
No, am I as a Canadian? I can.
Leo Laporte (01:24:23):
No, it's, it's a lot harder. It's a lot harder to fight against people who are saying, we believe fundamentally that human beings should be treated like human beings, no matter how much money that they're, how much money or power they have. And oh, well, could we call you socialists instead? Like we'd rather, we didn't well, sorry. We already, we already printed out the bumper stickers. Yep. Yep. <Laugh> <laugh> yeah. It's funny how they've managed to demonize any idea like that. So I am also gonna question Apple's commitment to their self repair program. <Laugh> and this comes from personal experience, but we thought it'd be fun for Micah Sergeant. He has an iPhone 12 to fix his own battery. So Micah went to the apple site, ordered 79 pounds of repair equipment. In these two Pelican cases, apple shipped them out promptly.
Leo Laporte (01:25:15):
They're not gonna, they're gonna charge us a small amount to rent them, but what they neglected to ship was the battery. Apparently <laugh> this 1.1 ounce battery was shipped under se by separate cover from different places. Oh, right, right. Didn't arrive. At first we called apple. They said, well, no, there's nothing we can do. Well, wait a minute, because you only have seven days to return. These cases, seven days have come and we don't have the battery. Sorry. You still have to return the 76 pounds worth of gear. And you'll get your money back on your credit card. I think fortunately the battery did arrive at the last minute and Micah was able to to, to get it. But I really question Apple's commitment. I mean, I think some of this is, is really about making you nuts. <Laugh> this is the big battery press you have to get. And there's a, a heating thing that you put the phone in to loosen the clue, look at the size of this.
Andy Ihnatko (01:26:18):
Yeah. Well they, they, for, they probably, they really should have figured out that they can't, they can't ship lithium batteries by air. It has to go by ground. So it's not gonna arrive at the same time as the that's.
Leo Laporte (01:26:29):
Right. I guess that's what happened.
Andy Ihnatko (01:26:31):
And when, when you compare to what what Samsung and Google do with their phones, but I fix it, would I fix it? It's like, no, we, we, yes, it would be great if you had this really impressive, like heating element pad vice device. But we actually think if you just Chuck this thing in the microwave <laugh> and let's and warm it up and put it on top of it'll actually get the job done and you can actually own it. I, I, I will say though, that it's, it's, it's, I'm not being not joking when I say it's better than nothing, because for, for a lot of people, they just don't have access to an apple store. It's like a three or four or five hour drive away. Right. So it's, it's benefit. It's definitely a benefit for those people. I wonder if, if, if the momentum or the requirement to answer this question caught them flat footed, and this was the, the best they could put together is just simply say, okay, we can rent out our actual repair tools to make sure this is done carefully, incorrectly. And maybe next year they will find a, they will they're, it'll take them a year to put together a program so that you can actually get stuff through. I fix it that are just cheap, like $8 tools that could be mailed in a simple box. But yeah, this doesn't, again, this doesn't make apple. Look,
Leo Laporte (01:27:36):
I, I did replace my own battery with I Fixit tools on the four XL, a pixel Google pixel phone. Yeah. But yeah, apple really wants this. This is like paying,
Andy Ihnatko (01:27:46):
This is like paying a bill in pennies. It's like, okay, you gave us what we asked for, but we think you're being kind of a snip about it. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:27:53):
<Laugh> it costs roughly the same. That's the other thing. If you add it all up as going to an apple store and getting them to do it. So with all this trouble, you're not saving any money, but you're right. If you didn't have access to an apple store, you didn't wanna send it into apple. I guess you could do this. I think probably might that should've been wearing a hazmat suit. I know that would've been the perfect Micah's conclusion was yeah, you can do it, but you probably shouldn't. That's probably something here comes here, comes the battery the next day. It finally, it finally came Burke, run it down the hall. Yeah. And I think you're right, Andy. I didn't even think of this. It's cuz it's lithium iion and so it has to be oh, but meanwhile, Mike is bringing the, he has to ship those back cuz the deadline lapsed. So I don't know. Did he get to do it or not? John? I don't know. Dad never did get
Andy Ihnatko (01:28:43):
To do it. I've seen that car. Maybe he like you get a friend, like fix it while he is on his way back to FedEx.
Leo Laporte (01:28:49):
Oh Lordy Lordy. Anyway it's a good video
Andy Ihnatko (01:28:53):
Airbag suspension in this new Honda accord is so smooth. I can replace this cracked phone screen while I go over this unpaved
Leo Laporte (01:29:00):
Road. It's the videos on the YouTube TWiTt channel, youtube.com/uh TWiTt, iPhone. Self-Repair we tried it. You shouldn't <laugh> <laugh> look what I got. I'm so excited. This did come on time. This is my new coffee from trade. Do you love coffee? Who doesn't love coffee? Would you love to try coffee from some of the best craft roasters in the country? There's a coffee Renaissance going on in the United States and there are small roasters all over the country doing amazing stuff. Trade brings you coffee from these craft roasters, the F and it's completely fresh. Oh, it's so good. They're independent businesses from all over big cities and small towns. Let's see what I got. This is from <laugh> tips up Tahoe, French roast. Yeah. We love, we love our dark, our dark stuff. This is a French roast from a little Tahoe roaster roasting at 6,000 feet in the Sierra.
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Drink coffee do stuff is especially coffee company built with the belief that extraordinary coffee leads to extraordinary life. Oh, okay. That's cool. So all of the coffees are sourced from mountains and roasted at high altitude. Hmm. Tips up Tahoe, French roast taste like bittersweet chocolate, all spice board, bold and strong. So the, okay, so the company is drink, coffee, do stuff. <Laugh> that's a really good name for a coffee place. It's fun. Every everyone I get of these is somewhere different, somewhere fun all over the world. I'll save this for tonight. Thank you. Trade drink, trade.com/TWiT. I thank 'em so much for their support of this week in tech. Now some good stuff about apple, cuz we've been mean I've been mean <laugh> mean to apple. I think you're gonna be pretty excited Georgia do about Apple's VR headset. Are you looking forward to that?
Georgia Dow (01:33:14):
I'm looking forward to it except for the price. Holy Jesus. On my four wheels instead of this.
Leo Laporte (01:33:19):
Yeah. You practically could get a car. What are they saying now? This is all rumor this, but it's from mark Gorman. Who's pretty reliable. $3,000. Is that what they said?
Georgia Dow (01:33:29):
Yeah, it's around $3,000, which like I'll still get it, but <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:33:34):
There is,
Georgia Dow (01:33:34):
It's really pricey.
Leo Laporte (01:33:36):
There is. And it's gonna be, I think this is the developer and again, we won't know, there's even some debate about whether we're gonna hear about it a week from tomorrow cuz that's Apple's WWDC, keynotes, June 6th. And I just saw I think it was, Gogerman saying probably MacBook heirs in color, based on the M two chip, but maybe not anything about VR AR but I think they have to at their developers' conference. Right.
Georgia Dow (01:34:04):
I, I would hope that they will show something. That's just, just give me a little taste. I don't care if it's AR it doesn't have to be VR cuz we probably they'll probably roll out AR beforehand. But I'd like to see what they, you know, feel like they can come up with. It's still probably a little while away, but I think that would be really neat
Leo Laporte (01:34:23):
And, but you need, and you need to get developers to, you know, kind of line up and, and start thinking about it. Right.
Georgia Dow (01:34:30):
I would love that again. I I'm not, I'm not so sure. I don't know Andy, if you're so sure. I'm not so sure that we're gonna see it. I really hope so, but I don't, I'm not, I'm not holding out my hope for it, Andy. Yeah,
Andy Ihnatko (01:34:42):
I don't, I don't think so. I think this is gonna follow the same path as the apple watch, as the iPad, as the iPhone, where there's going to be a point at which they have to file a lot of really, really explicit paperwork with the FCC and others to and explain exactly here's exactly what it looks like. Here's exactly what hardware is inside here or in terms of the radios. And so there's going to be a launch event where they're gonna show it, but it's not gonna be available for months after that. And that's gonna be because this is the, they, they, it's gonna, it's gonna go public in January through government filings anyway. So you may as well give people the full demo. And then if you, if you announce it in January and launch it in make it actually available in June, you get to see developers now that this thing is completely public.
Andy Ihnatko (01:35:27):
You get to see selective developers with early hardware and early early development tools so that when you actually do start making pre-orders available, there's actually live demos of actual functional, practical things that apple didn't have to do in house. So I I'd be really, really surprised if if apple showed off anything that was explicitly pointing to the AR or VR headset at WWDC, I would be more inclined to think that we're gonna, there's gonna be a lot of beard stroking. You think people like examine minutely? What the invites to apple events look like to, Ooh, I there's, there's like sort of a ripple and that section, the apple logo, I think it's because the new iPhone is actually going to be not just water resistant, but fully waterproof. I think that people are gonna look at way to it. There is a new 3d object that they're adding to this established API and there is this new course track about how to gain telemetry from live cameras.
Andy Ihnatko (01:36:24):
That is not that they they're using they're, they're using existing iPhones and iPads as examples for, for capturing this data and and, and creating AR objects out of it. But this could be very, very well applied to an upcoming AR headset so that they will be laying the groundwork. But without actually saying that they're laying the ground one for this, I, I, again, I, I really do feel as though I don't see a reason why they would even announce anything this year, if they're not gonna launch anything this year. And I don't think they're gonna launch anything this year, I do think it's gonna be like, again, January-ish announcement like late, mid to late winter announcement, late spring, early summer pre-orders and actual like full bells and whistles demo.
Leo Laporte (01:37:07):
It kind of makes sense because there's also this big issue of, of China shutting down doing due the COVID restrictions. And I, you know, I, I wonder if they'll even be able to get laptops, the laptops they have now are already pushed out 2, 3, 4 months. It's it's getting harder and harder to get stuff. So
Andy Ihnatko (01:37:27):
Yeah's really good at lucky at, at, at basically, you know, bulldogging, any other competitor saying, oh, guess what? Oh, you wanted to buy, you'd be able to buy. We bought them all eight KK internal displays. We, yeah, we, we bought all of the manufacturing capability for eight K Goggle mounted displays for the next five years. Good luck with that. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:37:44):
Well, it's, it's be
Andy Ihnatko (01:37:46):
Interesting. You're right. It's gonna, it is gonna affect the,
Leo Laporte (01:37:47):
Definitely add this to your bingo card. If you're keeping track of all this and we will do our live coverage as usual. It's on Monday 10:00 AM, Pacific 1:00 PM Eastern a week from tomorrow June 6th for apples WWDC. <Laugh>, we'll all be, you know, we all want big announcements. What are you, what are you giggling at?
Andy Ihnatko (01:38:05):
No, no, I'm just, I'm just very, very glad that I don't live in the San Francisco area because I, I would not be able to resist just like mocking up a really good looking pair of like, not what looks like a really not final pair of goggles. And then just quietly being at a Wendy's and just wearing them and like looking around and like using my hands and then like taking them off and being shocked that people are looking at me and taking my picture, oh my God. And stuffing this in a bag just to see how many people I can. I can, I can catfish with these things, cat, cat fishing with, with apple, with apple goggles,
Leo Laporte (01:38:39):
The rumor, Mill's going crazy about it. I mean, the, the, you know, YouTube video after video they look, everything I've seen looks kind of like conventional VR headset. Yeah. But we've heard rumors there, 14 cameras. There may be cameras looking out as well as looking in so that, you know, you could, you could see the world around you, but also people around you might be able to see your face on a screen or, I mean, it's just, it's, it's gonna be lots of rumors when
Andy Ihnatko (01:39:08):
You think about it. That, that, that's another thing that kind of, I think parallels with the iPhone and the iPad and the apple watch, none of these things were like, oh my God, we had no idea what a wonderful surprise it's like the year before the iPhone, everybody knew that apple was close to shipping an iPhone. Yeah. The year before the iPad, everybody was, everybody knew apple was closed to shipping some sort of a tablet to the point where the week before or the month before that January event, everybody was speculating as to, okay, it can't be cheaper than $999. It will probably run a slim down version of Mac OS or will it run an enhanced version of iOS. So I, I really think that this is tracking very, very closely. We're we're getting a lot of anxious people who are now basically saying that we're ready for you to release the thing, whatever the thing is. We're, we've got the $3,000 on an envelope under the mattress, and please give it to us before we find something else to spend this $3,000. They wanted
Leo Laporte (01:40:03):
To give George enough time to save up for this. Absolutely. That was,
Georgia Dow (01:40:06):
You need to save up for this.
Leo Laporte (01:40:08):
You really do. Yeah.
Georgia Dow (01:40:10):
Nicholas, do you, do you do articles on AR VR?
Nicholas de Leon (01:40:13):
Yeah. we've done a little bit of VR stuff. I personally own a quest. I personally had the the rift back in the day. So I'm, I'm an enthusiast in this space, but as far as like CR goes, that's one of the things we is, is there a lot of consumer demand for this type of content? I've done stories here and there and they haven't done super well. So I don't, I don't know if that means anything <laugh> but I am, I am very curious, like my personal thing is that if, if anyone can sort of like figure this out, I guess it's apple $3,000. I mean, to me I mean, that seems expensive. But what do I know? But as far as like a mass market consumer device, that that feels kind of pricey, but again, I'm I'm happy to be convinced again, if any, anyone can sort of figure this out, I guess it's apple, but yeah, we, we, we do a little bit here and there. It's just not quite a huge consumer demand for this type of stuff yet. And I guess we'll see
Leo Laporte (01:41:09):
Interest. That's interesting cuz the people who use quests love them. And for sure, but, but it isn't a, it isn't a large portion of the tech buying
Nicholas de Leon (01:41:21):
Audience. Yeah. And I wonder, you know, I, I wonder, you know, once it gets beyond the enthusiasts, you know, the guys who have the huge gaming PCs that they plug in and, and they're, they're all about it, like will like, will my adopted mom sit there with a headset for any amount of time? I, I kind of doubt that's
Leo Laporte (01:41:36):
The leap, that's the leap I'm really puzzled about. Yeah. I don't, I don't,
Nicholas de Leon (01:41:40):
Yeah. I might, I'm a nerd, but will like regulate the man on the street in times square as he, I guess we'll see. It's
Georgia Dow (01:41:46):
You know what the thing though is, is I don't think that it's the cause like most of the people that I have try out VR they're, you know, like, like soccer moms and people that are not at all techies love it. Sure. Like they absolutely love it. Eat it up, wanna come over every time they come over, they wanna try it out, try the new experience, go to this museum, visit this Mayan temple. Like they enjoy all of the different experiences with it. It is this arduous amount of like setup and computers. For sure. We're putting up the wires like that, that barrier to entry is just so big. That's true that I wonder if apple can do it so that it's more quest like, like it's really just kind of plug and play. You can use it and not have to worry if that would make a difference.
Georgia Dow (01:42:33):
So that, and, and a little bit of the vertigo is still happening. I don't know, you know, that's, that's still a big deal. I still have some people that get quite ill, even though we, we kind of understand lots of the mechanisms that are at play to create that feeling of like vertigo and, and nausea that you can get afterwards. So I'm wondering if apple could do it in a way that, you know, just like the iPhone is so much easier, was so much easier to use when it came out versus, you know, the, the desire of people's trios. Well, let
Leo Laporte (01:43:00):
Me ask you, this is the quest, which doesn't have all that set up. Is it not as good as a result?
Georgia Dow (01:43:08):
No.
Leo Laporte (01:43:08):
So you really, oh, no, no. So you really want a five or a rift. You really don't want, you need to have, what are
Georgia Dow (01:43:16):
You using it for cameras
Leo Laporte (01:43:17):
On the,
Georgia Dow (01:43:18):
Yeah, it depends on what you're using it for. If you are using this to game and you want to play a very immersive game with a lot of frame rate having the extra cameras, it's a huge, it's a deal changer, right? You get the two controllers, you get the different cameras, you can play higher frame rate. You, you need that system. It's still a, a very intensive system. If you're just gonna be using the experience to, you know, do a little fishing game or watching movies, or, you know, tend a concert or do an experience where you're, you know, going to lo and, and going to museum or Ikea, then it, it's not that big of a deal. So I think that it's also how you use it.
Leo Laporte (01:43:58):
So maybe the trick for apple and any company that wants to succeed in this is getting the quality of a rift or a vibe onto something as easy to set up as a quest. If you could do that, then you might really have a product and even better, if you could keep it from making people throw up, <laugh> even even better.
Georgia Dow (01:44:17):
Right. Even better.
Leo Laporte (01:44:18):
Yeah. I'm convinced by the way that they, that it's about, I think the air force said 11% of the population, but there's some intractable percentage of the population that will never be able to use these without becoming nauseated.
Nicholas de Leon (01:44:31):
I will say when the PlayStation VR came out a few years ago, I tried that at a, at a trade show in, in New York city, I could not sleep that night. I, I was so nauseous from, you know, I, I was using it at 6:00 PM in the evening, messed around with a bunch of games. I did not sleep that evening. That's not to pick on Sony or whatever. But I, I couldn't, I was so affected by that, you know, that hasn't happened since I had, since played Resinal seven and plays in VR and it was pretty much fine played half life in VR. Fine. So I don't, I don't really know, but, well, there's still, I had one very bad experience. There's
Leo Laporte (01:45:03):
Still some games that will make me queasy. I was playing no man sky the other day. And it made me queasy. Whereas I played Val Heim for literally a thousand hours and never once got queasy. So, and that's not with a headset that's just in front of a big screen. So there, you know, there's head Bob or something that's causing that. But I think that there is a disconnect between the the, the focal length of the object you're looking at and the convergence distance of the object, because your, your eyes are converging on a nearby object, but they seem, but the object seems to be at a greater distance. And I believe that that's your brain saying you ate bad mushrooms. You better throw those up <laugh> and I don't, if you can fix that, it's true. I don't know if you
Georgia Dow (01:45:43):
Can fix that. No, but that's, you are accurate with that, but it's often where the horizon is and the feedback in your head versus the feedback that's happening on the horizon of what you're looking at. And also for people that often like I usually do the point and click movement versus the a real time movement, cuz that decreases the chance of getting ill. So games where you're spinning and you're getting different information like flying games or assuming have a much greater chance
Leo Laporte (01:46:13):
Get crazy just thinking about it,
Georgia Dow (01:46:16):
But you're absolutely right. It is us saying that you're not feeling well, maybe you a something cuz why would the ground be moving when you're not actually moving
Leo Laporte (01:46:25):
Aaron space magazine wrote an article 20 years ago called bargy based on research done by the, I know isn't that a good name based on research done by the air
Andy Ihnatko (01:46:37):
Minor masters program at your minor in your master's program at Carnegie Miller. Oh, I, I minored in bar. Oh yeah. Delta, right.
Leo Laporte (01:46:43):
<Laugh> but, but the air force after much study of their, of simulator sickness and things like that has concluded about 10 or 11% of everybody is, you know, to the point where some people shouldn't drive a car for 24 hours after being in a simulator in one study standing and Kennedy found that about 10% of simulator users reported vision related symptoms, like a headache, another 7.5% reported nausea, 5% suffered from disorientation while using a virtual reality helmet. Now this is 20 years ago, 25% experienced nausea, 30% disorientation. The, the industry says, oh, it's frame rate it's resolution. We can fix this. I, you know, they they're gonna have to fi that's another thing they're gonna have to figure out before they make this a mass market product, right?
Andy Ihnatko (01:47:36):
Yeah. Well that that's well, that's another question. Are they gonna make it a mass market product? There, there are lots of, there are a few companies that are actually having pretty good success with these kinds of wearables. Call them augmented reality call 'em virtual reality. Most of them have to do not either really these really, really cheap headsets that are good for entertainment that are mass market, but most of them are for the military use medical use industrial use verticals, basically situations in which the, the, the one that makes the most sense to me that keeps coming up. And these explanations are all of the, when people are repairing aircraft, all the checklists that they have to go through to all the paperwork that they have to manage to make sure that when they check and fix a brake system on an airplane, they can certify that, yes, this was done in the proper order.
Andy Ihnatko (01:48:20):
I'm going to photograph what needs to be photographed. I'm going to record what readings that were taken. I'm gonna basic basically affirm each step of this process. And also I'm gonna have this checklist in front of me. So I remember what has to be done in order to do this job safely and the ability to simply take all that, all those binders and all that paperwork and all those, even those slates out of the way, and basically have a wearable that keeps that documentation in your somewhere in your line of sight while you're doing it. And being able to actually create these records while you go, that saves a hell of a lot of money. And there are companies that are happily going to spend $3,000 for people who are gonna be wearing these for maybe a half hour at a time or 20 minutes at a time.
Andy Ihnatko (01:48:57):
They're not gonna be wearing them full time. So that's not really an issue. I mean, I, I, I keep trying to figure out what apple could do to make this really palatable to somebody who has these buck Rogers attitudes about what they expect a virtual reality or augmented reality goggles, the system to go. And I keep, I don't have that much imagination. I keep thinking of it as something like a, a Mac pro where we're shocked at the, when you look at the configurator, oh my God, there are people it's possible to configure. This will cost $16,000 <laugh> but then you remember, but that, but then you remember that there are people that will say, great. I, I know what two clients I'm gonna bill this to, and it'll be because I'm making. So it's so important for this, these jobs that I'm doing. And I know that I, well, it will make its money back. Those are the people I think that, that are most eager to be able to create content for $3,000 headset. That, especially if it's something that, Hey, yes, we, we finished the addition to this, this park that this, this museum building put on these goggles and we'll walk you through it. Again, I, I don't know. I don't know how they're gonna fix the, the nausea issue. If they're gonna say that we're gonna create a new worktop environment that you're gonna want to spend three or four hours and that's gonna be a hard sell.
Leo Laporte (01:50:07):
Yeah. Well, I do think augmented reality has somewhat different issues than virtual reality. Right? Cause at least you could see, I don't know if you have the same nausea issues.
Andy Ihnatko (01:50:18):
No, I, I mean, I, I used to, I'm one of those idiots who used to wear Google glass, like all the time, because, but I went on my daily watch
Leo Laporte (01:50:25):
See in the real world world.
Andy Ihnatko (01:50:26):
Yeah, I really enjoyed because it was just this little screen that was off to the side. I wouldn't be surprised if that's something that apple has been playing with the idea of having something like an apple watch, where it's not designed to be an immersive environment. It's just designed to put the, just the data than just the tools that you need at a place where it's more convenient than taking a phone outta your pocket. And that those are also the only display technologies that I have come across. Even experimentally that can convincingly be built inside a pair of glasses, but usually usually a pair of buddy Holly glasses. But at least you won't be like tackle to the ground and frisk when you're walking through an area wearing these damn things. So it all, all things are on the table. I, I, there are times where I have to be understand that there's almost nothing that I know for sure about this thing. And I have to be, have my mind open to almost anything could be released almost at any time. Again, I still don't think until 20, 23, but I will not be surprised by anything that apple comes up with because I think that a lot of things are on the table.
Leo Laporte (01:51:29):
One thing apple is doing right, and I can tell because Microsoft is responding is it's Apple's Silicon, it's M one chips. Microsoft had its developer conference this week build and announced they're gonna make a developer box project. Volera they're calling it. That has <laugh>. I know it's a comic book name. Okay. Okay,
Andy Ihnatko (01:51:52):
Good, good, good for
Leo Laporte (01:51:52):
Them. It has an arm based version of visual studio, 2022 they're programming environment and a little arm based windows, PC running windows for arm. Now the video, this is the video doesn't have anything do with, it looks like Mor door. It looks like Mor door. It's very, it's the strange, it looks very ominous. It's ominous. The rocks are breaking the lavas coming, get out, get out run while you still can. No, no, no. This is just a new computer. They did not say when it would be available. They did not say how much it would be. They did not say what chip it would run. They did not say anything. But I think this is very much I mean, look at it. It's a Mac mini built for window, develop windows developers to use windows on on arm. One of the things they did mention, which is kind of interesting is it has a, a, you know, it it's a three kind of unit, oh, by the way, made from beautiful recycled ocean plastic <laugh> <laugh>. And for some
Andy Ihnatko (01:52:56):
Reason, sometimes why there's so much plastic in there. Microsoft is dumping plastic as the refining technique. Yes. That harvesting the cut.
Leo Laporte (01:53:04):
And one of the things, one of the things they keep showing it stacked. So it's stackable, although no developer, I know wants two of these things. But I do think that they're pushing it as an AI device. And they're mentioning the fact that it has its own neural processor unit, and that will connect with Azure some sort of Azure support. So some sort of, kind of offloading to the cloud capability. Microsoft's Panos pane said, we want you to build cloud native AI applications with native 64 visual studio.net support project Volter is coming later this year, new tools to help you take the first step on this journey. Honestly, I really think they rushed this announcement because they're so nervous about M one and now M two, and Apple's really getting an awful lot of attention for that Intel also responding their 12th generation processors now have efficiency cores kind of like the arm processors. I, I feel like apple did really kind of surprise the, the PC world and they're trying to respond as quickly as they can.
Andy Ihnatko (01:54:16):
Yeah. This same, the thing about Google and and, and their own and their, their own AI based processors, their Google Silicon. And it might be, yes, it might be based largely on Samsung's EXOS processors, but still it's got
Leo Laporte (01:54:31):
Find you in there. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (01:54:32):
I mean, after, after getting, after 10 years of the iPhone, if manufacturers are getting the idea that you can't just simply rely on Intel or Qualcomm to deliver the chip that you absolutely need at the time when you actually need it, if you wanna control your own destiny and make the products that will help you live, thrive and survive, you're gonna have to basically own the whole widget less like just like Mr. Jobs said years and years and years
Leo Laporte (01:54:54):
Ago. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let's take a little break. Final thoughts, final stories coming up in just a little bit, but our show today brought to you by something I want you all to know about. I use religiously it's. My privacy cards from privacy.com privacy lets you create real credit cards that you can use online. There are two different kinds there's burner cards that can only be used once. So there's never any risk of being, you know, them being stolen and used anywhere else. And there's merchant locked cards that the minute you use it with a merchant can only be used by that merchant. All of which makes your life much more secure, makes you feel better about using credit cards online. They have plugins for Firefox and Chrome. And when you use this credit card, as I do with every online purchase, you can put any address, any name you want, privacy will approve it cuz they know it's you.
Leo Laporte (01:55:48):
So it masks your real bank information. You never have to worry about giving it out to strangers online. You can. It's a great tool for subscriptions. If you're about to sign up for something, that's gonna have a recurring payment, use your privacy.com card cuz it's, you'll never be overcharged. You could set a limit per charge per month, per week, per year, but you can also pause a card so that they can't overcharge you. I've had this happen before where I signed up for a gym membership, didn't realize that the trainer sessions were separate. When I canceled the gym membership, they kept charging me for the trainer for months. When I finally figured it out, the credit card company said, well, it's been more than three months. Nothing we can do for you never will have that problem. Again. I use privacy everywhere. Just press pause, privacy blocks the charges.
Leo Laporte (01:56:36):
They'll notify you. If they try to charge over the allotted amount, you'll see all the, every time the card is declined. So you'll know immediately if somebody's trying to steal it or, or, or use it inappropriately, it's also great for card sharing. So I often create cards for my mom for instance you know, she cooked for me her whole life. She's 88 now she's, you know, she's kind of tired of cooking. I said, mom, let me buy you dinner. She's out your way, Andy in Rhode Island. So I I sent her a privacy card and I said, use this, just know that when you use it for a restaurant or a meal delivery, they can that's, they're the only ones that can use it ever again. So keep using it for that service. And then I see whenever she uses it, it's kind of a nice feeling, but I didn't have to text her a card number or any.
Leo Laporte (01:57:23):
I just used privacy.com card sharing, went to the website, created the card, gave them her email address. They took care of the rest. She doesn't have to have a privacy account. It's it's a secure way to make sharing a credit card number. Very, very easy. You'll get complete account summaries. You can tag purchases now. So it really gives you a lot of control over how you're viewing it, how you're sorting it. I love privacy.com. Check it out, protect your financial identity online using virtual cards, I've literally created hundreds of them. Privacy.Com/TWiTt. You'll get $5 for a new account, $5 to spend on your first purchase. This is a nice way of saying welcome privacy.com/TWiT sign up right now. New customers get $5 to spend on their first purchase automatically. I just think this is such a great idea. Used to be companies used to do this. I remember I think a couple of my credit card companies used to do it and they stopped. They stopped now. I just do it with privacy all the time. A really good way of of, of protecting yourself online privacy.com/TWiTt me. Thank I'm so much for supporting TWiTt. We had a fun week this week on TWiT and we've got a little mini movie to show you all the good stuff.
Mikah (01:58:42):
So what does it take to repair an iPhone? If you ask apple, they'll ship you to gigantic boxes and say, good luck
Leo Laporte (01:58:50):
Previously on
Mikah (01:58:51):
Twittter, I wanted to give people an idea of what it's like to actually go through Apple's self-service repair program and only two of the three shipments that were supposed to be coming actually arrived. As soon as you get the tools, your seven day rental period begins, but I can't do the repair. I can't use the tools until I get the battery. If I don't get these sent back to ups tomorrow, then that $1,100 temporary charge we'll stay on the card. Windows
Leo Laporte (01:59:18):
Weekly, a
Paul (01:59:19):
Second version of windows, 1122 H two is
Leo Laporte (01:59:22):
Complete. Oh, well that is a big story. And
Mary Jo (01:59:24):
I just feel like our expectations about windows have to change. Like we, we used to be thinking there'd be some huge feature or something secret. That's not gonna happen anymore.
Leo Laporte (01:59:33):
Right? Well,
Paul (01:59:33):
We know what one of them is. Is that tab, file
Mary Jo (01:59:36):
Explorer. No, no, no.
Paul (01:59:39):
<Laugh> I feel like the crusher of
Leo Laporte (01:59:41):
Dreams this week in Google, Seth green decided that he would like to make a board ape cartoon show until his board ape got stolen. Dark w 84 could Sue Seth green because technically he owns the copyright. Wait I
Mikah (01:59:58):
Counselor, is that the case or not?
Paul (02:00:00):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:00:02):
Eye rolls.
Cathy (02:00:02):
Oh, eye rolls. There's so much going wrong here. Cause this is not how it works.
Leo Laporte (02:00:07):
Twit.
Cathy (02:00:08):
This actually makes copyright look good. And I already said that.
Paul (02:00:12):
Unbelievable
Leo Laporte (02:00:12):
As always <laugh> let's quickly check on the Elon Musk TWiTtter feed, just to see the latest here is a picture of Elon setting the bird free. I don't know you make of it. What you want is he he's trying to get out of the deal. I think or at least get the price down. Twittter. Shareholders are now suing him saying you better pay 54, 20 incidentally. Elon stole this cartoon from a a cartoonist and did not give credit where credits do, but we are gonna we're gonna do that. Somebody posted in a response to Elon, the original cartoon with the Chinese artist's name, clearly visible. Exactly. Look at Elon's post. He erased it. <Laugh> he erased it and then posted it not cool. Elon, not cool. And I can think Elon just loves to stir up the trouble. So forget it. Forget it. <Laugh>
Paul (02:01:19):
He
Georgia Dow (02:01:19):
Went from hero to villain so quickly. No kidding. Like it's just ridiculous how quickly he was like, just like he was, you know, this, this wonder he's gonna do all these great things. And now he's kind of,
Leo Laporte (02:01:33):
He's a jerky jerk. I think he's a jerk. He, by the way, three years ago, he tweeted, I wish people would stop crediting artists on TWiTtter when any fool could find out who the artist was in seconds. Oh, okay.
Andy Ihnatko (02:01:47):
Well obviously not every fool <laugh> he filed one.
Leo Laporte (02:01:50):
<Laugh> good Lord Elon. Geez.
Leo Laporte (02:01:54):
Well, that's kind of proactive, I guess. You know, he knew he was three years later gonna do that. Peter teal has left, met his board. He got a board seat when he was one of the very first people to to support TWiTtter, I think was a half million dollar investment that turned into billions for Peter teal. I'm not sure why he's leaving the board. And I I'll show know if it'll make a difference. If I were, if I were on the board of any social media company, I would think this might be a great time to take the money and run. Yeah. Mark is being personally sued mark Zuckerberg by the district of Columbia attorney general over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. That was, that was five years ago. But he says it mark ought to know personally.
Leo Laporte (02:02:47):
So he is being personally sued, saying Zuckerberg was directly responsible for creating the LA privacy rules that allowed Cambridge Analytica to harvest data about about Facebook users back in 2015 and 2016 TWiTtter has to pay $150 million over privacy violations. Facebook did this first TWiTtter did it too. You know, how they asked for a phone number for authentication, you know, a backup or recovery number turns out Facebook and TWiTtter, both used that. Then for advertising purposes, the company was sued by the justice department and the federal trade commission. They've settled for a me 150 million.
Andy Ihnatko (02:03:37):
Yeah. I felt as, as a matter of fact, I did a, I did a, I finally had to cave in and give Facebook and Instagram, my phone number for two factor authentication. And I'm like nothing good?
Leo Laporte (02:03:50):
Yeah,
Andy Ihnatko (02:03:50):
Nothing good can come of this. I mean, I've, it's, it's a good, it's two factor identifi. Two factor authentication is important, but
Leo Laporte (02:03:58):
Don't give me your number. Andy, Andy. Yeah. Well, that's what I, that's why that that's when I left, <laugh> actually, I'm still on TWiTtter, but you know, now I know they've been using that. Do you know Halsy the, the recording artist? I love her music. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I think she's quite good. She posted a TikTok on saying, well, I'll, I'll, I'll read you the, the text. She's actually playing her newest song and I won't do it cuz I don't want TikTok to take us down. But she says basically I have a song that I love that I wanna release ASAP, but my record label won't let me, I've been in this industry for eight years as Halsey, I've sold over 165 million records, but my record company says I can't release this song unless they can fake a viral moment on TikTok. Everything is marketing and they're doing this basically to every artist these days. I just wanna release music, man. And I deserve better. To be honest, I'm tired 8 million views in 24 hours for that video. So I guess the record company's gonna release the song <laugh>
Andy Ihnatko (02:05:08):
So isn't there, isn't there a subreddit about that? Entitled malicious compliance. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:05:13):
Exactly. It is, it is too bad when you know, I she's a, I'm 165 million records. She's obviously a very successful artist. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (02:05:26):
That's this, this is what labels are gonna labels are just not pulling their weight. Then the number of the power that a, that a creator has to forge their own path, build their own audience and then monetize that audience on their own without dealing with crap like this. I mean, I think, I think there are a lot of people, there are a lot of artists that said you can either, we can either give you the chance of being as big as the FOF fighters, but you'll have to deal with record labels and all that kind of management. Or you could make an extremely good living off of your music for the rest of your life. Limited to not being a gajillionaire, but you will never get a, you'll never have to deal with a text message saying, yeah, we're not like the thumbnail that you've got on your TikTok. How can, can you make it more of an astonished face? Because there's a, there's a study that says if you have an astonished face that people will click on it more. I'm try. I'm trying to coalesce all of human misery and, and experience into a simple spiffy three mid three and a half minute song. That's I, I, I don't care about thumbnails,
Leo Laporte (02:06:27):
But I have to say Georgia, your astonished faces are very good on your TikTok videos.
Georgia Dow (02:06:34):
<Laugh> people, people do click on. They, they
Leo Laporte (02:06:37):
Do you notice that they that
Georgia Dow (02:06:39):
Are.
Leo Laporte (02:06:39):
Yeah. Unfortunately it works better if you got a, a weird, if you're making a weird face, you're not too bad. I did too though. Renee's yeah, Renee's gone really down that rabbit hole. <Laugh>
Georgia Dow (02:06:49):
If people, people like, and if you're crying or really upset, I don't do the cry. Like I I'm often crying in the videos, but I don't usually have cry. I had one where I didn't like I do the thumbnails. They're not from the video. And they're like, you didn't make exactly that face. And I am disappointed in you. That's funny. I'm like I do them before. Like I you're
Leo Laporte (02:07:07):
Good though. You got a nice rubber face. You can do some good faces on here. <Laugh> it's not as, you know what, it's not as bad as it could be. I I like, it's not as bad
Georgia Dow (02:07:19):
As it could be. Some of them are, are ridiculous. I'll say it. Some of them are ridiculous. I'll I admit to
Leo Laporte (02:07:24):
It.
Georgia Dow (02:07:26):
Yeah. I have some I'm wearing ears and some of them too. I'm like
Leo Laporte (02:07:30):
Do point of ears work well on your YouTube videos? Is that a good,
Georgia Dow (02:07:33):
I, I asked my people if the, I have, like I did too, that I'm, I'm like I mildly Coplay the people that I'm doing. So it was a bear anyways. And I, I asked like, are the ears too much? But my people said, no, no, no
Leo Laporte (02:07:44):
Too. I actually think they're kind of hot. Didn't you have pointy ears on a TWiT last time you were on. Or maybe I was just, oh, maybe that was a dream. I don't know. I dunno.
Georgia Dow (02:07:54):
I might have been. I'm not sure. I don't
Leo Laporte (02:07:56):
Remember. I think I don't. Why is it pointy ears or hot? What is that? What is that all about?
Georgia Dow (02:08:00):
<Laugh> are they
Leo Laporte (02:08:01):
Therapist? You better explain elves. That'll be a video. Sexy elves, ELs
Georgia Dow (02:08:06):
Elves are awesome.
Leo Laporte (02:08:07):
Sexy elves.
Andy Ihnatko (02:08:09):
She could tell you, but I think she's gonna have to charge her charge you her hourly rate.
Leo Laporte (02:08:12):
And here's a new definition of kzpa. Elizabeth Holmes has asked the judge to overturn her Theranos convictions because there was insufficient evidence. Apparently even though the jury convicted her her attorney says no rational juror <laugh> would've convicted her. No rational juror could have found the elements of wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud beyond a reasonable doubt, your honor. So throw out those four fraud related charges she was convicted on in January. She's due to be sentenced in September. You know, maybe this is just what you do. Maybe. I don't know. I'm not a lawyer. You just say how your honor, that jury's nuts. <Laugh>
Andy Ihnatko (02:09:00):
Well, maybe, maybe someone gave her like, she's paying for it through like an Amazon gift card or something. And there's still like under the $30,000 left on the card. And if she doesn't use it, those are gonna, it's gonna expire in a year. So she may as well just have the lawyer just keep running until, you know, the cards expired
Leo Laporte (02:09:16):
To avoid that most
Georgia Dow (02:09:17):
Interesting thing for me about her is that she faked how deep her voice is.
Leo Laporte (02:09:22):
I know she talked like this. I know that's the
Georgia Dow (02:09:25):
Coolest thing to me that she actually planned that all out. Like this was really serious thought out stuff to be able to, to have people give her more money that they would trust her more because
Leo Laporte (02:09:37):
You know, women I'm take the deeper voice, a more positive look on it, which is kind of the feminist take, which is as a woman entrepreneur, she probably thought having too feminine of a voice might she might face discrimination in the market. And so she decided she should sound more authoritative with a deeper voice. It was a little weird, but I think that maybe the spirit of it was, was sensible. I don't know.
Andy Ihnatko (02:10:05):
There was a, there's a lot. That's like you, you ever go to a, you ever walk past a pond and you just look at the surface of that frozen water and think that, you know what, I'm not even gonna, there's a lot down there of that because exactly. That's, that's a plunge and I want no part of that.
Leo Laporte (02:10:22):
<Laugh>
Georgia Dow (02:10:24):
Nicholas, would you, would you say that that would be like consumer, consumer words would say like, that's like kind of fraud. I'm just <laugh>
Andy Ihnatko (02:10:30):
I
Nicholas de Leon (02:10:32):
Dunno. It's a little, I was also impressed that, wow, this is a long thought out thing, I guess. I don't
Leo Laporte (02:10:40):
Know. So Georgia, can you, did you ever get Georgia get an Edison unit to review <laugh> yeah, really? No. I'm afraid that's a trade secret, Georgia. Can you, can you try do a, do a, could you talk like that?
Georgia Dow (02:10:53):
I, I can, I can try to talk with a much deeper Octa voice. I don't know if
Leo Laporte (02:10:57):
Anyone you sound like Elizabeth Holmes.
Georgia Dow (02:10:59):
Do I sound like Elizabeth Holmes? Nice like that.
Leo Laporte (02:11:02):
So you could, you could do
Georgia Dow (02:11:02):
That. Do you have more chance? You'll give me money. Do
Leo Laporte (02:11:05):
You, you could do that, right. Would you ever consider doing
Georgia Dow (02:11:07):
That? I could try. I, I, I wish I, I wish my voice in my head is like one or two. Octas deeper than what it actually sounds like. Right. So I'm always shocked by how high pitched my voice actually is. Right. So I wish I sounded like Demi Moore. I think that she has an, I would like, that would be my favorite voice, but unfortunately, that, isn't why I ended up with a really kind of high,
Leo Laporte (02:11:29):
I like your voice. You don't need to fake it. Absolutely not. Thank you. It's silly. <Laugh> it just it's in, you know, I'm not gonna,
Georgia Dow (02:11:35):
When I'm sick, I have a deeper voice.
Leo Laporte (02:11:37):
Yes <laugh> or when you first wake up. Hello? last payphone in New York city. The last one owned by the city was removed. The city once had more than 66,000 public phones, but they've all been replaced by wifi kiosks. And there it goes. Yeah. The last public now they're privately owned payphone in New York. Although I know somebody who owns them or some of them and he says they're all cell phones. <Laugh> yeah, they're just, they're just cell phones. The last of the public payphone will not end up in a landfill. It's going to go to the museum of the city of New York to be an exhibit for young people. <Laugh> in the, you should have to have a dime that you could go and call home. I, I hope I hope if they're, if they're curating this pro this correctly, they're, they're gonna a, they're gonna scrub that down and disinfect it really well.
Leo Laporte (02:12:39):
But also they're going to find some chemical. They can apply to it. That smells like it's recently. Can I just point out this phone has clearly already been sanitized. There's no way a payphone in New York city looks as clean as that. Somebody before the photo op cleaned this sucker off. There's no graffiti. It's red carpet ready? There's no vomit. There's no, the phone books are intact. Yeah, this is, this is look at this. It's perfectly clean. Respectable, no pigeons strip no pigeons. Anyway. There's gonna be no, no independent band stickers on it. That's that's usually you, you go to payphone. It's just to find out what bands are, are up and coming. Next time I'm in New York. That's right. With all the pamphlets. Next time in New York, I'm going to this, the museum of the city of New York, analog city NYC BC before computers, what it looked like before computers. I think that sounds great.
Andy Ihnatko (02:13:34):
No, I, you know, I was, I was looking things up to, cause I was trying to find some answers for myself about why they were existing for, for quite so long. And there are a lot of there, there are a lot of questions on Quora from like people who are not like below the age of like 25. Yeah. What is that asking? Well, but, but if, but if so, no, but like, okay. But if, if the phone rang, like how would the per how would you know who the call was for? And like, did people used to line up to use it? And I'm like, oh, let me paint you a word picture. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:14:02):
<Laugh>
Andy Ihnatko (02:14:03):
About, about a child by the name of Andy and not go nine or 10 years old. His allowance was a mere pitten. He would go for long walks, sticking his finger in the coin return slots, hoping to find enough change that been left behind to buy perhaps a Coca-Cola or, or a hostess lemon fruit pie.
Leo Laporte (02:14:19):
Aw. Are you old enough Georgia to remember payphone?
Georgia Dow (02:14:24):
I do. I do remember payphones. I can't say that there were tons of payphones. No, but I do remember
Leo Laporte (02:14:29):
Payphones. Did you ever, did you ever use em? No. Let me ask you, was it a dime or a quarter? Because it, you know, dime really? Your age might been two quarters, two quarters.
Georgia Dow (02:14:38):
I don't remember. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not, I'm not sure how
Leo Laporte (02:14:41):
Many they looked like. What just a, a, a, a health nightmare. I mean, this is a, <laugh> a phone that's been sitting on the street of New York for years, and you're gonna put this up to your mouth. It just seems like a bad idea.
Andy Ihnatko (02:14:56):
We were hell cats. Remember in the eighties and nineties
Nicholas de Leon (02:15:00):
I was gonna say about a decade ago, I did a story on, on payphone in New York city. And I talked to a guy, wait a
Leo Laporte (02:15:07):
Minute. Yes. Yeah, we got the, we got the expert on the show. I didn't even
Nicholas de Leon (02:15:10):
Know that. Well, as it happens. Yeah. No, but I, I spoke to the guy and he said that the phone service was like incidental to the, like the money was, was the ads, you know, the movie coming up. So that's, those things were basically just billboards even a decade ago. I don't, I don't know how many folks were using them as like telephones.
Leo Laporte (02:15:28):
Oh, that's interesting.
Nicholas de Leon (02:15:30):
Yeah. The guy was like, I don't, no, one's making phone calls. These things are, they are billboards. So, and that was 2011. So yeah,
Andy Ihnatko (02:15:38):
I guess the FCC says that in 1999 was peak cell phone with 2.1 million. But then by the early 2010s, it was down by 90%. And then by two or three years after that, it was down another half after that. And I think now they're saying that the, the last piece of hard data I could find was that in 2016, there were way fewer than a hundred thousand in the entire country. Wow.
Leo Laporte (02:15:59):
So these days does Superman, where does he, where does he change? <Laugh> does he go into a phone booth? <Laugh>
Andy Ihnatko (02:16:10):
Hey, you know, Superman that Superman, the, the original motion picture, but he, you try to find a phone booth. He can only find one of those little like
Leo Laporte (02:16:18):
Element. Oh, that's rights. I remember that. Yeah.
Andy Ihnatko (02:16:21):
Ain't easy being Superman, man.
Leo Laporte (02:16:22):
Well, wait a minute now. If, if you would like you can buy a phone booth. This is from cubicle booth.com. Enjoy personal space for those important conversations, easy installation ships flat build with 60 minutes with just a few tools. <Laugh> wait a minute. I wonder how, oh, even the, even the phone booth have been removed. Oh, 4 0 4. I thought I had foam. I
Nicholas de Leon (02:16:53):
Was gonna say, speaking of ocean plastics, we're building foam booth. <Laugh> geez.
Leo Laporte (02:16:59):
Oh, no. They still sell 'em foam booth, custom foam booth and isolation solutions. Maybe you could have a little phone booth therapy office somewhere in, yeah. Downtown Montreal, Georgia Dow go to youtube.com/georgia Dow. If you can email her, if you need help, Georgia Westmount therapy.com. Of course it's not for emergencies, but she's there to, to talk to people. And she also has some really great videos that I highly recommend on anxiety, parenting, sleeping, depression, they're all@anxiety-videos.com. Does, do you still get orders for DVDs or is it all online now?
Georgia Dow (02:17:43):
Now it's all mostly online. So very few people. There's still some people that will ask, but like most people will just download it.
Leo Laporte (02:17:53):
It's kind of cool. I'm gonna keep these, these are, these are collectors items, so I'll keep this in my phone booth.
Georgia Dow (02:17:59):
They're great coasters for like drinks and stuff. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:18:02):
Yeah. Anxiety-Videos.Com. Get the DVD. It's a collector's item. Thank you, George. It's really great to see you.
Georgia Dow (02:18:10):
Thanks
Leo Laporte (02:18:11):
For having me. Hey, anything you wanna plug? You said you're next thing is stranger things you're gonna do the help. Next thing,
Georgia Dow (02:18:17):
Stranger things,
Leo Laporte (02:18:18):
Health fire club.
Georgia Dow (02:18:18):
I don't have the link, but I have my ne Nebula class that's gonna be coming up. So if you get the ne Nebula, my class is like launching on Tuesday, which is on dealing with anxiety. Oh, it's just a full class. And it's brand new and I think it's nebula.app/georgia do nice. And yeah, so I'm kind of excited to got to go to New York and film the whole class on dealing with anxiety. So that's kind of a new thing that I'm excited about.
Leo Laporte (02:18:47):
That's really cool. Yeah. So Nebula is kind of like the subscription service, your videos and and Renee's videos are
Georgia Dow (02:18:56):
Part of, and, you know, yeah, really cool. Yeah. You get, it's, it's really a really nice streaming service that you are able to get. And then yeah, you get to get the classes and this is like a special, like master's class kind of thing. I don't know if I'm allowed to say master's class that might be copyright, but it's like that <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (02:19:13):
It's a, in your case, it's a mistres class. How about that? I don't think they own that. Maybe it's it is nebula.app/georgia Dow. Thank you, Georgia. It's always so nice to see you. Thank you for being here, Andy and ACO. I see you every week, but I still love hearing from you. He is at I H N a tko.com. You'll hear him on Wednesday or sorry, Thursdays and sometimes Fridays and w GBH Boston and every Tuesday on Mac break weekly. Plus don't forget if you're into Android, his material podcast that he does with Florence ion on relay.fm. Anything else have I plugged it all?
Andy Ihnatko (02:19:57):
I think you've plugged it on a month. Thursday, this week at 1250 in the morning, you can stream it live or later@wgbhnews.org, or go there to find any of the weekly tech roundups news routes I've done for the past, like three or four years
Leo Laporte (02:20:10):
And enjoy Bob's burgers.
Andy Ihnatko (02:20:13):
I will, again, I've got, I've got the burger. It's it's it wasn't just the, it wasn't just this movie theater. It was the, I've got to find a movie theater with a really great burger place independently owned within like a 20 minute walk afterward, because it would be a damn shame to watch the feature film and then not get a great burger afterward.
Leo Laporte (02:20:31):
<Laugh> no, I'm really curious where that, where that could be. So you're gonna go see it. When, when are you gonna see Bob's burgers?
Andy Ihnatko (02:20:37):
Probably Wednesday, Wednesday, I was gonna do it. I was gonna do it Monday, but I did that freelancer thing where I forgot that this was actually a holiday weekend. Oh, that good. Because I just as stupid me. I was working on Friday and Friday and Saturday because, you know, you got, you gotta work, but yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:20:52):
I'm glad you didn't know. Cause we actually had a hard time getting people for today's show cause of the Memorial day weekend. So I'm
Andy Ihnatko (02:20:58):
Glad you too many clams. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:21:00):
Well
Andy Ihnatko (02:21:00):
Also, also it's a, also it's a Sunday, so most people are at mass, so
Leo Laporte (02:21:04):
Yeah. Right. Nicholas de the wonderful senior electronics reporter at consumer reports. We love your work. And I'm have to go find your phone booth article now that's hysterical.
Nicholas de Leon (02:21:15):
Oh, that's long gone long delete.
Leo Laporte (02:21:17):
Was that for?
Nicholas de Leon (02:21:18):
That was news Corps. No, that was news CORs. The daily.
Leo Laporte (02:21:21):
Oh,
Nicholas de Leon (02:21:21):
The daily iPad. Yes. Yes. That was one of that's my earlier stories. I forgot you worked
Leo Laporte (02:21:25):
That nice newsroom that they had. Yeah.
Nicholas de Leon (02:21:28):
Yes. For about 18 months. And then they shut it down. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:21:32):
Gone, gone.
Nicholas de Leon (02:21:33):
It was, it was fun while I lasted, I
Leo Laporte (02:21:35):
Guess. Great to have you on Nicholas. Thank you for the work you do. I'll look forward to your review of office chairs. I can't wait.
Nicholas de Leon (02:21:40):
Yeah. If I may, that's coming up probably this week. We, we did a big kind of test on ergonomic office chairs. So that's coming up this week probably next month. We'll have a thing on gaming chairs similar story. Ah, okay. And if folks want to, to plug another random story that folks might like, we did a story recently on how to delete a bunch of email. I basically deleted more than a hundred thousand emails from my Gmail account over the span of like a day and change. So folks maybe listening, maybe know how to do that, but if you're like the family tech guy and you wanna help folks kind of like manage their email, we've got some tips in there. That may be helpful. So,
Leo Laporte (02:22:17):
Wow. That's like somebody with long hair getting their haircut. That's like kind of <laugh>.
Nicholas de Leon (02:22:21):
Wow. Yeah, no, it was funny. I was deleting so many emails. I lost access to my account. It kept airing out. Like I assume Google thought that I was like hacking my account. Cause I'm deleting thousands at a, at a clip. You know, I, I had the account going back to 2008 or so, and, and deleted maybe five emails over the <laugh> the life of the account. I just kind of marked as red and moved on.
Leo Laporte (02:22:43):
Yeah. I save everything. I don't wanna delete emails. That's my history.
Nicholas de Leon (02:22:47):
So they're all, they're all, they're all gone now
Leo Laporte (02:22:49):
Hundreds. So just some text sent there emails. Yeah. Wow. Well, I also wanna wish everybody I don't wanna say pleasant Memorial day weekend. This is the tomorrow's the day we remember those who've given their lives in the service of this country. And we don't wanna forget that because that's the ultimate sacrifice. So while you're thinking about that and remembering that I do hope you also remember to have a great Memorial day weekend, and we will see you on TWiT next week. Thanks for joining us. Another TWiT is in the can!
