This Week in Tech Episode 887 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 weekend tech. Oh, you're gonna like this panel brand new on TWiT. Abara a HETI from CNET. She'll join our old favorites, Georgia Dow and Christina Warren. What is Amazon up to with its 1.7 billion acquisition of the Roomba makers. The Senate passes the big infrastructure bill. What does this mean for electric vehicles and why your absent printer has just stopped printing? It's all coming up next on TWiTtter podcasts you love

TWiT Intro (00:00:34):
From people you trust. This

Leo Laporte (00:00:38):
Is,

Leo Laporte (00:00:46):
This is TWiTT. This weekend tech episode 887 recorded Sunday, August 7th, 2022 chorizo in space. This weekend tech is brought to you by Blueland Blueland is on a mission to eliminate single use plastics by reinventing home essentials that are good for you and the planet. Right now you can get 15% off your first order when you go to blueland.com/TWiTt and by podium, join more than 100,000 businesses that already use podium to streamline their customer interactions. See how podium can grow your business. Watch a demo today@podiumdotcomslashTWiTandbyuserway.org user way, the world's number one accessibility solution 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. It's an easy choice to make, go to user way.org/TWiT for 30% off user ways. AI powered accessibility solution. It's time for TWiT this week in tech, the show we cover the latest tech news with a panel of fabulously brilliant people. And I'm happy to say we did it again. I don't know how it happens, but magically our producer, Jason Howell has put together a wonderful panel starting with Georgia Dow from youtube.com/georgia Dow and westbound therapy. Hello, Georgia.

Georgia Dow (00:02:19):
Hello?

Leo Laporte (00:02:20):
You are preparing your final segment on the boys. A therapist reacts. I think

Georgia Dow (00:02:24):
On the boys. Yeah, I am doing OI.

Leo Laporte (00:02:28):
Nice. And you've got a bird in your hair. What is that? A bird? I

Georgia Dow (00:02:31):
Have a bird in my hair. Okay. It's a bird. Okay. It's a bird. Some will know some will not know.

Leo Laporte (00:02:37):
<Laugh> I do not know. I've only seen season one. I gotta catch up. You gotta,

Georgia Dow (00:02:40):
You gotta catch up on it. Should

Leo Laporte (00:02:42):
You watch the show before you watch therapist reacts

Georgia Dow (00:02:45):
You? It should. Cuz they'll be spoilers if you don't. Okay. Already know some people do cuz they're just there. Like I, I watch a show and then I go through the psychology of this show. So when we do sorry, Blackmore, I think I said own Omar. Cause there's a restaurant that I love in Montreal close. It's close. It's similar. Not the same, but yeah, so you should, some people watch, just watch it for the psychology aspects cuz that's what I deal with. I just go through what is the psychology? And I usually choose a certain aspect of psychology to be able to deal with through a character on a show. So it's a funner way to be educated on to find.

Christina Warren (00:03:16):
Do you,

Leo Laporte (00:03:17):
Do you find, I mean, I would guess this is probably true for people who write TV shows that they have to understand at least intuitively have to understand psychology. Do you find that the psychology is there's black nor, nor by the way that the psychology is pretty accurate

Georgia Dow (00:03:33):
For, for a lot of shows it's exceptionally accurate. Yeah. Like I think that they do a really good job. I think that a lot of shows hire people like me to make sure that the psychology oh, interesting matches up. And there are some shows that the psychol like it's spot on. Like they, they're kind of hitting all the marks and I can really go through different sets of like the actors are doing a really great job at portraying the feelings. And there's even some animations that they've just done such like arcane. Like they've done just such an amazing job at making sure that all of the emotions come through and they understand why their character is doing what they were doing. And for what reasons for kindness,

Leo Laporte (00:04:08):
If you're watching a show and somebody does something that's psychologically wrong, you know, somehow doesn't match up. You probably make, you may not know why, but you may go, eh, that doesn't feel right. Like that's not how somebody would really behave in real life.

Georgia Dow (00:04:21):
Yeah. So that, yeah, and for me it really bothers me. Right? Like

Leo Laporte (00:04:25):
Someone

Georgia Dow (00:04:25):
Has some sort of an issue with something and then they forget it in between. And I'm like, who wouldn't be touching that they're already they're germophobic they wouldn't be touching this mm-hmm <affirmative> it doesn't fit with all of the mythos of their character. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> and it, it psychologically kind of pulls us out. Right. It causes that disjointed in our mind to be able to be like that doesn't really fit. Yeah. And that cognitive dissonance kind of stops us from being fully immersed.

Leo Laporte (00:04:48):
Makes sense. But this is an embarrassment of riches today because not only do we have Georgia that we also have Christina Warren now senior developer advocate at GitHub and owner of many fine kicks. Hello? Hello Christina.

Christina Warren (00:05:02):
Hey Leo,

Leo Laporte (00:05:03):
Your shoe rack looks very shiny.

Christina Warren (00:05:07):
It is shiny. As, as people have already noted in the chat some of the shoes are missing. But, but look like, at least we're like in the process of getting things sort of shoe

Leo Laporte (00:05:17):
There, like there's a pump on the third row. There's only one

Christina Warren (00:05:19):
There is. And, and it's probably someplace else and I don't even, no, no,

Leo Laporte (00:05:23):
I, I sort of think there's a story to tell probably like Cinderella, you only have one shoe was a great party.

Christina Warren (00:05:32):
<Laugh> right.

Georgia Dow (00:05:33):
It's

Christina Warren (00:05:33):
Really good. It had a really good time. And I came home without a shoe one shoe, which actually, which actually I think has happened to me before. Okay. Where, where I've come home with the missing shoot. See? But yeah, no, I mean, Elise, this is, this is better. We're we're working on, I'm working on my office at some point in the future. I'll have like a really nice looking setup like Georgia does, but <laugh> not quite there yet

Leo Laporte (00:05:54):
With pictures.

Georgia Dow (00:05:54):
Did you see that? I had to pause. No. I had to pause to be able to clear out, like I bought like these giant wings anyways. They're I have to clear out some stuff. So it wasn't that great. Usually they only see this much. So

Leo Laporte (00:06:08):
It's hard. It's very hard, hard over here. And I hope that poor Aarti is not now thinking, oh my God, they're gonna be analyzing my background video will. But yeah, they're thinking about those blind. I can tell you right now bar that one's annoying video producer at CNET.

Georgia Dow (00:06:24):
Yeah. You wanna just touch that one? We wanna just stop out, sticking out.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:06:28):
It's kinda bothering me now.

Georgia Dow (00:06:30):
Oh my God. Now that's what everyone's gonna notice. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said it

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:06:34):
So sorry. Don't listen to anything we say just,

Leo Laporte (00:06:37):
Yeah, I warned you a bar. We have a, a fairly OCD audience. They already noticed missing shoes from Christina's rack. Yeah. I think they're gonna be bothered by that blind for the rest of the show.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:06:47):
Yeah. My apologies

Leo Laporte (00:06:49):
A bar works for CNET, internet trends, entertainment, pop culture, digital accessibility. And as Christina noted, she hails from the home of Mozilla or Urbana champagne, Illinois. That's right. Yes. Great to have you

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:07:03):
How to be, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it,

Leo Laporte (00:07:06):
Amazon. All right. This is a really interesting story. And I think there are a lot of ramifications on the surface of it. Eh, Amazon's gonna buy Roomba iRobot. They make the Roomba vacuum robot vacuum 1.7 billion seems like a good business, but there was a very good article I thought in in wired that maybe it's conspiracy theory. I'd like to know what y'all think iRobot deal would give Amazon maps inside millions of homes. It ain't the dust rights. Carrie Johnson. It's the data, Christina, is there more to this acquisition?

Christina Warren (00:07:48):
I mean, I definitely think the data is part of it, right? Like I, I don't know if that was the impetus between why they were buying iRobot. I have to think that they were also, I mean, cuz Amazon had been kind of in this space too and to try to sell competitors.

Leo Laporte (00:08:00):
Yeah. Did, did they have a robot vacuum feel like they might have? Yeah.

Christina Warren (00:08:04):
Yeah, they definitely did. And, and definitely. I mean, you know, with their big IOT push and with like, you know, like the

Leo Laporte (00:08:10):
Ring walk and the ring ring, that's what car says. They bought the arrow in 2019 ring in 2018. Of course they've got in most homes, they've got an Amazon echo or two with microphones right. And cameras, but what, so it does look like maybe it's a coin key think kinda looks like they're putting together some sort of portfolio of data about me.

Christina Warren (00:08:36):
Yeah. I mean, I mean, and certainly I could, I could see areas where it could be interesting if you had even just some ancillary data about, you know, the layouts of PE houses and whatnot. Like if you're in, in the business of maybe wanting to sell furniture, I don't know, or selling electronics or selling other things and, and wanting to, you know, Amazon wants to be like the store for everything. I don't, I don't think that there's an argument that you can make that having this data wouldn't be potentially useful. I don't know though, if that's the only reason why they're buying this company, if that makes sense,

Leo Laporte (00:09:05):
Bar, it makes me though think that Amazon is not the innocent internet storefront that we've thought it was.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:09:13):
Yeah. I think it's, it's so fascinating to see how it's gone from a place where you can kind of conveniently buy things at a lower price to, oh my God. They know everything about what I'm buying, what I'm watching, what I'm reading, what I'm listening to. And they're in so many different facets of our lives now. And I think we kind of like woke up one day and were like, oh my God, like I'm, you know, I think most people didn't really realize how quickly it all kind of ramped up and now is kind of feels like it's spiraling outta control and to think, oh my God, they would know the layout of my home just feels incredibly intrusive.

Leo Laporte (00:09:41):
Remember that Roomba got in or iRobot got a little trouble when people realized that those maps that the Roomba has to make outta necessity of, you know, where the dog dishes, where the sofa is, you know, where your kitchen is so that it can navigate those spaces. We're getting uploaded to iRobot. And that's when people went, wait a minute. Why? I don't know if iRobot ever sufficiently explained it. They certainly didn't stop doing it. But then I guess the question is, well, what I mean? So what if Amazon has a map of my house? I mean, what are they gonna do with it?

Georgia Dow (00:10:18):
Do this find out. Cause it becomes one more piece of information that a company has that did not disclose it beforehand. Like I think that Facebook has taken a whole brunt of like damage control on like misusing all of our information. Amazon's kind of like, like been really quiet about it. Just taking the information, not really said anything because when you put that, like put all of that information together, they really know, I won't say almost everything about us, but like almost everything about us. So that's

Leo Laporte (00:10:51):
What don't, they know the house, they just bought one medical for 3.49. That

Christina Warren (00:10:56):
One bothers more. That one bothers me more.

Leo Laporte (00:10:58):
They get all those health records. Yeah. I'm sure they're protected somehow by HIPAA, but still, it looks more like it does not look like Amazon is building a portfolio of products that can sell. And in fact, you know, so when Amazon first started, I, that was kind of the idea was in fact I think they said like the world's largest bookstore or something like that, mm-hmm <affirmative> the idea was we're gonna be the best retail ever. But then and we've got more mature in our thinking about it. And I think Brad Stone's books about Amazon got me thinking about, and at one point I think stone says, well, what Amazon really wants to do is on a small piece of every transaction. Like couple of pennies, every time you buy something online, that's a good, that's a good living. Then they became an advertising company.

Leo Laporte (00:11:43):
In fact, their quarterly results show that they're very good at that. They make a lot of money in advertising and well, what's their biggest business, AWS, which is network cloud stuff, you know, selling cloud access to people. I don't know how that fits in, but then all these acquisitions, it really looks like Amazon isn't necessarily a bookstore isn't necessarily a, a trans like a visa card to transaction collector that there's somehow building. I don't, I don't know. It's, it's, it's unclear in my mind, but they're somehow building a, a dossier about everybody. What would they, what would they use that for? What, what could that be?

Georgia Dow (00:12:25):
But it there's a lot of information that isn't shown, like it's the rooms that we choose that we want to clean. It's the rooms that we use the most of it's where furniture is placed to be able to sell things. It's where people usually travel to it's economic status because larger houses, larger spaces of where people are located. It's how much people purchase in certain sized homes. Yeah. And I think that my biggest issue though, isn't even the data it's that when you, when you, you know, sign a privacy policy for a company that you trust and you're all comfortable, but then they get bought out all of your information that you believed was secure because you trusted the company now is in whatever, some nefarious company or non nefarious company's hand, and it changes everything. And we don't have a right to say, you know what? I now want to, you know, there is no sandbox around my information. It's just kind of given away. And it's like, we've been sold off to the highest bidder, whoever that person might be when we actually signed a contract with someone else. And there is no contract law that really protects us and allows us to revoke access to the data that we've already given away in a trusted situation.

Leo Laporte (00:13:37):
Well, I don't know how much people trusted Roomba to save those maps anyway. I mean,

Georgia Dow (00:13:42):
Well, I don't think anyone knew that they were being mapped. Right. I didn't know that when I had my Roomba.

Leo Laporte (00:13:47):
I mean, if you think about, you realize that's how horrified that it has to do that, right. It has to kind of, you just

Georgia Dow (00:13:52):
Have to upload it. It has to know itself because what they say, when exactly when read, when you read it, they say that the Roomba takes a look at the area and then goes back and forth and kind of remembers it does not tell you, at least when I had my Roomba did not tell me. And I actually read privacy policies cuz I'm nerdy that way, that it did not tell me that it's uploading and saving that data and could sell that off to a third party.

Leo Laporte (00:14:16):
Well, and remember Amazon was, I think they did sell a few of them built this robot Astro that would know where your kitchen is. So you could say Astro, go to the kitchen. I mean really I mean, if they're not intentionally trying to build this very complete map of everything I buy own do am, then they by accident, they're doing this, but it sure looks like it's intentional. So what do, is that a BR? Is that a problem?

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:14:46):
I think it's, you know, I think the thing that a lot of people are growing, growing increasingly uncomfortable with is that, you know Georgia, I love that you read the privacy policies of these companies. I think a lot of people don't necessarily do that. And I think, you know, they, they use these products or services and then realize how much am I giving away with all of this? And I think we're kind of feeling inundated with the fact that any platform you use, any service you use, you're giving away so much more information than you would feel comfortable with. And you kind of feel helpless in the sense that like, you know, there is a beauty to having a sense of privacy and not feeling like your data is being used to sell products or services to, you know, get more of your money. It just kind of feels like this endless spiral. So I think just, just knowing how much they know about use incredibly uncomfortable and you know, companies like Amazon will only continue to grow and only continue to glean more information about each of us.

Leo Laporte (00:15:40):
Sorry, I just sneezed <laugh> I cut my mind. I bless you. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:15:46):
Yeah, I mean, I'm a I, so I go back and forth on on privacy and on the one hand if all Amazon's gonna do is use this to put better recommendations@thebottomoftheamazon.com page, I think that's re you know, relatively harmless, but then I also start to look at stories about, for instance, the government buying information from data brokers. Yep. That some data brokers are selling for a, you know, 150, 160 bucks a list of all the people who went to visit an abortion clinic in the last six weeks, that kind of thing. And I start to realize that potentially this becomes harmful. I don't think Amazon is thinking, what could we sell the government?

Christina Warren (00:16:28):
Well, yes and no. I mean like you, you look at like what the fact that, you know, ring and, and some of this might have had carve outs before Amazon acquired them, but, you know, ring will give your data over to the police. And which bothers me on a lot of levels. Even if you opt out the, you know, the, the police can, can still kind of get into these programs where without a search warrant, they can get access to this, this ring data. What bothers me about that is if you, as an individual, want to offer some of your camera information fine. But ring is taking video footage of people who are in your surrounding area and, and is also collating things with people who haven't opted into that. So I have very, very big problems with that happening at all. I think that if the, the police wanna get information you know, from someone's security system, regardless of whether it's cloud based or local, I think they need to have a warrant for that period.

Christina Warren (00:17:17):
I, I don't think that you should have companies like agreeing in Amazon by extension, just passing it over. I think that that is a massive violation. And so if you, if you look at that perspective and you're saying, well, they'll do it in this instance. And we know that they also will without warrants, in some context, give Alexa information over to law enforcement. Then I, I do have concerns about what other information they have collected on me and how willing they will be to provide it to people under whatever, you know, like justification they, they wanna give it to. And, and I, I personally, I, I think that it's more troubling in some regards to say, we're going to give it to law enforcement without warrants than we would be to sell it to advertisers. Although I, I do think that selling it to advertisers and selling it to government entities is a massive problem too. But the fact that you have a, a very large company like Amazon, but you could say the same thing for Google. You could say it from Microsoft, you

Leo Laporte (00:18:10):
Could, yeah. Google does, by the way, the same thing,

Christina Warren (00:18:13):
100% you could say for meta, but the fact that they collect all this information about us and that, that it exists anywhere, where it is, regardless of what they say, there's a way that they can have it tied to an individual identity, and that can be tied to a person. I think that should cause us to have concerns, even if we are resigned as, as I basically am that like privacy in a lot of regards instead, I still think that we should have concerns and should be asking questions about why does all this information need to exist? And why does it all have to be tied and controlled by these very large companies that, that are acting as data brokers, but not always having to take the same responsibility that, that other, you know, data brokers might.

Leo Laporte (00:18:52):
Well, if you think about it, if you wanted to build a Orwellian surveillance state, you would do all of this,

Christina Warren (00:18:59):
Right?

Leo Laporte (00:19:00):
So in a way, what you've, what what's happened is private corporations have done, have done it for the government and it's all it's missing is the government saying, okay, fine, great. We'll take it from here. The, the requests that go to ring and Google for their camera footage are what's called emergency requests. That most of the time you do need a warrant. But if somebody, if it's, if it's something that is a time sensitive, you know, you know, somebody's getting murdered or something and, and there's, and there, we could stop it if we got the footage. So that's the theory. And I think no company, I don't think it's just Google and Amazon. I think no company wants to be the company that says, oh, we could have stopped that abduction if we had just given footage to the law enforcement when they asked for

Christina Warren (00:19:46):
It. Well, well, but, but there's also, it's, there are really life in death situations, then you can get judges and you can have warrants issued usually very quickly. So I, I don't buy that as an argument. I really

Leo Laporte (00:19:58):
Don't. Yeah. I mean the constitution, no, I'm sorry. There needs to be a warrant. I mean, that's,

Christina Warren (00:20:02):
I was, I was gonna say, I'm sorry, but like, as a, I think that this is a fourth amendment issue, fundamentally mm-hmm <affirmative> and I'm going to come down in favor of the fourth amendment over what other, like, what if are you wanna put for someplace? I, I just am, I'm going, I'm going to say, I think the fourth amendment is more important. And, and I, I also think that there are, there are things and clauses in place within the court system to get judges, to sign warrants almost immediately. I, I don't, I have a big problem with the fact that that companies are just willing to oblige, especially since when you look into these data situations, many of these circumstances aren't necessarily these life and death scenarios. So I don't know to me

Leo Laporte (00:20:36):
It well, and also there's been hacks, so, right. But right. You could pretend to be law enforcement and get this footage

Christina Warren (00:20:42):
Exactly. What's well, which, which, which that has happened, which is a big problem. And so, yeah, I, I just, just, again, I'm, I'm personally going to be more in favor of the fourth amendment versus whatever, you know, what if terrible scenario you have, but that's

Leo Laporte (00:20:54):
Me. No, I that's actually really an excellent point. You have a constitutional protection that it says you have to have a warrant to do that kind of stuff. And let's, yeah, let's make that possible. Let's, let's, let's at least go to a judge and say, Hey, we need this information. 

Georgia Dow (00:21:10):
Big problem though, when these large companies, they have all of this lobbying and oh, sure. Us as regular people, we really don't. We don't have the amount of protections that are in place. Companies do, cuz companies are now people. So they get the, all of the handouts that they get for being a big company and the lobbying and the amount of money. But also they get all the protections as a person. And yet, as people, us being all single, we really don't have much of a stake at being able to make huge changes and we're not protected. So I fully agree with you, Christina, that we really need to make sure that protections are in place because there isn't transparency. There isn't any accountability, if anything happens wrong. And it's pretty much just like, oh, well, another breach, sorry, your information is out there. Hope nothing bad happens. And that's it. And then their hands are washed of it. And then they go on and it happens. So often we become complacent to it. We just become like, oh, that's just life now. And we

Leo Laporte (00:22:03):
Should the FTC block, this acquisition.

Georgia Dow (00:22:06):
I don't think that it's that big that they should block it. But I do think that they should make sure that they should have protections in place to be able to ensure that all of our information is shown. It's written in a way that's really easy to understand, because it's not, it's really filled with legalese. The priv, like no one reads privacy problem, unless you really have a lot of time on your hands. No, one's gonna read them because they're so difficult to read and they're terrifying.

Leo Laporte (00:22:30):
Well, and also we kind of assume, well, I have no privacy. They're gonna, regardless of what they say. And regardless of what I agree to, they're gonna take it. So I give up, I mean, I think most, most of us have just given up at this point a bra, you were saying that they should stop it.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:22:47):
Oh, sorry. No.

Leo Laporte (00:22:48):
Or those it's too small to stop.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:22:50):
Yeah. I, I don't think that they, that they

Leo Laporte (00:22:52):
Were stopping. They're not gonna weigh in this. Yeah, yeah, no, I don't. I don't. And, and also there's competition, there are other companies that do this it's not, it's not sewing up the market. So maybe there isn't an antitrust reason. It's really about privacy. I don't know if the FTC has, has a mandate to do that. And we know Le Kahn, their chair does, you know, she's she wants to, I'm sure <laugh>, but what, but she may not be able to. So what is our recourse? We just have to sit and, and take it or not buy a Roomba and not buy an by the way. Let's not forget. And again, I'm not convinced that Amazon's doing this out of any nefarious intent, but they have set up using ring doorbells and echo devices, a low power, low, low, raw network called sidewalk that is intended to cover the entire country every square inch. Because if you have an Amazon device, the chances are, you're already part of this network sharing a little tiny bit of your internet so that lost dogs can lost keys can be found. And, but that seems also to be a very big surveillance tool. I, I don't, I, I just it's, it's, it's, it's too much of a coincidence and I just wonder what they're up to.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:24:08):
I feel like there's also just no escape. Like there, there's no way to escape Amazon at this point. Like

Leo Laporte (00:24:12):
<Laugh> yeah, no, that's right.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:24:13):
You know, you're gonna buy a product or use a service in some capacity. And I, it really does feel rather helpless. I don't know what the answer is in terms of what to do, but it's, it's kind of daunting.

Leo Laporte (00:24:24):
Are we sleepwalk as mashed potato? Our cha room says, are we sleep walking into minority report?

Christina Warren (00:24:31):
We are so close already. We're so close. We really are. Yeah. Yeah.

Georgia Dow (00:24:37):
You I'm like, oh my God, every time I get eyeball scanned, I'm like, oh, oh no,

Leo Laporte (00:24:41):
Well, there, there's this story about the UK. They wanna, if, if you're a, and by the way, this is really sad. It's not just regular offenders. If you're a foreign offender in the UK you know, one of them immigrant types, they're gonna require migrants convicted of crimes to, to put on a watch that takes a picture of them five times a day and does face recognition make sure it's them and then sends a GPS so they can, in case they're up to no good, those oblige to where the devices will need to complete periodic monitoring checks throughout the day, by taking a photograph of themselves on the smart watch with information, including their names, data of birth nationality, photographs stored for up to six years, locations will be tracked 24 7 allowing trail monitoring data to be recorded. The UK is way ahead of us in this regard.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:25:35):
Can you imagine how exhausting that would be though as the person like, just like mentally and emotionally exhausting? I, I can't even, I, I don't understand what the reasoning is for someone taking a picture five times a day of themselves, but I, I just feel like, yeah, this, this can't be healthy at

Leo Laporte (00:25:53):
All. In some cases, these are asylum seekers coming to the UK because of political violence in their native land. And well, we don't wanna incarcerate you. So here where this watch check in five times a day and we're gonna track you. Unbelievable, unbelievable. It's gonna cost 6 million pounds. It'll start in the autumn across the UK. When I saw that, I, I thought this is very, this is Orwell. This is, this is 1984. This is holy moly.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:26:28):
I was trying to think like, do we think something like this would ever happen in the, like, if something like this came up in the us, like, what would the backlash be like? You know? Or would it be, would it be enough? I don't

Leo Laporte (00:26:37):
Know. I hope to, I hope that it would, I hope it could be couldn't happen, right?

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:26:41):
Yeah, no,

Georgia Dow (00:26:41):
I would hope something you see, it can can, because they, we end up doing this thing of like us and them they'll do it to a, them. We try to that's

Leo Laporte (00:26:49):
Right. Separate people do it to migrants.

Georgia Dow (00:26:51):
That's right. With a other. And because it's an other, and it's not us people say, okay. And so you give up a little bit of your rights for your safety, which is the fastest way. Yep. To make someone give up their rights. And then after we're comfortable with it happening to them, it happens to just it's

Georgia Dow (00:27:06):
Bad people. Right. Mm-hmm <affirmative>, it's just them. And then it just happens to people that have like sense, offended, whatever, done, something that's wrong. And then slowly it becomes just mainstay. And so it's not something that's gonna happen right away. And it becomes like, oh, but child predators, like they put it onto something. That's really hard to be able to say, no, we shouldn't go with this because then you become a horrible person that's on the side of predators or, you know, abusers. And then it's just this insidious sliding over of our rights. And unfortunately, I would love to say that I'm not, I'm just wearing like a aluminum hat right now. And this isn't something that happens, but this is exactly the psychology of what happens when governments want to grab more power. They find something to make us afraid. And because we're afraid we give up our rights faster than anything else, because it works on that limbic primal part of our brain, that safety is more important. And we're at danger though. We've never been safer. The amount of crime in the world in, again, first, you know, world countries has gone starkly down from the seventies yet we are starkly more afraid than we've ever been.

Christina Warren (00:28:14):
Right. No, you're exactly right. I, and I think everything you said is dead on the other thing I would say though, is that what I think what would happen in, in the us in addition to kind of this like you know, like a small slide of starting with one group and, and then slowly expanding to others be, and, and then it becomes mainstay is that we will just corporatize it, which we've already done. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> where, where, where it'll be part of a private company doing these things, and then it becomes kind of the norm, and then it becomes part of a government programs. Like I'm, I'm part of clear, which, which is like a, a way where you can get through, you know, like the airport faster. Yeah. They

Leo Laporte (00:28:47):
Do. Iris Iris

Christina Warren (00:28:48):
Scans. Yeah. They, they, they do Iris scanning. I also have like TSA, precheck and global entry and all that stuff, but clear partners with Delta who's the airline that I primarily fly with, where if you are wanting to, you know, go to certain countries, they will have like Iris scanning in lieu of, of checking, you know, your passport before you, you board the flight. And, and this is just becoming a commonplace thing, and these are becoming adopted. Like these, these private technologies are becoming embedded into systems that governments interface with. And so I can see this sort of thing happening where okay, just starts with, with one sort of thing that is operating as a private entity. And then once there's acceptance there, then those private entities now suddenly have partnerships with, with the government. And suddenly that's another way of expanding things too, in a way that is much more palatable to people in the United States where we're all about, you know, kind of like, like, like freedom.

Christina Warren (00:29:41):
And, and we have like a, a, a very different kind of worldview, you know, shaped by our founders about how we feel about people, encroaching on civil liberties. But one of the exceptions has always been okay, but if a private company is doing it, then that's a little bit different because I've chosen to opt into this. And, and, and I think that that's one way you kind of get around that is you start with the private companies who all of a sudden are, are partnering with the government entities. And, and then the, the line between the two is, is nonexistent.

Leo Laporte (00:30:07):
If Disney, if Walt Disney said could go, you could jump the line. If you wear this, watch that checks it, you check in at five

Christina Warren (00:30:13):
And, and they do. And they,

Leo Laporte (00:30:15):
We would all do

Georgia Dow (00:30:16):
All

Christina Warren (00:30:16):
The magic pass. It's called the magic wand thing. That's literally what, what it is,

Georgia Dow (00:30:19):
This is racks everywhere. You will everything. And if you're not at Disney,

Leo Laporte (00:30:24):
Yes, it all starts with Disney. Doesn't it? <Laugh>

Georgia Dow (00:30:27):
Copyright. Let's do it.

Leo Laporte (00:30:29):
Let's just do it. Hey, but Hey, but get ready. Cuz the Mickey mouse copyright there's, there's no sunny bono to extend copyright law. Mickey mouse is going outta copyright soon. That's gonna be our again.

Georgia Dow (00:30:41):
Oh, oh, they'll throw gazillion dollars. They'll suddenly you

Leo Laporte (00:30:45):
Think they'll get it. They'll find somebody to,

Georgia Dow (00:30:46):
Yes. They'll what are you kidding? I'm for like, like how quickly do people fold? I'm sorry, like, you know, you throw a billion dollars. I'll be like, yeah. You know what? I'm throwing my vote in. Like it's, it's

Leo Laporte (00:30:57):
Just so for people don't know numbers, Mickey mouse, which was created in 1928 by stealing from other people. We won't, we won't mention that part has never gone outta copyright because every time the copyright term is about to expire, Disney goes to Congress for sunny bono was for a long time and, and they would just extend the copyright law. But, but they've got apparently got nobody to do it. So Mickey's gonna be public domain in 2024, but you think they'll find somebody whoop October 1st, 20, 24. We'll be back here. Watch. We'll see. We'll have a party. We'll we'll we'll do

Georgia Dow (00:31:34):
So Disney party.

Leo Laporte (00:31:35):
We'll we'll all dress like Mickey mouse.

Georgia Dow (00:31:37):
We'll watch get canceled. We'll

Leo Laporte (00:31:39):
Watch. Yeah. You don't really need copyright to to, to, to knock us off the air. You could probably find other one

Georgia Dow (00:31:45):
Come, they go after daycares.

Leo Laporte (00:31:46):
I know mm-hmm <affirmative>

Georgia Dow (00:31:47):
I know, like I know they have to protect their copyright and if they show that they're not protecting it, but like daycares I'm like, oh, like really

Leo Laporte (00:31:55):
Apparently Disney says the original rat, like iteration of Mickey will go public domain, but we retain copyright on subsequent variations. So the, you know, the Mickey that you see today is probably gonna continue to be protected, but we can all have rat like Mickey mouse cos

Christina Warren (00:32:14):
Yeah. It, it, it's probably gonna be similar to like how the winning the poo situation is now because winning the POH is now and public domain. But obviously the, the modern design, you know, from like the fifties or sixties onward that most people associate with one of the P that is still under copyright, but people can draw variations of the AA mill character and can also put it into horrific situations. Like there's a horror film that's coming out. Oh, in, in, in October with winning the it's awful. Don't

Leo Laporte (00:32:42):
Truly awful to Winnie the

Christina Warren (00:32:43):
Who. Thank you. It it's like I'm, I'm a huge like fan of, of like, you know fixing the copyright system and then something like this happens and I go, this is why we can't have nice things because this goes into public domain and instantly you wanna do some horror core, like one of the P stuff, which is just,

Leo Laporte (00:32:59):
Although not, I did laugh, our sponsor mint, mobile Ryan Reynolds owns it. You just see the ad where he reads a a children's book called Winnie the screwed about a bear with a phone bill that was through the roof. <Laugh> okay. It feels

Christina Warren (00:33:12):
Funny. It was

Leo Laporte (00:33:13):
Funny. Maybe not, you know, appropriate, but <laugh> you can't, you can't help but laugh. Wow. That's we'll have to watch Disney remember is not as favorite as it used to be. Right. they used to get all sorts of in Florida. Remember they, they made that social media bill, but it didn't apply to anybody who owns amusement parks. <Laugh> right. Josh Holly is now going after Disney because they're, you know, they're too woke. So maybe maybe Disney doesn't have the the votes. I don't know, be we'll watch this with interest. Let's take a little break. We're gonna come back with more great panel today. I am thrilled to get you a bra alti. You've been great on te news weekly. And they said, Jason and Mike said, why don't you have a bra on the show? I said, yes, let's do it. We've seen it. Video host and producer. Her blind is still a little bit bent, but that's okay. We're not, we're not gonna hold that against you. We're not, we're not, we're not. No, no. Just ignore it. Yeah. Nothing here to see. Can't can't stop. I can't

Leo Laporte (00:34:18):
Also with this, she of the left shoe only Christina Warren <laugh> senior developer advocate. I'm just teasing. You know, I am at GitHub. I know. And there's absolutely nothing wrong with Georgia do. She is perfectly symmetrical. Thank you. Thank you, Georgia. All three of you. Great to ha great to have you here. Lots more to talk about. I show though today brought to you by blue land. We really are happy. I got, I, we, Lisa is my wife is on a crusade against single-use plastics, cuz she likes turtles and whales. And she doesn't like seeing all this plastic in the ocean. She does these seem plastics now in our bloodstreams. So she we've gotten rid of plastic in almost every aspect of our life. This is the latest and I love it. It's called blue land. Did you know that an estimated 5 billion plastic hand soap and cleaning bottles end up in landfill every year.

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Leo Laporte (00:38:30):
Blueland.Com/TWiT B L U E L a ND blueland.com/TWiTt. Thank you Blueland and of course we thank you, dear TWiTt listener for going to that special address, that way we get credit for it. Blueland.Com/Twit. we've been using these for a year now. I just love our Blueland stuff. Blueland.Com/Twitt. And they keep track of when you're gonna run out, they send you a little text message. You want some more? And I said, yes, it's great. Blueland.Com/TWiT O oh, Tesla might be in trouble. The department of motor vehicles in our fine state of California is accusing Tesla of falsely advertising autopilot, pilot. It's about time. It is not an autopilot it's driver assist. Tesla loves you to think that, you know, it's a self-driving vehicle but DMV says that's false advertising. You misled consumers claiming and advertisements that vehicles equipped with autopilot and full self-driving we're autonomous. They have complained to the state's office of administrative hearings and the potential risk for Tesla is the license to make and sell vehicles in California. They do both could be suspended or revoked. Wow. no response from Elon. I'm surprised he hasn't tweeted about this. He tweets about everything else. <Laugh> what do you think is this fair?

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:40:02):
I think it's important to raise this concern just because you know, there have been accidents and there have been deaths. And I think you know, I think sometimes people might that that term autopilot can be incredibly misleading or, or saying that something is, is fully self-driving when it's not, I mean, I have friends who have Teslas and maybe get a little too comfortable when they do turn on autopilot. That's the problem. And so <laugh> yeah. So, you know, they'll be like completely on their phones the whole time, or like working. It's just absolutely reckless. But but I think it is fair to bring this up as, as a concern. And it'll be interesting to see how this plays out. And if Elon weighs in, I'd be surprised if he didn't at some point

Leo Laporte (00:40:46):
National highway transfer traffic safety administration NITSA has been investigating all this. In fact, there were two crashes last month in which Tesla's collided with motorcycles on freeways in the dark, both were fatal. I'm sorry to say. And the concern is that maybe the Teslas didn't even see them, you know, that they couldn't. One was in Riverside, California. There's another Draper, Utah, middle of the night. And of course, one of the things Tesla does, which I think is a little slimy is and, and, and nits wants this information. They, they will turn off autopilot right before the crash, and then they can say, oh, autopilot wasn't involved. It was off when the, when the accident happened. That's one of the one of the things nit has been saying, yikes. I, I, you know, I had a Tesla loved my Tesla.

Leo Laporte (00:41:41):
I don't have a Tesla now, but even when I had a Tesla with autopilot, I wa I was vigilant <laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative>. And there were times when the thing would start to veer off to the, you know, to the shoulder or even into a barrier. There were times when I, you know, I had lane merging where you'd signal and it would go into the next lane automatically and it would do it. And it was really close to a car behind me. And I was like, stop mm-hmm <affirmative> you just don't wanna fully trust it. So advertising that it is full self-driving is yeah. Maybe you shouldn't.

Georgia Dow (00:42:13):
Yeah. And it's words matter. People, people will hear, you know, autopilot and think that they can do their crossword puzzle while they're driving. Yeah. Go to sleep, take a nap, turn around, like already, like, unfortunately, like you, you want to think that we're like a higher formed organism and we, we think all these things, but you to videos, people getting out of their car and dancing while the car is driving and they're actually doing it. It's not that someone's actually taken over driving, which is what happens in most of the videos, but, you know, or they're on the roof of the car D like, no, you probably should be driving it's you're you're it's thousand, like, you know, hundreds of pounds of, of steel probably, or, you know, aluminum, and, you know, it's just a dangerous thing to be able to do. But when you say autopilot, people will believe that because we're not as evolved as we think we are. And then we'll do things that we shouldn't do, thinking that the car will take over. And even if it does a lot of the time, that means that there's a whole bunch of times when it won't. So,

Leo Laporte (00:43:10):
But on the other hand, we are humans are terrible drivers. I mean, sure. Tesla's ran in two motorcycles in the last month. How many motorcycles have been killed by humans driving, you know, a hundred percent we're terrible drivers. Yeah. So

Georgia Dow (00:43:24):
We're, we're terrible at lots of things.

Leo Laporte (00:43:26):
That's one of the questions is, okay, admittedly, Tesla's self-driving is not perfect, but is it better than a human, a unknown? And that's what we gotta

Georgia Dow (00:43:35):
Investigate though. Right? Like as long as if they said it was an assist, instead of it was self-driving, that's true. If it's self driving, we think that the car is self-driving hence the word self and driving, but if it said just driver assist, then it was like, it's there to help you. It's like cruise control. Right. If they said something that was more similar to that, we're like, okay, we still have to pay attention. It's gonna be keeping the same, a certain distance, but we have to pay attention because it doesn't deal with every single situation

Leo Laporte (00:44:02):
Tesla has till Friday to respond, but one of their responses could be, what's just marketing guys. Come on.

Georgia Dow (00:44:08):
That is probably what they will say. Yeah.

Christina Warren (00:44:10):
That is probably what they'll say. I don't know how well that works though, because to your point, like, you know, marketing words have meaning and, and they clearly chose autopilot because they want to push things to be being fully self-driven like that, that, that, that that's in Tesla's best interest. That's where they wanna push the, the technology. And I I've said this many times over the years on this show and another, I mean, I think that the biggest thing that's going to hold us up on, on self-driving is actually the regulatory aspects more than the technology itself. But with putting that aside, you know, it, it's not a, a fully, you know, self-driving thing, but people still treat it that way. And I, a big part of that is the name autopilot. So no matter what they're doing, like they are in inherently the way they promote this feature you know, kind of letting people know, oh, you, you can actually treat this as, as if it's a fully autonomous driving solution when, and that's not the case. And, and so I don't know how well that, or I'm sure that's the argument they'll make, but I don't know if that argument actually, you know, changes reality, because if you're advertising something that as being one thing, you can't be angry when people actually use it the way you're advertising it.

Leo Laporte (00:45:20):
Well, one thing te Tesla will be celebrating is the return of the tax credit. About five hours ago, the Senate passed that sweeping 430 billion bill, which fights inflation flights, climate change, lowers drug prices and restores the tax credit. In some circumstances for electric vehicles, Tesla, GM had already sold more than 200,000 vehicles. That was the cap. So they lost that $7,500 tax credit. If this, if this bill passes through the house intact and the, and then is signed by the president that that credit will be coming back to promote EV sales, by the way, you also get a $4,000 credit on used electric vehicles, which is good, I think is, do we still need though, to subsidize EVs?

Christina Warren (00:46:17):
Yeah, I think so.

Leo Laporte (00:46:19):
People are still reluctant. It's a little more expensive. You're paying for the battery.

Christina Warren (00:46:23):
You are, and, and also it's been difficult for people to get cars in general, I think at this point. So I think especially the used thing, you know, I mean, just because there there's been such a, kind of a, a a shortage in, in certain areas, you know, for people getting cars, people are on wait lists and things like that. I think anything you can do to encourage people to adopt more EVs and, and to get more in the ecosystem is good. I, I, I'm actually a bigger fan of the, the credit for the, for the used EV sales than even like the, the first time thing. I think that's a really good thing to, you know, encourage people who might not have the, the money or, or the inclination to buy a new car to at least, okay. If I'm buying something used, I can still benefit from this credit. I'm I I'm a fan of this personally.

Leo Laporte (00:47:03):
Yeah. it looks like there will be some income caps and there'll be caps on the expense of the vehicle. It's not clear cuz this was, you know, this kind of went back and forth for a while. But it, but it is at least some tax credit. And I guess when the smoke clears we'll know exactly what the the details are. But that's a, also that that builds a big deal for climate change. It's bill gates last Sunday in the New York times wrote a an opinion piece saying we're on the verge of a remarkable moment for Congress in the country asking the Senate to pass this bill, the inflation reduction act of 2022. He said it might be the single most important piece of climate legislation in American history because of the subsidies for alternative energy.

Leo Laporte (00:47:58):
He says many of the technologies will need to reach net zero emissions don't exist or are in early stage of development are still too expensive to scale up without new and expanded tax credits, government support. Many of these technologies won't be developed. The incentives, provide the private sector with the confidence to invest for the long term. So I guess Mr. Gates must be happy today 27 hour session, including the voter Ramma that happened overnight as, as different amendments and modifications were proposed. Most of them voted down. So good. I think good news. I'm I'm willing to say good news. I know that's a little partisan, but I'm in favor, clean energy. Yeah.

Georgia Dow (00:48:49):
And the drug costs.

Leo Laporte (00:48:51):
Yeah. That's the there's other benefits. Non-Tech benefits. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Although this doesn't affect you cuz you're in Canada where drugs are free. Right. And, and

Georgia Dow (00:49:00):
They, they, they not only are, they, they they're subsidized, like the government will cover the cost of, of drugs so that they're free for you. So, but it's, it's just a lot of my clients are American and they can't afford their medication

Leo Laporte (00:49:13):
Insulin in particular different. Yeah. Yeah. That actually there was a proposed insulin cap on private insurers that, that did not make it through, but the $35 a month cap for Medicare patients did make it through. But the private health insurance market is not capped on insulin costs. This has been a big problem. I thinks he's

Georgia Dow (00:49:33):
A huge problem. It's a, it's, it's such a horrible thing when he, insulin

Leo Laporte (00:49:36):
Is not an optional drug, you need, you have it to save. Life's

Georgia Dow (00:49:40):
Not a horrific thing to think that people are choosing to eat or to choose to have their medication. It's really scary. And like, this is where some, you know, billionaires are actually doing some good, like mark Cuban started his drug company where he's you know, giving to a little bit over cost for. I think it's like was 200 different drugs. And like that's something where we can, you know, get behind and be able to say, you know what, we could, we can do this better because really if we're not taking care of people, then what does any of this matter think it's called cost plus

Leo Laporte (00:50:14):
Cost plus. Yeah. I, you know, I'm not a huge mark Cuban fan, but I feel like he's just a very lucky fellow who you know was able to convince AOL to buy broadcast.com for a billion dollars. But in this case, yeah, maybe I don't know is, I don't know anything about it. I've, I've read about it. It's a public benefit corporation, which means that, you know, they, they, it's not a for profit operation and they're selling drugs at just slightly over cost just to cover the costs. He says I could make a fortune from this, but I won't, I've got enough money. I'd rather F up the drug industry in every possible way. I think, you know what, now I'm a mark Cuban fan. <Laugh> that's an, it's an interesting an interesting idea. Anyway, boy, I'd love to see more billionaires F up other industries like this.

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:51:09):
Right, right. That's what they're, that's, that's what they should be doing.

Leo Laporte (00:51:13):
Yeah. Right. Yeah. <Laugh> yeah. I suppose that means we should talk about Elon. Let's see, what are the, I think I usually bury these oh yeah. Here's, here's my Elon story for the week. As you know TWiTtter suing Elon Musk saying you got, you said you'd pay 44 billion for us 54 20 a share. You, you agree to that you better do it. They've gone to the Delaware Chancery court. The trial starts October 17th, Elon countered sued saying a lot of I, in my opinion, kind of ridiculous things. Now, Elon is challenging. Paraag agro wall, the CEO of TWiTtter to a public debate about bots. Sure. Elon, that's a great idea. <Laugh>

Georgia Dow (00:51:58):
Let's just have, it's more interesting if it was a boxing match, but okay.

Leo Laporte (00:52:01):
Yeah. It's it might as well be, might as well be. It's just hilarious,

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:52:06):
But he's holding argument so strongly <laugh>,

Leo Laporte (00:52:11):
It's a little Trumpian in his ACY isn't it. And of course

Georgia Dow (00:52:17):
Wet have a legal standing. If he's like, let's debate this in the, the court of public appeal. <Laugh> why would he do that? If he has any right legal standing?

Leo Laporte (00:52:26):
Here's his here's a tweet and Elon has really been litigating this via TWiTtter. I hereby challenge PAGA to a public debate about the TWiTtter bot percentage. Let him prove to the public. The TWiTtter has less than 5% faker, spam daily users.

Christina Warren (00:52:44):
Oh dude, it's called. That's what the lawsuit's gonna be about. Like, honestly, like the courts are going to decide some of this stuff they sure are. Why does he have to, why? Why is he, why does he have to debate you? This is the, I mean like, honestly, are you gonna, everyone knows that Prague is not gonna be the CEO of TWiTtter very much longer, whether Alan has forced to buy it or it goes into something else like Prague is, is, is gone. So I don't even know why you care. Like the, the, the lawyers are going to figure this out, dude. Like not, not, not some sort of public debate on a, on, on TWiTtter spaces, as entertaining as that would be for all of us.

Leo Laporte (00:53:16):
You really kinda wonder what is, what is going through Elon's head. Sometimes you really just like is, you know, it's just for fun, he's

Georgia Dow (00:53:23):
Fallen. So he's, he, he can't help himself. Like, you know, there's some people that every once in a while, you should just put away the phone, like, like my rule is like, if you're really upset or, you know, passionate about something or angry, you probably shouldn't tweet, you shouldn't call. You shouldn't talk to anyone until you've kind of calmed down. But the problem is when you're so powerful, who's gonna take away your phone. But sometimes Elon comes out like, like, you know, one of these like, like mustache TWiTrling gonna grab his glove and just, you know, <laugh> like, you have offended me. So let us 12 paces, please. You

Leo Laporte (00:53:59):
Know, my name is Elon Musk. You killed my TWiTtter prepared to die. <Laugh>

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:54:07):
Yeah. Well, and it feels very much like, I think a lot of people were accusing him of just making up excuses as to why he wanted to back out and saying that he probably didn't have the money that he thought he would to, to be able to afford it. And it kind of just feels like he's not ready to go down without a fight in terms of being like, no, this is really the reason why, like, this is really why I'm. So, you know, trying to back out of this, I don't know. That's just the impression I get.

Leo Laporte (00:54:30):
He's also had to admit that the cyber truck, which is missing in action will end up costing more than he said, they were talking about a $40,000 price tag, which even now, I mean, there really doesn't seem quite right to begin with. He has now said the, the pricing, which was unveiled in 2019 and the reservation was $99. A lot has changed since then. So the specs and pricing will be different. I hate to give sort of a little bit of bad news, but I think there's no way to sort of have there's a lot of sort OFS in here. It's a sort of have anticipated quite the inflation that we've seen it's inflation's fault and the various issues that's it it's inflation, but he still says good news. The cyber truck will be one hell of a product and a damn fine machine. <Laugh> you could say stuff like that. That's legal. It's okay. That's that's, that's just marketing, right? <Laugh> still targeting mid 20, 23 for the start of production. And they'll be making it at the Gigafactory in Texas. If you're a, if you're a reservation holder for the giga truck, it just, I think if you drove that thing around, that's the one that really looks like you're the Terminator people would look a scant at you, would they not?

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:55:54):
Oh, absolutely. They should. Oh

Leo Laporte (00:55:55):
Yeah, they should.

Georgia Dow (00:55:56):
<Laugh> yes, they

Leo Laporte (00:55:57):
Actually should. AOR says, then they'd be right. <Laugh> yes.

Georgia Dow (00:56:02):
It's

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:56:02):
Not judgment. It's just fact

Leo Laporte (00:56:04):
That point. There's no judgment. You just are a jerk, sir, in your jerky car. All right. Little, little break time. We will continue on in moments with our fabulous panel. What are you working on? Right now? AARA has you got anything in the, ah, hopper

Abrar Al-Heeti (00:56:24):
I'm ready for Samsung unpack next week. So next week we'll be busy. So stay tuned. Yes.

Leo Laporte (00:56:30):
Okay. We're gonna talk about that when come back, actually let's yeah, this is we're getting to the season. Aren't we next? Month's apple probably with a lot of announcements as always in September. Samsung likes to eclipse that a little bit. I imagine now last year, Google waited till after apple year, before Google did it before apple. We'll see what Google does they have that pixel watch coming in the pixel seven, I guess is what it is. And then, yeah, we'll talk about folding phones. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> which we expect to see just a little bit Christina Warren, senior dev advocate at GitHub. How are things at GitHub? You you've been there now for a couple of months? Yeah.

Christina Warren (00:57:11):
Yeah. I've been there like, like four months now. It's awesome. Yeah, I know. I know. Yeah. Time, time is flown by and it's great. Having a good time. Github universe is going to be in San Francisco in November. Oh, good. Excited about

Leo Laporte (00:57:26):
That. Maybe we'll see you. That would be

Christina Warren (00:57:27):
Great. Yeah, actually that would be amazing. I I'll, I'll have to see you when I'm coming into town, but that would be great if that's, if that's

Leo Laporte (00:57:34):
Possible, if we could drag you down or up.

Christina Warren (00:57:36):
I, I mean, I, I, I, I, exactly, I was gonna say, I would love to love to come up and visit.

Leo Laporte (00:57:40):
That would be so much fun. And of course, Georgia Dow, I've got all the videos, Georgia, so I am no longer anxious. I am I am no longer. I am calm. I have what is this session four, no more anxiety. Here's parenting. That's too late for me. That ship is sailed. I'm sorry. I wish, I wish you'd put these videos out earlier. Boundaries and consequences. I'm hopeless on that one. Ah, get the sleep. You've always look at that baby. Snoopy. Get the sleep you've always dreamed of and how to get outta depression. Are you gonna do more of these videos? I love these.

Georgia Dow (00:58:20):
No, we might do something a little bit different. We will see. We might, we may continue with the series. We'll we'll have to kind of take a look.

Leo Laporte (00:58:27):
We'll see. See how, if everybody runs to anxiety, dash videos.com and buys them, then maybe there'll be more. How about that? Maybe? Yeah. The market is speaking as we speak Georgia do and, and there's

Georgia Dow (00:58:40):
A lot of anxiety out

Leo Laporte (00:58:42):
Then. Oh God, this, you couldn't have timed it better, right? Yeah. You what, actually I'm curious. I've one of the things I've Lisa and I both have noticed this. We've now gone to, we just, there was a music festival in Petaluma yesterday. We went somewhere else in the public the day before I have this theory that somehow over the two years of COVID where we were all just staying home. We all got de socialized and we no longer know that other people exist. There's this? I don't know if it's maybe it's different in Canada. I don't know. There's this sense. It was, people are wandering around. They're not even aware. You know, people just jump in front of you. Oh, you went to the county fair and people just walk up in the middle of the line and now I'm in line. Like no one else exists. Is it possible that you forgot because of COVID being,

Georgia Dow (00:59:28):
Being with people is a skill, right? Yeah. And so that's why a lot of those personal interpersonal skills, the, the newer generations are having much more difficulty. There's much more social anxiety because they're doing a lot of interaction through a computer screen, right. Or just by text and learning how to read body image and body. Language is really difficult if you're not socialized to do it, we used to be so bored. We'd wanna hang around with each other. And now we're like, so such an antithesis, like stay away,

Leo Laporte (00:59:59):
Stay away from me. Don't touch me. People

Georgia Dow (01:00:01):
Are, are an illness. So we're like really stay away.

Leo Laporte (01:00:04):
And yeah. People equal of

Georgia Dow (01:00:06):
Those skills. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:00:07):
Yes. Don't go to a movie theater cuz it's full of teenagers who <laugh> have completely forgotten there's anybody else in the world and they're making a mess. They're talking, they're throwing popcorn around. It's like they're at home.

Georgia Dow (01:00:21):
Yeah. It's, it's a very, it's a very strange thing. But then I watch videos that are like movies from like, I don't know, whatever. Seven years ago, 10 years ago. And it's like a, a rape scene and everyone's spitting and yelling at each other and I'm like, that's gross. You just see right.

Leo Laporte (01:00:36):
Spit.

Georgia Dow (01:00:36):
It's not,

Leo Laporte (01:00:37):
Didn't even know. Oh my God, what's wrong with us? We're look how close he's standing. Oh man. <Laugh> it's that funny?

Georgia Dow (01:00:45):
I I know.

Leo Laporte (01:00:46):
Is that hysterical? Yeah.

Georgia Dow (01:00:48):
Oh, there, there are all of these weird changes in society that we have to adapt to. But if you don't do something, you lose the skill and socialization is another the skills that

Leo Laporte (01:00:57):
Have you gotten, have you gotten COVID yet or you still a unified?

Georgia Dow (01:01:01):
I have not yet gotten COVID as of yet.

Leo Laporte (01:01:04):
It's how about you

Georgia Dow (01:01:06):
Or I didn't know.

Leo Laporte (01:01:07):
Have you, I didn't know. Have you been able to Dodge?

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:01:09):
I have not been able to Dodge. I had a few months ago, but it was actually great cuz it was like, yeah. It's like a free booster. Yeah. You know,

Leo Laporte (01:01:15):
Now that I survived, I didn't die. Yeah. Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:01:18):
That's great. Exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:01:19):
I'm going, oh good. Now I got a little extra, I,

Georgia Dow (01:01:21):
You get a week off to be able to just chill and relax and everyone has to serve you. There are some benefits.

Leo Laporte (01:01:26):
Yeah. And it was very mild. I, I mean, I'm lucky Lisa did not get it as mildly. She still got aches and pains and cognitive fog and so forth. But that sucks relatively mild. I mean, we didn't have to get on it going on a ventilator. And I feel like, I don't know, on the one hand it was like, oh we had this two years of absolute insane. Like washing our hands five times a day for twenties. Yeah. Singing happy birthday over and over. And it's like, and then now it's like, ah, I don't care now. I don't care anymore. <Laugh> it's

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:02:00):
Like, yeah, it's over. I think we've realize we're not gonna die. Well, hopefully, hopefully like, so we're like, okay. You know, I might feel down for a bit. But it's not life

Leo Laporte (01:02:08):
Or death. It's like, well, like a cold. It's not as bad as a flu at least. How about you, Christina? Have you managed to Dodge it or? 

Christina Warren (01:02:13):
No, I had it in in

Georgia Dow (01:02:15):
December.

Leo Laporte (01:02:15):
I think I remember that.

Christina Warren (01:02:16):
Yeah. I got the Omicron kind of the same as everybody else, so yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:02:20):
I'm sure we got, cuz we got it in two weeks ago on that cruise. I'm sure we got BA five. The latest. So I feel like, yeah I'm

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:02:27):
You're so trendy. I'm trendy.

Christina Warren (01:02:28):
You got the latest. I was gonna say you got the latest thing. Cause I, because I still only have the one booster because you know, that's what they've been like encouraging people to do. And now they're like, now they're like, well don't get the second booster, you know, because we're waiting

Leo Laporte (01:02:38):
For wait

Christina Warren (01:02:39):
Till September new vaccines. And I'm like, okay, fine. Whatever. Just, just tell me what shot I need to get and I'll get it. It's fine.

Leo Laporte (01:02:45):
So, and with all of that and then all that size of relief, it is still very dangerous. There are a lot of people who have immune compromised or they're older or whatever. And, and so absolutely I'm still wearing the mask and very careful, I don't want to get anybody sick, but I don't. I feel like some of the pressure is off me. Like mm-hmm <affirmative> right. It's like, alright, okay. Yeah.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:03:06):
And I feel we like really bad for the people who lost sense of taste and smell that, that I feel like I would not have able to tolerate

Leo Laporte (01:03:12):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Lisa well, you know, it's really bad about that. When it comes back, somebody's telling me this is an evolutionary thing to protect you. The disgusting tastes and smell come back first so that you won't eat bad food and bad stuff. Yeah. So everything tastes horrible. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> for a while. And Lisa's at that stage where, oh, that's horrible. Oh, I know she's

Georgia Dow (01:03:36):
Going to a restaurant.

Leo Laporte (01:03:37):
Oh my God. Forget that. She kissed me. And she went, Ooh. So, so forget that. It's not good. Yeah. So anyway,

Georgia Dow (01:03:47):
So, oh, sorry.

Leo Laporte (01:03:48):
I know she said, what are you eating? I said, no, I'm fine. She said, oh, you smell bad.

Georgia Dow (01:03:54):
Okay. She's like, no, you're not. You're like, oh

Leo Laporte (01:03:56):
No. Oh no, never thought that would happen. Anyway. Yes. Be careful. I'm not advocating in any way, letting your guard down. That's clearly still a problem we don't in public, but at the same time, you know, kind of like the pressure's off a little bit anyway, a little bit, and I'm glad you all are here and survived. Let's put it that way. And Georgia, good luck in keeping your super, what do they call you? A what is it? Dodger? Super, super Dodger. You're a super Dodger.

Georgia Dow (01:04:25):
So far, so far. Super Dodger you had like, you know,

Leo Laporte (01:04:28):
Do you never go anywhere outside, but you got kids in school, right?

Georgia Dow (01:04:32):
We just came back from Florida, so, oh

Leo Laporte (01:04:35):
Well stay away

Georgia Dow (01:04:36):
From that. You know, went to universal, went to Disney. I know what

Leo Laporte (01:04:39):
And you didn't catch anything. Yeah.

Georgia Dow (01:04:41):
Wow. No, but we did wear our masks at Disney. Yeah. I know. Not the coolest of look, but 

Leo Laporte (01:04:47):
No, no, no. I'm wearing mine. In fact.

Georgia Dow (01:04:50):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:04:51):
I was told I couldn't get on the plane with this. I'm wearing a respirator now. Not just cuz now I really now I like, obviously I need, we have them too. I needed better masks and these don't wear out as fast. So, but you also, you look like Bain. You,

Georgia Dow (01:05:08):
It makes awesome. I have to say actually, no, you look really cool. I'm like, I'm sorry. Like

Leo Laporte (01:05:13):
You look like a fighter pilot. It looks really cool. Like I like it. Call me Maverick. Yeah. <Laugh> good movie. <Laugh> all right. Anyway please. Everybody. We don't wanna lose anybody. Stay safe. Protect yourself. We're we'll get through this. We'll get through this someday. Somehow our show today brought to you by, I have to say one of the, one of the really interesting changes in society, thanks to COVID and quarantine is we've gotten really used to text messages, communicating via text, getting a text, your food's on the way or getting a text. You could pick up your groceries now and, and you know, it's the best way to, to do business. It is better than email, better than phone calls, better than anything. If you own a small business and you've survived the last couple of years. And I know they've been hard, not just supply chain issues demand you didn't expect, and you've gotta, you know, they're all that stuff.

Leo Laporte (01:06:07):
Businesses that thrive right now are the ones who, you know, in recession, you gotta plan for growth. This is an opportunity. And the businesses who are planning for that are doing are thriving. Podium helps your small business stay ahead of the curve with modern messaging tools. That's kind of remarkable. We have a few businesses in our small town that use podium and I love it. For instance, I leave the dentists office before I am two steps away. I get a text saying, how was our service? Leave a review for us on Yelp or, or Google business? It's amazing. Every once in a while. And I don't like this when I mentioned it before I get a text message from our local ice cream parlor saying we haven't seen you in a while. Here's a 20% coupon. Well, thanks. Now I gotta go get ice cream.

Leo Laporte (01:06:53):
It works. And if you are a business, a plumber, a landscaper playing phone tag with potential customers, people hate calling. They don't like to do that. They'd rather send you a message and you can message back and you don't play that phone tag. It's the best way to stay in touch with you. If you're running a business. And the only way they get in touch with you is with a phone number you're gonna be losing business podium gives businesses the tools to compete with the convenience offered by big businesses like Amazon now, right from healthcare providers to plumbers, over a hundred thousand businesses are texting with customers through podium P O D I U M. Customers love the convenience and business loves the results. One car dealer, solar $50,000 truck. And for text messages, that's happening more and more, right? You get text message.

Leo Laporte (01:07:42):
Hey, we got, we got a great deal right now on a Ford lightning come on in and you, and you can sell it right away. A jeweler sold a $5,000 ring, coordinated, curbside pickups, the whole thing, the whole transaction through texts. You can also collect with podium. People can pay you through podium. A dentist sent payment requests through texts instead of bills in the mail got 70% of their outstanding collections in just two weeks. Cuz it's easy. It's low friction. Oh yeah. Okay. Here, let me send you the money with podiums. All in one inbox you can do even more than just chat. You can get online reviews, just send out a link. You can collect payments fast from anywhere. You could send marketing campaigns to get a response. You know, the, the read percentage on text messages is so is well over 90%. So much better that email, that any other way of communicating and your customers actually appreciate it.

Leo Laporte (01:08:34):
They actually like it. See how podium can grow your business. They've got a demo waiting for you right now. Podium P O D I U m.com/TWiTt. Especially for small businesses. This is a great way to stay in touch with your customers. Podium.Com/TWiT podium. Let's grow let's see Washington post great article by Jeffrey Fowler. Here's why your gadgets die so quickly. Electronics are built with death dates. Let's not keep them a secret. And he actually put together a gadget graveyard, which I thought was really good. The hidden death dates on popular devices. These are devices that the batteries cannot be replaced. And as you know, lithium ion batteries have a certain number of charge cycles after that. You can't charge 'em anymore. If you've got AirPods after two years, in most cases, you're just gonna have to throw 'em away and get a new one.

Leo Laporte (01:09:35):
Apple sells has a quote replacement deal where you pay 49 bucks for one AirPod <laugh>, but they don't. I, and I don't know, they, maybe they recycle it when you send it back to them. But I suspect there's quite a few AirPods in the landfill, Amazon fire HD eight tablet, Amazon won't disclose how many recharges it can take. Amazon offers no battery replacement service. You can go to, I fix it I think, and get a battery. And, and while it's not easy, you could, I guess replace it. But I would guess most Amazon tablets end up in landfill like AirPods iPhones, good on apple. They can, they, they will for 69 bucks replace it, the battery. Same with the MacBook. Not so much with the Bose QC 35 noise canceling headphones, no out of warranty, bar, battery replacement service. What do you think you know, a bar you cover consumer technology. Do you ever talk about this as a, as an issue?

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:10:40):
Yeah, I think, you know, this conversation around electronic waste is something that's really ramping up and you know, it's, that's one side of it. And the other side of it is also, we don't feel like we are ready to let go of our devices as quickly as we have to. And it's really annoying that it is like, okay, I've had my I'm approaching the two year mark of how long I've had my phone and I know I have to replace it and there's nothing I can do about it. And so I think you know, I love that this article is like, let's, let's discuss the fact that this is like not something that we should just be accepting. And I think that you know, one of the things that it brings up that I think is really interesting is that the marketing angle, like in order for us to make your phone a slim and waterproof as, as we wanna make it, sorry, you're not gonna be able to access the battery.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:11:21):
And we've kind of just gone along with it, like okay. In the name of innovation. Sure. Okay. These design changes are something that's gonna make it, you know, better. But, but it is really unfortunate and wasteful and a pain for consumers to have to constantly feel like they have to switch out, you know, their devices also in the name of keeping up with trends. And I feel like apple does a really good job of making people feel like it's time for them to upgrade to a new device. Not because they feel like they want to, but because they have to look like they're on top of

Leo Laporte (01:11:51):
It. Aren't we all looking in front of you looking forward to the iPhone 14 in September and all. Ooh, shiny, shiny, shiny. I admit I'm absolutely, you know, I fall for that too, by the way. It's not just at the end of the life. About 70 recorded apple, about 70% of the carbon emissions come from manufacture. So the longer you, it's not just throwing it out the longer you can keep it in service. That's one more phone. Airpod something that doesn't have to be manufactured. And that's a big source of emissions. Yeah. I think, look, it's not gonna go away, but it's important to be aware of it. And that's just to kind of unconsciously say, oh yeah, let's let's get, I wish, honestly, I really wish, you know what? My battery never dies on my wired headphones. I wish say that they

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:12:38):
Never will.

Leo Laporte (01:12:38):
<Laugh> it just drives me crazy that it really, it is a from, it looks like apple and Samsung and others. It's a, it's a it's just because they wanna sell Bluetooth headphones. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> there's there's rumor is that the next iPad will not have a headphones. Jack. There is no reason for that. There's plenty of room.

Georgia Dow (01:12:57):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> I hate that. I hate that. I used, and I know I'm probably the only one Christina don't judge me. Don't judge me. I won't judge me. I won't judge. You only, I

Leo Laporte (01:13:05):
Only look at Christina's unwired headphones right now.

Georgia Dow (01:13:08):
She's unwired right now. But I bet that Christina has like all of the best of Bluetooth, but I what

Christina Warren (01:13:14):
I don't, but I'm not gonna judge you. No, and I don't blame you for it. Honestly. I don't blame you for it at all. Like there's

Georgia Dow (01:13:20):
Even, I want to work.

Leo Laporte (01:13:22):
And by the way, why do you even works better

Georgia Dow (01:13:24):
Into, I want it to, to plug into, and I know it's gonna be there and it's not gonna play on like my home pod in one of my clients or suddenly total ways it's on a home pod somewhere. Yes. Or it's in my car Bluetooth when it shouldn't be. And so I carry around. I I'll be honest. I steal from Renee cuz he has all of the, like all these little packages of like all of the, the, he

Leo Laporte (01:13:48):
Doesn't even open them. Right. He just has him sitting there and ran

Georgia Dow (01:13:51):
Hundred thousand. I'm suddenly like, oh I'm gonna grab two. And I cherry both like the 3.5 millimeter and like, yeah, I carry them all in my purse because I like wired for everything. And I, I hate charging batteries. I'm lazy as can be. I lose the bloody things. Then when I finally decide to use them a hundred percent, I've drained them by that time. <Laugh> and then I'm just angry and frustrated and yeah. So I, I, I am so old school that way. I'm sorry. Everyone can judge me send the, the, all of your hate to like at

Leo Laporte (01:14:27):
Quits. No, you're right.

Christina Warren (01:14:28):
No, you're fine. You're fine.

Leo Laporte (01:14:30):
Look, honestly, I think we could put pressure on apple. Just keep the head fun Jack. Put it back. There's no,

Christina Warren (01:14:36):
No, because here's the thing like AirPods are good enough. And, and some of the Bluetooth stuff, even though there are those frustrations that I totally agree with the convenience for a lot of us, we would still use like, I would still use AirPods. I would still use, you know, like over the ear, like maybe I'd have them plugged in. Maybe I wouldn't, it would depend, but I would probably still use wireless more often than not like that's not going to be changing just because my phone has a headphones Jack on it. Like if you, if you get, if, if you are, in my opinion, like if you're somebody who's choosing to spend $200 on a pair of air pods, it's because you appreciate that convenience. Not so much because like that's the only way you can connect them into your phone. So except

Leo Laporte (01:15:14):
That it, yeah, it is you have to buy some sort of Bluetooth

Christina Warren (01:15:19):
Or, or, or use the, the stupid wired headphones that come in the box. But like, you know, they'd have the, the lightning connector, I'm just saying like 200,

Leo Laporte (01:15:27):
Do you think anybody does that?

Christina Warren (01:15:28):
Yeah. Last year it became like a, a trend to be, it was like an aesthetic thing where there were a number of like very big fashion influencers who were doing that. So really Georgia you're you're like on trend actually. Yeah. it's kinda like a weird throwback to, you know, like two thousands, you know, like aesthetic, I don't know,

Georgia Dow (01:15:46):
Long enough it comes back around.

Christina Warren (01:15:49):
No, I, I was, I'm gonna say like everything that everyone that I wore, like when I was like in late high school and in college is like back popular again. Yeah. And so that's part of it, but no, but, but I'm just saying like, obviously they want you to use Bluetooth, but I think that even if you had a headphones, Jack, I still think that there are enough people who would still be buying Bluetooth headphones. It's not like that would stop. Like I had Bluetooth headphones, I, you know, wireless beats before AirPods. So

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:16:15):
I actually have,

Leo Laporte (01:16:15):
Go ahead, Abra. Sorry,

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:16:16):
A bar. What have I have a I actually have a galaxy device. And so I have a headphones Jack, but I, these are wireless. Normally I just have

Leo Laporte (01:16:25):
You're wearing beats right now. Aren't you? Aren't they? And

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:16:27):
I'm wearing beats. I love them. Actually.

Georgia Dow (01:16:30):
They are

Christina Warren (01:16:30):
That's they're I have the same one color.

Georgia Dow (01:16:32):
I have to say those are a very color rose gold

Leo Laporte (01:16:35):
Rose gold B.

Christina Warren (01:16:35):
I was gonna say, I love

Georgia Dow (01:16:36):
Them. My kids

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:16:37):
<Laugh> thank you so much. Thank you for the approval. Yes <laugh> but, but I love, I love over ear headphones too. Cuz I earbuds. I can't, I don't know how you guys do earbuds because I cannot stand. I feel like I'm just like throwing something inside. Like I

Leo Laporte (01:16:50):
Should now you wear a hijab. I should point out for those not watching video. Could you put the, I guess actually the best advantage of that? Well, not the only, but the best one advantage of it is if you did an AirPod fell out, at least you wouldn't lose it. Right. It would end up in the

Christina Warren (01:17:03):
Scar.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:17:04):
That's so true. I

Georgia Dow (01:17:05):
Remember end up in your clothing and you'd have to like still search, right? So you would be safe, but you'd still have to do that. Right? You wouldn't

Leo Laporte (01:17:13):
Swallow it by accident. Let's put it that way.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:17:16):
The funny thing is friend

Georgia Dow (01:17:17):
The other day, EarPods. <Laugh>

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:17:20):
My friend, the other day, like had her AirPods in. We couldn't see it cuz she also wears a hijab and then she just suddenly starts talking like into her and we're like, what?

Georgia Dow (01:17:28):
And she's like, oh I it all the time. Yeah. Yeah. There we go. You should watch the Blackmore video. I'm gonna do, we're gonna be talking about that when is talking to yourself. Okay. Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:17:39):
Okay. Yeah. It's a sign right? Sign of I've always talked to myself. I don't think it's a sign of max

Georgia Dow (01:17:45):
Yourself is totally fine.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:17:46):
I,

Leo Laporte (01:17:47):
Yes. Yeah. I

Georgia Dow (01:17:49):
And answering back is also still totally healthy people like you can talk to back. No answer yourself. That's totally

Leo Laporte (01:17:56):
Fine. It's okay to answer yourself, but not in a different voice. See, what do you think they hope voice. What do you think? Well, I don't know. Maybe I should do that. No, you don't do that. That's dangerous.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:18:05):
Okay. Noted. I will not do that. Don't

Georgia Dow (01:18:07):
Do that. As long as you know you're doing it, that's

Leo Laporte (01:18:10):
The kind of thing that joker would do. <Laugh> I'll do it. That's scare scare. So actually completely peripherally. But it's it is, you mentioned hipsters, by the way, I still have some wide ties that I am not throwing out. I don't think wide ties are ever coming back though. I gotta tell you. You never know.

Georgia Dow (01:18:31):
It's wait

Leo Laporte (01:18:31):
A while for a while. Vinyl. Right? Everybody's into vinyl. There is a big scandal going on in the vinyl world. Did, did you read about this?

Georgia Dow (01:18:38):
Oh, I read that this morning. Oh my God. That's amazing. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:18:41):
So mofi M O F I is a company that's been around for a decade. They're actually up our way in SBA pool. And their claim to fame was they're selling vinyl records that are mastered from the original dig, a non-digital analog masters of, you know, classics you know, Asia from steely Dan earth or even thriller, which was mastered to tape. And they were selling it this way for a long time until a record store owner, Phoenix record shop owner said, according to pretty reliable sources, mofi mobile fidelity has been using digital files instead to create these vinyl records. They are not analog masters. And then a number of people spoke up and said, you know what? That makes sense. Cuz if they're making these vinyl records from analog masters, they have to keep rewinding the tape and playing it, rewinding the tape. They're not, nobody's gonna allow them to do that. So in fact it's now come out engineers. Mofi didn't want to admit it, but engineers from mofi have started to say, yeah, we started using digital stream it's called direct stream digital technology in 2011 on a release of Tony Bennetts I left my heart in San Francisco and by the end of 2011, 60% of their vinyl releases used digital sources.

Leo Laporte (01:20:16):
You're laughing cuz of the hips.

Christina Warren (01:20:18):
I am laughing. No okay. I'm making fun of them, but, but Leo, you don't wanna, I got really into vinyl during the pandemic. So I'm also laughing at myself because I spent like I've spent like thousands of dollars in vinyl records over the last two years and I wish that I was Jo. Wow.

Leo Laporte (01:20:32):
Yeah. Do you have a, like a, a turntable that's in a sandbox with special?

Christina Warren (01:20:36):
Well, I mean the thousands includes the, the turntable that I got, but yeah. So, you know, but, but like I I'm part of like a monthly like record of the month club thing. Like I, I it's, it's stupid. I, I bought all of the variations of Taylor Swift's folklore album on vinyl, like all like seven versions. Right. I've got them all. So I, I I'm, I'm laughing at myself in terms of this too, because I had looked at maybe getting that the thriller album that they have up for pre-order, which is like a hundred dollars, which they're claiming came from like the analog, like master. I was like, oh, well, you know, maybe that would be really cool now I'm like Hugh absolute idiot because it they're, they're just sourcing it from, from a, from a digital master and they can say, oh, well it, it sounds this good and whatnot.

Christina Warren (01:21:20):
Okay, well, no, this is just more proof that people who buy into audio files stuff, which again, I'm absolutely one of these people, like we're, we're, we're basically flushing money down the toilet for minute things that we claim differences. We claim we can hear that we absolutely cannot hear mm-hmm <affirmative> for the aesthetic and, and for other things. So I love this. It's also hilarious that the initial response from the community was to attack this record store guy and be like, you're wrong. You're wrong. And then like the company admits it and it's like, oh yeah, sorry are bad.

Leo Laporte (01:21:49):
The according to Washington post, the fallout of the mofi revelation has thrown the audio file community into something of an existential crisis.

Christina Warren (01:21:58):
Right. Right. Exactly. Cause it's like, but, but, but I, I, I swore that I could hear the difference. It sounded

Leo Laporte (01:22:04):
Better.

Christina Warren (01:22:05):
I'm sure. And, and, and, and now I know it's a placebo, which is, I think most of us who are part of, kind of the hobby would admit that we know that we're just paying more to, to pay more. You know, but it it's dumb. It it's

Georgia Dow (01:22:17):
Joy. It's joy though.

Leo Laporte (01:22:20):
There is an aesthetic and I'm, oh,

Christina Warren (01:22:22):
There's the aesthetic I love. Yes.

Georgia Dow (01:22:24):
Shit. And you can, and you can like, and I think that the same thing with people that like books, which I like, like paper books with like pages, with stuff written on it that I have to go through and I lose the page and all of that frustration. Totally. But I prefer the experience, even though it's much easier to read it on my phone where I don't have to like have a light and can't see the letters because the light's not bright enough, but there's something that's a joyful thing about actually being able to hold and own and manipulate something that isn't just digital. So yeah, go for it. Enjoy it.

Leo Laporte (01:22:57):
As a visitor from the age of vinyl I actually had vinyl records when they were the only way to get music. I remember buying my a 40 of my, I think my first record was a Beatles 45. I wanna hold her hand as a, there it's not about the sound quality that sounded like crap <laugh>. But, but there is an aesthetic to taking an album out the sleeve. They've got the liner notes. Yes. There's a whole thing. You clean it with the diswasher three drops, that's all you, and then you put it on the thing. You gently lower the needle on there. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> there's I understand the aesthetic of it. It doesn't,

Christina Warren (01:23:37):
I want one of the really old ones, you know, like grab phone, kind of like look

Leo Laporte (01:23:41):
To, I like a third road. Yeah. But I mean, I to say, oh, this is magically sounds. Now mofi is saying, Hey, look, we, even though we're using digital, we get the masters and we very carefully make this digital version.

Christina Warren (01:23:59):
Right. And, and, and they very, they, they might actually have like a better master cuz a lot of times the reason people get mad about digital masters isn't because digital there's anything wrong with it. It's because the mastering process or the remastering has been like crunched and compressed to the point that it sounds terrible. And you can actually hear like, and this isn't a BS audio file thing. You can do like AB sampling where there have been conclusive differences where you can take like a CD that was pressed in like 1990. And one that was pressed in 2015. And, and it's the same album. They sound very different because of the way the mastering process works. So it's possible that they still do a superior job with mastering and that they still have a better source material they're doing from this vinyl. But since the big part of their, you know, like whole thing has been like, oh, we're, we're coming from like directly from the analog, which is especially with the, the fact that like vinyl plants are almost impossible for people to even get time on, like things are backlog so much that the additional time that you're adding to that would, would be untenable to do, especially to do like a, a, a large batch thing, like the thriller album where they said they do 40,000 copies.

Christina Warren (01:25:07):
Like they, there's no way

Leo Laporte (01:25:10):
You don't have to produce that many, run the tape for every single final pressing, but you have, have to run it more than once. You're not making a number of chillax. So

Christina Warren (01:25:18):
That's what I'm saying. You have to do it a certain times, especially if you're going to be claiming you want like high fidelity recordings right. Where you don't want it to sound like that. I wanna hold your hand force

Leo Laporte (01:25:27):
Generation

Christina Warren (01:25:27):
Glad that you had exactly. You don't want it to be that way. So yeah. I mean, I think that that some of it is probably much to do about nothing, but it is funny to, to like see people who are still trying to convince themselves that it's better. That said, like they also sell I wasn't aware that they sell super audio CDs. I'm super excited to see that the SACD market is coming back a little bit.

Leo Laporte (01:25:48):
Is it?

Christina Warren (01:25:49):
Yeah, it, it seems to be which there, there are like some pre-orders and, and coming soon re-releases on, on S a CD. That's actually much more exciting to me. So,

Leo Laporte (01:25:59):
So what else, go ahead.

Christina Warren (01:26:01):
Sorry. Did you

Leo Laporte (01:26:01):
Also, you mentioned Taylor

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:26:02):
Swift when she had released from Flo, she also released it on cassette. And I thought that was

Christina Warren (01:26:06):
Bizarre. I love that. Yeah. So cassette had a moment that's

Leo Laporte (01:26:10):
Hipster, right?

Christina Warren (01:26:12):
That's aesthetic. That's completely, it's, that's completely aesthetic that that's been big for five or six years now where you've seen, especially with younger people wanting to get it for the aesthetic. And like I bought a Radiohead when they released the, the 25th anniversary of okay. Computer. I got it on mini disk. So that was, which is like the ultimate, you know, like, and I do actually have a mini dis Claire, so I can play it back. But that was like the ultimate, like really Christina really. And I think I got it. I think I got that on. There was a cassette thing there too, but you're right. Yeah. She releases stuff on cassette. What I'm waiting for. We're seeing a C come back, I'm waiting for actual, just CDs to come back. Right. That, that I'm waiting for. What's

Leo Laporte (01:26:54):
Because, I mean, look, it's a digital recording when you download it, it's identical to the CD. I mean, don't download it P3 or AAC, but if you download a lossless version of it, it's identical, the 44 1 CD.

Christina Warren (01:27:07):
I, I don't know mean I'm just looking forward to the aesthetic coming back. I just wanna see the kids walking like giant Walkmans. Yeah. I mean, I don't care. I don't, to be honest with you, I don't care. I just wanna see people walking around with giant, like, you know, Walkmans again, like, I think that would just be funny.

Leo Laporte (01:27:20):
I think you could make the case. And I, and I have been I've, you know, I remember walking by the Doby offices in San Francisco many years ago, and a Doby engineer came out and said, Leo, come here. He brought me in. And they had a very, it's famous, a very famous theater in there with really good revel speakers. I mean, just a really nice setup. And he played an AB comparison for me between it. Now it was admittedly, it was steely Dan. It was not a very complex piece of music, but between an analog and a digital I think it was an even MP3 recording. It might have been an AAC, but remember, Doby was very much into this, these digital compression technologies and, and it was indistinguishable, but, and then I've also had people say, now listen carefully. And you can hear, you know, there's some loss of fidelity in, in like the symbol here. And if they teach you and tell you what to listen to, you can kind of tell an MP3, especially a 128 kilobit MP3 isn't as good as say, you know, a lossless version of the CD, but most people let's face it. They're listening on this crappy AirPods.

Christina Warren (01:28:25):
Well, that's, this is, this is the thing, right? Like this is always,

Leo Laporte (01:28:28):
Yeah,

Christina Warren (01:28:28):
You're not, well, this is, this is the hilarious thing about the, the vinyl world. So if you go to like the R slash vinyl, like ed and stuff, you have a lot of people who are wanting to get turntables and other things. And then one of the first questions they ask is, okay, so how do I listen to this with Bluetooth? How do I connect this to my sales? How do I do other stuff? No. Well, and you can do it. Like I do actually have my turn connected to my Sonos, but I'm, I'm primarily when I wanna listen to vinyl, I have like my very expensive, like headphones plugged in directly to my amp, plugged into my turntable. And that's how I'm enjoying the experience. But it is very funny that people will wanna on the one hand take on the aesthetic. But on the other hand immediately want to be able to listen to it wirelessly. And it's like, okay, you, you do understand what you've just done here. You've just completely given up the entire thing. Like I get it. It's nice to be able to drop a needle on something and do that. But anything you wanna try to claim about like audio fidelity is completely out the window, as soon as you are, you know, Bluetooth,

Leo Laporte (01:29:27):
Analog, converter.

Christina Warren (01:29:29):
Yeah. Bluetooth. And, but, but even just doing an analog to digital converter. Cause in that case, in most cases you're taking, okay. Something that was digital became analog. Now it's becoming digital again, like, come on.

Leo Laporte (01:29:40):
What kind of turntable do

Georgia Dow (01:29:41):
You have? It's the inception of everything.

Leo Laporte (01:29:43):
It's inception. Exactly. What kind of turntable do you have? Christina?

Christina Warren (01:29:46):
I can't remember right now, but it was

Leo Laporte (01:29:48):
You're no audio file. I

Christina Warren (01:29:50):
I know kick

Leo Laporte (01:29:50):
Your right slash

Christina Warren (01:29:52):
No, I got, I got, I got it like two years ago. I'm trying to remember which one it was, it was one,

Leo Laporte (01:29:55):
You know what I love about you though. And, and you're an enthusiast and I recognize this cause I, I'm kind of the same way where you get into something and then you have to do it in, you know, and it's entirety, whatever it is. Right. And then you move on now, it's the next

Christina Warren (01:30:09):
Right? That, that was, that was basically the thing. Like I got really into it for a period of time and I'm not really as much anymore, but 

Leo Laporte (01:30:15):
Yeah. God bless the enthusiast. That's that's the joy in life. The passion for something you care so much about it.

Christina Warren (01:30:21):
Oh, it it's a project. That's what it is. It's it's from project.

Leo Laporte (01:30:24):
Yep. So I'm the same way from yeah. And you know what I don't know about you, but, and, and Georgia, you probably confirm this, but that's because I'm a D D that as, even as a kid, the way I got functional with my attention deficit was I would hyperfocus. And so everything for me was a, was, was a project, was a hyperfocused thing because it's the only way I could really do it. And I think probably most of our audience is the same way. <Laugh> I'm

Georgia Dow (01:30:52):
Guessing. Yeah. And it gives you all that wonderful dopamine as its new and it feels good. Fun. Yeah. And then for dopamine other stuff down, then you move on to learning and experiencing something else. It's it's, there's nothing wrong with it. Enjoy, have fun life be

Leo Laporte (01:31:08):
Short. Yes. See we're okay. Don't don't don't mind that speaking of gadget, graveyards, Epson a little bit of, <laugh> a little bit of hot water here. This is from the fight to repair subs, stack newsletter, citing danger of ink spills, Epson programs, end of life. For some printers, we've seen this with other printer companies where the printer just stops working in this case. And it's some, it's particularly the L series Epson printers, which are not the cheap ones. They're not the cheap ink jet printers. There is an ink pad in there which Epson describes as a porous pad in the printer that collects distributes. And very importantly contains the ink that is not used on printed pages over time. These pads wear out and there's actually a counter built into your printer. And when that counter reaches a certain number of print jobs, your printer will just stop working.

Leo Laporte (01:32:15):
It just won't print anymore. And you gotta buy a new one or maybe you can recycle it or get Epson to replace the pad. It turns out the pad replacement number of people have done it themselves is very simple, very inexpensive Epson doesn't sell those pads. But the reason Epson says that they disable the printers. Once those pads are full of ink, this is the quote. The printers are designed to stop operating at a point where further use without replacing the ink pads could create risks of property damage from ink spills <laugh> or, or safety issues related to excess ink, contacting an electrical component.

Georgia Dow (01:32:57):
So ridiculous.

Leo Laporte (01:32:59):
You gotta wonder, is this really to protect people from ink spills or is it really to make a little extra money on a printer? Cuz you've been keeping it in service too long. This came up when a lecture at university of new Haven and Connecticut mark Tavern tweeted, my wife's very expensive Epson printer just gave a message saying it had reached the end of its service life and proceeded to brick itself. Apparently she can pay to service it or buy a new one, even though it was working fine, outrageous 4,500 likes 800 re tweets <laugh> Epson does make for windows users a special program, the waste ink pad counter reset program. <Laugh> that lets you change the counter. But there's only a version for windows 10, 8, 7 Vista XP. There's no Mac version and it can only be used once and it will allow printing for a short period of time, says Epson.

Georgia Dow (01:33:54):
I am sure someone will be hacking that very soon. Yeah. If not already, like it's just one of these ridiculous things where you know, like you buy something you're supposed to own it. And yeah, like if it, if it happens like the, the battery dies because the battery actually dies, like I'm already a little bit salty about that, but to have some arbitrary idea that you know what we're gonna protect you from ink damage, because that would be so horrible. Like if anyone's ever changed ink on a printer, knows that they really don't care about ink damaging anything and everything in

Leo Laporte (01:34:28):
Bra <laugh>, here's a guy there's a video from 2017. A guy just kind of tore up some foam, <laugh> put a hole in it and replaced it. Just, you know, shaped, saved some foam rubber to, to fit in there, replaced it. Of course. Then you have to hack the printer to say, you know, Hey, new new foam pads in there, new ink pads in there. So you can't do it yourself and I, yeah. Epson doesn't really want you to do it through them or do it yourself. They want you to buy a new printer. They're

Georgia Dow (01:34:55):
Getting gas gaslit

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:34:56):
By Epson

Leo Laporte (01:34:57):
Gaslit

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:34:58):
Oils down. There we go. That's you know, oil lit trendy. Right? Exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:35:03):
<Laugh> gas lit by Epson. <Laugh>

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:35:06):
Wow. That should have

Leo Laporte (01:35:07):
Been the headline. I think it is. That's the headline. Yeah. let's see. What's our timing. Maybe I should take a little break here. I don't wanna run this too long. I have a very good sponsor to talk about anyway. So I'm happy to do this. Our show at this week, and@oftenisbroughttoyoubyuserwaydotorguserway.org. I'm talking about making your website, ADA compliant accessible. Not only is it the right thing to do because you're opening up your website to a much larger group, 60 million plus people, you have a responsibility to make your site accessible. It's a public entity, so you gotta make it accessible. And with user way it's easy. That was my biggest concern was, oh, I can't afford it. Or it's gonna be too hard. No user weighs really affordable. And it's really easy and incredible. It's AI powered it tirelessly, enforces all the accessibility guidelines, the w C a G WCA guidelines.

Leo Laporte (01:36:09):
And I love this. So do our engineers. It's one line of JavaScript. That's it? Because user way is so good. It's used by more than a million websites, including the big guys Coca-Cola Disney eBay. These are companies that really have to be accessible and user way can do that. As you get bigger, they scale with you. If they can handle Disney, absolutely they can handle you. They make best in class enterprise level accessibility tools available to you, your small or medium sized business. And then as you scale, you need user way and you're ready. It just makes business sense. Some of the biggest problems, nav menus, very difficult. So the way this works, if you're blind or you're using accessibility tools, there is what they call an accessibility layer. That's what the screen reader sees. So really what user way does, is make sure that all the information available to the front page to the sighted user is available to the browser in the accessibility layer.

Leo Laporte (01:37:05):
It changes colors. Now you've got your Pantone color for your business. Of course we do too. Doesn't change that, but it adjusts human luminance. So it's easier for people with vision issues to read. So user way will generate all tags. That's one of the reasons it needs AI. It can actually see the picture and generate an all tag that matches the picture automatically. You can go in if you want, you can modify it. Of course it fixes violations like vague links, fixes, broken links makes sure that your website uses accessible colors and you'll get a detailed report of all the violations that were fixed on your website. So you know exactly what it did. Plus you can work with it user way, integrates seamlessly with your site builder software, let user way help your business. Meet its compliance goals. Improve the experience for your users user way can make any website fully accessible, ADA compliant and everyone who visits can browse seamlessly, customize it to fit their needs.

Leo Laporte (01:37:59):
It's a great way to show your brand's commitment to the millions of people with disabilities. It's the right thing to do user way. It can make any website fully accessible and ADA compliant with user way. Everyone who visits your site can browse seamlessly, customize it to fit their needs. We've got it on our website, go to TWiT.tv, go to the lower right there, click that, that accessibility symbol. You'll see all the things it does with one line of code to our website. And you know what I really appreciate. It's a great way to showcase your brand's commitment to millions of people with disabilities. You wouldn't wanna lock them outta your site. Of course not go to user way.org/TWiT, and you'll get 30% off user way's AI powered accessibility solution. Just book a short call, get their accessibility guide. They're there for you user way, making the internet accessible for everyone. Visit user way.org/TWiT. We thank 'em so much for their support of this in tech. We had a fun week this week and I think Bonino has a little movie to show us showing us why. You know, what the chip business is in a big turmoil right now. It's very interesting to see what's gonna happen. I wonder how this is gonna impact Frito lay previously on TWiTtter tech news weekly.

Jason (01:39:18):
Actually my friend neighbor, he lives just a couple blocks away. Alex Cecil joins to talk about how his team used his Taaz bot to do some pretty incredible things on the Nintendo. 64 specifically on the arena of time. This

Allan (01:39:31):
Is our mascot and we use him to play video games perfectly at games done quick and other charity events.

Leo Laporte (01:39:38):
All about Android.

Jason (01:39:40):
Your phone needs to be repaired. You drop your phone. The display is broken. There's a nervousness around like here's my phone with everything that's important to me. I'm gonna send it in just to get this repair done. While Samsung is making a change to add something called a repair mode that you put it into repair mode. It locks the phone data down. So all it offers is the default installed apps.

Leo Laporte (01:40:06):
This weekend, Google, I quit my job to buy and resell used books on Amazon. Now I use my six-figure income to travel the world, the

Jason (01:40:14):
World. I just got some old life magazines up for $2. I'm gonna bet I can sell that for more

Leo Laporte (01:40:20):
Money back. Well, I have this fine picture of a handsome gentleman. <Laugh> former TV guy

Jason (01:40:25):
Critic. If, if somebody's gonna buy, if some shuck is gonna buy, even that TWiT, I'm pretty sure they're not traveling the world. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:40:34):
The big fucks from selling Jeff portrait want,

Leo Laporte (01:40:43):
Ah, thank you. For that <laugh> that moment in in time we were talking about the week's tech news with our great panel first time on the show, a newbie, but boy, you fit in great. A bar AAL HETI from CNET. Thank you very much for being here this week, a bar, they were right when they said how wonderful you are. That's so kind of you thank you. Old friend, Georgia Dow, always great to see you from YouTube fam of YouTube fame, youtube.com/georgia do. And Christina Warren, who we have known through at least four jobs, I think. Yeah.

Christina Warren (01:41:21):
Yeah, I think so. I think so.

Leo Laporte (01:41:22):
Yeah. Mashable, Microsoft GitHub, where were you before Mashable? I think that's where we met. 

Christina Warren (01:41:27):
We met at Mashable and then I was at Gizmoto and Gimo Microsoft and now and now GitHub. So yeah, four jobs. Yeah. That's over a decade. Like, yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:41:35):
That's not that many. It's been a long time actually.

Christina Warren (01:41:38):
No, I was gonna, I stay at jobs typically a long time, but the we've yeah. We've, we've been, I mean, I think I met you for the first time in like 2009,

Leo Laporte (01:41:45):
Like at a Mac world or something. Yeah.

Christina Warren (01:41:47):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:41:47):
It was that's how long ago that was there. As you may know, there's concern about quantum computing and encryption, particularly encryption keys. And so the national institutes for standards in time has set up a competition to come up with new public key crypto that will survive quantum computing there, four contenders. Well, there were four contenders. One of them is now out of the running and it only took a single core PC and an hour to do it. This article from Dan Goodin in ours, technical, leave it to mathematicians, to muck up what looked like an impressive new algorithm. One of the reasons they have these competitions though, is to come up with these improved crypto techniques, and then let people bang on it to make sure it really, really will work. The new attack breaks.

Leo Laporte (01:42:50):
The algorithm called psych SI K E. This is one of the four replacement algorithms at N says, need new testing. The attack has no impact on the four other four algorithms selected by N as approved standards. So we have four that are approved and then four, they thought were interesting, but, but let's test them. Well, psych is out super singular, ISO Jenny ISO key encapsulation researchers from the computer security and industrial cryptography group at KU LUN wrote a paper called an efficient, no, no doubt. Efficient key recovery tech used complex mathematics in a single traditional PC to recover the encryption keys in an hour by the way, they are now eligible for a $50,000 reward for Microsoft. Nice work, if you can get it. But I think we are coming along with with post quantum computing. Now, if we could just invent some post quantum computing computers, right?

Leo Laporte (01:43:59):
None of them are really that impressive. Yet. Pearson wants to make a little more money on its textbooks, which are already really expensive Pearson, which is I think the world's largest textbooks textbook publisher. And my former publisher I might add has decided <laugh>, here's what we do. We sell our, our book, you know, for a hundred bucks, but we'll also include with that in NFT so that we can recapture some of the resales in the used book market CEO of Pearson, Andy by says in the analog world of Pearson textbook, where is resold up to seven times. And we could only participate in the first sale. Oh, oh, the move to digital helps diminish the secondary market and technology like blockchain and NFTs allows us to participate in every sale of that particular item, as it goes through its life evil. Yeah. You don't seem greedy, greedy. It's

Christina Warren (01:45:01):
Greedy.

Georgia Dow (01:45:01):
It's so very greedy when, and these are students, like, it's

Christina Warren (01:45:06):
Just yep. Like

Georgia Dow (01:45:08):
No thought at all or care about what happens. Like we want to educate society and I think education should be free. And then we suddenly start to gouge students like just, oh, you can't just can't get behind when they're just trying to, like, even reselling of, of textbooks was really expensive for students to be able to deal with that. They didn't make a piece of it. So now, oh, for them, I like the world's smallest violin crashed and burned. I'm sorry. Nothing. Nothing from me.

Christina Warren (01:45:37):
Yeah, no, I, I was talking about this on a, on my podcast rocket and I did actually think of the only possible good thing that could come from this. If they decide to put this on the blockchain or whatever, under some sort of DRM that DRM will be cracked instantly, in which case we could then just have a very easy way to right. Click on all the textbooks. So I'm a part of me is kind of like, yes, please do this. And, and, and lead to the destruction of your own business because that I would be down for, but yeah, right on with you, Georgia, like they're greedy, the textbook market both used and new is completely predatory on so many levels.

Leo Laporte (01:46:14):
Yes. You know, if, if what they did then is that well, because we're gonna recoup some of the, the money from used book sales, we will lower the cost of textbooks. Right. Okay. Maybe, but the textbooks are a hundred, $200 because, you know, oh, it cost is so much to create, so we have to charge you this money. But,

Christina Warren (01:46:32):
And then, and, and then if there are too many of them in circulation, they will issue a very small update. That then becomes a new addition that then your professors require you to

Leo Laporte (01:46:41):
Get. Yeah. Cuz they've always hated this resale market. They've always hated

Christina Warren (01:46:45):
This. They have, well, I was gonna say so. So, so they do everything they can to suppress the used market and to be clear, the, the universities, like the official bookstores and even like the unofficial ones, like their predatory as all get out to, and, and the way that they handle used bookstore sales, where they'll give you $20 for book that they then sell for 85. Right? Like, like the whole, the whole system is a scam, but you're exactly right. Like they, they do everything they can to get away from the, the used book market. And, and they can't partake in those sales because of the first sale doctrine. So they're like, yes, we'll just find a way to avoid that here. And then to make updates, you know, incrementally. Yeah. Like I said, the only good thing about this would be that they would have terrible DRM. We know it would be cracked. And then we could, you know, like write, click and share with everyone.

Leo Laporte (01:47:28):
That's the unintended consequence of this. That's the thing. When you start to lock staff down like this professors start xeroxing textbooks yeah. People start to crack the DRM. That's always that's it DRM drives me crazy because it never stops pirates ever. No pirates, just go right around it. It stops normal users. It's just sad.

Georgia Dow (01:47:50):
It's those that are rule abiding

Leo Laporte (01:47:51):
Rule abiding, lawful users. Is that who you wanna publish? Probably punish.

Georgia Dow (01:47:57):
I don't think they care.

Leo Laporte (01:47:58):
They don't care. I just, they don't care. They

Georgia Dow (01:48:00):
Care. They're fine. I think they're sleeping fine on their, you know, whatever thousand dollar pillows. They're fine. <Laugh>,

Leo Laporte (01:48:08):
You know, I've slept on money. It's not comfortable. Don't don't do that. <Laugh>

Georgia Dow (01:48:12):
How did you stop Leo?

Leo Laporte (01:48:14):
<Laugh> oh, I used to take a bath in it that's even worse. So yeah, I have my, I, I did fill my swim pool with, with thousand dollars bills though. So that's okay. Doc, duck go has finally has changed their tune. You may remember they got in a lot of trouble because they claimed their deal with Microsoft. For the Bing search engine required their privacy browser to allow Microsoft trackers through, after an uproar duck do go now says their privacy protection will apply to Microsoft scripts as well, except it's not quite a hundred, a hundred percent. The VP of communications for duck, duck ghost told the verge that most Microsoft scripts were already being blocked by the browsers. Other protections. Camille BA Baz said, we ran a test to see how much more blocking is happening as a result of this update. Based on the top 1000 websites, the increase was only 0.2, 5%. But it won't block scripts for bat.bing.com, which is a script used on advertiser sites to measure effectiveness. So I think that that some permanent reputation damage because duck do go kind of didn't mention this exemption for Microsoft scripts.

Georgia Dow (01:49:43):
Yeah. That's a problem is that if you're going on a platform of, we should be able to be trusted and then you get found out that you're not trustworthy. It becomes a really huge issue versus if you're just like we're evil, everyone expects it. Yeah. And then you don't have to worry about anything.

Leo Laporte (01:50:00):
Has anybody done that? Oh, Facebook, they just embrace the evil

Georgia Dow (01:50:04):
Goof. Google got rid of don't be evil.

Leo Laporte (01:50:06):
They don't even say it anymore. Mm-Hmm

Georgia Dow (01:50:08):
<Affirmative> they, you know, like a bra, what do you, what, what are your thoughts on

Leo Laporte (01:50:15):
Evil Google? Yeah,

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:50:17):
No I, yeah, no, I agree with you. I think you you really got it down in the sense that, you know, and we'd started off this conversation talking about how people feel like, you know, they're everywhere they look, whatever platform or product they use. There's no sense of privacy, but I think, you know, people feel like there's very few platforms or services where they do have even a little bit more of a sense of privacy. And now it's they have this humbling reminder that maybe, maybe that's not the case.

Leo Laporte (01:50:43):
All right. So the galaxy unpacked event is August 10th, three days. Is that Wednesday 8, 9, 10.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:50:53):
It is

Leo Laporte (01:50:53):
Wednesday. Yes. And it's early in the morning for us. Isn't it? Bra

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:50:57):
It's too early in the morning. Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:50:58):
It's like 7:00 AM or so I'm making 6:00 AM. Oh man. Pacific. Yeah. I'm making Jason Howell. And I think Ron's gonna join him. I'm making the all about Android team doing this. What are we gonna see abroad? Do we know?

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:51:11):
We're hoping, we're not sure what we're gonna see. I think, you know, a lot of us are, are hoping that we'll see updates to the foldable phones. So we have the galaxy Z fold and the galaxy Z flip and foldable phones are interesting because you know, I think a lot of people see them as kind of like snazzy and fun to look at, but they haven't, you know, the, the foldable market is growing, but it hasn't, you know, you don't walk around and see people open up a fold very often.

Leo Laporte (01:51:38):
Like I don't use it, but I liked the flip.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:51:41):
Yeah. And the flip is actually kind of, it's actually the more popular one, I think, because it's nice and small and you, and everything, people love that clamshell kind of style. And you can fit in your pocket really easily. The fold, the thing about the fold is that it looks beautiful when you open it. It's like a nice big tablet, but then when it's closed, the screen is really thin and awkward. Yeah. and so I think that's something that Samsung has to figure out. And that's something that we're hoping if there is, you know, the next iteration of it, that we kind of figure out a better use case for that. But the, the flip is really popular and it's really cute and, and snazzy, but you know, the thing with these phones also is that if they want people to, you know, buy into them more, they're gonna have to get the basics down, like, okay, cool. We have a foldable phone foldable screen. That's really cool, but battery life, isn't great. The cameras are okay, but they're not great there's design issues. And so I think, you know, once they really get that down, maybe we'll see more people kind of out in the wild with foldable and flippable

Leo Laporte (01:52:34):
Phones. One rumor that I kind of believe is that GA Samsung will drop the Z the Zed because the Russians use that as their symbol for the Ukrainian in invasion. And so it's not cool to be a Z anymore. So it might just be the flip. I don't know why he had a Z anyway, it might not be just the flip and fold four.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:52:54):
They throw so many numbers and letters into phones, spots,

Leo Laporte (01:52:57):
Listening, getting sense of what's going on. I, I really like, I gave my flip to Stacy Higgin aboutum on TWiTT because you know, I'm gonna be always, probably an iPhone and pixel phone user, just because that's, you know, that's kind of the mainstream stuff, but I, but I really think that that that was cute. It was little, you could slip it in your pocket or your purse. And it opened up to a normal sized phone. It wasn't a giant sized phone, like the fold. It was just a normal little thing. And I don't know, I kinda like it. We've seen some some leaks, different colors and, and so forth, but we'll find out a little more on Wednesday. We do know. I'm pretty sure that Samsung will announce the watch five, the galaxy watch five. I, again, I think, you know, I'm, I'm an apple wire apple watch wear, but I think there's a pretty good competitor for it.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:53:45):
Absolutely. I think I always get really annoyed when people, you know, when we talk about any, any non apple company and people see that I have an Android and they're like, oh, you have an Android. It's like, you don't understand that Samsung, you know, not all Androids are created equals Samsung does a really good job with its products. And but yeah, definitely good, good apple competitors, but it's not the apple name. So yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:54:06):
You know, I like it. And I like the bezel that that's turns. I'm glad they, they brought that back. There is a rumor that the new one will have big battery life. I don't know. We'll have to see that, you know, you hear these rumors, but they're saying the battery is 509 million, five and 90 million a hours, which would give it a runtime of up to 80 hours. It'd be about a five or six day watch, which would be pretty impressive.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:54:32):
That's the other big thing that I think watches in general, once you have a longer battery life you know, people might be more likely to right. To wear them and keep 'em on. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:54:41):
I mean, I'm just used to just every night just taking everything out of my pocket and I'll get it all up to the charger. I gotta charge some, yeah. Some people the stuff anyway. So might as well charge it all.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:54:53):
I'm impressed when people can sleep with anything on their arm. I, no, it would bother me so much, but some people actually do the sleep tracking and yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:55:00):
Yeah, yeah. Alright, well Wednesday's the day 6:00 AM. Are you guys gonna be, I presume you guys will have live coverage of it as well. Yeah. We'll give you a call.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:55:10):
We will have live coverage. Yes. my fearless colleague, Claire Riley will be spearheading that and I will be on as well with her. Okay. Wish us luck for waking up better. 6:00 AM. We will not be sleeping very much. Yes <laugh> but yeah, we'll have coverage and, and then we'll have you know, post coverage as well of, yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:55:29):
Good. As I said, this is gonna, this is this we're getting into the expensive season because not only this is gonna start with Samsung. And then I presumably at some point, Google will announce it's pixel seven and the pixel I'm actually very interested in the pixel watch Google hasn't made a watch in a long, ever long time ever. So this would be the first,

Christina Warren (01:55:50):
No, I think they did. Didn't they, they wasn't there like early on before it was Android where I'm almost positive Google.

Leo Laporte (01:55:56):
Oh, they had a watch, but it wasn't where yeah. Maybe that's it like? Yeah.

Christina Warren (01:56:00):
Yeah. Because I I'm seeming to remember some pretty awful Google watch that I have here

Leo Laporte (01:56:05):
For

Christina Warren (01:56:06):
Review purposes.

Leo Laporte (01:56:07):
So yeah. I must have blocked it out. <Laugh> they? Now that they own Fitbit presumably the pixel watch will have some interesting health. I mean, Google has the capability. It feels like they've given up, but they have the capability to do some amazing stuff. They just don't seem to have their mojo intact. I don't know why

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:56:28):
I feel like they also do like six different things at the same time. It's like here let's release five different chat platforms. Decide which one we wanna keep. Yeah. And then like, I don't know. That's just kinda like Google style. I,

Leo Laporte (01:56:38):
Yeah. We're not work what they did with duo and meet and duo and meet and God what a mess. Yeah. and then, and then in probably roughly a month, we're gonna see Apple's new stuff. Rumors are now there'll be a new home pod, some new home kit stuff. Of course there will be a new iPhone and presumably a new watch. And there are rumors that there will be a pro version of the watch it'll be made of unobtainium and it'll last for a thousand hours. And I don't know, wanna turn your wrist screen. I don't know. <Laugh> we sh we shall see, we shall see, this is an exciting, exciting time. If you've been all excited about dating in the metaverse I'm bad news for you. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:57:29):
Tinder has, oh, know, Tinder has given up its plans for for dating in the metaverse the hyper connect unit, which Tinder acquired the match group, which owns Tinder acquired in 2021 has been asked to scale back its metaverse dating plans. Chief Bernard Kim said uncertainty about success with virtual worlds require the team not invest heavily in the metaverse. Unlike mark Zuckerberg the match group further blamed the hyper connect purchase for a $10 million operating loss. So there they're also stepping back on their plans to add cryptocurrency to Tinder, Tinder coins. Didn't really <laugh> didn't really take off nothing more to say, I guess. 

Christina Warren (01:58:24):
Well, did, did didn't Tinder? I mean, like they don't, they have a new CEO now too. Does they do just fire their CEO? Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:58:30):
They fired the CEO CEO.

Christina Warren (01:58:31):
Yeah. Yeah. It seems like the old CEO maybe had a bunch of bad decisions go big on crypto, go big on metaverse and, and I, meanwhile, everybody's like, no, actually that that's not why we use these, these

Leo Laporte (01:58:42):
Apps. You just wanna swipe. Right. Please just make exactly, yeah.

Christina Warren (01:58:46):
We, we just wanna be DTF. So like let's, let's not mess with an NFL. Thank

Leo Laporte (01:58:49):
That. I'm telling the truth. And, but, but honestly, really, how could you lose money on that? I mean, that seems like a pretty good business,

Christina Warren (01:58:56):
Honestly. Well, no, which is why, like, you know, like it's, it's been, you know, match group, like spun out from IAC because they're like, this makes it so much money. Yeah, exactly. It's like, it takes a lot for you to like find a way to

Leo Laporte (01:59:06):
Screw it up.

Christina Warren (01:59:07):
Lose money. Yeah. On, on, on, on this market. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:59:10):
Yeah. Okay. <laugh> good job.

Georgia Dow (01:59:12):
Sometimes you just go too far, like Tinder. You're trying to make it rain with their coins. I'm sorry. Tinders. Stop making it rain. Right. Leave this totally

Leo Laporte (01:59:21):
Are. You don't need Tinder coin. No. Yeah. Who would

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:59:24):
It? I don't trying to envision, sorry. People being in the,

Georgia Dow (01:59:28):
Yeah. Someone giving you a click coin. I'm sorry. That would be like, are now, should I offended?

Leo Laporte (01:59:32):
I have a hundred Tinder coin. I'm not. Yeah, no. And yeah, metaverse dating a bar. Are you ready for that? Ooh, that sounds great. I can't wait. Oh

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:59:40):
My God. <Laugh> as of, you know, how could we make this worse? I think

Leo Laporte (01:59:44):
Is probably what their model was dating.

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:59:45):
They got in a meeting. Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's

Leo Laporte (01:59:48):
We, you speed dating. What could we do this even worse?

Abrar Al-Heeti (01:59:51):
<Laugh> exactly

Leo Laporte (01:59:52):
Better. Verse dating.

Georgia Dow (01:59:55):
Are you in your avatar? Like know, are we all I was gonna

Christina Warren (01:59:59):
Like, no, I was gonna say was already,

Georgia Dow (02:00:02):
You're a Panda. We're all like, I don't understand.

Leo Laporte (02:00:04):
Well, it's great for furries, but the rest of us, you know,

Christina Warren (02:00:07):
Right. I was gonna say anybody else, like we're already like, worried enough about catfish fishing and like, you know, other stuff with people, you know, using like fake things. And I was like, now you literally can just pretend to be anyone. You can

Georgia Dow (02:00:18):
Actually be a catfish.

Leo Laporte (02:00:19):
You can be a catfish

Christina Warren (02:00:21):
Actually could be a cafe, which

Leo Laporte (02:00:23):
It's the, we call it the double catfish. <Laugh> it's it's really a sophisticated maneuver.

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:00:28):
Yeah. It cancels each other out.

Leo Laporte (02:00:30):
Yeah, that's right. It's the double I'm doing the double catfish. <Laugh> yeah. Christine, I know you're a big fan of TV and movies. ALA film, girl. You talk about it on rocket. I have to say I'm a little sad to hear that HBO is gonna go kind of go away merge with discovery plus next summer.

Christina Warren (02:00:51):
Yeah. so there was a lot of uncertainty around what was going to happen, that there was a rumor that basically they were gonna get rid of the whole thing. Now it seems like based on the earnings call I listened to and was a very interesting earnings call. I have to say first one under Warner brother's discovery, David ZLA and some of the other exec scap things, there's going to be a new service. They don't know the name of it yet, but it's gonna basically combine everything that's in HBO, max and everything that's in discovery plus, but they admitted, and I appreciated this, that like both apps kind of suck and they have to have

Leo Laporte (02:01:24):
To, so let's make one app that sucks TWiTce as well.

Christina Warren (02:01:27):
Well, I mean, I think that this is actually, and this is where I'm a complete nerd on a level that some of the audience will appreciate. I started thinking about like the technological, like the, like the requirements of how you would actually design an app like this, that's combining the, the thing to the different services and what, like, you know, like how you would do this as a Greenfield app to kind of build a new streaming thing with all these disparate you know service points. That actually was kind of exciting to me, but yeah, in, in theory, maybe they'll actually get it right. And they'll have like a, a strong, you know, technical pack in so that when you watch euphoria, the app doesn't crash, but that remains to be determined, but they are making some changes in terms of what types of content different brands will have. And it seems like, you know, the reality TV stuff is all gonna be under discovery and, and building off of that. And they're not going to be doing the day in date streaming of, of films both in theaters and online anymore, which they've already said

Leo Laporte (02:02:26):
That that was very controversial, both with creators yes. Theater owners. We liked it. Yeah. Right.

Christina Warren (02:02:34):
We liked it, but, but, but, but it, it didn't work. And, and I think that at this point, it's probably not wrong to say, if you're going to do theatrical, you need to be pure theatrical. If you have shorter windows, you know, if you have 45 days or whatever, that's better. And I think that gets you to a service faster. And I think for a lot of people, that's a good compromise versus like what the old window used to be. But, you know the reality is for, and I think this is for worse, but the only films that really succeed in the theater are these big, like tent pole films. Right. And so smaller films could go directly to streaming and that's okay. But you do then you had the circumstance which got the most controversy, which is, you know bat girl, which was done with principle photography. It was in the editing stages. It had already been screened in front of test audiences and it's canceled. It's not going anywhere. They're refusing to invest even one more cent in it.

Leo Laporte (02:03:27):
They spent 90 million on it. Yeah. is you think it was cuz it was a terrible movie? Or do you think they decided that they couldn't make money on it that spending another a hundred million to market? It would be.

Christina Warren (02:03:39):
I think it's probably both. Yeah, I think it, so, so I mean, there was a, there was some good kind of Intel that was coming in that, you know, there were tax reasons to do this. They have until the middle of August to get certain tax writeoffs based on the previous owners of, of Warner brothers.

Leo Laporte (02:03:53):
Ah, so they take a $90 million loss.

Christina Warren (02:03:56):
Exactly. Which, which would be good for their tax purposes. I do have to say though, I think if they thought there was a way where they could invest in another 10 or 20 million to finish the film and sell it to foreign markets where, where, you know, you could still sell it and then release it directly to HBO, max, even without any you know, publicity and they could make some of their principle back. I think they would've done that. But I, it seems like, and, and I I'd heard from a couple of people who had heard internally things that, you know, that it was just hot, garbage, that is just an absolutely irredeemable film. And so at that point, if you're talking about extensive reshoots, which is different than just finishing the edit and adding the special effects at a certain point, you are at a cost policy, right. You're throwing good money after bad. And, and maybe, maybe the best decision is to just say, okay, you know what, another, another adminis, another, you know, administration, so to speak made these decisions. We didn't agree to it. We wouldn't have green, let this film, it's not testing well, we're not going to put it out because it is bad financially, but also probably because it's not a good film.

Leo Laporte (02:05:02):
It's not unprecedented. I mean, this is right. I mean, this happens. I would imagine

Christina Warren (02:05:06):
This a lot. This, no, no, this is fairly unprecedented for a film to actually be done with principal photography and, and

Leo Laporte (02:05:12):
Stage, and almost fully edited stage

Christina Warren (02:05:13):
And almost yeah, exactly for it to be at this stage. And then for them to shelve it and for it to be a hundred million film that is fairly unprecedented. I can't think of another time. It's

Leo Laporte (02:05:21):
Also in an era where marketing is a huge, I mean, it's gonna be more than 90 million. Right. So once it gets to that level, then you really have to say, is it we're spending money to market a film that's gonna tank,

Christina Warren (02:05:35):
I guess. Right. Right. And I mean, to me, my kind of thing, and this is why my initial thought was, this must really not be a good film was again, if it was just about trying to recoup some of the money, which again, this is before I found about the tax element, which complicates things I was thinking, okay, well again, like if all you had to do was finish the edit, not getting reshoots into it, you could sell it into certain foreign territories where that licensing money would, would true. Bring back a lot of it. And then you could just release it straight to

Leo Laporte (02:06:04):
Straight to streaming is not there

Christina Warren (02:06:05):
Without any publicity. Right. You could do that. The thing is though, if it's gonna require, say even like a 40 or 50 million commitment at that point, I think that completely changes the financial calculus. And so, especially if they're getting the tax write off, I, I mean, it's, it's unfortunate to see, you know, a, a film that, you know, was led by like an Afro Latina. Like, you know, that, that, that that's, it's, it's like a, it's bad optically for them to get rid of the film, but I haven't heard anybody coming outta the woodwork being like, no, this was actually a really great script and a really great movie. Like, no one's saying that the best everybody's saying is, oh, no, it's not as bad as you thought. <Laugh> like

Leo Laporte (02:06:41):
That that's, that's pretty bad.

Christina Warren (02:06:42):
Which, which is kind of damning with main phrase. Right? Yeah. Like, you know, so I don't know, but it is fairly unprecedented, which is why I think a lot of us were shocked because usually like you see it with television pilots, you might see, you know, films going, you know, shelve or go direct DVD, but usually not a hundred million films that are part of big franchise.

Leo Laporte (02:07:02):
Well, they did also cancel scoop holiday haunt, which

Christina Warren (02:07:06):
Is, yeah. See, see that. Well, see, that makes total sense. Right? That's the sort of thing happens all the time, but, but

Leo Laporte (02:07:12):
That was not way natural. It was 95% finished. I know I'm not the audience for it, but the, the creator said the audience has liked it. And this is kind of a, a, a no brainer for making money because of it's the time of year that it would appear, which is after Halloween before Christmas. Alright, who knows? You know, it's not my business, it's their business business. They get to do whatever they want. I wonder if the merging of discovery plus an HBO X is an acknowledgement that there are too many streaming services that people are tired of spending so much money on separate services.

Christina Warren (02:07:49):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's sort of been David ALA's whole thing. Like this was actually one of the reasons why, you know, he shut down CNN plus basically as soon as the company took over, like they, they killed it. It, cuz they basically he'd said like very publicly that he thought that having all these individual streamers and these individual services was a problem and that you should just have these big Omni services because discovery had tried and, and he's like been public about this. Like they'd tried to have many different sub streaming networks for a long time and, and it wasn't successful. And then they were like, okay, we're just going to do discovery plus

Leo Laporte (02:08:21):
What's discovery plus I don't know what's on discovery

Christina Warren (02:08:24):
Plus. So it, so it's, it's basically everything from the various discovery channels. So like, and but, but that includes TLC and some of the other stuff. So you see some originals,

Leo Laporte (02:08:33):
It's all the Housewives shows

Christina Warren (02:08:35):
All. No, no, no, no. That's on peacock. That's peacock. It more be like the 90 day fiance universe is two discovery plus hats. Okay.

Leo Laporte (02:08:43):
Very important to make a

Christina Warren (02:08:44):
Distinction. Very, very important. Well, yeah, no, no, cuz Bravo's a step up. No, I wanna be very clear here. Bravo's a step up, right? Like Bravo like spends a oh yeah. Spends way more money. On reality. One a hundred percent discovery is like low on the totem pole. Right. But they also have like the ship in and, and Joanna Gaines stuff and like a lot of the, so

Leo Laporte (02:09:02):
Here's the slide.

Christina Warren (02:09:03):
There's

Leo Laporte (02:09:03):
Things that David ZLA showed explaining why these are unique and complimentary properties. HBO, max, he said has a males skew. It's scripted. Sure. Game of Thrones. It's lean in it's appointment viewing it's the home of fandoms. Yeah. I think that's true discovery. Plus female skew, unscripted, lean back comfort viewing the home of genres. So that seem fair. It seems to me if tho these are so antithetical, you don't wanna combine them into one service.

Christina Warren (02:09:36):
I mean, I don't know, like I, I'm probably the rare person who enjoys the absolute trash and let's be very clear is absolute trash. You're the night, day fiance universe. You're I'm with you and, and the trustee TV. I love them both. So I'm actually excited to not have to pay for them both, to be honest with you. Yeah,

Georgia Dow (02:09:53):
No, I'm I'm with you Tristan. And I'll take all the trashy shows. I just want my brain to melt. If I'm watching something I don't wanna have to think or analyze, right. I just want my brain brain to melt.

Christina Warren (02:10:02):
I want, which is I have to say.

Christina Warren (02:10:05):
And that is honestly what discovery is great for. And they've made a ridiculous amount of money off of the worst stuff imaginable over the years. And, and you know, whereas HBO was high R so I, I don't know if this works or not, but I mean certainly if you have them in different tabs and if you're not advertise, like if you're not promoting and I'm sure that they would not wanna do this, cuz their algo would be smarter than that. As long as you're not recommending, you know, like certain content to the people who only want, you know, game of throne, Thrones or Sopranos reruns, like, you know, know, it probably does make sense. At least for, for families who have people with different tastes watching something. I don't know.

Leo Laporte (02:10:40):
I, I mean, it sounds like you you're replacing one brain fry for another, you would, you would rather watch 90 day fiance, get your brain mushed that way than trying to figure out what streaming service it's on.

Georgia Dow (02:10:54):
Like right. There's too many. There's just way too many. Like we can only like people, especially now they, you know, when we're dealing with, what are we gonna be buying? Where are we gonna be spending money? And we don't have as much, you just can't buy all of them. And because they're all linter off

Christina Warren (02:11:09):
Exactly. Choosing

Georgia Dow (02:11:11):
Buy something for a month, binge it, record it. And they're done go to the next one. It

Christina Warren (02:11:17):
Keeps it's the worst disabled it's, it's basically we've taken the worst aspects of cable and, and you know, made it part of like the streaming dichotomy.

Leo Laporte (02:11:25):
If I'm tuning, if I'm sitting down on a Sunday night to watch game of Thrones and I get 90 day fiance, I, if

Georgia Dow (02:11:33):
You do both, what if you can do both right? You can watch game of Thrones and then you can watch 90 day fiance as well.

Christina Warren (02:11:40):
Right? You can enjoy love after lockup and you for you.

Leo Laporte (02:11:43):
I think like, I think there's a lot of couples that are gonna be causing some real friction in many, in many households where, you know, she wants to watch 90 day fiance. I wanna watch game of Thrones and they're both. I mean, this is not. Or, or do you think, well, oh, we'll both agree. Let's buy. We should definitely buy HBO disco max. <Laugh> that's very confusing. I know. We'll see. This is an look he's trying stuff. I'm not a David Z. Love fan. I'm gotta say

Christina Warren (02:12:10):
He's smart. He's smart. I mean, he's what I

Leo Laporte (02:12:13):
Commented cynical and

Christina Warren (02:12:14):
He's, Greeky, he's cynical. Here's the interesting thing though. I've never seen this before. I've never seen someone, you know, a company come in, came in who, you know, bought obviously like, like Warner brothers from, and, and, you know, Turner all apart from, you know, Warner media basically then go around and undo every major decision that the previous owner, oh, he

Leo Laporte (02:12:34):
Did too. Like

Christina Warren (02:12:35):
Instantly, like this entire thing has been like nothing but a referendum on John Stankey who's, you know, CEO of at and T and Jason Klar who he put in charge of, of, of Warner media. Like literally every decision that they've made from the name HBO, max, which look, I think it's a great service. It's my favorite service. I think we can all agree. The name is terrible to the day in date theater thing to Stephen plus to all these, these other kinds of decisions.

Leo Laporte (02:13:01):
But HBO max was already diluted. Like it took HBO.

Christina Warren (02:13:04):
Right? I agree. Agree. Which is agree

Leo Laporte (02:13:05):
Is very clear. And then they added a bunch of stuff that isn't HBO. Exactly.

Christina Warren (02:13:10):
And now they

Leo Laporte (02:13:10):
Look what they say. The, the top franchises are, this is another ZLA slide. H HP discovery. CNN, H that's so funny. TV, CNN and DC Looney tunes. What are the franchises? You got Batman. You got what's that wrestling or wonder woman. I wonder woman. You got wonder woman wonder I confuses WW E logo Superman. Then there's shark week, then there's game of throne. Then there's 90 day fiance universe. <Laugh> then there's Harry Potter. I

Georgia Dow (02:13:36):
Like, I like all of this.

Christina Warren (02:13:38):
Okay. Same. I was gonna say I'm into all of it. I'm

Georgia Dow (02:13:40):
All in a bra. What about, what about you?

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:13:42):
Okay. Well I think the only thing I've never heard someone say, Hey, do you have a discovery plus account so I can use your password. You're

Christina Warren (02:13:49):
Dead on. You're dead on. Absolutely. Yeah. <Laugh> absolutely. I only, I only have it cuz it's free. I only have it because I get it for free with my Verizon. See there,

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:13:57):
To be honest. Yeah. Ex and that's the only way I've almost been tempted to get it is because I also have it free through a Verizon account, but yeah. It's like, you know, HBO, max is one of those platforms where it's like, ah, I got somebody's password. I'm all set. I, you know, cuz as we discuss, there are too many streaming platforms mm-hmm <affirmative> and so everyone's just borrowing passwords, which is why Netflix is now trying to crack down on that and make people pay if they share their passwords. But yeah, but yeah, I think it's, I think this is a good way to force people to watch the shows that are on discovery plus because it's

Leo Laporte (02:14:26):
Like right there. I, I deeply, I deeply regret getting peacock because then we discovered the below deck reality.

Christina Warren (02:14:35):
I was gonna say, I was gonna say again, like this is higher, this is higher quality. The below deck, which is kind of part of the, the Vander pump rules, you know, Rony kind of, you know, whole, whole universe. Yeah, I agree. It's terrible. But it's better than the, the quality of scary stuff. Lisa saying,

Leo Laporte (02:14:52):
We used to get two below decks a week. There was below deck down under and below deck mad. And now we only get one below deck a week. She was upset that there isn't more below deck, but good news. There's like gonna be two more below decks. Oh yeah. Yeah. The whole premise is if, for, if you're smart and you'd have never heard of this thing is it is kind of the upstairs downstairs for the giant mega yacht set. So you're following these poor people who live in these, these tiny cabins and they're right on top of each other as they serve the most entitled, awful people in the world above decks on these super yachts. And and then the drama that ensues it's and, and what's hysterical is it's a reality show where the, the camera people, the producers they're arrow on the yacht, they're all like cheek by gel. Everybody's jammed in together and they can't <laugh> they can't get off. It's actually a great idea for a show.

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:15:47):
Awesome.

Leo Laporte (02:15:48):
I know it's

Christina Warren (02:15:49):
It's it's honestly very watchable. I enjoy, I enjoy the whole Bravo universe. I'm

Leo Laporte (02:15:53):
So embarrassed. We

Christina Warren (02:15:54):
Watched calling very smart.

Leo Laporte (02:15:55):
It, it started, I was looking for something cuz we couldn't travel in pandemic and I thought, oh good. We'll get to see, you know, beautiful sunsets in, in the Caribbean or whatever. And we have now watched literally every single below deck show, we went all the way back all the way forward. We've hundreds of hours. I love it. Lost to that franchise

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:16:15):
Though. I think it's worth it. It seems, seems like you've I

Leo Laporte (02:16:18):
Shouldn't

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:16:18):
Feel guilty.

Leo Laporte (02:16:19):
IED. You're saying you shouldn't feel guilty

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:16:21):
Based the way basically how you summarized it. Bless you. Yeah, this sounds great.

Leo Laporte (02:16:24):
I made it sound better than

Georgia Dow (02:16:25):
Decompression. Right? You need to have some stuff. Especially when you're with public, you have to always be on camera, dealing with people. It's really nice to just have so something where you don't have to fix deal with it and you can just enjoy it. Like candy. It's like

Christina Warren (02:16:40):
Rain. Exactly.

Leo Laporte (02:16:40):
You guys are great. And

Christina Warren (02:16:42):
It's just on the background. I mean, I will say he's right. It is lean back stuff cuz you're not paying attention to

Leo Laporte (02:16:47):
If you make no, I got my phone open. I got my iPad open. I got my laptop. I'm playing. Yeah. Right.

Christina Warren (02:16:54):
Cause sometimes, you know, shows as much as we're in like TV and it's great. You have to pay so much attention to every little thing. It's true that it's like a chore. It is not a chore to watch blow deck. Like no,

Leo Laporte (02:17:06):
You know it's not a chore Sandy. Y captain Sandy is coming to Santa Rosa in a couple of months and Lisa says, we're getting tickets. Right? I say to see the yacht captain, what is she gonna talk about? Swabbing, the poop deck. I don't know, but we're gonna go see her. I guess

Georgia Dow (02:17:25):
That'd be a great trip. You have to be like stuck in the show. You are now below deck. They like you. Yeah. Pay all this money. They make

Leo Laporte (02:17:32):
All this money. They won't let you

Georgia Dow (02:17:33):
Stuck

Christina Warren (02:17:33):
There. You're oh my God. Isn't it. Isn't that the star wars experience.

Leo Laporte (02:17:37):
Yeah. Like at the you're in the hotel, you

Christina Warren (02:17:39):
Can't in the hotel, like where we, where you spend all that money for the terrible hotel room and then you're part of the, the cost play thing. That's basically what they've done. Bravo, because there's a Bravo con. They should totally do that. They, they could auction off in a blow deck experience and they could make so much money. I'm not even joking. I wouldn't pay for it. Oh yeah. Cause I, I, I, I, I, I, I like my space too much, but I would, there would be so many people who would pay for a blow deck experience.

Leo Laporte (02:18:04):
The, the best part is, you know, you're always trying to figure out well, who of the crew is gonna hook up cuz it's, that's like the whole show.

Christina Warren (02:18:11):
That's the whole point of the show.

Leo Laporte (02:18:12):
Yeah. The whole point of the show who's gonna hook up and they never do because there's cameras everywhere. There's nowhere private at all. But then the, the guests on these shows are the worst people they've actually gotten a little better. I think they must have gotten some notes from people saying don't make 'em so horrible or something. Or maybe they've watched the show and they now know they're gonna be, it's gonna be permanent record, but they're nicer than they used to be. They used to be like they had the woman who was the, the queen of ver SI you know that documentary about yeah. The woman who married the, the 800 year old timeshare magnet. And she, she had a little dog's poop all over the house cuz she couldn't be bothered to take him out for the walk she gets on the yacht.

Leo Laporte (02:18:51):
That's fun. That's fun. All right. Anyways. Okay. I gotta get going Susan. There's a show tonight. I don't wanna miss. So here we go. Beautiful picture. God, you gotta love the James web telescope. This picture of the Proxima sent beautiful picture of a galaxy. No, it's not actually it's a piece of sausage. <Laugh> it's inclined who, by the way, you might trust he's the research director at France's alternative energies and atomic energy commission tweeted this photo last week saying is, is the closest star to his son. Look at it's beautiful from the James webspace telescope. Lots of people tweeted it, retweeted. It liked it. The level of detail he wrote a new world is revealed day after day. He had to admit a few days later. It's not in fact the work of the world's most powerful space telescope. It is a slice of chorizo sausage <laugh> and then apologizes saying according to contemporary Cosmo, no object, belonging to Spanish charcuterie exists anywhere, but on earth, lots of people pissed off and it's Y <laugh> for trolling the world with a piece of Spanish sausage.

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:20:16):
It's so telling it.

Leo Laporte (02:20:17):
It does. I

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:20:18):
Kinda look like culture could

Leo Laporte (02:20:19):
Have been from the,

Christina Warren (02:20:20):
I really is

Georgia Dow (02:20:20):
Actually believe it when I first saw it.

Leo Laporte (02:20:22):
I told you didn't I say it?

Georgia Dow (02:20:24):
Yeah. I, I, I was like, oh and then yeah, no

Christina Warren (02:20:28):
Same, same, right? Same. And then you look at it more closely and you're like, oh no, just got brownies.

Leo Laporte (02:20:34):
<Laugh>

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:20:35):
What I love too is like, this is just hilarious because I don't know if you guys have noticed it on TikTok. A lot of people have been like, okay, you're showing me all these pictures. I don't fully understand like, am I supposed to be excited? It's like super colorful, super. I think you have one side. You like the people who are really into science who are like, this is amazing. And then you have the other side. That's like, okay, what now? And then you have this and

Leo Laporte (02:20:54):
Then you have, and there's it.

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:20:56):
We're like, oh, I guess I'm supposed to be excited about this. And then yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:20:59):
So I love it.

Georgia Dow (02:21:00):
Most, most people, the, the academics of us down a little bit to be like, okay, like just, you know, hold off on your high horse. Even you got fooled by the, you know, it's tastier than it is really scientific. So

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:21:14):
<Laugh>,

Leo Laporte (02:21:15):
This is one one galaxy that would taste li great with your scrambled eggs. Thank you so much. AARA I hope you will come back a bra AHI. Wonderful to have you your first time on TWiT. Was it okay?

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:21:27):
It was so much fun. Thank you so much for having me.

Leo Laporte (02:21:29):
Good. I'm glad you were here. Video host producer had seen it. She'll be up early on Wednesday morning covering Samsung's galaxy unplugged event. Thank you so much. I look forward to it. I really

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:21:41):
Appreciate. Thank you so much.

Leo Laporte (02:21:42):
And you know what you so good. I forgot about the the bent blind, so

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:21:47):
Oh, good. See?

Leo Laporte (02:21:48):
Okay, good.

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:21:49):
See my it's a huge compliment.

Leo Laporte (02:21:50):
Yeah. Yeah. I just didn't even notice after a while.

Abrar Al-Heeti (02:21:52):
I'll carry that in my heart. Thank

Leo Laporte (02:21:54):
You always a pleasure to have you on Christina Warren. Congratulations on four months now at GitHub senior dev advocate someday soon, she'll get the right pump back film girl on TWiTtter. What's the most valuable shoe in that rack behind you? Some of those kicks are worth hundreds. Yes.

Christina Warren (02:22:13):
Some of them are. Yeah. 

Leo Laporte (02:22:16):
Are you out of that now? Is that a, is that another project you moved on from? Yeah,

Christina Warren (02:22:19):
I've kind of, kind of moved on from that a little bit. I'm not as into it. I have, there's a pair of off whites that are not on the rack that they're in a box that's up there that are the most valuable

Leo Laporte (02:22:29):
Sealed in the box.

Christina Warren (02:22:30):
No, I mean, I, I like, they're just still in the box. They just aren't on display. I, I wear shoes. I don't, I don't do that whole thing, but I yeah, I have a pair of off whites that are probably $600 that that's, that's not the most I've spent on shoes, but that that's probably the most expensive. The

Leo Laporte (02:22:46):
Difference is these are not Manolos. These are comfortable. No, you can wear them. Right. And you can enjoy them.

Christina Warren (02:22:51):
Well, and it in it's street style. I mean, it, you know, there there's other stuff with it too, but yeah. Yeah, totally.

Leo Laporte (02:22:56):
I love it. Thank you, Christina. So good to see you. Thank you, Georgia Dow as always Georgia gives out her email address for anybody who's struggling during these difficult times, Georgia west Mount therapy.com. Thank you for doing that, Georgia. I appreciate it. And if you have not watched therapist reacts in the other videos she does at youtube.com/georgia Dow, you are missing, this is, this adds. In fact, you need to do a below deck therapist reacts. This adds to the enjoyment of trash TV because

Georgia Dow (02:23:32):
I, I did the will Smith appol that was the first real

Leo Laporte (02:23:36):
Person. Oh wow.

Georgia Dow (02:23:37):
Ish thing. I did do that one.

Leo Laporte (02:23:39):
Oh, wow.

Georgia Dow (02:23:40):
It's the first time I've done that. It actually did really well in comparison to the toxic max did really well the toxic masculinity, but I thought you can go take a look at the comments for your entertainment value. But

Leo Laporte (02:23:53):
I am very curious what you have to say about will Smith's foe apology to Chris rock for slapping him.

Georgia Dow (02:24:01):
I have a few, I have a few thoughts about it. Yeah. I have few thoughts about it and I enjoyed doing it. So I might do reality TV, but I like doing the character stuff and I don't know. I don't know. I'm gonna, I'm gonna take a look and see where it's at, but yeah, O', no's coming up toxic masculinity from soldier. Boy was wow. The last one. And you can just check out the comments. You don't,

Leo Laporte (02:24:23):
Your comments are always great. Like this one on the will Smith apology guy has an Oscar and can't even act like, he's sorry. I love that. <Laugh> <laugh> as, as you know, you've done something I thought no one can do. You've actually made YouTube comments. Good. so everybody Georgia Dow is at youtube.com/g E O R G I a D O w. So great to have you. Thanks once again. Thank

Georgia Dow (02:24:49):
You. Thank

Leo Laporte (02:24:50):
You, having, thanks to all of you for joining us. We do TWiT every Sunday afternoon, 2:00 PM. Pacific 5:00 PM. Eastern that's 2100 UTC. That's when we kind of start assembling show usually begins by half pass. You can watch the pre-show and the, and the conversations and the chit chat and the show itself live during our live stream, live.Twit.tv. There's audio and video there. If you're watching live, join the chat room, they're, they're there 24 7, but it's most active while we're live during shows and I'm watching and we always get great interaction from our IRC it's IRC dot TWiTt TV. We also have a discord chat, which is always a lot of fun. These are members of club TWiT <laugh> and the animated gifts. <Laugh> just keep on coming. If you are not gonna, if you are not a member of a club, TWiT $7 a month gets you ad free versions of all of our shows.

Leo Laporte (02:25:49):
It gets you the access to the discord, which is more than just conversations about the shows. There's every geek topic under the sun, including our book club this week, or sorry, this month Stacy's book club will be Clara and the sun we're gonna do that August 25th. We're about a week away from Alex. Lindsay's ask me anything. That'll be on the 18th. So we've got club events. We have shows that actually do not get released outside the club. Our new hands on windows show with Paul throt is an example. There's the untitled Linux Linux show. There's the gizz fizz, the book club, and then shows often when they're successful. It's kind of an incubator because the club members are paying to support the shows. We don't have to worry about audience size and advertisers, but then when a show takes off like this, we can space does.

Leo Laporte (02:26:37):
We can release it to the public. So that's one of the best benefits of club TWiT. All the shows also can be bought individually by the way, at $2 and 99 cents a month. But I think the seven bucks a month is worth it. You also get the TWiTt plus feed, which includes stuff that didn't make it to the podcasts. If you're interested in joining, please, we appreciate it. It really helps us out. All you have to do is go to TWiTt.tv/club TWiT seven bucks a month is a yearly. There's also corporate membership after the fact this show and all the shows that are we released publicly available on our website@TWiT.tv. Each show has its own YouTube channel as well, just like Georgia Dow just without any audience. We also <laugh> without the viewership and the comments, we also have of course, a podcast fee, cuz they are podcast and you can get your podcast player and subscribe. In fact, that's the best way to get TWiT. If you subscribe to it, we guarantee you'll have it by your Monday morning commute. Thanks for being here, everybody. We'll see you next time. Another TWiT is in the can!