Ask the Tech Guys Episode 1988 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):
Well, hey, hey, hey. It's time for Ask the Tech Guys. I'm Leo LaPorte Coming up, rod Pyle explains what happened to that Soviet lunar lander.
Mikah Sargent (00:00:09):
And I'm Micah Sargent, and Leo and I are gonna answer the question, should you let an AI do your taxes?
Leo Laporte (00:00:15):
You think you know what our answer is? <Laugh>, stay tuned. We'll, we'll also talk to Chris Ard, our photo guy, our photo assignment, and lots of questions all coming up. Next, wanna ask the tech guys podcasts you love
Mikah Sargent (00:00:29):
From [00:00:30] people you trust?
Leo Laporte (00:00:32):
This is twi,
(00:00:36):
This is Ask the Tech guys with Micah Sargent and Leo LaPorte. Episode 1988, recorded Sunday, August 20th, 2023. Hopelessly Lovesick as the tech guys is brought to you by a c i Learning a C's. New cyber skills is training for everyone, not just the pros. Visit go dot aci learning.com/twit, [00:01:00] put listeners or receive at least 20% off or as much as 65% off an IT Pro enterprise solution plan discount based on the size of your team. And when you fill out the form, you're gonna get a proper quote tailored to your needs. Your listeners of this program get an ad free version if they're members of Club twit. $7 a month gives you ad free versions of all of our shows Plus membership in the club. TWIT Discord, a great clubhouse for twit listeners. [00:01:30] And finally, the TWIT plus feed with shows like Stacey's Book Club, the Untitled Linux show, the GIZ Fizz and more. Go to twit tv slash club twit and thanks for your support.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:43):
It's time for Ask the Tech guy.
Leo Laporte (00:01:46):
Well, hey, hey, hey. That's Mike A. Sargent over there,
Mikah Sargent (00:01:49):
And that's Leola port over
Leo Laporte (00:01:50):
There. And we got a big show coming up for you. Lots of questions, lots of answers via phone. (888) 724-2884.
Mikah Sargent (00:01:58):
Yes. You can also head to call [00:02:00] Twits tv.
Leo Laporte (00:02:01):
Zoom us Zoom,
Mikah Sargent (00:02:02):
Zoom, zoom. When you go there, you will be connected to a Zoom call where you'll hang out and we'll bring you on air. If you have video, you'll appear in this little circle here on our screen and you'll get to ask your question. If you, you know, don't wanna appear on video, we totally understand. You can also email us ATG at twit tv with your question.
Leo Laporte (00:02:23):
And here's a dirty little secret. When you phone, you still go into the Zoom thing.
Mikah Sargent (00:02:27):
This is true. T there's the dirty little
Leo Laporte (00:02:29):
Secret. So there's the do [00:02:30] do duty little secret. The do Here's a dirty little secret
Mikah Sargent (00:02:32):
Movement.
Leo Laporte (00:02:33):
So also coming up today, we've got Rod Pyle.
Mikah Sargent (00:02:37):
Yes. And we also have
Leo Laporte (00:02:38):
Spaceman,
Mikah Sargent (00:02:39):
Chris Marquardt at once. Man, the clock thing. Yeah, it's like 12. Are you doing the clock 12? We have Rod Pyle one. We have Chris Marquardt.
Leo Laporte (00:02:47):
So do you know what they call the arm on a Sundial?
Mikah Sargent (00:02:52):
The Spinola? It's
Leo Laporte (00:02:53):
Got a funny name, but I can't remember
Mikah Sargent (00:02:55):
What it's Oh, well come on. Is it the cursor? It's the, the Fetlock.
Leo Laporte (00:02:59):
No, it's not the Shadow either. [00:03:00] Look it up. Yeah. Is the name somebody
Mikah Sargent (00:03:03):
Out there? Tell us
Leo Laporte (00:03:04):
Somebody out there. Scooter X will look it up and tell us in about five seconds. He's very good. What else is going on?
Mikah Sargent (00:03:11):
You know, there's a lot going on. We've got stuff going on in space, which is why we've got Rod Pile coming on.
Leo Laporte (00:03:17):
It's the Gnomen Gnomen. The Gnomen.
Mikah Sargent (00:03:19):
N
Leo Laporte (00:03:20):
G N O M O N, the Noman. Thank you Chap. That's the weird word I was looking for.
Mikah Sargent (00:03:25):
That's an
Leo Laporte (00:03:25):
Interesting, you know why that came up for
Mikah Sargent (00:03:27):
Me? Was it Jeopardy? Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:03:28):
And the answer [00:03:30] was Sundial, but I was, it's, you know, they said something like, you know, what is that? What is what? How did, when you know it's 11 o'clock. 'cause That shadow thingy is there. And it turned out they wanted the word sun off.
Mikah Sargent (00:03:43):
They just wanted some, not
Leo Laporte (00:03:44):
Noman. I'm going crazy with it. It's, what is it? Is it a cursor? Is it, it's Noman. Ah. And it turned out is, that was the wrong answer anyway, so, huh The heck with you <laugh>. I play Jeopardy every day, you know?
Mikah Sargent (00:03:56):
Yes, I do. Religiously. It's good for your brain.
Leo Laporte (00:03:58):
Well
Mikah Sargent (00:03:59):
Do Okay. [00:04:00] I guess
Leo Laporte (00:04:00):
It's not well. Well, so
Mikah Sargent (00:04:03):
You were thinking of Noman instead of just Sundial. That's pretty impressive.
Leo Laporte (00:04:05):
Yeah, but I couldn't come up with it. That's the real problem. Oh, so Microsoft's gonna have an event. Do you still have your blue velvet? I
Mikah Sargent (00:04:13):
Do. I still have Elvis. The what is this now? That's the Surface laptop. Two or three,
Leo Laporte (00:04:19):
I think. Was it two?
Mikah Sargent (00:04:20):
It was definitely more than one. Yeah. Second one, I
Leo Laporte (00:04:22):
Think it's second one. And it has El Canata on me.
Mikah Sargent (00:04:24):
El Canata
Leo Laporte (00:04:25):
On the, on the wrist rest. Which is why we call, I call it
Mikah Sargent (00:04:27):
Blue Vet. It's now covered with spaghetti sauce though, because [00:04:30] No, it's, there's nothing on It's fine. It's fine. You yeah. It, it still hums. I have to tell you one thing that I found that's very impressive about that device is how long the battery lasts. Oh. Given my experience with Windows machines, I expected the battery to be terrible and it was pretty
Leo Laporte (00:04:50):
Okay. That's a good recommendation. It's
Mikah Sargent (00:04:52):
Pretty okay.
Leo Laporte (00:04:52):
Yeah. Well, don't buy one though. No <laugh>. Because September 21st, there's gonna be a Microsoft event in New York City. It's probably [00:05:00] the surface event. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Thursday. And we will cover it. We'll stream that live. And by the way, that reminds me that Apple's event, mark, rumor monger extraordinaire Bloomberg says will be September 12th, 10 days earlier. But it's funny because the stuff that you order Yeah. Will ship the day after Microsoft's event.
Mikah Sargent (00:05:21):
Yeah, that's a good point.
Leo Laporte (00:05:22):
I think Microsoft said we better have our event better. Our
Mikah Sargent (00:05:24):
G Yeah, let's hop on it. Let's, let's make
Leo Laporte (00:05:26):
This happen. <Laugh>. We better do it
Mikah Sargent (00:05:27):
Quick. Want them to buy our stuff.
Leo Laporte (00:05:29):
You can now. [00:05:30] And I think you should ask Rosemary about this. First of all, we have to buy her a Tesla. Okay. Because you can now
Mikah Sargent (00:05:35):
Use step one
Leo Laporte (00:05:35):
Series shortcuts in the Tesla mobile app.
Mikah Sargent (00:05:38):
Oh.
Leo Laporte (00:05:39):
So you could have a shortcut that like when my shower is done, turn on my vehicle, start my
Mikah Sargent (00:05:45):
Tesla. Yeah. Or something. I dunno why you do that. So you still, unfortunately, you still can't CarPlay in a Tesla. You can now airplay in a Tesla. So if you wanna watch your favorite shows on the screen in your Tesla, you could do that. I'll never
Leo Laporte (00:05:58):
Understand that. My, my Mustang Mach e [00:06:00] also an electric vehicle. I can watch YouTube videos. I realized though, I think why that is, that their Tesla and, and Mach e and many electric vehicles have games and other entertainments is 'cause you're stuck at a charger for half an hour to an hour
Mikah Sargent (00:06:13):
If you don't have the infrastructure at home. Yeah. Than you are charging road if you're on the road charging on the road. The road. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:06:17):
The road. Yeah. And I think they always wanna entertain you like
Mikah Sargent (00:06:20):
Playing a game while I wait for my charge.
Leo Laporte (00:06:21):
So, terrible fires. I am so sad about Lana in Maui. And of course Canada's still burning still nasty. And [00:06:30] now the Canadian government is mad at Meta because they made, so the Canadian government made a law that said that meta Google and other organizations would have to pay publishers for showing meta, for showing links to news stories. You know, the, the little box you get if you share a news story mm-hmm. <Affirmative> on Facebook, and you click it, it goes to the story. But for some reason they say, no, you should pay us for that little box. To which Meta said, fine, bye. No news here. And they said, no news [00:07:00] links in Canada. Now the Canadian government's mad because they call that ban reckless due to the fires in Canada. Meta started blocking news on its Facebook and Instagram platforms earlier this month in response to that new law requiring payment. Some people fleeing wildfires in the remote northern town of Yellowknife have complained to domestic media that the ban prevented them from sharing important data about the fires. How can I tell my friends on Facebook about the [00:07:30] fire? How can I insta it if the, well, I know this
Mikah Sargent (00:07:35):
Is, this is because
Leo Laporte (00:07:37):
You can, by the way, do both those things. What you can't do is link to a Yellow Knife News Journal report about it. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So
Mikah Sargent (00:07:45):
Yeah. You, I guess you just become a citizen journalist. In fact,
Leo Laporte (00:07:48):
Heritage Minister, for some reason, she's in charge. I don't know why Heritage Mini. Seriously, she's in charge of this whole thing of C 18. Heritage Minister Pa Pascal Sanon said in [00:08:00] a social media post Meta's Reckless choice, excuse me, excuse to do my pep Lip Pu Ex, and pardon me, Meta's Reckless Choice to Block News <laugh>. He's hurting access to vital information on Facebook and Instagram. Yeah. But if you hadn't,
Mikah Sargent (00:08:17):
You, you put a law in place that they have to pay. And so are you saying that Yes, please share news and we aren't gonna make you pay for it then. Okay. Yeah. In emergency cases. Cool. I this, [00:08:30] I'm sorry, but this just makes
Leo Laporte (00:08:31):
Sense. Now, you may say, oh, we're cold and heartless because people in the wildfires need this. No. I think cold and heartless is a Canadian government, which knows there's plenty other ways to share that information. Mm-Hmm. Besides Instagram and Facebook. But it's trying to leverage the wildfires to get meta to do their bidding. Yep. I think that's cold and cynical, to be honest. There's plenty of other ways to share that information. Pascal is being disingenuous to use a fresh word. [00:09:00] Okay. Don't buy.
Mikah Sargent (00:09:02):
Oh God. Please don't. Yeah. Do you know Yeah. Where I'm going? Yeah. I'm, I'm falling over. You
Leo Laporte (00:09:06):
Are a psychic today.
Mikah Sargent (00:09:08):
That's, that is exactly what it is. Actually.
Leo Laporte (00:09:10):
Do not buy SanDisk SSDs from Western Digital. The Verge is reporting. And they reported this a couple of weeks ago. Thatand extremes. Ssds might just erase themselves, lose all your data. The Verge says it happened to one of their people twice. [00:09:30] It happened to ours. Technica, it happened to reporter at Pet Aix. So it's happening. It maybe even happened to you. I'm sorry if it did. Months after our inquiries, the Verge writes, Western Digital continues to sell these drives due to deep discounts, fake Amazon reviews and issues with Google search that rank favorable results far higher than warnings, like the ones that Verge has been giving out. And we're now giving you about potential failures. Western Digital's head of pr, Robin Schultz [00:10:00] refuse to answer some basic questions from the Verge. Why are these drives still on sale? Will you offer free data recovery services?
(00:10:08):
Are you proactively warning consumers and retailers? If not, why not? What exactly is going on? How did this happen? What is the meaning of life? The universe in anything <laugh> that Robin wouldn't say, but Robin did say in response to recent reports of concerns about specific Western digital portable s s D products, we want [00:10:30] to assure our valued customers. We are taking all measures necessary to address any product related issues. We understand the significance of our products to our customers. We take these matters very seriously. We're conducting a comprehensive review to gain a thorough understanding of the issues. You know what you should do, Rob appoint a committee that always
Mikah Sargent (00:10:53):
Works. Yeah. There you go. Appoint a committee who will three years from now decide the people should stop buying them and tell everybody they should stop buying [00:11:00] them. On episode 298, so a couple episodes ago on Tech News Weekly, we had Sean Hollister from the Verge on Oh. To go kind of in depth about it. This is Sean's article. Good. Yeah. And I
Leo Laporte (00:11:11):
So you know all about this.
Mikah Sargent (00:11:12):
Yeah. And I mean, this is just, I dunno, at this point, it's stunning to me that you're still seeing sales happening of, of, of these devices.
Leo Laporte (00:11:21):
There is a class action lawsuit, according to the register. California resident, Nathan Crumb, <laugh>, probably not his real name, filed a prospective class [00:11:30] action lawsuit citing breach of contact, fraudulent unfair business practices. Many other claims. I don't know if Cru will win. Yeah. But interesting. Anyway, the main point all this is don't buy Sandis extreme SSDs. 'cause There's some unknown problem. And Western Digital seems to be uncommunicative,
Mikah Sargent (00:11:50):
Especially given the popularity of this particular model that is the one that's featuring heavily everywhere. Yeah. It's been recommended by a lot of sites. Have you
Leo Laporte (00:11:58):
Ever heard of James Dean
Mikah Sargent (00:12:00):
[00:12:00] <Laugh>? Yes. I know James Dean Got a poster of James. No, don't do, do
Leo Laporte (00:12:03):
You? You should.
Mikah Sargent (00:12:04):
It's just everybody. I feel like everybody has a poster of James Dean.
Leo Laporte (00:12:07):
It is. Yeah. He died in I think 59 or something like that.
Mikah Sargent (00:12:11):
Right? Yeah. Talk about a jawline.
Leo Laporte (00:12:13):
He had a jawline. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But, and he hasn't made a movie in quite a few years, as a matter of fact. But he might. Thanks to ai. This is our, he died in 1955. This is our AI Panic of the week.
Mikah Sargent (00:12:26):
Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:12:29):
James Dean only was [00:12:30] in three movies, but now, 70 years after he died, he's been cast as the star of a new upcoming movie. The
Mikah Sargent (00:12:38):
Star.
Leo Laporte (00:12:39):
Yes. So he made East of Eden Classic. See it, if you haven't, the new movie's called Back to Eden, A Digital Clone of James Dean. Created using artificial intelligence.
Mikah Sargent (00:12:53):
Who's doing this?
Leo Laporte (00:12:55):
<Laugh> We'll Walk, talk, and interact on screen with other actors. Let [00:13:00] me see who's making this, this sacrilege. And it's helpful because of course, the actors are on strike. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, the writers are on strike too. So what you do is you remake an old movie with a deep fake actor. Ah, problem solved
Mikah Sargent (00:13:14):
<Laugh> so, so grim. Until the V FX folks go on strike.
Leo Laporte (00:13:18):
Yeah. Then well, the V F X folks are threatening that, aren't they Bonitos? Yeah. Yep. Chiming in. And he's you're absolutely right. So we shall see. This is now just beginning. Carrie Fisher, remember, [00:13:30] was recreated for Star Wars. They had a lot of film on her and, and, and presumably had the rights to do it. Paul Walker passed away. Sadly they still need him for Fast and Furious. 57 <laugh>,
Mikah Sargent (00:13:45):
Not 57. It's, it's 65.
Leo Laporte (00:13:47):
65. Oh,
Mikah Sargent (00:13:48):
65. Okay. You missed it. When they went back in time to the <crosstalk>. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:13:53):
Darold. Ramis also passed away. A Brazilian singer. Ellis Regina was recently resurrected for [00:14:00] a car advertisement where she was shown dueling with her daughter. Daughter's still alive. Mom gone. Anyway, I don't, these, I'm not gonna go see How do feel about these? Gonna see back to Eden.
Mikah Sargent (00:14:11):
Yeah, I'm curious. I mean, if it, if it was, if permission was given by the Dean family <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:14:18):
Oh, wait a minute. Now I'm really not seeing it. You know, wanna know the plot? Oh God. It's a sci-fi film. And out of the world, out of this world visit to find truth leads to a journey across America [00:14:30] with a legend James Dean and Martians, I
Mikah Sargent (00:14:35):
Guess. Oh, okay. This sounds like a Stone Ner film.
Leo Laporte (00:14:37):
Sounds terrible. Anyway, that's our artificial intelligence panic of the week.
Mikah Sargent (00:14:46):
<Laugh>,
Leo Laporte (00:14:46):
Shall we? I haven't even checked to see
Mikah Sargent (00:14:49):
There is one. Okay. I'm reading your mind again. Yes,
Leo Laporte (00:14:52):
You, he's amazing. <Laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:14:55):
He's
Leo Laporte (00:14:55):
Amazing.
Mikah Sargent (00:14:56):
But I do think we'll have to do three other pauses.
Leo Laporte (00:14:58):
What do you know? What do you think I'm [00:15:00] thinking right now?
Mikah Sargent (00:15:01):
Why are you thinking about SpaghettiOs? That's
Leo Laporte (00:15:04):
Okay. Get out of my brain. Micah, Sergeant <laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:15:09):
Oh, man. Let's let some other people get into our brains.
Leo Laporte (00:15:11):
Okay. That's what we do here. We let you tap into our gray matter. Shall we do a, I
Mikah Sargent (00:15:17):
Hate it, phrase like that for some reason.
Leo Laporte (00:15:20):
What do you wanna do? Call, email. I'm asking producer extraordinaire ai. John Ashley <laugh>. What?
John (00:15:28):
I'm gonna send Jim Rose to the breakout
Leo Laporte (00:15:30):
[00:15:30] Room, sending Jim Rose to the breakout room. Hello. Jim Rose. Jim Rose SpaghettiOs,
Mikah Sargent (00:15:37):
Famous drummer, Jim Rose.
Leo Laporte (00:15:38):
You know, I don't know how you knew <laugh>, that this was in my brain, but I'm, I'm pretty impressed that you could catch on so quickly. Can you, I'm gonna close my eyes, Uhhuh, and see if you can see what I'm thinking. Okay.
Mikah Sargent (00:15:53):
Just
Leo Laporte (00:15:54):
See if you can see. What am I thinking right
Mikah Sargent (00:15:57):
Now? Now, Leo,
Leo Laporte (00:15:59):
What am I thinking
Mikah Sargent (00:16:00):
[00:16:00] Is thinking right now? I can see him Yes. In his home. Yes. Just absolutely having the, like the music's turned way up. Yep. Yep. There it's a mess. He's making three different meals at one time, because Lisa's gone all week.
Leo Laporte (00:16:16):
That's exactly what I'm eating, because my wife and you are going to Denver. And I'm not jealous. <Laugh>, I'm not. Alright. is is my, what was his name? Jim. Jim
Mikah Sargent (00:16:28):
Rose
Leo Laporte (00:16:29):
On the phone. Oh, [00:16:30] Jim's on the phone. Do I need to do anything? No, I already, hello, Jim Star 60, 66.
John (00:16:39):
Unmute. You need to mute
Leo Laporte (00:16:40):
Himself. Oh, star 60. I think it's
Mikah Sargent (00:16:42):
Just six. Six. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:16:44):
Star six. You know, even with these in, I can't hear a thing. <Laugh>,
Mikah Sargent (00:16:49):
You're still thinking about the SpaghettiOs. That's all Stars. Can you hear
Caller Jim Rose (00:16:52):
Me now?
Mikah Sargent (00:16:53):
Yay. We can <laugh>. That's what that where
Leo Laporte (00:16:58):
Calling from Jim
Caller Jim Rose (00:17:00):
[00:17:00] Bluetooth seems to take over my phone.
Leo Laporte (00:17:05):
That's what's going on right
Mikah Sargent (00:17:06):
Now. Jim is from Bluetooth and it is taking over Jim's phone. What do you mean when you say it's taking over your phone?
Caller Jim Rose (00:17:14):
If I'm listening to a book on tape or a music and I turn, I put the Bluetooth away. The next time I put on the Bluetooth, it automatically goes to that place. And I've tried rebooting [00:17:30] the phone. I have to stop whatever I was listening to in order to be able to use the Bluetooth, or I hear both the book and whatever else I'm listening to on Bluetooth.
Leo Laporte (00:17:41):
That's a convenience, Jim. That's the intent.
Caller Jim Rose (00:17:44):
Oh, I see.
Leo Laporte (00:17:45):
If you didn't, if it didn't do that, then it would, you would say, why, why can't I hear my book? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So the Bluetooth, which, what headsets are you using? That it's Apple
Caller Jim Rose (00:17:58):
Bose
Leo Laporte (00:17:59):
The [00:18:00] QCs. Yeah. Yeah. So he is wearing Bose quiet comfort. They're very nice earbuds. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And I think this is by design. Bose is saying, well, last thing you did was listen to a book. And what kind of phone?
Caller Jim Rose (00:18:20):
Samsung S 21.
Leo Laporte (00:18:22):
Okay. Or it could be the Samsung doing this, saying, yeah. Well, I'm still paired to the bows and I know you're [00:18:30] trying to make a phone call, but I'm just gonna start this book anyway. Which actually, it sounds like it's more the Samsung, the blue, the bows would remember you're pairing to the Samsung. Right. So it stays paired, which is what you want. But the problem is the phone, you're making a call and the Samsung is not smart enough to say, oh, he's making a call now.
Mikah Sargent (00:18:54):
Yeah. 'cause that is a setting that you could change on iPhone and remember now, is it? Yeah, there's a, it's, it's, it's buried in accessibility, [00:19:00] but there's an option between automatic switching or choose headset or choose speaker whenever you're placing a call.
Leo Laporte (00:19:06):
So bet wonder if there's somewhere, I bet Bluetooth feature or something. And, and it's something in your Samsung settings. I don't have my Samsung phone with me, unfortunately. I brought my pixel today of all days, so I can't check this. But that's, I almost certainly that's what's going on is the Samsung has decided mm-hmm. <Affirmative> that as soon as you, you know, gosh, you, you would think though that it would immediately, [00:19:30] as soon as you open the dialer on the phone, it would immediate, when you're, once you're in the phone, there's this, you know, there's a, a, a settings button. You can choose where the phone audio's going, and you should be able to say, boy, the, the book shouldn't play at the same time as you're talking.
Mikah Sargent (00:19:45):
There is so according to this, if you go to settings, connection, Bluetooth, and then look for the Bluetooth device, which in this case would be these Bose quiet comfort, there's an option that has audio and media. [00:20:00] And so you can choose to basically only have Bluetooth work for calls, or you can have it work so that it's working with audio and media. It's kind of a, a switch between the two. So if you wanted to basically say, I only want Bluetooth headphones to be connected whenever I'm doing whenever I'm listening to something. And I don't want it to be for calls. That seems to be what you'd want to do.
Leo Laporte (00:20:29):
Yeah. [00:20:30] It's
Caller Jim Rose (00:20:31):
Except that when I wanna make a call, I want it on Bluetooth.
Mikah Sargent (00:20:36):
So you want the calls on Bluetooth and you want the audio book to be coming outta the speaker of the phone?
Caller Jim Rose (00:20:42):
No, no. So I'm listening to the book and then I go into a store. So I, I put my buds away. I come out from the store and I wanna make a call, but I can't make the call until I disconnect from the book. It automatically launches the book as soon as I Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:21:00):
[00:21:00] Put the
Caller Jim Rose (00:21:00):
Headset, the Bluetooth buzz out again. And
Leo Laporte (00:21:02):
What, and can you launch the call app to make a phone call at that point? Or you can't even do that?
Caller Jim Rose (00:21:08):
Yeah, but I would hear if I don't, if I don't pause the book, then I would hear
Leo Laporte (00:21:13):
Them both. You would hear both? Yeah. Oh, okay. Gotcha. It should pick. That's seems like odd behavior. As soon as you open playing the, the call app and start dialing a phone number, maybe it won't, the book will still play until somebody answers. But at the point is that you've got audio coming from the phone app. The music app [00:21:30] should stop playing. Are you using an, what's the book app you're using?
Caller Jim Rose (00:21:35):
Audible,
Mikah Sargent (00:21:37):
I guess. Yeah. This is just, this feels like typical behavior.
Leo Laporte (00:21:41):
This is an audible setting. If
Mikah Sargent (00:21:42):
You're essentially are, as soon as I, it, it's like the phone's going. Okay. He's put his headphones back in. So he wants to keep listening to whatever it was before. So the only, the, the sort of friction that you have here is you have to hit pause. And I want to confirm you're saying that hitting pause is too much for [00:22:00] you. You want to not even have to hit pause on the book and just have it not playing?
Caller Jim Rose (00:22:04):
Well, it'll even happen. I'm in the middle. Oh. It's not only the Bose now that I think about if I'm on my the, the the phone, the car, and I'm using the speaker from the car, I'll be talking on the phone and all of a sudden the music from the last Oh,
Mikah Sargent (00:22:19):
That's, or the book. Yeah.
Caller Jim Rose (00:22:20):
It could be music or book. Just starts in, and I have to say, hold on and figure out how to pause the
Leo Laporte (00:22:26):
Book. That's the same for the
Caller Jim Rose (00:22:27):
Sure, yeah. The music. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:22:29):
That's [00:22:30] frustrating. And that's very annoying. That's yeah, that's very
Leo Laporte (00:22:31):
Annoying. Yeah. That's the Samsung for sure. That's the S 21. Doing that I would pour through the Bluetooth settings and the SS 21.
Caller Jim Rose (00:22:39):
I will do that. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:22:39):
Because I didn't even, okay. Yeah. I mean, at least we've narrowed it down. It's not, it's not the Bose, you know, now. 'cause It says in the Cari, it it, and that made sense. It's the, it's the phone. I'm, I just looked through the audible settings and I don't see any obvious place that Audible says, you know keep playing no matter what's happening. Even if I'm on the phone, that would be a silly setting.
Mikah Sargent (00:22:59):
Yeah. [00:23:00] I actually, I'm kind of surprised that it's able to stream those two audio sources at once. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:23:04):
That's a feature given it
Mikah Sargent (00:23:05):
One
Leo Laporte (00:23:05):
As a call. Yeah. That's a very nice feature.
Caller Jim Rose (00:23:08):
Hmm. Yeah. It, it doesn't audible Spotify, whatever. I'm
Leo Laporte (00:23:12):
Listening. Ah, okay. So then we know it's not the app. So this is good. This is the process of troubleshooting as you eliminate possibilities. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> until you find the the, the, the, the one thing, I think it's the, it's the SS 21. Yeah. It's definitely a setting in the S 21. There's gonna be some way that you can solve that and fix that. In [00:23:30] the settings, there's got to be, is it Samsung Dual audio. Okay. So, so, so Ray Ray is in our chat room is saying it's, Samsung has a, I don't know if it has a feature called Dual Audio <laugh>. That would be a silly feature. Yeah. Listen to music while you're on the phone.
Mikah Sargent (00:23:46):
Samsung Dual audio. Let you use a Samsung Galaxy device to cast audio's two compatible options you share. No, that's, that's out. That's not it. Yeah. That's not in, that's out.
Leo Laporte (00:23:54):
Yeah. I, I think that there's a Bluetooth setting somewhere.
Mikah Sargent (00:23:57):
Yeah. Settings, connections. Bluetooth check [00:24:00] there for all of the settings and then you can kind of decide.
Leo Laporte (00:24:04):
But the good news is that ain't supposed to happen, so you know, it's something wrong. Alright. <laugh>. And you know, it's the phone. It's, I've got a road to follow. Thank you. Yeah, thank you Jim. It's really nice to talk to you. Take care. Alright, thank you. Jim was calling from
Mikah Sargent (00:24:24):
<Laugh>. He never said Bluetooth, so he Yeah, Bluetooth. Bluetooth.
Leo Laporte (00:24:26):
I think that's in Sask, Saskatchewan.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:29):
Yeah. Yeah. Saskatchewan.
Leo Laporte (00:24:29):
Yeah. Blue. [00:24:30] Or is it in the Yukon territory? It might be in the U Yukon territory. Yeah. The
Mikah Sargent (00:24:32):
One in Saskatchewan is actually just Bluth. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:24:35):
Donald Bluth. <Laugh>. What's his name? Bluth
Mikah Sargent (00:24:38):
In. I know that is something is
Leo Laporte (00:24:39):
Bluth is in arrested Development is the blues.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:42):
Oh, that's right. Yeah. There's always money in the banana stand. There's
Leo Laporte (00:24:46):
Always money in the banana stand. Never forget that. My friends, speaking of money in the banana stand, you know, where you, if I were trying to make a good living these days, it's hard. You know, I feel bad for kids coming outta school.
Mikah Sargent (00:24:59):
Oh God, [00:25:00] me too. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:25:01):
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:25:01):
I think my siblings, I think my siblings, oh,
Leo Laporte (00:25:04):
Can I make a suggestion? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>,
(00:25:07):
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Fill out the form, you'll get a quote tailored to your needs. Great people, great training. Go dot aci learning.com/twit. We thank 'em so much for supporting ask the tech guys in all of our twit shows. They're our studio sponsors. [00:29:00] And you see the, the signage and stuff around. They've really have been very good to us this year. Thank you. A c i learning I should mention you're going, you're gonna be back next week though. Yeah, I'll be back. You're just gonna go during Monday through Friday. Yes. So to the podcast movement in Denver, Colorado. In Denver, yes. And you're going with our sales team? I am. Yeah. They wanted somebody to, you know talent there. One of the, yeah. One of the members of who's on Camera. Camera's a talent. He's the talented guy. And then Lisa and I [00:29:30] are gonna go end of September to <laugh> to Green Bay.
(00:29:33):
We're meeting with Advertised Cast, which is it probably if you listen to our shows doesn't, they don't do it on video. But if you listen to our audio shows, you'll hear some of their ads. They're doing direct, what they call direct ad insertion. So in this show, for instance, the audio version will have, I hope, God willing, two extra ads <laugh> thanks to advertised guys. So we're going out to meet them. Cool. While we're out there, we're bringing our 20 year old who is a Green Bay Packers fan. I don't understand that. But anyway, we're gonna go out and we're gonna see a Packers game. And then [00:30:00] I thought, well, since we're out there, I haven't been in Midwest in some time. Not in fact since we went out to St. Louis for it for it, who was it? I forgot. Anyway. C
Mikah Sargent (00:30:12):
D w. No. No. Yeah. Ww t
Leo Laporte (00:30:16):
Ww t. Thank you. I knew it was an initial <laugh>. So we're gonna have an event in Green Bay. It's official. We, we got the quota. Four people said yes. So we got the quota. So we haven't yet to sign on a venue, but September 29th, [00:30:30] Friday in the evening. Oh, fun. It'll be no hosts. So come on out and and we'll I'll be there. Lisa will be there. It'll be a lot of
Mikah Sargent (00:30:38):
Fun. Maybe I don't understand that term. 'cause You're a host.
Leo Laporte (00:30:41):
I'll be there. I'll be the host, but I won't pay for nothing.
Mikah Sargent (00:30:43):
Oh, that. So no host means you are hosting
Leo Laporte (00:30:46):
Yourself. I'm not paying for your spaghetti
Mikah Sargent (00:30:48):
Hosts. Oh. So it's okay. I get it. It's a polite way of saying you've never heard that for your own. Yeah. No, no host. No
Leo Laporte (00:30:53):
Host, no host bar. Yeah. No, you never heard that. Mm-Hmm. Boy, people in St. Joe must be very generous. <Laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:30:58):
Yeah, we always host. That's all I
Leo Laporte (00:30:59):
Can say. [00:31:00] They always pay party in Green Bay. September 20
Mikah Sargent (00:31:03):
We're yes. Host all the way <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:31:05):
Should I talk to a guy named Guy?
Mikah Sargent (00:31:07):
Let's talk to a guy named Guy who I'm sure hears that joke all the time. Oh, sorry. And just loves it. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (00:31:13):
Sorry, I'm sending him to the breakout room guy.
Mikah Sargent (00:31:16):
Join us guy.
Leo Laporte (00:31:17):
Oh
Caller Guy (00:31:18):
Man. Hey guys. Hey Guy.
Leo Laporte (00:31:19):
Good.
Mikah Sargent (00:31:20):
We are today. Hey.
Caller Guy (00:31:21):
Hey.
Leo Laporte (00:31:22):
Where are you calling from?
Caller Guy (00:31:24):
I'm calling from Oklahoma. Beautiful. long time listener.
Leo Laporte (00:31:28):
Thank you.
Caller Guy (00:31:28):
Second time caller or something [00:31:30] like that. That's okay. But hey, I thought I'd give you a thought. I'd give you a question and I'm kind of wanting some opinions from all of our tech fans and stuff like that.
Leo Laporte (00:31:39):
Well, you know, it's not just me and Micah, whenever you call this show, you've got our I r C team tech guys. We got our Discord team tech guys. We've got a lot of experts listening. So this is a great place to call for information.
Caller Guy (00:31:50):
And I always appreciate the collective wisdom that this network offers us everything and stuff. So, thanks. Hey okay. So my question is, is that I give tech support. [00:32:00] I give tech support for kind of mobile tech support for places like hotels, casinos Oh, wow. In areas here in Oklahoma. Oh,
Leo Laporte (00:32:10):
Cool.
Caller Guy (00:32:11):
Neat. So, you know, I am, you know, and I'm finding <laugh> I'm finding out that you know, these places don't these places that I give tech support at have you know, secure network challenges and stuff like that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. Okay. So my, my [00:32:30] thing is that when I go out there and I do tech support for these places, I'm looking for a small travel pocket router. That one connects to public wifi. Two can hardwire two computers and three that I can use my nor v p n with and everything. So I can kind of have a secure private network on the road.
Leo Laporte (00:32:54):
For years, I used a really great little portable router that had a [00:33:00] built-in both V P N and Tour. And I just got a notice from the folks who do it, they're outta Washington DC that they're wifi consulting, that they're discontinuing the product. It was at Tiny Hardware Firewall. But if you go to tiny hardware firewall.com, you can see what these little things will do. These, these were basically white labeled knockoffs of routers that had both wifi and ethernet on them. And then would become a wifi [00:33:30] access point. Exactly what you want. They'd take the internet, they'd route it through themselves, become a new access point that's safe to join. They would allow you to turn on A V P N if you wanted. They would allow you to turn on tour if you wanted for anonym anonymizing. And they would allow you to do both. It was a really great little thing. Now, there are plenty of other companies that make these travel routers. But just to give you an idea, I'm not sure, you know, I'm gonna have to find one. Like you, I'm gonna have to find [00:34:00] one. 'cause I would carry this with me everywhere. I've shown it many times over the last 20 years. But Wifi Consulting just sent me a note saying they're shutting down. Nord. Nord, you say, you say you use Nord. Nord actually sells them.
Caller Guy (00:34:13):
Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.
Leo Laporte (00:34:14):
Okay. So, so
Caller Guy (00:34:15):
What is what is open? W R t
Leo Laporte (00:34:18):
Oh, I love are familiar with that. Yeah, I'm very familiar with that. So, you know, any router will have firmware software that's running, and most companies use their own proprietary software. But back in the day when they, Linksys f the [00:34:30] 54 was such a popular 54 W r t was such a popular router. It was an inexpensive $50 router. Everybody used it. You remember those blue and black routers with the little antennas. Everybody used them. The open source community decided we're gonna make firmware for 'em. That's why it's called Open. W r t. It's made for those links as W r t routers. But it has expanded since then. It's, if you go to open W R T or D D W R T, there are a variety of them. Now you can see these. And they're [00:35:00] generally speaking because it's open source, more powerful, they do a lot more things.
(00:35:06):
They're more flexible. I'm a big fan of them. And if you can get a router that supports open source router firmware, whether it's, I think D D W R T or Tomato was around for a while, was another one. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> my experience with both open W R T D D W R T and tomato were that these were really superior to the manufacturer offered software. The funny thing [00:35:30] is asus knowing that decided that they were gonna take open w r t and make their own asus, w r t style software that, so asus many asus routers not only run an effectively open W R t, but can be modified. You gotta reverse D D W R T's the old one open. W r t is the current one. That's the one that's currently up to date. In fact, they just had a release a few months ago. So I'm looking, well,
Caller Guy (00:35:56):
Without, without dropping any names or anything, [00:36:00] you know, I'm looking around Amazon and everything. And you know, there are plenty of ones that range anywhere from $30 to to $80 that has two that has two ports on there that you know, looking into. But I'm kind of unfamiliar with this this category of routers. It's
Leo Laporte (00:36:18):
Really interesting. So I'm in a review site called lifewire. It's a decent review site that has two of them. The best overall is the $40 TP link. [00:36:30] And I do like TP link stuff. They tend to be cheap. And the, the, the next best one is the $282 Netgear. Nighthawk.
Mikah Sargent (00:36:39):
Yeah. And I looked at that. That one doesn't have more than one ethernet port on it, so
Leo Laporte (00:36:43):
Oh, okay. That, yeah,
Mikah Sargent (00:36:44):
That's the problem with
Leo Laporte (00:36:45):
That. So you need to have an in, in and out ethernet port, or you need to have two outs.
Caller Guy (00:36:51):
Well, if I you know, if I'm, if I'm connecting to something that I'll need a, a wifi driver for you know, and [00:37:00] it's not, so I'll download the driver as much as I try to keep all drivers on a U S B key to install a dr, a wifi driver. If I need to hook up via a ethernet port, you know, then you know, that's where I come in. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:37:13):
To do a research drive. So almost all of these, certainly the ones I had, would have a ethernet port, at least for the wan right. To attach. So you're at a hotel and all they have is ethernet. You plug it into these or it would have two wifi radios, [00:37:30] one for incoming and one for outbound. Right. Having an inbound and an outbound ethernet port, I think is more expensive and probably more difficult to find. But I think if you just want an update firmware, you could plug into the WAN port and, and, you know, you log into the router, you log in via wifi into the router and download firmware updates that way. So the router is online, but it's online, out to the internet. Right. So [00:38:00] you might not, if that's all you want to do, if you wanted to drive two computers via ethernet, that would be different. Then you would really need three ports. You'd need a WAN port and two LAN ports. But if you're just saying it's just to update firmware, things like that, the WAN port will work for that. You can connect directly to that. And do you wanna run open W r t? Is that why you were asking about it? Or do you care?
Caller Guy (00:38:23):
I'm, I'm, well, I mean, you know in the first half of your que first half of your answer you did [00:38:30] you didn't mention W R T and then I mentioned W R T is something I'm looking at and I'm unfamiliar with it and everything. Yeah. So I'm kind of asking
Leo Laporte (00:38:38):
Question. I like it if a router came with open with open w r t on it I would say that's a good thing. It's one of the reasons I like the as routers. Mm-Hmm. so yeah, just, just for your knowledge, most of the time routers have their own proprietary firmware. I do like the net NETGEAR travel routers. I didn't realize it was two $82.
Mikah Sargent (00:38:57):
Yeah, they're a little pricey. But that one has the option [00:39:00] to also be a cellular connectivity option.
Leo Laporte (00:39:03):
Ah. That's why it's so expensive. Yeah. So do you need, so could do you need that guy or no?
Caller Guy (00:39:08):
Could I plug? Well, I've got, I, I've got a cellular connection that I can plug my phone into the router and then it would it would give me a hotspot and
Leo Laporte (00:39:16):
Everything. Yeah. So you don't necessarily want that.
Caller Guy (00:39:20):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (00:39:21):
Well, I mean, it's up to you. I mean, it is gonna cost more because you have to have a, you have to have the SIM in there and you have to have, you know, the three G radios and all that. No, you don't want that.
Caller Guy (00:39:29):
Or, [00:39:30] or, you know, use my phone's hotspot to kinda like you know, like plug in.
Leo Laporte (00:39:36):
Yeah. I mean, plug the phone into the Yeah. Hotpots, the reason people sometimes don't want to use hotspots is because it, it wears out the battery in your phone. It's usually a little slower than a built-in connection to the cellular own network. And usually your carrier's gonna charge you extra for the hotspotting. So there are reasons people don't want that. I think having a a, a travel router in your kit is a great thing to have. [00:40:00] As I said, I'm sorry that the tiny hardware firewall is gone, but if you look at the hardware that we're selling, it's from, you know, independent third parties like G L I that are, they're still making good travel routers out there. I think it seems to be, well,
Caller Guy (00:40:14):
Actually, that's the one I was looking at. Yeah, that's
Leo Laporte (00:40:16):
A, a gli. Yeah, the GLI is fan gli.net. INET is fantastic. That one there's at least one with a four G built in. I don't know if you need that or not. You'll pay more for that, obviously. Right. but I have the G L I in the other room [00:40:30] in my drawer. And unfortunately I'm gonna have to retire it now because wifi consulting is going out of business. My guess was one guy, and he's, you know, he says, I'm retiring now. I'm, I'm, I'm good. I'm doing this for a long time.
Caller Guy (00:40:43):
Yeah. Anybody that gives mobile tech support, you know, whatever you have in your toolkit, you know, I, you know, I'm, I'm up for some their suggestions. So if you just drop it in the irc
Leo Laporte (00:40:50):
Yeah,
Caller Guy (00:40:51):
Yeah, yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:40:51):
I'll look for it. Your, what's your handle in I R C?
Caller Guy (00:40:54):
Guy Social web
Leo Laporte (00:40:55):
Guy? Social web. All right. Yeah. The gl the GL dash inet [00:41:00] $90 pass through connectivity for ethernet built-in wire guard. Or if you want to use Nord, you could use Nord. Looks pretty darn good. That one runs open. W r t I have to say if this is the one you're looking at, I I would, I would I have the, an earlier version of this and highly recommend it. I think it's great. What was, what wifi consulting was doing was they were buying these white labeled, they were putting their firmware on them and and selling them. And [00:41:30] you know, I think this is the same thing. Basically it's the gl inet GL A 1300 wireless V P N encrypted travel router has be built in V P N. This is exactly what you want. It has two LAN ports, one WAN port. It's exactly what you were asking for. Okay. No, no three G or four G, but that's fine. 'cause You can hotspot it. Okay. sorry.
Caller Guy (00:41:54):
I was in the I was in the Discord channel, but now I'm in the I S C channel.
Leo Laporte (00:41:57):
<Laugh>. Either one is fine guys. Social, either one is fine. [00:42:00] <Laugh>. Okay. Yeah, I, I have to say I haven't tried this one, but like I said, I had an earlier version of it I really liked. This looks great. It's open source with open W r T, which means you can run your own firmware on it. This is fantastic. In fact, I'm gonna buy this right now. Thank you for helping me choose <laugh>. There you go. <Laugh>.
Caller Guy (00:42:19):
Okay. Yeah, if you could just drop that link you know. Yeah, we will.
Leo Laporte (00:42:22):
We'll take a look at it. Yeah, we will. Thank you, sir. Hey, thank you both. Appreciate it. Take care. All right. Bye-Bye. Yeah, bye-bye. I think that one looks like the best one. [00:42:30] I'll put that in the I agree. I mean, it quite literally, it checked all the boxes of what God looking. Well, and yeah, it was, it's, it's unusual to have three ethernet ports 'cause that's more expensive. But yeah, I have, it's funny. It's in, it's in my drawer in the other other room. If we get a chance, I'll, I'll jump up and get it. We have time for one. Lemme do an, do you wanna do email or voicemail? You choose? Let's,
John (00:42:50):
Let's, how about a
Leo Laporte (00:42:52):
Email, email's starting to pile up. Email, email, mail. I don't know if we're gonna be able to fit it all in the mailbox. Mailbox. Should I always take from the top? Do you rotate it [00:43:00] or should I take from the bottom? I didn't rotate it. You have been. Are you, are you a good stock boy? <Laugh>. Okay. Do you know about rotating your stock? All the printer questions? What stock? When you go to Costco. Okay. That stock. And you buy new potato chips, Uhhuh put 'em in the back. Oh, yes. So that you eat the old potato chips first, right? Yes. Yes. I am eating the old potato chips here. <Laugh>, this is from Neil. Hi Neil. He wants to know about password managers. I've heard a lot about the dangers, dangers [00:43:30] of password managers being hacked. Oh, I have not heard you talk about password managers that store password data on the local pc.
(00:43:37):
I use RoboForm. Okay. That's, that's a what we call a venerable password manager. And since I do not sync my data, the vault is only on my pc. That's excellent. I think this is so much safer. It is. Someone breaks into my pc, they still have to decrypt it. I'd probably know that my PC was hacked. Certainly, certainly a lot sooner than I would've been notified about the breach would last pass. True. It's true. [00:44:00] One nice enhancement that I would like to know about is any oth any other password manager. Is there a password manager that stores the logging info, my local P but allows me to sync by Bluetooth or local wifi? That's a great question. Ooh, there are, there are many. So this is actually Phil, an interesting philosophical question from my point of view. Mm-Hmm. So you have all password managers have an encrypted blob that's your, you know, your passwords and the sites you visit and all that stuff.
(00:44:23):
It's strongly encrypted if it's done right. So even if somebody got it, they would have to put a lot of effort into [00:44:30] un breaking it, which is we so far we think is true for the LastPass vaults as well, by the way. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So that's good. But an extra step would be not to put that thing on the public internet. Right? That's of course, that's inherently risky. And so there are a number of pastor managers, including our sponsor bit warden, which allow you to host your own vault. Now you can do what you're doing with RoboForm, which is just put it on your pc. But the problem with that is, yeah, now you got a phone and you're on the road and your password [00:45:00] vaults at home. What do I do? And what's really important? The, I think the thing, the philosophical point to un underscore is yes, there's a theoretical risk of putting your password vault online, but there's an even higher risk of not using your password manager.
(00:45:16):
Much. Much. And it's not theoretical higher risk. So is it a little bit of a trade off the convenience of being able to use a password everywhere? So that's why I keep mine on the Bit Warden Vault. And I use the LastPass vault [00:45:30] and, and you know, that's a convenience, but there are a lot of password managers that let you host your own vault bit. Warden does one password, I think will let you do that. Yeah. which is, those are, those are the two best known password managers. There's open source password managers like KeyPass X that you can put on your computer that will allow you to do that. One password does what you want. And what you mention in the email, which is when you get within the vicinity of your one password vault you can use then sync it, sync it with Bluetooth. [00:46:00]
(00:46:00):
But again, it's only up to date if you've synced it <laugh> if you synced it. So if you then, you know, take your phone and put it in your pocket, add a few passwords, then go on the road before you resync, it's not gonna have those, you have those passwords. Yeah. So I, I kind of like the idea, and I think this is a good way to, this is a good media in intermediate thing. The, the real, very real risk of having the password company store. It is, that's a central point of attack. Just as LastPass was attacked, that gives [00:46:30] people a place to hit, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> having it local is absolutely more secure as long as you know how to secure stuff. Right? That's true. I mean's there's always that risk. But the risk is all on your shoulders. But it's less convenient.
(00:46:44):
There's a middle ground you could use where you remember this blob is heavily encrypted and you make sure you do that properly and then you store it somewhere. That's not the company's cloud. Like OneDrive or iCloud or, or or Dropbox, somewhere like that. And [00:47:00] most password managers, many password managers, certainly bit warden. One password will let you do that. So it's self-hosted. The advantage of that is it's not, there's not a central point of attack. You're not not going after the bit warden servers. They'd have to know that your Dropbox had your password blob on it and they'd have to get into your Dropbox. Then they'd get the blob, then they'd have to brute force it. I think that's enough protection that it's nothing to worry about. Remember, I, and I think you're the same. I use the company's password fault. Right. You don't, you [00:47:30] don't self-host your password.
Mikah Sargent (00:47:31):
Oh, correct. Yes. I do not self-host. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:47:33):
Correct. So most and, and I think Steve Gibson the same thing, but that's 'cause we're comfortable with the, I think small but finite risk that, you know, somebody could get it
Mikah Sargent (00:47:42):
To get the convenience. Yeah. We're okay with that.
Leo Laporte (00:47:45):
If you really want it, what Steve calls a trust, no one solution where no one has access to it. Yeah. You can store it and then sync it. And all the open source password managers that work that way, KeyPass X is the one I'd recommend. Sorry. KeyPass XC is [00:48:00] the one I'd recommend that works that way. Bit Warden works that way. If you want, you can host your Vault anywhere. Bit Warden does not have built-in Bluetooth synchronization. You'd have to do a manual synchronization. You could use, and I would recommend a thing that Steve and I both use called Sync thing. Mm. Open source free software that will synchronize different computers. So if you wanted to do this, host it yourself, you have the Vault somewhere. You use Sync thing, which is secure and encrypted to sync that vault [00:48:30] to other devices, including your phones, iOS and Android. You can also do it that way. And then Sync thing, you don't have to think about it. It works in the background. It just keeps them up to date. Hmm.
Mikah Sargent (00:48:39):
So then that is kind of like a true self-hosting your Yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:48:42):
It would work pretty well. It's more complicated than I'm willing to do. Yeah. And I, by the way, I use Sync thing for all my data. I have it syncing to my Sonology Nest. So I have a NAS backup of everything. I trust sync thing. It's highly encrypted. It's encrypted in transit, it's encrypted at rest. It does everything right. Actually, the data's only [00:49:00] encrypted rest if you encrypted. But Sync thing is encrypted in transit. And it, and it does a very good job. And it has this discovery features and stuff built in that traversal built in. So there's a lot of nice features of it. So that would be a good way to put your vault, you know, have your vault on your NAS or on your PC that you always, you, it has to be something that's always on, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> because you're in the, on the road and if your PC's off at home, you're not gonna be able to sink. But if, but a NASA is a good example. It's always on again though. People are gonna say, well yeah, but I don't want my NASA exposed to the public [00:49:30] internet. See, there's all these, all these
Mikah Sargent (00:49:32):
Little trade-offs. Some little,
Leo Laporte (00:49:34):
Do we have Rod yet? No, yet. Alright. We're hoping that someday Rod Piler
Mikah Sargent (00:49:40):
Down.
Leo Laporte (00:49:41):
I have the pile pile here. Maybe this will in this will invoke like Beetlejuice. Yeah. If I, if I bring out the pile pile, this is his pile. Not even the full pile of his books, his magazines. Wow. Everything Rod has ever written. <Laugh>, if I bring out the pile [00:50:00] pile, maybe a nuclear chain reaction. What happened? Did I tell you I saw Oppenheimer?
Mikah Sargent (00:50:07):
No. You, oh yes you
Leo Laporte (00:50:08):
Did. You saw, I saw an IMAX on the 70 millimeter film. How big is that IMAX screen, John? It's like five stories tall or something. It's huge. And the first scene in Oppenheimer is Oppenheimer's face. And I'm in the fifth row with my buddies. 'cause I thought it was the fifth row from the back. It was the fifth row from the front <laugh>. [00:50:30] You kinda wanna be in the middle of the way. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:50:32):
'Cause that's gonna be neck
Leo Laporte (00:50:33):
Crash. And, and the movie's starting. The lights go down. I'm looking, I'm going, oh, I hope this isn't too close. And then Oppenheimer's giant face on the screen and I'm going, oh, I hope all movie's not like this. It wasn't unfortunately, but there were a lot of very tight closeups. And I gotta tell you, those actors are brave.
Mikah Sargent (00:50:54):
Every poor,
Leo Laporte (00:50:55):
No one should ever, ever [00:51:00] have to do an IMAX film in Closeup <laugh> and those tight closeups. And I don't care how much makeup. Yeah. First of all, you can't use that much makeup 'cause you can see it. I was
Mikah Sargent (00:51:10):
Gonna say that would be tough to
Leo Laporte (00:51:13):
Do. Yeah. To hide the makeup. And I was, I was very impressed by Emily Blunt and beautiful woman. And and she's just brave. She's brave. Sian Murphy. Handsome guy.
Mikah Sargent (00:51:29):
Brave.
Leo Laporte (00:51:30):
[00:51:30] I just wanted to reach out and just like pluck hair <laugh>. Can I just, Sian, can I just, this eyebrow hair. Just want to get that, just that
Mikah Sargent (00:51:36):
One. It's just str there.
Leo Laporte (00:51:37):
So No Rod pile. So I think we should do a phone call. I say, I see somebody's named Leo LaPorte. I'm gonna think that's not the guy.
Mikah Sargent (00:51:45):
I'm gonna, that's probably not you.
Leo Laporte (00:51:46):
Yeah, that's not me. Let's do a video question. That would be a great idea. Or a voicemail. Either one. What do we got? Hello,
Caller Dan (00:51:53):
Leo and Micah. Hi, this is Suzanne. Hi, Dan. And I Hi, Dan. In my storage room, oh, I'm sorry. I would like to be able to do [00:52:00] my taxes using artificial intelligence, but I don't wanna know which program would I use to approach that. I would like it to be able to, let's say, take a look at a spreadsheet, sort things quickly, and then maybe throw all that data into a separate spreadsheet that would organize by category and do this all in a few seconds, because I need to itemize my taxes and rather than me spend hours and hours of laborious work. [00:52:30] Me too. And so what would be the the best approach to that? And can I give it verbal commands? Can it save those commands? So that if I want to do it again, that would be saved? Or do I get another person to just kind of set this up for me? Anyway? Thanks a lot. Love the show, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Leo Laporte (00:52:49):
Oh, if only this were something, but, you know, I would not trust. Would you trust ai?
Mikah Sargent (00:52:54):
No. As soon as you Yeah, no. The, the first thing is no <laugh> No, no. Don't trust the [00:53:00] ai. That's problem.
Leo Laporte (00:53:01):
Don't trust the ai.
Mikah Sargent (00:53:02):
Love to be able to trust the ai. If it was so advanced that, that it would be, this is, but there's, it's, you can't
Leo Laporte (00:53:08):
Is a good example of how AI hype has really gotten outta
Mikah Sargent (00:53:10):
Control. That's exactly right.
Leo Laporte (00:53:11):
People really think AI can do everything. In fact, I just saw a study from I B M that said that 40% of jobs would be lost to AI like in the next year, and people better go find a better job. Or upskill. No, that's not true.
Mikah Sargent (00:53:27):
Yeah. IBM m said that. Yes. It's just, it's [00:53:30] because they've got their ai.
Leo Laporte (00:53:31):
Yeah, it, you know what it is. It's hype. It's bss Don't be afraid. AI is, we're learning really is just a, a gimmick in most cases. What AI is good at is synopsizing stuff. Yes. Synthesizing existing information. But if you ask AI to do math, just ask it to do math. Yeah. It gets it wrong. You don't want it to do your taxes. AI is actually getting worse at doing math. Did you see that?
Mikah Sargent (00:53:55):
I did. Yes. Yes, yes.
Leo Laporte (00:53:56):
This is, it's getting worse
Mikah Sargent (00:53:58):
Because it's got too much input [00:54:00] and it can't, it can't figure out what's the actual truth and final, that's the thing is it doesn't tell the truth. It's
Leo Laporte (00:54:07):
Not set up
Mikah Sargent (00:54:08):
To, it tells what it thinks is the best answer. It's, it's not programmed. You think what? It's the best answer.
Leo Laporte (00:54:12):
It's not programmed to, to, that's not the mission.
Mikah Sargent (00:54:15):
Yeah. It's not, accuracy is not the mission.
Leo Laporte (00:54:18):
So here's the interesting thing. In the
Mikah Sargent (00:54:22):
Classic sense,
Leo Laporte (00:54:22):
We have been ripped off for years by companies like h and r Block and Intuit who charge you for tax preparation software. [00:54:30] They have lobbied hard to keep the government from offering free tax prep software the government can and wants to. And in many other countries in, in Scandinavia, I'm told you get a postcard that says, we think this is what you owe. Is that right? Okay. Just check this box and that's it. You're done. Gosh. What They do your taxes for you. So fortunately the good news is, I think awareness of this scam has been raised h and r Block [00:55:00] and Intuit who make the two number one tax prep programs out there are a little chagrin. You know, they, last year they said, well, we got a free, or a couple years ago, we got a free version. But yeah, go ahead and do the free version because by the end, they're gonna want, you're gonna be paying, you're gonna be paying 70 bucks no matter what. <Laugh>. Oh, I can't do that. You're gonna have to pay me for that. You wanna file it? Oh, wait a minute, <laugh>, I didn't know You just,
Mikah Sargent (00:55:22):
I just thought you wanted to Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:55:23):
Do the math for you. <Laugh>. So there are plenty of programs out there that you can input [00:55:30] your data, but you still gotta manually key it in. Yeah. I, I do think that the, you know, the i r s can do your taxes. You may not trust them, but I would trust them more than the artificial intelligence to be honest with you. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> next year I R SS will have paperless tax filings for 2024. Thank god April 15th will be able to do that. AI is [00:56:00] not your answer. I'm sorry
Mikah Sargent (00:56:03):
To say. Yeah. That I, as much as we wish we could wave a magical wand and make that happen. No, that's not. And my fear is that after asking the question here and hearing this, you might go somewhere else and try to find something. And I beg of you not to do that <laugh>. Yeah. It's just not gonna get it. Right. And then you're going to end up what the worst possible thing is getting a letter from the I r s saying, Hey, we think you did your taxes wrong, and here's what we think you actually owe. And then you have to go through that whole process. [00:56:30] And that's not fun.
Leo Laporte (00:56:31):
So the, according to the Associated Press, thank you, scooter X for the link, the i r s is gonna launch a pilot program in 2024 to test direct file system. If it goes well, then they will decide whether to move forward. Unless Intuit an h and r block offers 'em a black bag full of cash mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, they will move forward on this. There's no reason. There is literally no reason except that these companies want to make money off of you [00:57:00] for the i for there not to be free filing software. Now, if you have a complicated return I do, you know, 'cause my return includes twit. Yeah. And you know, Lisa and I have a, a very good C P A who does our taxes. It is worth it. That's better than an ai. It's a few hundred bucks. Depends on how complicated your taxes are. But all I do, it's nice. It's so nice. I used to do my own taxes. You
Mikah Sargent (00:57:25):
Probably do taxes. I do. Yeah. 'cause mine's only slightly complicated with the stuff that I do [00:57:30] for Relay. So. Right.
Leo Laporte (00:57:31):
If you're an employee with a W two and a ten nine or a even a 10 99, it's ten nine gets a little complicated. But if you're with a play with W two, it's pretty easy. Yeah, absolutely. That, you know, you can use a 10. If you can use a 10 40 easy, it's pretty straightforward. But if you are using, and we file Schedule C for small business, and you probably do too. And that's where it gets complicated. Yeah. And there's lots of deductions and there's lots of, this is, and that's is depreciation. That's fun. So I would say get an accountant that's like an AI only, it's a human,
Mikah Sargent (00:57:59):
Oh, [00:58:00] it's a human being who's been trained to do this and knows what they're talking about and is actually aiming at accuracy. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:58:07):
Now I have to say, I do my mom's taxes and I, I I pay for it. I, you know, yeah. I use TurboTax and there's a lot of advantages. It remembers all the stuff I entered in years gone by. A lot
Mikah Sargent (00:58:18):
Of it be imported even for it's new.
Leo Laporte (00:58:20):
Her you know, it logs into her savings and her, you know, her investments pulls all that data. I don't have to do any of that. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:58:28):
So there's AI involved [00:58:30] in that. Right. It's pretty
Leo Laporte (00:58:31):
Quick, I have to say. It's pretty quick. I and it's 70 bucks pl actually, it's more like 159 now. Yeah. 'cause 70 for state. 70 for federal. And, and I think they add $13 to e-file <laugh>. It's really
Mikah Sargent (00:58:46):
A, they'll get you.
Leo Laporte (00:58:48):
They get you anyway. Yeah. Don't do, don't do the a It's funny how the AI hype train has really taken on.
Mikah Sargent (00:58:54):
That's honestly, I have to say, that actually did make me feel a little bit scared when that question came in. Yeah. That [00:59:00] I'm worried about other people heading down that path and like typing into chat. G P T here is my tax information. Can you do my taxes for me? Yeah. And then of, yeah, of course. In the Discord, someone has posted the dating simulator that helps you prepare your taxes. I dunno if you heard about that, but there's a game you can play. It's a dating simulator game. Yeah. And it will help you do your taxes
Leo Laporte (00:59:24):
At the end of your taxes
Mikah Sargent (00:59:25):
Are done. I don't know how complete your taxes are by the end of it, but Yeah. It, it tries to help you do your [00:59:30] taxes.
Leo Laporte (00:59:30):
<Laugh>. I married Lisa so I didn't have to do taxes. <Laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:59:34):
It's one of one of a few reasons.
Leo Laporte (00:59:36):
She's an enrolled agent. Yeah, I get it. I get there's, you know, other reasons too. Other reasons too. <Laugh>.
Mikah Sargent (00:59:41):
Oh, I guess it's been taken away since then. The the dating simulator,
Leo Laporte (00:59:47):
The they will say on TurboTax, and I'm sure h r Block does as well. We use AI to check your return. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (00:59:54):
That's just, which is just a's just
Leo Laporte (00:59:55):
Advertising.
Mikah Sargent (00:59:56):
Yeah. All it is is looking at the numbers and then looking at the other [01:00:00] numbers, <laugh> and making sure they add up
Mikah Sargent (01:00:03):
Which is what
Leo Laporte (01:00:03):
Programs have been doing. I guess Rod has lost our phone numbers, so Oh, I promised you Rod Pile, but they've taken the pile away
Mikah Sargent (01:00:09):
From me. Ground controls and Major pile. Well,
Leo Laporte (01:00:13):
<Laugh>. That's good. I like it.
Mikah Sargent (01:00:15):
<Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:00:15):
Maybe if I play the Space Force theme three times,
Mikah Sargent (01:00:18):
It'll, now that actually could summon. He
Leo Laporte (01:00:20):
Might appear, but all the rest of us will disappear. Oh. do you? All right. Do it. Email. Email. Oh. Oh, I have to do that.
Mikah Sargent (01:00:30):
[01:00:30] Least the
Leo Laporte (01:00:32):
Mailbox. You shouldn't make an old man.
Mikah Sargent (01:00:35):
Maybe we should put it over my shoulder. Through the
Leo Laporte (01:00:36):
Rotator
Mikah Sargent (01:00:37):
Cuff. Little like, yeah. I'm worried about his rotator cuff.
Leo Laporte (01:00:39):
I'm cuff, I'm gonna need Tommy John's surgery.
Mikah Sargent (01:00:40):
And that's a really hard one to recover from. Like, or it takes a long time. Oh yeah. Rotator cuff
Leo Laporte (01:00:44):
Surgery. I won't be pitching my fastball for some time. <Laugh>, here's one from Sam. Hi Sam.
Mikah Sargent (01:00:50):
Hi Sam.
Leo Laporte (01:00:53):
I think he might be in Australia.
Mikah Sargent (01:00:56):
Oh, we can't answer this one then. Sorry. You gotta send that to the
Leo Laporte (01:00:59):
Yeah,
Mikah Sargent (01:00:59):
Sorry. [01:01:00] External country department.
Leo Laporte (01:01:01):
Yeah. Domain migration. I have an email service with iOS. Ios I O N O s. Never heard of 'em. They host my domain and the emails, I'm happy with iOS, like their tech support spam filtering could be better. And the Calaf calendar is not existing unless I upgrade MS. Exchange, which is expensive. And I do not wish to do. How do I move my emails to Fast Mail, but keep the domain with iOS so that, you know, I already have a personal email with [01:01:30] Fast Mail, but I want to use my domain on Fast Mail subscription to the other two email addresses I use for tech support. That's super easy. Actually.
Mikah Sargent (01:01:35):
It is easy. Name servers. Just change the name. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:01:38):
So if you know how d n s works that I could show you, probably without risking my security <laugh>,
Mikah Sargent (01:01:45):
Let's, let's let Leo check that first. I
Leo Laporte (01:01:47):
Have a long history.
Mikah Sargent (01:01:48):
We switch over
Leo Laporte (01:01:49):
To, of revealing far too much information,
Mikah Sargent (01:01:51):
Nah.
Leo Laporte (01:01:53):
Phone numbers, et cetera. So here's my, you can show this. This is my fast mail. And these are all the domains [01:02:00] I have hosted on Fast mail. How do I do that? Well, most of these domains are registered somewhere else. Now, I don't know if iOS is what iOS but if they give you access to your d n s settings, the simplest thing to do, and this is what I've done for most of these, is I registered the domains of the registrar. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, but I don't use the registrar's. D n s. The D N Ss is the phone book. You can use somebody else's d n s and change the D N Ss. And so I've changed for all of these domains, [01:02:30] I've changed the d n s to fast mail. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And what happens is, when email comes to any of these, it comes into my fast mail inbox, which sounds like what you want. And because it's Fast mail, I can have unlimited number of names. So let me let's pick one that I don't actually use.
Mikah Sargent (01:02:53):
You could go through the fake process just to add, add a domain and at the top
Leo Laporte (01:02:57):
Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (01:02:58):
The wizard.
Leo Laporte (01:02:59):
So I can customize [01:03:00] the D M S D N S. You have oh, I don't want to log in again. But what I do is I go to Hover and it's actually very simple. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Fast Mail has instructions on this that are very good. And I'll show you. It's like a
Mikah Sargent (01:03:13):
Little wizard.
Leo Laporte (01:03:14):
Yeah. And basically all you're gonna do let's see. This isn't what I want. All you're gonna do is at somewhere on Ionis, you're gonna say, no, I don't want you to host my dns. Here are the DNS servers, which in this [01:03:30] case would be NS one. Do fastmail.com and NS two.fastmail.com. You change the DNS to that, then check it at FastMail. Tell FastMail I want to add my domain here. Yeah, let's do it. Let's do, let's, let's, let's do it right now. Micah.
Mikah Sargent (01:03:46):
Oh wait, you need to click add first. That's just searching your current domains.
Leo Laporte (01:03:50):
Oh, add or bio domain and then Yeah. One use a domain. You already know. Oh yeah. You're all right. Micah is cool. [01:04:00] Pizza <laugh>. Okay. It's checking it. It says, well wait a minute. No. Oh, it looks good. Okay. Oh, I guess it means no one else owns it. Or maybe I do own this. Okay. And then do you own, ah, this is where we Do you own that? Where is your domain registered now? I io an onus is not there. <Laugh> nor is Hover.
Mikah Sargent (01:04:21):
So we could choose other.
Leo Laporte (01:04:22):
So you choose other and then, ah, okay, then continue. Okay. Then you [01:04:30] tell 'em how you want this to, you know, your email choice, Leo at Micah is cool. Pizza <laugh> mail to sent any other address will be sent to me. Yeah, fine. You know, any of the addresses that Micah is cool. So now I have 'em all. Okay, continue. Now, are you using a website? No, I don't have a website. So that makes it very much easier. So now it says, go to your control panel supplied by your domain registrar, and then look to where the change the name servers. So the thing that probably is the takeaway from [01:05:00] this is that there is something called a registrar, which is a company that is licensed by I C A N, the Internet Corporation for assigned names and numbers, which is a non-governmental organization that runs the internet names and numbers.
(01:05:16):
They franchise registrars. The registrars like hover, like domain cheap. There's a, you know, a million Google used to be one. They've just sold their business at Squarespace. Yeah, that's right. [01:05:30] Those guys can take money for registration. They then send that information. Micah's Cool Pizza to the 13 big name servers, ICAN runs. That's the giant phone book of the internet. That way then everybody can see that when I go to Micah's Cool Pizza, it takes me to that site. Right? But there's more than just sites. There's also email, there's other things that, that, as you know, that that domain can represent. [01:06:00] So you buy that most registrars, like GoDaddy, make make their money not selling you the name, but selling you a website and other services associated with a name. So they're gonna act as if, oh, now we are gonna host your website.
(01:06:14):
No, that doesn't have to be that way. All they've done is send their, your name, taken your money, $10 a year or whatever, and send that to the big domain and name system in the sky. And that's the only thing they need to do. [01:06:30] And you can renew through them. You can move it to another registrar, but you don't need to move it to another registrar. One of the services they offer is, is, is to host your domain. But you don't need to do it. You can have anybody host your email or your domain, or both. And so that's what you're doing. You're telling the registrar, the people hosting my domain or hosting my mail is Fast Mail. The Regi that's built in the registrar can't say no to that. They may try [01:07:00] to mislead you, <laugh>. They may do some Handwaving, please. 'cause Remember these, most of these companies like GoDaddy make all their money with services, not with the registration that GoDaddy's the biggest domain registrar in the world. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But mostly what they do is they're selling hosting. So but I don't want them to host. I just want them, I wanna buy a domain name from them. And I'm gonna host somewhere else, Squarespace or WordPress or whatever. And I want my email at Fast Mail. You could do both. That's why Fast Mail said, do you have a website? 'cause It's different instructions.
Mikah Sargent (01:07:28):
One of the rare places [01:07:30] where you can have it all. You can, you can have your cake and eat it too.
Leo Laporte (01:07:33):
Here. You can. Hey, where's my pile?
Mikah Sargent (01:07:36):
I think Pile is coming up next after this little break. It's time for Rod Pile.
Leo Laporte (01:07:44):
It didn't, it worked, but it worked slowly to invoke Rod piles.
Mikah Sargent (01:07:48):
It's, you know, sending those signals so far away to space to get in touch. That's
Leo Laporte (01:07:52):
What it was. Yeah. Rod Pyle is 12 billion miles away from the Earth. So it took 17 hours for me to get these <laugh>, [01:08:00] these fabulous books. Inner planetary Robots. True Stories is Space Exploration. One of Rod's books amazing stories of the Space Age. Another one of Rod's books. Look at this
Mikah Sargent (01:08:11):
One. Yeah, that's cool.
Leo Laporte (01:08:13):
Blueprint for a Death Star. That's definitely the title. I'm sorry. It's not The Death Star because we don't want George to get Mad <laugh>. It's a Battle star. That's a space station. He's the editor in chief of a Astro magazine for International Space Society. National Space Society. Not [01:08:30] International. There's just this station. Right. And you'll get to talk in a bit, rod <laugh>. First I have to tell you everything about the Pile Pile. And this is the book I'm not gonna throw because it's gonna kill somebody. If I do, it's the first on the moon. The Apollo 11 50th anniversary experience. I love this book so much that I bought two, one for my coffee table at home and one for the pile pile. Hello Rod pile Spaceman.
Rod Pyle (01:08:55):
Hello, sir. And you know that Battlestar book was supposed to be How to Build a Death Star, [01:09:00] but just as we were getting ready to go to press, Disney bought the Star Wars franchise and the publisher went Uhoh <laugh> Uhoh.
Leo Laporte (01:09:07):
Don't wanna mess with Disney Uhoh,
Rod Pyle (01:09:09):
We call it something else.
Leo Laporte (01:09:10):
Yeah. Love Rod pile. Rod Pile most importantly is host of this week in space with Ter Malick on this same very network. Sure. And I, I can bet that this week you'll be talking about Russia <laugh>.
Rod Pyle (01:09:23):
Oh, poor Russia. Yeah. I
Leo Laporte (01:09:25):
Don't today the know this is one where I don't I'm trying not to go. Woo-Hoo.
Rod Pyle (01:09:30):
[01:09:30] <Laugh>. You're trying not to gloat. I know, I know.
Leo Laporte (01:09:32):
What happened. It it,
Rod Pyle (01:09:34):
Well, it's hard. And you, you know, being boomers, you and I, even though we were kind of near the tail end of it, I, I don't know about you, but, but
Leo Laporte (01:09:41):
Way, what happens if at the end of being a boomer,
Rod Pyle (01:09:45):
Well, you end up having a little, little tweak of nationalism every time you hear one of these, these things. I know, because we grew up during space race. 'cause
Leo Laporte (01:09:51):
We were in the space race. Yeah.
Rod Pyle (01:09:53):
So, you know, the Soviet Union was going great guns in the fifties and sixties with space seventies. [01:10:00] They still did really well with space stations. But they'd given up on the moon. And then they kept kind of a steady cadence up with the space stations for decades. And then eventually joined in with the International Space Station, of course, since then, which is
Leo Laporte (01:10:12):
Fine, when we were allies, cooperating, collaborating, great. But then Ross Cosmos became politicized.
Rod Pyle (01:10:20):
Yes, very much so. And they've had a lot of problems. So towards the end of us using soy use to get up to the space station for our astronauts, 'cause the shuttle [01:10:30] wasn't flying anymore, they started having reliability problems with that previously very reliable crude spacecraft. And for the last few years, you know, I think their budgets at this point, a couple billion dollars a year, a little more. Not very much. And they're having a lot of problems. So Luna 25, which was gonna be their first robotic landing on the moon since 1976, and they returned samples, small amount of samples robotically was supposed to land to the South [01:11:00] Pole. This is gonna be a big deal. They were just gonna beat India by a few days and they were gonna go and, you know, prospect for hopefully for water. Sorry, there's a helicopter going over for water, ice on lunar pole. Now, this was not a rover, it was just a lander, but that was still the hope, unfortunately.
Leo Laporte (01:11:19):
Wait a minute, wait a minute. Here comes the Navy seas near the Air
Rod Pyle (01:11:21):
Force here, right?
Leo Laporte (01:11:22):
Yeah, yeah. Yep.
Rod Pyle (01:11:23):
Unfortunately apparently a couple days ago they did an orbital maneuver and it didn't go correctly [01:11:30] and it sent the spacecraft into an impact trajectory on a lunar surface. And bye-bye. Lunar 25. That said, India's Chandry three and the they've, they've had an okay record there. They had one, one problem and one success where they're flying right around here. Thank you very much. Storm Watch, I guess Chandry Ann's supposed to land on the 23rd or 24th, and that actually has a small rover. And we'll do some prospecting. So when I say prospecting, [01:12:00] I don't mean drilling.
Leo Laporte (01:12:01):
Everybody is going to, is it the South Pole where the water is?
Rod Pyle (01:12:06):
I'm sorry. You're gonna have to speak up, Leo. I'm
Leo Laporte (01:12:08):
I, is everybody going to the South Pole where the water is? Yeah. Yeah. And, and yeah. We're, and even China is playing. In fact, Russia now is gonna do a deal instead of working with us and the e s a, they're gonna work with China to, to put a, a, something on the South Pole. And now we're, now we're gonna see the politicization of space, I'm afraid.
Rod Pyle (01:12:28):
Very much so. So in [01:12:30] the interim, Russia does have two or three more landers planned, including a drill. So they're gonna go try and drill for ice and see if they can find it in a couple of years. If it works. They're just, you know, they had a lot of brain drain. Yeah. After the end of Soviet Union and in the ensuing years because of low pay and bad working conditions and so forth, as I understand it. And, you know, they're just not up to snuff anymore as far as the stuff is concerned. Is there a
Leo Laporte (01:12:54):
Science, but there's a lot of hope there. Is there a loss to science from this crash?
Rod Pyle (01:12:59):
Oh, I think [01:13:00] so. You know, anything at the South Pole is new. 'cause We've never been there with anything. So that would've been very exciting. And certainly if the Indian landing occurs properly, that'll be very exciting because they're gonna be able to drive around at least for one lunar day, a couple weeks and, and look for things. So we're really looking forward to that. But yeah, this, this was not a good ending to their attempt. And as you point out, you know, they're now in this this China Russia alliance to build their own lunar base. So we have a plan to eventually have [01:13:30] a crude base, hopefully on the, on the lunar South Pole. This is spread out of
Leo Laporte (01:13:35):
The TV show Space Force. Well, it,
Rod Pyle (01:13:38):
Well, and, and for all mankind, right?
Leo Laporte (01:13:40):
Oh, that's right. That's right. Yeah. Even more serious vein for all mankind covered this. Yeah.
Rod Pyle (01:13:45):
And so, you know, because of, of geopolitics, Russia and China decided to ally on this thing, and they're inviting other people to participate. So far, not many people, not many countries have signed up for that. On the American side, we have the Artemis Accords. [01:14:00] Russia was invited, China was not. And that's an international cooperation to do work around the moon and on the lunar surface. And so far, 25 countries have signed up for that, including India just recently. So we, yes, we could have competing lunar bases. And the question then becomes, if that is, you know, if those bases succeed in being deployed, are they gonna cooperate? Is it gonna be like the Antarctic where you put politics aside and if somebody has an emergency, of course you help out. Or are we gonna have cold shoulders? And [01:14:30] we just dunno, at this point, you
Leo Laporte (01:14:31):
Know, it's, it's bad enough that we have this disease of nationalism on the planet Earth. It's really sad if we spread it to space. But I think it's probably inevitable, unfortunately.
Rod Pyle (01:14:44):
Well, you know, there's this divide in the space, big think community about what the future's gonna be like. And there's a fair number of people who think it's going to be very Star Trek like, and we're all gonna get along, and somehow we're gonna leave our human [01:15:00] impulses behind when we go into space and cooperate. And everything is warm and fuzzy. But I think increasingly we realize it's probably gonna be more like the expanse where we're people, you know mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And we evolve from primates and we take all our prejudices to some extent. And our animosity with us, it's actually been really surprising over the decades in space flight, how well people have cooperated. I mean, the way that we were able to work with the Russians and others at the International Space Station [01:15:30] was really quite extraordinary. And it went very well. Even when things were falling apart in the ground at the invasion of Ukraine up there at the Space Station, it was fine. You know, they were doing very well and they were putting it aside because there's kind of a brotherhood of space flight. I think once you're actually one of the people up there. How that'll play out in the future is anybody's guess.
Leo Laporte (01:15:50):
Russ Cosmos, which is the NASA of Russia, the press release, maybe it's a bad translation, said that Lunar 25 quote ceased to exist [01:16:00] as a result of a collision with the lunar surface.
Rod Pyle (01:16:03):
Right. That was a, a Google translate.
Leo Laporte (01:16:06):
I think that's a poor translation. Yeah. Yeah. I
Rod Pyle (01:16:09):
Hope it's based on comments. That was a Google
Leo Laporte (01:16:10):
<Laugh>.
Rod Pyle (01:16:12):
We do have another interesting story, which we covered on the podcast about a week ago. There's a little bit of shuffling going on at NASA because of budget cuts. They were not given the increase that they hoped for for 2024. So they're looking for places tr trim costs. One of them is [01:16:30] the New Horizons program, which you probably remember flew past Pluto first spacecraft to ever do that in 2015. And flew past a Kuper belt object way out beyond the rim of the solar system in 2019, called Koth. Or some people knew it as Ultima Thula earlier on. And that spacecraft has been proceeding on just fine since then, under the leadership of a jet named Alan Stern who got very famous around that. And at this point, it costs about the same to run that [01:17:00] spacecraft out in the Kuper belt as a cost to run the Voyagers in Interstellar space.
(01:17:06):
So about seven, 8 million a year. That's with a million. Not with a B, but with an M. And that's with a very small crew behind the operations at a very simple operational setup. They're not using the big mission control center at J P L. Unfortunately, that's one of the places they're looking to cut. So they're trying to cut that budget about in half, not quite shut the spacecraft all the way down, but just have it kinda look around and say, [01:17:30] oh, oh, there's this many particles in the Kuper belt in my immediate area. Alan Stern, of course, wants to keep the mission running because he's got enough fuel and stuff aboard to do at least one, maybe two more encounters and run this thing out possibly till 2050. So there's a bit of a citizens campaign going on to try and bring some pressure to bear. 'cause We're talking about a difference of about three and a half million dollars. This is a rounding error. This is a lunch error for a federal agency. A lunch budget, I mean, [01:18:00] so there's a campaign going on over@change.org. Do you mind if I give you the U r l please?
(01:18:08):
Oh, both of you at the same time.
Mikah Sargent (01:18:09):
<Laugh>. I was ready to check it in. I'm
Rod Pyle (01:18:12):
It's go.nss.org/new Horizons. And we've got a petition there.
Mikah Sargent (01:18:20):
I, I'm curious to ask too when it comes to this kind of thing, where does most of that money go to? Is it paying the people [01:18:30] who are on the ground who are monitoring it regularly? Is it the power that we're putting into it from the, because like the thing is fueled, it's already been built, it's out there. So where, what are the costs associated with this at this point?
Rod Pyle (01:18:42):
That's a really excellent question. It was, it's been about a billion dollars with a B to get it there and operate up till now. So the remaining costs a little bit if of, it's an infrastructure, but most of it's for the people. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And as I said, it's a fairly small crew. And, you know, and you have to pay for the space that you're using [01:19:00] and keep the equipment running on the ground and so forth. But most of it's for payroll. So these are American jobs. So that's not bad thing. Has
Leo Laporte (01:19:06):
NASA decided that there's no more science to be gained from
Rod Pyle (01:19:10):
New Horizon? No. No. There's, because anything that's operating out there, especially in deep, deep space like this, there's always science. 'cause Other than the Voyagers, we'd never been there. And let's bear in mind the Voyagers are 46 years old. Half their instruments are shut off. 'cause They aged out. Their power is going down. We, we reached the point [01:19:30] of, of halfway through the half-life of the plutonium fuel supply. So they're probably only really gonna be viable for science for a handful of more years. And the instruments they're using were designed in the sixties and built in the seventies. Right. So New, new Horizons is, is out there with essentially brand new equipment operating with a very robust nuclear fuel supply. So it's a whole different level of science. You know, the, this
Leo Laporte (01:19:54):
Is something NASA has to do all the time, though, is triage on their budget. They don't have enough money to do all the things [01:20:00] that they want to do. And so some of the things have to be canceled and
Rod Pyle (01:20:04):
Yeah. And they do. But, you know, I'd like to see a few million maybe carved out again, million with a B with an M, not a B carved out of oh s l s, you know, and, and put here mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, or hey, let's let's take some money outta the F 35 program, which is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars [01:20:30] billions at this point. And put it there. But, you know, they don't ask me because they're smart.
Leo Laporte (01:20:36):
Yeah. Well, maybe the petition will help. Change.Org is hosting it save New Horizons, the Pluto flyby and Kuer Belt Exploration mission on its way to ultimate Suli. Ha. I hope it gets there and I hope we can talk to it when it does. That seems only fair. Yeah. We've already spent a billion. Exactly. Why throw it away at this point?
Rod Pyle (01:20:58):
Well, and that's really the, the sense, you know, [01:21:00] if it was gonna cost another billion to run it, I get it. But and we have another very expensive program, which I like called Mars Sample Return. But as happens with these things, that's supposed to happen around 2030, but as happens, the costs have been ballooning to the point where it's gonna be almost as much as the web at about 10 billion with a B. So, you know, there are places to get a few million dollars. I, I think that's the way to look at it. You know, cut back on janitorial services or something <laugh>, you
Leo Laporte (01:21:25):
Know, write you're Congress critter. Honestly, Congress critter you [01:21:30] know, that's a Cory Doctor Row term by the way. Cory and his co-author Rebecca Giblin will be our hosts on Twit this afternoon. Let me ask about the storm. Are you in San Diego or LA today?
Rod Pyle (01:21:41):
I'm in Long Beach. Long Beach. That's the Queen Mary back there. Yeah. And I came down to last night to double tie my lines and check for leaks and all that. And I'm just gonna sit this one out down here. You'll
Leo Laporte (01:21:51):
Lash yourself to the mast no matter what comes <laugh>. No.
Rod Pyle (01:21:55):
You know, you probably are, are more up on the news than I am. 'cause I, I expect you have like banks [01:22:00] of teletypes in your back room printing out the news. Yeah. But it sounds like it's not gonna be that bad. Mainly I just have to be here to take care of leaks and look after wind damage. And I've got a couple of friends with boats that can't be here, so I'm gonna be looking after their stuff. Oh, that's
Leo Laporte (01:22:13):
Nice. Yeah.
Rod Pyle (01:22:14):
Yeah. It hasn't really hit yet. Are you guys getting rain up there
Leo Laporte (01:22:16):
Yet? No. No. I don't know. I don't know if we're gonna be in the path. We're talking about the hurricane that is headed towards Southern California. First time in a long time. The Southern California's had a hurricane
Rod Pyle (01:22:25):
1939.
Leo Laporte (01:22:26):
Yeah. But it's, it's slowly [01:22:30] I don't know what's going on with it. I'm not an meteorologist.
Mikah Sargent (01:22:33):
Yeah, I, my latest understanding is we might see just a sprinkling here. Oh, in fact, Burke is saying it is sprinkle
Leo Laporte (01:22:40):
Now. It's sprinkling now. Now.
Rod Pyle (01:22:42):
Wow. Oh, okay. Well, I was just chatting with, with some folks down in San Diego a while ago, and it sounds like it's, it's going through there pretty hard, but still. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:22:51):
Dr. Moms in San Diego. She says they're getting some raining.
Rod Pyle (01:22:54):
What I, I feel bad about is we get no news about what's happening to people down in Baja. And it has [01:23:00] to have been,
Leo Laporte (01:23:00):
It has hit ba Baja. And that is a beautiful area. I feel you know, Los Cabos and
Rod Pyle (01:23:06):
Total, and there's a lot of people living in substandard conditions down there. Tons of mudslides. You know, it's fairly air. So I'm very concerned about Yeah. The folks down in Mexico.
Leo Laporte (01:23:16):
I agree. It has made landfall in Baja, so
Rod Pyle (01:23:21):
Yeah. And it, it, in Baja, it's, it's still hurricane forest, right?
Leo Laporte (01:23:25):
Yeah. Although, as always, when it hits land it, it tends to lose some energy. [01:23:30] So yeah, let's hope, let's cross our cross our fingers and yeah.
Rod Pyle (01:23:36):
Prayers for those folks.
Leo Laporte (01:23:37):
Na, nature's angry. And we gotta, gotta appease Mother Nature. I
Rod Pyle (01:23:43):
Think nature's at it with us. She,
Leo Laporte (01:23:45):
She's done. She says, that's it. Let's just, you know, start over. Do over.
Rod Pyle (01:23:50):
There's still some arguing. You know, I, I go on the online forums as we all do and still see some people saying, oh, they're gonna say this is 'cause of climate change. It's like, well, you know, when something [01:24:00] happens once every a hundred years, at what point it's very small, average. You got course at, I'm just
Leo Laporte (01:24:04):
Curious, what point will you finally say, oh yeah, maybe, maybe we did over pollute the environment.
Rod Pyle (01:24:12):
Maybe a century and a half of putting all this stuff in the atmosphere wasn't a good idea. At what
Leo Laporte (01:24:16):
Point do you say, gosh, you know, this could be related <laugh>. I don't know. I'm crazy. I don't think you ever I'm crazy. Do I'm crazy. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe you never did. Well,
Rod Pyle (01:24:22):
And, you know, not to to politicize it, but working up at JPL l you know, for a few months, a year I chat with people [01:24:30] up there and I have yet to meet a one scientist that questions whether or not this is due to, to manmade effects. And they're scared, you know? 'cause They see the data right as it comes off the satellites. They're very, very, very concerned about it. Yeah. It's not good. And really don't feel they have a voice. So yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:24:47):
It's not good. Rod Pyle has a voice. He is our spaceman. Listen to this week in space, every week TWIT TV slash twists. What day and time do you do it?
Rod Pyle (01:24:58):
We record Friday mornings and it posts [01:25:00] about three o'clock Pacific time on Friday. Every Friday.
Leo Laporte (01:25:03):
Do we stream the no, we don't. So you have to, you have to wait. You can, 'cause we don't want anybody hear the dad jokes ahead of time. <Laugh>. you have to wait and listen on the
Rod Pyle (01:25:13):
Record. Oh, it's really weird. I mean, I kind of threw that in just as a lark, but we're, we're getting a, a, a moderate amount of fan mail and at least 80% of it says Love the bad jokes. And that's the first time I've heard anybody say, I love the bad jokes.
Leo Laporte (01:25:27):
<Laugh>, you found your people, rod. Congratulations.
Rod Pyle (01:25:30):
[01:25:30] I try. But blast,
Leo Laporte (01:25:32):
Stay safe. I'll do to you. Stay safe. Thank you. If it gets crazy, get out there. Okay. You don't have to save the boat. Just get out there.
Rod Pyle (01:25:38):
Yeah. If it gets bad, I'm driving up to your house.
Leo Laporte (01:25:40):
Yeah, please.
Rod Pyle (01:25:41):
I hear you have arrows in every room. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:25:43):
Every room. I've got little plumes everywhere. Thank you, rod. It's great to talk to you. Thank you so much. Bye-Bye. Take care. A
Rod Pyle (01:25:50):
Pile. Bye-Bye.
Leo Laporte (01:25:51):
Spaceman, we didn't play space force theme. Oh shucks. That's the only chance all week long. You get the chance to do it. (888) 724-2884 [01:26:00] is our phone number. We've got some lines open right now. You can also zoom in at call TWI tv. And we've also got lots of email. I'm gonna dig through some of this. 'cause We got, we're we're getting behind.
Mikah Sargent (01:26:13):
It's stacked. Is there voicemails we're getting
Leo Laporte (01:26:16):
Behind. 'cause It's behind me. All right, let's see here again. You print sign. Oh,
Mikah Sargent (01:26:21):
That one's upside down.
Leo Laporte (01:26:25):
<Laugh>. That joke. Never gets old.
Mikah Sargent (01:26:28):
We love the bad jokes.
Leo Laporte (01:26:29):
Never [01:26:30] gets old. Email program for multiple accounts. And affordable camera says Tony from Richmond, Virginia. Hi Leo and Micah. Longtime listener. Tech TV was big shortly after I moved here from Ireland. First time reaching out. I have two questions for you. One, I have lots of email accounts including Gmail and domain email, probably upwards of 10 accounts. What is the best and most affordable program to use to bring all my mailboxes together? Now, I didn't say [01:27:00] if he's on Windows, Mac, or Linux. Okay. So, but Annie, presuming that the email providers are all using IMAP or something like it, or I guess pop, there are, those are the two primary mail protocols. Pop three. And imap, assuming that they're doing that, almost any email program will gather it all up, sort it and put it in order and even put it all in one inbox.
Mikah Sargent (01:27:26):
If you wanna do, and it's hard to say which one is best because it's all personal preference, right? There [01:27:30] are all these little tools and tricks that each one offers. You may be happy with the Standard Mail program that comes with your, with your device. Yeah. With the software.
Leo Laporte (01:27:39):
Yeah. I think if you want one program that looks the same and, and operates the same everywhere and is most likely to work with everything and uses a very standard format for the email, I would say Thunderbird. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> from the Mozilla Foundation. Thunderbird, that's free. And on every client client, I use something like that, that is really old and weird [01:28:00] called Claws, <laugh>, C L A W S C, clause Mail. I use it 'cause it's very highly configurable and it runs on Linux as well as Mac.
Mikah Sargent (01:28:13):
Wow. And it was made in, that
Leo Laporte (01:28:15):
Is an old looking site, isn't it?
Mikah Sargent (01:28:17):
Yeah. That's pre-Web two.
Leo Laporte (01:28:19):
Who so I'm not, I'm, which is why I'm not recommending it. However it is what I use.
Mikah Sargent (01:28:28):
How long have you been using it?
Leo Laporte (01:28:29):
Oh gosh, forever. [01:28:30] I don't know. Maybe there isn't a Mac port for it. I know I use it on the Mac. So maybe you just have to install as a, like a Linux app on the Mac. But there's a Windows version. It really started for me with Windows because there was, there wasn't a mail program I liked on Windows. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, you had to use Outlook. Outlook dominated. And I never ever liked Outlook. So I ended up finding a variety of weird choices on the Windows side, including Claws. But you start with Thunderbird.
Mikah Sargent (01:28:57):
Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:28:58):
I agree. It doesn't care how many email accounts you have.
Mikah Sargent (01:29:00):
[01:29:00] I, there are a few that would recommend, but they all ended up going pay to play. Yeah. They are kind of expensive.
Leo Laporte (01:29:05):
Thunderbird's the only one that's still free for a while. It almost died. You still now somebody in the chat room saying Eudora. That was the king of email programs for a long time, but I don't think it's still around, but maybe I'm wrong. Question two says, Tony, what is the most affordable camera to use that will not break the bank for a more professional picture? Wow. Hmm. [01:29:30] They're not that affordable.
Mikah Sargent (01:29:31):
No.
Leo Laporte (01:29:33):
For a long time. Recommended the canon. Yeah. You're a smartphone. John. Ashley's waving his phone around like a crazy person. <Laugh>, are you trying to reach me or just <laugh>? That's the answer. I
Mikah Sargent (01:29:42):
Think he's calling you <laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:29:44):
For a long time, Canon made a a, a camera called the EOS Rebel. Remember that? I
Mikah Sargent (01:29:48):
Do remember the Rebel. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:29:49):
Yeah. And what it had like Billy Jean King playing tennis and taking pictures or something like that for the ads. They still make it, it's still fairly affordable. [01:30:00] It uses Canon lenses. So this is is this current, the EO seral T seven? It has a lens that comes with it, although you can replace it. So it, you know, it's kind of an entry level into the Canon lens system. 400 bucks. That's not a bad price. I mean, given what you're getting, this is not a full frame sensor. A lot of times camera pros will talk about the size of the sensor, you know, behind [01:30:30] the lens. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> instead of film, they've actually replaced it with something that looks like a little piece of film. That's an electronic sensor. This is using an A P S C sensor, which is about 80% of or of the size of a full frame.
(01:30:44):
Full frame. Looks like a, they call it full frame. 'cause It looks like a 35 millimeter frame of film. The A P S C is about half that I think. So smaller sensor means a little bit lower quality. Not, not a lot lower quality, [01:31:00] but it's not as good at low light. 'cause The pixels are smaller, that kind of thing. Most pros use a full framer larger. The bigger the sensor, the more the price. And there are lots of good full frame cameras out there. I shoot Sony, but I've shot Cannon for years. A lot of folks like Nikon. I think that for 3 9 9 this rebel is probably a good place to go. I would say. If that's in your price range, was it Andre Agassi that?
Mikah Sargent (01:31:25):
Yeah. That is the problem, right? Yeah. Everybody's definition of affordable is [01:31:30] different
Leo Laporte (01:31:30):
Now. This is not a point. And shoot, you can get less expensive point and shoots. Pentax makes a good one. Olympus actually makes great point and shoots. Oh really? Yeah, but that's a dying category. And the problem is it's kind of a dead end by itself. You can't change the lens. You can't do anything to it. Those are gonna be a little bit less expensive. Not a lot, maybe a couple hundred bucks less. But this you can change lenses, you can do more with it. And the good news is when you buy a lens for this camera, it is of a camera lens that you can use on other bodies [01:32:00] with the cannon. And so there is an advantage to that too. The glass is the most important part of your
Mikah Sargent (01:32:06):
Camera. What about mirrorless stuff? Leo?
Leo Laporte (01:32:09):
That's a really good question. I would say Sony has some good A P S C mirrorless. What do you think, Benito? Do you have a, a favorite?
Mikah Sargent (01:32:19):
There's the Canon M 200 I think it
Leo Laporte (01:32:21):
Is. Oh see, I haven't kept up with the muralist from Canon and Nikon 'cause they were so far behind.
Mikah Sargent (01:32:27):
This is the camera we used to recommend a twitch for people to use on, [01:32:30] for video
Leo Laporte (01:32:30):
For streaming. Yeah. Okay. It is a, what they call a vlogging camera. I, it looks like it does have a removal lens. It's a little more
Mikah Sargent (01:32:39):
Expensive. Yeah. It's, it's my cool lens though.
Leo Laporte (01:32:41):
Yeah. Yeah. Four 50 bucks. It is gonna be a P S C as well. Canon, a Sony and maybe even Nikon make these vlogging cameras. The idea being that they can stream length for lengthy periods of time. And the, and the, and the sense the l [01:33:00] c D on the back is articulated, which means you can look at
Mikah Sargent (01:33:03):
Yourself. Oh, it's me. I
Leo Laporte (01:33:05):
Can see myself. Has a built-in flash. That's a nice feature. This would be certainly a very good camera. You can change the lens. So if you wanted to get a wider angle or a longer lens, you could do that. Yeah. Kinda
Mikah Sargent (01:33:20):
Like how small it is too.
Leo Laporte (01:33:21):
Yeah, it's a little more expensive than the rebel. It's probably a little more modern nowadays. So older cameras like the rebel had a prism, [01:33:30] like a mirror <laugh>. You press the button, the mirror would retract. That's what all that clanking was. You'd take the picture then the mirror and go back in place. And that was so you could do through the, ah, through the lens viewing. So you'd see what the picture was gonna be as the lens saw it. Modern cameras don't have that clunky mechanism, which makes 'em less expensive and more compact. And instead use a, what they call a camera tap. They actually look at the picture that the, the sensor is seeing [01:34:00] which takes 'em getting used to. But if you've never had an optical sensor, they probably wouldn't notice the difference. I like Sony. I think Sony is the state of the art and their sensors of the state of the art. So yeah, that would be a, that would be a good choice. It is a little pricey. It's actually more than the rebel of all things 4 49, but probably a little bit more future proof. So you, you ask 12 photographers this question, you can get 12 answers.
Mikah Sargent (01:34:27):
You're gonna get 12 or, or more or more. Because they might [01:34:30] have there Yeah. I
Leo Laporte (01:34:30):
Just gave you two. Yeah. So Yeah. Yeah. There's no, there's no right answer for
Mikah Sargent (01:34:35):
Sure. Yeah. And it's, it's all about defining what affordable means too. 'cause It said affordable means different things to different people.
Leo Laporte (01:34:42):
Right, right. So I think you, I think for a good camera, you're gonna wanna spend a few hundred bucks.
Mikah Sargent (01:34:46):
For sure. I just saw a flick of the wrist that suggested the breaking of a stick, which suggests that maybe we should take a break before we come back.
Leo Laporte (01:34:54):
I need a breather.
Mikah Sargent (01:34:55):
Let's do that. Let's,
Leo Laporte (01:35:00):
[01:35:00] And now I see Billy. I see Billy on the line. I see Douglas. So let's do Douglas. Douglas is in Space. Space. Douglas, we're picking you up. We're sending you to the, the star chamber. The final for Frontier for your interrogation. <Laugh>.
Caller Douglas (01:35:16):
Hello guys.
Leo Laporte (01:35:17):
Hey, how you doing Douglas?
Caller Douglas (01:35:19):
Good. So last week I called about a, the issue with getting my files copied over to my documents on Mac.
Leo Laporte (01:35:26):
Yeah. And since, since you called, I have read a number of reports [01:35:30] that when iCloud desktop is turned on, you're gonna have problems with file copying. Well,
Caller Douglas (01:35:37):
I fixed, I fixed it. Alright. I basically went to the command, prompt the terminal, and did a CP to my local to the Macintosh Hard Drive. And then I dragged them over into the iCloud folder and everything's hunky and dory again.
Leo Laporte (01:35:55):
Nice.
Mikah Sargent (01:35:56):
We love Hunky and Dory.
Leo Laporte (01:35:58):
Yeah. But I will reiterate what we had told [01:36:00] you, which is that because you're, when you have iCloud desktop turned on, it's, you know, mirroring your desktop in your documents folder to Apple's iCloud I just read from shirt Pockett software, the guy who does super duper a blog post that said, yeah, this is a, this is a, a perennial problem. With iCloud desktop is turned on. We have a lot of trouble copying files.
Mikah Sargent (01:36:26):
I've had trouble, yeah. The I have different [01:36:30] audio recording software that I use when I'm doing shows from home. And when I would have the location for those files set to one of the iCloud synced folders, it's constantly copy or it's constantly kind of creating that audio file so that if the computer were to crash or something, it would not cause an issue. That's what the software's doing. But because it was trying to save to this place where iCloud was also trying to sync that file at the same time, I kept having all of these issues with it. And it was only by [01:37:00] changing it to a folder that was not synced with iCloud, was I able to get it working. So yeah, this is an ongoing issue that folks have with being able to do file transfer types of, of operations to that iCloud spot.
Leo Laporte (01:37:19):
Yeah. iCloud desktop is, is, that's, you know what, anytime you have that kind of sinking, sinking stuff, you'll wanna turn that off before you do big mass copies. So I'm glad the CP worked. It's always [01:37:30] nice to have cp You're, you're a command line guy. That's the old Unix command for copy files.
Caller Douglas (01:37:36):
I, I spent a lot of time in Linux, so Yeah. Anyway, then the other fun thing I'm having with the Mac now is I've been having frequent internal panics. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:37:45):
That is not normal.
Caller Douglas (01:37:47):
No. Yeah, I went to the Genius Bar and they did a test on the system and they said everything was okay. But nobody looked at the, at the kernel panic until I decided to dig into it a little bit. And it looks [01:38:00] like it's pointing at the Paragon N T F S software I had installed.
Mikah Sargent (01:38:04):
Oh.
Leo Laporte (01:38:05):
Oh, that's interesting. That's the, the software that lets you read Paragon sells the software, lets you read N tf Read and Write more importantly,
Mikah Sargent (01:38:12):
Which is the software you were using originally to get those files from the Windows machine over into your Mac.
Caller Douglas (01:38:18):
So I I I sent Paragon the crash dump and I'll see if they come back with anything and if that, if they say that there's, you know, nothing [01:38:30] wrong or nothing they can do, I'll work on converting my drives to A P F Ss. But meanwhile I've got another fun thing with this Mac. Oh no,
Mikah Sargent (01:38:40):
A third. It always is three.
Caller Douglas (01:38:42):
I'm trying to, I, I ordered a two terabyte hard drive to use for my time machine. 'cause I have a one terabyte Mac and I figured the the a two terabyte drive would be sufficient. So I plugged it into my dock and I [01:39:00] tried to format it and it gives me an error that it can't open the device. And with an, with an error, like 69,000 something, you guys still there? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. and I looked stuff online. I've tried it from the, from the terminal. I tried it in safe mode and it still won't do it. I've tried another drive. Matter fact, what what happened [01:39:30] was I, I, I had ordered the drive from Amazon and I went and did an exchange because this,
Leo Laporte (01:39:40):
What is that an old sock? What is that? I don't No.
Mikah Sargent (01:39:42):
Amazon package. This is how Amazon, whoa. They sent you a drive in that.
Leo Laporte (01:39:46):
Oh, Amazon. Amazon, Amazon.
Caller Douglas (01:39:49):
And even the replacement drive came in there, so I'm not sure.
Leo Laporte (01:39:51):
It's the little thin plastic bag that says on the front of it, this bag weighs less than a box. <Laugh>. Yeah.
Caller Douglas (01:39:57):
And, and, and, and, and then they had it in a, [01:40:00] they had a a a a like a a bubble
Leo Laporte (01:40:06):
Wrap. Bubble wrap. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (01:40:08):
Can I ask you what brand the hard drive is? It's Seagate. Seagate. and you s So each time it was, and you said the replacement drive was doing it too. You also said that.
Caller Douglas (01:40:20):
Yeah, and I actually, I actually pulled a drive, two drives out of a server that I have that were already formatted for a raid system and they're doing [01:40:30] the same thing. And I've even moved it to a new 'cause I, I had put it in my, my four bay drive dock, and now I put it in a, in a separate u s B dock. And it's doing the same thing. I
Mikah Sargent (01:40:45):
Think something has gone screwy with your Mac oss. My, well I
Caller Douglas (01:40:49):
Called Apple. I called Apple, yes. And I sat on and, you know they basically escalated it to a senior engineer and then he's escalated [01:41:00] it to somebody else. And they're supposed to call me back today around like four 30. They said
Leo Laporte (01:41:04):
A kernel panic doesn't happen unless there's a either a I'm
Caller Douglas (01:41:07):
Saying there's, there's no kernel panic happening when I'm trying to reboot, when I'm trying to format the drive. It's just the, the drive fails to format or fails to erase.
Mikah Sargent (01:41:15):
It's all these, all of it's all symptomatic. I'll, I think it's a bad drive. Be interested to hear Yeah. What the engineer says
Leo Laporte (01:41:22):
Shipping.
Mikah Sargent (01:41:24):
Well, but to have two of them go wrong and then for him to use ones that he already had at home and them also not to work. I [01:41:30] think there's something wrong with your file system on that. Mac. I would be interested to hear what the engineer says my next suggestion was going to be you can one, one thing I love about Mac OSS is that when you do a recovery, you can essentially reinstall Mac OSS on its own without having to futz about with your own files that are also on MAC oss. And I wonder if that is one suggestion that the engineer's going to have for you.
Caller Douglas (01:41:56):
I think they're just gonna say, yeah, erase this and reinstall, which is kind of a cop [01:42:00] out if you ask me. I tried, I tried disabling the Paragon software. I haven't tried un uninstalling it yet yet.
Leo Laporte (01:42:08):
So let me, I mean, what I would do in your shoes, you obviously have some PCs around since you use Linux, right?
Caller Douglas (01:42:15):
I did. I connected it to a Windows pc Yeah. And tried to format it in there. Yeah. And it was giving me a cyclic redundancy and
Leo Laporte (01:42:26):
The crc. Yeah. You gotta, you gotta, those drives are damaged. Now maybe the apple damaged [01:42:30] it, but it seems unlikely. This was a case for spin, right. To be honest with you. But in order to use spin, right, you'd have to have a box that doesn't use U E F I. Most people use spin right. These days unfortunately. Are are doing it on dedicated PCs, because modern PCs with their U E F I boots don't work. Yeah. With spin, right? So,
Caller Douglas (01:42:49):
So I've been debating about, I've been debating about just getting an external S ss d
Leo Laporte (01:42:54):
Yeah. It might be a better idea there. Spin, right. Would at least tell you, you know, you run on there would at least [01:43:00] tell you if there's anything wrong with the drive. You know? I, if it's a file system, spin right's not gonna solve that. But A C R C error means that <laugh> that there's a bad sector that it can't read. Yeah. And it's apparently an important part of the, of the drive. I
Mikah Sargent (01:43:16):
W could paragon's software be looking at each drive and then accidentally doing something to each drive every time you're plug it in? I, I don't
Caller Douglas (01:43:24):
Know. I don't know.
Leo Laporte (01:43:26):
And how many, and so you have a multiple, you have more [01:43:30] than how many drives that are doing this?
Caller Douglas (01:43:32):
Four
Leo Laporte (01:43:33):
And all with the same symptoms? Yeah. Not, and two or new, but two or not.
Caller Douglas (01:43:38):
Right.
Leo Laporte (01:43:42):
I don't, I would get rid of that Paragon software. I know. It's the first thing I would do.
Mikah Sargent (01:43:46):
Could it be the Bay?
Leo Laporte (01:43:47):
Could be the Bay. Are you, how are you attaching them?
Caller Douglas (01:43:50):
Well, I had one, I, I tried it in the Bay first. And then now I have it on an external U S B to Ada dock.
Mikah Sargent (01:44:00):
[01:44:00] So yeah, you've tried it two different ways.
Leo Laporte (01:44:01):
That's a very klugy set. And
Caller Douglas (01:44:02):
The, the drives that, the drives that I have from the server are wd red drives.
Leo Laporte (01:44:07):
Oh, Western Digital is famous. You might get, you might have gotten, speaking of SanDisk, which is owned by Western Digital. You might have gotten those famous Western Digital Reds that had ss ss R F drives, which were terrible, terrible drives. Are they all Western? Are they all Wd
Caller Douglas (01:44:26):
Seagate now? The two that I bought from Amazon are Seagate. Matter of fact, the funny thing [01:44:30] is it says Seagate video, it says 3.5 video. So I don't know except that, I mean, the video I
Leo Laporte (01:44:38):
<Crosstalk> Well, it's designed for use on video, I guess.
Caller Douglas (01:44:40):
Right? For, for, for the design for
Leo Laporte (01:44:43):
Which is high throughput.
Caller Douglas (01:44:45):
And
Leo Laporte (01:44:45):
The Reds are designed for NASA's.
Caller Douglas (01:44:48):
Right. Well, that's what I had. I had, I had it in a, in a nav server, but I haven't used this Nash server for a while. Yeah. I don't know. And I've <crosstalk> Western
Leo Laporte (01:44:55):
Digital. There was a real scandal around Western digital's reds. [01:45:00] I, at this point, I would not buy Western Digital drives.
Caller Douglas (01:45:04):
They, well, I didn't buy, I bought these a long time ago. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:45:07):
Yeah. Oh, I have, I have a bunch of them. <Laugh>,
Caller Douglas (01:45:10):
We, we've learned
Leo Laporte (01:45:11):
Our lesson.
Mikah Sargent (01:45:12):
<Laugh>, ultimately, the only thing you haven't tried doing, you, you said is uninstalling the paragon. And if, if Paragon software is sort of by its default nature, making sure that any drive you plug in that [01:45:30] happens to be formatted in, in that format, to be able to, to read it if it's automatically going in and sort of getting that set up. And then when it's doing so it's messing things up. That could be what the problem is. Now that, I mean, if you're plugging in more drives and each one is ending up with this error, that seems to suggest that that machine is doing something to those drives. But I don't know how you undo. I
Caller Douglas (01:45:55):
Do aoo. I know these, these, these Western digital drives I have, they were in a raid array, [01:46:00] so I don't know if there's something I need to do to clean them first, or
Leo Laporte (01:46:04):
You should be able to use the disc utility to wipe 'em and format 'em. That's not
Caller Douglas (01:46:08):
Yeah, I just wanna erase 'em. Yeah. And I even try to command prompt. I've I tried it from safe mode. Well actually now with moving to the new one, I'm getting a different r I'm getting back over there. I'm getting that. It says it can't.
Leo Laporte (01:46:30):
[01:46:30] This is, this is I don't know if we're, this is, might be beyond our capability to help you with. I'm glad Apple is gonna talk to you. I don't think it's an Apple. I'll be honest. I don't think it's an Apple problem. Yeah, I think that if you could hook it up to a PC via at a low, so it's got low level access to the drive and then ran some drive diagnostic utilities on it you should be able to low level format that
Mikah Sargent (01:46:59):
Everyone [01:47:00] in the, everyone in the chat is screaming about making sure that when you are in disc utility on Mac oss, make sure that in the disc utility preferences you have show all devices turned
Leo Laporte (01:47:14):
On. Oh, I know that one gets me, but
Caller Douglas (01:47:15):
I think I, I think I do because on my other drives, it's showing the volume and the
Leo Laporte (01:47:22):
Yeah, you'll see all the sub volumes. Yeah. This is something they had introduced with A P F S because AP P F S has all sorts of weird little
Mikah Sargent (01:47:29):
<Laugh> strange containers
Leo Laporte (01:47:30):
[01:47:30] Partitioning that It does. Yeah.
Caller Douglas (01:47:32):
Yeah, there's, there's let's see. File. Yeah, I turned that on. I turned that on the other day. So
Leo Laporte (01:47:44):
Yeah, this is a dropdown. We'll
Mikah Sargent (01:47:45):
Include a link in the show notes.
Leo Laporte (01:47:47):
I always do that. A
Mikah Sargent (01:47:48):
Seagate support
Leo Laporte (01:47:48):
Document. So first it looks like <laugh>, what is this? And then you, you normally, you want to have all volumes visible as long as you understand what all those volumes are. They're not.
Caller Douglas (01:47:57):
Yeah. But the, the only thing it shows in here [01:48:00] is it just shows the, for this one, it doesn't show a volume. It just shows the, the U S B adapter basically.
Leo Laporte (01:48:07):
Yeah. 'cause it can't see the drive. I honestly, I think you got four bad drives, but I mean, you shouldn't see a CRC error unless there is a bad drive.
Caller Douglas (01:48:17):
Yeah, I know, I know that. And that was the thing that, but these drives were working before, before I took the server outta service. Right. So, I don't know, maybe if I should pull the third two car
Leo Laporte (01:48:26):
Drive. CK played another little game with their drives where after three years, [01:48:30] they would, the smart information would say, oh, this drive's shot.
Mikah Sargent (01:48:34):
Like a printer cartridge.
Leo Laporte (01:48:35):
Yeah, like a printer
Caller Douglas (01:48:35):
Card. Well, this is a brand, but these are brand new drives from Amazon. They were still sealed in the
Leo Laporte (01:48:40):
That was a Western digital thing. And those that would be with those reds, maybe that that's happening.
Mikah Sargent (01:48:46):
Well, in any case, hopefully the engineer will be able to help with that. And if not, I would start looking at that Paragon software as your potential issue here, doing something. I mean, a
Caller Douglas (01:48:57):
Lot of people use Paragon software and it's the one everybody swears [01:49:00] by to access N T F S stuff.
Leo Laporte (01:49:01):
Do you, do you even need it now? I think, I know you can read N T F S with Mac oss. Do you really need it? Yeah,
Caller Douglas (01:49:06):
But they said it, it, you can't, like, it's, it's weird. They said you can't copy stuff from it. You can read it, but you can't take
Leo Laporte (01:49:13):
Off Paragon. And there's an open source program called Mac Fuse that does the same thing. Maybe take that off and try Mac Fuse.
Caller Douglas (01:49:21):
Yeah. Like I said, I'm, I'm, I'm I mean, I have all the drives backed up to
Leo Laporte (01:49:27):
Yeah. So you're not, you know, it's not data loss [01:49:30] at this point, it's just drive loss. Like waste was
Caller Douglas (01:49:32):
Money. Yeah. I have, I have the, I have the drives backed. I have everything backed up to the cash fly. And so I could restore everything, but it would just take a while. But yeah. I mean, and I can move files around between the drives,
Leo Laporte (01:49:48):
Honestly. I would say start using your pc, especially if you've got one running Linux to run some low level utilities on this thing. Linnux has a bunch of good low level stuff that you can, you can mess with those drives. Take a look at the [01:50:00] architecture and or
Caller Douglas (01:50:01):
Maybe I just be better off getting it, getting an external two terabyte drive to use for time machine. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:50:06):
That's what I did. I went to other world computing the other day. 'cause I, my, my Leo, one of our sponsors, my Leo, I had imported every photo I could find from everywhere. I had over 200,000 photos and I didn't have a any drive space anywhere. So I went to other world computing and got a it was a thunderbolt too, but that's fast enough. Enclosure that I could put four SSDs. Nice. And I had some SSDs lying two te Oh, good. Terabyte. One terabyte SSDs [01:50:30] lying around maybe. No, they were two terabytes. So I got an eight eight terabyte jbod. And it works great. Good, good. It works great. And now I have 200,000 photos. <Laugh>?
Caller Douglas (01:50:42):
Yeah. I have a, I have a four bed. I have a U S B, I have a U S B four bay dock. Yeah. Of what? There you go. I had, I had external drives. I had Seagate external drives, and I was, they were getting disconnected 'cause they'd get bumped or something. So I I ripped [01:51:00] them open and pulled the drives out and put 'em in this, this bay, this drive, this four bay. And they work fine in there. But it's just trying to format this one drive that's driving me up a freaking wall.
Leo Laporte (01:51:13):
Douglas, you get our nerd of the week award. <Laugh>. Congratulations. I like your t-shirt though. I stump
Caller Douglas (01:51:18):
On it. Well, actually, it's even better. It says see, it says to be root and never reboot, be
Leo Laporte (01:51:24):
Root and never reboot. That's how every computer should work. I agree with you.
Caller Douglas (01:51:29):
So
Leo Laporte (01:51:30):
[01:51:30] Not for the faint of part,
Caller Douglas (01:51:33):
The crash dump. It definitely says right in the middle of the crash dump on the back, on the stack trace, it says paragon. So, huh.
Leo Laporte (01:51:41):
Wow. Well, that's the driver. That's the disc driver. Let
Mikah Sargent (01:51:43):
Us Yeah, you have to follow up so we can hear how everything turned out. But I know we've got somebody waiting on the line. One of our guests. I'm sorry. No, it's okay.
Leo Laporte (01:51:52):
No, it's all right, Doug. Let's, it's always good to talk to you.
Mikah Sargent (01:51:54):
Yes. Thank you for your
Leo Laporte (01:51:55):
Question. Have a great
Caller Douglas (01:51:56):
Day. I'm getting to be, I'm getting to be a regular in this
Leo Laporte (01:51:59):
<Laugh>. [01:52:00] And, and, and you always have the toughest questions too for us. Thank you,
Caller Douglas (01:52:03):
Douglas. Well, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm a support engineer.
Leo Laporte (01:52:07):
Yeah. So if you can't fix it. Exactly. <laugh>.
Caller Douglas (01:52:10):
Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it was, it was, it was funny where my, my last job, I had moved from a support engineering position to a design win role. And they called me back. There was a customer with one of our big customers was having an issue, and they asked me to come to the meeting. And I was sitting there in the meeting and the customer heard my name. He is like, [01:52:30] oh God, if you're on this call, it must really be broke. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (01:52:32):
<Laugh>. Yes. It's like, oh boy.
Caller Douglas (01:52:37):
And also when, when, when I would show up in the, when I would show up in the IT department, the, the, the director of IT looked and says, oh God, it's you. We know something
Leo Laporte (01:52:46):
<Laugh>, something really broke. Yeah. I had that guy out fixing our our air conditioner yesterday. <Laugh>.
Caller Douglas (01:52:52):
Yeah. The other one. The other one was one
Leo Laporte (01:52:54):
Year. He said, if I get called, it's a bad problem. <Laugh>.
Caller Douglas (01:52:57):
Yeah. 1, 1, 1 year at the Christmas party, I, [01:53:00] I got, I won a door prize. I won a wireless router. And it was from the IT department had given that door prize. And the, the girl from it came over and goes, oh, by the way, that includes one of us coming to your house to set it up. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:53:13):
I think not. Thank you very much. And one
Caller Douglas (01:53:15):
Of the, one of the other, one of the other guys from it quickly ran over and says, I'm sorry, she doesn't know who you are. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:53:22):
<Laugh>, the t-shirt says it all. Douglas, have a great day. Thank you Douglas. Alright, you too. Have a good day. Be rude and never reboot. [01:53:30] That's the philosophy. Hey, guess who's here? I think we are
Chris Marquardt (01:53:33):
Going to have Chris Marquardt on
Leo Laporte (01:53:36):
The line up next. But first let's breathe. Chris Marquardt is our photo guy from chris marwar.com and of course, his great photo safaris at discover the top floor.com. He joins us every month for our photo assignment, our review and assignment. Hi Chris.
Chris Marquardt (01:53:59):
Hey. Good [01:54:00] to be back. How are you guys?
Leo Laporte (01:54:01):
Welcome. I have a question before we get to the photo assignment. We just had a call. Guy said, and I haven't heard this in years, I want a good expensive professional camera to start my photography with. And I was a little stumped because sadly camera phones have gotten so good that the, the, the market for inexpensive cameras has gotten is depleted.
Chris Marquardt (01:54:26):
There is something to be said about dedicated cameras still 'cause they have [01:54:30] different haptics and they give you a, a kind of a different, it's, it's, it's more of a, I'm, I'm putting myself into photography mode. Yeah. And pick up a camera. Yeah. And that changes how I approach this. So
Leo Laporte (01:54:44):
What would you recommend for
Chris Marquardt (01:54:45):
Recommendation? Yeah. I'm a, I'm a fan of the, of the, like the Sony RX 100, for example.
Leo Laporte (01:54:50):
That's a very nice, that's a point in shoot prices
Chris Marquardt (01:54:52):
Right now. Yeah. That, yeah. It's a point in shoot. Does it
Leo Laporte (01:54:55):
Matter? It's very capable. Does it matter to have interchangeable lenses at this point? Or [01:55:00] should he just say, I'm gonna get a point and shoot. I love the RX 100, by the way. It That's a great, the image sensors one inch. It's really a nice camera.
Chris Marquardt (01:55:10):
Yeah. For me it comes more down to, to sensor size. I like bigger sensors 'cause they give you a different access to depth of field. To real depth of field and not the, the portrait mode that smartphones do. So but yeah, of course if, if you go for an interchangeable lens camera, then that will give you more future options. [01:55:30] But then maybe, maybe an RX 100 is a good place to start and figure out how you like it. 'cause That camera's image quality is phenomenal. There are others, but that's just the first one that comes to mind.
Leo Laporte (01:55:42):
We we recommended among other things, I, I actually found that the EOS rebel is still around. And Cannon still sell that. Oh yeah. That's fairly inexpensive. About 400 bucks for a little bit more money. Bonito was recommending a vlogging camera from Sony. Was it the M 100? Was that the one?
Chris Marquardt (01:55:58):
No, it was the Cannon M 200.
Leo Laporte (01:56:00):
[01:56:00] M 200. Oh. It was Cannon
Chris Marquardt (01:56:02):
Good one too. Very good one. And that one is inter interchangeable. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:56:06):
It's a, yeah, it's a vlogger and it does have a interchangeable lens and it's mirrorless. So you're kind of entering into the modern the modern world. But it's a little more expensive, ironically, than the rebel. So yeah. Yeah. It's, there's, the problem is that this market is dwindling very rapidly.
Chris Marquardt (01:56:24):
Yeah. And another thing is, look at the use market maybe. Mm-Hmm. Because use D S L R or something is [01:56:30] very, very good point. Terms of price and very flexible. Or
Leo Laporte (01:56:35):
Do a get, get Chris's film book and get yourself an old film camera <laugh> and do it, do it the Olded way. Why not? Why not? Why not? Not. Yeah,
Chris Marquardt (01:56:45):
Why not? When, when you shoot film, every single photo is worth more. Yes,
Leo Laporte (01:56:50):
For sure. Yes. It costs more, that's for sure. So yeah. Tell us what wa I forgot, what was our assignment?
Chris Marquardt (01:56:57):
Crowded,
Leo Laporte (01:56:58):
Crowded, crowded. [01:57:00] Oh, I could have taken a few pictures at Disneyland last night. <Laugh> crowded.
Chris Marquardt (01:57:06):
So we have 16 pictures in the bowl. And all great, all wonderful. Was really tough decision. But look
Leo Laporte (01:57:17):
At those bikes. Those are
Chris Marquardt (01:57:17):
Crowded. I chose three.
Leo Laporte (01:57:19):
Alright.
Chris Marquardt (01:57:19):
As usual. Those bikes. I did not choose the bikes, but there's one similar one. So this one here by Larry Al Boer titled Gimme Shelter. Cool. [01:57:30] I just like that. 'cause It's beautiful theme. Three four really intricate umbrellas. Colorful made with, looks like lace or something. So very, very unusual. Unusual. It's not, they're,
Leo Laporte (01:57:45):
It's exactly. They crowded. Are they? I mean, they're crowded, I guess. I mean, they're jammed in there. Yeah. I guess you could say when you just
Chris Marquardt (01:57:51):
Like time you see more than one umbrella.
Leo Laporte (01:57:52):
That's a good point. Well, soon I think actually you like it 'cause he gave it a name. You hate it when people don't name it and he gave it a good [01:58:00] name. I might add
Chris Marquardt (01:58:01):
Naming pictures is always helpful. Yes. When it comes to getting to getting me to choose one <laugh>.
Leo Laporte (01:58:07):
Well, you're also giving a hint to the viewer about what your message is. Sure. What you're saying.
Chris Marquardt (01:58:12):
Oh, of course, of course. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's meta information and it's, I think always helpful. Second one, buy. Wow. That's crazy. Buy Vegan Feast Catering. That's how you get your name out Feas, by making FET
Leo Laporte (01:58:25):
Catering. Yay. Boy. They're there for his food. Huh?
Chris Marquardt (01:58:29):
Crowded.
Leo Laporte (01:58:30):
[01:58:30] Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>.
Chris Marquardt (01:58:31):
They at the beach. Now. Now this is an interesting one 'cause I've seen a couple of examples of these types of beach shots where you have a crowd on the beach and you can decide as a photographer how, what kind of a story you want to tell. If you go in there and shoot very wide angle, it will look very empty. Yes. And if you step back and zoom in, you can make this look like it's three times as many people as there actually are.
Leo Laporte (01:58:58):
That's an example of the, of how a zoom [01:59:00] lens is different from a wide angle lens. Zoomin lens kind of flatten the, the image, right. So that you, you're taking all the people for that whole distance and jamming 'em into a single plane of existence.
Chris Marquardt (01:59:12):
You kind of squeeze 'em together visually. Yeah. And that is, that is, that is a, just, it's just a great tool to help you tell a story. If you wanna tell one or two tell a story that's not there, that happens all the time. So, very nice.
Leo Laporte (01:59:27):
Very
Chris Marquardt (01:59:28):
Nice. Vegan Feast Catering.
Leo Laporte (01:59:29):
Thank [01:59:30] you. Vegan Feast. And
Chris Marquardt (01:59:30):
Last but not least, here's my last choice. And that is by as Ruby Zoo. So Many Choices is the title. And I'm such a fan of this picture. So we're looking at a black and white photo. There's like a whole bunch of beer kegs. So there's some crowding going on. And then what the photographer did is it's a, I don't know if the camera was, was, was deliberately shook during taking the photo or if it's a multiple exposure [02:00:00] kind of situation here. But you see the, the, the, the, the person and the kegs kind of multiplied. And the, the, the fun thing is that adds a total different meaning to that photo. 'cause We're looking at alcohol and we're looking at multiple images, which might imply some That's little
Leo Laporte (02:00:18):
Blurry. If you had a little,
Chris Marquardt (02:00:19):
Had a blurry Too many.
Leo Laporte (02:00:21):
Yeah.
Chris Marquardt (02:00:22):
Yeah. Oh wait, I wasn't supposed to drink the whole keg.
Leo Laporte (02:00:24):
This is from October Fest. This year.
Chris Marquardt (02:00:26):
<Laugh>. And then May. And then maybe it's not as crowded there. Maybe that's [02:00:30] just the, the alcohol making it seem more crowded. Yeah. So I dig it. Yeah. That's a cool photo. Very interesting. Love. I love it. It's a story inside a story, so. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:00:39):
Yeah. Thank you. How does Ruby Sue Arizona? Ruby, thank you. We appreciate it. Some great images. And I have to say, if, if you wanna see the rest of them just go to our flicker group, flicker.com free to join. You do need an account. The group is the tech guy group. And you'll know you're in the right group. 'cause [02:01:00] We now have more than 14,000 members. Woo. We crossed the 14,000 mark. 14,010 this week. And more than 7,000 photos. And it's really a great active group. Thanks to a great part. To our wonderful administrator Renee Silverman, who does such a good job. What is, he's got the fishbowl kids. Stand back. What is the assignment for next
Chris Marquardt (02:01:26):
Month? The assignment? Let me pull one here. The assignment is [02:01:30] adorable.
Leo Laporte (02:01:34):
Oh. Oh. <Laugh>. I think Henry and Mitzi are definitely gonna be in this one.
Chris Marquardt (02:01:40):
I might have to do some photos
Leo Laporte (02:01:41):
For this one. Adorable. I like it. So the way this works, take a picture that kind of in your mind says adorable. Whatever that means to you. We won't be the judge of that. You will. And once you've got a picture, you go, oh, I love this. And they have to be new ones. This is an excuse to go out and, and actually do some photography. [02:02:00] Upload it to the Flickr group, tag it. Tg. Adorable. So we know that that's part of the assignment. And submit it to the tech guy group. Renee Silverman will accept your submission. You can do up to one a week. And coming back in a month, Chris will join us and talk about three more of his favorites from our selection.
Chris Marquardt (02:02:22):
Not in a month, because next month I will be out on the Eastern European photo road trip. Driving
Leo Laporte (02:02:27):
Is Tesla around? [02:02:30] Cool.
Chris Marquardt (02:02:30):
It's going to be two months. I'll be back in October.
Leo Laporte (02:02:32):
Yeah. Wonderful. See, that's good. You have two months to find adorable pictures. That should be fun. And if you want, is there any room left on any of these Tesla tours? The Eastern European tours. One
Chris Marquardt (02:02:43):
Spot left on the tour from Berlin all the way down to Prague, to Budapest Vienna, and Transylvania. One spot left. But you gotta be quick 'cause we are leaving in about 10, 10 cities.
Leo Laporte (02:02:56):
So go to discover the top floor.com. Book it so [02:03:00] you can go with Chris. It's a small group, right? You don't have How big a Tesla is it <laugh>?
Chris Marquardt (02:03:05):
Well, as many people as fit in a Tesla. Okay, that's me. And three more, and three more people at Mac.
Leo Laporte (02:03:10):
Okay. Let's get one more person jammed in there. Discover the top floor.com. Have a great trip. Chris, it's great to see you getting back to the workshops. I love it. Very happy. Yep.
Chris Marquardt (02:03:21):
It's
Leo Laporte (02:03:21):
Good. Yeah, it's all coming back. It was kind of I, I, you know, put out business a little bit by COVID. But everything's coming [02:03:30] back, which is nice. Chris, have a wonderful couple of months. We'll see you October. Thanks so much, Chris.
Chris Marquardt (02:03:35):
Thank you. Have a good one. And see you in two months.
Leo Laporte (02:03:38):
Discover the top floor.com. Alrighty. let's see. Should I take Rachel? I think I should take Rachel. She's got her hand up. That's a, that's, that's a good sign.
Chris Marquardt (02:03:52):
That's a good indicator. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:03:53):
Moving her into the room. Remember star six to unmute and join us inside the tech guy's. [02:04:00] Stargate. Somebody's walking their cat. Is that Rachel? No, no. That's Julian <laugh>. Is that a cat? No, it looks like a cat. I
Chris Marquardt (02:04:18):
Looks like a
Leo Laporte (02:04:18):
Cat. Yeah, it must be a dog. Rachel, can you hear us? Oh, okay. Maybe she got
Chris Marquardt (02:04:25):
Oh, it's a dog. It's a dog. Okay. The, the what am I, the scale was off, [02:04:30] so it,
Leo Laporte (02:04:30):
Yeah. 'cause It's wide angle. Yeah. Yeah. That's what's the thing that Chris was talking about. Well, I'll tell you what what should I Video, audio, email, voicemail. Voicemail. Voicemail from a flounder. Yes. During the week. Hey,
Caller Scott (02:04:44):
Leo. Scott Robinson calling.
Leo Laporte (02:04:47):
Go ahead.
Caller Scott (02:04:50):
Hello, this is Tony from The Villages, Florida. Got a question for you. I'm looking for some cloud storage. I've digitized [02:05:00] over a thousand movies of mine. I have them on two local drives, but I'm looking for some cloud storage as a backup. Looking for something that's cheap and easy to use. Any suggestions would be very helpful. Thanks, Leo. And Mic.
Leo Laporte (02:05:14):
Thanks Tony. When, when you're saying movies, those are strong, I would have that concern that these cloud backups are gonna be looking for copyright. No. Do you think they do? The Google Drive does? I think I've, I've heard of Dropbox getting a little weird about sharing album, like music albums. [02:05:30] Yeah. So I don't know how they'd feel about a bunch of movies. And what we don't know is what you wanna do. Do you wanna stream from the cloud or are you gonna back up to the cloud and let him sit there? But stream locally sounds like it's the latter. That that's what it's, he has copies locally, he's gonna stream, because that makes a very big difference. If you just want something that's cheap that you know you've got it there. Amazon's glacier is as cheap as it can get. The idea of it, it moves like a glacier.
(02:05:58):
It's <laugh>, it's quick [02:06:00] to upload, but then they move it to off. They literally take it offline and you have to email a request. You have to say, I would like my movies. And then later, you know, that day or the next day, it's not forever. It's just a day or so. They will say it's online. You can get them now. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> by doing that though, they make it as bad, as cheap as you can get for cloud storage. So he said, what, a thousand movies? I think. So if it's, if it's feature films, 2000 hours, that's about 2000 gigabytes, about two terabytes. That's [02:06:30] a lot to pay for, you know that's expensive. That's why you're gonna want something like that. Our, our former advertiser Wasabi might be another good choice. Backblaze does it. They, yeah. You use Backblaze, right? Yeah. Yeah.
(02:06:42):
They've got cloud storage options for that. I think it's 0 cents per gigabyte or something like that. There are, as long as you're not downloading it. That sort. I saw, I saw a company shall remain nameless offering a lifetime, 20 terabytes [02:07:00] for 93 bucks. And I thought that's a good deal if that's real. So I did a little research and people said, no, it's real. It's just really slow to upload. And so <laugh> <laugh>, you'll never get 20 terabytes up there, right. <Laugh>, because you'll be before this 20 Tet. It'll take a lifetime to fill it up. So that's the thing is that, you know, you gotta really look at reviews. Backblaze is safe. They're really good. [02:07:30] Wasabi's really good Amazon, right? Yeah. Straight, straight to it. I'm sure
Mikah Sargent (02:07:34):
That, you know some of these other services are, are using Amazon in the background. Knox
Leo Laporte (02:07:40):
Harrington said this very aptly in our I R C Glacier is to back up data you need to keep, but don't really need to do anything with anytime soon. And that's exactly why I asked, are you gonna stream from this or are you just, this is like belts and suspenders. I gotta copy locally. I just, you know, I spent a lot of time digitizing. I just don't [02:08:00] wanna take a chance of losing it. So there's some good choices for you. Price-Wise, I don't think anybody's gonna beat Glacier.
Mikah Sargent (02:08:10):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:08:11):
Because it's the, it's the slowest <laugh>, it's the, you know, but it's, it's okay to, it's fast to upload. It's just gonna be slow to get it back.
Mikah Sargent (02:08:17):
Let's see. So let's do a little calculator. Let's say you're storing
Leo Laporte (02:08:23):
Typically a gigabyte an hour,
Mikah Sargent (02:08:25):
Two terabytes, and you're not planning on downloading any of [02:08:30] it per month, then it's just insurance. Basically it's $120 per year for Backblaze.
Leo Laporte (02:08:37):
Well, that's a good deal. B
Mikah Sargent (02:08:38):
Two versus
Leo Laporte (02:08:39):
$10 a month.
Mikah Sargent (02:08:40):
Yeah. Versus 6 24 a year for Amazon's SS three, which is not Glacier.
Leo Laporte (02:08:45):
Right. That's glacier's even cheaper. Glacier has a weird price structure. I, and I can't remember it off the top of my head, but it's a little, it's a little odd. It's like it's, I think it's cheap to upload and expensive to get [02:09:00] something like that, right? Yeah. Again, the idea being, well, you back up stuff there that you don't really want, but you're just, you're buying an insurance policy. Anyway, there's some, there's some good I would not use, not only because of the cost, but also 'cause of the copyright issue. I would probably not use iDrive. Yeah. Dropbox.
Mikah Sargent (02:09:18):
You're gonna Google Drive. What happens then when you get locked? That's the biggest thing is then Google dings your account for something and then suddenly you don't, you no longer have access to your Google account. We've had that happen to people [02:09:30] before with videos that they had had posted. And so that's a nightmare problem. You don't wanna run into <laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:09:36):
The cheapest Amazon glacier tier. They have three tiers. Instant retrieval, flexible retrieval, and the one that's the cheapest deep archive used for archiving data that rarely needs to be accessed. It has a default retrieval time of 12 hours. I don't think that's the end of the world,
Mikah Sargent (02:09:53):
Right? No. 12 hours isn't bad at all.
Leo Laporte (02:09:54):
It's considered that like, you know, my, my, my backup I don't, I'm trying to find [02:10:00] some pricing. That's the other issue is it's not as easy to use. It's a little
Mikah Sargent (02:10:03):
Corporate. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (02:10:04):
Yeah. As it's, yeah. It's made for an IT department really. Let's see if I can find pricing. I don't see it off the top of my head, so I'll, I'll leave that as a, as an exercise for the viewer. They say for more service highlights and price information, go to the Amazon S three Glacier, glacier detail page. But then they don't have a link to it. <Laugh>. So, because really [02:10:30] if you need it that fast you shouldn't be it. Yeah. Yeah. As long as it takes you to find the detail page. <Laugh> is about as long as it takes to get, it's maybe because I'm not logged in. I don't know. Alright. Another one. What else? What else should we do? Another boyfriend? Yeah. You seemed like you had a three or four of 'em all ready to go.
Caller Mark (02:10:48):
Hello, Leo and Micah. Hey this is Mark from Myrtle Beach, and I have a question about AI and where to get started. I've tried using Google Bard, [02:11:00] but I feel like I'm missing something beyond this. No. No, you're not. <Laugh> first I go if I really wanna stay have a grasp on chat, G P T and so forth. Thank you.
Leo Laporte (02:11:11):
So a lot of people are selling books. I, you know, if you wanna know more about ai, go to X. Just tweet Yeah. <Laugh> and just tweet. I wanna know more about ai. You've got a thousand people. There's a lot of people there selling a lot of books. Everything you ever want to know. I'll tell you everything you ever want to know about ai, you're not doing [02:11:30] it wrong. <Laugh>. Yeah. If you're using Bard or Binging Chat both of which are free, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, if you're a Windows user, Bing's free Google user, Google's free. You could pay for chat. G p t from open ai. They're all basically very similar. They're based on what's called large language models. They read the entire internet. I just saw a story that said I can't remember who it was. I think it was chat.
(02:11:56):
G p t read all seven. Like all the Stephen King [02:12:00] novels. <Laugh> a little bit of a problem there. Stephen might not be too happy about. In any event, they in ingest it. And what do they get from it? They get probabilities. When you give it one word, what's the probability that there'll be another word like autocorrect does, right? But it's just really good autocorrect and it does some extra waiting and so forth to kind of try to make it sound sensible. What it doesn't do is understand the words at all, or what you're asking it at all, or math at all. [02:12:30] <Laugh>. It's just giving you what the next word would be. Probabilistically on a, based on all of the other words that's ingested. Job done. Now you can take this technology and do some interesting things with it. You can drive a car, but it's not really doing a whole lot of smart stuff.
(02:12:49):
It just sees there's a line. Take away the lines. Self-Driving vehicles don't do so well. <Laugh>, right? All that's going is, well, I see a line there. Let's see if I can stay between the lines. [02:13:00] All there's a car in front of me, I better slow down. That's about it. <Laugh>, I love this new character. Drunk ai. Drunk ai. What AI's really good at, in fact, we are using it now for the thing that's gonna be most good. It's gonna be good for podcasters. 'cause It can listen to a podcast, transcribe the podcast, ingest the transcription, and give you a summary and outline, show notes, all of that stuff. That's useful. Yep. But it's not hallucinating in that case, it's merely extracting information [02:13:30] from an existing data set. And it does use this same probabilistic weighting of, of words to give you any prose text that it gives you. Right?
Mikah Sargent (02:13:40):
And yes. And it is still checked by a human afterward too. Yeah. We're not just letting it run wild. I, I think I I would say from, from the perspective of if you're just curious about it and you wanna play around with it, I really do think, in my opinion, the best place to go is chat.openai.com and use, [02:14:00] that's GBT directly because it has been purpose built, I feel, to be the best example of having a conversation with ai. The Yes, this is also true. You can also check out Jason's show, Jason Howell's show on we're
Leo Laporte (02:14:20):
Working on a show. Yeah. It's not yet fully baked. That's why it's called the Untitled AI Show. Yes.
Mikah Sargent (02:14:26):
But he has been talking about it each week on
Leo Laporte (02:14:28):
Thursdays. On Thursday, yeah. With j Jeff Jarvis [02:14:30] will be joining him and they're gonna bring in experts. They have had some experts on. Yeah. I, it's a very interesting area. I understand you're wanting to learn more. If you're looking at images, I think get on the mid journey Discord Good idea. And play with that. That's pretty impressive. And you can do that for free for a limited number of images. There, you know, Google has a number of experiments in the Google Labs, including a music generator. That's terrible.
Mikah Sargent (02:14:55):
It's so bad. <Laugh>. I guess if you feel like you're missing anything, I would say you're really not. [02:15:00] And honestly, most of those books that the people are sending you were generated by ai. They didn't write them. They just had ai. Write it for them, and then they're selling it, because that's what some people do with this technology.
Leo Laporte (02:15:12):
And yeah. They're, it's a scam. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. It's very similar to the, the over hype for Bitcoin and blockchain. To
Mikah Sargent (02:15:19):
Me, somebody who knows quite a bit about all of the AI offerings our own Anthony Nielsen suggests checking out claude.ai. That's C L A U D do ai. [02:15:30] And it's, it's available for free for now. And you can upload files and stuff to it. I
Leo Laporte (02:15:37):
Asked Google Bard to write some lyrics for a heartbreak anthem titled Lovesick. Okay.
(02:15:47):
Okay. Now sing along with me. I'm lovesick, I'm broken hearted. I can't believe you're gone. I thought we were meant to be, but now I'm all alone. [02:16:00] Love sick. Love sick. I'm so lovesick for you. I can't eat, can eat. I can't sleep. Can't eat. I can't even think straight, straight. I want, I just want you back. This is so bad. <Laugh>. This is so bad. So one of the things I think AI will do, I disagree with, we've talked about the I IBM M study that said, you're all gonna lose your job. I think one of the things that actually AI is gonna do, because it is so mediocre, <laugh>, is it's gonna make humans more valuable. Yes. So [02:16:30] people will actually write, like Stephen King will be more valuable because there'll be so much
Mikah Sargent (02:16:35):
Cruft and there'll be like a tag not AI generated. Yeah. <laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:16:39):
That. Yeah. And podcasts that are done by humans, movies that are made by actual humans. All of that's gonna be much more valuable because we're gonna realize that there, now, the, the downside AI is there's gonna be a lot more mediocre crap. Yes. Flooding the zone. And that's potentially problematic. 'cause [02:17:00] We've got a presidential election coming up in the US in 2024. You know, there, there's an election going on right now in in e Ecuador. In fact, there are two elections in South America going on right now. And I haven't seen a whole lot of AI disinformation in those yet,
Mikah Sargent (02:17:17):
But it's coming. I
Leo Laporte (02:17:18):
Have a feeling we're gonna see a lot more. But, but what is it gonna mean? It'll just mean that when you read something on the internet, you can, there's a high chance of it being blather. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. That's true now,
Mikah Sargent (02:17:27):
But that's already the case. Yeah. <laugh>,
Leo Laporte (02:17:29):
That's true. [02:17:30] Now. So you're gonna, it's just gonna mean you have to consider the source and go to trusted sources. I think this is good for us. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I think it's good for real writers, real artists, real musicians. Because you'll know the difference. Trust me.
Mikah Sargent (02:17:46):
Yeah, you can. Yeah. Yeah. I know it when I see it.
Leo Laporte (02:17:49):
Yeah. And I know the, the writers are worried about ai, that's one of the reasons for the race strikes not the main reason, the real reason for writer strike is because Netflix does not pay [02:18:00] them in the same way that a rerun of your TV show on N B C would get residual payment. And so writers are upset that almost all the revenues now move to streaming. But they don't, they don't tell you audience numbers. There's no such thing as a rerun on Netflix. Right, right. Runs forever. And they're just not getting properly compensated. That's the real reason for the writer's strike. And the actors strike, they're a little bit worried about ai. They threw that in as well. I don't think there's ever gonna be a problem with that. Now, maybe we're, I'm glad to see that you agree [02:18:30] with me. I hope I haven't influenced you
Mikah Sargent (02:18:32):
In what way? About
Leo Laporte (02:18:33):
Your, your disdain for what AI is
Mikah Sargent (02:18:36):
Doing? Oh, no, no, no. I you, no. That is something that I've honestly felt for quite some time when it comes to the creative aspect of ai. It's just so ugh, that Yeah. You, you'll know it when you see it. And I, I do agree with you. I think it's perfectly put it is even just in my own you know, playing around with ai, I am having much more appreciation for what we as humans can do. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:18:58):
You know what I mean? It makes us more valuable.
Mikah Sargent (02:18:59):
Yeah. [02:19:00] You see what, what it does. And it's like, no, no. It's, it's not, you know, it's not there. It's, it's not what you are expecting. And the times when I've used AI for you know, different idea prompts and generating or whatever, I always end up taking that as a jumping off point as opposed to it being something that's, this is from the get go to the end, what I want. It's just, it's not, not that good. And it's not human. There's something I think lot of the human element, I think of us
Leo Laporte (02:19:29):
Were excited by [02:19:30] the idea and played with it and, you know, did a lot of stuff with it. And we were all kind of tired of it happen. We, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Here is chat GPTs lovesick ballad. It's a little bit better. Oh, wow. A again, the prompt. Write some lyrics for a heartbreak anthem titled Lovesick In the Shadows of Our Memories. I Stand Alone Once A Love So Vibrant. Now it's overthrown echoes of your laughter haunts the hollow air. But now I'm drowning in this ocean of despair. It is a lot better. [02:20:00] See? Yes. Than Barred.
Mikah Sargent (02:20:01):
It actually rhymes.
Leo Laporte (02:20:02):
<Laugh>. It actually rhymes.
Mikah Sargent (02:20:03):
It also has meter. Like this one has meter.
Leo Laporte (02:20:05):
It has meter. Yeah. Bard was just blah.
Mikah Sargent (02:20:07):
Ah, yeah. Don't use
Leo Laporte (02:20:08):
Bard. Promises we made. They're just fading scars. We danced in the moonlight. Now we're counting stars. My heart's a battleground. Loves a cruel trick. I'm a prisoner of emotions. Hopelessly love sick. You know what, this ain't bad. But that's what happened is people go, oh, this ain't bad. That isn't good.
Mikah Sargent (02:20:25):
Right? It just ain't bad. It just
Leo Laporte (02:20:27):
Ain't, it's better than you expected. Oh, this lovesick [02:20:30] melody is tearing me apart. A symphony of shattered dreams of work, of broken art. I'm lost within the echoes of the love that used to be in this lovesick anthem. My heart's the casualty.
Mikah Sargent (02:20:40):
Oh, that's actually sweet. That last line is
Leo Laporte (02:20:42):
Pretty good. But you nailed it. Benito. It at least has meter. I mean, it has a Baum and that just means that they taught chat, g p t <laugh> to follow a meter as opposed to Bard, which is just going, I don't
Mikah Sargent (02:20:55):
Know. Well, you asked for a song or a poem, right? Yeah. It knows that it needed do that.
Leo Laporte (02:20:58):
Yeah. I wrote some lyrics for a heartbreak [02:21:00] anthem titled Lovesick. Same prompt on both. Yeah. by the way, the prompt was suggested by Google for Google Bar.
Mikah Sargent (02:21:07):
You'd, oh, that's what they came up with. You'd
Leo Laporte (02:21:09):
Think it'd be, oh man, do a little bit better think it'd be, and this is not Chat GT four, because I used to pay for chat GT four, but I decided to cancel that subscription. Again, it's not, it's mediocre. Yeah. Now, admittedly, there are a lot of mediocre songs on the chart. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So they're gonna have to either get better or, you know, we're, [02:21:30] you know, there's gonna be more mediocrity in the world. Talented humans will win in the long run. I see. I
Mikah Sargent (02:21:36):
Agree. Here,
Leo Laporte (02:21:37):
Here. Yeah. Yeah. Now, now in three years, we could be sitting here, well actually in three years we could be in a dungeon and your AI friend could be sitting here doing this show <laugh>. And you will laugh at us. We were wrong. But,
Mikah Sargent (02:21:52):
But for now, for now we say here, here to humans. <Laugh>.
Leo Laporte (02:21:54):
Yeah. Yeah.
Mikah Sargent (02:21:56):
To humanity.
Leo Laporte (02:21:56):
And we say goodbye because these humans [02:22:00] have, have got to scram, got
Mikah Sargent (02:22:02):
Places to
Leo Laporte (02:22:03):
Be, got places to be. But don't worry, you could still call anytime. (888) 724-2884. Leave us a voicemail. We got some great ones. Record a video and email it to ATG at twit tv. You could also just type old fashioned, old school. We will give you a better answer, I promise, than chat gt. Yes. did we'll back Sunday, you'll have had many exciting adventures. I will. In beautiful [02:22:30] Denver, Colorado. I'll have had my movement. Yes. Enjoy your, enjoy your podcast movement. I hope it goes well for you. Thank you. I'm gonna be here all week. I'm not going anywhere. Coming up a very exciting twit with Dro and Rebecca Giblin, co-authors of the really powerful choke point capitalism. Corey has a new book, a prescription for How to Fix the Broken Internet. Alright? Yeah. We will have lots to talk about in just half an hour on this week. Tech, [02:23:00] thank you for joining us on behalf of Michael Sergeant and on behalf of Leo LaPorte, we wish you a great week. Bye-Bye.
