The Tech Guy Episode 1862 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.

... (00:00:02):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWIT.

Leo Laporte (00:00:10):
Hi, this is Leo Laporte and this is my Tech Guy podcast. This show originally aired on the premier networks on Sunday, January 23rd, 2022. This is episode 1,862. Enjoy.

... (00:00:24):
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Leo Laporte (00:00:59):
Oh, hi. Hello. Welcome. How are you? Leo Laporte here The Tech Guy. Okay. I'll say it. Hey. Hey. Hey, it's time to talk. High tech eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo is the phone number. If you want to join me in the fun and games we call the tech guy show eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo is the tech guy number. If you want to call in and ask a should make a comment, make a suggestion. All of the above 88 88, ask Leo website changed a little bit. I admitted. I know. And I'm, you know, some people aren't happy about nobody likes change. Do they? I understand changed a little bit, but it's still there. It still free. Still has all the show notes. It's tech guy labs.com that did not change. That's one of the things they did, right? When they designed the web, they made it really easy for a domain name like tech I labs.com to point to any computer.

Leo Laporte (00:02:02):
The computer in this guy is the web server and you can move the web server somewhere else, but the name stays the same and it was a actually a very clever invention that, that, that old DNS. And we talk about it a lot, cause it comes up a lot. DNS domain name system, the big phone book of the internet. That's how it worked. You know, you you say you enter in somebody's name and the phone book gives you back the number and it's done automatically transparently people. Aren't aware of it, but that's why we can just say, you know, to the phone book, Hey, tech guy labs.com. It has a new home and 64 to 72 to 3.1 or whatever it is. I don't know. See, I don't have to know, have to remember that. No one does. Maybe, maybe the engineers do <laugh> nobody else. Nobody else does. 88 88 ask Leo tech guy labs.com. I think that's the bulk of everything I have to talk about.

Leo Laporte (00:03:01):
The EU has, you know, it's sad that we have to look to the European union to enforce privacy and data protection laws, but you know they seem to be a little more aggressive about this. Actually, if you ask somebody at Google or Microsoft or apple or Amazon or Facebook, they might say the darn EU has done it again, just depends on your point of view. Thursday, the digital services act passed the EU parliament and there were some, apparently some significant last minute changes, but it it's, it's, it's too. It's about data privacy. It's about protecting your information. It's it's also about reducing tracking and advertising. One of the amendments was to ban targeted ads and boy that would've changed the ecosystem. Wouldn't it? That failed, but there was a compromise. You now you cannot target minors with, with ad targeting.

Leo Laporte (00:04:09):
That's fair, right? Presumption being minors are, you know, maybe less sophisticated, more vulnerable, so they should be protected. Amendments extending the limitation to sensitive personal data did, did pass. So they can't keep track of your political religious belief. Sexual orientation online platforms cannot make denying consent. You know, when you see that popup says you consent for us to collect personal data, they can't make denying consent more complex than giving it. <Laugh>, you know, shouldn't have to jump through a lot of hoops to prevent them from collecting it. And me, and maybe even more importantly, refusing consent saying, no don't collect any information should not disable functionalities. How about that? Well, why do we care? Well, most of the sites we deal with also work in Europe. So they kind of have to follow the EU rules, a lot of sites in the us, Facebook and others might have a little switch, you know, they go, is this person in the all right. Okay. Okay. All right.

Leo Laporte (00:05:24):
But generally anything the EU does kind of ends up happening here in the us, not through law, but just through practice cuz sites don't want to have to figure out where you are. Have you been following the crazy battle between the FCC and the FA a over 5g deployment, the so-called C band deployment. This is crazy. And it's kind of hard to get down to the bottom of this. Who's right. Who's wrong. The carriers spent billions of dollars for this frequency. You know, they, they they expected that they'd be able to use it. I think, you know, when you spend billions of dollars, you figure the FCC probably knows what it's doing when they're selling this. But meanwhile, the fed federal aviation administration <affirmative> at the behest of the aircraft and the airline industry said, hold on there, the problem comes down to ALS, which are, you know, I think you, I think we agree are fairly important to the, the flights of commercial and non-commercial and all kinds of aircraft. You gotta know where the ground is kind of fundamental and a malfunctioning altimeter can cause a crash. These ALS are designed, we're designed back in the day and that that's the phrase that's kind of relevant to watch a whole swath of the radio frequency spectrum much larger than they need to be honest, much larger than they need, but because no one else was using that those frequencies, they said fine. And they, they monitor all of them. Unfortunately, that's exactly where these 5g C band deployments go.

Leo Laporte (00:07:18):
Not, I, I should point this out, not in the critical frequency that the altimeters need. It's just that they look at more than they need to. So they might be confused by signals in the, in the lower band that they, they really should don't even need to pay attention to. It was just when they designed it, no one was using 'em and they designed it, you know, in a broad fashion. And of course, and I agree with this in the aviation industry, you don't wanna just make changes because you for change sake, safety's paramount and every change has some potential risks. You wanna make sure it's safe, tested, and all that they've known though, for 10 years that the phone companies are gonna put up in this 5g C band at Verizon and at T they bought it. They want it, they want to use it and they did nothing about it.

Leo Laporte (00:08:12):
So now we've got this problem where 5g interference could cause safety problems, cockpit safety systems could fail it's and it's kind of, you can't say it's whose fault it is. Exactly. the carriers paid for the frequency, the altimeter manufacturers, when they made this, didn't have to worry about that extra frequency. The airlines trusted them and now collision. So one agreement that was made this week between at and T and, and Verizon, and the FAA was to not build these sea band towers around major airports had they done. So had they started putting those up the airline companies and the airplane manufacturers were gonna ground those jets. They're gonna just say, well, we can't fly. 'em. However in San Francisco, at least some commuter flights on smaller jets were barred from landing this week in San Francisco, cuz the FAA hadn't cleared 'em for low visibility conditions. So there are already are some disruptions.

Leo Laporte (00:09:22):
A lot of people are saying, I'm hearing this from telecom experts. This is such a it's botched. They're not blaming anybody, but it's so botched that we're falling behind in 5g. And five, they say is very important. And by, by not doing this right by everybody kind of messing up and there was some emergency, the FCC called it's agenda to promote I'm reading from the wall street journal it's agenda to promote the next generation, wireless us, the 5g fast plan, lawmakers drafted a bill called beat China for 5g act. <Laugh> it's not a race kids.

Leo Laporte (00:10:10):
So what's the upshot of this. It's a mess. <Affirmative> it's a mess. Basically. They're gonna have to, I guess, update these altimeters. It's gonna cost money, lots of it. And of course there's always this concern. When you make these changes that you have to test them, make sure they're safe, it's working. Now. They say that, you know, the FAA says and the manufacturers and the airlines say, Hey, notice how safe air travel is these days. Well that's cause we're very careful. FCC says you don't need that frequency. You shouldn't have that frequency. We sold it. <Laugh> we sold it LA late Monday, Boeing and the advised customers like the Emirates airline, the all Nipon airways that their triple seven Y bodies could not fly to airports in the us where that 5g is about to be deployed. They're blocked.

Leo Laporte (00:11:21):
Same problem with the 7 47 dash eight. So the, the wireless services went live on Wednesday, but no cell tower within two miles of a major runway will use the new signals. Verizon had to downgrade their estimate about how many people would get 5g. It's a mess. You know what? That's the bottom line. If you're curious, what's going on, it's a mess. That's, that's the answer. It's a mess. And it's just a bureaucratic nightmare. And you know, I don't people wanna blame the FCC or the FAA or the airlines or the airplane manufacturers. You know, I don't know if that's fair. That's just, it's a mess. 88 88 ask Leo, that's the phone number? Let's talk high tech. What do you say? You and me? 8, 8, 8, 8 2 7 5 5, 3, 6, toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada. We go to the phones next. There was a really good Reddit

Leo Laporte (00:12:35):
Thread it on this. I almost read it verbatim. I'll read it to you now. Cause it kinda explained to me what was, what was really going on and I'll put a link in the show, show notes right now to this. Probably a better, a better explanation than mine. To be honest, your lane he's talking to pilots is equipped with a radio radar altimeter that operates between 4.2 4,200 megahertz and 4,400 megahertz, 42 to 4,400. The 5g towers operate 3739 80, right? Shouldn't be a collision. However, there's a filter, a many decades old design that causes a big problem.

Leo Laporte (00:13:41):
The filter, they the all, all, all of the, the used filters, they call 'em band guards to prevent overlapping interfering frequencies. The band guard between 5g and radio altimeters is very big. You, the airplane opens a channel so wide to listen to the radar. It'll end up listening to the 5g. That makes sense, right? It's just, it's very big that wasn't a problem, you know, until now <laugh> it's not at all unusual to have filters that are, you know, Vanguards that are much smaller and they work fine. In fact, there's plenty of examples of that with modern filters, modern filters should be in all airplanes by now, especially since the 5g standard's been out for more than a decade, the aviation industry had time to retrofit their airplanes. They are now sorry to be blunt playing dumb. They know they can. Nation's hostage by saying, this will disrupt flights in the middle of a pandemic. They gather support from the populace. Obviously safety is paramount, but carriers paid many 81 billion for these frequencies. So they're upset, right? The aviation industry is saying, well, we need more than the 42 to 4,400 for our altimeters. But spectrum is a limited resource. So really what's come down to is who's gonna pay for this.

Leo Laporte (00:15:09):
Who's gonna pay for this. And the airline industry, the Al manufacturers want somebody else to pay for it. Right? But the aviation industry, understandably, doesn't also wanna rush into this. So fascinating conversation. And I'm trying to give you both sides because I think what a lot of what you hear, not just on this story, but every story is blame. Oh, it's their fault finger pointing. And I just want both sides have some blame, but you can see how this can happen, but what a mess I'll tell you, who's on the other end, the bales, there is the, I notice you're not wearing any 49ers gear today. Neither am I. We don't have to save it for next week. We don't have to because yeah, we wanna save it. I okay. Let's be honest. We didn't really think they'd beat the green bay package. I was very skeptical.

Leo Laporte (00:16:05):
Didn't surprised to me. We didn't really expect to win last night. No, that's how we win. We win in weird win. It was blocks <laugh> that was a weird way to win. But I'll take the w let's take the weird win. So yesterday, if you missed the show and weren't watching the radio closely, you might have missed the fact that both Kim Shaer our phone angel and I were wearing team gear. Yep. As they say on the NFL, whose back you got, which really isn't a very grammatical question, but we got their backs, I guess. Right? We did. Who should I start this thing with here? Well, our old friend, Ellie in Honolulu. Oh, haven't heard. Haven't heard from her ages. Wow. Yeah. Wow. That's good to hear. Yeah, Ellie. Thank you, Kim. Hello

Caller #1 (00:16:54):
Hi Leo.

Leo Laporte (00:16:56):
You are alive and well, I'm glad to hear it.

Caller #1 (00:16:59):
Well, I went, I almost wasn't. Oh dear. I was in the hospital from COVID. I had a collapsed lung and I had pneumonia.

Leo Laporte (00:17:07):
Oh, Ellie, sweetie. I'm so sorry. And

Caller #1 (00:17:10):
I had to be on oxygen. So

Leo Laporte (00:17:12):
Are you feeling okay now?

Caller #1 (00:17:14):
Well, I still have the oxygen, but I'm

Leo Laporte (00:17:16):
Much better. Oh, I'm so sorry. Well, I'm glad to hear you're okay. Yeah, we hadn't heard if I

Caller #1 (00:17:21):
Didn't go to the hospital, I wouldn't be here talking to you. Thank goodness.

Leo Laporte (00:17:25):
And I, and I know there was a big spike in Hawaii. Are you in, are you on Oahu? Where, where

Caller #1 (00:17:29):
Are you? Yes, I'm on Oahu. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:17:31):
Yep. So

Caller #1 (00:17:33):
Both and my significant other, both suffered, but he only was in the hospital six days. I was in for almost a month. Oh my

Leo Laporte (00:17:41):
Gosh. Oh, that's terrible. Well, holy cow, I'm glad. You're feeling a little better. Hang in there. Stay safe. I will.

Caller #1 (00:17:51):
Yeah, but I came through, so that's the most important thing. So scary.

Leo Laporte (00:17:55):
So scary. What can I do for you today, Ellie? Have

Caller #1 (00:17:59):
You ever heard of this company called shine bathroom? <Laugh> they, they cleans your toilets.

Leo Laporte (00:18:05):
No, you know that it's funny. The, the every year at the consumer electronic show, every year they show up with this thing that you put in your mouth that brushes your teeth in 10 seconds. It's just a giant brush that goes all around your mouth. I'm surprised. I didn't see this at CES. What is shine? Bathroom shine.

Caller #1 (00:18:23):
<Laugh> it's shine, bathroom.com. And that pods that you put in this device and, and you put a little wire in and it, and the thing is called Sam and Sam's clean. So

Leo Laporte (00:18:34):
It's a little, it's a little bot that crawls around your toilet.

Caller #1 (00:18:38):
Yep. And it cleans your toilet. <Laugh> it's really great. I wanna, is it work? Yeah, it works.

Leo Laporte (00:18:46):
How, how expensive are they?

Caller #1 (00:18:49):
The whole kit. I, I gotta, you know, because of the startup and all that. Yeah. The whole kid cost have been $125. Oh. It's not

Leo Laporte (00:18:56):
Awful to never have to clean a toilet again and worth it.

Caller #1 (00:19:00):
And it takes a lot of the rust out and stuff like that.

Leo Laporte (00:19:03):
So, so it, it really works. See, this is, it really does work. We talk all the time about robots, right. And people imagine they're humanoid robots standing at the sink, washing the dishes. It's not gonna be that way. This is much more like what? It's gonna be little bots that do single little chores. Sam, the shine bot. Wait a minute. I gotta watch. There is a video on the website it's shine, bathroom.com. So where does, where does Sam live? <Laugh>

Caller #1 (00:19:37):
<Laugh> I don't know, but you can co connect it up with the Amazon devices too.

Leo Laporte (00:19:41):
So you can say, Hey, Hey, echo, clean my toilet. Yes <laugh>. So Sam, I'm looking on the video. Looks like Sam is you have a little Sammy inside your toilet. And then, and then there's a thing attached to the tank at the top there. And wow. That's kind of remarkable.

Caller #1 (00:20:01):
You could put it next to the toilet. If you don't wanna put it on your tank, if you don't have the room,

Leo Laporte (00:20:05):
Didn't think we'd be talking today on the tech eye show about toilet cleaning robots, but it has a chip in it. Doesn't it. And in fact, you can tie it to your phone, right? Yep.

Caller #1 (00:20:17):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:20:18):
And, and, and then the phone will say all done.

Caller #1 (00:20:24):
Yep. It'll let you know when it's done it. Lets you know, when it was last clean, when you last flush was done, do

Leo Laporte (00:20:29):
You have to plug it in?

Caller #1 (00:20:31):
No, it's it's a battery.

Leo Laporte (00:20:32):
It's battery. Yeah. Cuz most people don't have plug sockets next to the toy toy. That would be a bad idea. Yep. Oh I am. I'm gonna check this out. It, it, it <laugh> do, do you <laugh> do you, does it take a chemical that you put in that? What do you, what do you, is there a cleaner, the, whatever it is it's in the pods. There's pods, the water there's pods. I like the idea of pods. Yep. It says shine uses sensors to automatically clean your toilet with electro water, which is a, they say a not I'm reading a copy. I'm not saying it myself. A non-toxic cleaners is effective as traditional bleach. It's an antibacterial shine. Then cleans the entire bowl, including hard to clean areas under the rim. Does it crawl around? Does it move around? I'm trying to visualize this. It just spritz.

Leo Laporte (00:21:23):
It's a spritzer. It's a spritzer. It's not using chemicals. It's using electro water, which is harmless to you. But the bacteria don't like it. Wow. And you're happy. How long have you had it? About six weeks now. Well thank you for the info and by the way, I'm so glad to hear from you. I'm sorry you went through that. I'm glad you're feeling a little bit better. Just take care of yourself. Okay. I will be good, Ellie. All right. Take, gotta kind. Keep that Aloha spirit going right? Yep. Right. Aloha. Bye. Bye. Leo Laport, the tech guy let's talk cars with Sam next. Leo Laport. The tech guy. <Laugh> from toilet cleaning to automotive technology. We got, Sam Abuelsamid is here. <Laugh>

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:10):
Principal. Hey Leo. How are

Leo Laporte (00:22:12):
You this week? It's good to see you. Principal researcher at guide house insights. And of course, wheel bearings.media is his podcast. All about cars joins us every week as cars today are high tech devices. And I know that, you know why?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:22:30):
Because your wife's car is stuck in the garage. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:22:33):
Yes, we bought and, and love. She loves an electric mini got about a month, took delivery about a month ago. And the other day I, I unplugged it and got in pressed the start sweat. And all these alarms went off saying your brakes aren't working, your drives, nothing's working. And then it said, do not drive, drive, train malfunction. And that was that. We can't get, put it in gear. We can't put it neutral. We can't do anything. It's just drivetrain malfunction. And it as a computer guy, it sure looked to me like there's no mechanical failure. There's an electronic, there's a computer failure. Like maybe, you know, when I disconnect electricity or something, a board got shorted, but there's the mother board is broke, done, got broke. That's

Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:22):
That's that's possible. The more likely scenario is that there's something there's a loose connection somewhere. Oh, something so, and got unseed fell off the

Leo Laporte (00:23:31):
Loose connection. Yeah. That happens to computers too. Right. That,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:34):
I mean, going back to my early engineering days in the early nineties, when I was working

Leo Laporte (00:23:39):
On abs systems, did they have computers back then? We did have

Sam Abuelsamid (00:23:42):
Computers that, that, you know, that pumped the brakes for you. Yeah. And the, the, you know, when we, one of the things I remember a very early meeting I was in they were going over some quality reports at warranty reports and the single biggest issue then, and still now today with any of these systems is wiring and electrical connectors. Yeah. That's what

Leo Laporte (00:24:07):
Tends to it is made in England. So <laugh>,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:12):
I wasn't gonna say anything about that. You know,

Leo Laporte (00:24:15):
They're kind notorious for

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:17):
Electrically, our, our Honda, our Honda civic hatchback was made in England too. Yeah. And we haven't had a problem.

Leo Laporte (00:24:22):
I'm sure they know how to make stuff now, you know, this is from the, they had a bad reputation from the old days. Yeah. Of Coopers and also of, of Jaguars English

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:31):
In general hand,

Leo Laporte (00:24:32):
Wired wire harness is kind of a funky setup.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:24:35):
Yeah. Lucas was known as the prince of darkness <laugh> and I remember long time ago seeing a cartoon and rode and track of a, of a, a British sports car and it had a a toggle switch for the headlights on the dashboard. Yeah. And the, the three positions of the toggle switch were li labeled off flicker and dim <laugh>. So,

Leo Laporte (00:25:02):
So, but the funny thing is no tow truck drivers. We had two come to pick because they got, they have obviously have to take it back to the shop and they both shook their heads and turn around and left,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:12):
Which I, I was tweeting. I was replying to Lisa's tweets on, on Twitter yesterday, my wife, and this is, this is crazy because you know, all they have to do

Leo Laporte (00:25:22):
Is put on skates, but they just

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:24):
Didn't wanna do, do to is jacket up and put some wheel Ollies on. Yeah. That's and

Leo Laporte (00:25:27):
Then they can just right out a single car garage, maybe it's too tight. I don't know. 

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:32):
Those wheel dollies are not very big. I mean, they're just, just slightly

Leo Laporte (00:25:35):
In the wheels. A lot of people have been sending me links to buy wheel dollies. I'm not doing this. It's not my problem.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:41):
They should have those on the tow truck. Every tow truck should have those funny. Sometimes they have to use them for towing vehicles. Yes. Right.

Leo Laporte (00:25:46):
And anyway, you know, it's my, I don't wanna hijack your segment. <Laugh>

Sam Abuelsamid (00:25:51):
It's right. I, I just,

Leo Laporte (00:25:52):
I started it. So I think it has to do though with the high, I felt like it had to do with the high tech nature of the vehicle, but maybe not, maybe just, or somebody in the chair saying maybe just got damp, the control control board got wet.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:04):
That's possible. That's less likely because they, you know, they generally, you know, they tend to do a lot of testing you, it was in

Leo Laporte (00:26:11):
Garage water up in the garage all night. I don't think

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:14):
Everything should be sealed, but there's probably a bad connection somewhere or a bad sensor. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And here's quite trivial reveal.

Leo Laporte (00:26:23):
And by the way, this happens to gas vehicles. It's not a problem. That's unique to electric vehicles. Oh yeah. Is the problem. It is a new kind of vehicle for this dealership. As many electric vehicles are, this is a brand new category and they have no idea. It's like,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:26:38):
I don't know. Yeah. Well, the, the dealers, you know, one of the things manufacturers do with the dealers when they start selling EVs is they, they require the dealers to have to invest in a bunch of training for their technicians. But the, the problem you had is that the, the tow truck that came to tow it to the dealer, those are not owned by the dealer. Those are usually independent contracts,

Leo Laporte (00:27:00):
Which is Bob. It was Bob's tow. Yeah. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:01):
I mean, when you, when you have roadside assistance, I don't know. Yeah. We have roadside assistance from a manufacturer. They, you know, or for AAA, for that matter, they contracted out to local operators, local tow truck operators, and they

Leo Laporte (00:27:13):
Probably have seen the lawsuits. There was one just the other day with ma that that's battery got damaged by being towed.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:20):
Yeah. They pulling it up onto a flatbed. It scraped the battery pack. And so

Leo Laporte (00:27:24):
They probably are saying, ah, electric, I don't wanna mess with that.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:28):
Yeah. Which you know, is

Leo Laporte (00:27:29):
Guy drove off without saying anything. He just disappeared. <Laugh>

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:34):
That's, that's, that's just terrible customer service. There's

Leo Laporte (00:27:37):
There's no excuse for that. Anyway. I'm sure it'll, it'll be fixed the the dealer. It was a Friday. So the dealer, well, you know, we're closing, but I'll get back to you on Monday. So I'm, I'll let you know next week. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:47):
I'm sure they'll, they'll, they'll find, they'll find a, they'll find a tow truck operator that knows what to do. Yeah. Anyway, the topic for today. When are you

Leo Laporte (00:27:54):
Gonna talk about, I'm

Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:55):
Sorry, on the follow up on on a subject that you guys talked about last week on this week in tech, on twin. Yeah. you were talking with rich de Mero who, one of the few people who actually did go to CES brave, man, I think he got, I think he got a demo from a company called halo which is got an interesting model. It's a, it's a car sharing service, you know, kinda like Zipcar and others. But instead of just having the cars parked somewhere and you know, when you want to use the car, you know, short term rentals instead of use having to go to find the car, pick it up, you know, unlock it with your phone, pick it up, drive it, and then drop it back off at the same location. What they're actually doing is they're delivering the cars to you, except that instead of spending the money on drivers to shuttle these cars around, to drop them off to where people want them they are doing, they've got cars set up for remote operation, tele operation and halos by, by no means the first to do this, I actually got a demo at CES back in, it was either 2017 or 2018 from a company called Phantom auto that was developing tele operations systems for automated vehicles because sometimes AVS will get into situations.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:04):
They don't know how to. And so, you know, they gotta call back to base and say help. And so the, you know, all the AV companies with the exception of the one company that's selling something that they claim to be full self-driving. It, it has a tele operation system. So when the car gets stuck somewhere, it's in situation, it doesn't know what to do. They a human at

Leo Laporte (00:29:30):
The home office can take over.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:32):
Yeah. They, it it's like a video. Yeah. They send back a live video stream from the cameras on the car. They can see what's what's around the car and they drive it remotely.

Leo Laporte (00:29:43):
I've often wondered that's given all the cameras on my car. If I could drive it, drive by wire, basically, cuz you can kind of see everything that's going on. I guess that's what

Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:53):
I'm doing. Yeah. That's kind of, that's kind of what happens when you're using something like blue crew. Right. You know, is it it's, you know, it's essentially driving it by wire, you know, could you drive it remotely? I mean technically

Leo Laporte (00:30:03):
Probably takes some training

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:05):
<Laugh> yeah. You know, it's, it's, it's possible. In fact, what, what, you know, for the AVS, what most companies are doing is rather than having a driver drive it directly, they're having a remote operator, look at the situation, evaluate the situation and then provide hints to the automated vehicle. <Laugh> okay. Are you getting

Leo Laporte (00:30:24):
Warmer? Getting warmer? Can crosser colder?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:27):
Well more like, you know, okay. You can, you can break, break the rule here. You can cross this double yellow line to go around this, this work

Leo Laporte (00:30:34):
Zone. That's why it's confused. It doesn't understand what do I do here?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:37):
It's not quite sure what, what to do in a particular scenario. That's yeah. So that there, because that's a more reliable situation because then if you can provide hints to the car and then let it drive itself, that's better than not. You don't have to deal with the latency that's inherent in the wireless communications or potential dropouts and communications. So the way halo is doing it is a little bit on the dangerous side. It's probably not the solution. But it is, that's an interesting solution

Leo Laporte (00:31:05):
To the problem. It's kind of cool looking too. Yeah. Salmon bull salmon, greenhouse insights wheel bearings podcast. Thank you, Sam.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:13):
I'll talk to you next week.

Leo Laporte (00:31:26):
Sam, would you like to stick around and talk to the peoples? I will definitely do that. Talk to the peoples in the chats. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:33):
All righty. So yeah, as I was saying you know, all, all cars, you know, with all these electrical systems on there, the single most unreliable component is actually the wiring and connectors. This is where things usually. Could

Leo Laporte (00:31:48):
I go and look under the hood and see no, probably not. 

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:54):
You could, you could try whether or not you'd be able to see where the problem is.

Leo Laporte (00:31:58):
I might myself too, right. I

Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:59):
Mean, yeah. I mean, depending on what it is, if it's one of the high voltage can actions that, you know, you definitely don't wanna mess with those.

Leo Laporte (00:32:07):
You know, I looked under the hood a little bit pretending to be a man and <laugh> and it's just, you know, it's a blob, that's not, doesn't look like there's, it's nothing you can really like.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:18):
Yeah. And most, most of the connectors are not in places where you can, you can normally see them. Yeah. so it's, you know, it's gonna be a challenge to do that. Tech

Leo Laporte (00:32:29):
Dino suggested I reboot it by disconnecting the 12 volt and reconnecting it. What do you think? 

Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:36):
That, I mean, yeah, that's, that's certainly one possibility because you know, the, the vehicle does have to run on the 12 volt battery. And in fact that may be the problem is actually the, maybe the, the 12 volt die battery's dead. Yeah. Yeah. 

Leo Laporte (00:32:49):
How can I tell? Cause it's got enough juice to show everything

Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:52):
You do. You have, I'm sure you probably have a volt meter, right?

Leo Laporte (00:32:56):
That's a good question.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:57):
If you have a meter. Yeah. Just go. We have

Leo Laporte (00:32:59):
Plenty here. John says, put, yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:02):
Take, take, put a volt meter across the terminals on the 12 volt battery. You should have, you know, probably about 13 to 14 volts here. Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:33:09):
And so you put the red on the red and the, the black on the black and just turn on the volt meter. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:14):
I mean, for, for, for a DC volt meter, it doesn't really matter which way you put it. You're not gonna just want the flow, just looking for flow. Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:33:22):
So I could do that. John, can I borrow Wal meter for tonight? <Laugh> okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:26):
I could do that. And you know, try, try disconnecting the negative terminal. Let it sit for about 10, five or 10 minutes. Oh. And then, you

Leo Laporte (00:33:34):
Know, before I do this disconnect, the negative terminal. Oh this is the reboot you're talking about. Yeah. For the reboot. Oh, don't disconnect. The positive. Just the negative. That's enough. Yeah.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:42):
That's all. Yeah. All you gotta do is disconnect the ground.

Leo Laporte (00:33:43):
Okay. And let it sit.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:45):
Okay. And just let it sit that that'll give all the computers in the car time to okay.

Leo Laporte (00:33:49):
To shut down. Can I lick the terminals? Would that work?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:53):
Only if you're looking for some excitement that that generally works better with nine volt. The batteries where the terminals are, are close together. Yeah. It's hard to the car. Battery might be a little difficult.

Leo Laporte (00:34:06):
I'll bring home a volt meter. That's a great idea. Cuz if it's a battery,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:10):
If it's a dead battery, then, then all you gotta do is charge the battery. Just put a, you know, put a battery charger on it. Yeah. Yeah. Isn't it

Leo Laporte (00:34:17):
Weird that those batteries can't trickle charge from, at lithium? I on I don't.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:22):
Yeah. there

Leo Laporte (00:34:24):
Must be a safety.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:25):
I'm entirely sure why. And I think, yeah, there's some safety reasons why they tend not to do that. Yeah. When the car's running, they actually do charge it charge the 12 volt, right. From the high voltage battery. But usually when the car's off, they, they disconnect. Just have to decouple the, the high voltage battery and there's enough

Leo Laporte (00:34:42):
Juice and the lithium ion, there's plenty of juice to, to light up all the things just, yeah. It should be just not enough to, to drive it. Okay. Yeah. I will try that.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:51):
Yeah. Cause you try an EV actually has two separate electrical systems. Right. You've got your high voltage electrical system for your charger, your battery and your motors and then a 12 volt system for all the other legacy stuff, all the computers and the lights and all, you know, everything else in the car.

Leo Laporte (00:35:07):
Yeah. And I have no idea where the 12 volt is on this thing. It's probably some odd place. Oh yes. I'll find it.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:14):
I'm sure. It's I think it's under the hood.

Leo Laporte (00:35:15):
Yeah. There is stuff under the hood. That's where the big battery is. So yeah. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:20):
Thank you. Yeah. Try, try that look around for the top.

Leo Laporte (00:35:23):
Might do it. Yeah. All right. Leo, LePort the tech guy. That's all we talk about is change the world, changing all around us. Thanks to technology. Mitzi's on the line from Los Angeles. Hello Mitsy.

Caller #2 (00:35:39):
Hey Leo. I am you're my last hope. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:35:44):
I know that feeling. <Laugh> boy must have

Caller #2 (00:35:47):
The stupidest smart TV in the entire universe.

Leo Laporte (00:35:50):
<Laugh> okay. What's going on?

Caller #2 (00:35:53):
Okay. So here's a story. I got a vio TV. Yes. All right. It worked fine for, for a while. Everything was good. Now, one day I turned it I'd had it on in the afternoon, turned it off, turned it on again in the evening. And instead of the TV going on, it, it had defaulted to where it's as like streaming this and that and, and the movies and so on. I was like, what the hell? So,

Leo Laporte (00:36:25):
So you wanted to watch TV, but instead you got the smart TV. Yeah. Interface. So, so, and on Visio, I'm trying to remember, is it Roku or it's just their own, it's their own thing. Oh no. Yeah. It's just there on physio.

Caller #2 (00:36:39):
It's on a cable box. Yeah. So so somebody walked me through and they said, you gotta use the, the quicker that came with. Yeah. The remote

Leo Laporte (00:36:49):
TV, the remote has buttons on that says Netflix and, and all this stuff. And you can go back to the TV. Yeah.

Caller #2 (00:36:54):
So I had to go to input. Yeah. And, and, and keep scrolling across until I got back the cable box. Yeah. And then the TV went on. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:37:05):
The bane of everybody's television, these days, that darn input button.

Caller #2 (00:37:11):
So then it was fine until it wasn't and it did the same thing.

Leo Laporte (00:37:16):
So every time you turn it off, it default to the smart TV. Not to, but not every time. Oh, just once in a while.

Caller #2 (00:37:23):
Just, yeah, but it's getting, it's increasing every, like I never know. Now when I turn it on, what you gonna get go onto the TV or is it gonna default to this day? That's

Leo Laporte (00:37:34):
Frustrating.

Caller #2 (00:37:36):
Yeah. No kidding. Then the other day I on and it wouldn't come on at all. Yeah. And it wouldn't go off either. Then I really started freaking out. So I, I don't know. I fiddled and I fiddled in, finally it came on, but in the middle of the screen, there was a box that said no signal cable box, oh please. The source device connected and powered on, oh please.

Leo Laporte (00:38:01):
The input box. That's probably why it's switch into smart TV. If it doesn't see the cable box, it's gonna say, here's, here's the first thing you should. But that's

Caller #2 (00:38:09):
The thing. It was, it was on. So the TV was on, but in the middle of the screen, in the middle of the program, this box stayed on eventually after a day or so. It goes away. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:38:20):
Yeah. Yeah. I, that's not unusual in smart TVs. Here's one thing you can do to try to change this. When you're in this smart TV, you know, with all the, you know, Netflix and everything scroll all the way to the right, till you get to settings, there should be a tile for settings. Okay. Okay. And always when these TVs act up, this is the first place to go in the settings. There is I there's a item inside the settings. So you click settings and then you'll see display in sounds <affirmative>. And you're gonna scroll down to, there's a setting that says set power on to last input. In other words, turn on where I was last time. Not, you know, what Visio wants you to do is watch their smart TV stuff cuz there's ads in there. Yeah. I don't want that.

Leo Laporte (00:39:13):
I don't want that. I, I, my program, I don't want that. So you wanna make it your default and you do that in the settings, on the smart TV, the TV settings interface, there may be on your men, on your clicker. There may be a settings button, but, but this is the for sure way to do it. When you turn it on, you see the smart TV scroll all the way to the right to settings. I think it's in display and sounds there'll be a, a box that says set power on to last input. You get what that means. Go. Yeah. Whatever I was doing last time, do it again. Right. Because right now the default is whenever you power it on probably is turn on the smart TV, cuz they want you to see the ads and stuff like that. But how come it does it some times than not every time who, you know, the world, <laugh> finish the sentence.

Leo Laporte (00:40:02):
Just finish. I don't know what I'm gonna say in the rest, but that you get the idea the world man. <Laugh> I, I think also the thing to remember is, and it keep your clicker somewhere where it's not getting accidentally hit because the TV all also has this feature that will, if you hit the Netflix button, it'll turn itself on and go right to Netflix. So you wanna make sure that's not happening. The other thing is, and we talk about this a lot on the show, cause this is a big problem. There's something called C E C, which is a way a TV can get a signal from box, like your cable box I'm on now and turn itself on. And CEC is always kind of a nightmare. I'm trying to look and see what they call it on. It's it stands for the consumer electronics control, but of course, no company uses CEC.

Leo Laporte (00:40:54):
They all have their own clever name, aim for it. And I don't sure what they call it, but that's another thing to look at in the menu. Either turn off CEC or if it's off, turn it on. The idea is what any device connected by the H DM I to your TV should be able to turn on the TV and select its input automatically. So if you are sitting there in the dark and you pre pick up the cable box, remote and press change channel, it should send a signal to the TV, say, Hey, she's watching turn on and go to that input. So you don't have to do it manually. So that's another thing to look at. Sometimes CEC breaks things. In fact, visios kind of famous for funky C issues. So sometimes get rid

Caller #2 (00:41:39):
Of the Visio and get a get. No, no, no,

Leo Laporte (00:41:41):
No, no. It's a perfectly good TV. We just have to get the settings. Right. <laugh> so, so two things to do, go all the way to the right when you're in that, you know, programs set, go to settings. You're gonna say, keep, just say the Def stay with the last input. Don't change inputs on me. And if that doesn't work, then you're gonna look for CEC in the same settings menu. You look for CEC and you're gonna want to look at the settings and it may be turning it on fixes it. It may be turning it off. Fixes it. I can't, I'm not sure. It depends on what's going on.

Caller #2 (00:42:13):
All right. Yeah. When it, when it first comes on before it defaults, it's like one of those little circles that goes round and round. Yeah. It's

Leo Laporte (00:42:20):
Look. So what the other problem actually may be a bigger problem. You might look at your cable, your HMI cable from the cable box to the TV. It sounds, it sounds like that is. And this is a big problem with HTMI in general, if it's, when it's circling like that, the TV's checking the inputs to see what's going on. Right. And if it doesn't see the cable box, that's why it's going to the, you know, it's smart TV interface. So it may, so it may be actually trying to see the cable box. Make sure your cable box is it's always is on. Right? You don't turn it off

Caller #2 (00:42:56):
The cable box. No, I turned it off when I'm finished. I, I only use leave it on, leave

Leo Laporte (00:43:02):
It on, leave it on. Cause what's happening is the TV's going where's the cable box. I don't see the cable box. Okay. I guess she wants to watch Netflix. So leave it on the cable box uses very little power. It goes into low power mode. You can leave that on.

Caller #2 (00:43:15):
Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:43:15):
Okay. That might by itself fix the whole problem. Okay. That's what that spinning is. The spinning is hunting. It's looking for something to show. Right? Right. And if it doesn't find, I knew.

Caller #2 (00:43:25):
Yeah. And if it doesn't, it doesn't find it. It goes to that default phase. You got it. Yeah. You figured it out. That's I figured that part that well. Yeah. So I, you, you to help me fix it though,

Leo Laporte (00:43:37):
I'd leave everything on except the TV. You can turn the TV on. I'd leave everything on. So there's three different things to try. I think the first thing I do is just leave the cable box on. See if that's awesome.

Caller #2 (00:43:46):
Okay. Okay. All right. I'll give it a whirl, Leo. Thanks. Hey, it's my

Leo Laporte (00:43:51):
Pleasure. Midea it's great to talk to you. You too. Sometimes the smartest things are the dumbest aren't they, the smart TVs are really kind of dumb. I, Scott Wilkinson our home theater guy he's on the show every Saturday. And I often bemoan the fact you can't buy a dumb TV. You can only buy a smart TV. And honestly, I'm of the opinion being the cynical. I didn't, you know, I didn't used to start. I, I didn't it this way. I used to be a wide eyed optimist. I used to say, technology's gonna save the world. It's gonna be amazing. Just wait. And then it happened. And now I'm getting a little more cynical in my old age. And one of the things I'm most cynical about is companies trying to collect marketing information and that's why they're smart TVs so they can, you know, see what you're watching and send that, sell that back to the, the various people. That's why they're smart. Go ahead and try to get one that's dumb Leola port, the tech guy. I think, I think we just sold a bunch of shine. That's hysterical. <Laugh> the, site's now sold out of shine, toilet cleaner. <Laugh> it's hysterical. Okay. Oh, okay.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:45:11):
Yeah. I, I, I use Chromecast with Google TV on all of our TVs in our house. That's

Leo Laporte (00:45:17):
Actually pretty good. I think. Yeah,

Sam Abuelsamid (00:45:18):
No, it works really nicely.

Leo Laporte (00:45:20):
Quite I am excited, you know, I pay for YouTube TV and I even stupidly when the Olympics were on agreed to pay 20 bucks extra month for 4k. And then real there's very little 4k stuff, but there was one football game last weekend. That was a 4k. So I'm hoping that maybe next week's game will be 4k. It wasn't this week Fox, sometimes streams, 4k super bowl will not be in 4k cuz it's NBC and they don't wanna do 4k.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:45:47):
Yeah. I, we canceled cable about six years ago. Yeah. And I,

Leo Laporte (00:45:52):
You were smart. You were ahead of the

Sam Abuelsamid (00:45:54):
Game. We, we tried YouTube TV, I don't know, about three years ago when it was still relatively new. We did the trial period. Yeah. And realized, you know, we'd already been without cable for several years at that point and realized, yeah. You know, we don't wanna watch TV ads and basic, there was nothing, there was nothing on there that we actually wanted. Youtube TV

Leo Laporte (00:46:15):
Is cable. It's just cable from Google. That's all. Yeah. Over the internet.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:46:20):
So we just, we have streaming services that I turn on and off periodically, depending on what's on there. If there's something we're watching, like I just, I just turned off Hulu. I just canceled Hulu. You know, we'll kill show time in a few weeks. When the stuff we're watching right now, billions

Leo Laporte (00:46:36):
Is back. I don't know. Don't be premature.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:46:38):
We don't, we didn't like billions. Yeah. I know what you

Leo Laporte (00:46:41):
Mean. Yeah. Yeah. All right. You do your thing. You got eight minutes. I'm gonna go get something to drink. All right.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:46:48):
So see Jim and Allen asked about the Luminar and Mercedes-Benz partnership and develop amount of automated driving systems, giving them an advantage over the competition. I wouldn't say it necessarily gives them an advantage because Mercedes is actually not the first company to use Luminar. The Volvo was the first automaker to announce that they're actually going to put Lumina's LIDAR standard on the, the Nick generation XC 90 that's launching later this year, it's also gonna be on the new pole, star three and then on all the, the other models off the same platform over the next several years. And there's several other automakers that are also using Luminar S AIC in China and a couple of others that have picked up Luminar. And, and they're not the only ones using Luminar or using LIDAR.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:47:40):
Mercedes actually has a LIDAR sensor now on the S class in EQs at least in Europe for the the level three partially automated system that they have on there. And it's a really good LIDAR there's several companies that are making really good lidars there's AI in Avi. AI is gonna be on a program in, in 2024 in Avi is launching later this year on BMW. You Honda has a a vehicle in Japan right now, the legend that's got Vallejo LIDAR on it. And there's a, there's a lot, the, the lucid air. It also has a LIDAR sensor on it. So LIDAR is something that's gonna become increasingly common over the next several years. Right now we're getting it on a bunch of premium cars, but we'll see it coming down to more affordable cars over the next several years because of it, because it's an active sensor that can actually measure distance very precisely as opposed to cameras, which are much less precise unless you orient them for stereo vision.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:48:50):
And you LIDAR is much more precise, can also see in the dark where cameras could struggle and in harsher lighting conditions. So they're increasingly going to be using it for things like pedestrian detection. Luminar was doing demos at CES this year with their, they were running side by side with a Tesla doing pedestrian detection demos from I think 30 miles an hour. And the the Tesla hit the child pedestrian mannequin every single time. And the Luminar equipped vehicle always stopped short and and managed to avoid hitting the pedestrians. So I think you're gonna see a lot more of this over the next several years. Let's see Flo or Flo if you had a chance to, if you had to make a choice as to what EV to buy now with all the choices, which one is the best value for the buck and least problems under 75 to thousand dollars?

Sam Abuelsamid (00:49:53):
I mean, it, as always, you know, it depends on what kind of vehicle you need. You know, there, there are actually quite a few good choices now you know, in addition to, to Tesla which are increasingly hard to get for $175,000 the model Y starts at 60 grand now you know, there the new Hyundai ionic five is really good. The the Hyundai Kona EV is actually also a really good choice. My, my friend and podcast cohost, Roberto Baldwin he and his wife got a Kona EV a few months ago has a range of 259 miles on a charge. You can get it starting at $35,000 before tax incentives. So that one's a really good choice. Leo still really likes his Mae, his Mustang Mae and a couple of months time Ford is gonna be launching the F-150 lightning.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:50:45):
So if you're looking for, for a pickup truck, full size pickup truck, those are gonna start at $40,000. And you'll be able to get the extended range model starting at about 52, I think. So that's well under 75. So there's, there's a lot of good choices out there. Let's see. Is there anything special about the Toyota cross from tech Dino? I assume you're talking about the Toyota Corolla cross. I don't know if there's anything particularly distinctive about it other than the fact, you know, it's a, it's a compact crossover hybrid with you know, and it's a Toyota, you know, so it's gonna get really good fuel economy. It's gonna be really reliable, you know, it's not particularly groundbreaking in any way but it'll probably work really well. Let's see what else we have here.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:51:34):
K tech asks, LIDAR sounds like a mix of as an, a lion and tiger as a liger. Yeah. LIDAR stands for light detection and ranging uses lasers to it scans across the field of view with a laser beam that goes out and measures the reflected photons coming back and knowing what the speed of light is. You can calculate the distance. And from that, you can also calculate the, the velocity of the objects that you're detecting. And it's much higher resolution than typical radar. The early LIDAR sensors were extremely expensive. They were initially used on vehicles during the DARPA grant challenge for autonomous vehicles back in 2000 5, 6, 7. And those first Dyne LIDAR sensors, which actually just recently went our production cost about $80,000, but there are LIDAR sensors now that cost in the low hundreds of dollars. And a lot of, quite a few of 'em that are well under a thousand dollars.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:52:35):
Let's see NY, NY, NCI doc says with an F-150 reservation number of 100 and looks like 1 million, 125,000. Is there a chance I'm getting this year? Yeah, I, I, I'm not sure what that you know, how that reservation number actually translates cause I'm pretty sure there wasn't a 11 million reservations. I think it was about 200,000 reservations. So I'm, I'm not sure which of the numbers in there are actually relevant to your position in line. If, you know, if you're in the, if it's, you know, if it's using the last five digits there, so about 50,000, you may well get one this year. We'll, we'll have to wait and see it depends, it also depends on how many of the reservations actually get turned into converted into real orders. You know, there's always some people that reserve and then decide, eh, I didn't really want that.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:53:29):
So you may, you may get bumped up in the order and it depends on also, you know, what model you're looking for and what's available at any given point in time. So you may get bumped up in the order. Binky says he likes the Hummer EV yeah, mean, you know, if you're looking for a 9,000 pound truck that, you know, has limited towing capability, but is stupid fast. It's, it's kind of interesting. Let's see scooter X is, there's only one Corolla across XLE with a hundred miles of me, according to their website. Yeah, the, you know, the Corolla across is still for early knew. They just recently started building them. So volumes are probably still pretty limited right now. I think, you know, in the next couple of months, you'll start seeing a lot more of them available. They're I think they're just now getting to dealers.

Leo Laporte (00:54:20):
All right, Mr. Sam. All right. Thank you. My friend. Have a great week. Talk to you next week later. Don't get COVID.

Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:27):
I will try not to.

Leo Laporte (00:54:28):
I, you hear, I heard that Michael. Got it. Oh, did he? Yeah, he's got it right now. He's locked in his bedroom. Oh, that sucks. Lisa and I tested immediately. We're okay. But you <inaudible>. Yeah. Stay safe. Yeah, no kidding. <Laugh> see ya. Right.

Leo Laporte (00:54:48):
Well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo? LePort here. The tech guy. Yes, he's that time. Once again, taught computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart smartphone, smart stuff, anything with a chip in it. Eighty eight eighty eight ask Leo is phone number (888) 827-5536. Toll free from anywhere in the us or Canada website, tech guy labs.com is where all the show notes go. If you hear something, there'll be a link there. There's also transcripts from the shows and of course, audio and video of the show usually takes a day or so to get those things up. But it be there episode 1862, a very good year. No one wasn't actually come to think of it. It's a terrible year. Ken, on the line from Camarillo, California. Hello, Ken. You're next?

Caller #3 (00:55:39):
Well, hi, Leo long time listener. How today

Leo Laporte (00:55:42):
I'm well, how are you?

Caller #3 (00:55:43):
Well, I'm doing very well, but a little perplexed.

Leo Laporte (00:55:47):
Well that's this is the perplexed line you called. So you bet I've

Caller #3 (00:55:50):
Listened to you since show number one. Wow.

Leo Laporte (00:55:53):
That's a 1000 eight hundred and fifty, sixty one shows ago. <Laugh>

Caller #3 (00:55:58):
So what's happened is at, and T sent me a phone unsolicited to my house. That's weird. I, yeah, I know what that's very true. So I opened it up and it's a Calypso 23, I think is what it was. So I gave a hold of at and T and said, why am I getting this phone? They said, because I have a Samsung galaxy seven that as they roll out. Oh, under the, under the new G five. Yeah, drop 3g. That's right. I said, I already have four light and my phone works fine.

Leo Laporte (00:56:33):
Yeah. It's not till the end of this year. It's December 31st, 20, 22. That they're gonna turn off those towers. Yeah. Well,

Caller #3 (00:56:39):
They're gonna turn off my phone. And I said, well, okay. My wife has a same phone and I have an unlocked phone that I bought off

Leo Laporte (00:56:47):
Of a, they're not gonna turn off your phone. Your phone will work fine. They just won't put any towers to connect to.

Caller #3 (00:56:54):
No, the phone will work fine. So I can't call out anyway,

Leo Laporte (00:56:56):
But you won't be able to call or get data <laugh> but you know, in a way that doesn't mean the phone won't work, the wifi will still work. It, this is something we're all dealing with right now. If you've got an older phone, if you've got a 3g phone for any of the carriers, those towers are getting turned off at some time this year. And it's interesting. They just sent you this Calypso too. Yeah. <laugh> it's like here, take this beware, beware a gifts. Well, I think they don't, they, they don't want you to be angry. <Laugh> cause actually that S seven isn't that old.

Caller #3 (00:57:30):
I know. And my wife has one that I bought from at and T and they said that her phone will not be affected. Ah, phone will.

Leo Laporte (00:57:39):
So you have, you didn't get yours from at and T you got yours on unlocked. Yes. Okay. Unlocked. And you may have bought one. One of the things about Samsung phones, I've mentioned this before is they build phones for every region of the world and they have different radios and different processors, depending on what region you're in. So it's completely possible to go on Amazon and buy a Samsung phone that was intended for the middle east or Hong Kong that will sort of work, but not completely. So it

Caller #3 (00:58:10):
Works until it doesn't.

Leo Laporte (00:58:11):
Yeah. it's cuz of the radio. So they must know which radios you're using. They must see and must say uhoh, he's got one of, he's got a phone that's using that band. So <affirmative>

Caller #3 (00:58:26):
You need to get another phone.

Leo Laporte (00:58:27):
Yeah. Take their word for it. They must know. Although my experience has been, there are they've there have been some phones that people have said you know, it's not gonna work and it's gonna work fine. So I, they could be mistaken. It seems like if they're gonna send you a phone, not an expensive phone, kind of a junky phone, but if they're gonna send you a phone, that means they're pretty sure that your old phone isn't gonna work. It's interesting that your wife's will, but yours won't that's what I thought. Yeah. So do you know the Mo so here's how you could find out if you go to about the phone in the settings, you can actually get the model. It'll be, it'll begin with SM dash and then it'll just have a G and then some numbers and you can actually see, I think it's always nine 30, but then you can see what region it belongs to. And then you can go on a site like GSM arena.com, GSM arena.com and that particular model number. And so actually I'm looking right now,

Caller #3 (00:59:29):
Mine, mine's an S M G nine three U

Leo Laporte (00:59:36):
U is the, is the thing that we care about. U tells us what region that is. And I don't know <laugh> what you is. I'm gonna have to, I don't see that in the listings here. So there must be. And if you look at your wife's, it will be, it'll have a different letter at the, at the end of it. Yes. so that's, and, and if you go to GSM marina, you can actually see what the U model, what radio it had in it. And obviously, I mean, if you wanted to confirm it <laugh>, you could see if it's got, if it doesn't have the right radios, if it only has 3g radios, but you're probably getting LTE on that phone. Am I right? It's an LTE phone.

Caller #3 (01:00:14):
I am getting, I am getting four. Yes,

Leo Laporte (01:00:18):
That's puzzling.

Caller #3 (01:00:20):
I know it.

Leo Laporte (01:00:21):
Why I called you? Yeah, that's a puzzlement. All right. So I have now from phone more.com the U one SIM card slot. I wonder what, what, what market was intended for it's oh, you just means unlocked. Okay. Okay. So it is intended for the USA. I that should, you know, they may be wrong. That's an, that's an LTE phone that should work. I don't see why that wouldn't work. There's been some confusion over this. You're not the first person to call and say, but I I'm sure my phone does LTE. Why are they saying it? Won't I would wait. I mean, how crucial is, is your phone? Can you wait till December 31st? <Laugh>

Caller #3 (01:01:02):
Oh, next year.

Leo Laporte (01:01:03):
This year of this year, new year's Eve. Yeah. It'll stop working. <Laugh> it'll stop working if it does, then you need it, then, you know what? You need a new phone. If it doesn't, then they were wrong.

Caller #3 (01:01:13):
Well, that, yeah, that's about that sounds like 2000 when we brought it in. Yeah, yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:01:17):
Yeah. That's the Y2K problem only. It's the Y two K two, two problem or two, three problem. That's when at T says, and by the way, they could slip that or they could advance it. But that's when at T says, they're gonna turn off 3g. So you have at least this to the end of this year. Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I might be wrong. No, they say February now. Okay. So,

Caller #3 (01:01:42):
And that's what they were talking about.

Leo Laporte (01:01:43):
Yeah. I'm sorry. I guess it's Verizon. That's going to the end of the year at and T is sunset, February 22nd, 2 2, 2, 2 0 2, 2. Easy to remember after that they say some 4g LTE devices that this is it, that request 3g voice and data service to connect to the network. So even though you can do LTE, they do their sip, they do their, their signaling over the 3g. That's why, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna trust them in, you could wait a month. <Laugh> you'll find out next month. <Laugh> then I'll call you from my dead phone. You have a dead phone. Yeah. So I would, you know, take a look. Samsung's gonna announce the next generation S phones I think this month, or maybe in February. So you take a look depends on much you wanna spend and how many features you, the biggest difference you'll notice immediately they're much larger than the S seven.

Leo Laporte (01:02:42):
Yep. They've. They basically are the new notes. So if you don't like a giant phone, then that may not be the phone for you. If, if the price is too high, look at Motorola the, the G nine power, the latest Motorolas are inexpensive 200, 300 bucks. And they're very, very, very good. I like 'em and they will work with at and T past. I just want a good phone. Yeah. Well if you like you Sammy's the, the S 21, which is out right now is excellent. And the 22 I'm sure will be even better. Do you use the camera ever? Yes. Cameras are much improved over the seven. The seven was good for its time. Let's not, yeah, it was very good. Good pictures. Yeah. Yeah. This takes even better and even better. They've got a massive zoom now and stuff.

Leo Laporte (01:03:26):
So you might take a look at the you can get a S 21, you know, normal, not ultra for 800 bucks. Okay. That's fine. Okay. That's a, I think that's a very nice phone. You should probably just go to the at and T store mask up, go to the at and T store and take a look at it and, and see cuz the biggest concern I have these, these modern day phones are giant compared to the S seven. Yes. They've really jumped in size. That's what consumers seem to want, but it may be a dis dis you know, disconcerting for you. Yep.

Caller #3 (01:04:00):
So, okay.

Leo Laporte (01:04:01):
Well, yeah, so we confirmed it. Thank you for asking cuz now I, it, it made me force me to go do the work and, and see what the problem is. And I see now it's not merely that it's LTE data. You also have to connect to the network over 3g and that's, what's gonna stop working. Ah,

Caller #3 (01:04:15):
Okay. Okay. Well, I guess I'll have to give mine a wall test and buy another

Leo Laporte (01:04:19):
Phone. Yeah, sorry. According to our chat room, the only S seven models that will work are the G 9 3 5 a nine three oh a not 8, 9 1. A, those are the S seven models that will work the edge, the active and the G nine 30 a. So you have a U I love it. That at and T has just randomly, obviously picked the Nu the day 2, 2, 2, 2 0 2, 2 <laugh> to disconnect who disconnect go to the at and T store, look at it or, or, you know, a big box store. We'll have 'em too go somewhere where you can handle it and see how big it is in your hand. I am actually like a bigger screen. I like the, I like it, that I can make the text bigger. It's easier for me to read. I like having the extra real estate I, to me and I guess most users cuz that's what the, where the companies are going.

Leo Laporte (01:05:13):
That's preferable. The other secondary advantage of a big phone is big battery. Right? Eighty eight, eighty eight. Ask Leo more. Your call's coming up just a little bit. Leo. Leport the tech guy, Chris. Mark's ready too. Our, our camera guy will help us just a little bit. Yeah, let's get rid of January. I'm ready. Like except February is not much better. Is it Leo Laport? The tech guy bring on April and may eighty eight, eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. Ken with two ends in Corona, California on the line. Hi Ken. Hello there. <Laugh> good to see you.

Caller #4 (01:05:52):
Oh, you can see me. No, I

Leo Laporte (01:05:54):
Can't. Don't worry. You're safe. You secret safe with me. <Laugh>

Caller #4 (01:05:59):
Anyway, I, I talked to you a, a few few weeks ago concerning the same problem. And you were talking to someone about the Visio TV. Yeah. And I have one that my, my children gave me for Christmas.

Leo Laporte (01:06:13):
Aw, how nice of them.

Caller #4 (01:06:15):
And my problem still is I, I do have a little problem hearing and so I use closed caption all the time, but I still have not been able to get the closed caption somewhere down at the bottom where I can, you know, so I can see the rest of the picture. And where does this show up? Right in the middle of the what?

Leo Laporte (01:06:35):
<Laugh> that's no good.

Caller #4 (01:06:37):
So I I'm trying to still try to figure out what to do. I've I've, I've called VI. They tell me nothing. I use a, I have at and T Uverse. So that's my box. And on occasion, my, my TV will do what you were talking about, the smart TV. Yeah. And fortunately when my granddaughter's here, she knows how to, how use the other remote and get it back. But since I heard what you said, I know next time I'll try that, moving it to the right. But right now I, I would like to figure out or find some ways to use the closed caption.

Leo Laporte (01:07:11):
Yeah. I don't blame you. I, we talked about this before, right? Yes. Did did. None of the things I told you work, huh? That's correct. So the first thing that we gotta figure out is where the close captions are coming from. So <laugh>, they're coming from inside the house. Well, I know that, but, but are they, is who's doing them because that's gonna be where you're gonna have to change the positioning settings. So is it on what, where do you turn on close everywhere, I guess. Huh?

Caller #4 (01:07:41):
Yeah. I, I, I have everything on closed caption. I, I use my Uverse remote to to, to set it up. Right.

Leo Laporte (01:07:51):
Okay. That's, that's actually good clue. That sounds to me like it's the Uverse closed captioning. So it's not the Visio. It would do this on any TV and it's not Netflix or your television station, whatever you're watching.

Caller #4 (01:08:05):
No, I no, the my, my granddaughter and, and her mother, they, they use the Netflix and all of that stuff. I, I, I, I just watch regular TV, but

Leo Laporte (01:08:15):
Have you noticed if it's always in the middle everywhere?

Caller #4 (01:08:19):
Yeah. Yeah. No matter what channel

Leo Laporte (01:08:21):
Oh, this is Interestings or NBC. This is interesting. Thank you. To Mike B in our chat room who found a link on the ATT community forums, U verse closed caption position. We have deaf children. So the close captioning has to be on all the time. The current close captioning places, the works in the middle of the screen, across the faces. <Laugh> so this is a, I'm not the only one, not the only one. This is a Uverse one. Oh, so going to your Uverse settings, the remote and Uverse settings go to options system closed captioning.

Caller #4 (01:08:58):
Hang on a second. I'm trying to find out where it is. <Laugh> I see closed captions down at the bottom on

Leo Laporte (01:09:08):
The, on the remote it's in the settings. Apparently this is interesting. There's two kinds of closed captioning. There's digital closed captioning and there's standard closed captioning. <Laugh> I don't know why you, you tell me, I don't know, turn off digital closed captioning. Turn on standard. Closed captioning using option one. Okay. And, and that will lower the captions <laugh>

Caller #4 (01:09:40):
Okay. I went to a menu and menu down to the

Leo Laporte (01:09:44):
Options. Menu options. Yeah. Yep. System. And then in options, there's a system options.

Caller #4 (01:09:52):
I pressed. Okay. On options. Nothing. Nothing. Oh, wait, wait a minute. Okay. Something came. Okay. Now I got system. Good. Okay. I see. Close caption. Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:10:02):
Click that close caption. What you wanna do is turn off digital

Caller #4 (01:10:07):
Close caption. Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:10:10):
I don't know why I didn't fix this for you last time.

Caller #4 (01:10:13):
Well, it was at the end of the show. Oh, I ran outta

Leo Laporte (01:10:15):
Time. So, and the, the other thing is you really have to figure out where's the closed catching coming from. Cause lots like if you, if you watch Netflix, you can turn it on, on Netflix. If you watch 

Caller #4 (01:10:27):
Watch

Leo Laporte (01:10:28):
Regular TV. Yeah. Regular TV, then there's closed. Captioning sent from the channel, which

Caller #4 (01:10:34):
Right now I'm looking at, it says options. It says closed is caption on. And then then that's highlighted and then next one says closed, caption off. Then digital closed, caption English standard closed, caption, closed

Leo Laporte (01:10:48):
Caption. You wanna turn off digital?

Caller #4 (01:10:51):
Okay. Apparently turn

Leo Laporte (01:10:53):
On standard. And you want to use caption one?

Caller #4 (01:10:58):
Let's see. Okay. So let me go to change.

Leo Laporte (01:11:01):
The other option is just turn 'em off at and T says, yeah, just turn off the closed captions in Uverse and turn 'em on, on your TV set. In other words, have Visio, do it, let Visio do it. So the, the actual information's coming through the TV signal and you can use different devices to display it. Uverse is the one you've turned on. Turn that one off. If you can't get this caption, one thing to work, just turn it off and then go into the settings and your Visio. Okay. Turn it on there.

Caller #4 (01:11:34):
Up and off. Okay. Now everything is off. Good. And so this, cause it says closed caption one, two, and three and

Leo Laporte (01:11:42):
Four. Well, you should try one just to see, well that

Caller #4 (01:11:45):
It was on one.

Leo Laporte (01:11:46):
It was okay. So two, you could try two or three, but I would just leave it off cuz apparently at, and T's closed. Captioning is terrible. So turn that off. Now, put down that verse remote, pick up the Visio remote. And you're gonna do, you're gonna have to dig through the settings there, flying the closed caption options and turn it on, on the TV. Let the TV do it because it will put it the bottom. Who in their right mind? Put it in the middle. Oh eight T and T. What a surprise photo guy. Chris mark coming up. So Dave.

Caller #4 (01:12:25):
Yeah. <Laugh> Steve. And alright. That's off. That's okay. On that. I'm still in options. Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:12:35):
You're still in the Uverse. Remote. Yes. Yeah. So turn it all off. Turn off. We don't want closed captioning. Thank you. Goodbye at and T thank you.

Caller #4 (01:12:44):
Yeah. I'm trying to get out of it. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:12:46):
Back out of it. Yeah. There's usually a back button, but

Caller #4 (01:12:51):
Back button. Oh yeah, there it is. Back,

Leo Laporte (01:12:53):
Back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back, back,

Caller #4 (01:12:56):
Back back. Do you wanna save the changes you made? Yes you do.

Leo Laporte (01:13:00):
Yeah. Okay. So now you have no captions, which is obviously not what you want, but we're gonna have the TV do it instead.

Caller #4 (01:13:07):
Now it's I keep backing up and now it's this closed caption on it's move. Get that okay. Off. I can't seem to get out of the thing. Oh, okay. That sign closed. Caption. Okay. And go sideways system channel. How do you get out of this thing? Oh, jeez. I don't want any of that in that system. I go back. There's a phone. Oh, our live chat today. What phone channel two. Now I still seem to have the closed caption. No,

Leo Laporte (01:14:01):
<Laugh> you're gonna have to go through this till you get them off.

Caller #4 (01:14:05):
Okay. So let, oh man. This is not, I put it on mute so I don't listen to it, but okay. There's a guide going down to options. System closed. Caption is nothing. Nothing is highlighted on, on that going across. Okay. So every back to system channel, audio, restart receiver.

Leo Laporte (01:14:48):
I don't think you need to do that. I think he's just 

Caller #4 (01:14:50):
Yeah. I just trying, trying to get out of the darn. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:14:53):
You you've gotta get 'em turned off and then we can turn 'em on in the TV.

Caller #4 (01:14:57):
I okay. Chris, did

Leo Laporte (01:14:58):
You have a email for me that I should look for

Chris Marquardt (01:15:02):
You have one, but I will, I will drive. Okay. So I

Leo Laporte (01:15:05):
See it just a backup visit just to back. All right. I'll be ready for you.

Caller #4 (01:15:12):
It still seems to be there because it's showing a music, SIM CLEs music, CLEs, and, and they're still it's up a little higher than in the middle <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:15:23):
We made it

Caller #4 (01:15:23):
Worse. Then lemme change the channel.

Leo Laporte (01:15:27):
So we gotta get it turned. Oh, is it say, wait, I have it says, wait Chris is right.

Leo Laporte (01:15:35):
Visual weight. Yes. Oh, VI I get it. Visual weight. I get it. Visual

Chris Marquardt (01:15:39):
Weight. I get it. I'm not talking about weight loss or

Leo Laporte (01:15:41):
Anything here. Good. Because I'm having spaghetti carbonara. That's definitely not on the <laugh> on the list.

Caller #4 (01:15:49):
No, I still have it. There's Joel Stein. Okay. And and it's down still in the middle of the screen. So I still haven't turned it off.

Leo Laporte (01:15:59):
Really? Yeah. I think you have to go back in just outta curiosity. I, this is really gonna mess it up, but I have to run in about 50 seconds. So I just wanna just let you know that you can do this in the VI. If you press the menu button on the Visio mode, move the move to close captions, press. Okay. And you can turn them on. And the, and it might be worth doing that just to make sure the Visio ones are showing up at the bottom. But the problem with doing this now is you're gonna have close captions in the middle and the bottom, and you're not gonna be able to see anything I have to run though. I'm sorry to say same problem. We've run out of.

Caller #4 (01:16:34):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (01:16:35):
Good luck. All I can say. Good luck. You get the idea though. You could. I think you could figure it out here. I'll try. Thank you. All right. Sure. Take care. Every week at this time, we are joined by the nicest guy. I know Chris mark QUT. He's my photo sensei. Now musta Chris at sensei do photo SES, ei.photo. Chris is a jolly fellow be because he's a photographer and he's got, he's got the eye for it. Joins us every week to help us get better pictures. What's our lesson this week sent oh sensei.

Chris Marquardt (01:17:13):
It's about weight. We're talking about weight, but not, not this weight.

Leo Laporte (01:17:18):
Oh, good. Thank goodness. We no,

Chris Marquardt (01:17:20):
No, no, no. What do you

Leo Laporte (01:17:22):
Mean weight? What does weight have to, that's fine. What does weight have to do with, with photography?

Chris Marquardt (01:17:26):
I don't talk about visual weight. I, and it's I think, let me try to explain the things in the picture. They might have a weight, like let's say you have a picture of an elephant and a picture of a feather or maybe a picture of an elephant and a feather in the same picture. Of course they do have their weight. The elephant is more heavy, but you decide how much it weighed visually. Let's say you put that feather right in front of the lens, very close to the camera. And the elephant is somewhere in the background. Then that feather will have so much more weight than the elephant. So you can decide how much things weigh. And that decides in a picture how, how balanced its feels or how much tension. Oh, that's really. So

Leo Laporte (01:18:11):
We see this in podcasting because every once in a while, somebody will have their microphone in the front of the camera and it looks like they have a giant microphone. <Laugh> yeah. Yeah. And it's not, it's just that it's closer to the camera than their head is. Right.

Chris Marquardt (01:18:26):
There's several things. Right. And there's several things that a picture that're will determine the visual weight. I mean, the one that's obvious is of course size. Something's really big in the picture. It has more weight, it draws more attention. Brightness is another one. Tone and contrast. If you have something very contrasty that will have more visual weight than something that is, that doesn't have as much contrast the same with color and saturation, if some, with very colorful, very saturated, it will command more attention by its visual weight. And you, you get to kind of decide the, the distribution of these things in the frame, by where you point the camera. And and, and that's, that's your decision in the end? That camera doesn't make that decision for you. So I wanna look at a few pictures and Leo, here's a, here's a an exercise for you and that I'm ready is I'm

Leo Laporte (01:19:21):
Ready. Although diet and exercise together. You're really getting me now. All right. Yes. Okay.

Chris Marquardt (01:19:28):
Try, try to try to split that picture, try to divide it in your mind into intersections. So it's a picture of

Leo Laporte (01:19:35):
A Creek of a going through a, a, a landscape there's a horizon with trees and then there's mountains in the background. So I see the pictures split down the, from the top and the bottom down the middle by the horizon. And then it's further split in the bottom half by the, by the Creek. So there's like four

Chris Marquardt (01:19:53):
Sections by the Creek left and right. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, there is these Meadows in the middle is the blue Creek. Yep. And, and if you, if you look at these just as areas, not as what's in them, then you will see that the, the, the, the weight is kind of balanced between the top and the bottom. It's a nice proportion, same size. Yeah. And then in the bottom, you have three areas that are very balanced, very symmetrical. There's these two triangles on the left and the right, and this one triangle in the middle, that is the Creek. And and, and that gives it a very, like a relaxed atmosphere cuz it's balanced and it, it it's, it's symmetrical. So that means

Leo Laporte (01:20:28):
Relax, you don't your eye. Doesn't go, oh, there's something wrong. It just goes, ah, that's

Chris Marquardt (01:20:32):
Very pleasant. Yeah. You just, yeah, you, you you'll put this up in a, on, on the wall in a dentist waiting room. Exactly. That's kinda, that's where you would put, it's a waiting room picture. Okay. As a bit of a contrast, here's another one and that's a row that goes into the distance and there's some probably telephone poles on the left. Looks like a Alaska in the background. It's kinda snowy

Leo Laporte (01:20:55):
Sort of. Yeah. But the road is not down the middle. Oh no. It's off to the right.

Chris Marquardt (01:21:02):
And it does add quite of a bit, quite a bit of an imbalance. Now there are these telephone poles on the left that, that I to balance out that, that road on the right. But if you, if you split this into areas again into, into sections and you'll still have a top and a bottom, that's often the case with landscape shots because there's a horizon and the top part, the bottom part, they balance each other out. But in the bottom it goes all over the place. So I, the

Leo Laporte (01:21:27):
Word I would use year is tension.

Chris Marquardt (01:21:30):
Yes. That's the exact, the exact opposite of, of the, the relaxation that you get from the more balanced picture. So it adds tension. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And and you'll, you'll find different kinds of different kinds of versions of that. Especially when symmetry is involved. Here's a here's four. And that is that, that, that reflects in a very calm lake in front of it. So there's a symmetry between the top half and the bottom half of the picture. And that gives it some, again, something very relaxing. Here's one, what are the classic tourist shots like you have at a castle and there's a, there's a cannon in the front and old cannon. And if you just look at the size and compare that cannon, that's very close to the camera with that tower. That's in the background, the cannon is even bigger than the tower. So you end up having all the visual balance kind of on the can. The Cannon's also more so again, it commands more attention and it, it certainly gets it. It's big. Yeah.

Chris Marquardt (01:22:37):
Wow. And it's just visually big. If you put this right next to that tower in the background, it would be insignificant. Yeah. Here's a photographer who works with color and that's a red fiery moon shot of a, a, it's quite, I'd say the saturation on that shot is cranked up quite a bit. So you have this red moon in the sky and you have the blueish landscape below it. And I like this, cuz it does have balance while there there's obviously a subject in the picture, the moon, the red moon, because that is the warm color. The one thing that's different, but at the same time, you have to balance that out. You have this whole well row of trees and buildings and on the bottom off the screen, and that gives it kind of a nice top bottom balance, even though they're not the same size, but for some reason the more contrasty trees on the bottom, they kind of balance out what's going on on the top. So I find this pretty calming. I like this a lot. Here's another one. 

Leo Laporte (01:23:48):
This is neat. I like it's,

Chris Marquardt (01:23:50):
It's, it's a, it's a picture from a set. There's a, there's a fighter jet. There's some soldiers, there's a guy with a camera crane in the front. So it's probably behind the scene, shot from some, from some production. But there's this guy in the front at the, and if you, if you, again, if you just measure the size of that guy in the front and compare it with a jet fighter, that's in the background he's bigger in the shot. So from a content of the, the jet fighter is obviously an important thing, but the guy who, who, who operates that camera crane in the front has more contrast. He's not in the fog like the, like the fighter and he size wise can take it up with the fighter. No problem in this picture. So there's a good balance there.

Leo Laporte (01:24:37):
Yeah. But it's also got a story to tell. I mean, I don't know what's going on, but I like it <laugh>

Chris Marquardt (01:24:42):
Yeah, it is have a story and, and there is reflections cuz the ground is weight and that makes that, that adds some visual appeal just by itself. So yeah. Interesting story. Here's one, that's kind of out of balance, but doesn't really matter. We're looking at a wall of a hut and there is a window, but that's just the side. It's not central. So it does add some imbalance. There's not much to balance out that wind know visually, but yeah, it's it's, it does add some tension and there's nothing wrong with some tension. So size, brightness tone, contrast, color saturation will help you determine the visual balance in the picture. And if it's a bit more relaxed or if it's bit it on the 10th side, very nice visual. Wait for you.

Leo Laporte (01:25:31):
What's our assignment, Mr. Sensei,

Chris Marquardt (01:25:35):
We still have bright going bright, a bright assignment,

Leo Laporte (01:25:39):
Upload a picture, illustrating the word or idea bright to our flicker group. The tech I group on flicker. Couple more weeks, crystal pick some to about you can do up to one a week. Make sure you tag them. TG bright. Chris Markt said sense a.photo. And don't forget dips from the top floor, his podcast. Those are good. I like these. How do you search for images? That show visual weight though. I mean you must have just scanned through a lot of photos, right?

Chris Marquardt (01:26:17):
Mm. Well it took like 20 minutes. Oh you're good. It's just, just a few searches and then pick out the ones that kind of fit the theme. Yeah. It's all there. Nice. All there is all pictures. Have some weight distribution in them, so

Leo Laporte (01:26:29):
Right, right.

Chris Marquardt (01:26:31):
Not too hard. When you look what you're searching for, when you know what you're searching for, it's kind of easy to find. Very

Leo Laporte (01:26:36):
Good. Well stay safe.

Chris Marquardt (01:26:40):
I'm getting a little scratchy. You too. I think I

Leo Laporte (01:26:42):
Might, maybe it's just a coffee.

Chris Marquardt (01:26:46):
Don't I want you to, I want you to not fail that PCR

Leo Laporte (01:26:49):
Test. I am not gonna fail. I will pass. I pass all tests. Good. <Laugh> thanks Chris. Have a good one. All right. Take

Chris Marquardt (01:26:57):
Care. See you take care.

Leo Laporte (01:27:00):
Leo Laport, the tech guy, a 88. Ask Leo the phone number as we continue on in our journey to solve the world's computer problems. One PC at a time, Tom, on the line from Denver, Colorado. Hello Denver.

Caller #5 (01:27:17):
Hey Leo. How you doing? I'm well, how are you? I was well pretty good. Listen, I'm not no speaker or anything, but I got an iPhone and I hope I say this correctly, but I have a lot of problems with it. Like I have to change my apple ID password, like about every week. What, why I'm unable to get verification?

Leo Laporte (01:27:34):
Does it say you have to change it? I don't know. I,

Caller #5 (01:27:36):
I don't know. I, I it's been going on since two, two, 2018. Right after I bought the phone, it was brand new iPhone 10 and I have an iPhone 11 I just bought and I have these same problems. I go to analytics and I look at the air codes. And I get 1 42, 1 45, 2 11, 2 0 2, 3 0 9. I, I just about 15 different ones I get. So I took my phone into apple, I store and had them you know, clean it out out and run through their computer. And as soon as it, it came, as soon as it got done, I turned off my Bluetooth and my wifi. And I went to the analytics and there was about nine programs running. They were all crashing with these air codes. So apparently the guy told me I had a corrupted iCloud. So they ran through again and it still came back, corrupted my factory on his phone about two or three times a week. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:28:28):
None of that's normal screen shared with and, and I'm presuming that the apple store made sure that your phone was operationally intact. So I guess what I would suggest. Yeah, it, maybe it is your iCloud. Something's wrong with your iCloud. I've never heard of that it happening, but you know, computers is computers and they, these things break. So maybe the thing to do would be create a new apple ID brand new one. Do, do you, are you tied to that for instance, did you get email at that address or is there, is there a lot of data there that you don't wanna lose? But the fact

Caller #5 (01:29:03):
What, not so much that is, I got like my, my music and everything. It's tied to that one. It's

Leo Laporte (01:29:07):
Tied to that ID

Caller #5 (01:29:09):
Lose everything. My switch.

Leo Laporte (01:29:10):
Yeah. Well, that's frustrating. So he said your iCloud is corrupt. Did he give you any suggestions?

Caller #5 (01:29:18):
No, he ran it twice and, and, and the way I understand it, my cloud's corrupted. That means it's in their server. Yeah. It's not your problem. That means everybody else is like, clouds are corrupted. No,

Leo Laporte (01:29:27):
Just yours, but no <laugh> but it's, but not, everybody's just yours, but but there's nothing you can do about it. You need to, <laugh>, that's really the thing. This is that it's a little annoying that the guy who could do something about it merely said, well, I guess there's something wrong with your iCloud. So now I would suggest calling apple because

Caller #5 (01:29:50):
Well, I, I call 'em daily. Oh, you do. Just right after they did the grease store, they, they found out or within a day and a half, I, I filled up full of system memory, 60 or gig phone. And it had about 13 gigs to the phone right into the restore. And it was completely filled up and I wasn't able to use it after about a day and a half, two days after to do a restore again. Now I also have two terabytes of, of storage. I keep at apple cause I take screenshots of all this is happening. And it's only about half full, but I'm not able to download this stuff we're into that deal. And it's all just system a memory that, that I'm using. And I don't understand why even when I got a current iOS system of 15.2.

Leo Laporte (01:30:31):
Yeah. Well, I, I don't know either. I'm gonna assume probably a false assumption, but I'm gonna assume that at the apple store, they did the most important thing, which is to check the hardware on your phone in very that it was okay. They have diagnostics tools they can do. So I'm going to at least assume for the purposes of this question, that the hardware on the phone is fine. You know, you might, they might have suggest this, try resetting the phone. It sounds like you did that. So there is, it is, there is such a thing as a corrupted iCloud account. And it does sound like that's what you're getting. So there is a way to fix that without, I mean, obviously because you have music and stuff associated with that account, you can't start a new account, just start over. So there is a way to fix that. And and I'm gonna put link in this show notes. Actually, Mike B has already done this to a discussion with apple about some of the things to do.

Leo Laporte (01:31:34):
I, the other thing you could do is instead of calling just general apple it seems like they really need to solve this. This is not anything you can do anything about assuming your phone is okay. They have to fix the iCloud. There is a way to re excuse me, there is a way to reset your iCloud. I don't know if this, if you've got documents up there, you'll want to download 'em first. If you can, this probably will get rid of any data stored there. It will not change though. Your rights to the music you will, and you'll still be able to download that. So you sign into iCloud. I know you're having trouble doing that, but if you can't sign into iCloud, click your account name at the top of the window and choose account settings. Under the advanced settings, there is a reset documents and data, and now that's gonna eliminate anything you've stored up there.

Leo Laporte (01:32:29):
So again, back that up first, it will not though. I don't believe, I hope not reset your ownership of that music. It shouldn't, that's separate, but what it'll do. So the thing to understand about iCloud, it's a database that's, what's stored up on iCloud. And in fact, there's an index to what you've got stored on iCloud and yeah. Like any database, like any file on a hard drive, it can get corrupted it and this, your symptoms sound like that's exactly what's happened. So I would try, I think the best thing to do is try reset and it takes a while. It'll erase everything that's in there. So back it again, say it for the third time, <laugh> make sure you back it up and see if that fixes it. I'm kind of annoyed that apple I'm hearing more and more, you know, these geniuses at the apple store, these, these guys, guys were, and gals were highly touted.

Leo Laporte (01:33:22):
They're calling them geniuses for their ability to solve anything. In fact, apple gives them or used to anyway, a lot of leeway to do a lot of things, including, you know, give you a new phone and stuff. This is their job. They're one and only you had one job solve Tom's problem. Don't tell him what the problem is and say, thank you very much. Bye bye. Solve it. So they should have fixed this if they say to you, oh, I see the problem. Crept iCloud account. Thank you very much. Good day, sir. I said, good day. That's not the right answer. The pro what they should say is, ah, see you have a creped iCloud account. Let me fix for you.

Leo Laporte (01:34:03):
So I'm gonna put this discussion, this apple thread, 2 5 0 8, 9 7, 9, 7, 6. It's older. It's a couple of years old. But it sound like exactly your symptoms, things like not being, you know, being asked for the password over and over again and so forth. They have some suggestions including doing it in safe mode. I'm not sure why you don't have a that's for the Mac. You don't have a safe mode on your phone, so I don't think that's gonna solve it. And then there's something called et check. Which is a E E T R E C H E C K, which is a report that will give you some information that might be worth. I mean, I'll, you know what, the first thing to do, go look at this thread and, and follow these instructions. They went through a lot of things. And eventually I think came up with an answer.

Leo Laporte (01:35:02):
It does say, you know, I don't know exactly what's going on, but I'll put that in the show notes. I'll put a dis description of how to reset your iCloud account. That sounds like that would be the thing to do. This is not normal though. And it doesn't sound like it's a problem with your phone. I'm gonna, I, I think it really is a problem with, I think the guy was right. I'm just mad that he didn't fix it. <Laugh> thanks. Thank you. Genius is what's less than a genius sub genius. <Laugh> thank you, sub Jack in Colorado Springs. Let's see if we can help you. Hi, Jack Leo Laport, the tech guy.

Caller #6 (01:35:44):
Hey Leo. I was, I was looking for something on the internet and I got a message that says required. Your is damaged.

Leo Laporte (01:35:55):
Oh, that's that's just a fishing, just a fishing scam. Ignore it. Are you on a Mac or

Caller #6 (01:36:03):
I, no, I have an iPad. 12 <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:36:06):
So that's even more hysterical. They couldn't even bother be bothered to get the hardware. Right. Just ignore those. A website can pop that up. Don't go back to that site ever again. That's my other advice, Leo, the tech guy. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey. How are you today? Leo? LePort here. The tech guy, eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. If you've got a question, a comment, a suggestion I'd love to hear from you. 8 8 8 8 2 7 5 5 3 6. You know what? I really would love if you got an answer to any of the we've heard so far, I love it. And I don't mean your speculation or guess, but if you've had the the similar problem and you solved it, I'd love to hear that if you had an iPhone and you couldn't log in your, your iCloud was asked for your password every three seconds and you fixed it, then I want to hear from you 88 88, ask Leo website tech guy labs.com.

Leo Laporte (01:37:01):
I, I have mentioned a couple of times this show I'll put a link on that website, tech guy, labs.com. That's so you don't have to write it down. You can go right there for additional information. We also, this is a new feature. We, we changed the site a little bit, but there is a new feature. We decided to try this with transcripts from the show. So you can go into the transcript. They have time codes in there, so you can jump to that part of the video or the audio. We'll also put that there. All of that'll be up by tomorrow. The next day takes us a couple of days to get that up. Tech guy labs.com on we go with the show and on the line, Bonnie from Abilene <laugh> hi, Bonnie

Caller #7 (01:37:45):
Abilene, Kansas, not Abilene, Texas.

Leo Laporte (01:37:48):
Oh, it's not the same thing as it's not the cow, not cowboy country. Well

Caller #7 (01:37:54):
Sort of, oh yeah, we're right in the middle of the Prairie. Nice. It

Leo Laporte (01:37:57):
Was Eisenhower's boyhood home. That's where I know the name. Abilene Kansas. Of

Caller #7 (01:38:02):
Course by I 70. Yeah. I, 70 goes PA you know, from coast to coast. Yep.

Leo Laporte (01:38:07):
Mm-Hmm <affirmative> well, it's a pleasure to meet you.

Caller #7 (01:38:09):
Well, thank you. And I say I'm BC. You can tell my, my voice, but at 77 I'm BC before

Leo Laporte (01:38:17):
Computers. Oh my. So my, so we're in this together.

Caller #7 (01:38:21):
Yeah. <laugh> okay. Yeah, but you know, whatever, my question is, my Explorer windows is 10. They upgraded it. What? Two or three or four years ago. That's right now the box comes up. See, I've got the stuff in my throat to let's

Leo Laporte (01:38:37):
<Laugh> allergies. That's the allergies allergies. It's that? That's what it is. It's allergies.

Caller #7 (01:38:41):
It's allergies. Tell everybody, anyway, windows 10, the box comes up. They want me to upgrade to windows 11. Don't do

Leo Laporte (01:38:50):
It. Don't do it.

Caller #7 (01:38:52):
So just keep, are they gonna force us to though

Leo Laporte (01:38:55):
The, they are not it's. Oh, good. Yeah. Good news. I mean, they may pop up this annoying window from time to time. Yeah.

Caller #7 (01:39:02):
Okay. So,

Leo Laporte (01:39:03):
But you have, so here's the deal. I mean, this is ridiculous Microsoft for at least what would a normal times be just a minor upgrade to windows 10, purely cosmetic. They added rounded windows. They move of the menu to the center. Nothing of value, nothing you want. Right.

Caller #7 (01:39:20):
It just bugs me because then my brain has to, you know, I know acclimate to the new way and I don't want to <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:39:28):
Yeah. I, let me see if we can disable that windows 11 pop up, cuz I just that's really annoying. What they've said is you could stay with windows 10. We are gonna, I continue to support it through 20, 25. Well,

Caller #7 (01:39:40):
I hope I'm still alive.

Leo Laporte (01:39:42):
So do me too. I hope I'm still around then. So, so there's really no reason. Okay. In the world to upgrade. In fact, I think there's a lot of re it's one of those things, unless, you know, you need something, you shouldn't mess with it. Windows 10 is current still and we'll stay current for three, four more years. So I think you're fine.

Caller #7 (01:40:03):
Okay. I just wanted to be reassured and I knew Leo was the expert. Yes.

Leo Laporte (01:40:08):
And you know, I don't know if you can turn off that popup. No, I'll just, I think you can go into the control panel for notification and, and there are a number of notifications you can turn off including, and I think this might be the right one offer suggestions on how I can set up my device. <Laugh> you might, well, you might uncheck some of those and see if that, that turns off this annoying. It's very annoying Papa. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well,

Caller #7 (01:40:37):
No need to do it. And it was nice to visit with

Leo Laporte (01:40:39):
You. Oh my pleasure. And all the best of the Cowboys out there. All right. 88, 88 ask Leo. There's gotta be, I'm sure somebody's made, you know, a tool, maybe my friend, Steve Gibson to turn off that annoying notification. Does it, you know, I, I don't use windows 11 or windows 10, but does it I have windows 10 somewhere. I should log into it and just see, oh no, wait a minute. I upgraded. I did cuz I thought, well, I should know about this. And that's how I know to tell you. You don't need to. But I would bet somewhere in that dialogue box, here's a box or button or grade out somewhere that says don't bug me anymore. I don't want that ever again.

Leo Laporte (01:41:21):
You don't, you don't need to do it. You don't need to do it. It's honestly, I'm, I'm gonna say the reason Microsoft made windows 11, the is just because PC makers ask them to see the way it works in the windows world is you don't usually upgrade your windows, right? You buy a new PC with the new version. That's you know, every couple of four or five years new PC. Oh, it comes with the latest version of windows. But if Microsoft doesn't put out a new version of windows, it's been five years. If they don't put one out, PC industry says, well, there's nobody's ever gonna buy a new PC. So I'm convinced they knocked on Satya. The D's door CEO of Microsoft said, Hey, Satya, do us as solid. Would you man give us some, some people, some reason to buy a new computer instantly it worked computer sales last year, year were up like 30% year over year.

Leo Laporte (01:42:18):
I mean massive. So it worked. PC sales were huge. So are apples Mac sales, but you can't blame windows 11 for that. So I think it was and I'm not alone in this. I'm not completely fabricating this other experts, windows experts, including our hosts of our windows, pod cast windows weekly, Paul throt and Mary Joe Foley, both kind of seemed to think you know, this was really more marketing. It's more about marketing, more about getting people go back to the, you know, stores and buy new PCs. It's true. If you, if you get a new PC, you'll get windows 11 on it and then it's fine. Just, you know, just take it. And I guess you could upgrade a, it's not, it's not harmful to upgrade, but if you're happy with 10, I don't, I guess that's my message is you don't need to, you don't have to, nothing to make you do it. Jim Atlanta, Georgia. Next Leo. Leport the tech guy. Hi Jim.

Caller #8 (01:43:09):
Hey Leo. I'm sorry to hear you got this little scratchy throat thing going on.

Leo Laporte (01:43:14):
<Laugh> well, the it's all came up because and this is the off air conversation, which you're privy to when you're on hold. I'm sorry. I'm talking to the chat room and stuff is my 19 year old son who's living with us. My stepson came up with COVID 19 on Friday. We te you know, he has, I have a sore throat. I haven't had, we test him. He was positive. My wife and I both immediately went in we're negative, but I'm just waiting, just waiting for the hammer to drop. Right, right now he's like a prisoner. We slide the meals under the door to him. <Laugh> are you OK in there? <Laugh> and he's pretty much banging the tin cup against the bar saying, let me outta here, but we're gonna leave him in there till he he's feeling better. Thank goodness. He's young and vaccinated. So he's, he's, didn't get it too bad, but yeah. So you know what happens now? You keep checking in. Huh? Am I okay? Do I have it? Oh yeah. Yeah. So what can I do for you, sir?

Caller #8 (01:44:08):
Okay. So I have an edit suite home. I've been working from home for the past almost two years now. Aren't

Leo Laporte (01:44:14):
You fancy? What kinda editing do you do?

Caller #8 (01:44:19):
Video editing for Turner broadcasting? No.

Leo Laporte (01:44:21):
Oh, we've talked before.

Caller #8 (01:44:23):
We've talked before. So I remote in to my workstation at, at the Techwood campus and I control everything with my IM a pro and I gotta, oh, that's

Leo Laporte (01:44:36):
Interesting. So you don't have the hardware at home. You have a, you log into the hardware at, at Turner, correct? Interesting. And is that speedy enough? For you? Is it work okay.

Caller #8 (01:44:47):
It's yeah, I, everything is real time.

Leo Laporte (01:44:50):
Nice. Yeah. Faster. You know, those computers are faster. I presume. So the rendering and everything all happens real time. You just, you're just piping the video down the, the wire. That's all.

Caller #8 (01:45:01):
Yep. Nice powering everything at the house. I have I think it's a 1500 wat AP unlimited power supply that I bought in 2009 for my old Mac pro. Good. And I'm I'm I'm my question is do I, should I get a new one? There's

Leo Laporte (01:45:25):
Well, the batteries do wear out. So these, these, oh yeah. They're lithium ion batteries generally. And they do out and so your ability to hold a charger and, and the APC device is like most this is a ups, which by the way, is uninterruptable power supply. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so these UPSs generally will have some way of seeing maybe there's a button on the front or their software run, the, the bot battery quality quality, you know, what will, what its state is. It's gonna, you're gonna see it slowly. Dwindle. It's been a long time. So there's you have a couple of choices. You can just buy a new battery for it. Those are replaceable. Yep. And that's probably the cheapest choice, 1500 Watts. That's the real question is, is that enough power? It's not enough power guarantee you to keep running. So if your lights go out, you'll be able to, you know, do a little bit, maybe 15 or 20 minutes, but not, not hours worth editing. Do you want to? No, I,

Caller #8 (01:46:21):
I, no, I have cuz the power's gone off before, while I'm, while I'm in the middle of something and I have about 90 seconds. Oh

Leo Laporte (01:46:30):
Yeah. To, and that'll get shorter as your battery declines.

Caller #8 (01:46:35):
Yeah. I'm on the fourth

Leo Laporte (01:46:36):
Battery on, oh, you've been doing that. Good. So you can go to the APC website and actually there's a calculator on there. Say here's all the stuff I'm attaching to it. What do you recommend? And it'll say, how many minutes do you wanna keep running? So if you wanted to run longer, you could, but it gets, you know, expensive and bigger as the battery gets bigger. Yeah. There is, there are ways to do this for the whole home. Of course. <Laugh>

Caller #8 (01:46:59):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:47:00):
I, well you laugh, but I have Tesla power walls and those will, those will keep us running for a while. So you could, if you wanted to, but you know what? You also may say. Ah, good. I get some time off.

Caller #8 (01:47:12):
Well, yeah. There's that? Yeah. Cause period. Yeah, go ahead.

Leo Laporte (01:47:16):
So what's your question. Is there, you just wanna know if there's better stuff out there because it's more modern, correct?

Caller #8 (01:47:23):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:47:25):
There hasn't been a huge, huge advance in ups technology. You over the years, the only, the only thing I would say I would look at is there's kind of two kinds of UPSs. There's the ones that switch on if the power goes off and then there's the ones that you're running through all the time. And those have usually have power conditioning, which will give you a nice cleans wave of power instead of whatever you're getting in your house. So sometimes that's a good idea. Your equipment will, but if you haven't had problems with Mac crashing or anything like that, I wouldn't worry about 'em. And the nice thing is you're not gonna lose anything cuz it's all saved at the home office. So all you're gonna do is lose your connection. It's not the end of the world,

Caller #8 (01:48:11):
Right? Yeah. And the one that I have has the power conditioning and all that. So, and, and I think that's why I've never had a problem with any of my max or monitors

Leo Laporte (01:48:24):
Up here, power. Conditioning's a big deal and you can go to an electrician and get it for a whole home. If you have it on the street, even better, you must be in a fairly Mo auditing development. Mm-Hmm, <affirmative> so great. You know, if you've got nice clean sign, wave power coming in, you've got an up to date battery. That's the only thing that wears out on those things. I think you're fine. 90 seconds pretty quick. But again, you're not gonna lose data even if it went down because the data's all stored elsewhere. I think you're sounds like you're good. There's nothing. There's no magic goal inventions <laugh> that have happened in the last five years with uninterruptable power supplies. There's just really, and this has always been the case, the quality of them, whether they whether they do power conditioning or not, that kind of thing.

Caller #8 (01:49:05):
Gotcha. I think you're good. Thanks. And, and stay well

Leo Laporte (01:49:09):
With yeah. I'm gonna be fine. I'm glad you're working from home. That's good. You stay well too. The crew's still coming up. Yeah. July. We're going to Alaska. So far so good crossing my figures. You coming on it?

Caller #8 (01:49:22):
No, not this

Leo Laporte (01:49:23):
One next time. Okay. Leo LePort D tech guy. <Laugh> it would be nice to have you I'd love to meet you.

Caller #8 (01:49:29):
Yeah. Same here. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:49:31):
What do you work? Gone promos. You said, right? Right.

Caller #8 (01:49:35):
No, no. I used to work on promos. I used to work for the NBA. That was a that's right. Sports guy. Right, right now I'm working on the George Lopez show. Oh, fun. We're getting, we're repackaging these with descriptive video service on channel five. Nice. Sending these out to the server. So, and, and we're time compressing all the shows.

Leo Laporte (01:49:58):
So do you, is that just editing a little bits out, right? You don't, you don't actually digitally shorten them.

Caller #8 (01:50:07):
It goes to a process called tempo.

Leo Laporte (01:50:09):
Yeah. You're that's what they do to my show. Oh really? Yeah. One of the stations won't name names wants to get in more commercials. <Laugh> mm-hmm <affirmative> so they shrink it. Yeah. But, but then I start talking very fast. <Laugh> yeah, the pitch is the same, but I still talk, but suddenly I'm talking very fast and sometimes people call in who listen to that stage and say, boy, you sound so relaxed. <Laugh>

Caller #8 (01:50:34):
Yeah, exactly. Hey, so let me ask you a question. Sure. Jim been wondering this for the past about eight years now, I was in Munich for October Fest, about eight or 10 ago. And we went to, we were at some beer hall and my friend hits me on the arm and he says, I think that's Leo Laport.

Leo Laporte (01:50:59):
No it wasn't. Okay. I look like a lot of drunk Germans. A lot of look like me. There's something about me. Yeah. I look like I've lifted a Steiner too. <Laugh>

Caller #8 (01:51:12):
Okay. So it

Leo Laporte (01:51:13):
Wasn't, it wasn't no cuz, and I know that cuz I've always wanted to go to October Fest and I've never been

Caller #8 (01:51:18):
Yeah. You gotta get over there. Yeah. It was really a lot

Leo Laporte (01:51:20):
Of fun. I worry that now. And this is true of so many things it's become so commoditized and terrorized that it won't be as fun.

Caller #8 (01:51:29):
It's mostly locals. If you go during the lunchtime, that's

Leo Laporte (01:51:33):
What I want. I wanna be where the locals are. I do have the later hoing I'm ready.

Caller #8 (01:51:38):
Okay. <laugh> well thanks man. I appreciate

Leo Laporte (01:51:42):
You too time. Take care. Jim. Lovely byebye lay Laport. The tech guy a 8 88. Ask Leo. Let's go to Houston, Texas. Charles is on the line. Hello Charles.

Caller #9 (01:51:54):
Hey Leo. How

Leo Laporte (01:51:55):
Are you? I am great. How are you?

Caller #9 (01:51:58):
Good. I hope you feel better?

Leo Laporte (01:52:00):
I don't feel poorly. I'm just I'm psychosomatic. I'm going well, my kids got COVID. I know I'm gonna, I must be getting it. Oh, oh, I'm taking my pulse five minutes. Could put my hand on my forehead. Do I feel warm to you? Oh, well that kind of thing. I feel fine. Well,

Caller #9 (01:52:16):
Hopefully. Well, great. Great. Well, listen, I'll, I'll get right to it. Sure. I have a son, he has a degree in film. Nice. And he is now decided that he would like to be a content creator and he, he has a website and he he's averaging like 300 views a day, 10,000 a month in a very niche area. And you know, I'm really proud of, of what, what he's done, but at the same token, I come from corporate America where it's you, you know, you work. Yeah. Your benefits, et cetera. Yeah. And I know that your children are creators and you're a creator. I wanna know how I can support him with this. Encourage him. And I do little bits for instance, like I'm, I'm I I'm on Twitter and you know, we're we're I hear, I hear the,

Leo Laporte (01:53:11):
I hear the butt here, which is the same butt I have. Believe it or not, but maybe he should get a real job, but maybe what if this doesn't turn out, it's kinda like if your kid is six 11 is says, I'm gonna be an NBA star. I don't need to go to school and you go, well, well <laugh> maybe on the one hand, you know? And, and you know, it's interesting cuz this is, yeah, I'm in this business, I'm a creator. I even do podcasts. So I'm even like new media. But I still had that concern. My like yours studied in college and in this case studied broadcast journalism. And but he, but he'd watched growing up a lot of YouTube videos of cooking and he really loved that. That's what he, if he had one, if he just had one dream, it would be to do that.

Leo Laporte (01:54:02):
I got him to work for me for a year and a half doing sales, hated it. He hat it. You know, he's tried all sorts of like straight jobs, but he also on the side, he's doing these cooking videos in TikTok. Now he's up to 1.8 million followers. He's got an agent he's got ad deals. He's he's making money and his dream is starting to come real. And I'm thinking, boy, I was kind of a jerk <laugh> so, but it, but, but on the other hand, if it had flopped, you know, you, so it's a, I completely know where you're coming from. The way I supported him was, you know, kind of, I don't, you know, it's a little harder for me cuz I'm in this business. Right. So I couldn't very well say, you know, get a, get a nine to five.

Leo Laporte (01:54:49):
I kind of tried. He, he tried working for us. It wasn't his thing. So I basically said, you know, follow your passion, follow your passion. And and if it doesn't work out, you have a plan B. But, but it's, especially when you're young, if you're in your twenties, that's the time when you do that. So the, you know, the, the, the way we supported him is by making sure he had good computing equipment, you know, when he needed a, his camera died and he needed a new camera, I went out and bought him one. So, you know, financially, which not everybody can do. I'm fortunate I can do that for him. And then giving him, you know, fatherly advice, like, <laugh> put your, save your money. <Laugh> remember the IRS wants a third of it. <Laugh> don't spend it. Things like that.

Caller #9 (01:55:39):
Well, my, well, my son is not he's he has a lot of affiliate you know, from, from folks who may buy things off of good from the site. So he is getting the affiliate connection. Good. That's smart. And he's working to get to continue to grow that way. Give him your, you know, now, now yeah, you you're supporting him and I can do that and I can support him that it's not a problem. But I just, you know, and I see the ups and downs, like sometimes he'll and,

Leo Laporte (01:56:09):
But wait, but do you remember, I mean, it's hard for us to remember. Do you remember when you were starting out? It was, you know, there was ups and downs. It's normal. Yeah. At their age, it's completely normal. Just support. 'em Love. 'em tell, 'em follow your dream and be there when they fall. That's my advice. Leo Laport, the tech guy. We talk space next. It's a little tricky. It's a little tricky. And you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm the guy who was saying to him, no, don't go into, don't go into media media. It's a mistake. And I thought, I, you know, when I got into radio, people must have thought, why are you nuts? Go get a real job. You have a, you, you studied Chinese at Yale and you're being a DJ. What's wrong with you?

Caller #9 (01:56:50):
Well, I'm the one who encouraged him to go into film. And then after he got into film, after a while he realized, wait a minute, I'm not gonna be making a lot of money right off the bat, in this at all. Yeah. And, and you know, but I encourage him because that's what he loved. And he still loves it, you know? But now, I mean, he's in the high fantasy he's into, you know, he's into reading, which most people don't read.

Leo Laporte (01:57:16):
Yeah. He's smart kid. It sounds like I

Caller #9 (01:57:18):
Didn't, I didn't wanna give the site on. I don't want seem like I want, but I'd love for you to

Leo Laporte (01:57:23):
Just look at. Yeah. Tell me, tell me, tell me, in fact, I should have asked you on the area. I should have given you chance to plug it.

Caller #9 (01:57:28):
I didn't want, I don't. I don't want people to think. I, I listen to you. My kids have been listening to you since they were little. Aw. So it's readers, gro.com. Readers,

Leo Laporte (01:57:39):
Gro.Com com. And that'll be on the podcast if you don't mind.

Caller #9 (01:57:43):
No, I don't mind at all. I do. Don't wanna be one, those. So this is his, I wanna be the guy who calls

Leo Laporte (01:57:48):
You to, oh, that's fine. I have, no, I don't wanna do that. This is great. He's doing it. Great. So this is all him,

Caller #9 (01:57:54):
All of it. Every single thing, everything you see written there is him good for him, my son.

Leo Laporte (01:58:02):
Okay. So my advice is you're doing exactly the right thing. You're you're encouraging him to follow his dream. You're helping him out a little bit. How old is Preston?

Caller #9 (01:58:14):
25. Yeah. This

Leo Laporte (01:58:15):
Is ano. This is what you do when you're 20. What, what were you doing when you were 25? Charles?

Caller #9 (01:58:20):
I was married. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:58:22):
Yeah, that was my first wife. I, I got right outta college.

Caller #9 (01:58:26):
I was, I got a job right outta school. And my, I was a broadcast journalism major. And I didn't go that way. I went into pharmaceuticals, corporate America. Yeah. And you decided very

Leo Laporte (01:58:37):
Successful to be responsible and do the responsible thing, but maybe in the heart, your heart of hearts, do you have kind of wish maybe you'd pursued your dream? Absolutely.

Caller #9 (01:58:47):
And my wife is the entrepreneur. Yeah. She has her own sight and she does it, but it's a hobby for her to her. It's a hobby. But for my son, I want him to monetize.

Leo Laporte (01:58:58):
I know. I look, I, I am exactly where you are, you know? And even with Henry's success, I'm constantly going, well, this isn't gonna last, you know, what's, you know, I hope you're planning for the next thing. So I don't, you know, it's, I don't know. I don't have advice only because I don't know what the right thing to do is this is what he great. Love it. And, and I say, the best thing you can do at this point is to help. 'em Get the word out, market it.

Caller #9 (01:59:30):
That's what I'm gonna try. Yeah. I don't know what to do though. I don't know how to,

Leo Laporte (01:59:34):
How to, well, you did one thing, right? You called me <laugh>. Yeah. And I'm gonna mention it on the air because I think it's really great. We just ran outta time. I would, I was not. No, that's no problem. I was not done with you, but the time the clock on the wall, I get respects. You

Caller #9 (01:59:50):
Listen to you every week. So I get it. And I listen to the podcast. All your, oh, bless you. Podcast. Steve Gibson, windows weekly. I mean, I, I, I listen to, 'em all used to drive my kids nuts. We go road tripping and I got Leo on.

Leo Laporte (02:00:05):
Aw, well tell Preston who you're I'm rooting for him. Tell him I'm I'm really rooting for him. I, and I know as a parent it's like scary. I also kind of feel like you gotta let them, you know, take their chances. You gotta let 'em fail. That's what I'm doing. What he's done though, is fantastic. Dick. I'm so impressed, but it's frustrating cuz when you're starting out, nobody it's like it's you and two other people. It, they just gotta build those numbers. He needs to go to Reddit. He needs to go to forums. He

Caller #9 (02:00:35):
He's on Reddit. Good. He's big on he's all on Reddit. Good. He's more Reddit than Twitter. I'm on Twitter. No,

Leo Laporte (02:00:41):
Reddit's perfect for him. Twitter. That's where these guys are. I think, I think Reddit's exactly the right place for him to be. And he should go to other forums for fantasy books and so forth. Go to where his readers already are and participate in those communities. Don't go there and say, Hey, read my stuff and leave. Participate. Exactly. Become a part of those communities. Hey, I have to run. Please stay in touch. Will you Charles will do right. Thank you so much. Leo,

Caller #9 (02:01:08):
Take care. See ya. Byebye.

Leo Laporte (02:01:10):
You dreamed of being a space man, right? Rod. Oh yeah. <Laugh> rod files here when you and I were growing up. Par was a little different. I think, you know, my sense of it was they'd kind of go, have you seen rod in the last couple of days? Cuz I was of a wayward, a D kid, you know? So as long as there were no weird smells coming from the room, they were fine. Yeah. Parents were a lot more Lez fair and oh my God. Yeah. You took off at six in the morning and they, and we didn't have cell phones. So they had no idea. <Laugh> no idea where we were, what we were up to and just hope they came up

Rod Pyle (02:01:42):
For dinner. I was that today, if they had known half the stuff I was getting up to in my late teens, early twenties, they would've

Leo Laporte (02:01:47):
Fainted. Yeah. I don't think that's a bad way. I mean certainly it was more risky, but you know, if you survived it, I don't know. You know, I all our,

Rod Pyle (02:01:57):
All ours sons are about the same age. My kid's 26 now. Yeah. But I was lucky cuz by the time he was eight, I'd look at him and say, so what do you wanna do? You know, do you wanna be a writer? Like dad, do you wanna be a musician? Like mom, do you wanna, you know, be a visual artist said I wanna make money. Yeah. You stuck with that. Well that stuck with that.

Leo Laporte (02:02:16):
Yeah. Yeah. Henry's in the money, which is interesting. Our, our callers son's website is readers. He didn't want to give out on the air. He didn't want be that kind of guy, but I'll give it out. Readers, grotto.com, readers, grotto.com. And you know, what's a great looking site. It's great. He's doing a great job. If you're in a fantasy you know, star wars or wheel of time or Harry Potter, this is a, this is our Doune. This is a great site, great site. I'm very impressed. And he's doing it all on his own. I think honestly times have changed so much. I don't know if it's the right advice to say, oh, get a nine to five job. You'll get a gold watch in 50 years. I don't know if that's the right advice these days. I don't think it is.

Rod Pyle (02:02:56):
Yeah. Nobody seems to have one career anymore. Yeah. To go through three or four like

Leo Laporte (02:03:00):
We did. And there, well, yeah. And there's great opportunity. I mean you can start a website or a YouTube channel or you know, you can, you can do stuff and find an audience. The problem is you see these and this, the NBA analogy is pretty apt. Cuz you see these guys who are huge successes on, you know, Mr. Beast on YouTubes making hun tens of millions of dollars a year and go, I that's what I wanna do, but that's a handful of people. Yeah. And almost everybody else is not making a living. They're just doing it for fun. So do what do what you'd love to do. Yeah. Anyway, you're doing what you love to do. You're talking about space effect. You're sitting. Yeah. You're sitting in front of a star Trek user interface. <Laugh> I love that. What's up in this is didn't they just launch a SpaceX thing today or something like that. And then I,

Rod Pyle (02:03:47):
They were supposed to come home. I don't know, coming home launch or not, you know, tracking their launch schedule anymore is busy. Yeah. You know, setting your alarm clock. Yeah. What I do have though is the story I like to call no vampires and space <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:04:01):
So I

Rod Pyle (02:04:02):
Agree. So

Leo Laporte (02:04:03):
As we know, let's not let them in space. Yeah. Space

Rod Pyle (02:04:06):
Is not friendly to the human body. We've talked about that before. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> so new studies came outta Canada. It's small. It's only 14 astronauts, but generally studies of astronauts are pretty small anyway, cuz

Leo Laporte (02:04:16):
You know, there aren't that many of them species.

Rod Pyle (02:04:18):
Yeah. Yeah. new research shows that after six months and space, the human body destroys 55% more red blood cells than it does. If it's left on earth now it's this is kind of, this sounds kind of arcane, right? Yeah. And we're talking 3 million per second instead of 2 million, which is, you know, I've seen red blood cells, the microscope in college. It's like, how could it, but that's like apparently what the human body does, they call the space anemia and the reason so study. So

Leo Laporte (02:04:46):
That's not good. Right? Cause

Rod Pyle (02:04:47):
No. And, and the reason the study got subtraction is this is another one of those things. Like the vision degradation that they thought, well, once they come home, it'll be okay. Hair once had been in space a while the body will adapt. Cause what happens with

Leo Laporte (02:04:59):
The muscles, right? Your muscles atrophy

Rod Pyle (02:05:01):
A little bit atrophy. So you're little weak when you come home and get back and gravity they're okay. Yeah. So they thought the same would be true here, but apparently it's not, it affects men and women equally, but it gets worse over time. And even when you get home, it gets a little better. But instead of destroying roughly 55%, more cells than normal, it's down to about 30%, but your health is still impact. So you're anemic for life apparently. So and you, you know, you can, you can shift this with, with pharmaceuticals and with diet and so forth, but it's a problem. So, you know, we get into this whole discussion we've had about how much space hates people. It's like, what? Now we gotta add this check box to that category. So we've got osteoporosis, vision degradation primarily among men for that one cerebral issues possible cardiovascular issues, radiation poisoning you know, so clearly other than the radiation thing, what this says is although it's gonna to be really technically challenging, we gotta work on getting artificial gravity, going both in orbit. And especially if we're gonna head off to Mars, cuz imagine sitting in a spacecraft for six or seven months to get to Mars and you're about to land and it's like, let's see, I'm sick. I can't I'm nauseated. I can't think I'm having arrhythmia. I can't stand are. Yeah, exactly. So is it all gravity?

Leo Laporte (02:06:21):
If we just had artificial gravity, everything would be fine.

Rod Pyle (02:06:24):
We, we think so. You know the problem is we haven't tried it yet. Right? I mean, they're just starting to do center few runs with mice and the data's gonna come out from that fairly poor mice <laugh> oh my God. Did I ever send you the video clip or the mouse and surge? No. Oh the fourth thing you see this thing it's black and white kinda low wrist, but it's kind of floating along going like what the heck's going on this isn't right. Mom, mom never told me about this. Like watching cats fall in space, slow ocean. So so yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:06:56):
Now in all science fiction you know, we, we, we do create artificial gravity with, with Centri force. We spin the thing up and it

Rod Pyle (02:07:05):
Works. How can we, can we do that? It's science fiction. Although interestingly, my, my son was just talking to me about the expanse the other day he watched the last, now they have boots. Well he said what happened with the boots and the rocket thrusting? It's like, they're walking around having, sipping cocktail. It's too much trouble to shoot it. Yeah. And I said, yeah, I think, you know, they're winding down the last season. Like let's just get to the gravity. But the mag boots don't help because all they're doing is anchoring you. Right. You actually need that force in your body, pulling down your bones, keep the fluids and the lower third that could happen on earth. So yeah, you've got exactly. You need some kind of a centrifuge system. So the question there becomes, how big does it have to be? So you don't start getting nauseated from that radial motion where your feet are moving more than your head. Right. Cause

Leo Laporte (02:07:51):
You're spinning around. Well now no, but you don't know you're spinning around. Right? <affirmative>

Rod Pyle (02:07:55):
Well, it depends. And, and there's a lot of calculations and again, studies that it's not gravity.

Leo Laporte (02:08:00):
It it's is its IR force. Its

Rod Pyle (02:08:03):
Yeah. Yeah. So you have to have a certain radius or diameter of this wheel. Yeah. So that you don't have too big a differe. Oh.

Leo Laporte (02:08:12):
Cause your head isn't not spinning as fast as your feet eat. Right. That'd be

Rod Pyle (02:08:17):
Very, I mean, you're, you're a, you're a VR guy as a MI now and you know how your, your, your brain starts going. This isn't quite right. When I'm moving around with these VR goggles on if there's a delay or

Leo Laporte (02:08:28):
Something. Yeah. That would be bad. So yeah. You know, one of, you know, we're learning honestly stay home space is extremely hostile. Mars will kill you in a minute. The it's extremely hostile and this fantasy that we can somehow, oh, we're just gonna leave the planet and travel to the stars. Eh, maybe not. That might just be a fantasy. Exactly.

Rod Pyle (02:08:52):
And, and if you read pulps in the fifties and sixties or, or, you know, bought them later, red science fiction in that era, it looked so easy. Or star Trek hand me, my, my Earl gray tea. And we're gonna boost at warp nine. And now you start seeing how, how hostile the solar system really is. In fact, I was just thinking last night I was getting ready for the show. And I thought I wanna do an article in ad Aster called the angry solar system. It's hostile. How, when I was a kid mad at you, Mars had canals and throats and forests and you know, Venus might have had dinosaurs and swamps and that ring

Leo Laporte (02:09:25):
Worlds and Hey, yeah, these places are nasty. We can just do things like the web telescope. We don't have to go with it. We just send it out there. Let it look it's it tomorrow. Right. Is when it reaches Lu hall too. Yeah. Yeah.

Rod Pyle (02:09:37):
So it'll file fire thrusters at 11:00 AM our time break into its final orbit. You said that very well. So it's 13,800 miles from that final destination. It's getting close. 890,000.

Leo Laporte (02:09:51):
It's decelerating now all the way, cuz it doesn't want it doesn't wanna have to put on the breaks.

Rod Pyle (02:09:55):
Well, no, they, they will file

Leo Laporte (02:09:59):
To slow down, but you wanna big, gently, slow down. You want slam on the brakes.

Rod Pyle (02:10:02):
You know, you don't want to jerk that kite too hard. <Laugh> at the, at the last exciting it's cooled down to almost three minus three 50. So we're just about ready to go a few more months.

Leo Laporte (02:10:14):
Rod pile, author space, 2.0 editor in chief at Astra magazine. Go to space. Dots.Org. Thank you, sir. Thank rod. So Lisa says, Lisa's really thinking ahead.

Rod Pyle (02:10:34):
Uhoh <laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:10:35):
If we, if we play the Rams next week and we beat 'em, we're gonna be at the super bowl in their house in sofa. She says, are we going? I said, yes, we're going, if the Niners in the super bowl, we will be in LA on February 13th. Oh. So just tell I'm warning you ahead of time. And she wants to see the boat. She says, you know, Ron has a boat. I said, yeah, I know rod has a boat. Yeah. But the boats in San Diego still, I know that's all right. You know, just to hop us, skipping a jump <laugh> yeah, that would

Rod Pyle (02:11:04):
Be great. <Laugh> so literally in a week, huh?

Leo Laporte (02:11:08):
Super bowls of the 13th three weeks. But so there's a few things that have to happen first. The Rams are you know, have to win their game today and then we would play them if they do, we would play them next week and then we'd have to beat them. Although we have beaten them many times so far this year. And then we, if, so we'd have to get to the super bowl we're getting there. We're one game away and then it is in LA. So it would be kind of fun to go. That's easy to get to. Yeah. Now

Rod Pyle (02:11:39):
Football's the one with the little kind

Leo Laporte (02:11:40):
Of awkward. Yeah. It looks like an egg. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Okay. I always get that mixed up. It's kinda called hand egg sometimes. P pong. Yeah. <laugh> sad. I'm such tick a ball.

Rod Pyle (02:11:49):
Yeah. I, when my kid was young and you know, when your, if your kid went to private school or, or you were part of the PTA, you had to go to parties with other parents and you know, the

Leo Laporte (02:11:58):
Ladies go off to the kitchen to talk and, and the men talk sports. Yeah. They wanna talk sports or this is why I don't hang out with people. Exactly. I'm not that kind. I got care about that. And I don't care about your investments.

Rod Pyle (02:12:08):
I wanna talk about

Leo Laporte (02:12:09):
Cool size space.

Rod Pyle (02:12:10):
Yeah. They look at you like, what are you? Some kind of awe and they go, oh yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:12:14):
Kind of. I'm such a do. Now, 90% of the time I'm thinking about coding, cuz I'm doing this Christmas advent of code still and I'm kind, you know, I'm in bed thinking now let me, if I do a breath first search of that tree <laugh> do you think I can do it fast enough? I actually very proud of myself. I just completed the day 15 which was supposed to be December 15th. So I'm only, you know, a month and a week behind, but it was it it's just really hairy path search. You're one corner. You gotta find your way to the other corner. Just like robots do and games and stuff. There's lots of algorithms for that. And my search was taken <laugh> it took I think it took 20, 30 seconds for the little sample thing. And, and then it took like all day I ran it all day and no solution like forever and ever, and ever, I never did solve it.

Leo Laporte (02:13:11):
So I had to buckle down and optimize it. And I did. And not only I, Hey, I, I got it down to 70 milliseconds for the first part, with the thing that never solved itself after all day. And then, and then the second part he says, okay, well that was only one 25th of what you've gotta do. So now you've got this giant path with, I dunno, a hundred million possibilities. And I got that down to two and a half minutes. So I feel pretty good from, I feel like I'm pretty good. What do you dream about? You know, that's, that's what I, so if I'm at a party and I start talking about that, yeah. I'm gonna be alone in the corner very quickly. People glaze over big GL over. That's why, that's why I used to go to, I got caught didn't I that's why I used to go to space conferences a lot because you wanna be homies.

Leo Laporte (02:13:59):
That's all tech journalists love two things, Twitter and Comdex or cess. The one place they go where their people are there. Will you listen to me? Listen to me please. All right. My friend have a wonder full week will do. And I, maybe I will join you in the COVID ward. We'll see. Well or, or let me know when you're down in town and oh, we'll definitely, you know, Lisa we'll clear the decks. Lisa really wants to come down and, and see the boat. Yeah, that would be great. Fun. All right. Take care. Take care. Bye. Bye. Bye. Just talking about that with how, when you're a geek, <laugh> you walk alone, but thank goodness. I found my people. You guys are great. Thank you for letting me be myself. Thank you to professor Laura, back in the musical saddle, so to speak we missed you yesterday. Jeremiah was here, Laura playing the music. Of course, Kim Shaffer answering the phones in her 49ers gear. Thanks. Most of all to you for listening and calling and being part of this community, we gotta hang in there together. Cuz we talk the talk, you know, and and the real world, they don't know what the heck we're <laugh>. They don't know what the heck we're talking about. Back to the phones. Eighty eight, eighty, eighty eight as Leo. Rena's on the line from Martinsville, Illinois. Hello, Rena.

Caller #10 (02:15:18):
Hey Leo. How are

Leo Laporte (02:15:19):
You? I'm wonderful. How are you?

Caller #10 (02:15:22):
Good. I just wanted to call in really quickly cuz I understand that you've been having an issue trying to get your electric mini Cooper out of the garage. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:15:32):
Cuz is dead and they can't, we can't figure out how to get it neutral.

Caller #10 (02:15:36):
I heard so I don't know whether you've thought of this, but there there's another way that you can probably get it outta the garage. That's why I'm calling. If I

Leo Laporte (02:15:48):
Get five strong guys together, we could just lift it. It's not that big

Caller #10 (02:15:52):
Eight. Yeah. You put,

Leo Laporte (02:15:53):
You're not, that's what you really

Caller #10 (02:15:55):
<Laugh>. I'm serious. You get eight strong guys. You put two where the trunk is two where the Hooders and there on each side of the door, just lift it, you know, have them have them wear like a gloves. So they won't oh yeah. Hurt the hands. But yeah, seriously. <Laugh> they have eight people lifting that car. They can walk it out of that garage without it's not that heavy

Leo Laporte (02:16:20):
In the car. Yeah. It's not that heavy. It's a little bitty thing. Do you have a mini?

Caller #10 (02:16:25):
No, I, I don't. I don't have a car at all, but 

Leo Laporte (02:16:29):
I love your solution.

Caller #10 (02:16:32):
No, it will work Leo. If, if you

Leo Laporte (02:16:36):
I'll tell you what Rena, if we do that, I promise you I'll put it on Instagram. You'll get the video and I will. Thank you. <Laugh>

Caller #10 (02:16:44):
And it will work. Leo. You just have to find the eight, eight guys,

Leo Laporte (02:16:49):
Eight able body men <laugh> yeah. R you're the best <laugh>

Caller #10 (02:16:54):
I don't wanna have less than eight because it would be too much. Well,

Leo Laporte (02:16:58):
I'm trying to think what the weight is of it. Yeah. Let me just I wonder if I 3,100 pounds, 3,100 pounds. So eight of us. Oh, that's nothing.

Caller #10 (02:17:08):
That's not that many.

Leo Laporte (02:17:10):
No. It's about what 500 pounds each. That can't be right. <Laugh>

Caller #10 (02:17:18):
But, but the way that I figured that the eight men will be able to lift,

Leo Laporte (02:17:23):
Move out two per side, 387 pounds each. I think I'm gonna need more than eight guys. And that's a lot. That's I can't lift 3 87 pounds. Can you lift 387 pounds? That's a lot, maybe

Caller #10 (02:17:35):
10. Well, that's why I said you have to <laugh> strong,

Leo Laporte (02:17:39):
Able

Caller #10 (02:17:39):
Bodied. <Laugh> well, it should work with two on the trunk, two on the hood and two on each side where the doors

Leo Laporte (02:17:46):
Are Rena. You're a master magician. I thank you. I really appreciate it. Have a great day. You welcome. You take care. You too will. Let's go to Malibu. Kevin is on the line. Hi Kevin, Leo Laport. The tech guy. That's the name of this show now? Eight able-bodied men. <Laugh> hello? Petaluma. Hello Malibu. How are things?

Caller #8 (02:18:09):
We are rocking out here. 70 degrees.

Leo Laporte (02:18:11):
All good. I'm so jealous.

Caller #8 (02:18:14):
Yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:18:14):
Come home. Oh man. How's the Pacific coast highway though. Is it open

Caller #8 (02:18:19):
Today?

Leo Laporte (02:18:20):
Today? Right now?

Caller #8 (02:18:22):
We think it depends on the traffic. And then if it rains, you got <laugh> boulders and slush and yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:18:27):
What's a Boulder smolder. What can I do for you? Kevin?

Caller #8 (02:18:32):
I'm having trouble with my iPhone, iPhone six S

Leo Laporte (02:18:36):
Plus six S plus. Okay.

Caller #8 (02:18:38):
Neither apple nor Verizon are helpful at all. Yeah. I'm wondering if we can find a solution or if it's just gone what's wrong. It started overheating really overheating. Oh, that's bad dialogue things bad. Yeah. I replace the battery. Okay. Now it has a connectivity problem. Okay. Won't find the wifi. Bluetooth won't work. If I put it in my pocket, the battery charge only lasts six hours. Oh boy. And this a brand new battery. Have

Leo Laporte (02:19:10):
You tried resetting it? Like the fact reset.

Caller #8 (02:19:14):
I have not. Okay.

Leo Laporte (02:19:16):
So here's my theory. It could be something's really wrong. Like there's something wrong with the operating system or whatever, but oftentimes it's a rogue gap or something wrong with an existing app. You can actually look at your battery life in settings and see what's eating that cuz something is, is running right. That's what's keeping it warm and killing the battery. Something's running in the bad background and using, you know, full pour. So you might,

Caller #8 (02:19:40):
I'm trying to find that out. I just wanna ask you this. The only new thing I put on here in the past few months is tile. Could it be tile?

Leo Laporte (02:19:48):
Sure. Cause tile's always looking for some. Yeah, but there's an easy way. Go to the settings. Yeah. There's a battery information in the settings battery go to battery health and you can see what's using your battery. You can actually see battery activity. So that's the first thing I do. And I don't know why apple or Verizon. Didn't tell you this.

Caller #8 (02:20:11):
Well, stick with me here. Maximum capacity. It's at a hundred percent right now. Yeah. Yeah. Peak performance capability.

Leo Laporte (02:20:21):
Just do I know what you're go to settings and search for battery B a T I'm in there. Yeah. Yeah. And you'll see battery health. Right? Right. And you can scroll down and you can see what's using it. So battery usage by app

Caller #8 (02:20:36):
Standing out nothing's nothing's music. The phone is only 16%. Okay. I

Leo Laporte (02:20:42):
Mean there's so what's the top. What's at the very top. What's the number? What's what's the number one?

Caller #8 (02:20:49):
Podcast at 24%. Okay. That's not bad. Just listen to you and windows

Leo Laporte (02:20:53):
Weekly. Yeah. It's my fault. I know. False fault. If you <laugh>, if you tap show activity, you can also see. And it might be that that's so where it says show activity, tap that it'll show battery usage. I mean it'll show activity. It'll see how much CPU cycles it's used. That's another thing. And it may not show up there because it might be a system. In fact, it sounds like now, given what you've told me, it is not an application, but a system routine

Caller #8 (02:21:19):
That's running. So get this Verizon and I hate to throw 'em under the bus, but their service has just been spectacularly bad. I brought it in and it was OS for yeah. And the guy said, well, up to 15, that's

Leo Laporte (02:21:33):
The normal advice.

Caller #8 (02:21:34):
Yeah. Right. So I said, but the internet, many people said 15 is not good for this phone. If it,

Leo Laporte (02:21:40):
If apple allows you to install it, it's good for the phone. Don't listen to the internet. So I

Caller #8 (02:21:43):
Went and did it. Yeah. I went back to Verizon. Yeah. And they said, oh, well this new system, 15, not good for your family. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (02:21:53):
So it's, there's nothing. It's what did you say? It was an se what did you say?

Caller #8 (02:21:57):
Six. No, I said it's a six S

Leo Laporte (02:21:59):
Oh six S okay.

Caller #8 (02:22:01):
And I know it's towards the end. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:22:03):
That what's probably the case. It's not bad for your phone. It is the last, it's the oldest model that they're still allow you to put the iOS on. Yeah.

Caller #8 (02:22:12):
And

Leo Laporte (02:22:13):
Fine. Really. The other thing is that the battery is, look at, have you put a new battery in this or is this the original

Caller #8 (02:22:18):
Battery? No, first thing I told you. Oh yeah, yeah. Okay. Than two

Leo Laporte (02:22:21):
Weeks ago. Perfect. Good. So that's why your battery's good shape. That's the only thing that wears out. I would do a system reset. In fact, I'm surprised they didn't tell you to do that. This usually with the first thing they say, so make sure it's backed up. If you use the cloud, just, you know, make sure it's backed up to iCloud. Otherwise you could, if you wanted to back it up to a machine, I don't think you need to backing up to iCloud sufficient and then reset.

Caller #8 (02:22:43):
Stop. I, I got once now I plugged it into my computer that it's tied into. Yeah. It's not seeing it.

Leo Laporte (02:22:51):
Yeah. There's something wrong with it. <Laugh> this is my professional opinion.

Caller #8 (02:22:57):
I know that I'm gonna have to get a new phone eventually.

Leo Laporte (02:22:59):
Let's not kill it yet. Let's not kill it yet. It's a, I understand your desire to stay with it even though it's

Caller #8 (02:23:06):
Yeah. If it can be fixed a little old.

Leo Laporte (02:23:07):
Yeah. this is absolutely the, the next thing you should do go to general at the very bottom in general transfer or reset phone. You wanna reset it and you're gonna reset it. Reset all settings. You're gonna go back to the basically, you're gonna take it back to the factory settings, right? The only difference it'll is it'll we'll have iOS 15. They don't go backwards in that. And see if it's okay. I bet it is. It's almost certainly a rogue system process. That's using up all that battery. Since it's not shown up in battery health, that's gotta be what it is. And I think resetting it will rebuild it and you should be fine. I'm I'm gonna, I'm not gonna pro, but I'm gonna stake my life on it. Okay. <Laugh> Leo Laport. The tech guy. Thank you, Kevin. Have a great geek. Wake. I bet you that I'm surprised they didn't tell you to do that's the first thing I would say

Caller #8 (02:24:00):
Reset, even say get a new battery. Well,

Leo Laporte (02:24:03):
And you did get a new battery, which is, you know, right. That

Caller #8 (02:24:07):
We're not on the air now. Right? Right. So let me just, well, wait a minute. I

Leo Laporte (02:24:11):
Should say we are still on the podcast. There's still people watching, but we're not on the radio.

Caller #8 (02:24:14):
Well, I wanna share how unhelpful Verizon was is Ugh. First I walk in and there's three people sitting there and I go to the guy to get in line. And he said, these people all have appointments. We can't see you. The next appointment is a week away. What? That happened to me twice, two weeks in a row. Wow. So I made the appointment time. I went in, I sat with a guy and to me and you, the obvious first thing was the battery. Yeah. And the guy didn't even say get a new battery. Yeah. And then, and then <laugh>, you know, the guy says, all right, I have to get into your system to do this log in. You know, do your apple ID uhoh well, it wouldn't connect. I know the apple ID. Yeah. It wouldn't connect. And the guy kept blaming me. Oh boy. I said, it's the phone? Not connecting to your wireless. Verizon's not allowing me to get in <laugh> and look, he just couldn't. He looked at me like I was from Mars <laugh> and

Leo Laporte (02:25:18):
I it's universal. It's like you heard the call earlier. Told me another phone. You. Yeah. That's what they wanna do. Yeah.

Caller #8 (02:25:25):
No help. No nothing, no help you on the other hand are fantastic.

Leo Laporte (02:25:28):
Well, I don't, I don't want you to spend money. You don't have to. And the success, my mom still has her success. I made her, I actually bought her an iPhone 13, but she, she won't give up her success. She loves it.

Caller #8 (02:25:38):
She'll send me her phone.

Leo Laporte (02:25:40):
<Laugh> she like you did the battery replacement. She, he did it when apple was offering it like cheap. And it was like a new phone. Do the reset. I betcha that. I'll that'll fix it. Okay. If it doesn't there, there's something physically wrong with the phone and it's. And so it's like a short or something, cuz it shouldn't, it should not be hot all the time. You should have normal battery life. Something is keeping that processor running you

Caller #8 (02:26:03):
And the connectivity problem

Leo Laporte (02:26:05):
Probably related. Okay. So have you rebooted the phone recently? Oh yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Caller #8 (02:26:11):
I, I know enough to be dangerous. Well, the iPhone

Leo Laporte (02:26:13):
Call you like any computer the iPhone does benefit from occasional reboots. And by the way, there is some, my wife has to her iPhone a lot. I, I very rarely will need to, but occasionally something won't work rebooting usually fixes it. This case you got something more serious. Do a factory reset. That'll take it back to the day you got it, except for you'll have iOS 15, cuz that you can't

Caller #8 (02:26:38):
Go backwards. So in the same vein, I have this other older iPhone that my sister gave me. You and I tried to do a factory reset and start it over again. Yeah. She doesn't remember the password. Oh Lord. Put it into three different computers. Windows and Mac. Yeah. They

Leo Laporte (02:26:55):
Don't. No it's activation locked now it's locked.

Caller #8 (02:26:58):
Yeah. How can I

Leo Laporte (02:27:01):
Do it? You can't if you have the, the receipt, if she has the, the original receipt years old. Yeah. Most people don't. But if you had the original receipt, then you can take it to apple cuz you need to prove you own it. And then apple has magic powers. They'll take it in the back and fix it.

Caller #8 (02:27:15):
Does Linux have secret powers?

Leo Laporte (02:27:19):
You mean, can you put Linux

Caller #8 (02:27:20):
On that phone? No. No. I mean, can I connect it to a Linux machine and Lin? No, no

Leo Laporte (02:27:26):
There's no secret. No. Only the secret powers are relegated to apple. <Laugh> entirely. I understand. <Laugh>

Caller #8 (02:27:34):
Apple. Great power comes great

Leo Laporte (02:27:36):
Responsibility. So app, there was a big problem. Many years ago with iPhones getting stolen and apple decided to turn on something called activation lock, which means you have to release it before somebody else can use it. If you don't remember your password, you know your iCloud password to release it, you you're outta luck. And I, I know cause I have iPads and phones that my staff has had gave it back, but never told us their password. We can't use their bricks. Apple, apple can fix it. But only if you have the receipt cuz you, they really want, they don't. The whole idea is prevent theft.

Caller #8 (02:28:12):
Okay. Well that's a good thing. Yeah, I guess

Leo Laporte (02:28:15):
So they're a little, you know how Apple's a little bit <laugh> strict would be the word, I guess dogmatic they are

Caller #8 (02:28:24):
And the apple store. I'll just share this. I tried to make an appointment at the genius bar online. My apple store did not show up as a Cho as an option. No apple store within 30 miles. Huh? I called the apple business line. I talked to a guy, he said, just make an appointment. I said, well it's not on here. I can't. He said because of COVID and whatever. Oh, we don't have that service anymore. It

Leo Laporte (02:28:49):
Might be closed. Oh they don't do it anymore. Right. Wow. I didn't know that. Wow.

Caller #8 (02:28:55):
Go to the apple store. Just show up if you can get in. Yeah. So I went to the apple store in the morning. They said we don't have anything available today. Wow. Can I make an appointment for tomorrow? Humor,

Leo Laporte (02:29:10):
Just buy a new phone. Give up, give in the gods. I come the gods of commerce. Say you need a phone. Hey, it's a pleasure talking to you. Have a good day. Kevin be well. Well, that's it for the tech eye show for today. Thank you so much for being here and don't forget. TWI T I T it stands for this week at tech and you'll find it@twi.tv, including the podcasts for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly, Macintosh on Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS today. Security and here now, I mean I can go on and on and on. And of course the big show every Sunday afternoon, this week in tech, you'll find it all at twit TV and I'll be back next week with another great tech guys show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you. Next time.