This Week in Google 706, Transcript

Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.

Leo Laporte (00:00:00):
It's time for TWiG This Week in Google. Stacey, Jeff, and Ant are all in the house. We're gonna have some fun this week talking about Elon Musk. Did he really apologize? Blurry subway photos of the latest Pixel Fold leak <laugh>, but did they tell us anything? And how AI is changing everything. Plus, is it the end of the line for Fitbit? All that more coming up. Next, on TWIG.

(00:00:40):
This is TWiG This Week in Google. Episode 706 recorded Wednesday, March 8th, 2023. What's This Dot Here? This Week in Google is brought to you by Melissa. More than 10,000 clients worldwide in retail education, healthcare, insurance, finance, and government. Rely on Melissa for full spectrum data quality and ID verification software. Make sure your customer contact data is up to date. Get started today with 1000 records, clean for free at melissa.com/twit. And by Miro. Miro is your team's visual platform to connect, collaborate, and create together. Tap into a way to map processes, systems, and plans with your whole team. Get your first three boards for free to start creating your best work yet at miro.com/podcast. Thanks for listening to this show. As an ad supported network, we are always looking for new partners with products and services that will benefit our qualified audience. Are you ready to grow your business? Reach out to advertise@twit.tv and launch your campaign now. It's time for TWIG, This Week in Google a Show where we cover all the latest happenings with Elon Musk. No, no. You stopped it. Not stop. That's it. Stacey has anything to say about it. We won't. No. That's Jeff Jarvis. And that's Stacy Higginbotham. There you go. The regulars are all assembled. Woo.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:16):
We're back Where? I'm back. Y'all are here. You

Leo Laporte (00:02:19):
Gone too.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:21):
I'm much better. That was the nicest, shortest bout of covid ever. Ugh. 

Leo Laporte (00:02:26):
So it's not, was it your first or no?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:29):
No, it was my second. Remember I was stuck in Dallas for two weeks. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:02:32):
I do remember that. That's, that's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:33):
Right. I forgot about Dallas.

Leo Laporte (00:02:34):
I was like, and your daughter got it in Puerto Rico. <Laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:38):
Yeah. Like two weeks later.

Leo Laporte (00:02:39):
But you didn't get it from her. But, but, and I bet you this is from those conferences you were going to.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:45):
Well, no, this one was from Andrew. Andrew got it. Oh.

Leo Laporte (00:02:48):
Oh, because

Stacey Higginbotham (00:02:49):
He, he, he didn't, oh, he's right outside. He's the husband. You might see Andrew. Yeah. That's my husband. We have the bird issue. The bird is back. Do y'all remember, remember the bird last year?

Leo Laporte (00:03:00):
No bird.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:03:01):
This time. I had a robin that was attacking this back window here.

Leo Laporte (00:03:05):
<Laugh>. No, that was it. Just on this show. <Laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:03:08):
Oh no. It happened for months. Like it must have happened on this show because like, it would just Funk.

Leo Laporte (00:03:14):
Funk.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:03:15):
And you could even see it if you were watching.

Leo Laporte (00:03:17):
You'd just be like, that hates me. So was he painting a giant cat on the window or what is he doing? Did

Stacey Higginbotham (00:03:23):
I mean, he was, he's just a, he was an old, he's a horny dumb bird. And thought there was a,

Leo Laporte (00:03:29):
I was talking about your husband, but if you wanna call him a horny dumb bird, you go right ahead.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:03:34):
My husband's covering all of our windows with plastic film right now. Oh. To prevent the robin from

Leo Laporte (00:03:40):
Do you think it will?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:03:42):
I don't. We'll try any unless

Leo Laporte (00:03:43):
We can't see your reflections. Yeah. Reflection.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:03:46):
Two months. And we tried the Mylar strips. We tried like the bird

Leo Laporte (00:03:52):
Balloons we have actually just, just, just in video of the bird. Yes. thanks

Stacey Higginbotham (00:03:58):
For the call. Except if it would be, I mean, it wouldn't be great if it died, but like,

Leo Laporte (00:04:03):
We used to have, like when I lived in Santa Cruz, we had picture windows and birds would die. They would fly into it and knock themselves out.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:04:10):
Yeah. This one isn't dying. It just attack attacks. It starting at four 30 in the morning and he'll attack at literally all day. And he does nothing else in

Leo Laporte (00:04:18):
Is he's not attacking it by flying into it. He's like pecking at it.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:04:22):
Yeah. He flies to it and goes, Hoku,

Leo Laporte (00:04:25):
<Laugh>. This is strange behavior

Stacey Higginbotham (00:04:27):
In the later in the season, it gets

Leo Laporte (00:04:29):
Bird imitation. Yeah. Yeah. Stacey, you know, there is a simple, that

Stacey Higginbotham (00:04:33):
Was a good gift. There

Leo Laporte (00:04:34):
You go. There is a simple fix for this. It's called cats.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:04:37):
Yeah. I was hoping. But we don't have, my neighbor has a dog. Yeah, I have a dog. Can't stick. Like the little high-pitch thing.

Leo Laporte (00:04:45):
No, but I mean, just having a cat would be,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:04:47):
I know if I could import a cat, it would totally kill this robin. Cause it's for what? It's very predictable.

Leo Laporte (00:04:52):
Yeah. Well, it doesn't have to kill it, but it would certainly scare it off. Well, they

Stacey Higginbotham (00:04:56):
Like the No, no, I, I think it gets to this

Leo Laporte (00:04:58):
Bird. Cat's gonna do

Stacey Higginbotham (00:05:00):
<Laugh>. Yeah. The bird's not gonna, or the cat's not gonna scare it off. The cat is gonna <laugh>, like this bird is a very smart here.

Leo Laporte (00:05:07):
Hok <laugh>. Then they'll kill other birds. Once again, we got the Stacy bird imitation. I had

Stacey Higginbotham (00:05:13):
That was the cat imitation. <Laugh>.

Jeff Jarvis (00:05:14):
I had no funny how the bird invitation of the cat invitation are very similar. Very similar. <Laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:05:19):
No. Oh, that's audio. You really need the, the visual punk. The visual is very different.

Leo Laporte (00:05:25):
Punk. Okay. I, I had somebody call the radio show photographer. He calls himself Dr. Bird. He's a bird lover. And he said, yeah, those windmills are killing birds. Like right and left. I, he said, you never, you ever go to president Trump's website. You see the bald eagle that got beheaded by a wind turbine. That's my picture. And I said, wait, really? Is that a, so I looked it up. According to the Federal Wildlife Service, the top threat to birds is collision with building glass. Yeah. 600 million birds die every year colliding with building glass. Then electrical lines, vehicles wind turbines is 234,000. It's, what is that? Six orders of magnitude less. And cats are 2.4 billion <laugh>. So, so I, I should've, if I had the presence of mind, I could've said, you know, I agree. Let's get rid of wind turbines and while we're at it, let's get rid of buildings and cats. Cuz that's the real threat. Anyway. A cat would work, but our cats are too fat and lazy to catch birds. But they will sit in the window and look and glower.

Jeff Jarvis (00:06:40):
Do you like, do they make the sounds? Do they try to do their presentations? Oh, which are far better than Stacey's I might add.

Leo Laporte (00:06:44):
Yeah, they do little. Yeah, they do chirping. Little chirping. Yeah. Yeah. Chirp. And that's, I think that's probably effective. But anyway, back to the show. <Laugh>, which,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:06:55):
Sorry, that had nothing to do with

Leo Laporte (00:06:56):
Technology. This is the show. You actually never got to the show. Welcome to the show. The show. Thank you for

Jeff Jarvis (00:07:01):
Sharing this. Somebody should, should, should you remember how we used to diagram sentences? Somebody should diagram the conversations on this show. Oh, how do we get the birds from all over

Leo Laporte (00:07:09):
The, the place?

Jeff Jarvis (00:07:10):
Yeah. Oh, was your hot? It was Andrew. And you got Covid from here.

Leo Laporte (00:07:15):
Oh, let's connect signal. Okay, wait a minute. Lemme pop that stack back to the COVID. So you had a very minor case, thank goodness. Thank goodness. Yes. And Andrew as well. Much

Stacey Higginbotham (00:07:25):
Better. Yeah. he, he was, he, he was positive for like 10 days, but he was minor. And he's out playing pickleball in a little bit,

Leo Laporte (00:07:34):
So, oh, well he's, that's sick. Is he? Huh? Mm. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jeff Jarvis (00:07:38):
<Affirmative>. So meanwhile, my father has now had internal bleeding pneumonia. Oh.

Leo Laporte (00:07:41):
And

Jeff Jarvis (00:07:42):
Hallucinations

Leo Laporte (00:07:42):
Disease. Does he have long covid?

Jeff Jarvis (00:07:45):
He got it in January and then the crap started happening. Ah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:07:49):
Does he have a UTI have they checked for that? They

Jeff Jarvis (00:07:51):
Check for that. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:07:52):
Okay. Yeah, I saw that on succession. Oh yes.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:07:56):
<Laugh>. Yes.

Leo Laporte (00:07:59):
Good point. Everything I know about UTIs, I learned from succession <laugh>. Ah,

Jeff Jarvis (00:08:05):
It's

Leo Laporte (00:08:05):
Such a good show. Let me log in. Oh, you like it in? Show you it. Oh, that's good. Succession. Yeah. Succession is a good show. Yeah. That's coming back. I didn't like it at first cuz they were a bunch of jackass. Horrible. And it was very hard to watch. Yeah. But's terrible. It's a good show. Yeah. That's what makes us so <laugh>. They're really awful <laugh>. Really awful, awful people. So let's see here. Okay, let's just get this outta the way and then we don't have to talk about it ever again. Okay. Roger, you know what I'm talking about.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:08:35):
Can we set a timer?

Leo Laporte (00:08:36):
Yeah. Set it. Two minutes timer. Elon Musk. Two minutes.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:08:39):
Okay.

Leo Laporte (00:08:40):
Being a jerky jerk. So it turns out I didn't really put two and two together, but fortunately others are paying closer attention that those layoffs last week were mostly of founders who were acqui, whose companies were acquired and were thereby at Twitter. And there was this theory going around that Elon hadn't fired them up to now. Cause he was concerned about payouts and that perhaps he'd found some legal opinion that said, oh, you could fire 'em and then you don't have to give him any money and blah, blah, blah. I

Stacey Higginbotham (00:09:06):
Think, yeah, I think he's just like, we'll just go bankrupt and we won't have to

Leo Laporte (00:09:09):
Make, you don't have to worry about it. Right. Yeah. So they fired some great people. Esther Crawford, of course, but Leah Culver, who is a super talented, was one of the creators of OAuth. She was acquired and was doing spaces. Which one was the floor lady? That's Esther Crawford floor lady. The one who tweeted, you know, hashtag sleep where you work. And had a picture of her in a sleeping bag at Twitter early on in the Elon. She was an Elon. I don't want psychophant, but Elon fan in the beginning. Loyal.

Jeff Jarvis (00:09:37):
No, she

Leo Laporte (00:09:37):
Supported loyalist. That's a good way. That's a better way to put it. But even loyalists under the new regime don't last long. So the most recent one was actually pretty appalling. And I watched it play out in real time. You did? Oh, but

Stacey Higginbotham (00:09:52):
You're on Twitter. Wait a second.

Leo Laporte (00:09:54):
I was pointed to No, I I never get rid of my account. I can read it. He just lurks. I read only. Okay. Read only Twitter. But I, I was, somebody was talking about it and I went and I saw it. The a is he Finnish? Oh, he's ice. Icelandic. That's right. Developer who's company Huney had been acquired by Twitter some time ago. Just on last Saturday, a week ago Saturday. Had his laptop, his email account locked out, which is, you know, usually <laugh> sign it. A sign that you perhaps aren't working there anymore. But he never heard anything else. Which is, by the way, incredibly bad policy, I think for any company to Oh, yeah. Signal that they fired

Stacey Higginbotham (00:10:44):
You. You just ghost your employers ghost

Leo Laporte (00:10:46):
Employee. That's ghosting them. That's ghosting.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:10:47):
It is. It is.

Leo Laporte (00:10:49):
<Laugh> literally ghosting

Jeff Jarvis (00:10:50):
Me. Get the, get the message guy. You're not working here

Leo Laporte (00:10:52):
Anymore. So I think quite reasonably Halle, who has a muscular dystrophy is in a wheelchair. But that's n n neither here nor nor there, at least at the beginning, was tweeted. Well, I, I've lost LA access to Twitter. So I'm wondering

Jeff Jarvis (00:11:14):
He tried to get ahold of hr. He tried to do lots of things and he finally, this was the last resort.

Leo Laporte (00:11:19):
Yeah. Nine days ago. The access to my work computer was cut. So this nine days later, there's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:11:23):
Your timer.

Leo Laporte (00:11:24):
Oh God. We that we just got started. Can I have two more minutes? Keep going. <Laugh>. Just two. That's all. You gotta

Jeff Jarvis (00:11:31):
Remember how Leo tells a story. This is the radio guy, by the way. This

Stacey Higginbotham (00:11:34):
Is, this is important. All right, go

Jeff Jarvis (00:11:35):
On. Yeah, they, they've got it. They've gotta string the narrative along. Nine,

Leo Laporte (00:11:39):
The eighties

Jeff Jarvis (00:11:39):
Long. That's his job.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:11:41):
I'm gonna set a five minute timer. Go on. <Laugh> <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:11:46):
I am herder from Finland. Nine days ago, tweeted, no, actually March 6th tweeted nine days. The access to my work computer was cut along with 200 other Twitter employees. However, you're head of hr, he's tweeting Elon. Dear Elon Musk is not able to confirm if I'm an employee or not. And you've not answered my emails. So maybe if enough people retweet, you'll answer me here. To which 23,000 people retweeted him. He has about 150,000 followers. He even tweeted Jack, hi Jack. I'd really appreciate your help on this. When my company was acquired on your watch, I joined because I believe in what you're building. And then there's Sequoia and a 16 Z to investors in Twitter claiming founder, founder friendly. So he's just wondering. So then he gets a response from Elon Musk, his very self. Elon says, oh, well, what work have you been doing? <Laugh>.

(00:12:40):
Now Elon, I'm just gonna point out you probably could, you know, there's probably a way to find that out without tweeting it publicly. But anyway, to which Halle quite correct, correctly says I would need to break confidentiality to answer that question here. If you have your lawyers share morning, I can do that. Then I'd be happy to discuss that openly. To which Elon says I give you permission, the king says it's approved. You go ahead. So he poor guy. I mean, this is just a dog and pony show at this point, but he's trying to, you know how he's trying to be responsive. So he says all the things he did, including saving half a million dollars on a Figma contract. I could go on. But, but I'm still wondering, am I em employed? The original question was in, I still in Florida or not?

(00:13:27):
Yeah. Yeah. So Elon says, oh, you didn't do anything, you didn't Any real work. Sure replies. You gotta have short replies button. Okay. Which now I gotta figure out which we got a little bit down a bit. Which reply? Go down. There we go. Show. There we go. That's where you'll see there are a lot of other people replying. That's part of the problem is there's a lot of junk here. Anyway, Elon replies, well, that's not real work. And makes fun of him and says You're in a wheelchair. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. And you know, I mean, really the lowest of the low stuff as low as Trump and, and mox a to of people possibility in a wheelchair. Say, you know, implying, well, you're in a wheelchair, you couldn't possibly have done any work, which is appalling anyway to make a long, my timer's coming up. So, to make a long story short, eight 40 it turns out Halle is kind of an amazing guy who took his, he

Stacey Higginbotham (00:14:28):
Was the Icelandic citizen of the year a couple years ago. <Laugh>, I watched out a note because he took his salary. He got all five other Icelanders <laugh>. I know. There's like only 300,000

Leo Laporte (00:14:39):
Still <laugh>. No, tell, tell us why.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:14:43):
Because he took, instead of a big payout, he took it in salary because he wanted to pay full taxes because he felt like he got this because he had a free education. The Icelandic educa, basically, he loves Iceland. It was like back give pay taxes because y'all Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:14:58):
Furthermore took the money and built 1500 wheelchair ramps, became a, in Iceland, a huge advocate for wheelchair ramps. He is,

Jeff Jarvis (00:15:06):
He is amazing energy.

Leo Laporte (00:15:08):
I mean, this is a nice guy.

Jeff Jarvis (00:15:10):
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:15:11):
And Elon, who was it? Who was it who went after Greta tk? Oh, Andrew Tate. He's being like

Leo Laporte (00:15:15):
Andrew Tate. He's another Andrew Tate. I know, it's unbelievable. Well, but remember Elon called the, the entrepreneur who was saving the soccer team. It's trapped in a cave, a pedophile. Just cuz they didn't use his submarine. Right. So, I mean, Elon is not a nice guy. He's never been a nice guy. In any event Holly it got re it got resolved. Yeah. You're fired. <Laugh>. And then Elon said, but I, and then apparently he's talking, Elon said, but well wait a minute. Maybe I should hire you back. Cuz this really turned out to be a black mark. And Holly says, you know, he said,

Jeff Jarvis (00:15:45):
Elon said he was given bad information cuz he always

Leo Laporte (00:15:48):
Somebody Well, somebody else's fault I was given. Yeah. I was told that you didn't work and you were an, but

Jeff Jarvis (00:15:52):
He tweeted that, that, that Holly's considering working at, at

Leo Laporte (00:15:55):
Twitter again, he's not Holly Holly's opening a restaurant in Reiki Vic named after his mom on the journey. Is he really?

Jeff Jarvis (00:16:02):
Yeah. Well, I that to my bucket list. I can't wait to go to Iceland.

Leo Laporte (00:16:06):
Everybody should go to Reiki Vic and go to this restaurant and pat him on the back and say, you are a class act.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:16:15):
You know Iceland is one of those places in Revi Air is actually very helpful. If you want to fly to Europe, like from the West coast, if you go on Iceland Air, they fly you over and they'll give you like two nights in Revi. Yep. so, and it's a very easy to set up. I can't remember what those are called, but just a little pro travel trip for you.

Leo Laporte (00:16:35):
It

Stacey Higginbotham (00:16:35):
Was, you can go on to I

Leo Laporte (00:16:36):
Am, I am minimizing how horrific this threat was. The threat was, it was just, Elon was so horrible. He has apologized since.

Jeff Jarvis (00:16:45):
Well,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:16:45):
No he hasn't. No, he

Jeff Jarvis (00:16:46):
Hasn't realized. He, it's not a full apology.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:16:48):
Yeah. It's like the, oh, I misunderstood. It's not an apology. Somebody,

Jeff Jarvis (00:16:52):
You know what wasn't

Leo Laporte (00:16:53):
A non apology, apology jerk. And you know, the best way to apologize would be to pay Holly the money you owe him. But of course, Elon's not paying anybody money he owes soon. And the timer's up. Thank you very much everybody. Goodnight. <laugh>. Perfect. I'm sorry I underestimated by half, but that's about what normal for a programmer.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:17:12):
Okay. That was like eight minutes. Oh. But yes, <laugh>, that's still a good time for a

Jeff Jarvis (00:17:18):
Radio guy. That's very quick.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:17:20):
It's, yeah. I mean, this is a three hour show. What else we gonna

Jeff Jarvis (00:17:22):
Talking about? Yeah. He's used to fill in time here.

Leo Laporte (00:17:24):
Here's what Elon wrote. The reality is that this guy who is independently wealthy, did no actual word. Now that's claimed as his excuse that he had a disability that prevented him from typing. It was simultaneously tweeting up a storm. Can't say I have a lot of respect for that.

Jeff Jarvis (00:17:41):
I love that readers added context. They thought people might want to

Leo Laporte (00:17:43):
Know. Yeah. But actually the context is wrong as they said that e Elon spoke directly apologized, et cetera, which apparently maybe didn't really happen. And Holly's still saying, I sure would like to get that. [inaudible] Unbelievable. Yeah. So there's that story and that's just, you know, it's a typical Twitter outrage story. I almost don't even think it's news except it's so appalling. Still people defending it about Twitter. Yeah. And we are very sad. Oh, don't worry

Stacey Higginbotham (00:18:11):
About that. We can just be sad about Twitter. This is just, it's like, I don't know. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:18:19):
Okay. Okay. Like

Jeff Jarvis (00:18:20):
The country two years ago.

Leo Laporte (00:18:22):
Yeah. Twitter, let it said privacy and security protecting tour service expired. They let the, they just didn't renew the certificate. So that was a year ago. They created a tourist service. So the people who are in countries where Twitter is blocked still would have access to it. Not anymore. How much did that cost them? Oh gosh, nothing. 10 bucks at least a year. Yeah. Nothing. FTC is now investigating to see whether Twitter has violated its consent decree. Remember under Jack Twitter had a fairly big investigation and made a, had a consent decree that they would not introduce any new features without ex explicitly explaining how privacy would be protected, et cetera, et cetera. So how does

Jeff Jarvis (00:19:07):
Giving this stuff to the journalists violate that? That's what I couldn't understand.

Leo Laporte (00:19:12):
So, the FTC has demanded that Twitter turnover, internal communications, relating to Elon Musk detailed information about layoffs, citing concerns as staff reductions could compromise the company's ability to protect users. Something that they had agreed to do in 12 letters sent to Twitter and its lawyers since the Musk takeover. So this has been ongoing, but the Wall Street Journal, I guess just revealed this. The FTC has also asked the company to quote, identify all journalists granted access to company records. Why? Because that's a privacy violation. Right. Ah, okay. And to provide information about the launch of the revamped Twitter Blue subscription service. They're also, and this'll be fun seeking to depose Mr. Musk in connection with the program. Remember, I think frankly, it was the threat of having to do a deposition that, that convinced Elon, is that me? I'm sorry. That convinced Elon to by Twitter.

(00:20:11):
Right. It was, the day before was supposed he would've revealed lots of stuff. Yeah. He was supposed to do a deposition that he said, okay, okay, fine. No deposition. I'll buy it. So he paid 44 billion the last time he was supposed to, supposed to speak on, on on record. Actually he's done it in court since then. In that trial, which he won, by the way, we should point out Yeah. Good news for Elon. Yeah. he he, the s e c went after him for the tweet. They got a, they got 20 million out of him for the tweet that said he was gonna take Tesla private. Then Tesla investors sued in court and, and the jury decided that you know, no Elon's cool. That's okay. You could tweet that. Nobody lost any money. So he didn't get off the hook on that one. And, and did in fact testify before the jury on that one. FTC official wrote on November 10th, this is very early on, we're concerned staff reductions impact Twitter's ability to protect customer information. Actually the reason we know this is the House Judiciary Committee published excerpts of them in a staff report. So it became public knowledge. The letters in,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:21:21):
I kind of feel like this, oh, go on. Sorry.

Leo Laporte (00:21:25):
The letters indicate Twitter responded to the ftc, but the agency as of late January, felt the company was engaging in a quote, troubling pattern of ongoing delay that raises serious concerns about its compliance. This could be a large fine, sorry, go ahead. Stacy.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:21:42):
No, I was gonna say, I, part of me feels like this is the FTC piling on to find a company that it's, it's kind of piling on to like something to give it a little bit more cache. You know? I know that's

Leo Laporte (00:21:55):
Well, you have a consent. No, I don't. I disagree. You have a consent decree with a company which had privacy problems before Right. And security problems before. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> the, and, and, and the consent decree the company agreed to. And it's still, by the way, bound, even though the company was sold, I believe, wouldn't they still be bound? Yeah,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:22:11):
You are. You do not get outta your consent decree.

Leo Laporte (00:22:13):
Yeah, yeah. That they would, you know, do due diligence before they did anything. And ob obviously there's no due diligence going on on Elon's side. So I think it's, you know, you can't just say, oh, well I guess that's the way it is in the world. You gotta pursue that. That's, that's if you don't pursue, you're right. Consent decree, they have no teeth in future.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:22:33):
Right. Okay. You've convinced me.

Leo Laporte (00:22:35):
Yeah. I mean, I agree that Lena Khan is, is the latest thing is one of the co FTC commissioners said big tech is like Standard Oil. Which is wrong in like, they're not, they're well possible. Well, well, standard Oil was one company.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:22:50):
I mean, from a

Leo Laporte (00:22:50):
<Laugh>, big Tech is a rather large umbrella. <Laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:22:54):
Yeah. Each, each big tech company has such a monopoly over so many aspects of someone's digital experience.

Leo Laporte (00:23:02):
Well, let's define Monopoly. Oh boy.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:23:05):
Okay. I've been trying to extricate myself from Google and it's hard. He is almost impossible. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:23:14):
<Laugh>, it's hard. I'm doing it bit by bit. By the way, I'll, I think you also fast mail replace Google Calendar and Google Address book. That's one of our sponsors. I use Neva instead of Google's search Butch, by the way, every bit as good as Google search better in many respects. But unfortunately the company uses Google work as

Stacey Higginbotham (00:23:34):
Workspace. And that's so it's not as hard for me to get off Google. It's hard to communicate with other people who use Google. Because like when people send me Google meet invitations when I come in here to, that's, that's where they get,

Jeff Jarvis (00:23:47):
That's where they get ya. We're

Leo Laporte (00:23:49):
Very much, am

Jeff Jarvis (00:23:50):
I gonna be the only person left on a show called this week of Google? Who uses Google?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:23:54):
I like Android

Leo Laporte (00:23:56):
<Laugh>. Oh yeah, actually I got back from Jason. I had to beg him cuz he didn't want to give it back to me. This the Samsung Galaxy S 23. And I'm actually quite liking, in fact, if I were gonna do a pick, I found a one of the great things about Android compared to the iPhone is you can have your own launcher. And I found something that's called a minimal launcher. That's just like a few, a few. It's text <laugh> and there's no nice, there's no status bar, there's no nothing. It's very clean.

Jeff Jarvis (00:24:23):
Kevin. Love that.

Leo Laporte (00:24:24):
Like it. Yeah. I really like it. Yeah. It's called Zero. Lemme give you the exact name. It's called I think zero launch. Zero launcher. Zero launcher. Nice. It's very simple. There's not much here. I'll show you what, how it looks though, which is nice. And the wallpaper changes every day. And and then, you know, if you wanna see, you know, you have your apps and you could type a couple of letters and launch an app and so forth. But pretty straightforward. The ones I use most, and this could be fewer lines, I have eight, but you could have down to four. It's clean, no status bar at the top. If you need that, you could just pull it down and you'll, you'll get it. No, no, I don't turn off navigation. The one Okay. The one little thing, because it's a Samsung and has this sidebar menu so I can quickly get to Pokemon Go. But other than that,

Jeff Jarvis (00:25:13):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (00:25:16):
And there's no, oh, oh, I like this too. So normally on one UI and Google's launcher, you slide left, you'll get Google News and stuff. If you slide left here, you get a phone. Cuz this is a phone. You slide, right, you get a camera cuz it's a camera. Oh,

Jeff Jarvis (00:25:32):
I like that.

Leo Laporte (00:25:33):
That's it. That's it, right? If I want Google assist.

Jeff Jarvis (00:25:37):
What's that cold? What's

Leo Laporte (00:25:38):
That Cold? Zero launcher.

Jeff Jarvis (00:25:40):
That's pretty slick. So you lost me until then. Then you got me.

Leo Laporte (00:25:43):
Yeah. Isn't that not, I mean, so yeah, if you need a phone, you got it and your contacts are there too. It still has time. And so you can set alarms and all that stuff by tapping the time. You can get your calendar by tapping the date. But and you can get your, but the camera's right there too, which I think is really nice. I don't know. I don't, this is completely subsidiary conversation, but I guess it's all that's schoolish.

Jeff Jarvis (00:26:07):
So when, when you, it's actually landed the phone back from Jason, did he call you a hypocrite for denying all other Google and then Lusty? No. This is a Samsung should have, right? Jason? It's

Leo Laporte (00:26:18):
Google. It's Samsung

Jeff Jarvis (00:26:20):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:26:20):
No part of my job, honestly, I'm still probab, you know, my daily driver's gonna be an iPhone. But my job really is to be, to, to know how Samsung, I have a Pixel and an iPhone and use Windows and Mac. I have to use all of those so I can answer questions and stuff. That's part of my job

Jeff Jarvis (00:26:36):
Description, Sam. Good.

Leo Laporte (00:26:39):
I don't, you know, if I, I often ask myself if I were a private citizen, you know, if I'm just a normal human being, maybe working down the, at the auto body shop, what phone would I have? It'd probably be an iPhone. Same. And it wouldn't be a modern, I, you know, it'd probably be an iPhone 10, some se Yeah. An older iPhone. Yeah. Some S se iPhone or some simplified Galaxy phone. Oh. And what the masses have to circle around to what you were saying. Stacy, I probably wouldn't be de Googling my life. I'd probably all in on Google. Right? Because Oh

Stacey Higginbotham (00:27:12):
Yeah. You would not de Google. You would.

Leo Laporte (00:27:14):
That's a

Stacey Higginbotham (00:27:14):
Lot of work. Well, unless you're in my mother.

Leo Laporte (00:27:16):
Is she de Googling?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:27:19):
I'm, I'm like 10 steps away from her. Like going off and like living in a fairday cage. Yes. Really? She's de Googling so, huh. I I told her actually about fast mail and she was very excited about

Leo Laporte (00:27:31):
It. Yeah. Cuz you can use it instead of Google Calendar and mm-hmm. <Affirmative> instead of Google Contacts, unfortunately. So then I turned off Google. Right. And then Lisa said, but I send all, all of the meeting invites to you on Google <laugh>. Exactly. Yeah. My wife still uses Google, so I kind of have to. Right.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:27:49):
I I experienced this with Kevin because Kevin has been off for a long time. He's on proton mail and all these other things. And every now and again, he's like, I didn't get it. And I'm like, oh. He's like, okay, fine. Send it to my Gmail address. I'm like, well, let me see. Like, I wanna support you in this. Let's funny. Let, let's figure out how I can send you something. Isn't

Leo Laporte (00:28:09):
That funny? Oh, that's tough. Zero Lunchers. Tagline. Googling is minimal af day to day. I don't know what the AF means, but that's what it is. The minimal as f you I know what it means. Jeff, come on. I'm not a, I may be de Googling, but I'm not Stacey's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:28):
Mom. He's not a dinosaur

Leo Laporte (00:28:29):
By the way. He is a senator. Your mom's got it going on. I just want say good for That's pretty cool. Yeah. <laugh> <laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:38):
It is that song <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:28:41):
I'm so sorry. You're probably so sick of that. Was that a big hit when you were in high school? No, it was later than that.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:48):
I think it was high school. Oh, that Fountains. Terribles of

Leo Laporte (00:28:51):
Wayne. Yeah. Fountains of Wayne. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:28:53):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:28:54):
Oh, I'm so sorry, <laugh>. That that was a very bad time for that song to be a hit.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:00):
<Laugh>. Yeah, it was, it was not my, my Best Years. I think I was in college because they were, they released their, they, they were active between 1996 and 2011. So I was in college.

Leo Laporte (00:29:12):
Okay, great band, great song, great name. Is

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:15):
It

Leo Laporte (00:29:16):
<Laugh> <laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:19):
I grew up You who did the song Sarah By Journey was is that Journey Sarah?

Leo Laporte (00:29:24):
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:25):
Yeah. That song. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (00:29:27):
I think Danny Fleetwood, Matt. That song. One of those,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:30):
I think it's a journey then. Yeah, that sounds right. And I always wanted, from my early ages, cuz like I was a baby basically when M T V came out, you know, and I would run out and see this cuz I love the song and the video with running down the hallways. And I wanted my name and a song and then years later, that's what I got

Leo Laporte (00:29:50):
<Laugh>, Stacy's mom has got it going on.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:29:55):
Starship, there we go. Starship. Thank you. Rega. Starship.

Leo Laporte (00:29:59):
Well, so did Fleetwood Mac. There were quite a few people. In fact, when I worked with Sarah Lane, no different song. When I worked with Sarah Lane, she hated those. All of those. All of them. She hated them <laugh>, in fact. Right. You know, you know how that is. Yeah. You know.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:30:13):
Yeah. And I, I I get it. But you know,

Leo Laporte (00:30:15):
As a kid you didn't know any better. You thought, yeah, I this song. Yeah. What's my theme?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:30:24):
The song I'm talking about is Sarah. Sarah,

Leo Laporte (00:30:28):
They all

Stacey Higginbotham (00:30:29):
Sound like that. I'm also tone deaf. They do sing it kinda like that.

Leo Laporte (00:30:33):
Oh. The

Jeff Jarvis (00:30:34):
Question is, will the YouTube bot be able to turn, tell that was actually a song and have to take a down.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:30:39):
Okay. Someone who d isn't tone deaf should probably try, but it's not me.

Leo Laporte (00:30:44):
<Laugh>. You don't wanna check your ears. Miss Stacy <laugh> <laugh>. That was rough <laugh>. I know.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:30:54):
Here

Leo Laporte (00:30:55):
I

Stacey Higginbotham (00:30:55):
Can. It's Jefferson Starship. Yeah, there you go.

Leo Laporte (00:30:58):
We know, we know who it is. Never saw a video, but I remember the song ish. You are not allowed to play this. This is worse than saying the F word on Google. This is so bad, by the way. You can now say the F word on Google. Oh yeah. Can I say

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:15):
It now? No. Can

Leo Laporte (00:31:16):
I say it? No, no, no.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:31:18):
<Laugh>. What is somebody's kiss

Leo Laporte (00:31:19):
Listening to? We're better than YouTube YouTubers this. In fact, Renee Ritchie, who is YouTube's creator liaison, and our good friend May had to make a video explaining the new rules. Youtubers <laugh> can now swear at the start of videos without getting monetized. Listen, mean at the start without getting Well, that was the rule. The rule was if you say a bad word within the first 10 seconds of your video, 15 seconds of your video, we're gonna demonetize the whole video.

Jeff Jarvis (00:31:47):
But it's okay to say it later and not get demonetized. That's why you don't

Leo Laporte (00:31:51):
Understand. If a video contains swearing within the first 15 seconds, it will be demonetized. No. Now, because that's patently ridiculous. They're gonna ease it. And you can swear within the first 15 seconds. Let's wait a minute. Let's just ask, let's just ask Renee, Richie, Renee, binary. Renee, can, you can't? Yeah. Let me, let see. You can, this rule

Stacey Higginbotham (00:32:15):
Is confusing.

Leo Laporte (00:32:16):
Well, that, I think that's really what it more than anything else. It was like, how am I supposed to do that?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:32:22):
Were they trying to avoid people because they have autoplay or things like that? Suddenly encountering something that was really

Leo Laporte (00:32:27):
Upsetting. Oh, that would make sense.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:32:30):
But then do they have similar rules to like not showing graphic violence in that timeframe or other disturbing

Leo Laporte (00:32:37):
Things they did. They had a number number of rules. But the real guidelines seem to really be to get profanity. It was a profanity policy. So they've announced effective March 7th. We're making the following changes.

Jeff Jarvis (00:32:52):
<Laugh>,

Leo Laporte (00:32:53):
I'm gonna try to read this with a straight face. Usage of moderate profanity at any time in the video is now eligible for green icons. Usage of stronger profanity, like the F-word in the first seven seconds, or repeatedly throughout the majority of the video, can now receive limited ads. That's better than under November's update, which was no ads. Video content using profanity, moderate, or strong. This is like the nun that comes out with a ruler to see if your skirt is sufficient inches below your knee. Video conference. Using profanity, moderate, or strong after the first seven seconds will now be eligible for green icons unless used repetitively throughout the majority of the video under the November update, this would've received note. We've also clarified our guidance on how profanity and music is treated. Moderate or strong. Profanity used in background music backing tracks, intro or outro music can now earn full ad revenue. <Laugh>

Jeff Jarvis (00:33:55):
Use

Leo Laporte (00:33:55):
Of any profanity in titles and thumbnails will still be demonetized and cannot run ads. So I think you're right. I think you actually got it. If I may say this YouTube, you nailed it, Jeff, because you said it's about the, the previews. It's about people straying across it.

Jeff Jarvis (00:34:13):
Actually, I didn't say that somebody else did. Well, I said that Stacy. My god.

Leo Laporte (00:34:16):
Stacy, you're giving, if I may, if I may say, you nailed it, Stacy. Thank you.

Jeff Jarvis (00:34:22):
Nailed it. Nailed

Leo Laporte (00:34:24):
It. Here is I can nail a keyboard. <Laugh> here is here is our good friend. Oh, I can't play it. It's on Twitter for some reason. Among other things. Twitter's not, not playing back the video. I swear to God. Have you noticed? Has there been, has been. Wait a minute. Did Stacy just leave? She ran out of the door. She's

Jeff Jarvis (00:34:45):
So mad that you can be credit for her brilliance.

Leo Laporte (00:34:47):
She ran away. She can't take

Jeff Jarvis (00:34:48):
It anymore. And now she's yelling back to the mic. My, my dog was scratching at the door and wanted

Leo Laporte (00:34:53):
To come in. Oh.

Jeff Jarvis (00:34:54):
And I thought you didn't notice

Leo Laporte (00:34:56):
Me. Let the little son love it. He

Jeff Jarvis (00:34:57):
Always, you it totally ignored my Here is,

Leo Laporte (00:35:01):
Here is Renee Ritchie explaining the new rules.

Jeff Jarvis (00:35:04):
Late last year, YouTube updated the ad friendly guidelines around profanity, which videos get green or yellow icons monetized or demonetized. We read your feedback, watched your videos. We've listened, we've heard you. And here's Connor from our ads policy team with a fresh update.

Speaker 4 (00:35:20):
Upon reviewing our own enforcement data, we found the profanity policy result Sure. Matches the hair as structure approach than we intended. That's amazing. As a result, we are making the following changes.

Leo Laporte (00:35:30):
All right. Better reflect. I do like his accent

Speaker 4 (00:35:32):
Though of our initial

Leo Laporte (00:35:33):
Update. Connor's, clearly

Speaker 4 (00:35:34):
We are no longer

Leo Laporte (00:35:35):
Treating from New Zealand. All right. So I

Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:38):
I thought he was Irish. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:35:39):
I'm just, I catch you every time. I get you.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:35:42):
Every single. You really do. Oh my God. Every

Leo Laporte (00:35:44):
Time. It's so cute. Thank you Renee for clarifying that. And Connor, thank you for your beautiful accent. You're a gorgeous man. You are outstanding. Straight out of the ben, she of Asur. Let's see what else is going on. I should do an ad, shouldn't I? Should I do an ad? Yes. Yes. Since Raj.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:36:04):
Stacey. Oh. And then we can talk about Gigi soon.

Leo Laporte (00:36:07):
I'm god pissed off about that. Geez. Me too. I am so peeved. Enr enr rage. Okay. There's a good tease coming up next. Rage.

Jeff Jarvis (00:36:16):
Rage. But no curse words.

Leo Laporte (00:36:18):
No, because we don't curse here. Although Jeff has the yellow icon all over his face. <Laugh>, <laugh>

Jeff Jarvis (00:36:26):
Tried to adjust it.

Leo Laporte (00:36:28):
It's okay. Crap. It's, you know, this show probably. Oh, there you

Stacey Higginbotham (00:36:34):
Go,

Jeff Jarvis (00:36:34):
Mesh. How's that?

Leo Laporte (00:36:35):
That he's working on it. Oh yeah. You look like Fletch.

Jeff Jarvis (00:36:38):
No, no. I'm Pink

Stacey Higginbotham (00:36:39):
<Laugh>. Yeah. But at least you're, yeah. You're not like cast an amber anymore.

Leo Laporte (00:36:43):
Yeah. <laugh>. You know what's great about, actually, I was thinking this was just this show, but all of our shows, each of our hosts is uniquely quirky in their own way. <Laugh>,

Jeff Jarvis (00:36:55):
You called me quirky.

Leo Laporte (00:36:56):
Quirky is a nice way to put it. And are

Stacey Higginbotham (00:36:59):
You sure that you didn't mean cranky?

Jeff Jarvis (00:37:00):
There's nothing quirky

Leo Laporte (00:37:01):
About me. No. We're all a little bit odd. Let's, let's be frank. Oh, yeah, yeah. And every one of us from Andy and not go to Paul Throt, to Jeff Jarvis. We're all a little bit, you know, just a little different. And that's what makes makes it a wonderful place to be, I think. Isn't it true? Don't you think I'm, I'm just boring. I don't know about quirky. You're the most normal person on the network. You are

Jeff Jarvis (00:37:26):
Person here, <laugh>. That's true. That's scary. That's true <laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:37:32):
But think about how much I learned about football from you and other exciting things.

Leo Laporte (00:37:36):
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Stacey Higginbotham (00:42:08):
Oh, no, it's not silliness, it's rage. We're going back to Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:42:11):
Rage. Gigi son. How long, so Gigi son lo has been, was nominated ages ago to fill an,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:42:19):
The Biden administration,

Leo Laporte (00:42:21):
Not suit enough for some story, but Yes. Well, to, to fill an empty seat in the Federal Communications Commission. She's a former democratic F C C official. She was nominated by the White House October, 2021. Okay. Yeah. A year and a half ago. But the problem is the telecommunications people hate her, which in my opinion makes her the perfect person for an FCC commissioner. Correct. Yeah. She has been co consistently attacked and the Republican Congress has blocked her. Well, a couple Democrats

Stacey Higginbotham (00:42:53):
Also. Yeah. Manchin and ah, Mark Kelly. I thought more of him. Yeah. And yeah, there's a, here's what makes me angry. Okay? I get that politics is politics, but they also, there was a lot talking about her personal life. She is a both, she is a reformer. I would say that she's a reformer who is understanding and understands the technical aspects of telecommunications at a very deep level. Like I've had discussions with her about carrier aggregation.

Leo Laporte (00:43:26):
Oh. You know her and

Stacey Higginbotham (00:43:28):
I know her. She's great. She is, she is smart and sharp. She is also gay. And that has come up oh damn, several times, both officially and in this slimy, underhanded like AstroTurf lobbying way. And the Republicans are, and I am outraged that Gigi's personal life is part of this at all. And I just, so, like it's one thing, yes, I knew that Gigi might be a hard sell because she is a reformer and she's very much, you don't get to be in charge of anything in Washington having openly stated your opinion Right. And advocated for anything. You have to be as neutral as like, I don't know, was something neutral? Water,

Leo Laporte (00:44:18):
Bread.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:44:19):
I was like, <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (00:44:20):
Wait, Stacy's mom neutral.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:44:22):
Neutral

Leo Laporte (00:44:23):
Is white bread.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:44:24):
No, my mom is the opposite of neutral. But yes, maybe the song you just have to be incredibly inoffensive and Yeah. Well, I'm just so mad we lost such an opportunity and we haven't been able to regulate anything at the F CCC for the last two and a half years.

Leo Laporte (00:44:44):
May maybe secondarily part of this right, is not just, it is a hundred part of, but let's not fill this seat so that we can't get anything done. Yeah. she is absolutely an advocate for net neutrality. And this is something telecommunications hates, but it's something that you and I and everybody who's listening to the show supports should support.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:45:04):
Yeah. She's very pro-consumer in all of her things, and she's not afraid to call out the fact that we have basically a monopoly in our telecoms. Be, or sorry, not a monopoly. We have a very anti-competitive telecommunications regime in the US because a

Leo Laporte (00:45:18):
Duopoly in effect. Really? Yeah. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:45:21):
Well, please. Like anyone's getting DSL nowadays. <Laugh>, you're either, I mean, if you're in one of the few areas where they offer fiber,

Leo Laporte (00:45:27):
That's a good point. Sure. That's a good, that's actually a really good point. It used to be a duopoly, now it's the incumbent.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:45:32):
Gigi was

Leo Laporte (00:45:33):
Arguing that Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:45:34):
Way before, because she technically understood what was happening in broadband. Oh,

Leo Laporte (00:45:40):
It's an acknowledgement. Unfortunately, it's an acknowledgement of the importance the FCC has to these companies. The power the commission would have if they were fully staffed and they, they weren't being so viciously and, and frankly underhandedly opposed, this isn't a, this, you know, this isn't really about policy. This is about how we can undermine this. So it's a two, two split. Right Now. Normally the FCC has two Republicans, two Democrats, and then a chairman nominated by the incumbent party, the, the president, which would give it a three, two Democratic majority. That's exactly what Ted Cruz and Mansion don't want. Right. So that's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:46:21):
What, and I will, I will point this out. The telecoms in the EU have managed to convince I Margaret, how do we say that?

Leo Laporte (00:46:32):
Margaret of the Steger.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:46:34):
Yes. Sh they've managed to convince her to listen to their arguments that they, that Netflix should be paying paying them for clogging up their pipes, basically. So this is an argument that we've had for decades now in the US where,

Leo Laporte (00:46:51):
And it's utter BS double bill. It's double billing. Maybe it's complete bs. Yeah. Sutter Bs. Exactly.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:46:56):
Yep. But now the EU is like, oh, well that's, that, that makes sense. Okay. So keep an eye on that because if they succeed in the eu, they're gonna of come right back here and be like, well, maybe now is the time. And they did it during the pandemic because people were streaming so much Netflix while businesses were trying to also do work. And the broadband pipes couldn't handle it.

Leo Laporte (00:47:20):
I, I mean, I, I guess, I mean, look, it's appalling to attack her because of her sexuality. That's ridiculous. But I guess you could make the case that this is what makes America so great is that you know, you can fight something like this by spending money on, on billboards in Las Vegas and and advertisements in in West Virginia and so forth, the center for

Stacey Higginbotham (00:47:45):
Not us making that money.

Leo Laporte (00:47:47):
No, I understand.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:47:48):
Or spending that money. It's corporations. Well,

Leo Laporte (00:47:51):
Okay. But they have, let's

Stacey Higginbotham (00:47:52):
Talk about Citizens United.

Leo Laporte (00:47:53):
They have a dog in the home. And what it did, this, actually, I do this, but this isn't campaign contributions. This is literally just buying ads, which there is, even without Citizens United has always been legal conservative groups. This is from the Washington Post, spent hundreds of thousands of dollars attacking Sonas partisan and extreme leading a campaign focused in the states of several moderate Democrats who are already on the fence about son. One billboard in Las Vegas, hence Mark Kelly Gigi So is too extreme for the fcc. The fa this is a, was paid for by the American Accountability Foundation, the foundation, and another conservative nonprofit organization. The Center for a Free Economy placed, placed more than $200,000 in Facebook ads. Opposing son the foundation ran ads last month saying she was dangerous because she served on a board that opposes anti-sex trafficking efforts. And guess what that board was. So first of all, that's not what the board was doing, but guess what? The board was the EF F She serves on the e f, the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Right. She's an advisor. So they said, oh, the EF F is in favor of sex trafficking. And so Gigi so is in favor of sex trafficking. None of that is true. Hmm. hmm.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:49:17):
And I would argue that like, I don't know if y'all remember cops as a commissioner, but Gigi is no more liberal than cops. I would say Michael Cops. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (00:49:28):
And cops. Yeah. And cops. The religious statement Saint how old he was at this.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:49:34):
Yeah. And he, he should be. I mean there

Leo Laporte (00:49:37):
We should point out that son became an advisor of the e f after the bill was signed in a law by President Trump in tw in 20, yeah. Years after Trump made it a law. She also saw fierce opposition according to the Post from the Fraternal Order of Police, which criticize her ties to the E F F, because it's opposed to breaking encryption <laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:50:01):
Yeah. Well, so are we. That means we can't be on, could a governmental body,

Leo Laporte (00:50:05):
Ernest Ernesto Fal, a senior legislative council at the rights group called The Fraternal Order of Police's Opposition to Son's nomination, purely Political Muscle, and said it wasn't based on reality or facts. This is Falcons from

Stacey Higginbotham (00:50:22):
It. Isn't Gigi she founded and I was just checking to make sure, cause I knew she was involved. It, she was one of the co-founders of Public Knowledge, which was a group that was all about net neutrality. It was a big advocate against Popa. Yep. Popa Pop Soap, SOPA, Pippa

Leo Laporte (00:50:36):
Sopa, Pippa Sippa

Stacey Higginbotham (00:50:38):
Popa. Oh

Leo Laporte (00:50:38):
Yeah, I remember that.

Ant Pruitt (00:50:39):
Can't

Leo Laporte (00:50:39):
Do it. As we were,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:50:41):
I mean, yeah, that's, that's

Leo Laporte (00:50:42):
Where I met. That's not being in favor of, of sex trafficking. I'm good. I mean, that's not even close. So really, these were, this was a smear campaign. The problem is, it was that the moderate Democrats

Stacey Higginbotham (00:50:55):
Are

Leo Laporte (00:50:55):
Worst, are swayed by it. They're wis as our, you know what? All politicians these days are utter wins. You

Stacey Higginbotham (00:51:00):
Know what, Joe Manchin, Manch Manchin, I don't know how to say his name. He is not, he is not a moderate. I don't know what

Leo Laporte (00:51:07):
He is. She's no, but Mark Kelly is clothing. I know Jacqueline Rosen from Nevada is, and maybe there's, I mean, if you're in Nevada, I guess you might say, well, my seat is you know, it's a purple state. My seat is at risk, so I gotta give in on some of these things. But these are bogus, these are totally bogus allegations. Anyway. And it frustrates. And who loses out? We lose out because, and this is why it should be important to everybody listening. Gigi son was an advocate for consumer rights, for net neutrality for the kinds of things we want, as opposed to big telecom. Big make no mistake about this. Big telecom won a massive victory here.

Ant Pruitt (00:51:51):
Okay. So with all of this said, cuz I, I hate politics and, and try not to pay any attention to it. And I know that makes me a bit of a idiot or whatever, but all, all you just said was people were slinging mud about this person. Yes. And why can't she just essentially just do the same thing? Cuz it's, that's all that seems politics does nowadays is somebody just throws out a bunch of,

Leo Laporte (00:52:16):
Because I'll tell you why.

Ant Pruitt (00:52:17):
Outlandish slanderous stuff. And even though it's slander, nothing ever really,

Leo Laporte (00:52:21):
I'll tell you exactly, why's nothing

Ant Pruitt (00:52:23):
About it.

Leo Laporte (00:52:23):
She doesn't have the 200,000 fall for it. You know, it's all about money. She doesn't, she doesn't, doesn't have the money. $200,000 to buy the billboard across the street that says that's bs. This is, this is tele the telecom industry spends a lot of money to make sure that Congress and the FCC does its bidding. We as users don't carry that much weight. Now you have an important point, though. The weight we have is our vote. Yeah. And so that money would be meaningless unless affected by the Right, but we're affected by money and the electoral college. But yes. Well, okay, but, but if, but honestly, if we voted in great numbers in favor of net neutrality, in favor of free, free and fair competition among telecom companies, we would win that battle. We win. But we keep on. But it keeps on being challenged again and again and again. And Yeah. Yeah. And,

Ant Pruitt (00:53:16):
And it's,

Leo Laporte (00:53:17):
This is the role of money in politics. St That's the problem, man. It's the role of money in politics. Ultimately.

Ant Pruitt (00:53:21):
I, I'm going sound insensitive. And I, and I'll I'm not trying to be, but I don't like the fact that she bowed out of this because of all of this ridiculous

Leo Laporte (00:53:30):
Pressure. No, she

Ant Pruitt (00:53:31):
Didn't want to. And it's not, she

Leo Laporte (00:53:32):
Went on for

Ant Pruitt (00:53:33):
18 months. She's nothing. She couldn't fast. Couldn't be, she wasn't gonna waste. You don't waste the whole line of, you know, what do you believe in and what are you going to fight for? And she sounds like she's, she's the perfect person to fight for all of these.

Jeff Jarvis (00:53:45):
They're told to back out. You're told to back out up the chance to put somebody in so you get the

Ant Pruitt (00:53:51):
Chance to even

Jeff Jarvis (00:53:52):
Graciously crap

Ant Pruitt (00:53:53):
Test back out

Jeff Jarvis (00:53:53):
System. She fought for a

Leo Laporte (00:53:55):
Long time. No, no nominee will survive 18 months of this kind of stuff. You just can't. You, in fact, I was surprised they lasted this long. It's because Biden really wanted her in that she was

Jeff Jarvis (00:54:04):
Able, well, Biden Biden's under criticism too for not having supported enough not having gone to the mat.

Stacey Higginbotham (00:54:08):
Yeah. He, he could have gone to the, gone to the mattresses. Is that afraid

Ant Pruitt (00:54:12):
Gone the mat. So

Leo Laporte (00:54:14):
Going, the mattress

Ant Pruitt (00:54:15):
Really

Leo Laporte (00:54:16):
Is when you're getting ready for a gang war. So when the Sopranos go to the mattresses, oh, or the in the Godfather, when they go to

Ant Pruitt (00:54:25):
The

Leo Laporte (00:54:25):
Coons, go to the mattresses, that's because we're having a gang war. When you go to the mat, it's a wrestling metaphor, isn't it, Jeff?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:54:34):
I, I feel like they should have gone to the mattresses. I would've

Jeff Jarvis (00:54:37):
Gone to the mattresses

Ant Pruitt (00:54:38):
<Laugh>,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:54:40):
He's totally worth it. I would've gone

Jeff Jarvis (00:54:42):
Straight out.

Ant Pruitt (00:54:43):
But that would've all of my heart wearing, like, I know there's a lot of money involved, but man, we, the people get outraged over so much stuff that is way smaller in value. You know, where's the outrage from? We, the people on this, where's outrage where we can actually get in and, and raise these $200,000, half a million dollars million. Well,

Leo Laporte (00:55:08):
You're right. Million. You,

Jeff Jarvis (00:55:09):
Well, Mr. Duran, there's a lot of, there's a lot of outrage about I don't know, Google, Twitter, and so on and so forth, but the company we all universally hate is our phone company. The companies that try to ruin the internet is the phone company. Yeah. The companies that, that spend this fortune on lobbying to kill things like net neutrality is the phone company. Yes. We hate Ma Bell's children, but they cleverly managed to get away with it a lot more than the tech companies these days.

Leo Laporte (00:55:37):
Yeah. You know, and I ca you, you're actually raising the most important point. And you, and, and it, and it speaks directly to what you said about, I just, I don't like this stuff. I don't, I hate this stuff, and I don't blame you. I don't blame you. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And that's exactly what these companies want. They want you to say, it's too complicated, it's too contentious. I, it doesn't affect me. Screw it. And, and so there's really only one way they can win if you and others like you don't get educated and don't vote if you don't participate. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So, because they've got all the money, they've got the war chest, they buy these ads, but it's also in their interest, I think, to keep people unhappy, to keep people dismissive of politics. You can't win. It can't, you can't make a difference. It doesn't. I, I'm not gonna vote. And that's how, that's really the ultimate way to win. Because truth

Ant Pruitt (00:56:29):
Is, and I gotta tell you, that's every, that's a lot of my thinking, sir. A lot of my thinking is, man, my vote. I know it counts, but I hardly ever go into any voting scenario with faith.

Leo Laporte (00:56:40):
Yeah. And that's why we have, it's really our job, I believe in, in the, in the media to convince people like you, you're the target. We said, you're the most normal person on the show. You're the target <laugh> to convince people like you, that you're not only your vote count, it's the only way to win against deep pockets. And so the, but it's hard, you know, explaining net neutrality. I do this, I've been doing this for 10 years, trying to explain net neutrality is very, very difficult. And companies make it even more difficult with giveaways. You know, explaining zero

Stacey Higginbotham (00:57:15):
Rating, like zero rating.

Leo Laporte (00:57:16):
Yeah. Explain zero rating to people is very hard. This is where T-Mobile says, Hey, by the way, you're gonna get a year free at Disney Plus, and it's not gonna count against your data cap. Data cap. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so that's all called zero rating. It's a way that T-Mobile could put their thumb on the scale and make consumers go, well, there's nothing wrong with that. I like that. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. And so it's a very difficult thing, but the, we have to do better. I think we, media has to do better educating people about what neutrality means, why this is so important. Especially we on the internet, we who use the internet to, to, to broadcast, to write, to, to communicate. Because it really is the, one of the most important issues that the FCC has to deal with right now. And ultimately, and this is what the EF F said by the way, in, in response to son's withdrawal. This is the the guy I just quoted from the e F Falcon, he said, it's never been about Gigi. So it's always been about preventing the FCC from doing its job. These

Ant Pruitt (00:58:16):
Companies. That's what it sounds like, right?

Leo Laporte (00:58:18):
Yes. Yep. They don't want regulation. They've got the money to buy the billboards, to convince and buy the politicians to buy the politicians. But you also,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:58:25):
I mean, they bought Ajit pie. Good

Leo Laporte (00:58:27):
Lord, work good, man. Honestly, if people voted, money's only good To the extent that sways people's votes. If people voted, ultimately that's the only real currency in any of this is your vote. Well,

Stacey Higginbotham (00:58:39):
As people vote and become more successful, what we're seeing is then an attack on voting rights. We cannot solve this here.

Ant Pruitt (00:58:46):
But yeah, that was the other part is some people, they, it's apparently, it's a struggle just to be able to go

Leo Laporte (00:58:51):
And vote. Well, that should tell you something. That should tell you something. That means your vote is valuable. Cuz they're, they're putting a lot of effort into keeping you from voting, especially as a black person. Yeah. They do not want black people voting in this country. So that should tell you, your vote is valuable. Everybody's vote is valuable. And I, I would have no fear for this country at all if everybody voted and if everybody got educated before they voted, that would be the best thing for us. Well,

Ant Pruitt (00:59:19):
That's the other piece is education. Yeah. The education attacking education. I absolutely hated reading all of those dag gun pamphlets and arguments, you know, prior to voting. Because everybody's going to, again, throw mud first and foremost before presenting any type of facts. And then you finally get to the facts to figure out, okay, why am I voting on this? Why does this matter to me? Why does this matter to my family? So on and so forth. I hated reading those things. You women voters did you have to though? What's that?

Stacey Higginbotham (00:59:46):
The League of Women Voters Pamphlets. Those are pretty, those are relatively neutral is, I would say hadn't seen. And then if you have like,

Ant Pruitt (00:59:54):
Hadn't seen that, I'd just get whatever comes in the mail and then I go online and try to look at multiple different sources. Cuz you know, I don't wanna

Stacey Higginbotham (01:00:01):
Look at the League of Women voters. I dunno if, did they start because they were trying to educate women? Yes. When we finally got the vote only, oh my God, was it only a century ago?

Leo Laporte (01:00:11):
Yeah. That's a very trustworthy non, and I would say nonpartisan source. Yeah. I also go to a place called Balloted, which I recommend to everybody I've

Ant Pruitt (01:00:21):
Seen ballot.

Leo Laporte (01:00:21):
P Yeah. Also really all about not partisan, not a arguing one way or the other, but just about giving you the information. Cuz it's hard to get that information. We're dealing with this right now with Michael who just got the right to vote. You know, last year's

Ant Pruitt (01:00:35):
20 dude, talk about vulnerable.

Leo Laporte (01:00:37):
Yeah. And so and Lisa's great with, at Lisa's so good with this because she'll, she sat down with his ballot. She said, let's go over each of these issues. Let me show you how to research it. Let me show you. And then she says, so now that you know this, what do you think? And he'd say, well, here's what I think. And we'd say, good. There's your see, check that box then. And I think every parent needs to do this with their kids when they get turned 18. 

Stacey Higginbotham (01:01:01):
We do it before I do it when I'm

Leo Laporte (01:01:03):
Voting. I, when I was a kid, when, when our kids were little, I would take 'em into the voting booth with me. Absolutely. I wanted them to understand, this is the single most important thing you do in a democracy. This is, this is the, the, this is your job. This is your job. It's the, it's your, it's your job paying taxes and voting and, and it's the life lifeblood. If you don't like the taxes, then vote <laugh>. You know? Right. Exactly. All of this. Exactly. All of it. The problem is it's really easy to think with. Doesn't matter. I don't see the impact. And honestly, when it, and I think this is the intent, when you flood the zone with bs, people throw up their hands. They say, ah, screw it. So this is, this is the v Vladimir Putin's strategy. This is the trolls strategy. This is to some degree the political party strategy these days. And this is what, this is where I think Twitter went wrong. You flood the zone with so much conflict and BS that Ant, you go, screw that. I'm done. Yeah. And you know what? I'm gonna keep my head down. I'm gonna do my job. I'm gonna feed my family. I'm gonna, you know, watch a movie on Saturday night.

Ant Pruitt (01:02:07):
Yep. Have a whiskey, have a cigar.

Leo Laporte (01:02:09):
Yep. And I completely understand that life. I often wonder how people who live in places like Putin's Russia survive. And that's how you survive. You just, you say, I you trust

Jeff Jarvis (01:02:21):
Nothing. It's not,

Leo Laporte (01:02:22):
Not, well, not even that. It doesn't affect me. I got the potatoes to, to harvest. I'm gonna make my vodka. You know, we'll see you later. And, and unfortunately more, I see, especially smart geeks, this's very common among people who love technology. And our audience is, there's, they go, ah, it's just a cesspool. Screw it. Yeah. But that's how people like Donald Trump get elected is the lack of involvement among people who know that it's not

Jeff Jarvis (01:02:53):
So much who votes, but who chooses not to vote. Right. Makes that happen.

Ant Pruitt (01:02:56):
Well said. Mr. Jarvis.

Leo Laporte (01:02:58):
And by the way, the political parties know this. And so they carefully tailor their message to get the voters they want to the polls, which is why all these social issues are taking the, the the four, because that's a hot button issue that can get you out to the polls.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:03:17):
Well, galvanizes

Leo Laporte (01:03:18):
People. Galvanizes people. Right.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:03:22):
Okay. Back to Google. And

Leo Laporte (01:03:23):
There's your civics lesson for today. Anyway. It's sad about G G C. How was I didn't know. Don't tell me.

Jeff Jarvis (01:03:28):
How's a bill made?

Leo Laporte (01:03:30):
<Laugh> <laugh>. I'm just a bill on Capitol Hill. It's too bad. You know, all

Ant Pruitt (01:03:35):
I know is I turn on a light switch and something shows up in the mill that says I owe X amount of dollars. That's the only deal.

Leo Laporte (01:03:42):
Did you have schoolhouse rock when you were a kid, Dan? Yes. I know you did. Stacy. Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:03:48):
So that Well, Ant and I are about the same age.

Leo Laporte (01:03:50):
Oh, he's so much older than you. You, isn't he?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:03:53):
No, I think he might be younger. I

Ant Pruitt (01:03:55):
Think we're roughly the same age. I'm just, I'm trolling. I never divulge.

Leo Laporte (01:03:58):
I'm trolling. I'm trolling. Yeah. Schoolhouse rock. Educated that your whole generation but they don't do that anymore, do they? Look at that? I mean, here's the Schoolhouse Rock channel on YouTube. 11,000 subscribers. Of course, they only have nine videos. It's not the official one. I don't know if there is an official one.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:04:18):
It's probably on hbo O just like Sesame Street now. Okay. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:04:22):
Well, the Washington Post had a story today. Slavery was wrong and five other things some educators won't teach

Leo Laporte (01:04:29):
Anymore.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:04:30):
Yeah. Ooh, I saw this. This did feel a little bit like people prodding to get

Leo Laporte (01:04:35):
It's a lifestyle story. Media

Stacey Higginbotham (01:04:36):
Cu Yeah. Media coverage. Yeah. I mean like the, I I read the, I read the story. The guy was like, he went in, he's like, so I can't say slavery is wrong. And they're like, well, that's an opinion. But it was a con it was a conversation about, I mean, do I, do I think this is a good trend? You can chill.

Ant Pruitt (01:04:52):
Yes. I would've never clicked on it.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:04:55):
I will also say that when we talk about your voice matters and voting mm-hmm. <Affirmative> the culture warriors, for the lack of better word, who are against, you know, who are trying, I'm gonna just say many of trans them are racist. Just

Leo Laporte (01:05:09):
Say trans. Because this is Well, no, I

Stacey Higginbotham (01:05:12):
Was thinking people who are like c r t trans, anti-trans people, they're crusading. They're doing the set a local level and going into, if you read some of the stories about what's happening at school boards Yeah. Like, they're actually creating grassroots efforts that then go into individual communities, find a point person to then go to the school board and be like, and then they back them up with all of their resources. So they have tremendous resources to then create this outrage about making white people feel uncomfortable learning about slavery. Which, you know what? It is uncomfortable. It's really uncomfortable. And it should

Leo Laporte (01:05:49):
Be, I, I like to use, because it's uncomfortable for blackpool's to hear about it. Sure, yeah, sure. I like to use transgender stuff. The tran the, the sudden increase in anti-trans legislation as a real proxy for this. Because I can tell you right now nobody has ever been damaged in any way by somebody deciding how to express their gender. That's not, that's a personal decision. It doesn't really change anybody's life. Right.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:06:20):
Well, what they've done is correlate that to sexual predation. Yes. Understand. Even though there's,

Leo Laporte (01:06:24):
There's no evidence documentation there. Okay. Yeah. So this has been a very effective hot button cuz it, because people have a visceral reaction when they see somebody who's trans. They often have a visceral reaction. And the right has seen, ah, this is useful. We can use this, this emotional reaction. And they've gone, in fact, if you look, they've gone state by state to convince states that, oh, these people are dangerous and you need to pass bills against them. It's not, it's not really because trans people are dangerous to the right or to anybody else. It has nothing to do with that. And that's really the most important thing to understand. It's a way of getting people upset so that they will vote. So they will vote our party into office. And that's the real goal. Cuz nobody's worried about trans people making a bad thing happen.

(01:07:19):
It's not at drag shows. Perfect example. Who cares? Yeah. There's stuff going on in Nashville. Who cares if somebody dresses up like a woman and does a show That's fun, that's entertainment. Didn't you see some like it hot? It's entertainment. Didn't you see Milton Burr? It's entertainment. But if we can get people upset about it, then we can get them to votes and their votes and then we can do what we really wanna do. Which in my opinion is to give the telecommunications companies free reign, eliminate regulation, reduce taxes. It's a, it's a better than a smoke screen. It's a, it's a trick and it's a very effective trick. And unfortunately, the real sad thing is there are trans kids and there are drag and there are drag queens who are completely and utterly harmless. Have you ever met a harmful drag queen? They are completely and utterly harmed who are being murdered, who are being prevented from care, who are being severely damaged by this. And it's all for a very cynical political ploy. And that's, that's the exact example of this. You know, we'll leave race out of it cuz that's a hot button topic. It's the same thing, by the way. The same thing's happening. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But it, but, but no one can say drag queens are hazardous. They're not, they're not.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:08:39):
They could be hazardous to your ego.

Leo Laporte (01:08:41):
<Laugh> damn beautiful. So I have to tell you, watch out because hell, this, this is happening right now. Look what's going on in Florida right now. This is a pre Nazi state now.

Jeff Jarvis (01:08:55):
Yes,

Leo Laporte (01:08:56):
Yes. This is a, this is exactly what was going on in 1930s. Germany,

Jeff Jarvis (01:09:02):
Reid Hannah Aran.

Leo Laporte (01:09:04):
And, and it is really concerning. And I feel for anybody living in Florida, but especially if you're gay, if you're a minority of any kind in Florida,

Jeff Jarvis (01:09:15):
I, I know parents are trans kids in Florida and they just don't know what to do.

Leo Laporte (01:09:19):
What do you do? You can't. And, and if you're, you protect child and you wanna read a book, you can't read a Wrinkle in Time. I mean, what are we doing? That's nuts. And it, but I have to say, I, you know, after thinking long and hard, is this really? Cuz they hate drag queens. Is this hate cuz they hate me? No, no. It's about getting in office so that they can, it's their real agenda, which is direction.

Jeff Jarvis (01:09:41):
I'm gonna say it, I'm gonna say it. And I don't mean as a joke this time. It's, it is the essence of moral panic. You have, you, you, you convince people that there's something that is a threat to society. There's a folk devil Who is that threat? Doesn't matter who it is. It could be Jews in Germany, it could be trans people here.

Leo Laporte (01:09:56):
Yeah. Jews weren't the real problem in Germany. That wasn't the point. Right. <laugh>

Stacey Higginbotham (01:10:02):
Newsflash,

Leo Laporte (01:10:03):
<Laugh>. That's a really good example. Yeah, that's a really good example. And it, it breaks my heart because I think it's so damaging. You can't read Brave New World in cynical in Florida. What, what are you talking about? What are you, what is, that's insane.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:10:23):
Okay. we have to get off this cuz I'm just gonna have to go drink right after this call and I gotta make dinner and do this.

Leo Laporte (01:10:29):
I'm still looking at my desk and bottles empties. But what I'm saying, what I'm saying, what I'm really saying is this is an excuse not to drink, not to go unconscious, but to get conscious and to act and to do something about it. Because if you don't vote, this just spreads. It was the, it was the good Germans, right? Yeah. It was the good Germans who said, well, it's not gonna affect me. It's

Stacey Higginbotham (01:10:50):
Not, I think personally, as someone who is younger and a little bit, I have to live in this. I, I, I can't count on dying and I've got a kid. I am, I think in addition to voting, you actually have to get out and, and take action in terms of you have to go to the mattresses now. You have to go to protests. You have to actively Yeah, I agree. Call your regula regulators, your legislators. 

Leo Laporte (01:11:14):
You know, the most important thing though, is you, that you cannot despair because that's when they win. When you give up, you can't allow yourself to give up. That's all. Yeah. Okay. And I, and so that's what I would say to you, Ant. I know it's really tempting. I give up all the time. Don't

Stacey Higginbotham (01:11:32):
Give up Ant.

Leo Laporte (01:11:33):
It's hard. Not so hard not to despair. And as it gets worse, which it will, it's gonna get harder. I'm

Ant Pruitt (01:11:38):
Gonna continue to vote. That's,

Leo Laporte (01:11:39):
That's, yeah. At least I'm gonna continue be active and shit. I

Ant Pruitt (01:11:42):
I've earned that. Right. Oh, I'm sorry. I keep dropping splits. 

Jeff Jarvis (01:11:46):
We're allowed to now

Leo Laporte (01:11:47):
This one. Yeah. We're we by the way, Renee,

Jeff Jarvis (01:11:50):
Richie? Renee.

Leo Laporte (01:11:51):
Richie. We must have invoked him. I must have said his name three times. It showed up in our discord and said, what, what, what <laugh> you need me? What do you do? Hi

Jeff Jarvis (01:12:00):
Renee.

Leo Laporte (01:12:00):
He's gonna be on twit in a couple of weeks. So we'll, we'll get to say hi and talk about outstanding all sorts of stuff. But he's gonna be on the big show.

Jeff Jarvis (01:12:07):
Google knows all they heard you say it. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:12:11):
Hey, speaking of Google,

Jeff Jarvis (01:12:14):
We do, do we Google

Leo Laporte (01:12:16):
IO is coming May 10th. Did you get an invite, Jeff?

Jeff Jarvis (01:12:20):
Oh, small audience. They said, did you

Leo Laporte (01:12:23):
Jason Howell did. And he's gonna be going and we are gonna cover it. Yes. Jason's

Jeff Jarvis (01:12:27):
Going, Ooh, I'm so jealous, Jason.

Leo Laporte (01:12:30):
It's one day. Oh, you know what? It's another one of these things. Should we do the, should we do the puzzle? What?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:12:40):
Oh no, I was looking for my thing. I was like I didn't know where. I think I got an invite. <Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:12:47):
Look and see, I didn't really look and see. You could come down for that. Spend a day with us. Yeah, so

Stacey Higginbotham (01:12:54):
We, I mean, I could, sorry.

Leo Laporte (01:12:55):
And if you don't, if you don't, you can come on with, in fact, I'd like to invite you to Jeff to do our coverage cuz we'll stream the keynote presuming that they stream it. And we will have Yeah, they're going to,

Jeff Jarvis (01:13:05):
They're

Leo Laporte (01:13:05):
Going to. Yeah. And I'm very pleased to say we will have Mr. Jason Howell.

Jeff Jarvis (01:13:12):
Jason and I used to have such fun hanging out there

Leo Laporte (01:13:14):
Together. Oh, me too. It was so much fun. It's not the Google io of years gone by this year. Right?

Jeff Jarvis (01:13:23):
It's, well, they're gonna have to do better than they did with their barred presentation in Paris.

Leo Laporte (01:13:30):
Yeah. keynotes will be live and available on, we

Stacey Higginbotham (01:13:33):
All have bad presentations. Jeff

Jeff Jarvis (01:13:35):
<Laugh> <laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:13:39):
There was no Google IO in 2020 cuz of the covid pandemic. There was a small on-campus stage in 2021 with we, we covered it with Google folks there. They went back to the shoreline last year but only had a few people at the event to watch live. And it was a one day event. I think it's gonna be similar, the quote, limited live audience shoreline, keynote, Sundar Pacha. We don't know the time. I think 10:00 AM on May 10th. But this is where Google announces this is, I think, given how soon it is, this is probably where we're gonna hear more about Bard, because remember you know, Google kind of, whoops. Missed the, missed the boat a little bit when,

Jeff Jarvis (01:14:28):
Or or Google very wisely said, we are the careful one. We're the responsible An one Microsoft is not. Microsoft is, well,

Leo Laporte (01:14:37):
They're saying it now,

Jeff Jarvis (01:14:39):
<Laugh>. No, they were saying that. They said it during the Bard presentation too.

Leo Laporte (01:14:42):
Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:14:43):
You know, I was thinking, Leo, I was thinking you probably hate this idea, but this bean This Week in Google, what if we had kind of a special show about what you would do to fix Google?

Leo Laporte (01:14:54):
Oh, ooh. Who would we have on

Stacey Higginbotham (01:14:57):
That requires prep? Not Punditry.

Leo Laporte (01:14:59):
Oh, <laugh>. You're right.

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:00):
Oh,

Leo Laporte (01:15:01):
Nevermind. Oh golly. You're right.

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:04):
Shoot. <laugh>. Darn it.

Leo Laporte (01:15:07):
Forgot all about that. Could you do the prep for us, Stacy? And then just tell us what we should

Stacey Higginbotham (01:15:14):
Say. I mean, I could do some prep. I'm happy us to give it a good think. Give

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:19):
<Laugh> a good think.

Leo Laporte (01:15:20):
Its a good think <laugh>.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:15:21):
We'll have a good think on it. Maybe do some

Leo Laporte (01:15:24):
Interviews a good think. Well actually, I think part of this would be getting the right people on. Yes.

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:30):
Yes. That'd

Leo Laporte (01:15:30):
Be people who have been outspoken, like Mike ELGAN, who says Sun Neci the worst CEO in Silicon Valley. Maybe we should get Blake Lamoyne. The, the Google engineer was fired for single. No, no, no. 

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:45):
We can, but we also use the fact that we have this, the Zoom structure. Now we can have people call in for a few minutes, but their

Stacey Higginbotham (01:15:50):
Why don't you get what's, what's her name? Timma. .

Leo Laporte (01:15:53):
Oh, Tim. Yeah. And sch Margaret. There you go. Mitchell. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:15:57):
And sch Margaret. Sch Mitchell and Emily Bender.

Leo Laporte (01:16:00):
I think, I mean, to be fair, you're right. We're just pundits. But though we have heard all of those voices on this show expressed right. We've talked about stochastic parrots and, and you know, Tim point and I think we've represented them well.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:16:17):
Oh yeah. It was, it was a joke. More in the sense that,

Leo Laporte (01:16:20):
Oh yeah, well, I don't like hell and I'm just gonna gonna,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:16:23):
I'm like the prep, the prep work that we do here for like, I don't know if I'm doing the prep work where I would feel confident saying

Leo Laporte (01:16:30):
No. I mean, neither. No, I agree with you. I think we can think

Jeff Jarvis (01:16:32):
It through. But the next Friday the 17th is stochastic parrots

Leo Laporte (01:16:35):
Day. Oh. Oh.

Jeff Jarvis (01:16:37):
Till we get to go events. <Laugh> <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:16:40):
That's sarcastic pirates.

Jeff Jarvis (01:16:43):
Stochastic parrots.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:16:44):
Dang it.

Leo Laporte (01:16:45):
Here's the Google IO announcement. There's something going on here. I don't know what this is. Usually they have a puzzle to solve, right? Okay. They're counting down the time. What's, what's this? Oh, that's the sound that's

Jeff Jarvis (01:17:02):
Mute. You know what? A mute button.

Leo Laporte (01:17:03):
Oh, wait a minute. What is this? I could change the beats.

(01:17:09):
Wait a minute. This is 23. Oh, these are previous iOS. What the heck is this? I don't know what's going on. Google's so cute. They do all this fun stuff. Anyway, we are 16 puzzles, got laid off. 17 hours. Yeah. Right. Four minutes and 14 seconds away from Google io. And we will cover it. We will live cover the live stream. We will have our commentary here. I'll just stop that right now. Thank you. Don't stop it right now. Thank you. <Laugh>. Tick tick. Yeah. Ticket clock is gonna make Stacy think the, the show should be over. So you don't want that. One way to hustle through the show would be to our, our second ad. How about that? That'll keep things moving along. What do, what do you think? Only an hour and 16:00 AM It's only four o'clock. What the heck? How could it be?

(01:17:58):
Actually, I wanna tell you about a new tool that we are using here at twit to prepare. Our Asthe tech guy show. Mike and I are doing it, and it's really cool. And it's a sponsor. I had not actually, I was not familiar with them. I think I'd heard the name, but I was not really familiar with them called Miro, m i r o. But we realized one of the hardest things about about doing Miro, talking about Miro, about doing an ad for Miro is what is Miro? You know, because it's anything you want it to be. Well, that helps a lot. I guess. It looks like a, you know, a first glance, a simple digital whiteboard, but it's so much more than that. Miro is essentially collaboration tool. A very, very visual online collaboration tool the teams can use for brainstorming to create a new product, to innovate, to organize meetings.

(01:18:57):
They have timers built in. So you can just, like Stacy did with the Elon story, you can time your conference call. They have all, all sorts of tools to help you. They integrate with so many cool things. I, but I just don't know how to, how to describe it. We're gonna have to show you. We're working with Miro on an Asthe tech guys board. You could do it for as a mood board. You could, you could do it as a can band board. So you keep track of projects, brainstorming, designing. You could use it for icebreakers. The best thing, maybe go to Miro. And by the way, the website, miro.com/podcast, so we get a credit for it. And then take a look at what they call the Miro verse. This is a place where others have posted their templates. And this can give you kind of an idea of the kinds of things you could do.

(01:19:54):
Mind mapping, gender balance, quiz, retrospective, empathy map, product designer, self-evaluation, hyper-focus, character mixing, match mix and match icebreaker. There are lots of icebreakers on here. They're fun things you can do. Some of them a little weird. Here's a Beatles retrospective. I've mentioned this before. The weirdest one from me was the Harry Potter retrospective created by the UK government <laugh>, but I think they did it for brainstorming purposes. Here's a Chinese New Year from a lead scrum master. You could even play connect four if you wanted to. <Laugh> a great way to plan, to design, to think, to make the kinds of work that we hate here. Those, that thing called prepping <laugh>, the thing called thinking to make it easier so you can get the job done and you'll all be viewing and sharing the same big picture, which is nice. Everyone will have a voice. Everyone can tap into that single source of truth.

(01:21:01):
It's great for a team cuz your team stays engaged and invested and happy. It is a fun way to work together. Cut out any confusion on who needs to do what by mapping out processes and roles and timelines. There's a swim lane template you can use or a can band board. Strategic planning's easier because it's visual. We're, we're humans are visual, frankly. And this is a tool you can use on a big screen, on a laptop, a desktop, on a whiteboard. Cuz it's a virtual whiteboard. You can use it on one of those Google, you know, TV screens. They have to work together. But in a way it's kind of like that. Even if you're in different places for, you know, hybrid work, this is a great way of having all the team together in one space. And, and you don't have to worry whether they have legs or not.

(01:21:49):
Cuz it has, it's not virtual reality to, although I wouldn't be surprised if they have some ideas about that tap into a way to map processes, systems, and plans with the whole team. So they not only view it, but have a chance to give feedback as well. And if you are feeling meeting fatigue, ugh, you will love Miro because it, it makes meetings more fun and more effective and shorter. Miro users report saving up to 80 hours per user per year, just cuz of those streamlined conversations. Are you ready to be part of the more than million users who use Miro every month to solve problems, to get their work done, to have fun to play work should be play, shouldn't it? It can be with Miro. We'll show you. We're still working on our Asthe Tech guys board when it's done, we'll show you.

(01:22:35):
 I'm very excited about that. Get your first three boards for free. Oh, I did I mention that? Yeah. Your first three boards free so you can try it and really get a sense of it. I think it's a great thing because it's, I know it's gonna what, like what It's very, it's whatever you need it to be. Whatever you want it to be, you start working together better. Miro.Com/Podcast. Miro is m i r o miro.com/podcast. Very cool. Very fun thing. And we've started to use it as a company and really, again, a lot of mileage. Jonathan, I think miro.com/podcast. Highly recommended. Okay. Facebook <laugh>. Remember I said Jan Lacoon, who's in charge of AI at Facebook. His first reaction to chat G p t was we could do that. We could do that. We, we always, we could always do that. Well, apparently they could.

(01:23:32):
And now we know because their large language model has leaked online. It was posted on four chan <laugh>. Facebook has been very, just like Google, very careful about it. Unlike Microsoft, they've been very careful about who has access to it. And they, and what they would do is, is you'd have to apply and they'd give you approval. Researchers have been using it, government officials, members of civil society. Apparently somebody got it on, put it up on four chan. It's the first time according to Vice a major tech proprietary a I model has leaked to the public. Even when you used Chan, how many you could actually do much with it?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:24:14):
Well, it do. I mean, it do this, it doesn't matter if a lot of people can, it's just

Leo Laporte (01:24:18):
That the Right. Some people can, four chan members can. It's kind like they're running it on their own machines. Yeah, right. It's the bomb plans. And, and, and of course it's probably competitively difficult because I'm sure researchers from the other companies have immediately take, taken a look at it. It, there are different sizes. What's Surf Park? Do we know yet? No, I haven't, I haven't heard from anybody who's played with it to see. But part of the reason is Facebook has been very clear <laugh> that if you use this in any way, you're in deep dooo. They're ta there's issuing takedown requests. And I think that they, they have, they have said to some people, you better not you, you better not. Clinic DeLong, who's the CEO of Hugging Face, that's the stable diffusion company. Be diffusion. Yeah. Posted a staff update from GitHub regarding the repository company. Meta platforms has requested a takedown of this published model, characterizing it as an unauthorized distribution of meta properties that constitutes copyright infringement or improper authorized use and cautioned users against not only using it, but uploading any weights to the internet. They're, they're, they acted. Facebook acted very quickly on this,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:25:40):
And it's not something you can really, because I know it's not necessarily training, but you're still running a pretty large model. You need some serious compute horsepower. Not saying that, but it, it's not necessarily like something an individual could do. You need access to some.

Leo Laporte (01:25:55):
The one, the, the, and I don't know because I, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm in moron, but I was stable with stable effusion anyway, which I have installed and used. You can download other models. They call 'em checkpoints. But you can download a series of, you can download a model that's trained on a series of images from, you know, anime. And then you have all, they have a more of an anime flavor to the stuff that's generated by it. I don't know if it's in that state. It's not clear to me, but it is possible to boil these large language models down in such a way that you can use them with a proper front end.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:26:35):
Yes. I think Can you just say they're, oh, sorry, go ahead. Go ahead, Stacey. I think they're running stable diffusion on a phone. It would be an Android phone.

Leo Laporte (01:26:44):
I have it right now on my, yes, it's been doing that on my iPhone. Iphone. There is a a program free open source called Draw Things that's stable diffusion on an iPhone.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:26:56):
Oh, so, so Qualcomm had to tweak its stuff to make sure it was up to apples.

Leo Laporte (01:27:01):
Yeah, that works fine. Apples

Stacey Higginbotham (01:27:02):
Bionic whatever.

Leo Laporte (01:27:04):
Yeah, it works. Anything with a neural processor should be able to do it. Let me see if I can find the it's called Draw Things and it, it, it, if you've ever used stable diffusion, you'll recognize it immediately. That's the stable diffusion interface. And you can even download other checkpoints. So you, you know, get to choose the models and there's different versions of stable diffusion available. These models are big 1.6 gigs, but there, there's, there's quite a few. So this is the full stable diffusion running. And by the way, I should point out in reasonable time on on a on an iPhone. This is an iPhone 14 Promax. I mean, it's the high end iPhone, but it doesn't take long. This is a little Christmas card I made out of cut paper. But that's a simple prompt. You can have more, more complicated prompts featuring Stacy's mom.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:28:00):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:28:02):
What do you think it's gonna do with that? I don't know.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:28:05):
I really don't know. I

Leo Laporte (01:28:06):
Don't know if we wanna know. 

Stacey Higginbotham (01:28:09):
Let's fountains of Wayne spells their Stacy without the superfluous

Leo Laporte (01:28:13):
E Oh, so it's not your mom. It's somebody else's mom. That's fun.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:28:16):
It's it, it's another Stacy's mom. It's

Leo Laporte (01:28:17):
Some other, you're right, some other Stacy. And it has all the parameters that, you know, you normally have with stable diffusion and stuff. It's fun. It's, it's, you know, so yeah, Qualcomm finally figured out how to put it on Android device.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:28:29):
<Laugh>. Okay. Yeah. Well, I was like, we've had that

Leo Laporte (01:28:31):
Forever. Yeah. <laugh>,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:28:34):
You're like, we can show it off. Yeah. It does it in under 15 seconds. Can I ask a

Jeff Jarvis (01:28:39):
Question? I, I understand how language, large language models make tokens for words and data about the relationships. Among the words, how does a visual one work? What's a token in the learning set for a visual?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:28:56):
It depends on if it's for photos versus videos. 2D versus 3d. The most basic, all right, so like a 2D facial kind of model thing, or even something like pers like object detection. They're creating relationships between significant things on a face for fa facial recognition. So they're looking for like eyes. And so they're doing like the distance between your eyes and your mouth and your nose. So that that's what

Leo Laporte (01:29:28):
They're doing. Are they training on the idea of the eye and recognizing what an eye

Stacey Higginbotham (01:29:30):
Is? I think they pick out the eye on their own in the model. Like, you show 'em enough faces and they're like, well, all these faces seem to have, everybody has Yeah. These things. And then so, and then to understand the difference, they, they figure out, okay, the relation, those relationships on, like the 3D models, which are used for like video, it's more complex. And usually what happens is the computer's going, it will identify things like eyes and stuff. But then you're also writing code to recognize that the object has not permanence. Something beyond the flatness of it does that. Depth, depth, depth, that's the word.

Leo Laporte (01:30:09):
<Laugh>. <laugh>. There's a dimensions, there's a short video on YouTube associated with a larger article from Louis Boar. How GE AI generates new images. Ganz simply put as Louie, l o u i s b o u c h a r d.ai. And you could find him generate

Speaker 6 (01:30:30):
New images. We use an architecture called Generative dresser

Leo Laporte (01:30:34):
Network. And guess what? It works. He's friends

Speaker 6 (01:30:36):
Compos of a name code coder. Both

Leo Laporte (01:30:38):
Are, I didn't understand. Anyway, you can, you can watch this. You know what, YouTube is really good for this subject, by the way. There's some really fantastic Yeah. Explanative explan. Well, I also wanna get the TikTok person I sent you on about ai. Is it in the oh look, here's what we giant

Stacey Higginbotham (01:30:59):
<Laugh>. Oh

Leo Laporte (01:30:59):
God edition. What? Well, what, what can we just, cuz Stacy, I feel the pain. I feel your pain here is No,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:07):
No.

Leo Laporte (01:31:07):
I'm a TikTok waffle maker. Ooh, this, this goes on for quite a while. He's actually taking an old waffle maker that he bought somewhere. And, and Oh,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:20):
That's okay. It's called a waffle iron

Leo Laporte (01:31:22):
Waffle ironer. And why you waffles are flat. Why would you use an iron? So anyway, he's gonna he's gonna clean it up. He's gonna, he's gonna fix it up. He's gonna, he's gonna buff it up. I hope at the end there's waffles. I'm just hoping it's seven minutes and 29 seconds. When

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:41):
Didn TikTok, I want you to do seven minutes.

Leo Laporte (01:31:44):
It's been a long time. I've watched it all. Look at that. Look how cleaned up it is now. Isn't that gorgeous? Ooh, it's beautiful. Pretty. It's beautiful. Oh, oh, here's the batter. Does make, it's going into the waffler. Look at those.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:31:56):
Did you heat it beforehand? And that's

Leo Laporte (01:31:58):
Like school old sizzle. You don't hear that. Sizzler, don't you eat your waffler first? You always eat it first. Look at that. Oh, that's good. It's gonna squish out the sides though. He's put too much to too much, I think. Yeah. Oh no, maybe not. Look at that. Oh no. He does what he's doing. He knows what he's doing. And he or she old things never die. Is the name of this TikTok, which I'm going to follow. Absolutely. Old underscore Stacey isn't not a beautiful piece of words. Oh, that's

Stacey Higginbotham (01:32:28):
Perfect. Is that, is that like the Le Waffle? It's the little

Leo Laporte (01:32:30):
Thin. He's putting some Na Coco on there. Little Mama <laugh>. And to the rest of his, that waffle fits in his hand is too small. <Laugh>, it's

Stacey Higginbotham (01:32:44):
Too small. That is fair. I did already have my waffle for the show, so this was good that I saw this. Now <laugh>, because otherwise

Leo Laporte (01:32:50):
Good it for you. Stacy. I did it for you. Thank you. I have, I own, it's an Una cupboard underneath the counter cuz we never do it. But one of those waffles, waffles a hundred things you want. It's a round Belgian waffler that you pour the thing and then, and then you wait and then you flip it over. You flip it over as a handle. Yep. Mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. Yep. We use ours quite regularly. It's good, isn't it? More so hard hit does I used to use it when I calories when Yeah. Before I realized it was making me extremely fat and, and when the kids were little. Cuz I don't mind making my kids fat. So Yeah. <Laugh> did you see big, big story in Politico? This was kind of a shocker about doorbells, the privacy loophole in your doorbell. Now maybe this is a one-off. We've

Stacey Higginbotham (01:33:32):
Talked about this on our show forever. Yeah. I mean this is a, this is an example of what I have long said about giving police initial access to these videos. Once you have a camera in your home, if someone decides there's a reason to subpoena that data, they can get it. They

Leo Laporte (01:33:48):
Can do it. Not just that. It's kind of like, not just that. So he had a ring video doorbell and it was among 21 ring cameras in a, he had 21 ring cameras in and around his home and business. The police were conducting, they said a drug related investigation on a neighbor and asked for videos of suspicious activity between five and 7:00 PM on one particular night. He said, fine, I got it. He sent he sent the clips in. In fact, there was a car that drove by 12 times in that tour, hour timeframe. He thought that was all the police would need. Politico said they asked for more footage now from an entire day's worth of records. A week later he received a notice from Ring. The company had received a warrant approved by a judge saying, we want footage from all the cameras inside and out. Whether you want to or not, we're gonna share it. So this is the biggest loophole of all. Not only, you know, can they come to you and say, give us the video. They can subpoena ring and Right. They could subpoena with a fishing expedition that says, Hey, while we're at it, let's see what you are doing.

(01:35:05):
Wow.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:35:07):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:35:07):
Wow.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:35:08):
This is why you don't put that sort of stuff in inside. This is why I don't put that stuff in my home.

Leo Laporte (01:35:14):
<Laugh>. Yeah. So Lisa, long ago forbade cameras inside the house. Rightly so. And I, you know, we had cameras everywhere cuz I just was silly. And I'm glad now <laugh> and in fact, you know, when we guy Yeah, well, I, you know, and, and what could possibly go wrong? And then, and then and why would anybody want to see what's going on inside our house? Well, apparently it doesn't matter, right? Because it doesn't matter. Maybe something happened outside and they said, well, we should just, you know, let's just see what happened inside too. Well,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:35:48):
And if you start thinking, if you take this even further, you could say, Hey, is this person maybe a person of interest in something else? Right. Maybe we can exert a little pressure on them

Leo Laporte (01:35:57):
By doing this. It's called a fishing expedition. Yes. And it's not legal. Why would that be a problem? <Laugh>, if, I mean, I don't understand. Yeah. apparently according to Politico, all the US state privacy laws from the strictest regulations in California to the industry backed law in Virginia include exemptions if law enforcement asks. So really, you're, you're depending on the judge to have the sense to say, well, why would you want that? And this judge apparently did not. Or you're depending upon the legislature to have done a decent job of protecting your privacy. Like good news says the last week's piece. But no legis, no legislature in the state of, in any of the states has done that. Congress ha has, has Ed Marky actually sent a statement with the article. He's a democrat from Massachusetts. These, they are part of an ever expanding web of surveillance and communities across America. I've been ringing alarms about this company's threats to our privacy and civil liberties for years. Good. I see what you did there, ed

Stacey Higginbotham (01:37:04):
<Laugh>. So this is something that's gonna happen this year. Y'all shall all prep yourself. Just last week on Wednesday, the, the White House put out their national cybersecurity strategy for the year. And part of it was privacy. We have historically in the US focused on cybersecurity as without looking at privacy, without regulating anything related to privacy, even though they are closely related. But this year we're actually getting to that and we're, we see it with the White House calling for legislation and rules around rulemaking, around privacy, individual privacy and data privacy for connected devices. The csa, the organization behind Matter has released or has started a privacy working group. And something else just happened related to this that I can't remember.

Leo Laporte (01:37:53):
Does that leadership really understand the

Ant Pruitt (01:37:54):
Difference, security versus privacy?

Leo Laporte (01:37:58):
I should point out that Congress did have a privacy law, which is killed in committee, but even that national privacy law had a loophole for police warrants.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:08):
Well, yes. Although if you wanna just get around giving, giving company data to the police, you can just be like, okay, fine. We're just not gonna do it like Volkswagen did with the carjacking case.

Leo Laporte (01:38:22):
<Laugh>. And

Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:22):
Then what did y'all see?

Leo Laporte (01:38:23):
This? And then what

Stacey Higginbotham (01:38:24):
Happens? So Volkswagen, they, they basically, Volkswagen a woman, she was pregnant just to add insult injury here with a two-year-old in her new Volkswagen with location tracking was carjacked. And when she told the police, and they, oh, and they took the car with her two-year-old strapped inside his car seat. So when she went to the police, the police called Volkswagen and they're like, we know you have the fine, my feature, can you please tell us where this car is? There's a child inside. And this was the police, not the woman. And then Volkswagens, it wasn't Volkswagen, it was the contractor who's working for them under the service. Said, no, you, she didn't activate it. So you have to pay us $150 to get this information.

Leo Laporte (01:39:05):
Oh

Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:06):
Yeah, <laugh> and the police were like,

Ant Pruitt (01:39:08):
Okay, fine.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:39:09):
<Laugh> no, they, they actually paid the fee cuz they wanted to find the kid. But obviously that was not an ideal scenario. And now Volkswagen says that everybody who buys their cars with this service now gets it for free for five years because they really feel bad about screwing this one up. So much,

Leo Laporte (01:39:26):
So interesting. Basically. And so a congress is never gonna pass, nor any state legislature a law that says, no, the police can't get it with a due duly signed approved warrant. They're never, never gonna do that. So that's gonna happen. Companies do push back. Even ring pushes back Ring says, you know, they've said no in the past. They've stopped reporting on how many they've said no to of late. But they have pushed back in the past and companies have the right to do that. But I think most of the time why, why would a company go out on a limb to protect me? Unless it became a, a, a problem for their business that nobody was buying ring doorbells because of it. But why would Amazon go out on a limb if, if there's a warrant from, you know, law enforcement signed by a judge saying, give us Leo's inside cameras too. I doubt they're gonna push back on that. Maybe they are. I don't know why they

Stacey Higginbotham (01:40:24):
Well, they do pull

Leo Laporte (01:40:25):
Up their

Stacey Higginbotham (01:40:25):
Incentive. They do have encrypted video. Scooter X just brought this up and he's right. So Ring tries to get you not to encrypt your video. I'll be honest. Cuz they, they explain all the things that will happen. Right. But if they did encrypt the video, so I guess if you want cameras inside your home, if you turned on Ring does offer the encryption service. Now the danger is that if you don't have access to your phone or the, if you don't have your password or that sort of thing, you can't unencrypt it yourself. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. But that isn't question. Well, the

Jeff Jarvis (01:40:58):
Court can force you to unencrypt it.

Leo Laporte (01:40:59):
So I have a Google

Jeff Jarvis (01:41:00):
Jail. If you don't, I Right.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:02):
I I mean, can the court force you to open up your phone if the answer on that seems to be no, then is it why? Yeah. I You

Leo Laporte (01:41:11):
Can't, they can't ask you for the password. Couldn't make yourself No, that's, yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:41:14):
They can't ask you for the password. Yeah. <laugh>. So in that case then that would be precedent for not getting access to those videos if they were already

Leo Laporte (01:41:23):
Encrypt. This is why end-to-end encryption is such a hot topic. And we'll go back to Gigi's son.

Jeff Jarvis (01:41:28):
Exactly.

Leo Laporte (01:41:29):
Yeah. But this is why this is such a hot topic. I don't care what the fraternal order of Police says. You <laugh> you, we need to have end to end encryption. This protects your privacy in so many cases. And that's a, that's a good thing. I have a hella Google Hello Doorbell. I've never seen any offer to encrypt my videos. I didn't put the nest cams back up though. I had taken them down. I think we still, yeah, I have one looking at me right now. We still have 'em here in the studio for security reasons. It's just, I mean, man, maybe this is a completely isolated case. But this guy, Larkin quite reasonably is pissed because he has no say in this. And all the footage that's set back up to the ring server from the cameras in his home and his business are now being just here you go, sent off to law enforcement. Even though this is a crime that he has nothing to do with. In fact, those cameras in the business aren't even in the same neighborhood, but they got it all. That's just not okay.

Jeff Jarvis (01:42:31):
I, when I, when I ran local sites, the worst offenders in, in subpoenaing us for information for, for chatter's IP addresses were

Stacey Higginbotham (01:42:40):
Cops. The police.

Jeff Jarvis (01:42:41):
Yeah. Yeah. It was, and it was be because it was cops seeking other cops who were gossiping about them.

Leo Laporte (01:42:45):
Oh dear. Well, that's another problem.

Jeff Jarvis (01:42:48):
The, the, the, the, you know, the lieutenant would say somebody, Mr. Depart the same bad things about me and I'm gonna find them and their ass is grasped. And then, and then come after us

Leo Laporte (01:42:57):
Greats

Jeff Jarvis (01:42:57):
We started erasing data.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:01):
Yeah. As a journalist, I mean, you don't keep, like I don't keep my notes. I have a very strict like every every six months or so, if a story's done, I chunk my notes because I don't wanna have that information available,

Jeff Jarvis (01:43:16):
Which is a shame for that. The, they're the books you wanna write or

Stacey Higginbotham (01:43:19):
I don't wanna write any books, but yes,

Leo Laporte (01:43:21):
<Laugh> Well, you never know though. You might doubt Will wants

Jeff Jarvis (01:43:23):
You to write that. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:43:23):
You will. Might. I mean I had that interview with Gigi son and she became the first woman to live on Mars. And I wish I had my interview notes. <Laugh>. You never know, right? You don't know. Here's some good news. We need some good news cheer. Yes, we do. She's, well, I know she has notes from an interview with Gigi son. So I put two and two together, that's all

Jeff Jarvis (01:43:42):
<Laugh>

Leo Laporte (01:43:43):
The rest of the world, which is a i a good chance for us to plug rest of the world.org. Which is amazing. It is a really great nonprofit news gathering site that's really founded by Eric Schmidt's daughter Eric Schitt's daughter. Okay. Yes. And the point of it really is to give more coverage to global stories. They just got $200,000 from Ford Foundation to expand coverage of how tech is impacting workers all over the world. This fellowship will help them hire reporters all over the world to enhance their coverage. It's a one year reporting fellowship@restofworld.org. I should, I really need to check rest of world on my daily feature. That's really very good cuz there's this really great stuff. Global tech stories talk's, viral monks are clashing with Buddhist authorities. <Laugh>. I didn't see that one yet. Superstar monks have built massive followings, but dancing, singing, in fame seeking are all violations of the monastic code.

(01:44:49):
So don't you be TikTok buddy. This is a Cambodian monks. Wow. Bo Piy has a nightly ritual after finishing his schoolwork and prayers. The 22 year old Cambodian monk disappears into his room with his Android phone, locks the door and sits on his bed. In years gone by, that would've meant something else. But no, today for hours he edits TikTok videos for his 132,000 followers to watch before they fall asleep. And I have to say, cuz I have many friends who follow various monks and, and wise people on TikTok, that's good. Right? He's spreading the dharma in a modern way. And that's one more thing that'll be gone when they ban TikTok in the United States of America.

Ant Pruitt (01:45:41):
And Senator, you remember that?

Leo Laporte (01:45:43):
Thank you. SA Fitbit is killing off according to X D a developers Christine Perso writing@xda-developers.com. So some of the best reasons to use a Fitbit,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:45:58):
The Verge reported this like two weeks ago, but yes.

Leo Laporte (01:46:02):
Okay, well I'm

Stacey Higginbotham (01:46:02):
Just

Leo Laporte (01:46:03):
Like's an actual user, so

Stacey Higginbotham (01:46:05):
Oh, I'm a user. I got the note and I'm just,

Leo Laporte (01:46:07):
And several of our club tweet

Ant Pruitt (01:46:08):
Youtube timbers were quite upset about

Leo Laporte (01:46:09):
This. But this is an old story.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:46:12):
I mean it's like two weeks old and I'll complain about it to anyone.

Leo Laporte (01:46:16):
Yeah, it's not happened yet. March 27th, challenges and open groups will be removed from your Fitbit. Is this cuz Google wants you to get a Pixel. I'm sorry, go ahead.

Ant Pruitt (01:46:29):
Do you see a benefit in removing challenges?

Leo Laporte (01:46:31):
Well, that's my question. It

Ant Pruitt (01:46:32):
Seems like debt would be the, that would be the last thing to go because it promotes community if you will. Far as folks trying to work on Fitbit. Google

Stacey Higginbotham (01:46:40):
Sucks at community, I guess.

Leo Laporte (01:46:43):
Well, or maybe they want you to get a Pixel watch instead if they move,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:46:46):
They do. This is, this is them making crappier. So we buy the Pixel, which is already crappy and nobody wants it. And it makes me mad cuz I hoped that the Fitbit ethos of like decent stuff would actually make the Pixel better and I'd Yeah,

Leo Laporte (01:47:01):
That's what I thought would happen too. Yeah. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:47:04):
They did the worst

Leo Laporte (01:47:06):
Screw them.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:47:08):
I've had a Fitbit since they launched. I had the original one that had the little flower on it and like grew

Leo Laporte (01:47:14):
Oh, I remember that. Yeah. I had that one hand full. But my washing machine has had a lot of 'em. Yeah. <laugh>. They almost all ended up in the washing machine now. That's true.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:47:25):
Yeah. Those, those clipon ones were a clipped on

Leo Laporte (01:47:27):
Dryer that way. Right. And so Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:47:29):
Or your brat strap, but yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:47:30):
Yeah. And then you'd watch

Stacey Higginbotham (01:47:32):
Probably not your brat strap.

Leo Laporte (01:47:33):
<Laugh> <laugh>. No, it's his man ear. Please. I like to laughs your man. I'm a natural kinda guy. I like to, but it all hang out. We didn't mention when we were talking about Florida the belt, this, this isn't even a, this is can't be a si serious, this can't be serious. The bill from a member of the Florida state legislature Senate Bill 1316, that would require bloggers who write about the governor to register with the state. I mean, come on man. Senator yours. This is, he's making up everything new they can come up with to be more outrageous. What is he, what do you, what is it? Yeah, what I mean, really are you so worried that somebody's gonna criticize Rhonda Santa? You want them to register and then what? <Laugh> then

Stacey Higginbotham (01:48:24):
Anytime you make the media register, you are in the losing side. Well, that's, yeah, it's a bad sign.

Leo Laporte (01:48:30):
Blatant, blatant violation of the First Amendment. But nowadays, you know, it's worth a try, isn't it? Let you mentioned the cybersecurity strategy that the Biden has presented. Now the problem is it's not law yet. We gotta, we gotta ob obviously encode it into law to make it have any well,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:48:50):
Hold on. Yeah. So this isn't designed to become law. This is to govern our government's approach to cybersecurity. And some of these things are already in existing laws and executive orders. Ah, so this isn't ever, this is like, this is its mission statement and we're gonna build things that follow the mission statement is how I would think about it if I were you.

Leo Laporte (01:49:14):
So besides the privacy angle, which you mentioned, there's also I think a significant issue. Door number

Stacey Higginbotham (01:49:22):
Three.

Leo Laporte (01:49:22):
Door number three, where the government says no. So you remember whenever you open a a, a box with software or you download software and you ignore the yula, the end user license agreement, there's almost always in there a paragraph that says, this company warrants in no way warrants that this software is, is good for purpose, will do anything good. And if it does anything bad, we're not responsible. There's no warranty at all here that this works. They're not liable. In other words. Well, this is one of the third rail issues that this new cyber security policy addresses. They are asking software makers to be liable. It says, companies that make software must have the freedom to innovate, but they must also be held liable when they fail to live up to the duty of care. They owe consumers, businesses, or critical infrastructure providers them's fighting words.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:50:22):
So this makes a, people are just, I mean, this is a huge shift. I will say though, that we have, in many industries, over the last three or so years, we've implemented many regulatory, many laws that are like, you need to do this. We should, you should have, you should not have this in your designs. Car

Leo Laporte (01:50:43):
Makers are liable. Right? If you make a car, the wheels far off, fall off and everybody dies in a fiery wreck. They're not off the hook. There's no software license agreement that says, well, we're not responsible for the wheels. That's most consumer goods. They are liable. Software's unique in that respect.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:51:00):
Yeah. And well, and they've had lo like they've had rules in place, so this isn't coming outta nowhere. They know what they need to do. They just now, and they're supposed to be doing it. But now they're saying, and if you're not doing it, boom, good, you're gonna be liable. Good. So good. And, and I'm, I think this is good. I think this is like, I, what is the concept of fiduciary duty for developers who should be following secure by design principles? I mean, I, I don't know. It's not fiduciary duty. What is, what is duty of care, I guess. And the other thing that's interesting here is they have a whole thing about insurance and, and trying to figure out, like they, they're telling you about a federal cyber insurance backstop, which is basically like, let's say there's a big ransomware attack or some sort of thing happens, it's a physical attack and it shuts down an industry. And the insurance companies that people have contracted with for cyber insurance can't pay for it. The federal, should the federal government step in and be like yeah, okay, we got that. That's a really interesting kind of thing right there.

Leo Laporte (01:52:13):
Oh, there's so many other stories and I don't really wanna spend another three hours cuz <laugh>. Well, I just don't, I

Stacey Higginbotham (01:52:21):
Did have a waffle, but I get ya. I

Leo Laporte (01:52:23):
Mean, Jeff, you put in so many good examples of, of chat g p t parlor tricks. That's,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:52:29):
I, that's kind of what I wanted.

Leo Laporte (01:52:30):
I also wanted to prove why you

Stacey Higginbotham (01:52:31):
Should have a show about it.

Leo Laporte (01:52:32):
<Laugh>. Well, but I, to me it's just like, okay, so Alan Alda, who has a podcast,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:52:36):
Just TikTok and G P t, parlor Trick Show. <Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (01:52:40):
Yeah. Okay. That's an interesting show. Okay. You could host that. Yeah. All all right. Yeah. Alan got a chat, g p t to write a new mash scene and then got Hawkeye and BJ Honeycutt to voice it, which is kind of cool, I guess. But a parlor trick. The script nonetheless sucked.

Jeff Jarvis (01:52:59):
It was parlor trick.

Leo Laporte (01:52:59):
Yes. oh, 20%. Are

Stacey Higginbotham (01:53:02):
You talking about mash?

Leo Laporte (01:53:03):
Mash? Yeah. Mash. 20% of That's it. I'm done. I'm not gonna say anymore. I'm not gonna play it. 20% of Y Combinators class. New class, incoming class machine learning. 20%. I'm surprised that's a hot thing. Next year it'll be 30%, 50%. Right. you can now have chat G p T and Slack. I immediately applied. I can't wait. In the past we've had Burke on free lunch Wednesdays ask for people's orders. Burke, you'll be glad to know from now on chat. G p t, we'll be collecting new food orders. <Laugh> on free lunch Wednesday the

Jeff Jarvis (01:53:39):
She'll. Basically, Chachi Beki does office politics now, as

Leo Laporte (01:53:42):
You ordered pork chops. Didn't Julia? No, I didn't. Oh, I'm sorry. Leo. You're dead. Have you seen, by the way, <laugh>, at least two people I know. One, a professor and one Chris Breen, who's a a Mac expert, have been told that they're dead by chat. G p T. You ask who you know. Tell me more about Chris Breen. And it says, oh, all nice things about Chris Green. Said, Chris Green passed away in 2018 <laugh>. And it's like, what? <Laugh>? it's just

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:12):
A strange, can I plug

Leo Laporte (01:54:14):
Place to go plug something? And I plugged

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:16):
Matthew Kirschenbaum, who the author of Track Changes a book We Love. Yes. Wrote a wonderful piece in the Atlantic called Prepare for the Text Apocalypse.

Leo Laporte (01:54:23):
Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:24):
Which he's arguing that we, we thought we had a lot of texts before, but now Judge PT is gonna cause this tsunami of text. Yeah. And, and I, and I, I think it's a wonderful piece. I said back on Twitter that I think that we were already there, right? Media were filling up the world with, with meaningless content memos and letters and bureaucracy. We were already at too much text. Now, in a way, it does us a favor by saying how meaningless it all is.

Leo Laporte (01:54:51):
Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:54:52):
But it's a

Leo Laporte (01:54:52):
Good piece. Yeah. I think ultimately the uses of AI will end up not being, creating images or creating text, but some other kind of mm-hmm. <Affirmative> variety of creating,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:05):
Creating software that we could all build our salts.

Leo Laporte (01:55:06):
Yeah. Do the jobs we, there'll

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:09):
Be some that's,

Leo Laporte (01:55:09):
There'll be some useful things. And some of these are just parlor tricks. I mean,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:14):
AI is already doing captioning and absolutely translation on the

Leo Laporte (01:55:17):
Fly. And it's very good by the way, that, you know, those YouTube captions have gotten better and better.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:22):
Oh, on our Google meets today, two things popped up for the first time. One, we had the option of using Bureau, by the way,

Leo Laporte (01:55:30):
<Laugh>. Oh, nice. That's fucked up. And I was like, oh,

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:32):
Kidding. So

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:33):
It was like, do you wanna

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:34):
Use bureau? And I was like, sure. When you

Leo Laporte (01:55:35):
Use it, let's try it. It's so cool. Cuz you can have a timer and you can do it. You can do brainstorming. Yeah. There's all sorts of cool things you can do with it. Yeah. Our sponsor, Mary. So that was cool. Sponsor by the

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:43):
Way. Sponsor by the way. And then

Leo Laporte (01:55:45):
Jeff, you didn't say sponsor, by the way. We have to All of us say it. <Laugh>. It's the new rule. I'm phones your arms and say it <laugh>,

Jeff Jarvis (01:55:54):
What did I do wrong? Now

Leo Laporte (01:55:55):
They moved his lips. That's good enough. That's fine. Fuck. What else? So the second

Stacey Higginbotham (01:55:59):
Thing is, they had realtime captioning, which I've seen, but they had realtime captioning with translations.

Leo Laporte (01:56:08):
Isn't that amazing?

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:09):
Which I hadn't seen. And I was like,

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:11):
Well, but goo Stacy, you can't have any of that cuz you're giving up Google. So No, no, no. You can have none of that <laugh>. All those wonderful things you just talked about, you can't use anymore cuz you are being nasty to Google.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:23):
Well, that was, that was our Google in our business. Not Google in my personal life.

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:27):
Well, I'm sorry. Can't be two-faced Stacy.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:31):
Two-Faced.

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:32):
You're either a Google friend or you're not.

Leo Laporte (01:56:34):
Oh my God.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:35):
You're like one of those people who's like, oh my God, if you work for Apple, you best be using Apple gear. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:56:40):
Oh my God. 

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:44):
GP use duck dot. Go with chat G P T.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:47):
Okay.

Jeff Jarvis (01:56:48):
<Laugh> wisely though. It is interesting. It is. Is it is using just encyclopedias and Wikipedia.

Leo Laporte (01:56:53):
Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:56:54):
By the way, or training material. Did

Leo Laporte (01:56:56):
Your friend Leo LaPorte show you Neva doing this? Ages ago. Okay. I know.

Jeff Jarvis (01:57:01):
Like chat g

Leo Laporte (01:57:02):
Everybody's doing it now.

Jeff Jarvis (01:57:03):
You guys, you guys first, you know, first gave up Google search for, for duck dot Go. And so I'm just going back to your old Yeah. Hypocritical

Leo Laporte (01:57:12):
Way. I'm loving Neva. By the way, five bucks a month. Know, we don't, we

Jeff Jarvis (01:57:15):
Know Leo. We

Leo Laporte (01:57:16):
Know. Have I mentioned that? We hear about it. Can I invite, can I invite a friend? Can I share the magic? Please. Please. Nobody wants to use your slow search engine. It's not slow anymore, by the way. I have to say, I, I I did. In fact I, I think besmirch it in the past by saying, oh, somebody just turn up slowly. Let me just show you. Who is Jeff Jar? Whoops. Jarvis. Oh, am I gonna be alive or not? Yeah. Let's see if you're a dead. And then you see it's very quick. Oh, you didn't get, okay, now you speeding up. Yeah, that's much faster. And I like the results,

Jeff Jarvis (01:57:50):
But it didn't give a didn't it didn't give a paragraph

Leo Laporte (01:57:52):
About me. No, cuz you don't count.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:57:54):
Is she like two?

Leo Laporte (01:57:55):
Geez, <laugh>. Oh, wait a minute. Here we go. I'm an

Stacey Higginbotham (01:57:58):
Old white American man.

Leo Laporte (01:58:00):
<Laugh>. <laugh>. I

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:02):
Wrote that. I wrote that. Okay.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:58:03):
I know.

Leo Laporte (01:58:04):
Okay. Yeah. Anyway, <laugh>, there's some good pictures of you in here. Is that an AI picture? That's a really good one. I like this one. Look at he's looking at you. Oh, I love that shot. That's good.

Stacey Higginbotham (01:58:18):
That is nice.

Leo Laporte (01:58:19):
Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:20):
Took one that is generally used that I hate

Leo Laporte (01:58:22):
This one. I bet that looks like that. I would, that looks

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:25):
Like I'm singing an aria, doesn't

Leo Laporte (01:58:27):
It? Yeah. <laugh>. Is this it?

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:30):
No, I hate that one too.

Leo Laporte (01:58:31):
Yeah. No, this is, this is good. If I look like's a good one, then I'd use that everywhere you look gritty, gritty. Wonderful. You look like you're in Jaws, the movie. Like, you're gonna be like the old captain's gonna take down the <laugh>, the giant, the giant shark. Kinda,

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:46):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (01:58:47):
Gritty. The gritty. Jeff Jarvis.

Jeff Jarvis (01:58:50):
Aye,

Leo Laporte (01:58:50):
Aye Facebook's bringing back messenger, weirdly. Weirdly. mm.

Jeff Jarvis (01:59:00):
I think we should make a, a note that Recode brand is dead.

Leo Laporte (01:59:04):
Yeah. That's kind of sad. That was started by Walt and Kara, right? Kara?

Jeff Jarvis (01:59:09):
Yeah. Yeah. The brand Walt Sound by today on the,

Leo Laporte (01:59:14):
They're retiring the Recode branding. Yeah. I don't really understand. Sena and Vox and all these companies that really wanted to take blogs to the next level all seem to be, I think they're troubled. And this is, they're kind of going the way of ai. Yeah. They're kind of thrashing trying to solve the,

Jeff Jarvis (01:59:34):
At some point, you, you say too much more for another brands. Yeah. So we gotta have one brand and everything's gonna behind that brand. I've seen that happening in companies before and,

Leo Laporte (01:59:41):
Yep. Well, and then of course, private equity buys in as they did with cnet, red Ventures did, and then that, then they fired a lot of people, a lot of friends from cnet lost their jobs this past week. And Connie Gu Yamo, who is the editor-in-chief and has been on the shows many times, has been booted. I can, I think it's booted sideways. Maybe it's upstairs.

Jeff Jarvis (02:00:01):
Yeah. She's in charge of the AI stuff and no longer Yeah. After having been in charge of the AI stuff that got them in trouble. Now she's gonna fix it. Yeah. She

Leo Laporte (02:00:10):
Wasn't in, well, to be fair, she wasn't in charge of the AI written articles on cnn. She approved it, but there was a guy from Red Ventures who was the point person. She's now and

Jeff Jarvis (02:00:21):
Isn't he now the executive editor?

Leo Laporte (02:00:23):
Maybe. Yeah. I don't, it doesn't bode well. Connie, who's great is now the senior Vice President of at Red Ventures in charge of AI content strategy.

Jeff Jarvis (02:00:37):
Sounds like a promotion to me.

Leo Laporte (02:00:39):
It does sound like a move upstairs.

Jeff Jarvis (02:00:40):
His vp. Yeah, it sounded like a pay

Leo Laporte (02:00:42):
Raise. Yeah. nine years editor-in-chief at cnet, she was the one who had to write the blog post defending the use of AI to write those articles. It's, I think is Jeff, is it that advertising is the advertising dollars are dwindling for these blogs? Is that

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:02):
What's going on? Yeah. And, and Yes. I think so. Right, because I'm

Leo Laporte (02:01:05):
Sympathetic on that. We've seen the same thing, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I don't know. I, you know, but nobody says digital ad sales are down. It's just I think that they aren't, they're buying Google ads and Facebook ads maybe.

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:15):
Well, that's what they're buy Yeah. No, they're buying programmatic. Yeah. So anything that's anything, you know, they, you have a sales staff selling the unique value of the Twitter number. What the hell was that? Miss Stacey? You should mute when you do. Stacy was closing. Sorry. I was, I was just making, why were

Leo Laporte (02:01:31):
You scratching?

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:33):
Don't scratching the

Leo Laporte (02:01:34):
Wind, scratching your windscreen.

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:37):
That's all. Just after a certain point in time, you lose me. And then I'm like, what's this.here. Let's see. With this <laugh>. I'm sorry. All right. I'm just, I'm, I'm

Leo Laporte (02:01:55):
Just not as Let's do a quick change log. Get the hell's

Jeff Jarvis (02:01:58):
Change log. That means it's changed a long time.

Leo Laporte (02:01:59):
Yeah, it's change. Long time. Stacey's

Jeff Jarvis (02:02:02):
Queer is twittle time for Stacy

Leo Laporte (02:02:05):
A leak. My friends of the March, 2023 picture feature. Go <laugh>.

Jeff Jarvis (02:02:14):
Wait

Leo Laporte (02:02:14):
A minute. Lemme just check if I had a stroke. Nope. I can raise both hands. The, the Pixel feature drop. Well, they do this. You know, they, anyway, who

Jeff Jarvis (02:02:23):
Cares? The last test is what it's called. Sorry. Okay.

Leo Laporte (02:02:27):
Pixel. It's smile too, right? What is it? L a s t. Is that an acronym?

Jeff Jarvis (02:02:32):
I think it's l la la. It is, it's a shorter version of the smile. It's like, smile and raise your arms. And there's one other step. Yeah. Well,

Leo Laporte (02:02:39):
I nose they,

Jeff Jarvis (02:02:40):
They had my father do it just yesterday. Why? Why, why is that a test? Because you can't control your muscles and your extremities

Leo Laporte (02:02:47):
Typically a stroke you lose some bi later bilateral functionality. So when you smile, it'll be like this. Or you raise,

Jeff Jarvis (02:02:58):
And when you raise your arms, it'll be like

Leo Laporte (02:02:59):
One, one arm thing. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. Google rolling out Android 14 Developer preview two. You want a gallery of everything new in Android 14. Preview developer two. Apparently it's all pineapple flavored. Huh huh. Moji lab wallpaper creator. We, we really reached peak smartphone. None of this stuff is gonna change anybody's experience. And

Jeff Jarvis (02:03:30):
It's, well, listen, let's say it's a rolling screen.

Leo Laporte (02:03:34):
Well, and yes. Okay. I guess this should be in the change log. Somebody saw, let me get it for you here. Those are the

Jeff Jarvis (02:03:42):
Worst

Leo Laporte (02:03:42):
Pictures somebody saw. These are the worst pictures. The, the latest Pixel Fold leak. Are you ready for the pictures? That's it.

Jeff Jarvis (02:03:53):
Oh yeah. These are terrible <laugh>. These

Leo Laporte (02:03:54):
Are terrible <laugh>. So this is somebody is on a, a, a subway. Okay. and on the New York City subway got four shots. The bottom right, you can make out the curve of the screen and the top, you can roughly see the outer displays edge. Then a metallic reflective hinge hinge is key. Fourth, I don't know why they think this is not a galaxy Fold, but the Google Pixel Fold. But the redditor says they saw the camera bump bar, which is actually very, that, that does make it like a Pixel. Right? You've seen the back of a Pixel seven, Pixel six. Is it the Pixel Fold? There are rumors. In fact, this might be why you want to pay attention to this Google IO keynote. Maybe this is when they start talking about a Folding screen from Google. I think they're gonna, I started talking and you shouted me down about perhaps talking about Google Bard and and how they're going to

Jeff Jarvis (02:04:53):
We didn't shout you down. You

Leo Laporte (02:04:54):
Shouted me down. You

Jeff Jarvis (02:04:55):
Did? Oh, we didn't. You

Leo Laporte (02:04:56):
Did it in in your,

Jeff Jarvis (02:04:58):
In your mind. In

Leo Laporte (02:04:59):
Your mind. You shadowed me down.

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:00):
Oh, he

Leo Laporte (02:05:01):
So paranoid. I'm very sensitive. Yeah. Speaking

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:02):
Of paranoia, you know that, go back to that picture for a second. I bet there's now a security alert out all Google employees where the bad taste wear gold pants. <Laugh> report to Security Office.

Leo Laporte (02:05:13):
Well bring your phone. They do. This is typical. We see these because before you release a phone, you gotta get out in the wild and you gotta get people trying it. Apple does it Samsung does. Everybody does it. The, usually they put it in a case that's, that makes it look like nothing. But in this case, it looks like maybe we've seen the first shot.

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:31):
Oh, how could you, how could you see it in here in that photo? There's nothing identifiable for that photo. It could be a trio for all, you know? I mean, geez. Exactly. Thank you. That doesn't look like <laugh>. Anything. Nothing. Note

Leo Laporte (02:05:44):
Google begins rolling out it. This

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:46):
Is what the See Shack, me Downe is, is creating stories like this. Now I'm shouting you down. Now I'm shouting you down. Now you can recognize him when you're shouted down. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:05:54):
My, my mother watches this show,

Jeff Jarvis (02:05:56):
By the way, I mentioned that story. So it's my fault that we

Leo Laporte (02:05:59):
Mention. Okay. Yes, that's right. It wasn't even in the change. Like, but I, but I had forgotten. So it's good to do it. Google begins rolling in Its new look for docs and other workspace apps.

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:08):
Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:06:08):
Google One begins.

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:12):
Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:06:12):
I'm sorry. I'm, I'm, I'm just a little late Google one.

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:15):
Hold on, let me scratch my microphone for you. <Laugh>. Why does Stacy sound different than mine? Mine is kind of a soprano. Hers was wary of a, of a

Leo Laporte (02:06:25):
Was more of tone. There was a little bit of a bong in there too. Like a bong. Yeah,

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:29):
It was, it was. Well, I was just, I'm really not cut out for this job. I'll be honest. <Laugh> here.

Leo Laporte (02:06:44):
Google one brings a VPN to it's buck 99 month plan, adding dark web into monitoring Pixel buds, pro spatial audio with head tracking update is rolling out. Do you still use your Pixel buds Jeff or have you?

Jeff Jarvis (02:06:57):
Yes, I do. You do? Yes, I do. They, so

Leo Laporte (02:06:59):
Look for, look for spatial. Yep. the Android 15, which is v we believe 9 0 5 Google says is vanilla ice cream. You know, it always has to have a dessert, vanilla ice cream. And Google has launched a new Google Trends portal. I think Google Trends is actually quite useful. I like Google Trends, don't you? It's fun. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (02:07:25):
Things like journalists would enjoy

Leo Laporte (02:07:26):
That. Yeah. Right. Yeah. See what people are, are talking about. Yeah. It's very useful. So there's a new I guess a new portal to that. You can see what people are searching for. This is one of the things Google does. That's actually the, you know, awesome. Is just the ability to, to see like the, the top search topics right now, you know, and what's going up and what's going down. And you could see in different, in different jurisdictions and stuff. So it's very, I think this is a, a great tool. Trends.Google.Com. And that's a very brief Google change log.

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:02):
Solid

Ant Pruitt (02:08:03):
Minus the phone. Solid minus that.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:06):
The foam.

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:07):
The phone log. Oh, the phone.

Ant Pruitt (02:08:09):
The phone. You know, I'm sorry, my myself.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:12):
Wait, actually there, there was a cool thing that Scooter X put in and I just wanna stick this in here cuz this drives me nuts. Thank

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:18):
You

Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:18):
Mr. Scooter. Apparent. Yeah. Thank you Mr. Scooter X. See, we do read your stuff and we're like, Ooh,

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:22):
That is good. Good God. You make fun of me. For how many links? Look at all those links.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:26):
Check. Google Chrome is making it easier to delete autofill data. And you know what? Thank goodness. So it's basically, you know how it's got all the autofill and like, let's say you move Yeah. Or something happens then it's like still trying to bring up your old stuff. You used to have to go like to the, you had to go someplace. I, I remember going several screens and now what?

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:52):
There's

Leo Laporte (02:08:52):
A little trash can icon. Oh, that's

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:55):
Great. Oh, that is nice. Okay.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:57):
Sorry.

Leo Laporte (02:08:58):
Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (02:08:59):
Oh,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:08:59):
Because that is really annoying. Or like when your credit card number, well now you don't, it changes, but it used to not, it wasn't part of like, the formal Google

Leo Laporte (02:09:07):
Thing. Don't go running. Looking for it though. It's currently in the works only for desktop, including Windows, Mac, os, Linux, and Chromos.

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:14):
And in any case, Stacey can't have it cuz she doesn't want to use Google. So. Oh, Jeff, you never, you're gonna never let,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:21):
I know. I'm gonna just, we'll

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:22):
Flip you. That's

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:24):
For the rest of my

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:25):
Life. <Laugh>. Alright, let's

Leo Laporte (02:09:29):
Let's let's all just take a breath to scratch our screen. Protectors and pop filters.

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:36):
We're just, Stacy, would you do yours again? Cause it didn't sound different. I want to hear how it sounded. How did you do that?

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:40):
Well, serious. So I wasn't intentionally scratching it to make noise. I was just curious. So this is a curious scratch

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:47):
<Laugh>. Whoa. Whoa. That's the finger. It's, that's a,

Ant Pruitt (02:09:49):
A fingernail. That is clearly a fingernail.

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:51):
That

Stacey Higginbotham (02:09:51):
Is a nail.

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:52):
Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:09:53):
And I'm thinking she, she doesn't have quite as fine a grain, a pop filter as we do. Hers might be a little more textured,

Jeff Jarvis (02:09:59):
But, well, I like how the sound changes <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:10:05):
This is probably a low point. I'm gonna say in,

Jeff Jarvis (02:10:09):
I'm sorry. All the podcast episodes. I'm really watch the podcast and all they're scratching like this. I just had a, had

Stacey Higginbotham (02:10:19):
A squirrel

Jeff Jarvis (02:10:19):
Moment and I can't think

Leo Laporte (02:10:20):
Of another podcast where

Jeff Jarvis (02:10:22):
<Laugh> <laugh>,

Leo Laporte (02:10:23):
This has become part of the show.

Jeff Jarvis (02:10:27):
I,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:10:27):
I, I don't have a persona for the show. It's just

Jeff Jarvis (02:10:30):
Me. I

Ant Pruitt (02:10:31):
Look forward to all the misses.

Leo Laporte (02:10:32):
Although this is, it's your persona. That's a great, that's the whole joy of it. Yeah. What what is your, it's like, what was it, Eugene Levy, they, they talked to him about doing a travel show. He said, no, I hate traveling. They said, that's the show. And they, and they did it. What they did it, it's on Apple TV now and the, and the promo, the very first thing says, I'm here in Antarctica and the first thing that comes to mind is, why am I here in Antarctica? <Laugh> <laugh>. It's probably a great show cuz he's very funny. Of course. He's

Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:04):
A funny man.

Leo Laporte (02:11:05):
I think this would be a good time now that we've all, you know, checked our pop filters to do the back of the book and is gonna kick things off with We are gonna kick things off with Stacy's thing. Stacy.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:23):
Oh, okay. I have, I have no thing

Leo Laporte (02:11:26):
Okay. Around. That's alright. Jeff has so many things. No, the mouth, new mouth organ. Call you music outta a p culture.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:35):
That's the the thing thing. We went to Disney, we caught Covid. I've got a bunch of boxes in the corner and I've got nothing for you because,

Leo Laporte (02:11:44):
So let's just on the Covid thing, cause I don't think we really finished that conversation. So you and Andrew are both got it mildly. He do you know where he got it from? I mean, Bainbridge Island cannot be a hotspot. Exactly. We

Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:56):
Were in Disneyland.

Leo Laporte (02:11:57):
Disneyland.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:11:58):
I could show you what I got at Disneyland. I got the best souvenir of all time. Let's see it. That's really not something

Leo Laporte (02:12:03):
Really. That's what, yeah. Okay. A Disney souvenir. Look, picks don't have to be anything.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:10):
Okay. These are my favorite guys in all of the world. And

Leo Laporte (02:12:13):
Ready? The they're from the dominion things. Dom Minions? Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:16):
No, no, they're no they're not Dom Minions. That is a completely

Leo Laporte (02:12:19):
Non Oh, those are from the Toy Story's character. <Laugh>. Those are the toy story guys. I know absolutely nothing about cartoons today. So No. And Toy Story. Those are the little claw guys living in the

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:28):
Corner. These are the little guys. And so they say, hold on.

Leo Laporte (02:12:32):
Ah. Oh, okay. Who'll stay. Boy, I'm glad they spent money on the high fidelity reproduction. Yeah,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:46):
I know. But you know, that is like my, like happiness whenever I'm like on deadline or I'm like, oh my God. Then I just get,

Leo Laporte (02:12:52):
That's really cute.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:12:53):
Well anyway, not something that's really tech savvy, although now I'm like, could I just pull these mid files and make my ringtone be like the claw?

Leo Laporte (02:13:04):
Ooh, yes. Maybe, maybe

Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:06):
Disney probably would be very unhappy with me. But

Leo Laporte (02:13:09):
People would think you have a really crappy phone if it sounds like that. The eye roll. <Laugh> <laugh> the eye roll. Just,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:21):
That was just an angry scratch on my

Leo Laporte (02:13:24):
Pop filter. Oh, now we have a way she can really express. This is Mike Mozart of the Toy Channel with one of my very favorite Toy Story toys ever. It was a

Stacey Higginbotham (02:13:34):
Story story I saw and I didn't buy it. It's I wanted to That's right because I so Oh, it's not in here. I bought a Lego orchid flower, which ooh is awesome. Have y'all seen those? Do you wanna see

Leo Laporte (02:13:50):
It? No. Yeah, sure. This Stacy's thing is, I have to go get it. Migrated into many things. She had no things. Now she has nothing but this, by the way, just while she's walking around, you were asking about this opal C1 camera. Yeah, I was curious. $300 camera. Jason's Snell has been using it on for a little while. Yeah. Jason's been using it on Mac break Weekly. But I have to say, I'll be honest I think you already have the best camera. I bought a lot of these to try 'em out. You did these opals. I didn't buy the Opal, but I've tried almost every, all of the, all of the competitors for this, all the cameras have come along and it actually looks very good. But you really have, with your Android, probably the best camera you need. And Android iPhone watch.

(02:14:31):
Cause I'm using the micro, I'm using the Mac. So Camo, C A M O is the program. You could put it on your Android phone or your iPhone and there's a camo studio that goes in the Mac and then you can either hook it up or do it wirelessly. I've been, I I have all these cameras works well. I have all these cameras at home and I've stopped using them. I just use, I use my iPhone, but it's, you can use an Android device. I've just used this for the camera and it works great.

Ant Pruitt (02:14:58):
Totally cosign.

Leo Laporte (02:15:00):
And how do you hook that up to the, either with a cable or wirelessly It will work over wifi. Yeah. But but the program you want and that's not free, but we'll underwrite it. Oh. and you have a Pixel, right? It should work. It should work on your Of course I do. Cuz I still use Google. Yeah,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:15:20):
Still use Google. It's just on a Samsung.

Leo Laporte (02:15:23):
So it's from, what's the name? This is not it. So don't show this.

Ant Pruitt (02:15:28):
No. 

Leo Laporte (02:15:30):
Camo, not Cam. Studio Camo. Hey, camo. I, that's, I left out the o do not leave out the OS from rein incubate.com. Camo. Okay. C amo. It used to be re incubate.com And what, what it basically, they have, you know, the Android app is not quite as good as the iOS app, but it still does the, does the job. So you put it on your phone, you launch it on your phone, and then on your Mac you launch Cam Studio. You can also do that on Windows. I've tried it on Windows and Mac. I've tried with Android, iOS, I Windows. Yeah. What

Ant Pruitt (02:16:05):
I had it on Windows for a little while. Yeah. Playing around with it because I had that on works. Well, my phone over here. Yeah. And it worked really

Leo Laporte (02:16:10):
Well. Yeah. So it it's, it's truly cross platform now. And honestly, you spent a thousand bucks on your smartphone. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And a lot of that went to the camera. And I think these cameras are better than anything I've seen. Any of these USB cameras I've seen. Thank

Ant Pruitt (02:16:26):
You for making those points, Mr. Laporte. That, that right there. You, you, you spent a thousand dollars on this thing. Get some miles out of it. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:16:34):
Yeah. All for all of the service. I've even hooked UPS, SLRs, I've put my Sony Alphas on and stuff like that. And I mean, that's probably better, but honestly, but

Ant Pruitt (02:16:44):
That's the thing. You have

Leo Laporte (02:16:45):
That, I don't know if it's better

Ant Pruitt (02:16:46):
To go out and buy

Leo Laporte (02:16:47):
Those things because the iPhone has great quick as your Pixel six does auto focusing you could do all these. It's, it's got a lot of processing in there. I mean, it's really amazing what you could do. So I think that's probably the way to go. It will. I no longer be pink or, or yellow. I think we'd solve that problem. So let me, let me just look at the pricing cuz we should, we should send you a chit. No, it's fine. <Laugh>. I'll send you a chit. A chit. You don't need chip <laugh>.

Ant Pruitt (02:17:13):
Have you been watching my pick?

Leo Laporte (02:17:15):
I should. I shall send you a chit for 39 point 99 for the Camo Pro. Actually, you could try it for free and that's probably what you should do is try it for free first. Yeah. And see how it works. I'll find a way to break it. Yeah.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:17:27):
Did you try to

Leo Laporte (02:17:28):
Lumia camera? Jeff did that? Yeah, we tried 'em all. We tried try every one of them. Okay. And it's because he has a very unusual lighting situation. But honestly, your Pixel's pretty good at handling that. You know, it, it, you know what's actually good is my, is my, my Chromebook camera is better than this in some ways. Right. I would say some

Ant Pruitt (02:17:47):
Things that I would vouch for on having like a A A P S C sensor, a four frame sensor. But for a webc smartphones are, are just as good. And we'll be totally fine. Yep.

Leo Laporte (02:18:01):
Now let's see your Lego flowers.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:18:05):
Hey,

Leo Laporte (02:18:07):
It's a Lego orchid. What what the what?

Stacey Higginbotham (02:18:11):
You lose my Valentine's Day present. Oh,

Leo Laporte (02:18:13):
He is now. That's he make it or does Andrew make it? He's a keeper.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:18:17):
Okay. Aris made it be because, or my child made it because they they find it stress relieving. So I said, I volunteered it to Yeah, they got a bon's eye and I got this. But look, it has the little like leaves and it has a bunch of like, loose legos. So this is just like loose fill. Oh, sorry. It's the dirt's. The roots. Yeah. It's got like loose Lego fill. Is it dirt?

Leo Laporte (02:18:37):
So this is the bonsai tree that they got. That's really cool. This is really cool. They're, they're really, and there's a bird paradise. But that it looks like you got, you said you got, oh, there's the orchid. Oh man. Your husband gets extra points on that. This is from the Lego Botanical collection and you don't sneeze at it. Wow. Wow.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:18:59):
I don't know if many people are allergic to orchids, but Yes. And I, I was kind of like, this'll be kind of cheesy, but it's actually quite nice. And it's, it's so, it's real shiny.

Leo Laporte (02:19:08):
I like it. Yeah. Actually. And

Stacey Higginbotham (02:19:10):
They have the rde set Y'all

Leo Laporte (02:19:12):
The rde if

Stacey Higginbotham (02:19:13):
You wanna

Ant Pruitt (02:19:14):
Oh, twice. I've heard that word today.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:19:16):
Okay. Lord of the rings where the elves live. Yeah, they've got a, like a mega, I think it's like $300. But it is a gorgeous

Leo Laporte (02:19:23):
Secret Lego lover. It's not that secret. I've never heard you talk about this before. Oh my golly. Gosh. Did you, are you looking at it? Isn't it awesome? Yeah. <laugh>. Oh my good. Golly. Gosh. Rde the last homely house home of Elron. And look, there's the Elvin Queen and Frodo Bains and Sam Wise Gaji. And there's Mary Brandy Buck and Pippen took Lego. Gimley, Boer Aragon. They're all there. Wow.

Jeff Jarvis (02:20:00):
I'm one of the Lego guttenberg press, but they didn't approve it.

Leo Laporte (02:20:04):
<Laugh>. I'm so I would've voted for How about a Lego Linotype? How about that? Huh?

Jeff Jarvis (02:20:10):
Oh, that'd be killer.

Leo Laporte (02:20:12):
Hey, you know how much Rde is? 500? 300 Sch Smackers. Oh, 500. 500. Oh, get the orchid. Get the orchid. It's 60 bucks. Yeah. Oh, mine was only, mine was only 50 Uhoh. I think it's a loo Uhoh. Where are you? Where's where? Are you shopping for your Legos? No, I just was looking online. I don't want it to give away the $10 Vig. I don't want to give away the price <laugh>, because I mean, it was, oh, it's okay. It's 50 50. It's 50 50. Yeah. Or 49.99 Euros. <Laugh>. Where, where would I find this mid journey of gritty Jeff Disc. Huh? Discord in the Discord staff disc. Oh, gritty. Jeff Journey. The staff one. Oh. Oh dude. <Laugh>, where is it?

Leo Laporte (02:21:02):
We have a staff disc in the regular Oh, in the staff. Discord.

Jeff Jarvis (02:21:05):
Oh, well,

Leo Laporte (02:21:06):
Hell, I didn't know we had a outstanding, not Slack to Slack STA staff. I don't even know about this. Are you guys hanging out without me? Where the hell is Staff Discord? All right. Down at the bottom inside Twit staff. Okay. Oh, wait a minute. Inside Twit staff. Oh, the staff. Mid journey. Mid journey. Yes. Oh yeah. I didn't realize we have a staff Mid journey. That was just today gritty. Jeff, ladies and gentlemen, these are pretty awesome. Go up one. So, you know what happened was Gritty is the mascot for Philadelphia. Philadelphia Flyers. Phil, the Flyers. And, and so when you said gritty Jeff, but there's another, oh, that's you. That pomp. That is, you look at the hair. Let's make that the the album mark on the show today. I think. So if those of you listening only on audio, that's to me

Jeff Jarvis (02:22:03):
As Glu Corella Deville, I think. Yeah.

Leo Laporte (02:22:07):
Yeah. He's got Gorilla Deville here. Jeff, did you have a pick of the week?

Jeff Jarvis (02:22:12):
Oh, I got tons. I

Leo Laporte (02:22:13):
Got tons. I see.

Jeff Jarvis (02:22:14):
I, I wanna I wanna, I wanna mention just real quickly that this is, tomorrow is the

Leo Laporte (02:22:18):
Last day. Oh, wait a minute. There's more

Jeff Jarvis (02:22:20):
<Laugh>. Well, the Shift,

Leo Laporte (02:22:21):
This is the one where you're on the boat <laugh>. That's homeless pretty.

Jeff Jarvis (02:22:24):
Jeff <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:22:28):
Okay. You want give an ice plug to our good friend Glen Fleischman. And I don't wanna stop Fleischman

Jeff Jarvis (02:22:32):
And Yes. Yeah. the last day for the shift happens, Kickstarter is tomorrow. It's now it's more than $725,000.

Leo Laporte (02:22:39):
I'm so happy they,

Jeff Jarvis (02:22:41):
They passed their $700,000 extra special push. And it's just amazing.

Leo Laporte (02:22:47):
They, apparently, I heard Glen, or I saw Glen Toot don't have plans for a second printing. So if you want it better go now to the Kickstarter search for Shift Happens. And if you want a copy, you better buy it because they may not, I can't promise, but it sounds like they don't want to do a second printing. So the first edition is it. And boy wouldn't you want to have this. So, very nice. Very nice. He's

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:13):
Doing Now we could go over about 10 slides in Ben Devon's annual slide extravaganza. Oh, something tells me that Stacy's gonna start scratching her.

Leo Laporte (02:23:21):
Is there a slide in there? No, no.

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:23):
I'm fo I'm focused now. I I the

Leo Laporte (02:23:26):
New gatekeeper's. So embarrassed.

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:27):
Something

Leo Laporte (02:23:28):
Focused. Is it

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:29):
I put down some numbers.

Leo Laporte (02:23:30):
The covid rotation

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:31):
14, 15 14.

Leo Laporte (02:23:33):
We

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:33):
Go through real fast. Okay. 14, 15 is saying that there's some perspective here on the firings in technology. Facebook fired 11,000 people, but they've, they've hired 15 thousands since January.

Leo Laporte (02:23:45):
I've been saying this for a long time, but finally, Benedict Evans says it and everybody

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:49):
Believes it. Now we listened

Leo Laporte (02:23:51):
This, all of these firings really bringing you just back to, you know, pre covid at worst.

Jeff Jarvis (02:23:57):
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Slide 20 on a Amazon has now overtaken Walmart's revenue. Ooh.

Leo Laporte (02:24:05):
Sold. We've been waiting for that to happen. That's what we call the e-commerce Singularity Baby.

Jeff Jarvis (02:24:12):
Slide 28. Look at the ad budgets in the US as a percent of gdp. D p and the UK is very high. Other countries just don't spend that much on advertising. We don't need,

Leo Laporte (02:24:22):
Does he say anything about podcast advertising? No,

Jeff Jarvis (02:24:25):
Not at work. Does it matter matter, Leo? It just doesn't, doesn't, doesn't matter. That's

Leo Laporte (02:24:28):
Clearly it. I had to send Lisa to Las Las Vegas this week to raise money.

Jeff Jarvis (02:24:35):
Oof. Sell ads you mean no to Dance <laugh>. Oh, where are we? Belfort again, Michael?

Leo Laporte (02:24:44):
No. The podcast movement show is in Vegas right now. <Laugh>. And she went there to talk people into buying ads. That's why she's there With our sales tech with Max. You should

Jeff Jarvis (02:24:59):
See your comedy show

Leo Laporte (02:25:00):
With Max and

Jeff Jarvis (02:25:01):
Ryan. This is amazing. Yeah,

Leo Laporte (02:25:02):
She's hysterical. She's got a little club look. Club show. Yeah, that's fine. Okay. Hey, if you don't want Lisa, Lisa to have to sell herself in Las Vegas <laugh>, you should join Club Twit. That's all I'm saying. Seven bucks a month. Never gamble. Will Lisa be forced down to do

Jeff Jarvis (02:25:20):
The thing? They installed a pole of the studio for nothing. That's what you should

Leo Laporte (02:25:23):
Hope for. No, that's terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. This is my wife you're talking about. She's a wonderful, wonderful human being for you. Putting her life on the line to by people, by going to be amongst other people to sell advertising because the times are tough. But you can solve that problem just by joining Club Twit Twitter tv slash club twit. That's all I'm gonna say. It's just a nice support thing. You get a lot of free stuff, including Stacy's book Club coming up next month. We've got a lot of good events. In fact, we have an event you just put an another event on there that's coming up soon. Right? 

Ant Pruitt (02:25:58):
Mr. Nielsen actually put in our special news of Home Theater

Leo Laporte (02:26:03):
Geeks. Oh, that's the news we're bringing back. Thanks. Thanks to club members, we can bring back a show that we had to cancel for lack of added support Home theater geeks. So that will be in the club going on tomorrow. 1:00 PM Pacific, 4:00 PM Eastern. Then Stacy's book Club Victor Bog, not Alex Wilhelm Fireside Chat with Sean Powers from Floss Weekly. I'm sure there'll be many more events still that come. You get that. You get the ad-free versions of all the shows. You get the TWI plus feed with shows we don't put out in public. You get gritty. Jeff Jarvis

Stacey Higginbotham (02:26:38):
<Laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:26:39):
We should start printing like little cards, gift cards to give away.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:26:47):
Twit collector cards. Collector

Leo Laporte (02:26:49):
Cards

Stacey Higginbotham (02:26:49):
Go. So when you join, yeah, when you get, like, like Ev should be every year, maybe with a Christmas card, you get one. Or maybe it's like every month.

Leo Laporte (02:26:58):
Panic. We should have Jeff Jarvis's Moral panic cards. There

Jeff Jarvis (02:27:03):
We go.

Leo Laporte (02:27:03):
There we go. That would be good. Yeah, that would be really good. Nice. We actually have a I, this was new. I I, it's funny cuz I said, oh, we should do that yesterday. And within seconds, <laugh>, they created a, a mid journey bot in our club twit for the staff. Cool. Very nice. Did you have anything else, Jeff, before we move on?

Jeff Jarvis (02:27:29):
Slide 41. Anchor. Having built a 2 billion business just on Amazon is pretty amazing.

Leo Laporte (02:27:36):
Anchor Beer Anchor. Anchor,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:27:38):
Anchor or no, ufi. Oh, anchor the ufi. Well, no, I, I don't I think it's Anchor. No,

Jeff Jarvis (02:27:42):
The, the, the, the Charger company.

Leo Laporte (02:27:45):
Oh, oh, yeah, yeah,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:27:46):
Yeah. You

Leo Laporte (02:27:47):
Fee biz. Yeah, we knew. No, we knew that. They, they're really, it's amazing what Amazon's let them do. But at the same time it's kind of a trap, isn't it? Cuz then you then you have to be subject to things like Amazon undercutting you and and demanding money so that you get, you know, picked and things like that. It's maybe not always a

Jeff Jarvis (02:28:06):
Slide 56. Yes. YouTube. Yes. payouts are almost comparable to TV production budgets. What?

Leo Laporte (02:28:14):
Overspeed over like lots more people. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (02:28:17):
Yeah. Wow. But still the budget. Much more.

Leo Laporte (02:28:20):
Holy cow.

Jeff Jarvis (02:28:22):
What slide 58. Mr. Beast has a comparable total viewing time to the top 10 Netflix show.

Leo Laporte (02:28:30):
There you go. Good. There you go. It says something. Youtube is really a parody with these says streamers. Yeah.

Jeff Jarvis (02:28:38):
Finally, slide 66. Sears in its heyday stock. 200,000 items. Amazon lists. 300 million. 200, 2000 new series were made in the US on TV in 2022. Youtube had, of course we know this. 3.7 daily million daily uploads.

Leo Laporte (02:28:58):
Wow. Very nice. That's Benedict Evans who does a yearly presentation, which we often talk about called the New Gatekeepers. Guess who the new gatekeepers are? US

Jeff Jarvis (02:29:11):
Podcasters.

Ant Pruitt (02:29:13):
Us.

Leo Laporte (02:29:13):
Really? <Laugh>? No, apparently YouTube. Actually. Mr. Jeff Jarvis. Thank you so much. How about you Ant Pruitt? A thing or a a item or,

Ant Pruitt (02:29:25):
Yeah, my I didn't have one and then I totally forgot about it. But you being here in Sonoma County, you remember the rain that we had this past weekend? Raining sideways and hail and all of that good stuff. Well, I was out in that all day Saturday. Oh. And just felt great and had my backpack with me. And you know what? All of my gear was totally fine. And it's the travel backpack from Peak Design. Oh, I

Leo Laporte (02:29:52):
Have this one. 

Ant Pruitt (02:29:53):
Waterproof.

Leo Laporte (02:29:54):
This is a great backpack.

Ant Pruitt (02:29:55):
Gag gum. Love it. But my cameras were totally fine. Did not have any damage from the sideways.

Leo Laporte (02:30:01):
This is specifically a camera backpack. Yes.

Ant Pruitt (02:30:04):
Yes. But you can also use it to put some clothes in

Leo Laporte (02:30:08):
It. Do you have inserts in it to 

Ant Pruitt (02:30:11):
I do. I have their camera cubes also. Ah that I put inside of there too, just for extra little nooks and crannies, if you will, to put lenses or cards and stuff like that. But it's a heck of a backpack. Ooh. And it

Leo Laporte (02:30:25):
Holds a bottle of wine. Nice.

Ant Pruitt (02:30:27):
It does. Couple bottles of water whiskey. Yeah. Holds bottle of wine. Yeah. <laugh>. Great bag. And I'm, I'm quite happy with that.

Leo Laporte (02:30:38):
They do. Nice. And then

Ant Pruitt (02:30:39):
The next, yeah, the next one. It looks nice too, showing the, the actual rain. Cuz we had the race for this was the high school's first meet this weekend.

Leo Laporte (02:30:48):
They were racing in the

Ant Pruitt (02:30:49):
Rain. Unfortunately it was all day in the dag gone rain.

Leo Laporte (02:30:52):
Oh Lord.

Ant Pruitt (02:30:53):
And some, you can see, well I guess that video doesn't show all the rain, but this was a great race. This was the hundred meter dash top five separated by about 800th of the second Wow. In that race. It was such a good race. Hardhead finished third. 

Leo Laporte (02:31:10):
Is that him in the fourth lane there?

Ant Pruitt (02:31:12):
He's in the red there. Yeah. Yeah. And the guy right there on the right and the white, he won it. That's the guy from Newman. Such a good race. Wasn't happy with the time, but then I realized, oh yeah, he's been sick and oh as mono. So yeah. <Laugh>,

Leo Laporte (02:31:28):
It's hard to do much with mono <laugh>. He was the fastest runner with mono in the race.

Ant Pruitt (02:31:35):
He, he felt good about it. His 200 meters was about, I think he ran like a 22 8 or something like that in a two meter. And I was, I was really impressed with that, considering he was still sick. But yeah, my final pick of the week is Silos series is finally announced that with the dagum date for tv. This is a book this is based on the books from Hugh Howey's wool. And it's got a lot of heavy hitters in there for acting. And Apple TV picked it up and they're calling it Silo cuz it's based on some silos in that book series. And it's coming out. Are they

Leo Laporte (02:32:14):
Living in silos?

Ant Pruitt (02:32:15):
The trailer is awesome. They're

Leo Laporte (02:32:17):
Like living, is it a post-apocalyptic world? And they have to live in a ish decommissioned missile silo. Is that

Ant Pruitt (02:32:24):
Ish? I'll just say that. Okay. <laugh>.

Leo Laporte (02:32:28):
But you like the books a lot, huh?

Ant Pruitt (02:32:30):
The yeah, the three books are outstanding. I love them.

Leo Laporte (02:32:33):
Oh, they aren't? Should we add them to Book Club Potential?

Ant Pruitt (02:32:36):
We could, but I, I'm sure everybody's read it in our book club. Quite honestly. I

Leo Laporte (02:32:40):
Haven't read 'em. I have not read it. Never even heard again. Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Ant Pruitt (02:32:44):
Okay. It's Hugh Howey's and it's called Wool. It's the first book. The second book is called I think Dust. And it's like a prequel to the first book. But it makes sense that they did it as a prequel. Cool. And the third one ties it all

Leo Laporte (02:33:00):
Together. Soon as I finish Prince Harry's book Spare, I will pick those up. Oh, OG <laugh>.

Ant Pruitt (02:33:08):
But I'm glad that it's finally getting on television screens now and saw that he had Tim Robbins and, and Yes. Good

Leo Laporte (02:33:16):
Looking cast. Yeah. May 5th,

Ant Pruitt (02:33:18):
Rashida Jones.

Leo Laporte (02:33:21):
You love her? The cast? Yeah. Are you listening to Oh, there are like six books in this series. Series. I am listening to Spare cuz I want to work on my Ponzi British accent. <Laugh>, let's try it. Let's, let's hear how it's doing. Come on. And then I thought about mommy as the British tabloid. Tell everybody I was a stupid person. It's it's actually good. It's good to hear. It, it's hard not to be sympathetic for somebody who was born into this family. And the pretty, the British tabloid press is a nightmare. Front wall gardens by the old gothic ruin. Dear gothic ruins. They got that first Yes. Looked around apparently listening to it too. I, I checked my phone, I texts to voicemails. Mommy, it must been running late. I thought it's silly to listen to it cuz I don't, you know, I didn't wanna be part of the Harry and Meghan media empire. But it's actually kind of interesting to see what it was like. Be the spare, you know, they call about the air and the spare the air, of course. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, his big brother William, who's next in line after Charles the third to be the King of England. And he's the spare because if something happens to William, then they've got a spare heir. And it's not easy being the spare, I guess is the, but

Jeff Jarvis (02:34:36):
I'm listening to Devil Land England under Siege 1588 to 1688.

Leo Laporte (02:34:40):
Under Siege. By whom?

Jeff Jarvis (02:34:42):
Well by themselves because it starts with Elizabeth and then the various fights and beheadings from then on through Charles on Charles too. So I'm getting,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:34:55):
I'm listening to Sorrow Land.

Leo Laporte (02:34:56):
Ooh, who's that? Oh, sorrow Land. Is it Sorrow? It

Stacey Higginbotham (02:35:00):
Is about, it is about a fungus. It is actually, it's about, it's it's a lot. I'm not even gonna describe it. It's science fiction. Just

Leo Laporte (02:35:07):
<Laugh>. You Do you only read sci-fi Stacy besides the No, I read everything. Ship books and stuff that you read. You read non-fiction? No, I

Stacey Higginbotham (02:35:14):
Read it. I books. No, I don't read everything I read. I hate novels with women facing away from the camera. And they're about like Yeah. Orphans from

Jeff Jarvis (02:35:27):
Hand in hand with the Eiffel Tower in front of them.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:35:29):
Yeah. All of the, I hate those historical lady fiction books. And it's not that I am not, I don't like 'em, but everything else I re I read almost indiscriminately.

Leo Laporte (02:35:40):
<Laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. ooh. There's a sequel to Chanam just came out. Good. I'll have to check that out. I liked that book. Yeah. I try to alternate fiction and non-fiction and I gotta read more. Asha Guru re reread that. Wonderful. Clara and The Sun. Both. Yeah. That was great.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:36:01):
Have you read? Never Let Me Go.

Leo Laporte (02:36:05):
No. And that's, it's funny you can say that cuz that's on my wishlist. That's the next I've read Remains of the Day, but I have to read Never Let Me Go. Which has been of course made into a movie with Kira Knightly. But I, I think

Stacey Higginbotham (02:36:18):
They're having another movie they're making someone just got the rights to his, his Dragon Fog book. I can't think of what it's

Leo Laporte (02:36:26):
Called. He's a lovely writer. I just love his,

Stacey Higginbotham (02:36:28):
He really is

Leo Laporte (02:36:29):
His, his pros. Okay. I think we can call it a day. We've been here for many, many hours.

Jeff Jarvis (02:36:35):
About 10 hours.

Leo Laporte (02:36:36):
We've cleaned our screens. Everything's working well. And I think it's time to say goodbye. Goodbye. No, no, no, no. I loved that. That was the highlight. You kidding, Stacy? It's literally the highlight of the show. Oh it was so funny. Almost, almost as good as Jeff Jarvis's headshot. Which which actually gave us hours of meers as well. <Laugh>. Oh wow. This is the famous Dual joints portrait that everybody talks about. No, it's

Jeff Jarvis (02:37:03):
Signed.

Leo Laporte (02:37:03):
Yeah. By How do you do that? It's just nonsense.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:37:07):
It's

Leo Laporte (02:37:07):
Nonsense. It's just nonsense. Here's here's in the style of Banksy <laugh>. Yeah. I like those two. So I said upscale two. Oh nice. Oh nice. They look great. Yeah. There's some good stuff in there. They really do. Yeah. I'm Mid Journey has become my favorite of these. <Laugh>. Yeah, <laugh>. Everybody.

Jeff Jarvis (02:37:26):
How does that get in there?

Stacey Higginbotham (02:37:28):
<Laugh> Elmo Moral panic.

Leo Laporte (02:37:29):
El Moral Panic. I don't know. I don't know. That's the prompt. Thank you Jerry.

Jeff Jarvis (02:37:34):
Like I tell the students in New York, never hug an Elmo on Times Square. <Laugh>. Never, never, never. Yeah. Exactly.

Leo Laporte (02:37:41):
Stacey, look, here's in the style of Charles Schultz, which is not really No. [inaudible]

Ant Pruitt (02:37:48):
Looks more like Matt grainy.

Leo Laporte (02:37:50):
This is great stuff. Great stuff. I like this one. Ant, you did this one. The moral panic shout. That's,

Jeff Jarvis (02:37:56):
You have a mid journey. This, there's a mid journey bought on the Discord. Correct. We

Leo Laporte (02:38:01):
Paid

Jeff Jarvis (02:38:02):
For it. Any member can go in here and

Leo Laporte (02:38:04):
No. Put in

Jeff Jarvis (02:38:05):
A,

Ant Pruitt (02:38:05):
On a different one. The members can go on

Jeff Jarvis (02:38:07):
Members. The members

Leo Laporte (02:38:08):
Members have another

Ant Pruitt (02:38:10):
A different

Jeff Jarvis (02:38:10):
One. Benefit of membership. Come on, you

Leo Laporte (02:38:13):
Get a mid journey. Do Is it unlimited? Yes. 25. You can make 25 images. And that's in our Discord. You

Jeff Jarvis (02:38:21):
Just used it up All on me. Thank

Leo Laporte (02:38:23):
You. Oh there it is. Under the fun and games heading. I made a picture of my cat. Aw.

Ant Pruitt (02:38:28):
And that was just added today by Mr. Nielsen as

Leo Laporte (02:38:30):
Well. Thank you. There's this is Jammer B'S Kitty. Yeah. Another member, member benefit. Although we should How much is it to get unlimited? Can you get unlimited 50 bucks a month? I don't know. For us to do it might be different because we would be generating a lot of stuff. Podcaster having lunch. <Laugh>

Ant Pruitt (02:38:54):
Of course. I put that prompt in.

Leo Laporte (02:38:55):
Yeah, that was the one we tried ages ago. It's gotten a lot better, hasn't it? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> Ant Pruit with a warm camera glow. I don't think they know you. Ant <laugh>. Little

Ant Pruitt (02:39:05):
Tubby at all there. Yeah. Isn't I'm totally fine with that. Yeah. If, if the internet doesn't know who I am, I'm cool with it.

Leo Laporte (02:39:11):
Yeah. Yeah. <Laugh> nice. Oh this is loads of fun. But I really think we have to call it a day. Again. Another good reason to become a member of the club because the club, the discord never ends. I mean it's always going. There's always stuff.

Jeff Jarvis (02:39:25):
And like this show,

Leo Laporte (02:39:26):
Like this show never ends <laugh>. It's much like this. So you can Google. Well,

Jeff Jarvis (02:39:30):
Stacy's thinking, I'm telling you.

Leo Laporte (02:39:31):
Oh my God. It's endless.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:39:34):
I do have to start cooking dinner at some point.

Leo Laporte (02:39:37):
No props. You're

Stacey Higginbotham (02:39:38):
Standing between my family and food.

Leo Laporte (02:39:40):
Oh no, we don't wanna do wouldn't wanna do that. Stacey Egg by, is it Stacy On i.com. You can get her newsletter. That's free. Check out any events upcoming and subscribe to the podcast she does with Kevin Topel every week.

Stacey Higginbotham (02:39:56):
Last week our guest was powerless Schau, who is the founder of Home Assistant. So if y'all are home assistant users and I bet there are some of y'all out there, that's a good show cuz he's our guest and talks about some of the things coming up. I'm just gonna plug that for because I know

Leo Laporte (02:40:12):
There are home assistant folks out there. Okay, very good. That's all very <laugh>. Stacy on iot.com. Thank you Stacy. Jeff Jarvis, we neglected to mention at the beginning of the show, so I'll say it now as the Leonard Top professor for journalistic innovation at the Craig Newmar. Craig Newmont Graduate School of Chorus and journalism at the City University of New York. Thank you Jeff. Always a pleasure. Try the, try the camo studio. I bet you'd like it from ring incubate.com. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And of course Ant Pruitt who all doesn't need any camera advice. He's the host of Hands on Photographer. He's the normal one. He looks good. He's the normal one normal person on the show. The normal, average every day. Joe Historian as the normal one. <Laugh> and Bruit. I used to do a show called the Screensavers and the boss told me my co-host, I was like a weirdo.

(02:41:05):
But my co-host was for the lunch buck, lunch bucket crowd. And you that Yeah, that's me. Yeah. The for the lunch bucket crowd. Ant Pruit, you're in Good company. Patrick Norton was lunch bucket and Can of beer. That that's, there you go. There you go. <Laugh>. That's good. <Laugh>. That's good. None. No, none of that kombucha for him. No sir. Reach Uhuh Daisy drinks fine. Jim <laugh>. I do. And we've driven her to drink with this program. <Laugh>. I consider that mission accomplished. Close. We do This Week in Google every Wednesday. 2:00 PM Pacific. 5:00 PM Eastern. It is now 2100 U T C because we are about to go into summertime on Sunday. So we move u t C does not, but that means you must tune in at a different time. Just do the ca do the calculations. 2100 U t c after the fact. Actually, that's only if you wanna watch live.

(02:41:56):
The stream is at live TWI tv. It's fun if you're watching live to participate with the chat at irc twit tv or in our disc discord if, excuse me, I got the hiccups. If you're a Club Twit member after the fact you get on demand versions of the show at twit.tv/TWiG, there's a YouTube channel also. Best thing to do though, subscribe that way you get immediately as soon as it's done and edited and you don't have to think about it and you can listen to it at your leisure or watch it cause we put out video as well. Thanks everybody. Appreciate you putting up with us for another five or six hours. We'll try to make the show a little longer next time. All two of you who are left <laugh> you sad, sad people. Thank you so much for being here. We'll see you next time on This Week in Google. Bye-Bye. <laugh>.

Speaker 7 (02:42:45):
Hey, I'm Rod Pyle, editor in Chief VAD as magazine. And each week I joined with my co-host to bring you this week in space, the latest and greatest news in the final frontier. We talked to NASA, chief space scientists, engineers, educators, and artists. And sometimes we just shoot the breeze over what's hot and what's not in space. Books and tv. And we do it all for you, our fellow true believers. So whether you're an armchair adventurer or waiting for your turn to grab a slot in Elon's Mars Rocket, join us this weekend space and be part of the greatest adventure of all time