This Week in Google 754 Transcript

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

00:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's time for twig. This week in Google, micah Sargent joins Paris Martinot and Jeff Jarvis to show off his vision pro. We'll talk about the pros and the cons. Taylor Swift is mad at Jack Sweeney, the kid who's tracking her jet everywhere she goes. Blue Sky is open to all and Paris shows us why she carries a pair of gardening shears with her everywhere she goes. It's all coming up next on twig Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is twig.

00:39
This is twig this week in Google, episode 754. Recorded Wednesday, february 7th 2024. Gorilla Gardening this week in Google is brought to you by Babbel, the science-backed language learning app that actually works. Be a better you in 2024 with Babbel. Babbel uses quick 10-minute lessons, easy to use, handcrafted by more than 200 language experts, so you can start speaking a new language in as little as three weeks. Babbel's created to help you build real-world conversations. You start by learning how to order food, ask for directions, speak to merchants. I've used it for several languages. It's so great, and Babbel's wide range of learning experiences mean there's something for everybody, ranging from casual to intense. There's always a way to fit in a Babbel session, from self-study app lessons to podcasts to live classes where you can actually talk to other learners and really get those conversational skills going. 15 hours with Babbel is equal to one full semester at college. It's really easy to get those 15 hours. In Plus, all of Babbel's 14 language courses are backed by their 20-day money-back guarantee.

01:50
Now I have a lifetime membership already, but if you don't, here's a special limited time deal for our listeners. Right now, get 50% off a one-time payment for a lifetime Babbel subscription, and it's only for our listeners. Go to babbelcomtwig. Get 50% off at babbelcomtwig B-A-B-B-E-Lcomtwig. Rules and restrictions may apply. It's time for twig this week in Google, sort of, and really not this week. So much. Say hello to Paris Martino of the information. Hi, paris.

02:26 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Hi, you can Google our show. That counts, that counts.

02:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Don't look now, but your plant is starting to inch towards you, sneaking up behind you, I'm definitely aware of that and not being held hostage by the plant.

02:43 - Paris Martineau (Host)
There's no reason to be alarmed or call any local authority.

02:47 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Weig twice. Weig twice. Has You're okay.

02:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean, wow, is that a monstera?

02:57 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It is a monstera. And if I Aptly named. Hold on, let me see if I can look how big it is. Wow.

03:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You can't even capture it. It's like what are you feeding that thing?

03:10 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Just water. I've had to move it from my bathroom because it was getting too much sunlight and too much humidity. Too much room. And too much room, so now it's out here in the drive.

03:24 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
All through the jungle to change that caliber.

03:26 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Nouris, I do yeah.

03:28 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I don't change it.

03:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I think it is multiple months behind because I have not gone through the plant. This is a picture of what it looked like in her bathroom, so it's good that she moved it out of there.

03:39 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You had to rent a second apartment just to fit it.

03:42 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I did yeah, and rent isn't cheap here in Brooklyn so it really has got to start point to point.

03:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Did you know it's also called the Swiss cheese plant, or that's upsetting. Split leaf philodendron.

03:53 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I did know that. I didn't know if it's Swiss cheese, but that makes sense because of the holes. It's holy. It is a holy plant.

04:02 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Holy plant.

04:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That is Micah Sargent, but I'm not going to introduce him yet. I'm going to say hi to Jeff Jarvis before we sit. You know the regulars on the show. Jeff is de-orbiting as a professor at the CUNY School of Journalism. What's his name? What is his name again, Craig? What's his? Craig Newmark. Graduate school of the. University of New York.

04:30 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I went to Civic Hall, which is this new wonderful space in New York, yesterday for an event I'm holding in April and Craig always generous, amazing Craig has also supported it and there is the Craig Newmark Auditorium there. Wow, very nice. You look up and straight up the avenue and you see the Chrysler building Wonderful.

04:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And I want to thank Micah Sargent, who is sitting to my left. He's in studio. Hello, bravely braving the Vision Pro headset. He's here to tell us all about You're not wearing the top strap.

05:04 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, because this one's more photogenic.

05:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh.

05:07 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
See what he does for the show he gives himself a headache.

05:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Not only that, he gave me this mug, which I really appreciate, world's best boss. It's a lie. It's a lie. The world's best boss has already told him that he has to return this Vision Pro and I said, thank you, yeah, I was surprised.

05:28 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So it's changed over time. I'll tell you that later.

05:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You got it on Friday.

05:31 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I got it on Friday and when I first put it on, as is the way of things, you go holy moly, look at this, this is so cool. Watch what I can do. Watch me move my hands around. I'm getting exercise. It's amazing. And then the longer I've worn it for longer periods of time, the more I find myself having to convince myself to put it on again.

05:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
My prediction exactly of what would happen.

05:56 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, now, not everybody's feeling that way. I want to be clear that this has just been my personal experience.

06:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And you're not. I hope this isn't the case. I hope you're not influenced by me and my negativity.

06:08 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, no, no, because I'm maybe unbeknownst to you, but I'm sort of secretly very, very, very, very put off by peer pressure.

06:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So actually, that's the opposite. By saying how bad it is, I'm encouraging you to love it.

06:27 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yes, because I want to not be peer pressure. You are going to hate this. Oh no, now I have to love it, dang it. It doesn't work like that either, but my point is, I wanted to be sure that I was. I took my proper inoculations so that Leo's sort of feeling about it did not impact.

06:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I've been to be fair. I've been really trying to be open-minded about this thing and I think what I would. My objection is not to this particular device. I think Apple's made an amazing piece of hardware. I think we both agree on that. My objection is to the category. I just don't. I personally don't want to put something on my a computer, on my face.

07:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And increasingly that is.

07:08 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It just seems like an immature category at this point.

07:10 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Well, it's definitely that.

07:12 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It doesn't seem like there are any particularly strong use cases at the moment that are better than the available option.

07:19 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I should say, though, I first put on a VR helmet 30 years ago at SIGGRAPHS Perhaps In the early 90s they had a. Now it was. It had a big tether coming out of the head, going to a Silicon Graphics Onyx million-dollar computer to generate the experience and you sat on a saddle and held handles and you were flying. I don't know, it was wild.

07:42
This is my first experience of it. I'll never forget it. It really imprinted flying a pterodactyl and the seat moved in your head. It was very realistic, and so I've tried every one since Wait, wait, wait, wait wait, wait, wait, wait.

07:55 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It's realistic, righty-to-terodactyl. How would you know?

07:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, that's what's cool. No, because you're feeling, you feel the wind in your hair and I mean it really feels like.

08:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's what's. If I can hire someone to blow on me while I'm doing different things, then I can, jeff, have you ever For $3,500, you definitely can.

08:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Have you ever tried one of these, Jeff, of any kind, the Oculus or Medi? Oh yeah.

08:20 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, benedict Evans has been writing about it, saying that he just doesn't understand the use case. Yeah.

08:27
He said you don't need a six-foot-wide spreadsheet, I think, to do that Watching a movie. That way doesn't really, you know, do much for you. He says the same thing about chatGPT it was in the same tweet where we don't really ask questions this way, and there are technologies that are looking for their use case. Well, lord knows. That's what they said back in the day about laptops Nobody's ever going to use laptops. How ridiculous.

08:52 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Same with e-readers. I mean, I'm but. I'm saying Open to being proven wrong, but I think that in the current iteration, like I could see myself maybe using a AR display if there was built into my glasses, for I don't know directions. Yeah, but that's not. But it seems like we're a while away from that, and so I guess what?

09:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The reason I brought up the Territactical is to say this is not an immature technology. It's been around for at least three years and there have been many iterations at this the Oculus Quest, you know, the Riftrather, which was a Kickstarter, you know, I think a decade ago, and so they've been working on this for a long time, and I think this is one of those technologies in search of an application. It's not that this is brand new. Now this is the best possible iteration of it. Yeah, absolutely.

09:39 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
This I mean genuinely. The resolution of these screens is incredible. The cameras let down. The experience for you. Hold your head still William.

09:51 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I can yeah, I'll try to very, very still.

09:53 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I won't even move my lips so that way. So no, the cameras let down the experience, because when you're looking out at things, it's very clearly in VR, but whenever you are looking at things that are actually being presented to you, that is crisp and clear and very cool. And this is what I'm saying. If it didn't hurt me as much as it does and it wasn't as uncomfortable ultimately to be inside of this thing, then absolutely I'd be so down. So the idea that we're I don't know that it's we're poo-pooing this and we're hating on it and this and that and the other, it's not this specific device so much as it is that every one that I have used has been an uncomfortable or unenjoyable experience in return for what I can do with it.

10:47
Because, yeah, I kind of disagree about the Excel thing. I have found it super cool to be able to have a huge page that I can do a bunch of stuff on, and then also I've got you know music over here going on. I mean, I do that with my computers already. I plug it in, I've got multiple displays and I love that experience and genuinely enjoy that. It's just that the trade-off here is having to have this thing strapped to my face and I think that's the point that Leo always gets back to and where we do agree is cool that it can do all of this stuff. But in its current iteration you're still taking this thing and strapping it in front of your eyes and for, I think, a good number of people, that's not a comfortable thing to be doing.

11:30 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You've had it on for about 10 minutes. How are you feeling?

11:35 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, let me say I genuinely I try to be better about this. But I'll say this I don't like to feel stupid and sometimes this thing makes me feel stupid, I will say I've taken a photo of the video of you sitting there. I don't mind if I look stupid.

11:54
I don't like to feel stupid, and this thing makes me feel stupid, sometimes not because of me wearing it, but because I feel like I'm putting it on wrong every time. Again, if I could hire someone from Apple who would come and perfectly adjust everything so that it's how they intended it to be worn, I would feel a lot better about it too, because there are times where it doesn't feel as uncomfortable, times where it feels like it weighs a billion pounds on my face. I don't necessarily ever know if I've got it just right. Sometimes they'll pop up and say, hey, you need to move it closer to your eyes or further away from your eyes. There are little coaching moments, but I still am going. Well, maybe I'm missing something, maybe I don't have it quite aligned, and so that's the reason why this looks blurry. Now or when I'm trying to tap on something in virtual space, it's not working. That stuff is. They've got some polishing to do when it comes to that.

12:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Let me take you back in time, Back in time To Friday yes, dude when you first put this thing on and you were the dinosaur. You were feeding the dinosaur and, by the way, that's not a muffin on my table. Somebody said what's that on your table? Is that a muffin? No, that's Micah's head.

13:05 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Do you know the muffin man?

13:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And these, but this was and I did this too and the thing came out of the screen. They play a little game with you where it looks like it's trapped inside a 2D screen, but in fact the head comes out of the screen. Same effect, by the way, you could see on billboards in Times Square in Tokyo. You were pretty impressed at this point, yeah and I still am.

13:28 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Let me be clear I love that experience. That was easily one of the coolest experiences. That and the experience we did later. We took some different 3D models and we threw them on the floor and I was sitting down inside of an F1 car and looking at all the modules.

13:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That was really neat.

13:43 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, I'm not. The complaints that I have are not negating how fricking cool this thing is. It is absolutely super cool. It is high quality, it is. All of these things and this is the great thing about humans is that we're able to hold competing ideas in our mind at the same time. We don't like to do it, we don't like the cognitive dissonance, but we can do it and I can say this is amazing. We're also saying it hurts. It hurts me.

14:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Here you are, and there's obviously rapturous joy on your face as a butterfly lands on your finger.

14:18 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I mean that's not fake, no, that was genuine, like that was in the moment.

14:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I was really excited about it.

14:22 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Wow, the Apple Watch really adds something to it. It does add to it, doesn't it?

14:26 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Wow, if anyone was like sheeple over there, that was my name, fanboy, well you know.

14:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I mean, if anybody's going to make this work, I. You know. I was looking at my Kickstarter history and this was the original In 2012. So 12 years ago, the Oculus Rift Palmer Lucky's Oculus Rift which they raised two and a half million dollars. He later sold it to Metta. This was the grandfather of the Metta Quest, and the latest, the Quest three, is probably the only reasonable competition to what Apple's put out. I've tried them all. I own several of them. I haven't even had the Quest, they just sit there.

15:05
Well, that was and this. I came really close. I mentioned this my finger was hovering over the buy button two weeks ago, when we could buy these, and I realized I'm going to buy this and it's going to sit right next to the Quest Pro gathering dust on the shelf, because and this is the to me, this is the problem it is really cool. I mean, it's wonderful when a butterfly imaginary butterfly lands in your finger or you can talk to a dinosaur, but ultimately it's not the kind of thing you you reach for. You're already at that point less than a week later.

15:36 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yes, I, yes, I personally am, and I, I have to say that what I bet Jeff you know the term for this If not multiple people I guess it's kind of sunk cost theory, but this we are driven to find positives in things that we have spent a lot of money on, to convince ourselves and others that what we've done is a good idea.

15:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They call it the IKEA principle. So, if you like your IKEA furniture because you spent so much damn time building it, there you go. I don't know if that's the one I'm looking for, but you get the idea.

16:09 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
In this case money, not time.

16:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, and I do, and in this case my money, not your money.

16:14 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's what I'm saying. That's why I'm I'm immune to that. I don't have that as much as the people that I've talked to, who also have these, who are spending their personal funds.

16:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
If you put, if you put 3,500 bucks into this, you're not going to see. That's terrible.

16:26 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You got to go. Oh man, this. You know, I love this thing and I want it, and I think that that does play a role. I think we have to keep that in mind.

16:33 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I wonder what the returns are going to look like. You get two weeks on this Me too and this is going to be an interesting test to see if people go. Yeah, I don't know.

16:42 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Have you been using it, Micah, throughout the day while you're doing other activities?

16:46 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I have, yeah, so, especially at home, because I want to give it, you know, the real college try, I guess, and so because of that I've been using it regularly and at home. You know, one of the cool things I was telling Leo about this before the cool experience that I had was I was watching a movie, and it was a 3D movie. Because I wanted to see what a 3D movie would look like, and so I had pulled up the screen. It took up pretty much all of my view in my living room and at one point I needed to go upstairs and so I walked upstairs and I could look down through the floor and see down on the bottom floor where the screen actually was, and then I could come back and sit back down and it didn't move. Like that is the magical stuff that it is able to do.

17:33 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's really cool. That is so cool. In fact, jason Snell said he by accident left his settings app in the garage. Where are the settings? There's a button you can push that brings everything back. This is a video on Reddit titled this Thing is Wild, and I'm looking at this guy as a developer, python developer. He's in Marrakesh, he's in Morocco, in a beautiful tent near a pool and he's playing with all this. In fact, in a little bit he's going to get up and go by the pool and he's saying isn't this amazing? Look, I could do all this stuff. And I'm just saying, dude, you're in freaking Marrakesh. Tear the thing off your head and jump in that pool. What are you doing? What are you doing?

18:18 - Paris Martineau (Host)
He's showing sitting with an Apple keyboard with four screens in front of him, one of which this one that is now moving is YouTube, but it was Google Maps, chat, something else. For the average consumer, you could just have your four monitors or whatever.

18:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You can sit with your laptop and do that. You don't need four monitors, just do it in your laptop.

18:42 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
So I put in the rundown. There were two stories. One was Ben Thompson, taking, of course, a long time to basically say I thought this thing was amazing when I first saw it in the demo, but now and then the Washington Post arguing that everyone's using it wrong, that you're not supposed to have it on all day, that that's ridiculous. And then the Shira Ovid, who's wonderful and that there's certain uses. So I think you wonder if this is going to be like Google Glass and people are going to say that was cool for a while, but whether people are going to find ways to use it that actually makes sense, I don't know.

19:22 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I hate the idea that one would spend so much money on a thing and then be told that the best way to use it is to not use it too often. That's wild to me and I get it's not what Apple's pitching.

19:34
Right, exactly, I mean, that's why they've done all of this pass through technology, why they've put the silly eyes in the front and they have orchestrated this so that you can wear it for longer periods of time. I got a wonder, too, about the impact of having these lenses so close to your eyes. So I really am fascinated by sleep science and everything that's involved with sleep and your circadian rhythm and everything like that. And of course, we know that blue light is large. Well, actually, artificial light in general is a large enemy to the average human's ability to sleep. And having these screens so close to your eyes, blasting what are called your super charismatic nuclei constantly oh fancy Is well done.

20:23
You know I'm kind of worried about that. And then also, you know, I take it off. And if I've been wearing it for too long, depth is a little strange. You know, what's it going to do to our eyesight in the long term? And how long did the people who made this, the people who worked on it, how long were they wearing it over periods of time? And is there some recommendation for how long you should wear it? Actually, there are a lot of unanswered questions when it comes to that. But yeah, this, you know, put this on for 30 minutes and then be done with it.

20:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, the good news is you can drive your Tesla with it on.

21:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And it says he just did it for the it's not fake, sorry, it is happening, it's actually happening.

21:05 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh no, it is fake.

21:07 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Listen, listen to parents.

21:09 - Paris Martineau (Host)
My friend, a reporter, caroline Haskins. I'll pull up the tweet. So in that video that Leo just showed, a man was driving his Tesla while wearing the Vision Pro. He seemingly gets pulled over. Cops are behind him flashing their sirens. Caroline Haskins, a tech reporter, said I have an update. In this video the police department shown in the background of South Windsor, connecticut, told me that they didn't pull this guy over, but rather stopped a separate vehicle in the area around the time he immediately pulled it on.

21:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Dante confirmed this to me.

21:40 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Dante added that he quote must have had the headset on while driving for no more than 10 to 15 second increments, probably, in total combined, no more than 30 to 40 seconds, just to shoot the video.

21:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I have to point out, though, that there are a lot of other people who did do it the pilot there are a number of people, line 93 as well.

21:58 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah.

21:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So the enough that Massachusetts lawmaker is proposing a law against it, although you don't need a law, Of course, Because of course it's distracted driving. Apple says you shouldn't do it and even the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration have said it. In fact, the Department of Transportation Secretary, Pete Buttigieg, says reminder, all advanced driver assistance systems available today require the human to be in control and fully engage in the driving task at all times. The fact that Pete Buttigieg is worried, yes, Does tell me that you know this is not fake. This is this. Guy is really in his cyber truck.

22:39 - Paris Martineau (Host)
That seems real.

22:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, of course you know what, and of course it's a cyber truck.

22:44 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Of course, yeah, that's. That's got to be part of it.

22:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know, when the PT cruiser came out, I noted that a disproportionate number of PT cruiser owners had personalized license plates. There is something about the psychology of a cyber truck owner. They're going to the Venn diagram between a truck owner and vision pro owner is a circle.

23:05 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh no, michael. Let me ask you two things. One if it were well first, before you got it, could you have imagined saying oh please, can I keep it all? Spent the cost with you, that's so good, yeah. Second question is if there was anything to drive you to say that, what's the one killer app that you think you actually might miss setting it back?

23:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Interesting. We did early on have that conversation.

23:30 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yes, we did, because so here's the thing, it's hard to separate, jeff, the the part of me that, as a person who covers this, felt the motivation that, regardless of how I felt about it personally, I wanted to be able to cover it, and so I had had plans for, you know, looking at metrics and all this other stuff, to figure out if it was something that we would keep in the long term for that, and so that does influence whether I, you know, felt about that independently. But I'm not going to lie, fomo is a big thing, and there are a lot of people in this sort of tech podcast realm who I knew would be getting them and talking about them regularly. So, yeah, going into it, I absolutely, and that's that's it too. This came to mind as well as that, hearing about the early interactions with this device the ones before these final reviews came out this past week, and everything that was involved there, led me to believe that it was going to be even more than it was.

24:28
So, believe it or not, when I tried this on for the first time, I was disappointed. And I was not expecting to feel disappointed, because I put it on expecting for the past through. What I was looking out to see was going to be like real life, and what I came to understand is that many times those early journalists who got to check it out at WWDC, they were talking about how high resolution the UI was. Not the pass through, but it gave this impression that it was going to be. You know, you could take it off and put it on. You couldn't tell the difference, and so I was ready for that. I had been using the Quest 3 leading up to that point as kind of a reference and when I put it on I thought what's going on here? This isn't what I was expecting. So I was surprised to be disappointed at the initial. As far as what would drive me, to keep it honestly, if there was some way that I don't know if I'd put a bunch of pillows and medical tape all over this so that it just somehow did not hurt my head, if I could come up with some sort of gyroscope thing that readjust, that would need to be required. But then after that, the Killer App for me actually is kind of what Paris was talking about earlier. I could have my Mac in front of me, but I've also got these other things that I'm able to do at the same time, and it's just a super cool thing to be able to do.

25:53
I feel so in control of my space and you don't get that in real life. I can't take a window and put it up on the wall and make something come on, and then over here I've got my music playing. That is just I literally can remember as a kid getting ready to go to bed. I would quite literally dream of or not dream of this, but imagine this. I would sit there in bed and I would take my fingers and I would pretend to throw these glasses, like glass panes, up on the walls and suddenly my whole room took me to a safari. And that was imagination as a kid that I had. Now I'm looking at it dead in the face, and so that's why it kind of makes me sad that I am overall having this feeling about it.

26:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're young enough and you are too. Paris, jeff and I will never see this, but you and I you two are young enough that you will probably see in your lifetime some sort of augmented reality device that is lightweight and comfortable and gives you some I don't know some additional information about the world around you. I don't know if we need it, but you'll probably see it.

27:00 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I think it would be really cool.

27:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, if it is lightweight and easy, it has to be like your glasses, though, right, it has to be like what you're wearing. Here's what the place I mean that's also.

27:08 - Paris Martineau (Host)
The thing is, it seems like current, like I couldn't probably wear the Vision Pro because I need glasses to see.

27:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, they could put lenses in it. I wore it with contacts and they could put lenses.

27:19 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
That is special 149 bucks.

27:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's not a huge look if you're paying 3500 bucks you're always $200 for the carrying case, $149 for the lens.

27:30 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh yeah, the carrying case doesn't come included.

27:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, you get, you do get. This comes with the box. This covers the front glass.

27:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This is beautiful. This is so well made. This is the nicest.

27:44 - Paris Martineau (Host)
What is that?

27:45 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's for your soap when you're buttering your soap.

27:48 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, it's for when you butter your soap, let's put it on in.

27:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You don't wear it. This is just to protect you.

27:53 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It looks like my AirPod Max.

27:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You do need this because, yeah, this is just like an AirPod Max.

27:59 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It looks just like it.

28:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I know that you still let's still have the silly bra case that they gave it.

28:04 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's because Leo serves a purpose when you put it in the case. It turns them off so that they don't connect any of your devices and that they're not consuming power.

28:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I have one. I have a pink one with a pink bra and, very important, it's just like me. I fall asleep inside a bra every night as well. No, that's a terrible thing to say. Don't follow that up, just leave them alone. Mike says. These are the comments.

28:28 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Don't think too hard, don't make any sudden movements. Mike knows me way too well, these are the comments.

28:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
the reviewers comments the closest thing we've come to Star Trek's holodeck. The effect is mind blowing. We found ourselves entirely absorbed. A gaming experience with a level of immersion genuinely unlike everything we've ever encountered. This is from 2012,. The original Oculus Rift. It's the same, exact and I have to say I share that. History repeats. When you put this on, it's amazing. It's like wow this is the coolest thing ever. It just doesn't wear well.

29:08 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, you just keep wearing it and then you go, why am I wearing this one more? And then you remember it's not like well, see, that's the thing you kind of forget, and so that's why you put it on again. But I just, I don't know. I'd love to get in the heads of some folks who are super gung-ho about it. You liked Fruit Ninja, I liked okay. So here's the thing, and you know what? I'll launch Fruit Ninja.

29:31 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Let me Let me watch you play yeah.

29:35
So I think Apple made a little bit of a tactical mistake, because up to now, the really the best use of all of these is for virtual reality gaming. Apple pushed this pass through, but it is really a virtual reality device. The background isn't that important, it's what you're, it's the screen of your Mac or the app you're running. You can, in fact, be on Tatooine or Mars, and it's the same thing. It doesn't. You're not interacting so much with the background, unless you're driving a Tesla, which shame on you, so it is. It is, for now, a virtual reality device. I think there will be some augmented reality applications and the fact that you can leave windows in different physical locations. That's that's. That's an augmented reality. That's kind of interesting.

30:19
So let's play Super Fruit Ninja.

30:21 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's got the longest load time in the history of load times, geez, so we might keep talking while it loads.

30:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But you see, the pass through there is great but not necessary, does it add? How about? What do you know, anthony?

30:34 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
What's the caveat?

30:35 - Leo Laporte (Host)
there. What's the caveat? Oh sorry, oh don't, don't walk into stuff. You're going to hit.

30:40 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, I think I'm going to get up to get up, to get up, to get up, I think oh you have to walk over there.

30:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So Leo you need to narrate, I'll narrate and you can just shout and I'll repeat it. Anthony Nielsen in our on our team also. He bought his own, he spent his own money on this. Have you decided, anthony, whether you're keeping yours or not? You still haven't. You have time, yeah.

31:01 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yeah, sorry to be trash in it.

31:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, but Anthony, how about the AR VR issue? Because there are some AR applications. You, if anybody, would be using it as an AR device. Do you think it's still a mostly VR device?

31:16 - Anthony Nielson (Host)
I mean that's, that's kind of frustrating because like it is essentially a VR device but Apple is like kind of positioning it.

31:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yes, it's not AR VR, it's spatial computing.

31:27 - Anthony Nielson (Host)
Like ideally, I'd like to like not have a quest and I was hoping like this would also like kind of in the Venn diagram of things you could do, but also like eclipse the quest.

31:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But, like you also have a quest three, anthony's an early adopter. Okay, so we're playing Fruit Ninja now. Ladies and gentlemen, fruit Ninja, if you don't know, is a game where fruit pops up and you slash it with your sword. In this case, your sword is your hand. Wait a minute. What's that little pig there?

31:57 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Those fruits are getting slashed.

31:59 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They're getting slashed.

32:00 - Paris Martineau (Host)
There's an old man in the corner. Is that me who?

32:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
is that it's a guy. It could be. It could be, though, right.

32:07 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Combo. This looks just like Fruit Ninja on the phone, but it's in 3D.

32:13 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The difference is there are people behind us, right, and I'm here, but you don't interact with me. It's just a background. You could just as easily be playing this on the moon. It really wouldn't which, by the way, they'll let you do. There's also a dial that lets you tune out the background if you don't want to see that. So let's see the pig. So this is augmented reality in some respects. The pig is on the floor.

32:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
The pig is going to fetch the stick.

32:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He can fetch. He's playing fetch with the pig. Pig is confused about the stick.

32:41 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
The pig is just now showing you his rump.

32:43 - Paris Martineau (Host)
The pig is decided here, the pig is flashing you.

32:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Okay, and we're now giving him a strawberry. The pig is very confused.

32:52 - Paris Martineau (Host)
The pig is taking his sweet time.

32:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He likes Anthony. He thinks Anthony's the stick. Oh, you pet him. See, this is kind of fun. So this is augmented reality, right?

33:01 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I mean the pig is kind of this is kind of fun, Leo says, as he pets an imaginary pig.

33:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, that's the won't do what he wants. Oh, he's going to jump on my table. Watch, let's see if he knows the table, because he can't.

33:13 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Let's see if he figures out the table. Can he see surfaces the pig?

33:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
is oh, he poofed, you mean the poof.

33:18 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, the pig has poofed onto a chair. It did not make it onto the table. Okay, it has now poofed onto the table.

33:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Okay, now, that's important, that is, the fact that he can determine that space and stand on. It is impressive. I don't know what it's impressive for, but to what end? By the way, it's a To what end? And who's this ninja guy who's just standing there? He's your teacher. Oh, he's your teacher. Is he saying wax on, wax off? He's scratchy at his head, he's the teacher.

33:44 - Paris Martineau (Host)
He says casually, as if this is all so normal.

33:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, this is what happens when you get in this space. By the way, I don't know if you've experienced the pig is laughing at him right now. When you spend a lot of time in this kind of odd dream space, when you take it off, you start to pinch things and tap things. Your brain has a hard time. You're doing something your brain is not equipped to do, I think.

34:12 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I agree, I have had a hard time. The other day I can't remember again what it was, but I woke up and I thought that I could swipe it something with my hand. I think it was, and obviously that didn't work and I know Anthony has had that experience. Where with his television was it?

34:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I tried to pause my TV by tapping, so this gesture is very cool. So there is some good technology. There's eye tracking. It knows what you're looking at by looking at your eyes, and the way you hit buttons is. You look at the button and it doesn't matter where your hand is as long as the cameras can see it, which means it can be in your lap. You just tap and that's a click. So you look at something and you tap. It's an interesting UI. I don't know. My kind of experience with this and others is that it's a little more work than just doing exactly the same thing on your computer with a mouse and a keyboard. Can I just it's?

35:12 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
just Harris. Do you have any idea, any desire to try it?

35:16 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Not really. I mean, I've I have used like an Oculus before in similar capacities and I didn't find it that compelling. Um, I don't know. I mean, I'm open to it if there's something that comes up, an app or something that is particularly useful and lends itself to the medium, but right now I think that it doesn't seem that useful to me. I'm not the biggest fan of VR games either.

35:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So the wide shot it's like Micah is our idiot son, who we just kind of pretending.

35:51 - Paris Martineau (Host)
He's Micah, is our iPad baby right now.

35:56 - Speaker 7 (Host)
He's really enjoying himself. Yeah, remember when we always talked about this could be huge, for I don't mention the IKEA effect earlier.

36:04 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Um, one of the kind of neat things that maybe this is, this is what you would want Paris is let's show my camera, if we can. So I have a standing desk assembly situation going on here and you can almost imagine laying out the different pieces on the floor and then learning how you're supposed to put it together. So you put the support beam here.

36:28
But you need as a robot to actually do the work and then you could follow along with the process and then you can also just take the different pieces and that's even harder than IKEA instructions.

36:37 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Fair enough, fair enough.

36:40 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I think certainly for some people this would be very useful. Um, I'm always been very good at putting together furniture.

36:46 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It's never been before the show Paris was, was was bragging, if I do say. I'm very handy, I don't tell them where your workshop is.

36:55 - Paris Martineau (Host)
When you built your when I built my dining bank cat and the different benches, my workshop was on the sidewalk outside my apartment. I saw outside and went to work.

37:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This is really more of a statement on your generation and what we have, as as boomers, done to you, which is, you are now compelled to go into the sidewalk to build your own furniture because that is true.

37:20 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's kind of sad because the current capitalist market has not produced the ability for me to easily and quickly purchase a bench.

37:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Assembled my specification. Assembled furniture.

37:33 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You have to make your own or your. Your meant for the suburbs Paris. That's what it really means.

37:37 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, I don't.

37:38 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I hope it isn't that I think of the first one You're a city, you're a city, you're a Jersey, paris. You just mark my word.

37:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh gosh, no, no, no no, no, paris you are like. What's that great comedian who says pretend you're in a city. I love her. She's lived in New York. What's that great comedian you know I'm talking about all your in. Pretend you're in a city. She has a, by the way, if you haven't seen it, it is the funniest. Uh, Mike is just running into stuff here. I meant to do that.

38:10 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Sweetie.

38:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It is Fran Liebowitz, you're friendly and it is a wonderful. Martin Scorsese directed a Netflix series called pretend it's a city, because she's a new. She is a lifelong Manhattanite and one of the things she debugs her is and I'm sure it bugs you as well uh is when she's walking around the city. Tourists are walking around slowly looking at things and she's in a hurry and she says pretend it's a city and keep walking. She's very funny. I recommend it if you haven't seen it yet. But that's what to me. You're our Fran Liebowitz, is what I'm saying.

38:47 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Wow, thank you. It's high compliments.

38:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm not a happy person, but she's a great writer.

38:53 - Paris Martineau (Host)
So I mean, that's what people say about me.

38:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Just don't smoke and you'll be all right. Yeah, no, I think, uh, I think you are.

38:59 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I took your congratulations, I said urban night.

39:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, he took it off, I had I had to be squinting like this.

39:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
My hair is probably.

39:07 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It looks strange to see your eyes now, instead of just the the void.

39:10 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
These are real, your forehead, and they're actually.

39:13 - Paris Martineau (Host)
We're here, Is where it's. Yeah, you see the red yeah.

39:16 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
My nose always gets a little line on it too. You can't quite see it, but usually the nose has yeah, it's I mean, why would I want to do that?

39:23 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I can't wait for the. We're going to see stories soon, but vision pro forehead.

39:27 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Vision and vision for skin care. You know, tick tock is going to have. Oh my God, Do you think?

39:33 - Paris Martineau (Host)
there's got to already. If not, there's got to be a skincare specialist or an esthetician in San Francisco that is giving a vision pro specific facial.

39:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's got to be. It's got to be, yeah, Everybody it's a it's a problem. We've solved it with our special elixir.

39:56 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's made out of pigs placentas. It really does everything for you, it does Welcome back.

40:02 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Mike, Welcome back. Thank you so much.

40:05 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Let me ask you a couple of eyes can breathe.

40:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
One of the things people say is amazing is watching movies, expanding the screen and watching a great movie beginning to end two hours, three hours. If it's Napoleon, what do you?

40:18 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
did you try that? I did. I did so when you're at home and you're not having to talk and move around a lot. That is something where there's not as much strain on your face Even maybe lying on your back.

40:28
Yeah, if you wanted to, you could look up at the ceiling and do it that way. I did watch a couple of movies. Again, I wanted to try everything as much as possible, but, as I mentioned before, I think that I'm not the best audience for that, because I have a huge screen already. I have a short throw projector now, and so I found myself going why do I even need to watch it on this when I can just watch it on this short throw projector? I will say this the resolution is absolutely incredible. It does look great and you can kind of walk up and get close to the screen if you want to. So I guess if you really want to check out the skincare of your favorite actors, you can do that. If that's your thing, I can understand why people would want to do this.

41:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Maybe you invest in this instead of a $3,500 TV if you can stand it, I think, at the TV, if you have friends, well, that's the other thing about this, and there's one of the reasons Apple, I think, put the eyes on it is you're isolated, you're isolated, you're isolated. You know, in some ways, I feel like this is Apple doubling down on what they did to us in 2007 with the iPhone. All you see nowadays is people walking around see people in restaurants.

41:35 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I was waiting for Jeff Serrat reaction to this but it's true.

41:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Admitted Jeff.

41:40 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Kids these days don't even talk to each other, they just go out and play fruit.

41:45 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You know. This is why what's got to happen to that iPad generation?

41:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
of kids Paris. This is why I'm so impressed with you and your sketer ball friends. And the thing you do is skit Sketer ball.

41:57 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yes, that's exactly what it's called.

42:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Is that where you kill mosquitoes with a tennis ball?

42:07 - Paris Martineau (Host)
You, just you check a ball at birds.

42:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You go to the science fiction music. You do things, but most you're not typical. Most people spend most of their time staring at their phone. Oh and this is just going to do more of that.

42:21 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It's isolated. No, it's not. No, it's moral panic. People use the same plate. There's a book about newspapers and books right when you're on your phone what are you interacting with other human beings?

42:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, you're not. That is a yeah, you are.

42:40 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Hey, right now, right now we are technically on our phones, on our. I am on my computer communicating with you, Leo.

42:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, this is, but this is a much richer in communication than most of the time when you're on your phone you're doing Insta or Twitter or something You're not. Yeah, okay, a FaceTime caller or zoom call, that's. That's a lot closer to real interaction, but most of the time it's a simulation of interacting with real people. It's the same thing as this guy in Morocco doing the thing instead of jumping in the pool or walking around. Don't make us him. Yeah, I'm not a guy.

43:11 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You are him, you son of a bitch?

43:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, I don't know, Jeff. You're old. You probably don't stare at your phone all the time I have to, consciously when I'm out and about with family.

43:25 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I actually go on a check Talk.

43:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm gonna put it away. Yeah, actually you're on it quite a bit. I put it away because I want to, I want to look. Life is short. Trust me, it's short and you. Every moment that you waste staring at a glass screen is a moment lost forever.

43:41 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Pay attention no no, no, no, Not everyone, I don't know what if you're having a fun time in the glass screen? What if you're seeing a really silly tweet that brings you joy?

43:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're just an addict. That's the kind of thing.

43:52 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Who made that tweet? That tweet was made by a human being, made by a person.

43:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, it's not interacting with them in real life. Look, you can't see a Twitter. Oh, yeah, I go back and say something about that. Okay, would you say the same?

44:02 - Paris Martineau (Host)
thing about reading a book. Is reading a book an addict behavior? No, no reading a book. What about watching a movie?

44:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Is getting into the mind in a much deeper way of the author.

44:09 - Paris Martineau (Host)
What are tweets, but tiny books.

44:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They're not Okay. There's a big difference between a sentence and a thousand or a 10,000 or 100,000 words. If you're reading War and Peace, you are interacting with a guy who's long dead but with had ideas, was had an imagination. You're interacting with Tolstoy. If Tolstoy did a tweet, it wouldn't be the same. It would be great. No, it wouldn't be. You're kidding, you're lying to yourself. I want Ben Franklin would be killer on Twitter. Yeah well, yeah, maybe. Anyway, thank you, micah, for putting up with this.

44:44 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Ben Franklin would be so canceled if he had a Twitter. Hey, Mike, you would be. You would be.

44:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You haven't. You don't have to decide yet. You had until February 14th, Valentine's Day. Valentine's Day.

45:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
The day of love Well.

45:01 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I fall in love Fall out of love Out of love Wow. This is a cute Hallmark movie set up. You've gotten to Valentine's Day to make your big decision.

45:10 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And I'm properly diverse. For it as well, it would be a great home. Yeah, it's true.

45:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, he thought he would fall in love forever, but then Valentine's Day came and he had to make a faithful decision.

45:23 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It came between him and his true love. Well, that's true, because if you're in a relationship and you strap that thing on.

45:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You might as well be able to clarify Strap what the vision Pro. Okay, okay Okay, if you're in a relationship and you put on the vision pro. You have now said I'll see you later. Right, you might as well walk out the door.

45:48 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
But if you're in a relationship and you put on a movie that the other person is not watching as well, or is it also saying see you later?

45:59 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
If you read a book, if you read a book. If you pick up a book and read it, there's one you've been told. I'm sorry, honey, I'm reading a told story now, okay, so blow.

46:07 - Paris Martineau (Host)
But. But I'm sorry, you got to have parallel play in your relationship.

46:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I agree, someone can be watching a movie, another person can be looking at tweets, it's fine. I agree, yes, but I have to say I mean there are going to be times when you're reading a book. I understand that. There are big times when you're looking at your phone.

46:21 - Paris Martineau (Host)
There are going to be times when you're reading a book.

46:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now listen here, Yagins, but I have to say, lisa and I often will listen to a book together. That's a much. Oh, that's nice, that's a wonderful experience, that's very cute. I don't want to watch.

46:34 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I sometimes do watch a movie by myself and I and I, leo, have you considered just getting a really long vision pro? So you know Stand over Lisa A tandem vision pro. A tandem vision pro. Go to the head together.

46:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
How cute, that could be good I don't know, I had you know, it's all in moderation, right, yeah? And of course, reading is great and wonderful and highly recommended. My kids read like crazy, I read like crazy and you've got to read. But I also had a father who buried himself in books and was not that present.

47:04 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh, this is what's coming up Now. We're learning the real truth here.

47:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now we understand there are jealous of the books. No well, that's true, it was isolating right and he didn't have an experience of me as a child as a result. But he, you know, he was a college professor who's probably much like you, jeff. You know he had, he was an intellectual and but I think you can.

47:22 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So it's about a balance right, yeah, and this luckily has a built in balance, because you can't keep it on very long or else it gets.

47:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, maybe, maybe I don't know. I just I don't think we need more things in the world to isolate us from the world To insulate us oh so here's the thing.

47:39 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
On the face of what you're saying, I 100 percent agree. But it does discount the fact that here I can do what amounts to a safari in some. I know it's not the same thing, Absolutely it's not the same thing as actually going on a safari. I can tightrope walk. Think about someone who has a physical disability who could never do the tightrope walking or go on a safari? Yes, so there are some things about that. They're not isolating?

48:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, absolutely, and if I you know, I took when we were in Rome. I looked like an idiot but I had an Insta 360 camera on a stick that I was carrying around when the guide gave us walked us around. I have those 360 videos and I'm a dork. But well, but the good news is, I was no and I'm waiting you waiting for the right headset.

48:28 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You can, that's the problem?

48:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You can't. It's not. I've looked at my pictures, since they're easy. They're 2D, but a 360 you need to put on a headset, but imagine if I had a. You actually can't do it, unfortunately, with the apple headset, but you can with the meta. You put it on and now you're back in Rome and you can look and you can look around. So you're hearing the guide. You're not looking at what I looked at. I can look behind me, I can look around You're.

48:52 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's a phenomenal setup to a kind of a murder mystery plot where suddenly you realize a crime has been committed and you have 360 video and you've got to go through the mystery.

49:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's actually the plot of a classic movie called blow up. Did you ever see? You're probably too young to remember blow up 1966, the plot of them? It's an Antonio movie. The plot of the movie is this guy's a photographer David Hemmings is a photographer and accidentally takes a picture of what he thinks is a murder and he blows it up and blows it up and blows it up. It's a really wonderful movie. If you haven't seen blow up, it was a classic Vanessa Redgrave, sarah Miles and David Hemmings.

49:34 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Jane Birkins. So, leo, let me say something else here. There are countless thousands of people out there right now who are listening to or watching this, who are interacting with us as human beings. Yeah, they're doing it because this is a human activity that you're going to accuse them of looking at their phone or listening to their phone, but, but I think folks will agree with me that that's what we, that's what the internet has enabled is that we can, we can be part of this.

50:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Okay, I'm not again it.

50:07 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Leo's making the grumpiest face.

50:09 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
That was, it was, it was pretty grumpy.

50:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Only you saw it, it was very grumpy. No, I'm not. Again it Obviously. Look, I feel like we're having a conversation, even though you guys are back east Micah's sitting next to me, but it's all equal. And I think that there is an audience that we know about.

50:25 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Hey, hey, hey yo Yo.

50:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
For crying out loud.

50:28 - Paris Martineau (Host)
He's connecting to us through the internet. It's amazing. From New Jersey, even from New Jersey. It's incredible.

50:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Incredible. And then we have a community and an audience who's chatting with us in our dashboard. I think that's all real and wonderful and those are real experiences. I'm not against those. Yeah, strap on the headset and then suddenly it's kind of different, maybe not.

50:46 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, I again, I agree with what you. I understand what you are saying and I don't disagree with the, with the fact that, yes, if you put this on, it does isolate you from the people around you, but it's weird. It's on a blanket isolation.

51:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, I don't know, I mean I get angry too, because I'll try to talk to Michael, our son, and he's got his ear pods in and I'm talking. And I'm talking, he's not hearing anything I'm saying. And I probably did the same thing as a kid with my cause 440 pros, and you know those you could see on the door's album.

51:19
I don't know. I'm not against it. It's a good, it's cool, it's an interesting technology. I think my only real objection is I don't want to. It's a face sucker. I don't want to put it on my face and I think you're also experiencing that, mike that it's not an ideal way to experience.

51:35
How long have you have you worn Mike's deal? Oh, just briefly, but I've worn other ones for much longer. I, you know, I had the Oculus pro $1,500, $1,400 Oculus pro, and I, you know, I'm listening to Lizzo playing beat saber, looking like an idiot, for probably an hour. I mean, it was a good workout. I worked up a sweat, the whole thing was dripping, it was disgusting, but and it was a good experience but nobody was home and that is, by the way, one thing in this thing's favor. You look like such a dork when you're doing it.

52:04 - Anthony Nielson (Host)
No one's doing good, you probably don't want to do it when somebody's home.

52:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Right, yeah, just do it. Go somewhere else with that.

52:11 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I, I. I'm asking, leo, how much of an advance in the technology. From all the others you've owned and worn, it's a significant advance in terms of technology.

52:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So I'm not knocking Apple because they made something that wasn't good. I'm knocking the tech, not the, the, the idea itself, the thing itself. I don't think people Is there a business in this. No, I think we already proved that Ever be. I think meta is proven. Yeah, yeah, there, there was a business. Something down the road, maybe, when their spectacles, like Paris is wearing but or but, not, but. That's. That's like saying, you know, uh, with there's a business in flying cars, right, yeah, there'll be a business Maybe, but it ain't here right now. No, I don't think. I think people are buying this for 3,500 bucks or making a bit of a mistake, I don't know. Do you agree?

53:00 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I some yeah, some people aren't, and some people, frankly, exist so much in a space where they're just very excited about it that that's cool. Like we were talking about earlier, they just love it and they have fun and they enjoy it and they're in, you know.

53:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't want to rain on anybody's parade.

53:15 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, I think that's fine, that's the scobal end of the world. Yeah, yeah, the shower people.

53:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I do react negatively because scobal is a good example of somebody who's just like going crazy over this thing, as he did with Google Glass, by the way, and I still have our Google Glass. If anybody so do I, so do I.

53:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
With lenses. That's a good point. I actually think.

53:38 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Google Glass, if there were enough of them, would come back for Gen Z in a big way.

53:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It was a lot closer to spectacles, right? It's not isolating. It's just a little screen over your eyebrow that you could look at.

53:52 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh, why was yours flashing red light? Because you were transmitting it to the world.

53:57 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, oh, that was yeah, I Are. You don't see that in real life.

54:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Our cameras picked up a invisible signal. Oh, but the aliens will be here in about three weeks.

54:08 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It was kind of cool, though While I was wearing it over the over the weekend for Ask the Tech guys, I can also see the IR Blast and coming from Leo's phone, begum is doing this thing in the head set it was capturing. It almost looks like heat blur is what it reminded me of. I could see those little IR dots trying to scan his face for Face ID, so I guess you could also use it if you were a CIA agent to make sure nothing around you is. No one will notice you Exactly.

54:36 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
No one will notice you picking that out.

54:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Can you make them night vision goggles? Does that work. Benito has a question Can you make them night vision goggles? The second you get to into a too dark space, it says there's not enough lights, there's no tracking. I can't do anything, stop it, so it needs.

54:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
IR cameras.

54:56 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
What.

55:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This is also we should really also. I will acknowledge that this is a very early first iteration of something that will certainly although it's funny because I thought I proposed it on yesterday, I'm back very quickly oh well, I'm sure there'll be a less expensive version as soon, and maybe iterations Will there be. No they? I was told no uncertain terms by our panel. No one expects an update to this till 2026.

55:29 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And the room went silent.

55:31 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So this is it for a while anyway. I think Apple I don't know, look, apple's got more money than God. Well, not quite almost as much money as Microsoft.

55:43 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
The devil has more money than God.

55:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yes, but so they can afford to put some money into something that may not fly and they have enough money to commit to it. I bet you watch the Super Bowl. They're sponsoring the halftime. I bet you there'll be a three minute ad for this thing, probably not that they sure will come out wearing one.

56:07
But they can't make as many as they could sell. I'm sure they're completely sold out now and will be sold out through the year. So it's not like, and even if I don't know, I'm guessing. If they make a thousand bucks each, which is on a $3,500 thing, that's not a great margin, but it's better than nothing. Let's say they make a thousand bucks each, that's still on the 800,000. They're going to sell only $800 million. That's not a big payday for Apple and they've certainly put tens of billions of dollars into the R&D. So this is a money loser for years. So it could only exist because Apple thinks there's something that they want to make happen here.

56:47 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I mean, if you look back, they've been baking a lot of this technology into so many of the devices that they make regularly, with the hopeful, you know, instance that this would finally happen. I can remember when there one at one WWDC that's a worldwide developers conference for folks who might not know and at that event I can remember the introduction of the anchoring of different AR experiences to specific locations in space, such that what happened with Jason Snell happened where he left the settings in the garage, that's way back before you know, vision Pro was my first.

57:26
Yeah, and so they've been building on this for forever. I remember, though, when we started to hear rumors about the Vision Pro or more rumors, and the conversations surrounded how they wanted to go in one direction that was more AR focused, and they had to go this way because it was just too soon with the technology, and that's kind of fallen to the background a little bit we were hearing more about this just in general, as the you know, stepping point, as opposed to thinking about necessarily where they wanted to go instead of this, and in that way, it reminds me of the headphones, the brawl phones the AirPods Max.

58:08
Yeah, in that sense that we had heard that they had this whole plan of how this was going to be and they kind of had to settle a little bit. They've done nothing, yeah. Literally. No, they're just what they are. Yeah.

58:19 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
So I'm nervous. I saw you put it on the floor. I'm afraid you're going to get up and step on it. You can't return it.

58:24 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I've got a nice little table underneath the desk Movie magic.

58:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know, I got to say who this has been very profitable for is YouTubers. They're, they're. Oh it's been insane. It's. Marquez Brownlee had hundreds I mean, I don't know how many millions of views in the first few minutes. Jerry Riggs everything has already scored it with his famous knife test, which is stupid and pointless. But YouTubers are, whether they love it or hate it and, by the way, you can make money doing either. Yeah, Are absolutely making hay with this.

58:56 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I would say that another category I know you're going to go to an ad break but another category that has benefited from this is our early developers, because just the other day Christian Selig, the maker of the Reddit Apollo, he posted that the app that he made, which is a YouTube frame essentially it's the ability to kind of watch YouTube videos from an app it's called Juno within you know, a couple of days of launch, had already more than made back the cost that he spent on the Apple Vision Pro that he purchased, and so that was quickly climbing. So early developers who would charge five bucks, so yeah, that's a lot of them.

59:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Here is just. I just searched for vision pro on YouTube. Here are a couple of shorts Apple Vision Pro in the pool, tesla Cyber Truck trying vision pro for the first time. Tim Cook is not happy. The vision pro is terrifying. You have to buy the vision pro. Vision pro insane. Those are just the shorts. I worked eight hours.

59:55 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I think that's a pushers new sunglasses yeah wouldn't that be funny?

59:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The reason to care about the vision pro, the thing no one will say about Apple Vision Pro this was Casey Neistat who said is a single best technology mankind has ever invented. Oh, there we are. I left my settings app in the garage. The Apple Vision Pro is two big problems Everybody needs to know, and on and on, and on, and on and on and on. Here's a guy in a shower.

01:00:19 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Okay, so wait, wait, wait, wait. I look up scoble vision pro Yep. He's got it. Of course he's got it.

01:00:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You'd be foolish if you were you know one of these influencers not to buy one immediately and do a bunch of videos, either pro or con, or you know whatever. Anyway, that's enough. I wanted to. I wanted to mic it, since we spent $3,500. I'm really grateful.

01:00:38
No, thank you, mike, I want to mic it and come in and give us the demo. We're going to take a break. Come back. There's lots of stuff, lots of Google stuff. Another stuff to talk about on this week in Google, with Paris Martino, jeff Jarvis, micah Sargent, you're going to host for me when I'm on vacation, that is true. I should warn you, fellas, get ready.

01:00:57 - Paris Martineau (Host)
So am I. Paris is.

01:00:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Paris. I'm delighted I'm March 13th. Paris will be hosting the show. It's your big shot. Don't blow it.

01:01:05 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Listen, I'm preparing now.

01:01:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Kid you're going to? What is the line from? A star is born. Kid, you're a nothing today, but you're going to go out there and you're going to come back a star.

01:01:17 - Paris Martineau (Host)
That's what they're telling me.

01:01:19 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Huh, you got Moxie kid. I hate Moxie. You're not going on a cruise again, are you Leo? No, no, micah Sargent will be hosting on the 20th. We're just going to go to Mexico and visit Ted Cruz. It's just going to be a little quick.

01:01:33 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Just a little how you doing, how you doing Ted.

01:01:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
How's it going in Mexico? No, I decided. At least it has served some time on the beach. She's been working really hard, trying to keep us afloat, so to speak.

01:01:49 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Now she's got to say afloat, but in a lounger.

01:01:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It turns out we're going to a Cabo and it turns out that you can't actually go in the water. It's too dangerous because of the riptides.

01:02:01 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
No, we're just going to look at it.

01:02:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh man, I should have looked, I should have done some research. Perhaps On we go with the show. Your phone is not listening to you. So just some good news At last, at last. Yeah, this is a Gizmodo article, matt Swell-Zeph. He actually talks about which is great the origins of the myth that your phone is listening to you and, of course, the Cox Media Group pitch that we can, we know what your audience is listening to. He traces it back, which is interesting, to a TV news segment Tampa Bay, may 23rd 2016. It's always TV news that has this trust.

01:02:56 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh, I hate TV news. I got to hate it.

01:02:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So she's not going to in any way question it. She's just going to show you how you can turn off the microphone. So Facebook can't listen in. But the article has been since removed from the website of the station. Very important, there it was. Somebody looked into this. Northeastern University a few years ago tested Facebook, instagram, a bunch of other things, to see if any of these can listen to you, and it is not. This is Eileen Ellen Pang, jing Jing Ren, martina Lindorfer, christo Wilson and David Shaffnes ran an experiment 17,000 of the most popular apps. They did on Android, which is probably smart, assuming that maybe the iPhone would even be more locked down. 8,000 apps that send information to Facebook Facebook itself. They found no evidence of an app unexpectedly activating the microphone or sending audio out when not prompted to do so.

01:03:57 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I wish Leo that that mattered more, that there was a study done, that they took a year doing it, that they looked at so many different apps. But you know that there are still so many people that you could tell them quite literally that, and it doesn't matter. They don't believe that there's more. I don't know. I don't think it's fun to believe in conspiracy. Well, maybe for some people it's fun. Why are we or? You know, it's because it's a shortcut to.

01:04:25 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I feel concerned about targeted advertising or it's strange to me that I'm getting targeted ads.

01:04:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Not just ads, but big tech.

01:04:34 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yeah, but the original anxiety around my phone is listening to me comes from oh, I was talking about some obscure medical procedure or thinking about buying this pair of shoes with someone and then the next day I got a targeted Instagram ad for it.

01:04:48
That's the kind of case that people are often bringing up when they're saying I'm concerned, my phone is listening to me and the real honest truth, which isn't as fawn or sexy, is that you're not that unique. It's pretty easy for your phone and for companies to figure out what sort of products you're interested in based on a whole host of signals and your cohorts.

01:05:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, in fact, that was Maxwell Zeff's last paragraph, which he's absolutely right. He says the more concerning thing is advertisers don't need to record you at all, because they already know everything about you. You've been telling them for years on Facebook and Instagram. You know this is not. They know it, they don't need to listen.

01:05:36 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You know the two words I'm going to use. It's moral panic, it's part of that. There must be something good timing Good.

01:05:45 - Paris Martineau (Host)
They're feeling about this.

01:05:46 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Hang it on that button when you want to believe there's something bad on earth happening to you. You want to believe that you're a victim of something and it doesn't matter what it is. Is it conspiracy?

01:05:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
theory Sort of.

01:05:59 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I think, there is. I don't think it's that conspiratorial. I don't think of the people who are saying, oh, my phone is listening to me. I've thought about the behind the scenes that much. I think it's just the easiest logical leap. I was talking about something yesterday and now I have an Instagram ad for it, or banner ad.

01:06:18 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It must be listening to me. My problem is, though, when I have attempted to help someone who's feeling that way and believing that way explain it. It doesn't matter, it's like how do you? Ultimately, it's not my job to Well, it kind of is To try at least to convince someone that this is how it's actually to explain how it's actually working. But there's almost a draw to the scarier of the two things, where, oh, it's not a bunch of technology, because this is the thing Us and the techie people. Whenever we're talking about this, the thing that I always hear is but isn't it so much scarier that they're able to do this without listening to you? The average person is not thinking that that it's scarier that they're able to do that without. No, the scarier thing for them is microphone listening to you, and it doesn't matter if you say these are the 15 different ways. I've had this experience anecdotally and also, I guess, second hand anecdotally.

01:07:21 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh yeah, I've had the same thing. People don't believe you.

01:07:24 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, they just, and it's like oh no not at all.

01:07:27 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There's an academic, or was an academic at University of California, berkeley, alan Dundas, who wrote a book about dark jokes and the dark jokes cycles and you know, the elephant in the refrigerator, the elephant jokes or the dead baby jokes and he I interviewed him many years ago. He said and I think he's absolutely right that what they really do is they reflect a deep psychic fear that we can't express outwardly Because it's too scary, but it's in there and so we make these jokes about it. And I think that this is kind of If you were still here, I wish he hadn't passed a couple of years ago, but if you were still here I think you would say the same thing about these kind of conspiracy theories that they reflect, I think, a deep fear, and in this case I don't think it's just advertising. I think it's a deep fear of big tech and the outsize importance that companies like Google and Facebook and Apple and Microsoft have in our lives and there's just kind of discomfort that comes out in this conspiracy theory. That's just my thinking on it.

01:08:34 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I mean my general thought. If we're talking about, if we're looking at broader online conspiracy theories like QAnon and whatnot they all kind of go back to control, the fear of the absence of control and creating a narrative that gives you a sense of control.

01:08:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yes, that's why they do it Through knowledge. But I'm saying the subject matter is informative about the thing that you feel out of control with right.

01:09:02 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Absolutely yeah, yeah.

01:09:04 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
But it's also when QAnon is not. We have opinion polls that say oh my God, look at the dumb stuff. People believe they're not believing it. They're signaling a belonging to something Right. They're saying I'm part of this. Not that there was. Some academics I quoted in the next book say that voting even. There's research that now says that that's not purposeful event in itself.

01:09:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, it's a tribal or something signal yes you're signaling and belonging to something?

01:09:34 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, and so I'm signaling that I belong to those who are skeptical about all this or or that. Hate big, whatever.

01:09:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's why people vote the Democratic line, the Democratic ticket. That's why there are tickets. That's you're in the tribe, you vote for your tribe. You know. That's why Tammany Hall existed, right, you vote for your tribe.

01:09:52 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You support I'm listening to an amazing book, now a Holocaust. I Listened lots of you know Strange things to spend my time doing. It's really really good.

01:10:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Just because you don't want to be with your family. I know. I know it's isolated.

01:10:06 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, I'd rather be in a, have a huge piece of plastic on my face and and there's this line I'm gonna go. This is I'm listening to what I can't underline it, which frustrates me, but I want to go back. That says that that it replaced that sometimes authoritarians, they're replacing religion.

01:10:23
They're replacing one belief with another, one God with another or one devil with another, and and a lot of this is is around that. David Weinberger, in his book about AI, talks about how we Think things are accidents that aren't accidents. They're only accidents because we can't explain them.

01:10:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Hmm, this is everyday chaos.

01:10:45 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yes every day. Chaos is easy. It was brilliant, and that's that we class it as an accident because we couldn't come up with Something. But in fact, of course, there's a clear cause and effect going on in some way or another. It's not an accident, but we don't know. Same thing with AI. Now we can't explain things with AI. This is gonna freak people out more and more and more. There's no going in to say why did it do that? How did it do that? How did it know? It's just a A very complex calculation.

01:11:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, to go full circle, and it was you who told me this, hanai aren't in her classic work on Was it?

01:11:22 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
origins of totalitarianism.

01:11:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Totalitarianism Says it. The roots of it are isolation, yes, and loneliness. You want to both? Or terrians, do sorry go ahead.

01:11:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh no, I was just sort of Jumping on that, yeah, that you, you you're drawn to, to being with that person you interviewed. No, I did. I thought I remembered that book and and. David Weinberger. I interviewed him on triangulation, on the book yeah, on that book, oh yeah.

01:11:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He's great. I like, in fact, we should get him on this show actually. Oh, he's wonderful, doc. He and doc's here with the clue train manifesto back in the day in the latter part of the last century and he's a great thinker. Next story blue sky. Open it up. I have six invites. I could. I could throw to the wind it is finally on my lights.

01:12:18
Now, what do we think of blue sky? I mean, right, it's come down to, there were a lot of Twitter rivals. Blue sky was the open Twitter rival funded by Jack Dorsey, ceo of Twitter, to provide. In fact, they came up with a protocol, the AT proto, to provide kind of a federated equivalent to Twitter. Of course, there is already activity pub which does that, the so-called Fetaverse mastodon is one instance of that. And there's threads. I think that's it now right. I mean there are others, but most of them are, you know, dwindling. So now we have threads. Blue sky, post postdoc news is it is a no, they're gone right. So is it really it? Mastodon slash, fetaverse X threads and blue sky is that the four I Think so.

01:13:07 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I mean, I don't think there's anything else, even in the running, so which?

01:13:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
do we like? Which the I you know. As soon as blue sky went open again, I went back and said oh, I remember this, this was fun.

01:13:19 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
None of the above is what I yeah.

01:13:21 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I mean I hadn't used blue sky that much in the past month, but I've started posting again because people are on it's a lot Like Twitter, right, I mean yeah, basically it's Twitter.

01:13:30 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, I like it. I like, I like the UI. A blue sky immensely Threads. Ui drives me pretty crazy in a lot of ways. However, there are a lot of smart people on threads and there are conversations that I want to see, mastodon, you know, it's just a whole different kind of conversation.

01:13:52 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I noticed, jeff, you post pretty much the same thing on all of them. Yes, I do, you do that by hand.

01:13:58 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I Just cut. I do Twitter first, so read the New York Times. I hit their Twitter button. There it is. I copy that and put it over. What I forget to do sometimes is change the ats, change the handles. But it's interesting to me, it's almost experimental to me, because I see how different things react on different platforms and there's no pattern to it. Something that I think is going to take off on Blue sky nobody reacts to, but mastodon reacts to.

01:14:27 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Interesting I.

01:14:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know I have to admit a soft spot for mastodon, but we run our own mess and, on instance, a Twitter social. I'm always gonna love mess. I love it, though, I think, the conversations. So the most important thing to understand is that even if you're on Twitter social, that doesn't limit you to Twitter social. There are many. You don't have to go to mastodon that social either. There are many different mastodon instances of different stripes and and and flavors, but you can follow anybody on any of them, in fact, on any activity. Pub site.

01:15:00 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
So I think about mastodon is that because there's no algorithm and because there's no retweets? Basically it's it's it's present tense. I find that if you get into a conversation on mastodon, it happens in a short period and then it's forgotten because there's no way to recycle.

01:15:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So you don't get trends. So much on that.

01:15:19 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Mastodon is what you're saying no, or or a conversation that can last over a couple days. Yeah, that's kind of bad.

01:15:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's a that's a loss. I agree that's a loss. I think it is. I think it's also it's very geeky because it's a little harder right. So you're getting the more geeky People it's also much more and there's rules.

01:15:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, there are more rules and well. Yeah, exactly I was gonna say yes, it's not necessarily clear what the rules are, but yeah, if you know, you know kind of a situation.

01:15:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know, and I, I moderate with a light hand, but I, you know, I moderate my ours and I could do it by myself. I'm the only one doing. It's not so hard there's only a few thousand people on it, but I think it's. I like, I really like mastodon. I just I feel like this is a. So I went to blue sky here's blue sky and it's very Twitter like. In fact, there are other UIs to it, but this is the main UI and the contents very Twitter like. If it would, it would literally looks like Twitter.

01:16:18
Yeah, if you were looking for Twitter would kind of scratch your itch without all the Nazis. Now It'll be interesting to see, now that it's open to the public, how this changes. So far I don't notice a big change. It did go down overnight because of the influx of I was about to say.

01:16:34 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I think they got like a million users signing up in the first which is great 24 hours.

01:16:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm glad for them. Yeah, one of the things about blue sky, you can, it's got lists, which is, which is great, so you can, you know.

01:16:49 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It's not just lists to, it's the preview of what it's like to be able to use different algorithms Right, and yeah, you can customize your algorithm.

01:16:58 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I love deckblue, which is, I believe Some blue sky user made it, but it's kind of it's basically tweet deck blue sky. Yeah my favorite. I like to Twitter and I was using.

01:17:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That actually is very cool. Blue sky has an open protocol at proto which they now say we're gonna start letting people you attach to our HPI and create their own Federating instances of blue sky. So this will be very interesting to see that all I watched a.

01:17:30 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
There was a conference discussion with Mike Maznik and Jay Graber, who's in charge of blue sky, and you all Roth, and it was a really good conversation that I watched and Jay makes clear that they're gonna do what they say they're gonna do, but they're just doing it in a sensible path and they admit they make mistakes and they learn from them and and I try, I trust her. I think that they're doing a good job. Good people dismiss it Well, cuz, cuz. Jack paid for it. Well, that Jack's kind of gone from it now entirely.

01:18:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So I well, he's on is he not on the board?

01:18:08 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
still yeah, but I think it's, it's fine.

01:18:11 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yeah, but Jack is checked out of almost.

01:18:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He's enjoying.

01:18:19 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Rich, you'd never hear from.

01:18:21 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
All do that yes, you're saying the only reason you're here is not because you love being with us, it's just cuz you're poor, is that?

01:18:29 - Paris Martineau (Host)
it being with you guys, and I'm poor.

01:18:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I contain malted. Yet Remember, we can do both. We can do both.

01:18:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We can assemble our furniture on the sidewalk and Be here and do it virtually.

01:18:43 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yes, paris is where you actually end up with furniture. Yeah, it's not just a virtual space.

01:18:51 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's odd every time I try to set my my cup on that table.

01:18:57 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Surprisingly, it's not there. You know, you have to believe in a muster seat of faith.

01:19:01 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's all you need.

01:19:02 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know who's on all of the place.

01:19:04 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Steve Jobs is named. Five Please don't?

01:19:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
it's scary. You know who is on all of these is a young college student, who? What's his name? Jack Sweeney, who, oh the. The infamous tracker guy. Yes, the plane tracker guy.

01:19:25 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Well, he's not tracking the planes. He's using data from I believe it's ABS right kind of the secondary plane tracking network.

01:19:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
He's a publisher of the plane tracking.

01:19:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, but Taylor Swift's not happy. She is now Trying to silence him, as he's in the sys letter. She may even sue. She's threatening a lawsuit because he's tracking her.

01:19:48 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
So what do we think? I made fun of Elon Musk for getting mad at him. So I guess I can't. I feel I.

01:19:55 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Totally agree. I think that it's BS that this data is publicly available. It exists on the ABS website. People could look it up just because someone is tweeting it. I don't think they should be prosecuted for that.

01:20:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's a tail number and your tail number.

01:20:13 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's Now. If someone was standing outside, they could see it.

01:20:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
What's Sweeney did for Elon is a greeted delay at 24 hours. Elon called it assassination coordinates. He was worried that people would say I know where Elon is and go go harass his children or whatever.

01:20:28 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Presumably Taylor's worried about the same thing. Do it now with those to that same exact.

01:20:33 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
They could go to that website and do it themselves, or that you know service?

01:20:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, it's interesting, because adsb is actually created by enthusiasts who are listening, watching, in effect, the tail numbers transponders and then contributing it back to the database. Really, yeah, it's not a FAA a.

01:20:57 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Kind of like a gorilla network. Yeah, I think is really cool. Yeah because there are a lot of people who, I believe, pay to have their information obscured from Public channels, public federal channels.

01:21:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
as far as flight tracking, I think you can so good and Taylor Swift do that is is Hide, or I mean I know, I'm certain that she is.

01:21:17 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I don't even know if it's paid. I think you can just say I don't want to be. Yeah, please don't include my information, but that only works for. You know, I think the federal registry, or whatever it's called. This is a second network that I believe operates as just a bunch of different nodes. Like you know, if Taylor Swift flies to Miami, she, her tail number, is caught by whatever little satellite readers or I don't know what the technology is, but essentially it's caught by a bunch of things put up by Geeks who've just decided to put these things up in their backyard or various places. So there's no way to take it down interesting.

01:21:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Anyway, she hasn't sued yet and it's by, we should probably say. Taylor may not know anything about it. It's her attorneys and they've sent a cease and desist letter to a Sweeney which he shared with the Washington Post. That says the social media, your social media accounts, cause direct and Irreparable harm, as well as emotional and physical distress, that unless you stop the quote, stalking and harassing behavior, we will have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies.

01:22:28 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I know I don't ever want to get Paris mad, though I don't. I don't want to do that, paris or Taylor, I'm a swiftie, I mean. I mean either either.

01:22:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I confused them to. I don't. Paris is my.

01:22:40 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Taylor. Yes, you see, wow, thank you. Yeah, did you all watch the Grammys? I did not I did I surprised myself into watching. And Paris, I mean Paris. I said it again.

01:22:51 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Listen, you know, I'm just an illustrious star. Who can? You are, you are.

01:22:55 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Taylor is the greatest fan she was.

01:22:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
She was singing, dancing and singing song, dancing amazing to watch. I'm call me cynical, but I also was aware that she knew very well there were cameras on her.

01:23:07 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Of course she's performing. Oh, you see, there's a hand.

01:23:13 - Leo Laporte (Host)
She also does it in the in when she's watching Travis Kelsey, your boyfriend on the field. She's very much into the game and the booths and everybody's there's a camera, you know, to bring it all together.

01:23:24 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I bet part of the reason why. I'm a legal team reached out to Jack Sweeney. Sorry, what. No, never mind, is because that part of the reason why she reached out to Jack's me is because there was a lot of news coverage over the fact that she was playing in Japan. Yeah, I was gonna have to take her a why, back, really quick flight back in order to get there. For whatever you know, there's been like a lot of coverage over her flight patterns lately.

01:23:52 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Well, and right now, isn't she kind of the enemy of a certain group of of?

01:23:59 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't think it's that. I think, though, what Jack Sweeney says. I think she's getting a lot of attention from the right yeah that's what that's, yeah, but, but they don't care about her use of no, no, no, but they might care about.

01:24:09 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Maybe she thinks they care about where she is and so her concern.

01:24:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, bunch of protests and oh, maybe that's what's prompting it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Come on, it's a great news story. But is it five guys who say I tell you, swift, she's definitely a Psycho? Psychops, I ups, right. I mean how many people really think that? But, but these, these guys can be really well, they're scary. But it gets blown up in the media like Thousands of right-wingers are after Taylor Swift as a Psyop for the Democratic Party. I'm not sure I buy that.

01:24:46 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Once again it's signaling yeah. What can we say?

01:24:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And it's good for clicks and views. Yep, and I'll be watching the Super Bowl, looking for Taylor Swift. I did watch the Grammy Awards. I thought you were gonna go where all the other boomers went, which is Johnny New Yorker cartoon, with two old folks like you and me watching go, I don't know who that is. I don't know who that is. I know Johnny, I don't know who that is, I don't know. Brandy Carlisle once again.

01:25:18 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Tracy. Tracy Chapman was amazing. My wife and I have argued about this. I thought Johnny was wonderful. My wife thinks it's elder abuse. Oh, oh, I think she's wrong.

01:25:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, Johnny's enjoying it if Johnny. I think so Johnny were being dragged along by the hair maybe, but she's enjoying. Johnny doesn't this she don't want to do.

01:25:36 - Anthony Nielson (Host)
I have a feeling. Mitchell does not do stuff she doesn't want to know, let me ask you, mike, as the representative of black people.

01:25:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Jay Z said something I thought was really provocative. Did you see it? Yeah, yeah, well, I didn't say, but I Well, I well, okay, look, I'm just saying I know out loud the thing that is in fact the case, which is I'm asking Micah, I'm not asking you, paris, what you think about Jay Z's position, but Jay. Z said I know, I know you understand, I'm just saying that loud so that I'm, you know, I'm not, I'm being, we should just fast forward. Jay Z got the Dr Dre award or whatever.

01:26:25
Yeah and he talked about when he you know the first rap artists to get a Grammy Award Boy cut at the Grammys because the award was off camera. They was one of those awards they gave before the show. That was the Fresh Prince and jet DJ Jazzy Jeff he mentioned that when he was nominated did the same thing. Here he is getting the Dr Dre award and that's on camera. But he says you know, I, you got I. Look at Taylor Swift winning for album of the year award. She's a nice white girl. Beyonce, who has won more Grammys than almost anybody, has never won the album of the year award. He basically indicted the Grammys For being racist.

01:27:02 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Hmm, see, and so there it's.

01:27:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
it's kind of, by the way, I'm only asking you because you're a Beyonce, right? I yes, they. Maybe people have that context.

01:27:09 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, I am a big Beyonce fan, and so that plays into this. So, again, we contain multitudes.

01:27:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's the same thing Kanye did for Taylor. Yeah, except he did it MTV awards he said I'm all let you finish, but your video sucked.

01:27:22 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Beyonce was so good right, and I think Beyonce probably didn't like that as much. So, again, we contain multitudes, and I think there are multiple things going on here. I think, first and foremost, it is something that it stinks, that it has to involve a person who is completely you know, taylor didn't do it fault right and in.

01:27:44
I can understand the complaints that it sort of dulls the wind for Taylor Amongst a certain crowd, but her best fans and most of her fans aren't gonna care what somebody else says, other than to Signal their tribal nature by getting upset about it. It is also a another sort of public Example, I think, in a good way, of a person standing up for another person that they very much care about. You know to take that yeah, and to take that opportunity to say and their daughter was on stage with him.

01:28:13
Yeah, I respect this person and I've seen how hard she's tried over the years to do this. I think that that was, you know, a part of that. And then I think that it is also important that we do draw Our eye to look at what could possibly be seen as a snub, especially with lemonade.

01:28:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That year, adele Took the time to say I really thought you should have had that, beyonce, so let me let me I this is actually stimulated of thinking in my mind that I think is important and I don't know how we got on this because it really isn't our charter. Oh, it's your fault, jeff. You brought up the Grammys, but I think we might as well say it since we're talking about it the Grammys represents a part of the recording industry. That is the Establishment it is not the recording industry.

01:29:02
Yes we often think of the Grammys as representing Music. They don't represent music. They represent the establishment. The recording establishment, which often is antithetical to music and to artists, is often the enemy of artists. We saw it with the Napster prosecutions. We've seen it again and again. We've seen it with them copy protecting songs and then going after people, people who love music. I'll get it back to technology by saying that I don't think the Grammys reflect the music industry, or even or music is all they reflect, a small group of white, especially in the post mass, yes, yes, especially years have profited off of the artist.

01:29:45
That's right. The actual operation, I agree, yes.

01:29:48 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Now take that and extend it to the Oscars, to the Golden Globe.

01:29:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's true of all of it, and they're all have been accused of this kind of racism. And Well, the Golden Globes is a different story. That's just a joke. Yeah, but I'll agree with the Academy Awards and all that, and it really does rip. So it's, I think, it's worth saying only because, if you're a music fan and I often make this mistake I watch the Grammys because I'm a music fan, but that's not music.

01:30:14 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, and he took the time to say it during the Dr Dre Award, did he not? It was, it was specifically in this. Again, he starts out by talking about how it used to not even appear on camera. Right, it was. I think it was the perfect time, if there was any time, to talk about it, because this was already something that Existed outside of the establishment. It was off-camera before and you're taking the opportunity to talk about representation. There's a theory that, in part, lemonade was a test to see just how racist the Grammys truly were, because if you listen to lemonade, there is almost every genre of song in Lemonade. You know the song daddy lessons is a country song, yeah, and you get.

01:31:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So she intentionally did that.

01:31:03 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
She every genre every kind of genre to try and see look, I'm doing this and we're doing it to the best of our ability. And you heard the Praise for lemonade and she still didn't get out of the year after that. Yeah, I think that.

01:31:17 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I understand the anger and I think there's a justified anger, yeah, but I think it's really important to understand this is the, this is the establishment, and music is in fact kind of anti-establish. Right. Really good music is anti-establish yeah.

01:31:31 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I always has been.

01:31:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I always love going down in the subway and hearing these amazing musicians, or street buskers, and thinking there are so many great musicians. I've never got a recording contract who never got the attention that they deserved. Music goes way beyond the Grammy Awards, so I that's why I bring that up. I just think.

01:31:53 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, music now supports I forget the will Shit, what's his name? The former chief economist was Spotify will page of these names has written about this often now, music as a whole supports so many more artists that support, in the sense that it allows them to be heard so many more genres, thousands of genres, and yeah but look what people can create, look what UMG, universal music, is doing to tiktok, and this is this is a really interesting story.

01:32:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So last week we didn't report on it. I meant to, but we didn't get around to it Universal music pulled their music from tiktok. I thought it was a negotiation, but it wasn't. It's still not on tiktok, so that means all the artists on that label are note can no longer be used on tiktok, which is Probably right now the number one promotional vehicle for for musicians.

01:32:47 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Absolutely especially for up-and-coming musicians.

01:32:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
What a shocking thing for UMG to do, and it just shows you how little respect they have for the artists.

01:32:57 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yes, they get the fans and the fans fans that's a good point. And the fans.

01:33:03 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It's this, it's, it's, it's this idea I mean, I'm, I'm. I guess I should full disclose this. I got commissioned by the California Chamber to write a piece about the CJPA, so I'm deep back into copyright Research right now and, as I every time I dig into it, it's, it's. It was never done for the creator, it was always done for the industry. It was, from the very first, the statute of, and it was the booksellers and the publishers who wanted it. And ever since then Copyright has not been done. It's so that the creator can alienate themselves from their creation and sell it, but it's the people they sell it to who want to keep it.

01:33:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's so great that you say that because I've asked. Corey Doctorow, who is a prolific author, gives away everything you know. He tries to sell it, but he also gives it away and has had, you know, feuds with the audible over DRM and so forth, and I said well, you know when, when, when authors like Ursula K Loewen and others you know get angry at Google and others About copyrights, don't you support, aren't you an author? Don't you support them? She said. He said no, no, you don't understand. Just as you said, jeff, copyright doesn't protect artists, doesn't protect creators, it's about the companies that own the copyrights and and making more money. Hmm, he's very much anti Copyright for that reason, which I is a really interesting position. He's gotten the other things interesting about it.

01:34:29 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Writers over that. Yeah, oh yeah, oh yeah, it does, though his publisher supports him in this tour, does, yeah? The other thing about copyright that the fastest be is that news was not included until way, way later. It was not included until almost the 1900s in the US and in fact, at the burn convention, they, they, they thought about excluding news because they wanted a national network of news to be created. And Copyright. The US included only books, maps and charts at the beginning, not magazines, not newspapers. And this idea. And then and then, when it did finally get included, the idea was well, maybe it's only kind of authored creative work, because news is a corporate product, it's not a creative work and shouldn't be included in copyright. And now we have publishers going out there this is what I testified before the Senate trying to shut down every use of content and Make it that you can't learn from it, you can't do anything else with it and and it does hurt Creativity.

01:35:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I do love it to Santa barbarian in our discord is reminding me that Taylor Swift re-recorded, is Is re in the process of re-recording all her albums so that the labels that own the copyright lose the copyright and any true Taylor fan buys Taylor's, taylor's version of her manager.

01:35:48
But yeah, yeah her manager stole from her. But ultimately it comes down to the same thing. Right, it's, it's the industry. And, by the way, I think part of the reason UMG is going after tiktok Is is as a way of saying to tick both tiktok and Spotify don't forget. Don't forget who exactly who. Was paying you bill. It would be a shame if something would happen to your tiny little app. And these guys are awful. These are this. I mean, this is terrible.

01:36:19 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh, you got to just look up the Universal Music.

01:36:21 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Fire and oh yeah.

01:36:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, that's a sad, sad story. We've talked about that before. The original masters of so much great music, stored by Universal in A warehouse in Hollywood, big, actually big, complex and the equivalent of burning down the Louvre. Yeah, they didn't protect it. They said well, we got digital copies, who cares? It's all gone. Very sad. When was that fire, benita? I'm not exactly sure.

01:36:47 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I thought, we talked to 2008.

01:36:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, we talked about it when it, when it happens, back lock, that's. That's the studios.

01:36:53 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
That's the great. There's a great scene I'm sorry I'm gonna go to the, not the Louvre, I'm going to the Notre Dame fire and the great scene in Victor Hugo's Notre Dame where the Abbey points at the book and says this will destroy that. Yeah, that, that was the cathedral, and the cathedral was the way that we remembered ourselves. And the book would destroy that. Yeah, and then now we're, you know, fighting it again.

01:37:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, this. We talked about it five years ago, in 2019, when the New York Times magazine published this article Revealing what we'd lost. Ten years earlier, the day the music burned. It was the biggest disaster in the history of the music business and almost nobody knew Chest records, all the masters gone. I mean just a horrific loss, and Universal basically covered it up.

01:37:46 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
They didn't they didn't how much was was digitized at that point I.

01:37:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Think a lot of it wasn't because a lot of it was older stuff. Wow, that's so, and and this has always been the music industry's point of view about Digitizing is what we're gonna do. The stuff that sells we're not good, so they don't care about History is meaningless to them, right you know? According to Wikipedia, they the catalogs of debt, chess, deca, which was a great jazz Label, mca, geffen, itterscope, a and m, by the way, joanie Mitchell, impulse and all their subsidiary labels, a hundred and eighteen thousand to a hundred seventy five thousand album and forty five Rpms single master tapes, phonograph master discs, lacquers, which are the first impression, as well as all documentation contained in the tape boxes, unreleased let me say something gone, let me say something provocative here, that this idea that we could record and keep music is so recent In our history.

01:38:55
that's true, we've lost a lot more music having with everything before that was lost.

01:39:01 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, never again.

01:39:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Never captured, but game, but we have that means to do it now. Yes, I agree, that's why. Bruce D'O'Cale and the Internet Archive is so damn important Because they're preserving this stuff that nobody. You know Nintendo doesn't care about old games, but they're preserving this stuff. Nobody cares about it, even in the face, by the way, we should point out, of copyright lawsuits like crazy Other common crawl, which I'm working with oh yeah.

01:39:27 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Where the New York Times has demanded that all of their stuff which was on their free years which was freely available on the web, they're demanding that be taken down, which affects our picture of the web there.

01:39:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I Want to tell you don't worry about your electric toothbrush when we In case you were worried in case you were worried, I I fell for this. Wait, oh Falling for something for this. Yesterday on security, now I said Steve this just in hot breaking news three million electric toothbrushes Coopted by bad guys and used in a DDoS attack against a Swiss company.

01:40:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No no it didn't happen. Dang it, but I threw away all those toothbrushes after I stomped on them and put them in the microwave.

01:40:14 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It started toothbrush was listening to you the whole talking to.

01:40:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Facebook yeah it started when, a when, a Swiss news organization You're gonna have to help me with the pronunciation here the our Gower's Zaitung, published an article, if featuring a tweet from a security researcher at Fortinet, which implied that it could happen. Oh, come on, people.

01:40:41
Come on but it didn't happen. And the course of Swiss? This, that's the name of the show. Right now, truth brush. The truth comes out. The article made huge leaps from the very short tweet from Fortinet. The electric toothbrush is programmed to Java and criminals have unnoticed installed malware on it, like three million other toothbrushes. One command is enough and the remote controlled toothbrushes simultaneously access the website of a Swiss company, decide, collapses and is paralyzed for four hours. Now no one can find the company. This never happens and thanks to Bleeping Computer, which did the legwork on this, the journalism they can't find any example of this. Nor, frankly, are these toothbrushes hackable, since the way they work and I have one of them they blew tooth to your phone.

01:41:41 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
They're not on the internet and they barely blew tooth to your phone. Most of the time it's disconnected.

01:41:46 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Well, why do you need your toothbrush to connect to your phone?

01:41:49 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I never use the feature. I'll say that, but it does have that feature.

01:41:53 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's essentially why did you buy this Exactly?

01:41:56 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
OK, listen, that's too many questions. Now we reach the cap on the questions you'll be asking me. Thank you, good night, no.

01:42:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Bye. I wish I'd thought of that. That's good.

01:42:09 - Paris Martineau (Host)
So to say, this is every week on the show. We just interrogate all the products he's bought. So, you're also in the chair. It's because I needed a new toothbrush.

01:42:18 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We both bought this.

01:42:19 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Right, I needed a new toothbrush. I like Oral-B, it's one of the best rated toothbrushes and there was a sale on Black Friday from Amazon. It happened to have Bluetooth. Did you get the black one? Yeah, I got the black one.

01:42:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, and so because there was a sale and I needed a new toothbrush Diamond clean, by the way.

01:42:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And.

01:42:37 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I do like it. Does it get kind of white With IO Sense TM? Yeah?

01:42:42 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's supposed to be able to tell you. It kind of has a gyroscope inside and is supposed to be able to tell you when you're not brushing properly, but I just I don't ever use those features. You pair it to your phone.

01:42:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I used it the first two days. Right, you pair it to your phone and it tells you how hard you're pushing and what quadrant of your mouth.

01:42:59 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's the vision pro of toothbrushes, I will say I still use the, the sensor for how hard you're pressing $400 for a super brush. That's not how much I paid for mine. I will tell you that.

01:43:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So mine broke eventually and I went online and I ordered another one and then, wait a minute. And then I know they were out. The thing, by the way, sounds like a Mack truck passing out, so I don't know what he's doing. Does yours sound like in your mouth what is going?

01:43:26 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
on.

01:43:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
there Was broken because my my, so across the house would say what are you doing? Are you drilling for something? No, no, I'm just pressing. So something was wrong with yours.

01:43:38 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I ordered another one, and then I thought what the hell am I doing Is in your mouth.

01:43:41 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They sell a $60 one that doesn't have all of that stuff but brushes your teeth. Exactly the same, Yep.

01:43:50 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So I can't let you connect to a bot net, even though neither of them will do that technically, yeah.

01:43:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I ordered the cheap one and I am happy to say I've had it now for a month and it's exactly the same. Yeah, still tells you when. 30,. You know every 30 seconds.

01:44:03 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And I think it probably has also. It'll turn red if you're pressing too hard. I think it doesn't have that but I don't press that hard. That's good. You should. People think they're supposed to press harder than they do.

01:44:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You should lightly, lightly travel over a 45 degree angle. And, by the way, my dentist said pause on each tooth.

01:44:23 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, give it a chance, you're not supposed to go back and forth, because you're not.

01:44:28 - Paris Martineau (Host)
No, the movies have lied to us.

01:44:30 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
They do, and every time I see it I go use manual toothbrushes anymore, jeff, I do many people yeah, most people use manual to use a manual toothbrush?

01:44:41 - Paris Martineau (Host)
No, I don't.

01:44:43 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I think she will stand for the people who do.

01:44:45 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I will stand for the rights of those who are not here.

01:44:49 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I have connected telephone and a manual toothbrush.

01:44:53 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Now is that for the bicep strength and a.

01:44:55 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Chromebook that he needs to charge.

01:44:57 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
So I've got, I got them, but I think it was causing my gums to recede.

01:45:04 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh yeah, my dentist was yelling at me. That's because you're pressing too hard.

01:45:08 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Well, I just went back to a regular toothbrush.

01:45:11 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
My dentist said I had to spend more on it. So I'd tell you if you're pressing too hard.

01:45:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
My dentist said. He said I'm proud of you. He said you're going to keep your teeth till you're dead.

01:45:19 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And then he was out of threat.

01:45:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's not like a threat.

01:45:22 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's kind of a weird thing to say Nothing's going to happen to your teeth before you die, I promise.

01:45:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Nothing's going to stay right there To all, right next to your throat, but with anything retired. So, anyway, I just wonder, because when I like when my toothbrush broke and I had to use a manual toothbrush, it was so weird, isn't it? Floppy wrists like Stacy Is like I couldn't, I couldn't go ahead, try it. You, paris, you can't, because it's just like.

01:45:51 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I forget to charge my toothbrush all the time, so half the time. It is mad.

01:45:55 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You use an electric toothbrush like a manual toothbrush Wow.

01:45:58 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I do. Yeah, I contain multitudes, you contain multitudes.

01:46:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Anyway, according to Robert Graham a rata Rob. He tweeted BS. There's no evidence. Three million toothbrushes performed at DDoS. What the F is wrong with you people? There are no details like who's the target of the DDoS, what was the brand of the toothbrush? How are they connected to the internet? Yeah, they aren't.

01:46:21 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Well, don't I feel a fool?

01:46:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I I repeated the story credulously to Steve Gibson, who will mock me next Tuesday. Security now.

01:46:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yes, I travel. I've got a special travel carrying case for it, oh, no, I bring it with me.

01:46:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, I don't go.

01:46:39 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
We were being asked if we travel with our E2 brushes and he's saying that's a manuals.

01:46:45 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I manual when I travel most of the time. I manual when they travel with screwdrivers.

01:46:49 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
These two. They take screwdrivers with it when they travel. Who's who would they do.

01:46:55 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Which two are you talking about? There are many days here.

01:46:58 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You mean? Well, no, who was it was the Uleo said you travel, no, no, it was Stacy.

01:47:02 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I'm not with a screwdriver, I don't travel, I'm just thinking.

01:47:05 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I'm thinking that you would Paris, since you saw wood on the street because of the outside. I was just. I do saw in the street.

01:47:12 - Paris Martineau (Host)
She builds furniture, she does, I do I do have a, an industrial size like measuring tape at my office desk, just in case this is what I travel, oh and my version of that is during the summer months I travel with a pair of garden shears in my bag. I know you don't Low hanging. I do because, as Jeff, a fellow tall person, will, understand the trees will sometimes be really low, and then you know I'm not stealing anything.

01:47:41
The trees will be really low on my walk to him from the subway and they'll hit me in the head and no one. I hate that gorilla gardening.

01:47:48 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Are you going to change? I'm a fellow title too, but I never thought about doing this. I would always just limbo under the trees, Not oh?

01:47:55 - Speaker 7 (Host)
yeah, I know, I know I'm not a limbo under the trees.

01:47:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You got to go around with your. You go around with your and you cut.

01:48:02 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh, I'm a real gardener. I'm joining this club.

01:48:05 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's great, it's phenomenal. It gives you a sense of power. How bigger than shears. They're pretty large. I'll see if I can find them.

01:48:12 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Do you put them up your sleeve? Send them to me, because I'm going to get some and I'm joining your class.

01:48:17 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You are going to make such a great old lady.

01:48:20 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, these trees are not. No, she is.

01:48:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I swear to God that's the kind of thing Fran Lebowitz would do. She smiles a lot. I travel with this, okay. I. This is in case the cabin lights go out. It looks like. Or there's an emergency.

01:48:35
I can do that. This has a magnet in it and it conveniently clips to your. Magnet for what I don't know. So you can. So you can start a heart, you turn on the turn on the light to blink red. And then you, you, magnet. It's magnetized so you could put it on your there and it won't fall off.

01:48:54 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So first I must have that for that purpose I don't know, but I've had it for a long time.

01:48:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And then this. This is actually really good. This is a box cutter made out of plastic, so you can bring it on the plane in case you have so many boxes that open up on the plane. What else do?

01:49:09 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I leave it as burst. Look all let's, let's empty. Have you ever emptied out your? Yeah, let's go through the. I want to go through the.

01:49:15 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Come on, go to your Kickstarter campaign.

01:49:19 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Exactly, it's a Kickstarter.

01:49:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, that's. You don't want to do that.

01:49:23 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Anyway, I do want to know all the products you've.

01:49:25 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Where am I going to find these shears? Are you posting?

01:49:27 - Paris Martineau (Host)
them in discord? I will actually. I just got them from my local hardware store. I'll find them. I just made sure. Make sure that they're like a. It has a setting to where it has your normal garden shear with, and then you can flip a switch and it gets even wider.

01:49:43 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, yeah, you can?

01:49:44 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I've gotten like a little tree branches. How tall are you? I'm only five, nine, but sometimes there's a low hanging branch.

01:49:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I think you put this on your Instagram. The next time you do.

01:49:57 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yes, I really want to. Yes, I think so too, I will.

01:50:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This could be a little.

01:50:01 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
TikTok trend. What happens when witnessed? Do people look at you funny?

01:50:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You look like you know you're the homeowner.

01:50:09 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yeah no one has ever questioned me, and I've done it a lot. They think you're the homeowner I carry them in my work bag during the spring and summer. This is when things have grown.

01:50:19 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Does any homeowner say what do you do with lady? That's my tree.

01:50:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Nope, no, they're happy. They're happy you're doing. You have the right to do that. Yeah, I only do it on like a public sidewalk. And if it is low enough, that it's like they're in there and they're impinging and you have the right to do it, and you're doing a kindness to so many people who follow behind.

01:50:38 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's true.

01:50:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You're watching this, we can gorilla guarding. I mean, oh, that could be a good way. We're always looking for another.

01:50:49 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I got to ask.

01:50:51 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Do you cut it off for someone who's five, nine or, like me, for a six, four? Good question.

01:50:55 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Listen I try to kind of do a bit in the middle. I try to make it, I try not to go too crazy with it. I'm trying not to severely damage the tree. So I try to just do a bit. I probably try to do around six feet.

01:51:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Can you put? An. Amazon link in our show notes here, so they can? I can see this thing.

01:51:16 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I will find it. Yeah, I'm trying to understand what this is like Let me find a photo. Do you get on the?

01:51:21 - Leo Laporte (Host)
subway with this thing? Yeah, is it allowed in banks, it seems like if I.

01:51:27 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Definitely not allowed in banks.

01:51:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
If I saw somebody on the subway with a big pair of shears, I might be nervous, like, is that my dentist?

01:51:33 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
He was threatening me about my teeth. What the heck is going on, We'll take a break.

01:51:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We'll come back more to come with this fun panel of Gorilla Gardeners. Yeah cause we're all tall.

01:51:46
You're watching twig. Youtube has announced the TV, the YouTube TV subscribe. Actually, have they announced it or are they? No, they didn't announce it. Neil figured it out. No, I think they said. I think they said they can say it. Oh yeah. Ceo of YouTube. Neil Mullen published his annual letter to the YouTube community yesterday. Among other things he said viewers watch a billion hours every day of YouTube TV and they have now more than 8 million subscribers, which makes it one of the biggest streaming, if not the biggest streaming services. Youtube, premium, youtube music have more than 100 million subscribers, so this is a. This is a big success for YouTube. It has to be a revenue driver, so that's a fun of Google when they bought YouTube.

01:52:40
Yeah, I actually like YouTube TV, but it's not cheap. It is basically it's basic. Cable is what it is. It's actually not even basic because you can get HBO and other things as well. But I'll tell you what people who have YouTube TV and have paid the extra money I think it's 10 bucks a month now for 4k will be happy this Sunday because they will be watching the Super Bowl in 4k, while the rest of you poor suckers, will be watching it in some other Taylor and 4k.

01:53:07 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, but Leo, it's upscaled 4k, so it's 10.

01:53:10 - Leo Laporte (Host)
AP upscaled. I understand, but it is HDR, does it? Have commercials? Does it have?

01:53:14 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
the same commercials, the role we watch in.

01:53:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So, oh, actually that's what's interesting about YouTube TV. It depends what you're watching, but you know you know this because you are all into the ad thing there are local ads as well as national ads on every programmer. Right, there's that local ad avails YouTube TV as the as the local doesn't often have ads there. So that's when they put a moment of Zen. I've mentioned this. Yeah, the moment of Zen. There's a little bear in a river and it says enjoy this moment of Zen. Usually not nearly long enough. That's the local ad that they didn't sell the local avail in. So so they have the same national ads, yeah.

01:53:49 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
What did you think? Since we're on sports and streaming, you saw the announcement that a lot of the big guys are going to pair together for one.

01:53:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
ESPN, which is owned by Disney, I think are they all owned by.

01:54:02 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Disney Discovery is not owned by Disney. This is the sports alone one. This is the sports one. Yeah, yeah, espn Go ahead. Is it antitrust is my question.

01:54:15 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
If you're playing ball together, if you're all playing well together as a team, is that anti-trust? Yeah, it can be.

01:54:24 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh yes, it can be All of 2024, they aren't.

01:54:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
you're aren't the same company. Espn is Disney, fox is Fox Warner Brothers. Who owns Warner Brothers these days? I don't even know, I think well, that's, that's discovery Discovery.

01:54:38
Who owns Discovery? Subscribers will have access to all the ESPN channels, which are the most expensive channels on cable right now the SEC network, the Southern conference, the ACC network, espn news, abc, fox, fox Sports One and Two, btn, tnt, tbs, true TV and ESPN plus. Wow, no pricing, no pricing. But sports is the one driver still for live television, isn't it Right? Maybe that the Grammys, the Academy Awards, but sports, but that's once a year, yeah.

01:55:16 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
But. But it's just struck me that that again antitrust that they can all come together. There's no company, so.

01:55:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So whether you're a, so they're going to form a new company with its own leadership. It's going to be tough. Yeah, it's Hulu of sports, but they own the content. Well see, hulu didn't get in trouble, or did they? I don't think so. No problem Hulu had is that the partners hated each other and they were all in each other's throats and eventually One of them bought them all out. Yeah, eventually they all disappeared. Cnbc says no price has been determined, but a logical starting point would be 45 or $50 a month. Who, who, where?

01:55:55 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
She, I think that's your answer. Right, that is antitrust. 50 bucks a month, come on.

01:56:02 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Well, remember, this is going to want you to buy it, yeah.

01:56:04 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, well, that's the thing. We'll buy it We'll. You know we buy, besides YouTube TV, we buy the NFL Sunday ticket on top of that, which is hundreds of dollars a year. That's very sports is a big driver. That's why ESPN is the single most expensive cable basic cable channel out there.

01:56:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I mean, yeah, it's why they continue to let these poor people bang their heads up against their skulls and suffer lifelong injuries so that they bring in all the money that they're bringing in.

01:56:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Hey, it's a good game. It's a nice game. They're working to save people's heads, they've got new helmets and they try really hard. They have a concussion protocol Hold on, let me sip this tea.

01:56:41 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's tight, it's tight.

01:56:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I have to say it's taken some of the pleasure out of the game, but not all of it. I'm curious about it. I'm curious about it.

01:56:53 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I do find for the garden shears and put it in the chat oh they're not what you're expecting.

01:56:58 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I believe the best garden.

01:56:59 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Eight inch poly bypass pruner. Why are they even calling a bypass pruner so I can pass by? Oh, they're at that big. You carry these in your pocket.

01:57:08 - Paris Martineau (Host)
They're at that big. There's also a photo of me holding them farther up. They're very manageable. You can fit them in a purse, a merc, a shoulder bag.

01:57:15 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
They were advertising that purse size cheers, Cheers that one. That's the story of the angry old lady in your life.

01:57:25 - Paris Martineau (Host)
You know that's me. I like the strange handle on these chairs.

01:57:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, these are good. It looks like you're going to punch. Yeah, that's their double is brass knuckles.

01:57:35 - Paris Martineau (Host)
The brass knuckles Huge. Wow.

01:57:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Do you? Is there a little self-defense component in this?

01:57:42 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, not at all. I mean if the person holds out their fingers and doesn't lose.

01:57:47 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
She's Louise. When the homeowner comes out and says don't you do that to us, boom, they're going to lose their finger, that's true, yeah, if they hold it still and give me a minute to get it set up, hold on, hang on Hold on, I got to do the extra wide.

01:58:04 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, I got to. I got to flip the switch here. Hold on.

01:58:06 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Those are them.

01:58:08 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now you missed a bet here. You really should have put your Amazon affiliate. That's true Code on it.

01:58:13 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Listen, we're doing a show. I haven't had a time to figure out, see, I really thought they were these big old shears where you've got the long wooden handles. I mean, that would be very funny.

01:58:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's what I thought they were too. I was really, because you need the leverage. Yeah, the big tree branches. What's interesting about this ESPN Fox Warner deal is traditionally and I remember this from the old days of tech TV Tech TV was terrified of the cable operators they would. Our deal with cable operators would only allow us to, for instance, put 10 minutes of every hour online. They were. The cable operators are very afraid of streaming, but clearly the the, the power balance of power, has shifted at this point and ESPN has obviously thinks hey, we don't have to worry about cable operators anymore, because this is a you'll pay 50 bucks, but you won't be necessarily paying for cable. This is for cord cutters, right. So I think it's very interesting. The problem is that cord cutting is increasingly expensive, to the point where you're not safe and money over your cable bill. It's a skinny bundle, they call it a scundle, If you will if you will, I won't.

01:59:23
No, please don't. Yeah, yeah, bard. So two things happened today. Today in history, blazing saddles came out 50 years ago, god bless, wow, I think we should all watch blazing saddles tonight. By the way, highly politically incorrect, right.

01:59:40 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You pray or something. There was a story somewhere that said it just couldn't be made today.

01:59:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Probably not. No, if Mel books was still around, he could make it. He would make it. He is still around. I mean, if he's still around making movies, right, I think he's still around. He is, isn't he 100. He's getting on.

01:59:58 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
That was the great old MTV game show category Dead or Canadian.

02:00:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He is 97 years old now and I don't think he's. He's actively working, but if he keeps this up, he will be the 2000 year old man, so good on him. Yeah, Everybody. If you've not seen blazing, you've seen that. I didn't know he was an. Egot, he is an Egot Yep. Good for him. That's a Emmy, Grammy Oscar and Tony. How'd he get a Grammy Old recorded comedy? Yeah, the 2000 year old man.

02:00:33 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I think Of course, yeah, right, yes, exactly.

02:00:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
The old, uh, too disgusting and vulgar for modern. So this, let me read this from the independent it was too dirty for John Wayne to accept a part, too disgusting and vulgar for the chairman of Warner Brothers who threatened to bury the film. But Mel Brooks stuck to his guns, refusing to make edits. And when his vindicated blazing saddles turns 50 today, a massive hit. And Brooks himself said the funniest motion picture ever made.

02:01:12 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Well, that's what I say. This podcast, funniest podcast ever made.

02:01:16 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Actually, though, you know, we know, mel Brooks is a legend and a success, but at the time he was 46. He was unemployed. He says he was absolutely broke, even though his earlier movie, the producers, was a hit. His wife and Bancroft is expecting their first child, so he this was a risky time for him, for him to push and make this movie. Yes, there's, there's the famous campfire scene. Um, richard Pryor uh was in it, right, um, and and to have Pryor in a movie was also a very uh controversial thing at the time. Cleavon Little with his famous scene. I, uh, there's in the N word you can't punch a horse, you can't hit an old lady, and the farting scene has to go.

02:02:09 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
This is precisely why it could be made today, because back in the seventies they were way more conservative.

02:02:14 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Were they, though? Were they definitely? Of course You're thinking one to yeah, they, they definitely were. There's a different kind of conservatism, though. That's right, there's this political correctness thing.

02:02:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Um, in the seventies, I don't know. I think seventies movies were a little bit bolder. I don't know man, I mean. Brooks was a North American Indian chief who talked with a Yiddish accent. Um, anyway, it's a. It is political commentary, it is hysterical, it is a classic and it is 50 years old. Also today. Maybe we'll say this from 50 years from now, google Bard becomes Gemini. They're highly related. Gemini is the new name of Google's AI, uh, and apparently so Bard is gone as a brand done.

02:03:08
Yeah, uh, the change log, uh, dated February 7th, says Bard is now Gemini. Uh, also in the change log, we're committed to giving everyone direct access to Google AI and, as of this week, every Gemini user across our supported countries and languages has access to Google's best family of AI models. To better reflect this commitment, we've renamed Bard Gemini. Oh can I tell you guys something?

02:03:36 - Paris Martineau (Host)
awful. It's completely unrelated. Someone last week was telling me that they went to Bard college and all week I've been thinking to myself Bard college. Why do I feel like I've heard a lot about Bard college recently? I was like looking at this. I was on the Wikipedia page yesterday. I was just realized cause we've been talking about Google.

02:03:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's Google. Actually my daughter Bard college went to she uh freshman year was at Bard. The snow got to her. She left Uh. But you know what else went to. Bard, chevy Chase, oh, and it was at Bard that he met Donald Fagan and Steely Dan, and I don't know if people know this, I just learned this myself. Uh, chevy Chase was the original drummer for Steely Dan. What, what, what? Chevy Chase, uh, is apparently an accomplished musician before he was a comedian even before he was a noxious old man.

02:04:34 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, grumpy.

02:04:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Well, and that's how I know, cause I listened to his prickly interview with Mark Marin on WTF and he talks about this what Maybe he was making it up, but I think it sounded sincere. Uh, let's see.

02:04:50 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Now we can't let that go. Hold on, hold on. I'm gonna take a look at this up.

02:04:55 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Steely Dan how he almost became Steely Dan's drummer almost in the early days of Steely Dan.

02:05:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He was their drummer. I don't know, maybe they weren't Steely Dan yet, but he, they were all at Bard. They're rusty, dan, by the way. Bard's a very good college. If you ever want to go back to school, paris Martin, no, highly recommended. Uh, it's not too far. Abby loved it. Abby really loved it, just not the snow. Well it was five feet of snow all winter.

02:05:23 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It was not. Oh, I mean, we don't have that problem anymore.

02:05:26 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, maybe not. Yeah, uh, great story from CNN. Now again, I uh, I'm trust in CNN. It doesn't have toothbrushes, but it is kind of hard to believe.

02:05:39
A finance worker at a multinational firm unnamed multinational firm received a uh text saying, purportedly from the company's UK based chief financial officer, saying we need to, uh, we have, uh, we need you to help us with a secret $25 million transaction. The worker was reasonably as I would hope our uh employees would be skeptical until he was invited to a video call with, recognizably, the voices and faces of the chief financial officer and other colleagues, all of whom said no, no, no, no, uh, you need to send these 200 million Hong Kong dollars to this address. Uh, he did. Now I believe this is true because Hong Kong police had a briefing. They've made, they've made arrests in the past. Um, eight stolen Hong Kong identity cards, all of which have been reported lost by their owners, were used to make 90 loan at my. This is a separate, super sophisticated, separate story, but, uh, this is not the first time, but this is the first time a deep, fake video in real time.

02:06:51 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Wow, that's I mean. What do you? That's hard to combat. If yeah, wouldn't?

02:06:56 - Paris Martineau (Host)
you believe it. If you're a remote worker, yeah, yeah.

02:07:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Uh, you get online with me and Lisa. We say, Mike, I need you to run to Amazon and buy a million dollars worth of gift cards. You would do it. No, no.

02:07:10 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You would.

02:07:11 - Paris Martineau (Host)
You would, you could do it, you could do it recommendly and, uh, you know it's all right.

02:07:19 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
All right, Let me ask you this, Michael how would you know to quiz Leo was something the AI couldn't know? Ooh, you know that only Leo knows, and if he doesn't know it, he's fake Leo.

02:07:28 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh, that's a good question. Um, I would. I would ask Leo To tell me I don't know if Leo would remember this, Nothing about it what we ate. He's an old man at Skywalker Ranch Because food.

02:07:51 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I believe it was food.

02:07:55 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
But I could be wrong. No, I could. I could tell, I could ask him no, you, you're on the right track.

02:08:00 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There's things that we have done together that no man should ever speak of. Exactly. Yeah, benito, benito. What would your what's? Asking, if I went to Benito. If someone, if a deep fake Leo, went to Benito, how would you find out? If, see, Benito doesn't know me as well as Mike at this? That's why?

02:08:16 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I mean, I would just ask for his credit card number so it wouldn't be on my credit card.

02:08:19 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, and by the way, what kind of company allows this underling to write a check for $25?

02:08:26 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
million without a second right.

02:08:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You couldn't do that, Even a twit. You'd have to get a second signature.

02:08:31 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah.

02:08:31 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So there's a anyway. The Hong Kong police said they're on it, don't worry, they're on it. They also said watch your toothbrush and wash your toothbrushes. Microsoft, both. Yes, oh, that is a good point. You should, you should base your toothbrush Freak low.

02:08:47 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And whenever you change your toothbrush head that's when you're supposed to wash your toothbrush you use the old.

02:08:52 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Black toothbrush. Doesn't it get young? He it does get toothpaste.

02:08:56 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, except I use black toothpaste. You wouldn't know about that because you're not black. So and I remember the barbershop. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, just kidding. None of that is true. I don't use black toothpaste because the fact that they put charcoal in toothpaste now, like it's supposed to, really put charcoal, they make black tooth.

02:09:16 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I haven't even put in to charcoal in it for a while my hygiene secret is charcoal soap.

02:09:24 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You butter it. Did you know?

02:09:25 - Paris Martineau (Host)
this is actually a white side, top or bottom, yeah.

02:09:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
No, I only buy soap with activated with charcoal in it. And it works quite well. It absorbs, it absorbs odors.

02:09:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Well, so that you won't smell me. He wants no scent. So when the predators come, I know, I know.

02:09:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I can't put cologne on. Lisa's very sensitive to perfumes, so notice, you can't smell me. You're sitting right next to me, can you smell me?

02:09:50 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Do you know I'm here? You did smell you. You put your face in front of me. Yeah, I don't smell anything, you're right.

02:09:54 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Let's get back to tech. Yeah, micros. That was natural tech Sorry. I love this show.

02:10:01 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
God.

02:10:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I love this show. It's so embarrassed. Microsoft is in a deal with semaphore. This is a little scary, so I like semaphore. It's a great publication, oh God yeah. To create news news stories, not news with the AI of AI chat bots, with the aid of AI chat bots.

02:10:21 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
In particular helping the journal, so I can't figure out what it is.

02:10:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So semaphore has newsletters. That's their. I think that's their business model.

02:10:29 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Well, they were site.

02:10:30 - Paris Martineau (Host)
They were site too, yeah, but there's no ads in their main business model has kind of pivoted to selling sponsorships in newsletters Right and specifically they're able to be lucrative sponsorships because they're targeting kind of the same model as like Axios or Politico pro movers and shakers on the hill and what on, this is an old have and Ron will sponsor your climate change newsletter or whatever Right.

02:10:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This is an old model. You remember, of course, jeff, magazines like PC week, industry mags. You had that they were free but you had to qualify for them because those were very lucrative ads, because they knew that you were a qualified audience. So this is kind of like that Semaphore's website still, you know, ad free I think. But yes, the newsletter also do events. So there's all sorts of ways.

02:11:20
I think semaphore is really good. I really like their international coverage. I use it, I check it every single day and I do see there are person next week and I'll tell them good, it's the.

02:11:30 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Smiths right.

02:11:31 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I have quite a few of the people on the on the site on Tech news.

02:11:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, there's some really excellent people that they got from all over read. Albergotti there. Yeah. He is. He does one, he does their tech newsletter. So the one of the newsletters not all of them one of the newsletters called signals, which is a breaking news feed I probably subscribed to that will be created with the help of an AI. So I'm not sure it's clear. I believe they had some.

02:12:03 - Paris Martineau (Host)
They had some examples that were things like they're using chat to P&T and asking questions like how are news outlets around the world covering Biden's trip to wherever with examples and so then using that to get examples of how coverage is in from a variety of different news sources.

02:12:25 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It'll always be written by humans, they say. They say, yes, this is, this is a good point and that it's helping with the research and gathering aspect of which is okay. The newsletter.

02:12:35 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We need. So we have a phrase called green. I think it's okay where you partner with Ecos and startups to greenwash your or mother nature herself, or mother nature herself. In the case of Apple, we need a name for AI washing, because Microsoft not only did this. On Monday, they announced collaborations with the Craig Newmark School of Journalism. So what the online? News association, ona, which is a great group I've spoken to them, I like them and the ground truth project. So what is Microsoft up to? Is this a kind of AI washing?

02:13:11 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, it is.

02:13:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It is the same thing.

02:13:13 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Open AI does to that. That's the strategy. Yeah, and you know, listen we I raised money for my school, for that school, from Facebook and Google over the years, right, and we put it to good use. So fine, so ha.

02:13:28 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yeah, and actually I, as you know, I'm an AI enthusiast and actually, the first act of AI washing was when, you know, they gave me a million dollars. They went on a long walk with Leo With a black bag.

02:13:45 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, oh, is that what he started to say? That AI needed rights Like human rights?

02:13:50 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yeah, yeah specifically, he said I went on a long walk with an unnameable AI woman, mary, and now all I believe AI is the future.

02:13:59 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And we never checked. He's only gotten more radical. It's true.

02:14:03 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I mean, maybe he was saying he doesn't smell computers. Oh my God, we're cracking the case wide open here Wait.

02:14:11 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
but at the same time he's advocating for us spending less time on our devices. So is that like a ploy, that's?

02:14:17 - Paris Martineau (Host)
a fake. That's a kind of a reverse psychology. He knows that you are going to be motivated to prove him.

02:14:23 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And I'd love you to try this. I have a little device you could just put in your ear. Oh, dear God.

02:14:28 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Elon Musk has a lot of great things about it.

02:14:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
He has a lot of great things to put in your ear.

02:14:35 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Amazon is debuting an AI shopping assistant in its mobile app called Rufus. I'm sorry.

02:14:43 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Rufus, that's so delightful.

02:14:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Tell me something good, tell me, tell me, tell me.

02:14:50 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Why.

02:14:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Rufus. Why Rufus? Some research somebody, brandon.

02:14:56 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
That could be a show title too.

02:14:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yes.

02:14:58 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Why. All of us Rufus both of us.

02:15:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Rufus, meanwhile, is a generative AI experience that's been trained. By the way, this is the kind of use of AI that it seems to be most positive. Yes, Trained in the product catalog, customer views, community Q&As and information around the web. So when you're on the thing and you're saying, well, these shears cut a six inch branch, you ask Rufus.

02:15:23 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And Rufus says not only will it cut a six inch branch, it will also cut a finger if the finger is held still for a period of 30 seconds. No, but I have no. Thank you, Rufus. Rufus, we love you. I have loved that Amazon started to do the AI summaries of reviews and I think that's great. I think that's a fantastic use.

02:15:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Where AI really excels is where it has a specific corpus of knowledge that it can refer to.

02:15:49 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
And then or a few corpora, as you would say, or corpora.

02:15:53 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, I would buy.

02:15:54 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
But I would Please don't make me say that.

02:16:00 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
So last week on AI inside, jason and I interviewed Sven Sturmer Toblo, I forget is the last thing from. She said publisher, help you introduce them like that. By the way, I hope I didn't got a script the name I know, I have it. It's really embarrassing. Oh, it's a risk, is Sven Sturmer Toblo? Okay, and so at at Shipstand, which is a very enlightened publishing company, ship said yeah, yeah, took their, their version of of Engadget and put all of it in his corpus and then allowed readers to come in and say, oh, I've got a small room, there's a lot of light, my couch is as far away. What TV should I get? Which is just simply a different user interface with that mother with that data.

02:16:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
We are so close to this. You know Apple just announced and it's going to come out in the next few weeks that every podcast you subscribe to an Apple podcast will have a transcript. They will generate their doing you and that means that there will suddenly be this huge corpus of knowledge from the podcast you listen to that could be ingested and queried.

02:17:04 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I really think this is a fascinating use I talked to an editor recently and I suggested why don't you have a hundred citizens across your large state, each record of the school board meeting in their town for one week, and then transcribe it into AI and then query that data and find?

02:17:22
out that there's no, no center reporters could have ever done. Or I talked to another editor yesterday in LA, and so why don't you take all of the copy from all of the the Asperil International language newspapers in LA, have it translated and then also query that data? What are they talking about? What are these communities these right? What are these communities concerned about?

02:17:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I just looked up the word diaspora because I don't think that's a word. Well, here's an adjective, right. It turns out it is a. It's a magnesium supplement for life on the move.

02:18:04 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Hey look, I love that. It's both of the most AI generated people you've ever seen men with popped collars and women that they're carrying on their backs for some reason they're giving them piggyback because they've been taking diaspora. Anyway, I love that the Google description for this is. One of the keys to this is magnesium. That is the mineral helps us be physically and mentally fit and, by the way, I thought I used to take it.

02:18:38 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
You don't want to take that, what? Oh, good to know.

02:18:42 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
No, no, it didn't happen I happen. You don't want to happen. A lot happens.

02:18:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's almost as good as those sugar free gummy bears.

02:18:50 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Oh, that'll get you moving.

02:18:52 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, that will get you moving.

02:18:54 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
So what way? There's no adjectival form of diaspora? I don't know, diasporic diasporic, diasporic.

02:19:01 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That is mostly potassium, just in case you want to know, it's also fungal. Do not use the word tapestry in a sentence or beacon, or comprehensive curriculum, or esteemed faculty. That is really a giveaway, esteemed faculty? Actually, if I were to use that in my college essay, they would just said you're a suck up and we're not going to accept you. Vibrant academic community these are all words, according to Forbes, that are a sign that you're using chat GPT to write your college acceptance essay.

02:19:40 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
They keep wanting to find. We're going to find you, we're going to get you. No, the machine is going to be smarter than them in that way.

02:19:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Forbes asks several essay consultants.

02:19:48 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Forbes, Forbes, by the way, let's just say that.

02:19:50 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Forbes, they asked the platform, fiverr, they asked some people.

02:19:56 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh boy.

02:19:59 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Mike and Ivy League alum and former editor-in-chief of the Cornell business journal said tapestry I just tapestry is a giveaway. He says it's a pure dad 10. Don't you Well? Would you ever use a word tapestry in an article?

02:20:16 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
A rich tapestry of no, you wouldn't do provide.

02:20:19 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Listen to what Mike Micah no, I'm a Micah Micah was talking about the seed, the mustard seed of faith. I loved that. And then he was talking about this vision of putting all these, this shattered glass, on his ceiling. Micah would use tapestry.

02:20:33 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I might use tapestry, and then they would think I was lying. Why did you?

02:20:36 - Leo Laporte (Host)
say the mustard seed of faith.

02:20:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Earlier, when you said it, yeah, I was talking about if you could, if you could believe that the table was real. Just a mustard seed of faith.

02:20:44 - Anthony Nielson (Host)
Then you can say that is, that is, that is that is because of religious trauma.

02:20:48 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's why I have mustard You're well trained yeah.

02:20:52 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, he says, I no longer believe in an actual hold on one second. Is that an actual phrase from?

02:20:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:20:58 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Just look it up, mustard. That's all. That's all the faith you need to be able to like do great works through God is a mustard seed of faith.

02:21:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Shall I just and for truly, I will tell you if you have faith, the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible for you.

02:21:22 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
And as a kid by those you can see Michael was moving his hands as if he still had the mustard seed of faith. No, is the vision, goggles on and was moving the mountain.

02:21:32 - Paris Martineau (Host)
The little vision. Pro gestures are like you're pinching a mustard seed of faith.

02:21:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now here's going to be the test if jet gets an Instagram ad with a t-shirt that says if you have faith as a small mustard seed then we'll know mustard seed.

02:21:51 - Paris Martineau (Host)
You can see the mountain move from here to there. Nothing will be impossible to you.

02:21:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I'm sorry that they are so sacrilegious. Please forgive them. They know not what they know not what we do. No, that's because I know what we do.

02:22:05 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It's because as a kid I spent so much time but I literally would carry. I'm not even kidding you. I went to my mom's cabinet and I carried a mustard seed around with me. So when I was doing prayers to try to make things happen, I would pray with that mustard seed in my hand and nothing ever happens.

02:22:20 - Leo Laporte (Host)
A little literal.

02:22:23 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It was a talisman.

02:22:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It was a talisman.

02:22:25 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It was like, if I can have this much faith, it wasn't that I thought the mustard seed was doing anything. It was like visualization. You know what I mean.

02:22:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I was balancing my trees.

02:22:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That's really sweet. Literary childhood I did. I had a rich tapestry of a childhood and, honestly, my esteemed colleagues had had at the time where we knew you were a fake kid, by the way.

02:22:46 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Mike, who Forbes does not give a last name to, says I no longer believe there's a way to innocently use the word tapestry in an essay. If the word tapestry appeared, it was generated by chat GPT. There will be a reckoning. He says this. It's a quote. There will be a reckoning. There are going to be a ton of students one living unwittingly use the word tapestry in their essay. That may not be admitted this time around.

02:23:18 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Wait, are we sure that Mike is in chat? Gpt.

02:23:21 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Why is it that Mike is short for Micah?

02:23:24 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It may have been me. They didn't check the credentials when they called me on Fiverr or whatever he's Mike. Thanks, mike, there will be a reckoning.

02:23:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
There will be a reckoning, the mustard seed of faith shall smite you.

02:23:42 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
And I said to this fruit yes, I will slice the fruit.

02:23:47 - Leo Laporte (Host)
All right, this is the point where I've used up all of my stories. If any of you would like to bring up something from your trove, you may at this point your tapestry, your rich tapestry of stories. I should prepare for this moment, but I don't. Ai trained on a baby's experience, sorry, I guess how do you do that? Well, you have to wear this special hat. The baby wears a helmet with a camera.

02:24:14 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Does the?

02:24:15 - Paris Martineau (Host)
baby, have a GoPro.

02:24:16 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
They're putting it, oh no the baby does have a GoPro.

02:24:19 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Do not make your child.

02:24:20 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
That was the answer. Please no, I never have the answer to the question that hat is just a soft spot.

02:24:28 - Paris Martineau (Host)
We can't have a GoPro.

02:24:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This kid is definitely going to use the word tapestry in their college essay. I know it.

02:24:34 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It means a lot more words than that they're going to say my parents strapped a GoPro to my head as a baby. Please let me into college. I need this, and they're going to get it.

02:24:45 - Paris Martineau (Host)
We're like. I've been in therapy for 15 years.

02:24:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But apparently they used AI. In a paper published Thursday in the journal Science, researchers at NYU report that AI, given just a tiny fraction of the fragmented experiences, one child can begin to discern order, learning that there's something called a crib, stairs or a puzzle, matching those words correctly with the images. So that's cool. They're teaching the AI through this. It's fascinating.

02:25:20 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
What the moral of the story is, that a child could learn with a lot less data. Yeah, they're better at it, of course, they're at the machine. So they're trying to figure out how the kid figures it out.

02:25:31 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
How does this baby work? Strap a GoPro, we'll find out. There will be a record.

02:25:40 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
But the kids look happy with it.

02:25:41 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
They're all smiling in the picture. They don't care, that's because there's a camera on them, just like.

02:25:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Taylor Swift. There you go. Elon almost sold Tesla to Google for $11 billion. I wish he had. Actually, I'm glad he didn't. I don't think that Google would have been a good yeah a good steward, yeah, a good steward. He came close because they were almost out of money in 2012, or 2013, I guess shortly after they released the Model S, and this is in the Ashley Vance book which I actually interviewed, ashley for triangulation. We've interviewed a lot of people. We have yeah. I think we can go to your.

02:26:22 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I see you looking at your watch.

02:26:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
See now. I think it's time I got a notification. Okay, I think it's time to wrap it up. We got a few TikToks, if you want. Okay, we do have a few TikToks. Tiktok Grammy. What should we start with?

02:26:34 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
This is we talked about her before. This is a young star who's made her entire career on TikTok Leve. You and I talked about her a long time ago and she won a Grammy.

02:26:44 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Wow, you know a little Naz X also. Oh, I got to do the puzzle piece. I hate this. He's real. I think he's real. Little Naz X did also went from TikTok to superstar, so her song is bewitched Laofi and she Leve Sorry, it's Icelandic Leve. It's pronounced Leve spelled L-A-U-F-E-Y, but she is an Icelandic, that's wonderful. A citizen who big made her, made her bones on TikTok. Very good, congratulations.

02:27:17 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
And then down on line 112, we have another TikTok here which is disgusting. We're calling the raclette police and there is a raclette police TikTok, a Twitter account, because this is cooking things, insisting that this is how you make raclette. It is, it is it is a crime.

02:27:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh no, it is that time of year when you see a lot of raclette out there.

02:27:38 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
No, you don't peel it off the cheese, it gets worse. It gets worse, okay.

02:27:43 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So he puts on here into the oh, he made a groove in the cheese and he poured slivovits into it, or something like that.

02:27:51 - Paris Martineau (Host)
That's going to get a lot worse. Now it's going in the raclette machine.

02:27:54 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's right. That's correct. That's where you melt it.

02:27:56 - Paris Martineau (Host)
This is correct we're we're in a correct.

02:27:59 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's on fire but. I, it's on fire, it's burning.

02:28:03 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Now he's got two pieces of bread. Plain wonder bread. Dunks it in egg.

02:28:09 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He's making French toast Dunks an egg together, and now it is.

02:28:12 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's making it more bread crumbs.

02:28:14 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It makes no sense. Well, you'll see, though. You'll see, you'll see.

02:28:19 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
The bread is he's breading the bread. Oh, oh.

02:28:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now he's deep fried, the bread which is kind of a. I think it's funny to bread bread before you deep fry it.

02:28:30 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Okay, it's breaded together, which is odd. This is French grilled cheese.

02:28:35 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It says on the video. That's not now he takes it out of the French.

02:28:38 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
You who's any kind of? No, it's Swiss.

02:28:41 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Franklin, a Swiss. Oh, that's but now he's going to take the bread that he's made here together and cut off the top because who would want a crust?

02:28:51 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, he's made a pouch. Oh, oh, he's, he's made a, okay, I'm done.

02:28:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
This is. I don't want to watch it. No, no, no, keep going, cause it gets so disgusting. So he's put on a glass. And he puts crap in there.

02:29:04 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
What are those?

02:29:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
He's just filling onions and croutons and then finally wait, he put the breaded bread.

02:29:10 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I'm off and trained Jeff.

02:29:11 - Paris Martineau (Host)
This looks good. This looks delicious. Listen it now. He's putting the raclette in it.

02:29:17 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
It looks great, but what about the crater there's?

02:29:20 - Paris Martineau (Host)
there's Italian meats that are clearly coming up next.

02:29:23 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Wait, yeah, you're going to see that. You're going to see that in a second and that won't be the end of it. I think he's running out of room.

02:29:29 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I don't see how it could be any.

02:29:31 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
There's no room. This whole thing's going to go into a bloody Mary, isn't it?

02:29:34 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yeah, he's going to. He's going to blend this afterwards. Oh, that's phenomenal.

02:29:39 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Listen there's meat happening there, the ham down into it.

02:29:43 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, and then little corny shawms.

02:29:45 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh, that looks good. Yeah, and then a little more cheese couldn't hurt.

02:29:49 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Actually I'm, I'm all. I would eat this, but I just can't call it a raclette, right it's not French grilled cheese raclette, that's for sure.

02:29:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
But it is delicious, yeah, okay. That's disgusting.

02:30:03 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Okay, I've got a TikTok, but it's my pick of the week, so we're going to have to do a little break.

02:30:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
All right, let's take a break. The back of the book, the picks coming up as you continue to watch this stupid ass show. Hey, hey, michael, did you bring a pick? No, didn't know that was good. No, I have two, so you can have the first.

02:30:27 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Whoa, you've got one more than one.

02:30:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know, you got me started last week. This cracked me up. Do you ever watch a?

02:30:35 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
show before you do it. Has Paris ever heard of or seen the show?

02:30:39 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's what I was going to ask. What is the show? Wkrp and Cincinnati? Have you know that show? No, okay, it's a classic Michael. Oh wow, these people are young. It's about it's a. It's a year old. When was it a hit? The 80s, the 90s, 90s, I think. But it's about a, a ragtag bunch of crew that works at a radio station A lovable loser radio station and the star of the show is Dr Johnny Fever 78., 78.

02:31:08
Wow. But also also in there is Les Nessman, the news man, who, and then and then there's the, the boss of the of the radio station. There's the, there's the what's I can remember his name. There's Howard, is it Howard? There's the guy, the salesman, who wears plaid pants and and at one point, for a thanks giving, they decide to throw turkeys out of a helicopter, sort of as a not frozen like live turkeys out of a helicopter.

02:31:38 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Living turkeys? Does he ever see a fly?

02:31:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Some. Some is they don't fly, and and so they've got Les Nessman, their newscaster, narrating it, and it's now a meme, as God is eye with this I thought turkeys could fly. It's a very funny scene.

02:31:55
Anyway, somebody has taken every DJ break cause he's a fake DJ on TV, but he. By the way, it's hard to see this show now because they don't have the music rights for all the music. They played a lot of music from that era, so they don't have the music rights. But somebody who doesn't care obviously has taken all of Johnny Fever's spoken words and mixed them in with the songs that he was playing, which I can't play either, but it's the WKRP's Johnny Fever mix and I think it's on Spotify. He quite literally can't play it. I wish I could. I really. I really want you to listen to this. It's hysterical. I can I play the, the Johnny Fever parts?

02:32:35 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I don't know, let me, let me it's hard to get the voice that I went through it a little bit.

02:32:42 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, he plays great music, cause it's 1978, right, but he's kind of a reprobate. He got fired from his last job for saying the word booger on, so anyway, that's. That's pick number one. I guess I can't really play it. This one I can play. This is called ASCII theater. There's a new movie every week at ASCII theater. I remember this. This looks like the shining, doesn't it? Yeah, the shining.

02:33:09 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, this is so cool.

02:33:11 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So I'm going to copy this and I'm going to put it in my terminal. So let me open up my terminal. Oh, we're going to the terminal. We're going to the terminal. Here we go, have your voice. He's in Paste. This in Watch. Get ready, I'm SSHing to the ASCII theater website. It's going to download this and start playing the shining in ASCII. Ladies and gentlemen, I don't think you're going to be taken down for that, can you?

02:33:37 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I don't think so. It's streaming.

02:33:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's a very good text to my terminal program in color, by the way, full color. This is ASCII dot theater and this guy's I think it's a Barbie movie.

02:33:54 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
the other day Different movie every day.

02:33:56 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's wild. I don't know if I can. I can't scrub ahead, so we'll just have to just have to watch the theater.

02:34:04 - Paris Martineau (Host)
You can't control this transformative. I don't think it is transformative.

02:34:07 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, I mean, nobody's going to not watch the shining because they saw it this way.

02:34:11 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
It's hard to do closed captions.

02:34:15 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, really slow part. Yeah, here's Johnny, it's. They're going down a road. Oh, that's right, they're going to the resort.

02:34:23 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's a hell of a great to play in the background of a party.

02:34:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, it put it on the on the wall Only after the projector.

02:34:32 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Only after the drugs. Is that wild? I think animated movies might be fun too. Yeah, maybe better.

02:34:37 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
I don't know.

02:34:38 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Less detail, so probably they do a better job. I'm trying to read it and it really doesn't make sense. Yeah, tomorrow the wheel. Mad men the wheel I don't know what that is. This is crazy idea but I love it. Aske theater at ASCII theater that's awesome. Text based movies in your terminal. You do need an app that has a terminal. There's Shrek.

02:35:04 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
If only they had terminal in the vision pro.

02:35:06 - Leo Laporte (Host)
And, by the way, the website's got popcorn, which I really love ASCII popcorn, ascii popcorn. All right, that's my pick. Paris Martin, no, what do you got for us?

02:35:17 - Paris Martineau (Host)
My pick is a TikTok I came across this week that has captivated me. One question to lead up to this. I should have known before I did this. How do you pronounce the full name of Phil? Punxetani Punxetani, punxetani Phil.

02:35:33 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Now, that was on, I missed it. It was February 2nd. I missed it. February 2nd it was Groundhog Day.

02:35:38 - Paris Martineau (Host)
You know who didn't miss it Is this TikTok or Olive Songs. Who is doing a musical that he song? He writes every single day and the lead up to this is that it is Punxetani. Phil has an elixir that he has to drink to last forever, and this is a ballad he's sung to his wife, Phyllis, who does not take the elixir, and it's incredible.

02:36:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It is one one Groundhog singing to another, you can have the fame of Phyllis.

02:36:10 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I'd give up all the fame you can have the lower bellic stairs, All the noisy clouds, the holy shadow and the shame of Phyllis. Oh my God, I need this guy's a song on it's phenomenal.

02:36:23 - Paris Martineau (Host)
It's actually like such a good song.

02:36:26 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I'll say these words again and again, but by then you're bound to leave.

02:36:32 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Does he do it one of these every day?

02:36:34 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Every single day.

02:36:35 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That is incredible.

02:36:36 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I'm following him, yeah me too.

02:36:38 - Paris Martineau (Host)
And so now there have been a bunch of different duets of people you know, potentially singing Phyllis's part.

02:36:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yes, I know I screwed the Universal Music Group because you could do this. Did you put a link to the Phyllis parts?

02:36:53 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I did the Phyllis one. Let's go there, the best one.

02:36:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's the rebuttal from Phyllis. This is a duet with the with the same guy by John John Woods.

02:37:06 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Now I have to do this for myself.

02:37:10 - Speaker 7 (Host)
You can have the fame of Phyllis. It isn't about the fame, Phil, oh he's so good.

02:37:30 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's good that he wasn't here, because he would hate this, but I know that's the thing I was thinking.

02:37:34 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I was like, oh, I can talk about musicals.

02:37:37 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Oh, he's complaining. He's my ears. I'm out of here, I'm sure. Wow, so who is it's? Olive songs 11,. One word 11, 11, 11, 11. I'm going to follow him right now.

02:37:54 - Paris Martineau (Host)
He is definitely a super yeah. It's so good.

02:37:58 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Love it All right, he's done quite a few, it looks like here.

02:38:03 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
How many hours of talk did you have to go through before that came up in your feed?

02:38:06 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Honestly, that came up, it was the first thing the other day, and then I just stopped and listened to that song about three or four times.

02:38:14 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Here's one for the use of tick tock. The end of winter, where do all the geese go?

02:38:20 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Oh, this is really good Actually.

02:38:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Kids in the playground laughing on the swing set. Oh, it's not just theater, he's a good Dogs can't help but bark. We got to get him a good one.

02:38:35 - Paris Martineau (Host)
We got to wait till you get to the chorus of this. I can't help but wonder what happens after dark.

02:38:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So this is exactly was my point about the Grammys and the music. Yes. Yes, there are so many talented people, so much talent. And they're not, they're just out there. They're just out there. But thank you for tick bumps. You know what this is, why tick tock is so great. These kids, these young kids, someday they're going to get a music contract and we'll see it on the Grammys stage.

02:39:12 - Paris Martineau (Host)
I would pay. I would pay top dollar to go watch a fill the groundhog musical right now, and that's something I did not know I needed.

02:39:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Very nice Olive songs.

02:39:24 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Here's another one, so he only has 48,000 followers.

02:39:28 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It's like he hasn't been down the peristalsum.

02:39:30 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yeah, wow. And Anna Lapwood, who I've talked about. Who's this wonderful young musician who is an organist and a fellow at the Royal Albert Hall and she puts up her rehearsals all the time and when there's rock bands they say, oh, my God, can you play with us? She just got an MBE. That's to say she was on the King's honor list. Wow, she made her name. She's Cambridge University. She's the real thing. But Anna made her name on tick tock. She's gotten music, covers, albums. She now has a world tour. She's coming to Princeton soon. Wow, and I will go watch her recital.

02:40:05 - Leo Laporte (Host)
You know I'm a fan of tick tock. My son is making a living thanks to tick tock. I mean, it really works. It's amazing, and that's why it's so sad when people like Josh Hawley take aim at it just for political gain. Amen, it's sad. What do you have for us, jeff Jarvis?

02:40:22 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Well, okay, we'll stay on that for a second. On social media, pew has its Americans on social media usage. 83% of American adults use YouTube.

02:40:32
Wow Most of them use YouTube. 68% use Facebook. I know what you're going to say. It's just a grown up. Wait a second.

02:40:41
Almost half 47% of adults use Instagram. If you go down then and look at so, a third of US adults now say they use tick tock up from 21% in 2021. But then if you go to the youngest US adults, I know you're going to think that, oh, they're not on Facebook. But in fact, facebook is more clustered in age than any other. Instagram has a lot of people who are young, very few who are, I'm sorry, yes, a lot of people who are young, very few who are old. But on Facebook it's clustered in of users of all ages who are still, regardless of the reputation using Facebook. So that's one. I've got another one here too. But to the entire discussion with poor Micah and thank you, micah, for your sacrifices for the show where we're debating whether or not this thing is ever going to take off, we go back in our time machine to 1985, when Eric Sandberg DeMint wrote that no one's going to really be carrying laptops very long.

02:41:48 - Leo Laporte (Host)
These expensive portables could make it if the right software were available. Oh, I remember Eric Sandberg DeMint. I remember his timeline. Yeah, but these were different laptops, but I guess in a way that's, you could say the same thing about the Vision Pro. Yeah, it's the same argument too.

02:42:05 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, yeah, if there's only a killer app, if there's only a killer experience. This is, if the right software were available and if it wasn't gigantic. Yeah, if it didn't hurt your arm to carry around. And who?

02:42:16 - Paris Martineau (Host)
would have just. Yes, there are a lot of people who would like to be able to work on a computer at home, but would they really want to carry one back from the office?

02:42:25 - Leo Laporte (Host)
That's a quote, but they were a lot heavier back in the day If they were MacBook Air, sure yeah. This is 85, so the PC was only four years old. I mean, this is very early. This might even be. We might even be talking about the Osborne and things like that.

02:42:41 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Well, no, no, those were transportables. I got my Osborne, in 81.

02:42:45 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Okay, well, there's only a few years after that. He's talking about the Grid Case, laptop, gas plasma display.

02:42:51 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
So in Orange, yeah, I remember the grids In 2064, we'll have that device.

02:42:59 - Leo Laporte (Host)
So there's the difference in years. Yeah Well, I hope you enjoy it. How old will you be in 2064?

02:43:05 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
I'll be dead because of climate change.

02:43:09 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Yeah, we'll just have boiled alive.

02:43:12 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Yeah, 2064,. Wow See, that's youth today?

02:43:15 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Yep, we just heard it. Yeah, well, thank you. Thank you, you boomers. See what you left us? Yeah.

02:43:22 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It reminds me that tomorrow Thanks dads, Micah the long-running joke my two dads.

02:43:27 - Paris Martineau (Host)
This is my podcast with my two dads. One time a friend of mine texted me and was like oh Paris, how's that podcast with your dad's?

02:43:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
As your father had any comment on this Paris, Older than your dad.

02:43:37 - Paris Martineau (Host)
My dad. Every time he hears this, he's like excuse me. And I was like, yeah, you're my third dad, Of course You're my third, dad Wow.

02:43:49 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Tomorrow we will be talking about climate change because Stacey's Book Club, 3 pm Pacific, 6 pm Eastern, will be about a very interesting sci-fi book from Paolo Bacigalupi called the Water Knife, which is about a near future where water is more valuable than gold. And it's an interesting book. You finish it finally. You know, after I finished it I'm talking to John, who also read it. He loves sci-fi I kind of revised my opinion of it. It was very violent, very brutal and it made some good points. It's an interesting book and it is about climate change. So we will talk about that tomorrow.

02:44:27
If you're in Club Twit, if you're not in Club Twit, it's not too late. You can join right now. $7 a month gets you ad-free versions of all of our shows. It gets you all the programming, like Micah's iOS today Great show he does with Rosemary Orchard. He also does Hands on Macintosh. We've got Hands on Windows with Paul Therot, the untitled Linux show, home Theater Geeks.

02:44:47
Lots of great programming inside the club. There's also the Twit Plus feed, which includes content from before and after the shows. And then there's the Discord, which is a wonderful hang, a really great social network. You're joining more than a podcast network. You're joining a community. We're all here together trying to understand what's going on in this world around us and making the best of it and understand technology, and I think we've got a mission to do. But we need your help Because, as everybody's starting to realize, ad-supported programming it doesn't have a great future. $7 a month, that's all. Twittv, slash club, twit, and I thank you in advance. We crossed the 11,000 member number a couple of days ago and people are saying well, that's great, you're making a ton of money.

02:45:34
Well, first of all there is a commission that we have to give to Patreon, but also this is an expensive operation and we could probably do it cheaper. But it doesn't even cover our payroll yet, but it will.

02:45:47 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
If you do Nearly that Vision Pro back cost money people.

02:45:53 - Leo Laporte (Host)
I would love to keep the Vision Pro, but we really can't we can't.

02:45:56
Yeah, we really can't. We're trying to be sensible. So if you can help us out, I appreciate it. The money doesn't go in my pocket, it doesn't go in Lisa's pocket, it goes in Micah's pocket and John's and Muneo's and the people who put together these shows and work so hard to do that. So thank you in advance. And, by the way, paris and Jeff's Paris Martino writes for the information. You can send her a tip. She has more than right. She reports for the information. You know I I kind of glossed over the fact, but you actually went out and talked to the guy who was driving in the Vision Pro. You actually talked to him.

02:46:31 - Paris Martineau (Host)
No, no, no, no, no, no. That was. That was my friend Caroline.

02:46:34 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Haskin.

02:46:35 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Oh, okay, a reporter, yes, a fellow reporter, a fellow reporter, these reporters hanging out together, you know.

02:46:40 - Leo Laporte (Host)
They actually work hard to give us the truth and I appreciate it. We need journalism and the information is a great example of that. 267-797-8655 is her signal number If you want to message her with a tip at Paris Martino, on all the better platforms. Thank you, paris.

02:47:02 - Paris Martineau (Host)
Thank you, Leo.

02:47:03 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Jeff Jarvis, retiring soon to retire director of the town night center for entrepreneurial journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, the city university.

02:47:15 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
His books are at GutenbergParenthesiscom of course, and but what's not there I forgot to put the link up is also don't forget the audio book version of the Gutenberg parenthesis. Yay, he's finally now out.

02:47:24 - Leo Laporte (Host)
Woo, lisa and I have been waiting for that, because you know what we like to lie in bed, hold hands and listen to great novels T-Mite, I can't wait to listen. She actually said that On one big Vision Pro. I started reading it to her and she said let's just wait till Jeff does it. He said, we will be listening, I promise, and thank you, micah Sergeant, for stopping in.

02:47:50 - Mikah Sargent (Host)
Yeah, Mike, it was a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Thanks to.

02:47:53 - Jeff Jarvis (Host)
Hands on Mac Tech News Weekly. Your forehead is back to normal.

02:47:57 - Leo Laporte (Host)
It is, it's still a little red. He's also on Ask the Tech guys every Sunday with me and that's a fun show. Thank you, micah, I appreciate it. I'm going to be back this week in what was it? Gorilla Gardening every Wednesday, 2 pm Pacific, 5 pm, eastern, 2200 UTC. The live stream is at youtubecom, but of course, the best way to consume this is on demand. Whenever you've got a moment, you can get shows at our website, twittv. There's a twig YouTube channel dedicated to our video shows and, of course, you can always subscribe in your favorite podcast client. Just look forward this week in Google. Thanks for listening, thanks for watching, thanks to Jeff Micah Paris, we'll see you next time on this Week in Google. Bye-bye.

02:48:49 - Speaker 2 (Host)
Hey, I'm Rod Pyle, Editor-in-Chief of Ad Astra Magazine, and each week I joined with my co-host to bring you, this week in space, the latest and greatest news from 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 on this Week in Space and be part of the greatest adventure of all time.