This Week in Tech 496 (Transcript)

Leo Laporte:  It's time for TWIT:  This Week in Tech!  Owen JJ Stone joins Larry Magid and Devindra Hardawar.  We're going to talk about the latest tech news as we get ready for the Grammy's hashtags, tweeting, self-driving cars and more.  This Week in Tech is next. 

NETCASTS YOU LOVE FROM PEOPLE YOU TRUST.  THIS IS TWiT!  Bandwidth for This Week in Tech is provided by Cachefly at cachefly.com.

Leo: This is TWiT, This Week in Tech, episode 496, recorded February 8, 2015.

The Self Loathing Car

This Week in Tech is brought to you by NatureBox.  NatureBox ships great tasting snacks right to your door!  Start snacking smarter with wholesome, delicious treats like roasted Peruvian corn kernels.  To get your complimentary NatureBox sampler, visit NatureBox.com/twit.  That's Naturebox.com/twit.  And by Oscar, a new approach to health care that focuses on health plans for individuals and their families.  To learn more about health insurance plans and to get a quote, visit hioscar.com/twit.  And by stamps.com.  Use stamps.com to buy and print real US postage the instant you need it, right from your desk.  To get our special offer, go to stamps.com now.  Click on the microphone and enter TWIT.  That's stamps.com, use the offer code TWIT.  And by Squarespace.com.  Creating and editing your website is easier than ever with Squarespace 7.  It's so easy that Jeff Bridges created his website dreamingwithjeff.com.  Try it now, visit squarespace.com, enter the offer code TWIT at checkout to get 10% off.  It's time for TWIT:  This Week in Tech, the show where we cover the week's tech news with great tech journalists, like Venture Beats Devindra Hardawar.  Hi Devindra, good to have you.

Devindra Hardawar:  Hey.  I'm Engadget now, but we're going good.

Leo:  What?

Devindra:  Yeah.  I changed over.

Leo:  That happened a while ago, right?

Devindra:  Yes.  But I'm doing well.

Leo:  I'm an old guy.  I don't know.  Devindra Hardawar is here.  He comes to us from Bike magazine.  Engadget, that's awesome.  What's your beat at Engadget?

Devindra:  I'm floating around and covering what needs to be done.  I'm doing a lot of stuff around Internet things.  I'm still doing some mobile and New York start-ups.  Things like that.

Leo:  Far out.  From New York, New York. 

Devindra:  Yeah.

Leo:  Or are you in Brooklyn?

Devindra:  I'm in Brooklyn.  But it's all New York.

Leo:  Also with us, Owen JJ Stone from Places Unknown.  Look at that.  You look like a rap producer.  You should be in the studio.

Owen JJ Stone:  I wouldn't let me behind the wheel of any vehicle at the present time.  It's safer when I'm being chauffeured around. 

Leo:  Good to see you again, Owen.  Welcome back.  He's wearing a vintage T-shirt from the old Ohdoctah.  Look at that.

Owen:  I found it on the Internet somewhere. 

Leo:  Also with us, Larry Magid.  It is Tuesday.  Safe Internet day?

Larry Magid:  Safer Internet day at Facebook headquarters.  We'll talk about that later. 

Leo:  I would love to talk about it.  What is Safer Internet day?

Larry:  Safer Internet Day has been going on for 11 years.  It was started by the European commission.  It was started by Insafe, a non-profit out of Europe working out of the European union, European commission.  It's now recognized in 100 countries.  Our little non-profit, connectsafely.org that I co-direct is the US host of it.  We're having it this year at Facebook.  It's going to be streamed live starting at 4:15 eastern throughout 1:15 pacific on Tuesday.  Great speakers— Kamala Harris who is the attorney general of California, Sheryl Sandberg, who is the chief operating officer at Facebook is speaking, I'm speaking, the president of the national PTA is going to be there.  Panels on bullying and trolling and harassment, panels on using technology to affect social change, and we've got a great social media panel with Twitter and Google duking it out in terms of their safety and privacy.  We've got 200 kids coming.  It's going to be really exciting.  Lots of kids, lots of adults too.  Sold out, but you can stream it at saferinternetday.us.  It's going to be a real fun event.  It's our second year.  Last year we were in DC, we had Chuck Schumer speaking, but this year we got Kamala Harris and Sheryl Sandberg.  It should be fun.

Leo:  That's pretty cool to get Sheryl Sandberg.  That's great. 

Larry:  It's not easy to get Sheryl Sandberg, even though it's right there at Facebook.  This is a celebration and an acknowledgment that the Internet can be safer.  It's not going to be perfect ever, but we need to deal with trolls, we need to deal with bullies, we need to deal with security problems.  We need to deal with all sorts of issues.  Privacy.  Connect Safely tries to do that.  This is a day when we kind of celebrate it.

Leo:  saferinternet.org or go to saferinternetday—

Larry:  saferinternetday.us. 

Owen:  Side note on safer Internet—devices you don't even think of.  I just had an incident with a child.  Someone asked me—they had their 3D, and the kid had went on and googled something and horrible things came up on their 3D, and they're like, "How do I stop this from happening?" and I'm like I don't know.  You've got to bring it to me.

Leo:  You wouldn't think a Nintendo 3DS would be able to go to horrible sites.

Larry:  Anything that's connected.

Owen:  It was horrible.  There was no easy way to fix that.

Larry:  The next big tier for our organization is going to be the Internet of things.  Think about it.  I'm wearing a device where my pulse rate is constantly being uploaded into the Cloud.  I don't care if anyone knows my pulse rate, but I should have the right to protect that information.  It's going to get more invasive, and they're going to get more information about us.  We're talking to drone makers, thing makers, auto makers, all about how can we make sure that this next generation, web 4.0—this next generation of technology gets born in a more secure and safe environment.  Lots of interesting things coming down the pike.

Leo:  I don't know why, but for some reason I feel like a company like Facebook is only going to pay lip service to this for so long before they say eh. 

Devindra:  The Internet will be safest when it's all on Facebook.  Let them take over everything. 

Leo:  One of the negatives to a safer Internet is to have gated communities.

Larry:  The safest thing is to not be online at all.  But the fact is there is business case to be made for safety.  That's what we try to talk to these companies about.  You don't want a company or a service that is run by trolls or occupied by trolls, so I think there's a little bit of a vested interest.  There's a tension, there's always a tension, especially on the privacy side, especially when it comes to security and keeping people from being harassed, I think it's in the interest of companies to do what they can and a lot of them do good work.  Dick Costolo this week admitted that—

Leo:  He said it's my fault that there's trolling on Twitter.

Larry:  Right.  That's a pretty interesting comment.  He admitted it in an internal memo that got linked to The Verge.  That's a good example where companies know they've got to do a better job. 

Leo:  If I make the analogy to a safer city, you're never going to have a city be safe, there's always going to be back alleys and dangerous things you can do in a city, but the idea would be the let's have the community get together and encourage places on the Internet where people can get together and participate without fear of trolling, bullying.

Owen:  When you say that it's a system of—in Philadelphia it was called Killadelphia.  They had more murders per capita than anybody else.  What the mayor did was he put a cop on every corner for six months in all the crime-ridden places.  Crime rate fell.  The force being out there did it.  When AOL was known for chat rooms and little girls get kidnapped and put on TV, AOL Chat got smushed down.  As soon as Facebook is known for a place for pedophiles to go to pick up on children, then maybe they'll do something crazy about it.  Same thing with bullying and Gamergate.  Once it becomes mass media that people are getting bullied on Twitter, Twitter better do something.

Leo:  We need Hamsterdam.  We were talking about the Wire.  We need Hamsterdam. 

Larry:  The reason we call it safer Internet day is that it's never going to be safe.  The fact is MySpace and Facebook already went through this predator panic a few years ago. It turns out there aren't that many predators, they're there, but there aren't that many kids that get snatched up by predators. 

Leo:  I'm glad to hear you say that because sometimes I think when you've really been big on safer kids and all of this stuff, sometimes I worry that there's a panic being created—that the Internet is full of predators.

Larry:  It isn't.

Leo: We know that most kids who are abused are abused by people they know, by relatives, by friends.

Larry:  You know the most dangerous place for a kid? 

Leo:  At home.

Larry:  Home is by far the most dangerous place for a kid. So, if you want to keep your kid safe, don't let him go to the doctor, don't let him go to school, don't let him go to any place of worship, and don't let him go home.  The bottom line is—there's been moral panics about predators and we had moral panics about bullying, then we had moral panics about sexting, moral panics about all these things.  There are dangers on the Internet, no question about it.  Even security, I don't lose a lot of sleep about Internet security.  I know the risks.  But hey, if I walk outside, someone could steal my wallet, break my window, knock me down in the street.  There's no such thing as a completely safe environment. 

Leo:  And I think I worry sometimes.  We talk about this on This Week in Google.  Jeff Jarvis is an advocate for being public.  I'm public myself.  I worry that we lose something by trying to enforce privacy on the Internet.  The Internet is inherently a public space.  People who really want privacy—

Owen:  Don't go online.

Leo:  I don't want to say that either because online is so valuable.  But you have to understand that you're participating in a public space. 

Larry:  I don't want the public to be looking over my shoulder when I'm doing online banking.  But you're right.  If I'm on Facebook, I post everything to public.  First off, I have no private life.  Second of all, I don't believe you can guarantee privacy on a social networking site, even though they got all great privacy tools.  Even if they do.

Leo:  You just can't trust them.  We know Snapchat, people thought that their Snapchat images were safe and they were being stored and visible.  We thought Facebook would honor its privacy controls.  Even Mark Zuckerberg was confused and had public posted pictures that were private. 

Owen:  That's what I mean about not getting online.  I know people who just don't use Facebook for that reason.

Leo:  That's the wrong answer too, isn't it?

Owen:  You can still Google and use the Internet for stuff like that or what you want, but you don't have to put a picture of yourself in a birthday cake and ice cream down your nose for everybody to see.  You can be selective about what you want to do.  If you don't want to be public, don't tweet out that you had a ham sandwich at Starbucks on the corner.  People can select and choose what they want to do if they want to be private. 

Leo:  Devindra, you're what we would call a net native.  You basically grew up with the Internet, right? 

Devindra:  I feel like I'm in a weird spot.  For most of my life, I didn't have the Internet.  I got it when I was around—half my life.  Half my life I had no Internet, and then my parents got a 486 and I got prodigy in the mid 90's.  I have the distinct memory of the world without the Internet.  It's a weird thing to notice how different things are now. 

Leo: My kids—20 and 23, have always had Internet.  They were born in 92 and 94.  Internet has always been part of their lives.  I don't think they think a lot about privacy and security.  I don't think it's on the radar. 

Devindra:  Maybe they think about it differently.  I think the thing we're talking about is that consumers should have control over what they're doing.  If you're putting something online and you know specifically that you're making it public, OK.  That's it.  That's the agreement.  But if you set it to private or something like that, it would be nice if companies honored what they said they were going to do.  I think it's the obfuscation of what's actually happening with out data.  That's the bigger problem. 

Larry:  The thing about your kids, Leo—I can't speak for your kids.  But there has been research about kids and privacy.  It turns out kids care about privacy but in different ways than adults do.  They want privacy from their parents, from their teachers.  They still want some level of privacy and control.  They just don't have the same concept of privacy that a lot of adults would.  They think about it in their own way. 

Leo:  Dana Voigt, who has done great research on kids and privacy, has concluded that the word privacy means something different to Internet natives. 

Larry:  There's a lot of great data out there.  I'm optimistic about the millennials and—I don't know what we're calling our current teenagers.  I'm optimistic.  They're sure better than we were when we were young.

Leo:  The only way to really be private and to use the Internet privately is to use encryption.  End-to-end encryption.  I'm encrypted, what I send is encrypted.  Whether it's a bank, Amazon, or an individual.  Then it's really private, even the NSA can't see it.  I don't think my kids are aware of the notion of encryption. 

Larry:  It needs to be built into every service they use.  They shouldn't have to think about it.

Devindra:  It should just be the service itself.  We've seen a lot of messaging clients like Firechat really blow up because they're so secure. 

Leo:  So people know.  What's that—they're using the red phone stuff, right?  Silent circle stuff.  Do you think people who use WhatsApp are aware of that?

Larry:  No. 

Devindra:  Not necessarily WhatsApp, but for an app like Firechat—

Leo:  Which is explicitly secure. 

Devindra:  I think that's it.  The service itself— you don't have to worry about your PGB, you don't have to share it.  It was such a mess.

Larry:  It hasn't reached critical mass yet.  You've got to be talking g-mail, yahoo mail, Facebook, Twitter. 

Leo:  Initially Fire chat was used not because of encryption, but because it's a mesh system.  It was used in things like the Hong Kong protests.  You weren't on a public Internet.  You were on a private mesh network, and you didn't have to have Internet access on your phone to use it, which I thought was fascinating.  But I don't know if it was the encryption that made people say—there's tech secure, there's quite a few.

Larry:  Zimmerman has a new company out, doesn't he?

Leo:  He and Ladar Levison are doing dark mail. 

Larry:  Even the name Dark Mail.  That's ominous.

Owen:  When I'm using my Bitcoin to buy goods, I always make sure that my secure network is up and running.

Leo:  Let's talk about it.  Let's talk about the Silk Road.  Ross Ulbricht, guilty on all seven counts.  I was accused on Twitter the bastion of truth of misstating what happened in the Silk Road trial.  Last week we had Nick Bilton on the show, and Nick is writing the Silk Road book, which has already been auctioned for a movie. It's a fascinating story.  Ulbricht guilty on seven counts of creating silk road which was basically a black market for illicitly products, chiefly drugs.  Used Tour.  It was a Tour site.  He was arrested and accused of being Dread Pirate Roberts.  Life sentence?  That's the question that this article poses.  News BTC. 

Owen: That would be crazy.

Leo:  I don't think a life sentence. 

Owen:  I don't think a life sentence either.  There's been a lot of drug dealers who got caught.  I don't think they got life.  Life is excessive.  At the same time, it's amazing that $200,000,000—that's probably what they could find.  That's probably what they could actually get a hold of.  Once it gets to that number, you don't know what you're talking about.  It reminds me of the people on Instagram saying don't post your weed on Instagram because there's a drug raid.  They got 300 million dollars just surfing on Instagram for people to post drugs.  I'm like people have weed and drugs in their house and they're dumb enough to post pictures of it?

Larry:  Exactly.

Owen:  200 million dollars?  That's a drop in the bucket.  They want on Instagram and got 350 in two days.  Very interesting and sneaky way to get your drugs delivered and keep it off the books.

Leo:  We'll find out May 15.  That's when the sentencing happens.  The Jury only took a few hours, which tells me that they were pretty convinced by the evidence against him.  It seemed like a tangled thread.  The FBI found his postings on a forum and tracked it back to his computer.  It was a very complicated thread and a very difficult thing for a technologist to follow.  I doubt somehow that the Jury had any idea.  We talked last week.  Neither side wanted a technically literate Jury.  They were hoping that the ignorance of the Jury in technology would help them.  Each side.  I guess it helped the prosecution more than the defense. 

Devindra:  I wonder how long that will last.  Hiding certain facts from Juries like that. 

Leo:  There was a debate.  They're reading transcripts of posts.  There's an emoticon, a happy face emoticon, and they were debating whether that should be read in court.  Finally the judge said that that was part of the message.  You have to say it.  You have to say it in a flat voice.  Smiley face.  All of the transcripts had to be read because they had to get into the record, but they had to be read in a flat neutral so as not to slant.  Crazy. 

Larry:  Smiley face is now a word that is used in transcript.

Leo:  In that trial it was in the transcript.  It's still a question of that going forward.  I served on the trial of one of the predators in the NBC dateline To Catch a Predator and heard a lot of chat transcripts read in a monotonic voice by Defense and Prosecution.  I'm technically literate, so I knew what was going on.  It was really interesting.  I have a feeling that it is an opportunity for the two different sides to slant it in their favor if the Jury doesn't understand what they're hearing. 

Owen:  If it doesn't work in your favor, you could appeal in basically that.  People not understanding and misleading information.  That's an easy appeal to get in the system.

Larry:  How did the trial turn out, Leo?

Leo:  The prosecution presented, the Judge threw it out saying it was entrapment.  We never heard the defense. 

Larry:  Interesting.

Leo:  I think it was entrapment.  You probably saw this TV show.  The dateline show—the guy thinks he's talking to an underage girl; in fact it's an adult.  They use an advocacy group to do these chats.

Larry: It's called Perverted Justice.

Leo:  Perverted Justice.

Larry:  The person who ran it is now one of the security officers at Twitter.

Leo: You're kidding!

Larry:  They were well motivated.  Sucky name, but well motivated.

Leo:  What perverted justice did is it really was entrapment.  They would get adults and they would try to get people in these chat rooms to talk dirty to them.  They would use techniques that no child would use.  It wasn't overtly—talk dirty to me, but they would use techniques that they knew as adults would appeal to some guys.  So there was really a lot of question marks around their methodology.  The fact that the Petaluma Police Department enlisted them to create this sting and then allowed NBC to pay them to film the sting, the Judge was a little disgusted.

Larry:  There was one case of a prosecutor who ended up killing himself when the TV crew came to his house.  It was a suicide.  The cops were really upset about it because it was not the way they would have done an apprehension.  The TV cameras showed up before the cops did. It's crazy.  One person said you want to call a cop, not a TV producer. 

Leo:  Yeah.

Devindra:  I'm interested in seeing how something like the Good Wife will construct this.  They've actually done a great job of taking these obscure tech concepts like Bitcoin and the way Reddit came together to hunt down the supposed Boston Marathon bomber.  That show has done a great job of taking the legal questions and going the extra step and looking at that in an interesting way.

Leo:  I said last week, everything I know about law I've learned from the Good Wife.

Owen:  I guess that's one step off of law and order.

Leo:  Let's take a break.  When we come back, Tom Wheeler, the chairman of the FCC has said we are going to ensure net neutrality by invoking Title II.  We'll talk about that and a lot more.  Devindra Hardawar is here from Engadget.  Ohdoctah, Owen JJ Stone from Ohdoctah.  Look at those shades.

Owen:  Maui Jims.

Leo:  Maui Jims.  What's the phrase I heard last night?  The blank grill?  You give me the blank grill.  That scares the hell out of me.  I don't know what you're thinking behind them.

Owen:  Thanks to grill.

Leo:  That's what it is.  The OG Owen JJ Stone.

Owen:  Stop it.

Leo:  You broke up.  That ruins it.  Larry Magid is also here from CBS radio and connectsafely.org.  No shades.  Larry, you look like Kurt Vonnegut.  There's no way I could think of you as intimidating.  You look cheerful and happy. 

Larry:  Get my bad side.  Text my wife.  I could be very grumpy.

Leo:  If you're grumpy, you need a snack.  It's NatureBox time.  My favorite part of the show.  We take out the snacks.  NatureBox, awesome snacks, delivered right to your door.  You can get a monthly box of goodness from NatureBox.  You'll feel good about it, for you, for your kids.  We get them for our employees.  Never artificial, color artificial flavor.  No high fructose corn syrup.  Just good stuff, minimal processing and delicious.  This is the sweet blueberry almonds.

Owen:  Those are awesome.

Leo:  Have you had them?

Owen:  You sent me a box!

Leo:  Did I?

Owen:  Yes you did!

Leo:  You were on last time.  Almonds, sugar, natural flavor.  By the way, you can choose from sweet from savory from spicy.  They have snacks for dietary needs, like gluten free or vegan snacks, these are pistachio power clusters.  I'm not sure how this is still in here.  Coffee Kettle Corn.  Kettle Corn with coffee caramelized popcorn.  Italian bistro pretzels.  Here's the deals.  I'm going to get you a sampler.  What are you eating there, Jason?

Jason:  Peanut butter nom noms.  Sorry, I was so distracted.

Leo:  Those are good.  I'm going to have the asiago and cheddar cheese crisps.  Let's pass these around to our studio audience.  They're looking mighty hungry.  All right.  Chris come here.  Let's pass around those.  They can try the coffee kettle corn too.  Pass those around.  It's nice, these are re-sealable bags, so if the studio audience doesn't eat everything, we can put it back in the box.  NatureBox, get your sampler today.  $2 for shipping, and you'll get the most popular snacks so you can see what NatureBox has to offer.  The next time you're a little peckish in the afternoon, you don't go to the candy bar machine, the snack machine, you go to your NatureBox.  Start your trial today, the complimentary trial awaits at naturebox.com/twit.  Stay full, stay strong, start snacking smarter.

Larry:  I don't have any NatureBox handy, but while you were talking, I went out to my cupboard and got some nuts because you made me hungry. 

Leo:  See?

Larry:  Now I got another 20 minutes of treadmill thanks to you.

Owen:  I ate all mine. 

Leo:  You ate all yours?  Did we send you a big box?

Owen:  You sent me a little box.  I did share though.  I went over to my friend who does Yoga.  I share.

Larry:  You didn't send me anything!

Leo:  Put Larry down for a NatureBox.  Devindra too.  We got to get you guys NatureBox. 

Owen:  Larry, you got to do what I do. You got to demand what you deserve as an individual.  Uncle Leo will take care of you.  I put my glasses on so I can be like you Uncle Larry. 

Larry:  I want my lawyer to negotiate my reappearance. 

Leo:  So what do you guys think?  Is it good?  The audience seems to like it.

Larry:  I don't know.  I'm eating peanuts. 

Leo:  I'm not asking you.  I'm asking our studio audience.  We have lots of people visiting today as we do the show.  It was a very rainy day in Petaluma.  I'm glad they braved the weather.  Tom Wheeler who we thought was a henchman for the Cable Industry.  John Oliver called him a dingo.  He said, "You wouldn't put your broadband in care of a dingo.  It's like putting your children in the care of a dingo."  He was called all sorts of names.  I myself said he was a shill.  He was in the hall of fame for the National cable television association and the wireless industry as a lobbyist.  Yet, I wondered why President Obama appointed him to be the chairman of the FCC given his background, yet he seems to have done the right thing.  He listened.  They got more comments in the comment period than any other FCC issue since the wardrobe malfunction on the Super bowl 10 years ago.  He has said, everybody but the ISPs seem to be behind using Title II regulations as specified by the telecommunications act of 1934, Title II basically says broadband providers are common carriers and they may be regulated by the FCC.  This has bee the whole issue.  The FCC can only do what it's mandated to do.  Congress says you're in charge of this this and this and that's all you can do.  Initially the FCC last year issued what they called open Internet or rules, Verizon sued, took him to court, the judge said you know you're right, Verizon.  This is not within the FCC's preview.  Actually this was a judicial panel.  If you were to declare Broadband providers common carriers, it would be within your realm to tell them what to do.  The FCC has been avoiding doing this.  A lot of this were concerned this might be a heavy-handed form of regulation, but Wheeler has said, No.  We're going to use a doctrine called forbearance to enforce selectively within Title II.  For instance, we will never regulate rates.  That was one thing ISB was worried about. 

Larry:  If you read his commentary, he did a piece in Wired last week.  He actually pointed out that he himself ran a company that ended up getting shut down.  AOL was his competitor.  AOL was on the open phone network at the time.  Even then, you could hook up a modem to any phone line.  His company was on the cable system, which was locked up.  He actually made the case that having regulations that required certain kinds of neutrality will enhance innovation, even though the cable and phone industry is making the opposite argument.  They're claiming that regulation is anti-innovation.  It was an interesting point he made.  Again, he based it on his own company that was dealing with a cable industry that was essentially wouldn't give him an equal playing field.  Steve Case had an equal playing field through AOL and the phone network.

Leo:  I have to apologize to Tom Wheeler. I'm sure John Oliver when he comes back on the air will say I'm sorry I called you a dingo.  I'm sorry I called you a shill, Tom.  You did the right thing.  I have to say when I read that he said we're going to use Title II, I went (gulp.)  Because while this was something many of us thought needed to happen, there is a real concern about Government control of the Internet.  We don't want that either.

Owen:  Is this in the books or is this conversation?

Leo:  That's a great question. 

Owen:  Saying something to me doesn't mean anything until I see it written down and somebody comes back and tells me to do something I should believe in.

Leo:  What he has done technically is recommend it.  The members of the FCC, the commissioners have to vote.  He says, I am circulating to the members of the FCC proposed new rules as a platform for innovation and free expression. 

Larry:  Did the congress have anything to say about this one way or the other? 

Leo:  What will happen first is the FCC commissioners will vote yea or nay.  I presume they are going to say yay.  President Obama said this is what he wanted, and the chairman said this is what he wanted.  I know several commissioners have said we'll support this.  I'm going to presume it passes.  At that point, those are official rules unless Congress over rules it.  Congress, by the way, if you think Telecom and the wireless people had a champion in Tom Wheeler, they have spent a lot of money on a lot of campaigns and they have many champions in Congress.

Owen:  Before you go saying he's not a dingo anymore, just think of the common phrase of the people who are skeptical about life.  The person who you think is the devil comes out and says I'm your friend, I'm going to do right by you.  You say, thankfully, you're finally going to do it.  In his back pocket, people are going to strike down the notion he wanted.  I would like to wait and see if what he said was good. 

Devindra:  It does seem like politics.  He waited until the tide was pushing in this direction.  Obama said it, all the votes came in from consumers.  Maybe I can do this and not risk hurting my political career.  Or at least what he was doing right now.  I don't give him too much credit, other than following where the tide was headed.

Larry:  Also, it's coming during Obama's last two years where Obama has grown a pair on a lot of issues.  Even though Wheeler doesn't directly report to Obama, it's part of the Administration's plan to do what it needs to do, and if the Republicans want to counter it, the Republicans will counter it.  It's standing up and doing the right thing.  We'll have to see what happens whether Congress does intervene, because it is a political issue, unfortunately there are Ds and Rs on both sides of these issues.  It tends to be D vs. R.  Not completely, but there are some ideological questions involved about whether the government should be in this limited extent regulating the Internet.

Leo:  I feel like among Democrats and liberal geeks, there is some concern.  You don't want Government regulation.  Government notoriously, it was designed this way by the founding fathers, is slow and technology adverse for a good reason.  It operates at a different speed than technology and the Internet.  I don't think anybody wants heavy-handed government restrictions.

Larry:  We don't want them picking winners and losers, we don't want them regulating content. I agree with Wheeler that we don't want them regulating rates if we have a free marketplace.

Leo:  This is an issue that some have raised.  He uses the word legal content.  He says "this is what I am proposing.  I am submitting to my colleagues the strongest open Internet protections ever proposed by the FCC.  These enforceable bright line rules will ban paid prioritization and the blocking and throttling of lawful content and services."  Some people have focused on the word lawful and said that's a giant loophole for the copyright police to jump through, for the music industry, television and movie industry to jump through to allow ISBs to block Bit torrent for instance.  To do deep packet inspection to make sure people aren't sending illegal content over the Internet.  Certainly, the Snowden paper would be deemed unlawful content.  Wikileaks would be deemed by some as unlawful content.  That's going to be interesting to see how that plays out.  He says he is—he did this in writing on Wired.  He is speaking to geeks when you publish an opinion piece on Wired.  He says, "We will not regulate rates, there will be no tariffs.  This one I disagree with.  No last mile unbundling, that's slop to the cable industry.  Last mile on bundling has happened in the phone Industry.  That's why you can have many different service providers over your DSL lines.  You can only have one Internet service provider for your DSL line and that's the cable company.  Comcast or Time Warner.  That's unbundling.  One of these things is not like the other.  No rate regulation, no tariffs, no last mile unbundling.  That's a slop to the cable Industry saying don't worry guys.  You still have a monopoly, which is one of the problems, frankly. 

Devindra:  Baby steps.

Leo:  To preserve incentives for broadband operators to invest in their networks.  We still want you to make plenty of money in those networks.  The proof will be when the FCC steps up and says you knock it off.  We don't know.

Devindra:  For the first time, they mentioned mobile broadband, which is something the FCC last time we heard anything related to net neutrality was a couple of years ago.  They didn't mention mobile broadband at all.  At that point they were kowtowing to the wireless carriers who are going wireless is so strange.  We have to limit it more.  We have to limit speeds.  That's actually something that could mean a lot for people and how they use their phones and tablets for the next couple years if it actually happens.

Leo:  That was a bit of a shocker.  Even Google sided with Verizon.  Mobile is different.  You don't have to have net neutrality on mobile.  The fact that he mentioned we're going to do the same with mobile and cable, was surprising.

Larry:  Just to make sure that nobody listening is living in a fool's paradise, none of this says that they can't raise your rates, that they can't control how much data you get to use, that you don't have to pay more for higher speed Internet at home.  It's all about content providers access to the networks and access to people's homes.  It doesn't do anything to protect consumers against paying more as it is.  I pay far more for my Comcast bill than my neighbor does because I have the highest package that they offer and my neighbor has a basic package.  I'm paying $50 more a month than my neighbor and that doesn't go away.  Net neutrality has nothing to do with that.

Leo:  I don't want them to get involved in that. 

Larry:  I don't either.  I'm just making sure people understand that.

Leo:  What we really want, I think we all agree, we really want the FCC to foster competition.  This is why the cable company can screw you is that they're the only choice.  86% of Americans have 2 choices for broadband.  The phone company and the cable company.  That's it.  86%.  There is no competition.  I want to see what the FCC is going to do to foster competition.  They've already made noise that they're going to go and try to overturn these rules that prevent municipal Internet.  That's huge.  If they do that, that might make a big difference. 

Devindra:  Or they raise the broadband minimum, right?  They at least announce what— a lot of good news, if it happens.

Leo:  I feel like things are moving in the right direction.  You saw the recent FTC decision that you cannot sell unlimited data and throttle it. 

Owen:  That's a big deal.  I'm unlimited.  I rock 19 gigs a month.  I get a text message in the month like we're about to throttle you.  What do you mean you're going to throttle?  I'm paying for it.  I don’t' feel the difference in the speed, to be honest.  But the fact that I get that text message, it drives me insane. 

Larry:  Exactly.  How do you define the word unlimited?  It seems pretty clear. 

Owen:  I know that they hate me, because no one uses 19 gigs on their phone. 

Larry:  You're actually using it on the phone?

Owen:  Yeah.

Leo:  I think that's increasingly the case.  People are watching a lot of YouTube.  They're streaming music. 

Owen:  I have a daughter and we drive.  So she's in her Netflix, I have my cloud so I download movies from my cloud.  I'm good to go.

Leo:  I have to say.  That has changed in the last year.  It used to be 3-5 gigs was a lot.  If you used more than that you were a little suspect.  Now I think you're not alone, Owen.  A lot of people are using more than 10 gigs.  How much do you use Chris?

Chris:  I switched to a 30-gig plan.

Leo:  His family had to switch to a 30-gig plan.  He uses 10 gigs a month.  They do too.  It's their fault too.  I agree.

Larry:  AT&T just upped my plan from ten gigabytes for the same price.  I'm pushing up against it some months.  I travel a lot, I push against it. 

Leo:  Chat room is starting to weigh in.  You guys have probably heavier consumers than most because you watch a lot of streaming TWIT if nothing else.  If you stream TWIT on a high quality connection all day all night, you're talking 30 gigs a month. 

Devindra:  We're talking wireless right now.  My parents are a test market for Comcast throttling on in home broadband.  It's ridiculous.  Once they get 300 gigs in their home, they start paying another 10 bucks for every—their bill has started to skyrocket because of that.  They had to go down to the business version of Comcast. 

Leo:  I'm shocked.  I thought Comcast stopped doing that. 

Larry:  They can't opt into that program?  Or do they force them into that program?

Devindra:  That was their home Internet plan.  Eventually, they started testing that out in Atlanta. 

Leo:  I remember when they were proposing 250 gig a month caps and they were going to roll it out and then I heard Comcast say that's not working out.  But they're still doing it. 

Larry:  If they want to offer that as a discounted option, 10 bucks a month you get a cap I wouldn't mind it as an option, but if they're forced into that, it's horrible. 

Devindra:  It happened.  They didn't know why it happened.  They started seeing the extra additions to their bill, and they had to bump down to the business class version of Comcast which I think is only ten or 15 megabits.  They were at 25 before. 

Larry:  For only ten or 15 dollars they can buy a house here in—

Devindra:  Atlanta is cheaper.

Leo:  Wow.  Again, this argues for competition, had they another good choice, another high-speed choice in Atlanta they could say, screw you Comcast.  But they can't.

Owen:  Google.  I need Google.

Leo:  We got to rattle Google's cage.  Initially, the showed what they could do in a few towns, but they're adding cities.  I'm wondering if Google is starting to think maybe this is a good business.  Maybe Google do want gigabits.  In the towns where Google Fiber is, like Austin, all of a sudden Time Warner and Comcast are saying we can do that.  Sorry, you want that?

Owen: That's the competition you want. You need somebody else outside of the box saying I put 12 eggs in the basket, they're only giving you 10 for the same price.  Don't you want 12?  Who doesn't want two extra?

Leo:  It also solves net neutrality.  If Comcast is throttling your Skype because they have a solution, you can go somewhere else.  You need more than two, you need more than three, you need a few and you need some upstarts.  You need some upstarts.  We have Dane Jasper on TWIT the founder of Sonic Net, talking in this debate over net neutrality.  Guys like that want this.  If they could get into every house, they will say that they'll offer unthrottled.

Larry:  The problem is, if they only have 2 companies that run wires into their house.  Unless you do it wireless, even if you have the deal with what do they call the carriers that work with the phone companies that allow them to piggy back on the phone companies wires?  Even they have to use the same wires.  Control essentially controlled speed.

Leo:  That's why in towns like Chattanooga where they have established high speed Internet owned by the city, the city owns the wires, Chattanooga says that we'll manage the infrastructure, and anybody who wants to become an Internet service provider on top of this infrastructure can.  That works.  Of course, immediately Chattanooga tried to shut this down.

Larry:  It would be like privatizing the road system in every town.  We have certain things that we have agreed can be public.  Doesn't LA still own municipal water and power?  I think LA and Palo Alto the water and power is all city owned.  That has been that way forever.  You're going to tell us we can't have a municipal Internet system?  Why not?  It's an infrastructure.  No different from a bridge or a road or an electrical system.

Leo:  This is Chatanoogagig.com, this is the website of the city of Chattanooga, Tennessee, your gig is here.  Right here in Chattanooga.  One Gig per second Internet is available to every home, every business, 150,000 of them throughout the entire community.  Urban or rural, business or residents.  This is fantastic.

Larry:  I might move to Chattanooga and I'll be rich. 

Leo:  Here's an interesting point.  It makes Chattanooga a pretty desirable city, doesn't it?  It's good for business; it's good for real estate.  It's an open platform.  The first thing Verizon and Comcast try to do is shut this sucker down.

Owen:  That's why we need it so badly.  For Google all the little companies that are trying to build just roll this out.  You will make money.  People need Internet, and are desperate for another option in so many cities.  People in San Francisco hate everything about the Internet that they have to use, and that's the Mecca of Internet and computer technology.  And it's evil out there.  It makes absolutely no sense.  Roll it out, make some money. 

Devindra:  It seems very difficult.  Verizon announced a couple of years ago that they were going to stop rolling out the fiber installations.  If you have Fios in your neighborhood, that's pretty much it.  It's not going to get further than that.  If Verizon, one of the biggest mobile carriers can't roll out more fiber, or chooses not to, I don't know how a smaller company will.

Leo:  That's what you have to ask.  Why did Verizon do it in the first place, and why did they stop doing it?  It's widely agreed it was a political move.  They never intended to roll it out everywhere, but they wanted to get favor with the FCC.  Verizon has been in a lot of trouble with the FCC.  There may be some question about their motives from beginning to end on this.  I am thrilled that Wheeler has also said that we are going to force rules to prevent legislatures from making it illegal for municipalities to create their own wifi.  They're on the verge of killing that too.  State laws, which prevent municipal broadband, like Chattanooga, and I think that's fabulous.  That's what we need.  If the FCC continues down that road, I don't care about Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, and all the rest.  They'll be competition.  We need competition.  We're going to take a break.  Lots more to talk about.  We got Larry Magid here, safekidscom.  That's his thing.  Not safer.

Larry:  Safekids.com, saferinternetday.  It's confusing.

Leo:  Connect safely.  I actually recommend this on the radio show all the time.  Parents call up and say I got teenagers, how can I prevent them from mis-using the Internet.  I say you can't prevent them but you can talk to them.  I point them to your website safekids.org.  You've got contracts there that parents can pull out for younger kids and older kids.  Parents can say this is our approved Internet policy.  Let's talk about this.  That's the best way.

Larry:  safekids.com or connectsafely.org. 

Leo: safekids.com. Just remember that.

Larry:  That's good enough. It'll get you there.

Leo:  Owen JJ Stone.  How old is your daughter?  Does she use the Internet?

Owen:  She is 7, going on 38.  She's all over the Internet.

Leo:  What do you do to protect her?

Owen:  I have her on all Apple devices and I can look on my phone to see what web pages she's going to. 

Leo:  So you keep an eye on her.

Owen:  Every time she takes a picture on her cell phone it backs up to me. If she's on her iPad it backs up to me.

Leo:  That won't work much longer.  You know that?

Owen:  She's 7.  Let me tell you about the world that I live in.

Larry:  Wait till she's 17. 

Leo:  17?  Wait till 12.

Owen:  When I was a kid, my dad used to sneak into my room and look through my notebook.  I'm going to be spying on her so bad she's going to wish the NSA could slow me down.  My daughter is in Ju Jitsu, basketball.  When she goes out on a date, they're going to go Mr. Stone, I'll bring her back at 9:30.  You come home when you want to.  She's an international spy and ninja.  She will break your neck.  I'm going to be up in her grill.  I'm not worried about her safety.  It's these other kids on the 3 DS and the computers.  It's all about parents paying attention, and I'll be paying attention. 

Leo: I agree with you, and you'll be wearing those shades.  Is your computer in a public place?  That's one thing that makes a big difference.

Owen:  She has a MacBook Air.  She puts it in her room when she's here, when she's not here, she leaves it on the kitchen table.  When she leaves, it comes out of her room onto the kitchen table.

Larry:  Our policy, the policy we recommend, when kids go to sleep, their devices go to sleep with them.  You charge the phones.  We used to say put a computer in a public part of the house, that doesn’t work any more because you have phones.  You can insist that the phone be charged in the living room.  They shouldn't be playing with them when they should be sleeping.  By the way, Leo, that goes for you and me too.  We shouldn't mess with our phones when we're—

Leo:  NO!  NO! 

Larry:  It disrupts your sleep.  Even if you’re watching good stuff.

Leo:  No.   I like to check Instagram at 4 in the morning.  That's my right as a US citizen.

Owen:  Leo listens to lullaby music at night. 

Leo:  You know what I've been doing lately?  There's this app on Android and iOS called pizzizz and you play it and it goes you're now relaxing and going to sleep.  You have good dreams.  You will not wake up and go on Instagram.  That is very relaxing.

Larry:  I use headspace to mediate.  I've never meditated in my whole life, but this app that I got, I don't know if I'm meditating, but this guy relaxes me.  He talks in this really calming voice and tells me to breathe.  By the time he's done I'm half asleep.

Leo:  It's a gym membership for your mind. 

Owen:  Be careful with Pizzizz.  That's how I brainwash people. 

Leo:  About an hour in, they're going "You will send money to our post office box.  You will be happy about this."  Actually, we used to do that when the kids were little, opendns.com does this.  You can set an access control list and say Internet goes off at 9 PM.  Jennifer and I used to sit there at 9:59 and go wait for it.  Wait for it.  "DAD THE INTERNET IS OFF!!!!"  Yes I know.  Go to bed.

Larry:  When My kids were little, the router and cable TV went through my office, so I would do the same thing.  Unplug.  DAD!  Told you to get off.  Dad had some power in the house.

Leo:  Devindra Hardawar, you don't have to worry about this.  You don't have any kids running around. 

Devindra:  I have two cats.  They use the Internet, but they don't have to—

Leo:  I think it's OK if cat's minds are polluted.  I think keyboard cat passed, didn't he? 

Devindra:  That's sad.

Owen:  Thanks, Uncle Leo.

Leo:  But thanks to the Internet, keyboard cat lives on forever.  That's OK.  Charlie Schmit, the original keyboard cat.  The days when the Internet was young. 

Owen:  I'm going to get that cat a record deal.  He can play for me any time.

Leo:  This is the first cat video ever.

Devindra:  This is the first one to go super viral. 

Leo:  38 million views of keyboard cat.  Wait a minute?  What's going on now?  He's going dubstep cat.  Devindra Hardawar.  Engadget.com.  Our show today brought to you by OSCAR.  A new approach to health care.  This is cool.  I think we got a problem in this country with health care and I think we need to modernize it.  I'm very intrigued by what Oscar is doing.  Unfortunately, it's only available if you live in New York or New Jersey.  If you live in New York or New Jersey and you need health insurance, I want you to check out Oscar.  They make health insurance simpler, more intuitive, more human.  Their engineers used to work at Tumblr.  Spotify, Google.  Their websites are slick and usable.  They have these great apps.  Part of their customer app, they develop a personal time line.  I wish I could do this.  I love this.  They'll let you track your medical history over time.  Your doctor appointments, your visits, notes.  Your prescriptions.  If you do phone calls with your doctor, those are there.  You can use it to find doctors who care in your area.  Search by location, languages spoken, possible affiliation.  iOS now.  Android is coming soon.  They recently launched a misfit fitness tracker.  It provides financial incentives if you are active.  If you reach a daily step count, you get a dollar.  Once you hit $20 you can cash out with an Amazon gift card.  You can keep doing this.  The limit is $240 a year. 

Larry: They're paying themselves, because if you're healthy, you don't need doctors as much.  It's a great idea.

Leo:  It's so brilliant.  A lot of health insurers is to palm you off.  Put off your illness.  We don't want to keep you healthy, we just want to keep you healthy while you're our customer. 

Larry:  Health Insurance companies should also have to be life insurance companies. 

Leo:  I agree.  Oscar wants to re-invent this.  I wish it were in California.  New York and New Jersey only.  Their plans include free check ups, some free generic drugs, free primary care; you don't need a referral to get care.  Oscar's doctor on call gives you access to a board certified 24/7.  It kills me that I can't be a customer.  If you are in New York or New Jersey, hioscar.com/twit or call 844-oscar-25.  That's toll-free.  844-oscar-25.  Sign up by the 15.  You'll be insured by the first of the following month.  That works out pretty well.  hioscar.com/twit or call 844-oscar-25, and get the misfit fitness tracker.  It's only for Oscar customers. 

Owen:  They're making waves out here.  I had a friend who was in New York who was unhappy with their health care provider and they asked.  I didn't look it up, because I'm pretty good for the moment, but I saw like 12 people put in Oscar so they must be doing OK. 

Leo:  We love.  Most of our advertisers are like this where they're taking existing businesses and use the Internet to re-invent it.  That's one of the most exciting uses of the Internet is to break down everything.  Start over and rethink all this stuff.

Larry:  I started shaving with Harry's.  It's great.  I don't get paid to say this.  I buy stuff from them.  It saves me money and they have great customer care.  I call them up and this lady named Kate tells me how to shave. 

Leo:  Wait a minute, you called and said, How do I shave Kate?

Larry:  I wasn't sure how to clean.  What is the best way to clean a razor?  You get the hairs, right?  She explained to me that the best way to get the hairs out. 

Leo:  How?

Larry:  You put it backwards.

Leo: You sleuce high pressure water through the back of it. 

Larry:  I do it in the bath tub now because that's super high pressure.  I hope Harry's if they're listening, figures out a way to—

Leo:  Like an eject button.  You push a button and it ejects the hairs.  The nice thing, this is not a Harry's ad.  Harry's blades are less expensive, so I just change my blades more often.  That's another solution.  It's nice to have a fresh blade all the time.

Larry:  You look very nice and clean-shaven today. 

Leo:  Thank you.  That's Harry's.

Larry:  Great haircut too.

Leo:  I can't blame Harry's for the haircut.  I got it shaved once.  A lady with a straight razor.  It's like I was a pumpkin and she was carving me.  It was like—what you don't know—there's a whole bunch of stuff you learn when you get your head shaved.  You can hear it from bone conductants.  You really hear the razor scraping you. 

Larry:  I used to have a barber who had very different political views from me, we'd get into discussions.  It scared the crap out of me. 

Leo:  Oh, you like Obama eh?  I don't let them near my throat.

Owen:  When I get cut with a straight razor, I don't have a conversationa bout anything.  I don't want to know anything.

Leo: You're a stealer's fan? 

Owen:  You need to focus.  I don't want to hear anything about anything. 

Leo:  Never go to a barber who is a Cowboys fan.  You have been so relentelessly brutal to the Dallas cowboys.

Owen:  No haircuts in Texas.

Leo:  Never ever go to Texas again.  Moving along.  Apple, I think this is an ongoing story, but maybe because of the sling TV, they have re-ignited apples conversations with broadcasters.  Apple is once again talking to TV programmers about putting its own web TV—over the top service, on Apple TV.  It's over the top because it eliminates your cable television or antennae, and you get your TV as you do Netflix now, over the Internet.  Sling TV has offered—we talked about this before.  $20 a month, you get ESPN, which means you get actual sports, CNN, which means you get actual news—

Owen:  In your opinion.

Leo:  You're right.  What am I thinking?

Owen:  You can't just be throwing out CNN.

Leo:  Anybody who gets their news from TV is certified nuts anyway.  Now Brian Williams.  What's this with Brian Williams?  I love Brian Williams?

Owen:  The worst part is "he did it for entertainment."  The news is not for entertainment. 

Leo:  That's the problem!  This is entertainment.  The news is not entertainment.

Larry:  You should get your news from radio.  CBS news radio. 

Leo:  That's a little self-serving, Larry.  I actually agree with you.

Larry:  You need to get your news from multiple sources.

Leo:  Thank God for the Internet.  You can actually go to—I feel like we get better news now because we do that.

Larry:  Those of us who do get that.

Leo:  Doesn't everybody?

Devindra:  Not everyone.

Owen:  Older people in the world are set in their ways.

Leo:  They're screwed anyway.  Anybody older than 50-how old am I now?  Anybody over 58 is screwed.

Larry: Thanks, Leo.

Owen: Now anymore whenever I read something I literally have to go to another news source to re-read it to make sure it’s even somewhat legit. Because people will just post stuff. And it’s like boo-boo, and I’m like did Jesus come down and write this on a wall for you? Because I don’t see it anywhere else online. Nowhere else is saying it but this place.

Larry: Even two hours later. You know it used to be if you went to a trusted news brand, you knew it was probably true. And even there I can’t think of examples.

Leo: Well Brian Williams is a perfect example. That’s NBC news.

Larry: You expect them to be accurate.

Owen: And whoever wrote… because you have to write statements before you say them out loud. The fact that you can literally think in a room somewhere to say well we were doing it for entertainment purposes. How does someone in that room not slap you? Because you can’t come out and say things like that. Oh, God, I’m sorry.

Leo: Now that Comcast owns NBC-somebody in the chat room is making a very good point-it is and entertainment network. Right?

Larry: The news division… I actually do work for a news division; I work for CBS news. The news division at least in the radio-I can’t speak for television-really does operate independently. I don’t know what happens at the boardroom meeting.

Leo: I agree with you. No actually you’re on the Tiffany network. You’re on Edward R. Murrow’s Tiffany network.

Larry: At the level I work at, nobody tells me what to cover. Nobody tells me what to say. As long as I’m accurate and well-sourced and am not way out in left field, I’m good. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a company that CBS is suing or anything else. I know there are problems, but in the news division we haven’t had that problem. At least at the part I’m at.

Leo: Knock on wood. I don’t think it’s going to last.

Owen: And you just don’t say it. If you’re doing it for entertainment, don’t say it. Don’t insult your craft.

Leo: But you understand that the internet natives, this generation growing up, basically had to learn-actually this is a good skill-had to learn that you always look at what’s the underlying motivation, where’s the slant, where’s this coming from every news source.

Larry: Every one.

Leo: I think that’s why the New York Times and NBC and the traditional news stalwarts are starting to fall because that skepticism-which is needed on the internet-is being applied globally. And it’s right. It should be.

Larry: It is right. And everybody should be checked. Even you and me, Leo.

Leo: Oh I get checked all the time, believe me. I go home…

Larry: And you should be.

Leo: Right! And you know everybody makes mistakes and you shouldn’t lie. But everybody makes mistakes and when I make a mistake I will correct it.

Larry: Because here’s a weird concept that most people would probably think is odd, I actually consider access to media to be a sacred trust. I know that sounds very naïve.

Leo: I agree.

Larry: But I really feel that if people are taking the time to read me or listen to me or watch me, I have a moral obligation to do the best job I can to be accurate, to be fair. If I have a conflict of interest, disclose it. If I do, because I admit that my connect safely is funded by some of the tech companies. But that’s right there in every article. And as long as you do that, then you can sleep at night. But anything short of that, I think of a violation of a trust. And I know a lot of people think that’s crap because they think the media is nothing but a big corporate business. But maybe I’m just old and I’m part of a dying breed but I strongly feel that way.

Leo: You feel that way but do you think the Huffington Post feels that way?

Larry: I can’t speak for my friend Dariana. He speaks for himself.

Leo: I feel like people who communicate on the internet maybe don’t have that tradition of sacred trust.

Larry: I see your question but it depends who the blogger is. I blog for the Huffington Post. There are many bloggers in the Huffington Post who are really great. And some staff people who are phenomenal. But when you have an open-blog network it’s an open blog.

Owen: It’s click-mania. You know they write… I feel like half the posts that are written anymore aren’t even articles that are written. They say something like oh such and such died. What do you think?

Leo: I know!

Owen: 4,000 people put comments on it and click-click. I’m like, you did a lot of effort. You asked me a question. You post 40 articles a day like that.

Leo: How about this one? And I talked about this before the show: a couple week ago I wanted to know when the Super Bowl kickoff actually was. So I Googled what time does the Super Bowl start. That is an eye-opener. Because what you get is a lot of sites including by the way the Huffington Post, the IB Times, the LA Times, who create bogus pages that tell you what time the Super Bowl starts. That is not a news story.

Larry: They know that people are going to be searching.

Leo: They know people are going to search for this. So they create pages that will show high on Google that you will click on-here’s the Huffington Post-then they put ads all over it. Because you don’t need a news story titled what time does the Super Bowl start. That is not a story you would see in the New York Times!

Owen: We’re doing it wrong, Uncle Leo. We need to get on this ASAP.

Leo: Of course my first reaction was God-dammit, why didn’t I think of it?

Larry: The funny thing is I asked my Android phone, I said OK Google, what time does the Super Bowl start. And it told me 3pm but I wasn’t sure what time zone. I think that Google was smart enough to know what time zone I was in. But I wasn’t 100% sure if it meant Pacific, Eastern, Arizona.

Leo: You know what I tried for the first time last night and actually I was pretty impressed: Amazon’s Alexa. The Echo, the thing that’s in your house. The tube. One of our editors, Anthony Nielson got one. And Mike Elgin has it in his house and is reviewing it. We were over for dinner, you know what… it’s pretty cool. I immediately asked for an invitation. Because if you’re a Prime member, it’s only $99. First of all, the sound quality is good. And Alexa’s pretty smart. You can ask it questions and she will answer in a nice, natural voice. It didn’t sound robotic. It’s like a little pal in your kitchen. And you can ask them things like literally what time does the Super Bowl start. We asked how old is Michael Jackson; this is a good one. And she said in a nice, natural, human-female voice, Michael Jackson died in whatever, 2010. But he was 50 when he died. Actually it said he was 50 years, eight months, 29 hours, and three seconds old when he died. It was very interesting. I’m amazed that Google hasn’t done this! And when I first saw it I said this is stupid. Who would want this? And now I want this in every room. In fact we were all saying, Amazon should buy Sonos. Those are the speakers that in every room. And build this into Sonos. And then as you walk through your life, you could go hey Alexa. And they would tell you.

Larry: Smart house. Really smart house.

Leo: 2001 Space Odyssey is here!

Devindra: Google’s mission was to put it in your phone; that was their thing. And they didn’t want a separate device.

Leo: I agree but I think they missed the boat because of it.

Devindra: Perhaps, yea. I’m going to have to order one of these.

Owen: We’ll see how many people outside of our bubble that would want to have that in their house.

Leo: Maybe but I think if you try it, it kind of surprises you.

Owen: No, I’m totally down for it. Besides the fact that I feel like it’s probably going to make my child a little bit slower. Thankful she has me, because I’m a super-genius and I’m going to make her smart.

Leo: But wait, it’s just like having you there. She goes, hey daddy what time does the Super Bowl start. And you tell her.

Owen: Okay, perfect example: she’s learning to read and write. So she has words every week. Now she has to form her own sentences. What used to happen was she would ask me to re-read her sentences. I would help her. So I get out a dictionary or pull up a dictionary online, and I’d make her read it. And she’d understand it. Now do you know what I hear in the other room? I hear, okay Google. How do you spell anxious?

Leo: What’s wrong with that?

Owen: Okay, Siri. Because she’s not looking up the definitions like I make her do. She’s just getting a big word and she skipped me completely.

Larry: JJ, you’re just jealous because Google’s smarter than you are. At least more knowledgeable. You may not be… it knows more than you do. Let’s face it, it really does.

Owen: If I could program Google to make her read the definition out loud, I’d be happy with Google. But Google just gives the direct answer and moves on. I’m trying to educate.

Larry: I get you.

Leo: They should have a Google student mode.

Owen: Oh, that’d be awesome.

Leo: Where it says well I’m going to tell you the answer in a minute. But first do this math problem.

Larry: That’s called goggles; they got that for drunks at night.

Leo: Google goggles.

Owen: Anything to make them think more.

Leo: I’ll tell you how to spell it in a moment. But first, this word from the Holy Roman Empire. Did you know…

Owen: I would have gotten mad but she’s so smart. Like, I got mad when I first heard it. I heard okay Google, how do you spell ancient? And I’m looking at her like what, how long has she been doing this? Because I noticed for a while she hadn’t been asking me to help her with her homework. In like two weeks; and she figured it out! She would ask me questions like how many people are in the world. And I’m like, ask Siri.

Leo: I feel like this may be kind of a big change in how we think of knowledge. That the facts, because they are at your fingertips at all times, are no longer important.

Devindra: They’re a commodity.

Leo: They’re commodities because you can get the fact. You can get the spelling of ancient any time. You can get the definition of ancient any time. And so no memorizing all of that stuff is now no longer important. And I don’t think that’s such a bad thing.

Larry: Education, schools need to adapt to that. If I were a teacher these days, I would give all open-web exams. Every exam, I’d say don’t tell me…

Leo: Isn’t knowing what question to ask and where to ask it more important.

Larry: Tell me why does it matter. Why does it matter? Not…

Leo: It’s not memorization, it’s thinking that we need to teach.

Larry: And I think that that would be the way I would teach. But they don’t let me teach anymore.

Leo: I remember my late father-in-law, we gave him an iPad, and he was enthralled. He was a school science teacher. And he was enthralled by it; he loved it. And he said you know Copernicus spent most of his energy grinding lenses and manufacturing telescopes so that he could observe the heavens so that he could figure out that the earth revolved around the sun. Now days, all of the information that he needed is available without any effort. How much more can people figure out? Because they don’t have to take the time grinding the lenses and making the telescopes. It was an interesting insight.

Larry: A long time ago, I was a graduate. This was my dissertation back in the 80’s.

Leo: What was your dissertation in? You wrote that big book?!

Larry: Well it’s mostly charts and graphs. But yea, I did. But the point is that I spent most of my time in graduate school going up and down the elevator to get between the card catalogue and the index. I don’t think I learned anything other than riding the elevator.

Leo: You were good at the elevator though!

Larry: I was good at the elevator. I was able to crunch out a long dissertation. But the point is that knowledge is so much easier to acquire now. And that means we need to be smarter in how we use it.

Leo: Let’s learn thinking.

Owen: The Dewey Decimal system!

Leo: Yea, isn’t that funny? You don’t need that anymore. My alma mater at Yale, the beautiful library-Sterling Library-just got remodeled. And I remember that the entire entryway-huge acres-was filled with card catalogues.

Larry: Right.

Leo: They’re gone. It’s couches and computer terminals and it’s cozy places to read and study. It’s like I wouldn’t recognize it. There’s no card catalogue.

Larry: Can you cuddle on those couches if you have a partner?

Leo: You can cuddle.

Larry: That’s good. It’s better than card catalogue.

Leo: Lots comfier anyway. Let’s take a break and come back with more. Devindra, we got to get you in the conversation. Just chime in, don’t let these loud mouths…

Devindra: Jump in. It’s okay, it’s fine. I like hearing what you guys are doing. But you know, to what you’re saying, the way we’re treating knowledge now, for me, I’m excited about how this will unleash creativity in people. Everyone’s poo-pooing the fact that we’re memorizing less, that can be a good thing if it gives you time to do something more interesting.

Leo: Learn how to think, not memorize, right? Although memorization is fun learning. Instead of memorizing facts, memorize a poem so you can have a poem in your head.

Larry: Especially as I get older, my memory is failing anyways.

Devindra: We’re all augmented.

Leo: There is an awesome iPad app that I really love that helps you memorize poems. And it has like you’re a better man than I am, Don Verdean. And you know, I memorize. I don’t know if I still remember it: Ozymandias, you know? Line by line… bring me my iPad because I want to remember what that app is. It’s so fun.

Larry: Bring me my pipe.

Leo: Bring me my pipe and my slippers. And my fiddlers three.

Owen: I remember all my poetry via Tupac songs.

Leo: Well you know, that’s not bad.

Devindra: Good taste.

Leo: Music is the best way to learn poetry. I wonder if I still have it on here. It was such a cool app. And I think that’s a fun thing to do. Of course I’m a little weird. Oh he brought me my slippers too. Thank you. And there’s my pipe. Now I’m ready!

Larry: You do have a pipe. I was joking!

Owen: You know this is TWiT right, we’re out here reading sonnets.

Leo: In about a moment, fiddlers three will show up. Then you’ll be impressed.

Larry: Does the government allow us to smoke pipes on television? No, we’re not on television. Not on Google television.

Leo: We’re not on television. You know I had to take-and you probably have to do this too for CBS-the FCC exam.

Larry: Yea that’s right I had to take it.

Leo: Every year we have to take…

Larry: I don’t study for it, don’t tell them that. I pass it every year though.

Leo: They give you a PowerPoint presentation. I got 100% by the way.

Larry: Good for you.

Leo: They tell you things like what you can do and not do and so forth. So I circulated it to the staff and said it’s probably a good idea for you to know. Jason, I sent you a copy. It’s a good idea for you to know what the broadcast standards are. Because we try to adhere to broadcast standards. But there’s no FCC looking over our shoulder yet. Yet!

Larry: Right, but…

Devindra: A lot of it’s common sense, too.

Leo: There’s common sense. But there’s things like contesting, what’s a legal contest, what’s a lottery. And there’s a lot of good stuff in there. Oh, you know what the best thing is? Disclaimers about advertising and plugola.

Devindra: That was good.

Leo: For instance, you cannot lie in an endorsement ad. If you don’t use a product, you can’t go on the radio and say I use that product. You get a huge fine.

Devindra: Ooh. How do they figure that out? Thought police-wise. That’d be interesting.

Leo: Well there’s the FCC have police.

Larry: The Federal Trade Commission also goes after bloggers that misrepresent themselves.

Leo: We started a little Twitter feed called Inside TWiT where we were occasionally mentioning advertisers. And Denise Howell who has become our corporate attorney-she does This Week in Law on the network-said you know you really have to. The FTC, the fines are immense. You really have to have #sponsor or #ads. Or you have to make it clear that even if they didn’t pay for that tweet, that these people are sponsors. And I am 100% behind it. I just hadn’t thought about it.

Larry: If TWiT ever had a wardrobe malfunction, be careful about that.

Leo: My nipples are constantly on the air. It’s embarrassing.

Larry: Terrible. A million dollar fine in your case, each time.

Leo: I’m not going to find this poetry app. Before the end of the show, I’ll figure out what it is. It’s probably not on here anymore.

Owen: If not, it will be in the show notes.

Leo: We don’t have show notes; that’s another thing we have to get. Remember show notes? Remember when podcasts had show notes?

Owen: Show notes!

Leo: I have to put my slippers on while I talk a little bit about stamps.com! You know you might say hey I need some postage, some stamps. Oh shoot, I have to put on pants and shoes and go to the post office. No! With stamps.com, you can keep your slippers on, keep your pants off, and print your own legal U.S. postage whenever you need it 24/7. And you don’t need a postage meter. With your computer and your printer. Stamps.com brings all those services of the United States Postal Service to your desk. You even get discounts you can’t get at the post office. Like first class, priority mail, express, international: you’ll never pay full price for postage again at stamps.com. That’s why half a million small businesses use stamps.com; we do too. It also makes your mailing, if you do mailing of any kind in business, it makes it look more professional. You can print right on the envelopes with your company logo, the postage. It will automatically pull the senders, your return address, but also the recipient address from Quick Books or your address book. If you’re selling on eBay, Etsy, Amazon, any of the websites, it will get that information directly from the site. It will even fill out international customs forms automatically. Certified mail, return receipt, it will automatically email he recipient with a tracking code. It makes your mail look as professional as those big companies. Better, really. With stamps.com, you print barcoded postage, return and delivery addresses all in one step. On shipping labels, you get your company logo right on the label. Stamps.com. Now we’ve got a really great deal for you. I hope you’re sold on the value of stamps.com. Now I want you to try it with a no-risk trial offer. This is worth $110. Go to the front page of stamps.com, go to our offer, click the microphone, and enter the offer code TWIT. $110 bonus offer that includes $55 free postage. You get a USB scale. This is so cool; so you never guess at the postage again. You never over-pay or under-pay. I don’t know which is worse, putting an extra stamp on because you just don’t have postage… or I guess it’s worse to have a package arrive and your customer has to pay extra. All the time I get PR, a little box that’s from PR firms where I have to pay. Because they didn’t put enough stamps on it. It’s like that’s so ridiculous! Get stamps.com. Get the scale. $55 free postage. A month free use of stamps.com; you’re going to love this! Stamps.com, before you do anything else, please click the microphone at the top of the home page and type in TWIT. Look, I used to have hair. That actually looks like a rug.

Owen: Yea, that doesn’t look real. That’s not legit. That’s a piece.

Leo: That’s a piece. I think Leo really is bald.

Owen: I think he is too.

Leo: Stamps.com! Please use the offer code TWIT, please I beg of you. Self-driving cars. Always fun. Google is developing its own Uber competitor. But that’s okay because Uber’s developing self-driving cars. They’ve got a deal with Carnegie Melon to do self… so really here’s the future. Ten years out, when you call a cab or an Uber or a Goober…whatever Google calls their… Goober would be a good name. When you call a Goober, it pulls up and nobody’s inside.

Larry: Right.

Owen: At least you don’t have to worry about somebody roughing you up after you’re inside.

Leo: That’s true. Hey baby, you want to go downtown if you know what I mean?

Owen: You live here?

Leo: Is this where you live? You got a boyfriend? None of that. And so I think this… but do you think people are ready for this?

Larry: Not yet.

Leo: Would you get scared if the taxi pulled up and nobody was in it?

Larry: I’d actually feel safer if the technology actually worked. Because I would know the human error if introduced. But also it depends on the system that they’re operating in. I get a little nervous about a self-driving car on the same highway as cars driving by human beings. But ultimately I think it’s going to be a lot safer. I’m actually looking forward to that. When I grow really old, I want a self-driving car or at least a service that comes and picks me up.

Owen: Uncle Leo?

Leo: Yes.

Owen: Buy me a Tesla. Get me a Tesla, please.

Leo: Why?

Owen: I will test out this self-driving thing. I will drive across the country.

Leo: I think you misunderstand. Tesla’s do not self-drive.

Owen: I know but I just want a Tesla and I want to be able to drive it myself and have it somewhat drive for me while I’m in there being lazy. I’m trying to get myself a Tesla. Don’t worry about the facts, okay.

Devindra: You’re so lazy.

Leo: Actually Devindra, didn’t they show a car that would read speed signs?

Devindra: I think they showed some basic technology like that. And we know for a fact that they’re working on more self-driving technology. But what I saw at CES this year, is that every car company is doing something that’s kind of automated. So Audi, BMW’s working on it; there’s stuff on the road today like the parallel parking assistance. So people are going to get more and more used to it. So I think in 10 years, yea a car pulls up in front of you, you know it’s your requested Uber or whatever. People will be totally down with that.

Larry: I recently had a chance to interview the CEO of Ford because they opened up a research lab in Silicon Valley. And you know they’re no longer calling themselves an automaker. They’re now a mobility company.

Leo: Wow.

Larry: And they even have research going on with bicycles. So the whole thing, like car companies are learning to be like remember the old days when we talked about a railroad and then the smart railroads became transportation companies. The smart radio networks became media companies.

Leo: You know that’s true. Clear Channel, which I put my radio show on the premier networks which is owned by Clear Channel, is no longer called Clear Channel because that implies radio. It’s called iHeart Media.

Larry: It’s about media.

Leo: Which is terrible by the way. iHeart Media? Isn’t that kind of dated?

Larry: But Ford is about mobility now. They’re no longer about cars and trucks. And it’s really smart; they’ve got to start thinking about how it is we want to get from place to place. Whether it’s a bicycle, a car, a self-driving car, hopping on the back of a robot, whatever it takes. The car companies are going to adapt themselves to it.

Leo: Hamster MH in our chat room says I want a self-loathing car.

Larry: I already have one of those. It’s when me driving it poorly.

Leo: I just hate myself!

Owen: iHeart Media; that’s again my point of people sitting in a room not knowing what they’re doing. That’s a great step four years ago and I mean it’s in the right direction.

Leo: Four years ago? When was iHeart New York? When was that campaign? Like 1970’s.

Devindra: iHeart Radio.

Owen: iHeart Radio and I’m talking about heart signs on your Tumblr, and fact of liking. And that’s where that comes from. You click things you like. You click a heart, you like it. iHeart Media, they’re going to like it. No dummy, they’re not going to like it. And you look like a six year-old girl came out with this idea. Nothing against six year-old girls because I’m sure there are smart ones, smarter than me. I’m just saying in general.

Leo: You could be rainbow unicorn radio.

Devindra: That’s something a six year-old girl would say.

Larry: Probably a 60-year-old man came up with the idea actually.

Owen: That makes it even worse! There’s a group of people sitting around…

Leo: That’s kind of creepy.

Owen: They sit around and who comes up? No one checks them. No one says don’t do that. You’re in the right direction but let’s make it a little bit better. Nobody.

Leo: There’s two things I can’t do and I don’t know if it’s because I’m a 60-year-old man or because I’m a man or what, but I can’t do the heart thing with the fingers. Every girl can do this.

Larry: I couldn’t do the Macarena back when it was popular.

Leo: And I can’t do the aww. Every girl can do that, aww! Heart! What are you laughing at? Can you do it? You can’t do it. But you’re a girl. So not every girl can do it. You are wearing a pink watch though; I just want to point that out. Aww! I heart your watch! I’m just not very good at that. Aww! Nothing, huh?

Devindra: Nothing.

Owen: No. iHeart Media, they need to change that again. I know they just changed it but somebody needs to do it.

Leo: I know it. It’s so weird.

Larry: I actually like Clear Channel better, myself.

Leo: Clear Channel is a great name. That’s a radio name!

Larry: Yea, it really is. It’s more than a radio name. It can be a channel in more than just radio.

Leo: And the problem is they…

Owen: Clear and Present Media.

Larry: I think I’m on some of those stations too. And they’re clear.

Leo: We love them. We’re not knocking them. No sir! Love that radio! There’s a future there.

Larry: It does, and a past too. A long past.

Leo: Twitter has agreed and reached a deal with Google to put tweets back in Google search. I don’t know… Google used to have tweets in Google search. And then they deal with it and no one complained. Nobody said oh gosh, I wish there would be tweets in my searches again.

Larry: They actually annoy me when I find them. I look for real content; I’m not looking for tweets.

Leo: I don’t want this to happen.

Owen: If I want to search for tweets, I go on Twitter and I search.

Devindra: But their search is terrible. You have to admit.

Leo: Twitter search.

Devindra: It kind of makes sense.

Larry: They can do that.

Leo: So they’ve made a deal with Google to get, it’s called the Fire Hose. Which, we’ve been calling it the fire hose for years but it has to be a real fire hose now. All the tweets from all 284 users… into… into the Google search engine. Which means I guess, I don’t know. I’m going to vote against this. You’re going to start seeing tweets in your search.

Larry: If I Google Leo Laporte, am I going to get everyone of your followers’ tweets?

Leo: See that’s what I’m afraid of. Because people use my name in vain.

Larry: Well of course.

Leo: And I don’t really want that. Oh Leo Laporte!

Devindra: I think Google’s smart enough for that. For me it’s more like if you want to look up something that’s happening right now and there’s no news stories about it yet, you typically look to Twitter. But Twitter search isn’t very good. So for me it makes sense having it all in one screen. Like there have been incidents here in New York where I see a car crash or a street is closed down. And I’m like what is going on here. And Twitter is the way I figure it out. But that’s after a lot of culling through junk Twitter feeds and things like that. It could be good.

Leo: It’s true when somebody asks me did a celebrity die, the old days you turned on the radio or you turned on CNN. No, you just go to Twitter. It’s like so much faster. Sometimes a little inaccurate.

Owen: The problem with that too is again I still need to go to some reliable source because I can’t trust people’s tweets. People pass around Onion posts like it’s gospel and then they realize it says The Onion. I’ve seen people go half a day, 30 comments deep, and I’m like you know this is The Onion, right? And I delete all these people. But I’m just saying like you still have to check from somewhere. So a whole bunch…

Devindra: It’s all about following the link though.

Larry: Are you still paying the five cent post office tax on every email you send? Because I still send messages about the audit that’s coming.

Leo: I knew that was true! Twitter’s stock pops as company tops earnings expectations. This is another Twitter story. I guess good news for Twitter because for a long time the assumption was unless Twitter grows at this same torrid pace with new users, it’s not going to do well in a stock market. But because they didn’t grow as fast but their earnings were good, the stock did well. That’s actually a good thing for Twitter because that was becoming a problem. The issue of having to grow at this crazy rate. They almost doubled quarterly sales.

Devindra: Honestly the expectations for Twitter were starting to worry me. Of all these services, it’s probably the one I use the most and rely on the most every day and I didn’t want it just to die in a year or two just because it didn’t get enough users. But I think people are realizing hey they’re actually making money. So maybe let’s not focus on how many new people like an ad, let’s focus on what they can do with the people they already have.

Leo: People were concerned because last quarter, Instagram actually surpassed Twitter’s monthly active users. And there was some real concern that this is going to hurt Twitter. It also is bad because it was forcing Twitter to just do whatever it could to increase user growth. Which often meant that the quality of what was on Twitter went downhill. In other words, they were not blocking junk accounts, spam accounts, troll accounts because they needed the numbers.

Larry: All these auto-posting accounts. I’m flattered every time I write a column for the Huffington Post. 1,000 people tweet about it, but I wonder how many of those are boxed that just automatically do that.

Leo: Have you noticed… what’s happening to me lately is stuff that happened a long time ago is getting re-tweeted.

Larry: I noticed that too.

Leo: Somebody just posted TWiT covers the Apple iPhone announcement yesterday.

Larry: I had a panic this morning. It was a tweet that said I was giving a talk at a conference. And I said wait a minute. I spoke at last year’s conference. And I said did I miss the fact that I agreed to give this speech? It turned out that they just today tweeted the fact that I’m going to give a speech.

Leo: What’s that all about? Devindra, do you know what’s going on there?

Devindra: I think the bots are just getting… they’re trying to make their content look a little more real. And for the longest time we’ve seen them just copying other people’s posts and stuff. Maybe interacting with tweets is better for the bots. I don’t know.

Leo: I’ve never understood though why, how this works. So what these bots are like tweeting normal stuff so that you kind of trust them. And then they’ll put an ad in?

Devindra: Yea. Or they’ll follow you. Or they’ll start, they amass followers in different ways. So once those things hit a certain amount they can be valuable for ads. Think of what people do with YouTube when they just upload random things.

Leo: They’re just trying to build users, counts.

Larry: The other thing they’ll do is they’ll tweet about content legitimate online content, but they’ll actually tweet to their page that links to the content. So you’ll write something for a legitimate news source, they’ll tweet about it, and then you go to a page with ads with a link that you sourced.

Owen: The bigger point is when you talk about Instagram. Instagram went through and just demolished all those junk accounts. Like there were literally people that I was following, and they’re funny. And I was wondering man how do they get 500,000 followers? When they fill those things out, I saw people with 500k drop down to 10k. Like overnight. So Twitter doesn’t do that though. Twitter’s like oh there’s bots and there’s spam. Well we need those numbers; we’re going to leave them. The fact that Instagram did that is shocking to me. And the fact that Twitter after that whole debacle of numbers and if Instagram’s numbers aren’t real then they don’t matter; well Twitter’s number aren’t real because another thing those bots do is you go back to their page and yea they retweeted you. But they also retweeted 30 other people. And what do all those people do? Go back and why did you retweet someone from 10 years ago. And like he said you click on it and go back to their content or you see something else that might resemble something that’s interesting to you and you click on that. So they’re dragging you in with this backwards stuff and it happens a lot! There’s a lot. It’s really strange that they don’t cut those people out. But again they need those people. As long as they’re not abusive, they’re not…

Leo: But the Grammies are tonight, okay? Are you going to be sitting there with Twitter scrolling while you’re watching the Grammies? I bet you are.

Owen: I do.

Leo: Because that’s fascinating.

Owen: I also stick spam in there and I get people to one single-click myself on Amazon and send me presents. I mean, it’s law.

Leo: I think live TV shows know. When I went to Twitter, the first thing I see is oh the Grammies are tonight. Make sure you follow the official Grammies thing. And then I go there and look at all… by the way, only 19,000 followers. Oh no, I’m sorry, 2M.

Owen: But nobody follows them, they follow the hashtags. They really don’t. They follow the hashtags.

Leo: And apparently Mashable’s done a deal with them because there’s all these Mashable branded images in there. Isn’t that interesting?

Devindra: Very smart.

Leo: It’s all lending, isn’t it?

Devindra: It’s crazy. It’s more fun to watch these shows via Twitter than it is to actually watch the shows while you’re doing something else. You can just see the updates.

Larry: Somebody tell me how some companies that have no real reason to have millions of people following them suddenly have hundreds of thousands of followers. I understand why Leo has a huge number of followers.

Leo: I only have half a million. The Grammies has 2M.

Larry: Well but the Grammies is a big deal. I know a consultant who is not very well-known who has like 50,000 followers. There’s no way that he could have amassed that.

Devindra: It’s so easy to buy followers.

Owen: A little secret, people pay for them. They really do. Like people say to me all the time when I go out for work. Because nobody really know what I do for a living, but I’m a consultant. So I hear this all the time. Well you only have 7,000 followers, and I’m like I could whip out 50 of those followers right now that have like a million plus followers. And they’re following me. So the number versus the quality is a whole different atmosphere. I’m sorry I didn’t go out and pay to get 30k fake people.

Larry: Right and you probably could afford to do that. You could write that check. But if that’s something you can feel good about…

Owen: I have no concept to do that because my thing is when I’m trying to teach other people about the internet or show them what’s going on, the biggest thing for me-it’s funny-is explaining to someone about how Facebook works. People want to dump all this money into Facebook and buying likes for their pages. And I’m like you know these are click farms in Istanbul. And they still make me help them buy them. And after two months I go back and show them and I’m like look they’re not real. And they’re like oh, well why didn’t you tell me that more? And I say I broke it down for you from the get-go. But in their mind, they just want numbers, numbers, numbers. They don’t care about writing a check. But once those numbers do zero for you, then somebody realizes alright we’re going to stop writing these checks because it’s useless. So you’ve got to play the game right.

Devindra: That’s what you’re supposed to do. This obsession with numbers; the new monthly active users. For me it’s more like they need to focus on the service, right? Because there is no feature parity across all these apps. The Twitter desktop app on the Mac, I don’t think it can play animated GIFs yet. Tweet Deck hasn’t had some features that have been on all the other Twitter things. And it’s been really annoying to have a service where it doesn’t work properly across different devices because they don’t have the time or inclination to actually focus on building those features.

Owen: I had to stop using Tweet Deck because of that. Because there were certain things, the consistency wasn’t the same. And it was enraging my heart. I’m like you know what, I just quit. I give up. And I used to love Tweet Deck. But for those reasons, you’re exactly right. Focus on the people you have and making them more happy. Because they’ll go out ask more people why are you on Twitter? And that’s how you bring more people. That’s how it started. It was an awesome that other people had to tell other people about. Same with the Grammies; they’re going to be memes and jokes. And how many people are going to be at their jobs tomorrow with nerds that don’t have the internet and say look at this. Like oh really that’s funny. I can get that for free! I’ll download the spam. And they’ll do it. But that old-school, tell somebody to do something that still works; and they need to focus on those kind of things sometimes.

Larry: What do you really think?

Leo: Now are the Grammies live? Because I think they are now, right? That was one of the problems, was they were not live on the west coast and you couldn’t go on Twitter for three hours so you would know… so now everything has to be live. No more delay for the west coast.

Larry: Olympics are never live in the U.S.

Leo: Except for the Olympics. And it’s not like I can’t go to Twitter because I don’t want to know who won the biathlon. Nobody’s doing that. Or are they?

Devindra: Some people are, probably.

Leo: Very few. Let’s take a break. Come back with more. Devindra Hardawar from In Gadget. Larry Magid from CBS. Owen JJ Stone. He’s a consultant.

Owen: I should have put my glasses down and went all thug-licious on people and get to rant. Larry, I’m sorry.

Leo: You said people don’t know what I do but I’m a consultant. Isn’t that what you say when you don’t know what you do?

Owen: No, I know what I do. I just don’t like to advertise what I do. I work on a referral basis, Uncle Leo. You don’t even know where I live. I’m a very popular and special person.

Leo: Okay, give me an example. If I were hiring an Owen JJ Stone…

Owen: I could redo TWiT in about a week and make it look a whole lot better for you if you got off of Drupal and went on to Word Press. I can do these things.

Devindra: You’re hired!

Owen: I’m just saying, Leo. I could do it for you.

Leo: Do you know who much we’re paying for the TWiT redesign?

Owen: I’m just saying, I know how much money you’re wasting.

Leo: Owen, how much, if I just hired you for a year, you could probably design a website, right? And it costs less than I pay.

Owen: If you got off of Drupal and moved to Word Press, yes. But if you think you’re going to get that done in-house on that, it’s a very convoluted system. I’m just telling you Uncle Leo, let me help you. I love you so much.

Leo: I was hoping you’d say…

Owen: I don’t want to make you upset.

Larry: Hey Owen, don’t talk to Leo. You just made a sale; I need a redesign at connectsafely.org and it is a Word Press site. So call me up.

Leo: I feel like Owen you should just say I have a set of very special skills.

Owen: Leo, there’s a reason why I’m sitting here. I’m not just sitting here for my good looks. People on the internet know me. I’m telling you Leo, I hang out with a very elicit crowd. I only need one of those a year to live nice. I don’t have to work hard, Leo. I do like two or three projects a year and I’m balling.

Leo: Do you do Square Space?

Larry: He must be overpriced then.

Leo: Do you do Square Space? Because I can…

Owen: For you, safe kids. We care about safe kids.

Leo: Do Square Space. I was looking at Jeff Bridges’ new Square Space. Have you seen this? Actually this is a good time to a Square Space ad, come to think of it.

Owen: He’s got good sounds. He’s somebody you should listen to at night to relax to. Because that is very relaxing.

Leo: So he created this website: dreamingwithjeff.com. Square Space. I was looking at it and thinking why am I not on Square Space? What am I nuts? What am I doing Drupal for? Square Space is really… Square Space 7 is amazing. Jeff did his site dreamingwithjeff.com, of course he’s from the Big Lebowski and Tron and all that. And we saw it in the Super Bowl ad. You can actually, if you go to squarespace.com, go directly to the dreamingwithjeff.com site. It’s a little weird, a little spooky. But also I have to say it’s really beautiful. And I’m thinking this is a nice platform. 14 new designs now, you have 30 to choose from including designs for specific businesses. Musicians, artists, architects, restaurants, weddings, ecommerce. Square Space will let you try it free for two weeks, no credit card needed. So you can really see what Square Space can do. I should be playing, let’s just play a little Dreaming with Jeff in the back. Look at the cassette.

One of the things I do to relax is to hum. Uh, I thought I’d give you a little humming tune here. This is one that I find I fall into.

Leo: I keep waiting for him to say I want my carpet man. You peed on my carpet. Making changes is easier, live editing on one screen. No more toggling the preview mode. You get Getty images. You wonder where do you get these cool images for the album art and all this: Getty images. $10 per image. Social media is built in; very easy to link up to your Facebook or your Twitter or your Instagram, or Google Plus-yep they support it. Tumblr, YouTube, Pinterest, and more. And ecommerce. See this is kind of cool. So you put all the ecommerce in here which is really nice. All of the templates, even the $8 a month site has ecommerce built into it. That’s awesome. And by the way when you sign up for a year, you get the domain name free. And they’ll hook it all up. Squarespace.com. If you’re interested in creating a great website where you can do ecommerce, if you’re a photographer they’ve got portfolio sites. Or restaurants, they’ve got great sites for restaurants, musicians, even Jeff Bridges. Go to squarespace.com, try it free. You don’t need a credit card or an offer code. But if you want to buy, when you decide to buy, use the offer code TWIT. You’ll get 10% off.

Owen: They had an ad.

Leo: They had a Super Bowl ad.

Owen: Yea, it was Jeff Bridges and I love Jeff Bridges. I looked up and I saw a Square Space. I said he’s on TV; that’s so nice. That was a good person to pick for that. I mean if you’re going to spend all that money and put it out there. People love that dude. You can’t even be annoyed the fact that he’s on there telling you about something that’s awesome and the sound of his voice. You should listen to that tonight to go to sleep, Uncle Leo.

Leo: I agree. It’s his whole thing. Squarespace.com, use offer code TWIT for 10% off.

Devindra: New weird ads. It’s like the Matthew McConaughey in Lincoln ads.

Leo: What is the story with that?

Devindra: Yea, just him expounding on philosophy and life. It’s amazing. But it’s a guy, the guy who directed Drive also directed those commercials. It’s a really interesting vibe they have going there.

Leo: You saw the Saturday Night Live take off on that?

Devindra: Oh yea.

Larry: I actually asked the Ford guys about that when I interviewed the CEO; they love it. They’re doubling down on those commercials.

Leo: Did you ask them if they’re effective?

Larry: Apparently they’re very effective. I mean I don’t know if they actually sell cars. But they get a lot of attention.

Leo: Well that’s what effective would mean in my book.

Larry: Well eventually.

Leo: Because you know those ads you had on TWiT were very effective. Just saying.

Devindra: Hint hint.

Leo: When I see somebody like Square Space of Ford spend $4M for a 30 second ad on the Super Bowl, I’m saying you know if you would have spent $4M with us, you’d have ads in 2020. You’d have ads for the next 10 years.

Owen: You have people that actually show the functionality of the basis they have.

Leo: Yea.

Owen: They have a lot of cool stuff. I just bought another car and I was looking at a Ford. And my biggest problem was all this technology and stuff, I had to go search for it. By the time I got to the place, they didn’t know what was going on. And I’m like I shouldn’t be sitting in this car teaching you about this car. And I asked to get two other people and they still couldn’t do it. And I’m like never mind. And there’s nowhere online where you can just go. They put it on TV shows once in a while; oh what address do I go to?

Leo: They never show you what you really want to know. And that’s one of the things, that’s why they bought TWiT. They were on TWiT for two years. And then at the end of it they said well we’re done. I said well but we’re doing great for you. They said yea but it was just a podcast. We were just experimenting. That’s alright.

Owen: They pretend to be in front of things when certain times…

Leo: You know what, people who advertise like Square Space who’s been with us for four or five years… people who advertise with TWiT… Square Space credits us with putting Square Space on the map. They know that these ads really do work. And so I’m not too worried. I was talking to somebody who was an ad manager for Proctor and Gamble. And he said we’re starting to see digital media like podcasts but also banner ads, so out-perform our broadcast media for big brands and brand names like Tide. At some point it’s just going to shift. People are going to say why buy a $4M Super Bowl ad. You get a lot… well we’ve been talking about the Super Bowl ads. Super Bowl commercials dropping the hashtags. So the folks at marketing land keep track of how many hashtags there were. And the 2014 Super Bowl, 57% of the ads had hashtags. Only 50% this year. So it just shows you, you thought maybe hashtags were forever. No.

Devindra: Good.

Leo: Yea, Twitter had three ads mentioning Twitter. Facebook had four. There weren’t any ads mentioning Google Plus, Pinterest, YouTube, or Instagram. However, 28 of the Super Bowl ads did have just a hashtag. Twitter might say well that means us.

Devindra: It’s easier to find the conversations now. You don’t need the hashtag.

Leo: I guess that’s really true.

Devindra: The company name or something.

Owen: And anymore, to be honest with you, my basic core at the Super Bowl, what happened to me was I saw three commercials. I instantly went to YouTube to go find them and two of them weren’t even on YouTube yet. Which enraged my heart because I’m like what are you doing! I think it was the Nissan commercial with the dad and the racecar driver. I mean I put in every which word but loose and it wasn’t online.

Leo: You’re a father of a girl. That must…

Owen: I’m a father. I lost my father! I love my dad. My dad was my best friend. And I’m a sucker for that stuff, boy! And I’ll retweet it, I’ll share it!

Leo: How about the dad who’s driving his daughter to the airport who’s joining the military?

Larry: That hashtag for sharing, the only time I ever use a company hashtag on Twitter is when I complain about them. I mean when I was…

Leo: I think that’s the problem.

Larry: I used hash-Delta and boy did I get service as a result of that. But why else? They’re not paying me to advertise.

Leo: Why would anybody use it? Okay, when you’re watching the Grammies; okay that’s a good time for it. The Grammies should really say this is the hashtag you should use. Hashtag-the… or whatever it is. Because I want to know because I want to snark on the Grammies and I want to use their hashtag.

Owen: That was the problem with the Super Bowl. The Super Bowl had three different hashtags. SB49, SuperBowl49, or Super Bowl. So finally I was like what do I do? Because I just gave up after a while.

Leo: That’s an example. So it’s not the brand but the event you want the hashtag, right? I’m never going to hashtag Budweiser.

Larry: Unless you hate their beer.

Owen: I would at them, maybe.

Leo: Marketing land points out that Snap Chat for the first time ever was featured in a Super Bowl ad. The ad was for Pitch Perfect 2; so that’s for the young people.

Devindra: That’s a great movie. The first one was great.

Leo: I loved the first one!

Owen: I’m embarrassed to say I loved it. I had a buddy hanging out with me. And he’s like don’t go watch Pitch Perfect. I was so embarrassed. For two days we were on a road trip and he was like we’re watching it. And I’m like no, I’m not doing it. And then he put it on and I’m like oh! And he’s like you like it don’t you? And it got me and it was horrible!

Leo: So just think, can you do the heart thing? Aww!

Owen: That love!

Leo: Aww!

Owen: I’m bumping for you, Leo!

Leo: T-Mobile of course, hashtag uncarrier. They did a lot.

Larry: That worked.

Leo: Yea, that worked for them.

Devindra: The problem with hashtags is they can tell you who not to follow on Twitter, right? You can see who the marketers are and it’s like I don’t want to see what you’re doing.

Leo: Okay I love the Avocados from Mexico. They had the first draft ever; remember it was like the prehistoric times? And they had the draft. Remember that ad? But their hashtag firstdraftever. I bet you there was not one tweet with the hashtag firstdraftever. Not one! Right? Why would you use it?

Larry: Why would I tweet about them?

Leo: Why?!

Owen: Let me tell you something. I didn’t see any of this because I died. So I didn’t get a chance to see any of the show or anything.

Leo: What happened? You died?

Owen: Yea. That Nationwide commercial.

Leo: Oh that’s the worse!

Owen: I died! So I didn’t get to see…

Larry: Hashtag Idied.

Owen: People were like oh people don’t want to see serious crime. I’m like not that it was even that serious; I was trying to like this little kid. He’s wearing a tuxedo. And I finally realize he’s one of those Sixth Sense stuff, like I see dead people. And all of a sudden I realized this is sad. And I was watching the game and I was happy and drinking. Now I got a kid that I’m worried about a TV falling on her and that’s not cool!

Leo: My favorite one: it became a meme so they got their mileage out of it. But there was a lot of internet meme pictures with but I died. My favorite one was I would have given the ball to Marshawn Lynch but I died.

Owen: I did see that one, too.

Leo: I saw it before I saw the ad. And I was like I don’t get it. And then I saw the ad and I got it. That was a creepy one but they may have gotten… Toyota. Did anybody tweet with the hashtag oneboldchoice?

Owen: No.

Devindra: Not me.

Owen: I shared it but I didn’t even look at that.

Leo: BMW, hashtag hellofuture. I don’t think…

Devindra: That’s original, yea.

Owen: Well last year, what car company was it? Maserati, it had a spot and people were like why do they spend money on that? I was like because people that drive Maserati don’t really need commercials.

Larry: I remember when IBM was selling a multi-million dollar mainframe on the Super Bowl. There were 10 people who would buy such a computer.

Leo: But they’re all watching.

Larry: That’s an extensive way to reach them.

Leo: Microsoft Super Bowl ads which were very touching, the hashtag: empowering. Not one tweet! Not one tweet with hashtag empowering! We’ll end with a sad story, this is sad.

Larry: RIP.

Leo: RIP Radio Shack.

Larry: I love Radio Shack. When I was a kid, I’d buy one cable. I’d buy one switch. There was a guy who worked there that actually knew something about electronics. You go in there now and it’s a miniature Best Buy. It’s not what it was.

Owen: When I was a kid my dad worked at Radio Shack. And let me tell you, it was like the coolest thing in the world. I thought my dad was so cool.

Larry: He was.

Owen: I put those oversized headphones on. You know what I mean? I’m in there jamming, I just remember sitting in there, blowing my ears up listening to music. And my dad actually helping people solve problems. People would bring things in there and he’d be okay you need this or that. And they’d buy it, he’d open it up, put it all together for them. Say take it home and plug it in. And like that went away…

Larry: Your dad was a great guy at Radio Shack.

Leo: Two words: battery club.

Larry: That was good.

Leo: But that’s why they went out of business. Because you bought one switch, somebody else bought a battery. And Owen’s dad spent three hours explaining how headphones worked. It’s not a business.

Owen: It’s kind of funny. As a person, that one thing I saw, the page was like 43 things you can buy at Radio Shack in 1980 are now on your cell phone. It’s like oh, Radio Shack, I feel so bad for you. They put grandma out to pasture. Grandma taught us a lot!

Devindra: We can all understand why Sky Mall died, right? Sky Mall, nobody needs Sky Mall. That doesn’t need to be printed anymore. But Radio Shack, that was like legitimately useful. And it shows the very early imagination of a company. Everyone wants gadgets now, everyone wants tech. It’s the hottest thing around. How do you not make that work? These aren’t big stores. These are tiny stores. You can do something to make that work.

Leo: It feels like to me book shops closing. Like independent book stores closing all over the country. Because this was the one place in almost any town in America you could go and buy a resistor.

Owen: And they went to the model of selling lower-end things instead of moving to the higher-end things.

Leo: Remote control trucks and cell phones.

Owen: I bought my first cell phone from Radio Shack and it was like $600. Now they’re selling everything and it’s the worst of everything you can buy. They don’t have anything current. They have no imagination of what they’re saying.

Leo: I feel like if they made every Radio Shack a maker space and that sold…

Larry: Right, and they talked about that. They were going to do that and they never really followed through with it. They did a deal with the Maker Fair. They never really followed through on it.

Leo: A great opportunity. And they could have caught a tiger by the tail. Smart watches are being banned from universities because they’re worried that kids are using them to study.

Larry: What?

Owen: You mean cheat on tests.

Leo: Oh cheat. Study, cheat, it’s a small difference.

Owen: Come on, Uncle Leo.

Leo: You study ahead of time, you cheat on the exam. Is that how it works? I’m studying during the exam, that’s all.

Devindra: So that’s the next thing universities are blocking, right? Because when I was in school, they didn’t allow us to have our laptops there during class. And that was like 10 years ago. And now probably everybody has their smartphones out probably taking notes on their smartphones.

Leo: Well they banned smartphones and so the next step of course is to ban smart watches.

Larry: What they need to do is change education so that you’re testing…

Leo: I agree!

Larry: Thinking as opposed to memorization. And then you can have all the smartphones you want. We already talked about that.

Leo: We talked about it, you’re absolutely right.

Larry: It’s crazy.

Leo: Hey if you missed anything on TWiT this week, boy you missed some good stuff. Let’s take a look real quick.

Previously on TWiT: I don’t really want the mullet here, so. You don’t miss the long hair that much. Have Burke unplug the entire brick house and plug it back in again. Okay. Tech News Today: FCC chairman Tom Wheeler detailed his plan to reclassify ISPs as common carriers under Title 2 of the Telecommunications Act. You’re going to have a big fight on your hands. This is close to the worst case scenario for the ISPs. It’s close to the best case scenario for net neutrality advocates. Floss Weekly: it’s mean to sit down with the these off. A clean and start… if you can actually draw. If I could draw. It almost fits. It’s almost there. TWiT: now in color! The AT&Ts and the Comcasts of the world can bite me basically. I don’t care what they want. We need net neutrality. This is forever and it’s like the most important decision the government is going to make this decade, I think.

Leo: Awesome. Mike Elgin does TNT Monday through Friday 10am Pacific, 1pm Eastern time, 1800 UTC. You get your daily dose of tech news. He’ll be covering some big stories this week. Mike, what’s ahead?

Mike Elgin: Coming up this week, AOL and NVidia, and Cisco have earnings calls scheduled for Wednesday. One Plus is expected to reveal on Thursday more information about its own fork of Android which is called Oxygen. The company’s moving away from Cyanogen and plans to release its minimalist operating system sometime in the future. Also on Thursday, Xiaomi may hold a press conference in San Francisco. But nobody knows for sure what they’ll be talking about. It’s unlikely that the company will be launching smartphones officially in the U.S. market this week. And on Friday the 13^th, Google and toy maker Mattel are holding a New York City event to announce products they’ve been collaborating on. I for one am hoping for a new glasshole Barbie. That’s what’s coming up this week. Back to you, Leo.

Leo: Glasshole Barbie?!

Larry: I didn’t know TWiT was in color. You’re going to have get me one of those color monitors.

Leo: He left out the most important word: in living color.

Larry: Yea, because I watch it on a Mac SC.

Leo: You don’t want to watch us in black and white. You lose all the fun.

Owen: Radio Shack gone out; Barbie’s going out of style now too.

Larry: Maybe Radio Shack could by me a color…

Leo: I am intrigued. What could Mattel and Google be doing? And the fact that Xiaomi is having a press conference in San Francisco; this is a company that only sells smartphones in China. It makes me think that maybe they want to get in the U.S. market. The Xiaomi phones are really interesting. You have the Mi 4, right Jason?

Jason: Yea, we do have the Xiaomi Mi 4.

Leo: Amazing battery life!

Jason: Yea, I would say the camera is the one downside to that in my opinion. But the hardware is just really impressive. I would love to see more Xiaomi.

Leo: And I just bought a new One Plus One. I had given mine to Father Robert because I’m very interested in Oxygen. I really want to know what they’re going to do. I think Cyanogen mod is awesome but we’ll see what Oxygen does. So there’s some interesting news ahead. Make sure you tune in. Devindra Hardawar: he’s covering all sorts of things. Internet of things, gadgets, and more at ingadget.com. He’s on the Twitter, @devindra.

Devindra: Yes.

Leo: Great to have you this week. Thank you for stopping by.

Devindra: Thanks for having me.

Leo: I appreciate you. You win the big microphone prize.

Devindra: Oh yea, it’s a little close to the mic but can I plug my movie podcast too?

Leo: Oh yes! Slash Film!

Devindra: Always good to do this. Slashfilm.com; we review movies every week. And this week we’re going to do Jupiter Sending. Which nobody likes but I loved because it’s big and dumb. But it’s a lot of fun.

Leo: Is that a movie or a TV show, Jupiter Sending?

Devindra: That’s the new Wachowski Brothers’ movie.

Leo: Oh I love the Wachowskis!

Devindra: Yea their vision is always too far ahead of what they can actually put together. But I love the rendition, so it’s great.

Leo: Is that the one where Anne Hathaway’s an astronaut and her thing blows up? And George Clooney comes and…

Owen: That’s Channing Tatum.

Devindra: It’s a whole bunch of those.

Leo: It’s all of that together.

Devindra: Channing Tatum is a space wolf hybrid man.

Leo: I don’t think Channing Tatum is credible in the future.

Owen: I was going to see the movie but it got such bad reviews. And I wanted to see it so bad.

Devindra: It’s fun. If you like big, dumb sci-fi, it’s so good. It’s not meant for anybody who’s not a geek.

Leo: Who else is in that? Channing Tatum and…?

Devindra: Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Shawn…

Leo: That’s right, Mila Kunis is in that!

Devindra: Yes. Eddie Redmayne is in it. Who just played Stephen Hawking?

Leo: He was so good in the Theory of Everything.

Devindra: He is amazingly campy. It’s fun.

Leo: He transformed into Stephen Hawking in a way that was so credible that it was amazing. Just phenomenal. Alright, Jupiter Rising, Sending?

Devindra: Jupiter Sending.

Leo: I love the Wachowskis. So I will go see that for sure.

Devindra: You can hate me if you don’t like it. But I think it’s a lot of fun.

Leo: What was their last?

Devindra: They did the Cloud Atlas a couple years ago.

Leo: Yea, Cloud Atlas was good.

Devindra: It was really good. But also super-ambitious and nobody saw it. So that’s kind of the…

Leo: I read the novel and loved the novel. And I thought this would be interesting to make this into a movie. And it was about exactly what you’d expect. Like what the hell is going on here. Actually the movie was more intelligible than the movie, I have to admit.

Devindra: I think so. Actually, for me.

Leo: That’s because they could show the weird tattoo or birthmark that all these people have. Oh Doctah, you are…

Owen: I’m a man who loves you, Uncle Leo. I am a friend, a family man, I am happy for you and your exciting moves this week. Congratulations by the way on a side note. I’m happy that you had me on and you care enough to bring me back. Because I always say stuff that would usually get anybody else kicked off and I know that. But you bring me back. So that shows how much you love me and you keep me around as family. And I appreciate it, as always. Find me on the internet, @ohdoctah on Twitter. Talking about crazy stuff; Grammies in 15 minutes. Because that’s what I’m about to be doing for the rest of the night.

Leo: You do look like Suge Knight though, especially with those sunglasses on.

Owen: I was going out with my Uncle Phil last week and I had the hair going. I was wearing sweaters, practicing for Halloween. I shaved up; I do look Suge Knight-a-licious.

Leo: If you’ve got Word Press, you need Owen. If you’re using Drupal, don’t bother. Don’t walk out the door.

Owen: I’m not smart enough for Drupal apparently. That’s what the chat room told me, so I got to just accept that.

Leo: That’s so not true!

Owen: Somebody drooped some knowledge on me. You don’t understand the Drupal brother; you’ve got to get yourself together. You know what? I don’t know. You know and I don’t. I’m sorry. I apologize for the Drupal-less.

Leo: The chat room who is never wrong says it’s not pronounced Suge, it’s Suge.

Owen: See I don’t even like to correct you, Uncle Leo. Because it’s cute to me. It’s cute.

Devindra: We’re just going to let you keep doing it, Leo.

Owen: Uncle Leo is crossing the streets; he’s not from the streets. You all let him slide. You see what I’m saying?

Leo: I’m the old guy. I love that 50 cents. He’s fabulous!

Owen: It’s good musics!

Leo: It’s good musics! Good music! Alright, thank you Suge. Suge, why did he put an E on it? You don’t need an E if it’s just Suge!

Owen: If you stood next to the dude, I mean now he’s like not scary as much as he was; but he was so scary it didn’t matter what he did. He was a scary individual. Like grown men Mike Tyson’s little world were afraid of this dude.

Leo: Anybody and everybody with a record label Death Row is obviously going for that.

Owen: He hung Vanilla Ice out a window! He’s crazy!

Leo: Okay, I’m down with that. That I can get down with. Is that how the kids say it?

Owen: Vanilla Ice: Ice Ice Baby, you don’t mess with him. That’s a good dude! I mean, ninja, ninja! Go ninja, go ninja, go!

Larry: Man Owen you are a hard act of hope.

Leo: And Larry Magid. Everybody should celebrate safer internet day on Tuesday by going to…?

Larry: Saferinternetday.us. You can watch the stream at 4:15 Eastern. Come check me out at larrysworld.com where you find… by the way, check out larrysworld.com or safekids.com, an article on revenge porn. It doesn’t sound like a lot of fun. But a fascinating story.

Leo: Actually we didn’t get to that story, but California became the first state ever to convict somebody for that and I think that’s a right-on thing.

Larry: And you’ll find that story all on my websites: Safe Kids and connectsafely.org. It’s got that story. Fascinating story.

Leo: Sad to say thought, this guy kind of got a little bit of a slap on the wrist.

Larry: But it’s not about porn, it’s about betrayal. That was my lead on this. Porn is legal. Revenge porn is betrayal, a violation of trust.

Leo: And this guy was really sleazy. First he would put up a website that says send us your pictures of your ex-girlfriend and get back at them. Then he would go to the ex-girlfriend and say hey, if you give me $350, I’ll take the picture down. It’s the worst. That’s as low as you can go. He is facing up to 20 years in prison. So I take it back; that’s not exactly a slap on the wrist.

Larry: He could get some serious jail time.

Leo: Yea, I hope he does. That’s the right thing to do. Thank you, Larry. Thank you, Owen. Thank you, Devindra. We do TWiT every Sunday, 3pm Pacific, 6pm Eastern time, 2300 UTC on twit.tv. You can watch live. If you don’t watch live though, we can make it available to you if you wish. For a small fee. No it’s free! All you have to do is go to the website, twit.tv and download a copy, or iTunes, or get the apps. They’re all over the place. Roku, iOS, Android, Windows Phone even. Search for TWiT in your app store. Thank you for being here, everybody. Oh, one more sad note: Joseph Grado, the founder of Grado Labs which was the greatest headphones ever, just passed away this week at the age of 90. But he made great, great headphones. And you can still buy them. And many people consider Grado-including my friend Patrick Norton-the greatest headphones ever made. Thank you, everybody! We’ll see you next time. Another TWiT is in the can. Goodbye!