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468: You Got Your Non-Money's Worth

 

00:00:00 ◼   ► I have entered the world of winter luxury.

00:00:03 ◼   ► - Did you get new gloves or something?

00:00:05 ◼   ► - I did get new gloves.

00:00:07 ◼   ► They're okay, but like all gloves, they're at best okay.

00:00:10 ◼   ► I do think, you know,

00:00:12 ◼   ► we did get a lot of glove recommendations.

00:00:15 ◼   ► The recommendations were all over the map

00:00:17 ◼   ► and there was no consensus whatsoever

00:00:19 ◼   ► on like what might be good.

00:00:20 ◼   ► - Well, I think there were two strong themes,

00:00:22 ◼   ► both of which we, well, one of which

00:00:24 ◼   ► we definitely touched on in the show

00:00:25 ◼   ► and the other one that was,

00:00:26 ◼   ► we should have touched on it more.

00:00:28 ◼   ► One was hey mittens are warmer than gloves. A lot of people said that right and we did mention that on the show

00:00:32 ◼   ► Although it was so fast you might have missed it and the second one was layers like, you know

00:00:38 ◼   ► Wear a thing underneath a thing right on your hands

00:00:41 ◼   ► in fact

00:00:41 ◼   ► some of the some of those things that were suggested were these all-in-one things were like it's a glove on the inside and then

00:00:46 ◼   ► a mitten on the outside and you can unzip the mitten and get the glove but you can do that yourself with

00:00:49 ◼   ► Glove liners back in the 80s 90s. We have these sparkly glove liners

00:00:54 ◼   ► They look like a Michael Jackson glove for skiing.

00:01:00 ◼   ► I think the idea is that it would reflect the heat.

00:01:01 ◼   ► Honestly I don't know because I was young.

00:01:02 ◼   ► It was just like, "Here, these are glove liners.

00:01:04 ◼   ► You wear them underneath your gloves."

00:01:05 ◼   ► I was like, "Alright, whatever."

00:01:06 ◼   ► I didn't really question why they were sparkly.

00:01:08 ◼   ► They were sparkly, but you can buy ones that are not sparkly or silky or whatever.

00:01:11 ◼   ► So I feel like those are the two big themes.

00:01:13 ◼   ► Then after that it was just, "Here's the favorite glove that I've tried."

00:01:16 ◼   ► Yeah.

00:01:17 ◼   ► And I feel like part of the problem here is that this category, literally just the whole

00:01:21 ◼   ► category is bad in some way.

00:01:24 ◼   ► part of the problem is that people have vastly different

00:01:27 ◼   ► needs, like my needs, it's so funny.

00:01:30 ◼   ► People often will recommend gloves that,

00:01:34 ◼   ► I have tried either that glove or something very similar

00:01:36 ◼   ► to it and it works great when it's 40 degrees,

00:01:40 ◼   ► but you need very different things when it's 20 degrees.

00:01:43 ◼   ► And you need very different things when it's 10 degrees.

00:01:45 ◼   ► And I feel like people just think that cold is cold.

00:01:50 ◼   ► And you don't realize 20 degrees

00:01:53 ◼   ► makes a pretty big difference.

00:01:54 ◼   ► You wouldn't wear the same clothing

00:01:57 ◼   ► between a 60 degree day and an 80 degree day.

00:02:00 ◼   ► That's two very different needs.

00:02:02 ◼   ► Well, for some reason, people think,

00:02:04 ◼   ► oh, these gloves that work when it's 30

00:02:06 ◼   ► will work fine when it's 10.

00:02:07 ◼   ► Nope, doesn't work that way.

00:02:09 ◼   ► So I got some more gloves, they're okay,

00:02:11 ◼   ► and they continue my parade of okay gloves,

00:02:14 ◼   ► none of which I'm extremely happy with.

00:02:15 ◼   ► See also, to do apps, weather apps,

00:02:19 ◼   ► so many things like that in life, right?

00:02:22 ◼   ► you're like 80% happy with something at any given time.

00:02:24 ◼   ► Gloves are definitely one of those things.

00:02:25 ◼   ► But that is not the luxury I have entered.

00:02:28 ◼   ► I am podcasting right now from a top, a new heated rug.

00:02:35 ◼   ► - That's a thing? - I was gonna say.

00:02:39 ◼   ► I really thought you were gonna say

00:02:40 ◼   ► you got silk thermal underwear.

00:02:42 ◼   ► And then when you said sitting atop,

00:02:44 ◼   ► I'm like, did you get like a heating pad for your butt?

00:02:45 ◼   ► But no, it's the rug that's heated?

00:02:48 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:02:48 ◼   ► So, a place I used to live had radiant floor heat

00:02:53 ◼   ► in my office, and I loved that so much,

00:02:56 ◼   ► because it's amazing.

00:02:58 ◼   ► If you have to have a home built for winter weather,

00:03:01 ◼   ► or configured for winter weather,

00:03:03 ◼   ► trust me, you want heated floors.

00:03:06 ◼   ► It is by far the best form of heat for a house,

00:03:09 ◼   ► for almost any needs.

00:03:11 ◼   ► - Right up until it leaks.

00:03:13 ◼   ► - Well, you can also get electric heated floors,

00:03:16 ◼   ► but hydronic heated floors are very hard to leak

00:03:19 ◼   ► when they're like in a slab.

00:03:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, they're good right up until they're not.

00:03:24 ◼   ► 'Cause then you have a bunch of tubes going through

00:03:27 ◼   ► concrete that you have to break open.

00:03:28 ◼   ► The modern ones, they usually take aluminum stuff

00:03:30 ◼   ► and they nail the tubes to the underside of the subfloor,

00:03:33 ◼   ► so at least if it leaks, you have access to it.

00:03:34 ◼   ► But yeah, those things last a good 20 to 50 years,

00:03:38 ◼   ► and then it's someone else's problem.

00:03:40 ◼   ► - I mean, fair, but I mean, that's true of many

00:03:43 ◼   ► large construction projects and houses.

00:03:45 ◼   ► Like that's not that unreasonable.

00:03:46 ◼   ► - But usually not heating.

00:03:47 ◼   ► Like if you think about the stupid radiators in my house,

00:03:50 ◼   ► put in here in the 30s and still going strong.

00:03:53 ◼   ► Like there's the bearing stuff in the floor

00:03:55 ◼   ► is A, not accessible and B, subject to all sorts of things

00:03:59 ◼   ► that just bear pipes going through the wall,

00:04:00 ◼   ► not subject to.

00:04:01 ◼   ► But your point stands, you're gonna be out of the house

00:04:03 ◼   ► by the time this happens.

00:04:04 ◼   ► So yes, if you're getting a house and you have a choice,

00:04:07 ◼   ► put the heating in the floor and then when you die

00:04:09 ◼   ► or move out, someone else will deal with it.

00:04:11 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:04:12 ◼   ► And so, I don't have that here, and I missed it dearly.

00:04:17 ◼   ► And I've tried, you know, last winter I tried,

00:04:19 ◼   ► oh, let me just try turning the heat up

00:04:22 ◼   ► a few more degrees in the room.

00:04:23 ◼   ► And that doesn't really solve the problem.

00:04:25 ◼   ► Like, my feet and legs would be kind of cold,

00:04:28 ◼   ► or my hands would be kind of cold,

00:04:29 ◼   ► but the rest of me would be fine.

00:04:30 ◼   ► - Are you not wearing slippers?

00:04:32 ◼   ► - No, I am wearing slippers.

00:04:33 ◼   ► - What kind of slippers?

00:04:34 ◼   ► - Well, in all fairness, they're not technically slippers.

00:04:39 ◼   ► - Oh, here we go.

00:04:40 ◼   ► - They are what the website described, I believe,

00:04:42 ◼   ► as driving moccasins.

00:04:44 ◼   ► Like, they're slippers. - What?

00:04:45 ◼   ► - They're just, they're slippers with heavy rubber.

00:04:47 ◼   ► - Can we get a link to this?

00:04:48 ◼   ► Can we get a link to this so we can have a ruling?

00:04:50 ◼   ► - I'm gonna find a link to what I'm wearing right now,

00:04:53 ◼   ► which is the latest in a long line

00:04:54 ◼   ► of mildly satisfactory slippers.

00:04:58 ◼   ► Can you guess that the ones I know you get,

00:04:59 ◼   ► they don't make them anymore?

00:05:00 ◼   ► Can you guess? - You don't say.

00:05:01 ◼   ► - I'm so surprised.

00:05:03 ◼   ► - Well, actually, no, it's not true.

00:05:03 ◼   ► They make them, but they don't make them in wide anymore.

00:05:05 ◼   ► I'm like, seriously, you still make them,

00:05:06 ◼   ► but you don't make them in wide?

00:05:08 ◼   ► - There's nothing about your body

00:05:09 ◼   ► that has ever in its entire existence been wide.

00:05:11 ◼   ► You clean, you have wide feet.

00:05:14 ◼   ► - My feet, with slippers, I like the gloves,

00:05:17 ◼   ► I like them to be oversized for extra warmth.

00:05:18 ◼   ► These are the ones that I'm currently wearing right now.

00:05:21 ◼   ► I've got complaints about them, but--

00:05:23 ◼   ► - You?

00:05:24 ◼   ► - Lack of warmth is not one of them.

00:05:25 ◼   ► - See, these giant, like, the ones that have, like,

00:05:27 ◼   ► basically, like, an entire rabbit stuffed inside of them,

00:05:30 ◼   ► like, all this fuzz coming out,

00:05:31 ◼   ► that to me is, it's like too, it's too fuzzy.

00:05:34 ◼   ► - It'll keep your feet warm.

00:05:36 ◼   ► - Well, that's too warm.

00:05:38 ◼   ► That'll make my feet too warm.

00:05:39 ◼   ► So what I wear is basically uninsulated,

00:05:43 ◼   ► how to put the link, these Duluth.

00:05:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, these are nowhere near slippers.

00:05:48 ◼   ► They're not even in the vicinity of slippers.

00:05:50 ◼   ► - They're called slippers right there in the title.

00:05:52 ◼   ► I don't know how these aren't slippers.

00:05:53 ◼   ► I know what you're talking about.

00:05:54 ◼   ► You can't slip your feet into them.

00:05:55 ◼   ► - No, he's talking about mine.

00:05:56 ◼   ► - You can.

00:05:56 ◼   ► - No, I'm talking about Marcos.

00:05:58 ◼   ► I haven't even looked.

00:05:59 ◼   ► Oh yeah, yours are preposterous.

00:06:00 ◼   ► I've seen these in action.

00:06:01 ◼   ► They're ridiculous.

00:06:02 ◼   ► But I don't doubt that they're incredibly worn.

00:06:04 ◼   ► - You haven't seen these.

00:06:05 ◼   ► You've seen similar ones, yeah.

00:06:06 ◼   ► I see what you, yeah.

00:06:08 ◼   ► Those are actually, yeah, they're driving shoes.

00:06:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, these are not slippers, Marc.

00:06:13 ◼   ► - I've never driven in them, that's stupid.

00:06:15 ◼   ► - I do, let me just say I do like the fact

00:06:17 ◼   ► that they have rubber bottom things on,

00:06:20 ◼   ► because that's a thing people miss about slippers.

00:06:22 ◼   ► When buying, if you're going to buy, you know,

00:06:24 ◼   ► half year, you know, six month slippers like I do,

00:06:27 ◼   ► it is good to have a sole on them

00:06:28 ◼   ► that you can walk outside in to like,

00:06:31 ◼   ► go get the mail or take the dog out

00:06:32 ◼   ► for a brief walk or whatever.

00:06:34 ◼   ► - Hard agree, hard agree on that.

00:06:35 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, I do that all the time.

00:06:37 ◼   ► If it's clean and dry outside,

00:06:39 ◼   ► yeah, I'll take the trash out wearing these, it's fine.

00:06:42 ◼   ► So anyway, I do wear slippers, however,

00:06:44 ◼   ► I was not, I just wasn't getting the kind of warmth

00:06:47 ◼   ► that I knew that a heated floor could offer.

00:06:49 ◼   ► And so first I looked at,

00:06:51 ◼   ► should I get one of those little panel heaters

00:06:53 ◼   ► and put under my desk for supplemental heating?

00:06:55 ◼   ► - What do you mean by panel heater?

00:06:56 ◼   ► - It's basically a radiant space heater,

00:06:59 ◼   ► but there's a whole category of them

00:07:01 ◼   ► that are made to go under desks,

00:07:03 ◼   ► and it's a vertical panel

00:07:05 ◼   ► that just radiates heat onto your legs.

00:07:07 ◼   ► The reviews were all really mediocre

00:07:08 ◼   ► and they looked like they sucked

00:07:10 ◼   ► and I didn't want that under my desk.

00:07:11 ◼   ► And I tried, at first, I tried this little tiny

00:07:14 ◼   ► like $40 heat mat that's like the size of like,

00:07:19 ◼   ► I don't know, it's like an 11 by 17 piece of paper,

00:07:21 ◼   ► like that kind of size.

00:07:22 ◼   ► - You have to keep your feet directly on

00:07:24 ◼   ► and hit the little piece of paper.

00:07:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I tried that and it did work

00:07:28 ◼   ► in the sense that it was pleasant and it kept my feet warm,

00:07:32 ◼   ► but it was, first of all, really cheap and crappy looking.

00:07:36 ◼   ► It's not something I was proud to show at my office.

00:07:38 ◼   ► And it just was such a tiny little area.

00:07:41 ◼   ► And so it's like, I want something bigger.

00:07:43 ◼   ► So I started looking for,

00:07:44 ◼   ► do they make larger versions of that?

00:07:47 ◼   ► And it turns out there's this whole category

00:07:49 ◼   ► of basically heat pads that you put under rugs

00:07:53 ◼   ► that are made to heat rugs.

00:07:56 ◼   ► Now my office didn't have a rug,

00:07:57 ◼   ► so I went through the process of finding a rug I liked.

00:08:00 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:08:02 ◼   ► - Can we see the rug too?

00:08:03 ◼   ► Put some links in this.

00:08:04 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's a ruggable thing, it doesn't matter.

00:08:06 ◼   ► Does it have like a race track on the road or no?

00:08:09 ◼   ► Actually, it kind of does.

00:08:11 ◼   ► You could get up some cars and--

00:08:13 ◼   ► I'm in.

00:08:14 ◼   ► That's actually not that far from the design.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Hold on, I'll find the design.

00:08:19 ◼   ► A race track, though, you could have like a town

00:08:21 ◼   ► where you have roads, but then there's like a post office

00:08:23 ◼   ► and like the--

00:08:23 ◼   ► Yeah, yeah, like the kids-- yeah,

00:08:25 ◼   ► you have them in your kids' rooms.

00:08:26 ◼   ► That was actually the rug we had like in our downstairs,

00:08:29 ◼   ► like a den area for the longest time.

00:08:32 ◼   ► I think IKEA still makes those.

00:08:33 ◼   ► And the kids grew out of it, and we still have the rug there.

00:08:36 ◼   ► and I guess it eventually occurred to us

00:08:38 ◼   ► when the kids are both approaching teenagers

00:08:40 ◼   ► that we probably don't need that rug anymore.

00:08:42 ◼   ► - So you actually kept something

00:08:44 ◼   ► for a long time in your house, Jon?

00:08:45 ◼   ► - Yeah. - No, surely not.

00:08:47 ◼   ► - I think we've still got a lot of baby clothes, so.

00:08:50 ◼   ► - I'm surprised, it only lasted one generation so far.

00:08:52 ◼   ► That's the bigger surprise.

00:08:54 ◼   ► - I don't think that rug is an erratic,

00:08:56 ◼   ► at least I hope it isn't, but if it is, throw it out.

00:08:58 ◼   ► - All right, here's my rug.

00:08:59 ◼   ► It's the ruggable-- - Ruggable.

00:09:01 ◼   ► - Metro Slate Blue Rug.

00:09:03 ◼   ► - Your Instagram victim.

00:09:04 ◼   ► - Well, this is a racetrack.

00:09:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I told you, it kind of is.

00:09:07 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:09:08 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:09:09 ◼   ► All right, no, that's cute.

00:09:11 ◼   ► How big is it?

00:09:12 ◼   ► - Five by seven.

00:09:13 ◼   ► 'Cause that's enough to go under the whole area

00:09:15 ◼   ► that I put my feet, plus to go under my chair,

00:09:17 ◼   ► that way I don't have to run the chair

00:09:18 ◼   ► over the rug to floor transition.

00:09:20 ◼   ► It's kind of hard to run the chair over this rug now,

00:09:24 ◼   ► 'cause it's like the ruggable rug itself,

00:09:27 ◼   ► 'cause it's a thin rug with a thin liner behind it

00:09:30 ◼   ► that keeps it from scooting around.

00:09:32 ◼   ► Then the heat pad, which is like a giant foil thing,

00:09:35 ◼   ► then under the heat pad is the insulation mat as well.

00:09:39 ◼   ► So it's like four layers of rug stuff,

00:09:42 ◼   ► but my God, is it nice.

00:09:43 ◼   ► - Well, when your house goes up,

00:09:45 ◼   ► this'll be good for insurance purposes.

00:09:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:09:49 ◼   ► - I think it's done in a fairly conservative way.

00:09:53 ◼   ► Everything is pretty conservative on it.

00:09:55 ◼   ► So it's very well guarded, and it's only 300 watts.

00:09:59 ◼   ► It's not that much power.

00:10:01 ◼   ► So yeah, so it's glorious.

00:10:04 ◼   ► - Did you ever put a link to the heating thing?

00:10:06 ◼   ► - No, hold on, I'll dig that up too, hold on.

00:10:09 ◼   ► - I saw a lot of bad reviews.

00:10:10 ◼   ► When I first got assaulted by Ruggable ads on Instagram,

00:10:12 ◼   ► I looked up some YouTube reviews

00:10:14 ◼   ► and there were a lot of complaints about them.

00:10:16 ◼   ► - Yes, here, so here, the ones on Amazon

00:10:19 ◼   ► all seem to have really wacky reviews

00:10:21 ◼   ► and also the Amazon ones seem to be based

00:10:23 ◼   ► on either Asian or European rug sizes

00:10:25 ◼   ► and so I couldn't find one that would fit

00:10:28 ◼   ► under any size rug that Ruggable sold

00:10:30 ◼   ► and I wanted one of their rug,

00:10:31 ◼   ► so I knew they were okay and they were pretty cheap.

00:10:34 ◼   ► And so here, so the one I got is from CozyWinters.com.

00:10:37 ◼   ► The RugHeat brand is the mat.

00:10:40 ◼   ► And this brand did not appear

00:10:41 ◼   ► to be reliably available on Amazon.

00:10:43 ◼   ► But I got it through here, it was great.

00:10:45 ◼   ► And yeah, five by seven, it's glorious.

00:10:47 ◼   ► - It's got a little hair dryer GFCI thing or something

00:10:50 ◼   ► in the wire, which is nice.

00:10:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, like a giant, it's basically a giant GFI thing

00:10:54 ◼   ► on the--

00:10:55 ◼   ► - And then, what was I gonna say?

00:10:58 ◼   ► What I need, speaking of things I don't need through rugs,

00:11:00 ◼   ► is I need a, something with more traction

00:11:03 ◼   ► because when people are in front of our house,

00:11:05 ◼   ► my dog is very upset about it

00:11:06 ◼   ► and she runs back and forth from one rug to the other.

00:11:09 ◼   ► And each time she changes direction on the rug,

00:11:10 ◼   ► she shifts it and I always have a rug like in front

00:11:12 ◼   ► of my door so when you come into the house,

00:11:14 ◼   ► the first thing you step onto is not a hardwood floor

00:11:16 ◼   ► is put onto this rug.

00:11:18 ◼   ► And she's constantly forever like moving that rug

00:11:21 ◼   ► by little bits at a time and I'm constantly moving it back.

00:11:23 ◼   ► And it's got one of those traction pads underneath it,

00:11:25 ◼   ► one of those kind of like mesh rubbery things.

00:11:27 ◼   ► But when it's only like a small like area rug

00:11:30 ◼   ► for just the front of the door,

00:11:32 ◼   ► It just, you know, it doesn't have enough weight

00:11:34 ◼   ► to get traction.

00:11:35 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:11:36 ◼   ► - And yeah.

00:11:37 ◼   ► - Well, I'll tell you what, like,

00:11:37 ◼   ► on this page it says, "Note you must use a non-slip rug pad."

00:11:40 ◼   ► That rug pad that I, that's the one I got for under it,

00:11:43 ◼   ► it is extraordinarily non-slip.

00:11:45 ◼   ► Like that's, you actually might want to guess a small one.

00:11:48 ◼   ► - What's the, what is it made out of?

00:11:50 ◼   ► I mean, the problem is the rug size.

00:11:52 ◼   ► Like, I mean, 'cause if you can imagine,

00:11:53 ◼   ► if you made a three inch--

00:11:54 ◼   ► - Well, you cut it.

00:11:55 ◼   ► - A three inch by three inch rug,

00:11:56 ◼   ► no amount of like non-slip stuff would work

00:11:58 ◼   ► unless it was literally sticky like tape, right?

00:12:01 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I would imagine after a while,

00:12:04 ◼   ► if it was moving frequently,

00:12:05 ◼   ► then it might pick up enough dust

00:12:07 ◼   ► that it might lose its grippiness,

00:12:08 ◼   ► but it's pretty, like it was grippy enough

00:12:11 ◼   ► that once it's down, you really can't scoot it around.

00:12:15 ◼   ► - Unless a dog runs at it

00:12:16 ◼   ► and then changes direction suddenly while on the rug.

00:12:19 ◼   ► - Right, yeah, and if you have a very small rug,

00:12:22 ◼   ► that's gonna be obviously more likely to happen,

00:12:23 ◼   ► but I can tell you, if you somehow put a five by seven rug

00:12:27 ◼   ► in that area, it's not going anywhere.

00:12:30 ◼   ► Yeah, I got those like 3M tacky stuff underneath.

00:12:33 ◼   ► There's lots of things I can do,

00:12:34 ◼   ► but instead of just resign to moving it.

00:12:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, what's the micro, not microfiber,

00:12:38 ◼   ► the micro suction tape? - Micro suction tape?

00:12:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, something that's actually sticky would probably help.

00:12:43 ◼   ► Of course, then you need it to stick

00:12:45 ◼   ► to the underside of the rug as well,

00:12:46 ◼   ► which is often the problem.

00:12:47 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:12:48 ◼   ► - Oh man.

00:12:50 ◼   ► You know, it's funny hearing you talk about, you know,

00:12:52 ◼   ► the difference between 60 and 80 degrees

00:12:54 ◼   ► and 30 and 10 degrees.

00:12:55 ◼   ► And I'm just reminded how much better Fahrenheit is

00:12:58 ◼   ► for ambient air temperature than anything else.

00:13:00 ◼   ► 'Cause what's the difference between 60 and 80 in Celsius?

00:13:02 ◼   ► Like 16 to 17 or something like that?

00:13:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's like one degree.

00:13:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's an entire 20 degrees in Fahrenheit,

00:13:10 ◼   ► because you can tell the difference in Fahrenheit

00:13:12 ◼   ► between just a degree or two.

00:13:14 ◼   ► But in Celsius, it's like a degree

00:13:17 ◼   ► to cover that entire delta.

00:13:18 ◼   ► - It makes me think, how do they,

00:13:20 ◼   ► do all thermostats have fractional,

00:13:22 ◼   ► maybe it must have fractional degrees.

00:13:23 ◼   ► - It's barbaric, John, it's barbaric.

00:13:27 ◼   ► Can you imagine going through life saying,

00:13:28 ◼   ► "Oh, it's 16.5, like come on."

00:13:31 ◼   ► No.

00:13:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, or like to wake up at 17.35.

00:13:36 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:13:37 ◼   ► - All right, let's do some follow up.

00:13:39 ◼   ► Google has shipped tapback parsing.

00:13:43 ◼   ► That's a tongue twister.

00:13:44 ◼   ► So we talked about this,

00:13:45 ◼   ► I think it was just last week or the week before,

00:13:47 ◼   ► and we were lamenting how you can see,

00:13:49 ◼   ► like Jason liked blah, blah, blah in iMessage

00:13:52 ◼   ► and SMS group chats, or I guess SMS,

00:13:54 ◼   ► or really MMS group chats, strictly speaking.

00:13:57 ◼   ► - It's pronounced mms.

00:13:58 ◼   ► - In the mms group chat.

00:14:00 ◼   ► And yes, this is where everyone that's not American says,

00:14:02 ◼   ► "Why are you using iMessage or whatever for this?

00:14:05 ◼   ► "I understand, because we're weird, that's why."

00:14:07 ◼   ► We're not weird because of Fahrenheit, mind you,

00:14:09 ◼   ► we're right about that,

00:14:09 ◼   ► but maybe we're a little wrong about this.

00:14:11 ◼   ► - And to be fair, the metric system is superior

00:14:14 ◼   ► in pretty much every other way.

00:14:16 ◼   ► - I don't think it's pretty much in every other way.

00:14:19 ◼   ► In literally every other way.

00:14:21 ◼   ► - Except when describing ambient air temperature for humans.

00:14:24 ◼   ► - Right.

00:14:25 ◼   ► - That is clearly Fahrenheit superior.

00:14:27 ◼   ► I will give you the metric system

00:14:28 ◼   ► for literally everything else.

00:14:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'll use it for cooking, that's fine.

00:14:32 ◼   ► - I do, yeah, I always like, well first of all,

00:14:35 ◼   ► sorry for the tangent.

00:14:36 ◼   ► First of all, when I was doing my bake-off last week,

00:14:41 ◼   ► one of the things that I sought out when looking for a recipe

00:14:45 ◼   ► was a recipe that gave me the ingredients in weight.

00:14:49 ◼   ► Because for the love of God, I don't need,

00:14:51 ◼   ► don't tell me to add a cup of pistachios

00:14:55 ◼   ► What does that mean?

00:14:56 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:14:59 ◼   ► Like, give me grams.

00:15:00 ◼   ► How many grams?

00:15:01 ◼   ► I have a kitchen scale that weighs in grams.

00:15:02 ◼   ► Give me grams.

00:15:03 ◼   ► Like, that's what I want.

00:15:04 ◼   ► And yeah, so metric is great for that.

00:15:06 ◼   ► Cooking by weight is wonderful

00:15:07 ◼   ► and so much better than volumetric measurements

00:15:09 ◼   ► for things that are not liquids.

00:15:10 ◼   ► It's fantastic, so yeah.

00:15:12 ◼   ► - We get everything wrong.

00:15:13 ◼   ► We get everything wrong except Fahrenheit.

00:15:15 ◼   ► That's the only thing we've got.

00:15:17 ◼   ► So we gotta cling to it because we do dates wrong.

00:15:20 ◼   ► Like, month to year, no.

00:15:22 ◼   ► No, that's preposterous.

00:15:23 ◼   ► - YMD is the only way to go.

00:15:24 ◼   ► and it depends on the context,

00:15:26 ◼   ► but it's either YMD or DMY, one or the other.

00:15:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, what did I come across recently that had dates?

00:15:31 ◼   ► Oh, I think it was the, I was scanning pictures

00:15:35 ◼   ► and they had the little burned in dates, you know,

00:15:36 ◼   ► one of those. - Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:15:38 ◼   ► - And I transcribed the first maybe 20 or 30 of them wrong

00:15:42 ◼   ► until I hit something where I said, wait a second,

00:15:44 ◼   ► there's no month 29.

00:15:46 ◼   ► Wait a second.

00:15:48 ◼   ► 'Cause it was two digit day, two digit month,

00:15:50 ◼   ► two digit year.

00:15:52 ◼   ► And that is just wrong, I'm sorry.

00:15:54 ◼   ► - See, for normal colloquial use, I'll do day, month, year,

00:15:58 ◼   ► because it's unusual for scheduling things

00:16:00 ◼   ► that you're gonna worry about another year.

00:16:02 ◼   ► Now, if you're sorting stuff, then absolutely,

00:16:04 ◼   ► you're, what is it, year, month, day?

00:16:05 ◼   ► - Why am I being misspoke?

00:16:07 ◼   ► You mean month, day, year.

00:16:08 ◼   ► - Oh, no, he doesn't.

00:16:09 ◼   ► So you're saying 25th January, that's--

00:16:12 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh yeah. - Oh, God.

00:16:13 ◼   ► - Because I'm that jerk, because we get it wrong.

00:16:15 ◼   ► We get it wrong, it's stupid. - See, that, to me,

00:16:17 ◼   ► the only way that's defensible is if you're European,

00:16:20 ◼   ► in which case you're charming and it's not your fault,

00:16:22 ◼   ► but if you are actually using the month name

00:16:26 ◼   ► or abbreviation instead of the number.

00:16:28 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, we're just talking about numbers here.

00:16:29 ◼   ► If you're writing out the words,

00:16:31 ◼   ► there's an obvious way to do it,

00:16:32 ◼   ► but if you're not writing out words

00:16:33 ◼   ► and you're just doing numbers,

00:16:34 ◼   ► it's either ISO, whatever that thing is,

00:16:36 ◼   ► where it's your month day,

00:16:37 ◼   ► which everybody understands and sorts and is nice,

00:16:39 ◼   ► and everybody loves it right up until the year 9999 moment

00:16:42 ◼   ► when the entire planet, if they're still around,

00:16:44 ◼   ► is gonna curse us all, right?

00:16:45 ◼   ► Fine.

00:16:46 ◼   ► But in this country, it's month day, month day, year.

00:16:50 ◼   ► - That's so big.

00:16:51 ◼   ► when you just use numbers, that's the rule.

00:16:53 ◼   ► And I know it's bad and people don't like it,

00:16:55 ◼   ► it doesn't make sense and so on and so forth,

00:16:56 ◼   ► but it has a lot of utility.

00:16:58 ◼   ► And if you're in this country, Casey,

00:16:59 ◼   ► do not do day, month, year with digits.

00:17:01 ◼   ► You're angry people.

00:17:02 ◼   ► - Well, it depends.

00:17:03 ◼   ► If it's for myself, I'll do day, month, year.

00:17:05 ◼   ► If it's for other people, then yeah, yeah.

00:17:06 ◼   ► - But you'll have no idea except for when the days

00:17:08 ◼   ► pass the number of months.

00:17:09 ◼   ► - Ah, no, I always know.

00:17:11 ◼   ► - For the first 12 days of the month, it'll be ambiguous.

00:17:14 ◼   ► - If it's for yourself, it's YMD,

00:17:16 ◼   ► 'cause then you're a programmer and you can sort things.

00:17:17 ◼   ► - Oh, no.

00:17:19 ◼   ► - Well, see, here's the thing, we're getting sidetracked.

00:17:20 ◼   ► I was really having fun, making fun

00:17:22 ◼   ► of how stupid Celsius is for ambient air temperature,

00:17:25 ◼   ► 'cause it's so bad.

00:17:26 ◼   ► - Agreed.

00:17:27 ◼   ► - And we get everything else wrong.

00:17:28 ◼   ► And it's so funny how dug in the entire planet is

00:17:32 ◼   ► on Celsius for ambient air temperature,

00:17:33 ◼   ► and it's so stupid and wrong.

00:17:35 ◼   ► It's preposterous how wrong it is.

00:17:38 ◼   ► - Well, we screwed up the calendar too with,

00:17:40 ◼   ► I forget what the historical reason of,

00:17:41 ◼   ► I think it was like some, was it Greek or Roman people

00:17:43 ◼   ► shoved in some months themselves

00:17:45 ◼   ► and screwed up the numbering,

00:17:45 ◼   ► so oct isn't the eight month and dec isn't the 10th month,

00:17:48 ◼   ► It's all messed up now.

00:17:50 ◼   ► - I actually also print,

00:17:52 ◼   ► so we have a printed family calendar on the fridge

00:17:54 ◼   ► just for a quick reference,

00:17:55 ◼   ► and we start the week on Monday

00:17:58 ◼   ► because the Europeans get that right too.

00:18:00 ◼   ► The weekends should be together on the end of the line.

00:18:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't necessarily agree on that one.

00:18:05 ◼   ► - Not down with that.

00:18:06 ◼   ► - No.

00:18:07 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, you guys can be wrong all by yourself.

00:18:08 ◼   ► - There's a Roblotta Night episode about it.

00:18:10 ◼   ► Check it out.

00:18:11 ◼   ► - All right, so let's get back

00:18:12 ◼   ► to what we were trying to talk about.

00:18:13 ◼   ► Google shipped Tapback Parsons.

00:18:15 ◼   ► So instead of saying Casey likes this message,

00:18:18 ◼   ► Casey likes this message about how Celsius is dumb,

00:18:21 ◼   ► then apparently it will say something different.

00:18:23 ◼   ► So let me read a quote from, I believe this is Macworld,

00:18:26 ◼   ► instead of quote, Jason liked this message, quote,

00:18:28 ◼   ► "When an iPhone user selects a tapback,

00:18:29 ◼   ► "Android users will see a small emoji

00:18:31 ◼   ► "under the message rather than above it,

00:18:32 ◼   ► "but otherwise they function just like they would

00:18:34 ◼   ► "if they were using an iPhone.

00:18:35 ◼   ► "As a result, iPhone users won't have their conversations

00:18:37 ◼   ► "cluttered with tapback text,

00:18:38 ◼   ► "and Android users won't feel like second-class citizens.

00:18:41 ◼   ► "It's a true win-win and the smartest messaging feature

00:18:43 ◼   ► "Google's implemented in years."

00:18:45 ◼   ► Which isn't saying much

00:18:46 ◼   ► because how many messaging protocols and things

00:18:48 ◼   ► Have they canned in the last 10 years?

00:18:50 ◼   ► - It's a big number.

00:18:51 ◼   ► I forgot someone did an article about it.

00:18:52 ◼   ► I think it was double digits, right?

00:18:53 ◼   ► - Yeah.

00:18:54 ◼   ► So apparently, and then to be clear,

00:18:57 ◼   ► this is shipping as of I think today or yesterday.

00:18:59 ◼   ► And then continuing very briefly,

00:19:01 ◼   ► tapping the emoji brings up a banner

00:19:03 ◼   ► at the bottom of the screen that says translated from iPhone

00:19:05 ◼   ► with the appropriate emoji.

00:19:06 ◼   ► Responses come in as quickly as a text

00:19:08 ◼   ► and even have a nice bit of animation

00:19:10 ◼   ► that feels incredibly natural as per Macworld.

00:19:12 ◼   ► So I think this is excellent.

00:19:14 ◼   ► I wish, like we had said an episode or two ago,

00:19:16 ◼   ► I wish there was the same on the incoming side, because if

00:19:19 ◼   ► you're in a group chat with iPhones and Android phones,

00:19:25 ◼   ► you'll see, like, Katie liked blah, blah, blah.

00:19:27 ◼   ► And I wish that Apple just parsed those.

00:19:28 ◼   ► I understand why it isn't entirely reliable 1,000% of

00:19:32 ◼   ► the time, but I don't care.

00:19:33 ◼   ► So that's shipping now.

00:19:34 ◼   ► And so I sent this link to my brother-in-law, who is the

00:19:38 ◼   ► lone Android person on a four-person group chat between

00:19:41 ◼   ► Aaron, me, him, and his wife.

00:19:43 ◼   ► And do you wanna guess what his response was?

00:19:46 ◼   ► - He can't update his phone to that version.

00:19:48 ◼   ► - Very, very good guess.

00:19:50 ◼   ► That is not correct though.

00:19:52 ◼   ► Excellent guess though.

00:19:52 ◼   ► I award you full points even though

00:19:54 ◼   ► that is not the correct answer.

00:19:55 ◼   ► - Hmm, I don't know.

00:19:57 ◼   ► - Hmm, too bad I don't use Google's message app.

00:19:59 ◼   ► - Oh, of course.

00:20:00 ◼   ► You know what? - Of course.

00:20:01 ◼   ► - Android people, you can have the world

00:20:05 ◼   ► you've made for yourself.

00:20:07 ◼   ► - Exactly.

00:20:08 ◼   ► - I would like to have a diversity of messaging apps

00:20:11 ◼   ► and be able to use iMessage from third party clients.

00:20:13 ◼   ► - Well, that's fair, that's fair.

00:20:15 ◼   ► - Sorry for doing another tangent here,

00:20:16 ◼   ► but this continues to just boggle my mind,

00:20:19 ◼   ► and I don't actually talk to the people

00:20:21 ◼   ► who I see do this, 'cause I don't wanna bother them,

00:20:23 ◼   ► but here, I'm on a podcast, I'm gonna say it again.

00:20:25 ◼   ► Every time I see somebody who I know,

00:20:28 ◼   ► or someone who I know is like a tech nerd or whatever,

00:20:30 ◼   ► just complain on a podcast about how annoyed they are

00:20:35 ◼   ► about being assaulted by ads in Twitter,

00:20:37 ◼   ► and the trending tweets and promoted tweets,

00:20:39 ◼   ► and all the ads they see on Twitter,

00:20:40 ◼   ► and I just go like, what are you doing?

00:20:43 ◼   ► Why?

00:20:45 ◼   ► Why are you ever seeing ads in Twitter?

00:20:47 ◼   ► And I think like, don't say that to them,

00:20:48 ◼   ► 'cause they know, it's not like they don't know.

00:20:50 ◼   ► There must be something about the official client

00:20:52 ◼   ► that is part of how they do it.

00:20:53 ◼   ► And I go through this whole thing,

00:20:54 ◼   ► I'm like, maybe they're really into like trending topics,

00:20:57 ◼   ► or like, they don't, they follow 800 people,

00:21:00 ◼   ► so they can't use their timeline normally,

00:21:02 ◼   ► so all they can ever do is look at hashtags

00:21:04 ◼   ► and trending things, like is there something,

00:21:06 ◼   ► because third party clients don't have access

00:21:08 ◼   ► to all the stuff the official client has,

00:21:10 ◼   ► and I'm like, what is keeping you on the official site?

00:21:13 ◼   ► For people who don't know,

00:21:14 ◼   ► if you use a third party Twitter client,

00:21:16 ◼   ► you don't see any ads on Twitter.

00:21:17 ◼   ► You never see a promoted tweet,

00:21:18 ◼   ► you never see an ad, ever, ever, ever, right?

00:21:21 ◼   ► You also don't get trending topics promoted,

00:21:24 ◼   ► like there's a whole bunch of features you don't get,

00:21:25 ◼   ► but if you don't care about that,

00:21:26 ◼   ► if you just want a time-ordered set,

00:21:28 ◼   ► a list of tweets from people you follow, right?

00:21:30 ◼   ► Third party clients can give you that.

00:21:32 ◼   ► And all these tech nerds I know, they know this,

00:21:34 ◼   ► they know this.

00:21:35 ◼   ► Sometimes they have these third party clients installed

00:21:37 ◼   ► and they use them sometimes,

00:21:38 ◼   ► But then they come on and say, oh, every fourth tweet is an ad.

00:21:42 ◼   ► It's like, what?

00:21:43 ◼   ► What are you doing?

00:21:44 ◼   ► Anyway, I'm sure everyone has their reasons.

00:21:46 ◼   ► There must be something about the official client

00:21:49 ◼   ► that third-party clients don't have.

00:21:50 ◼   ► It just kills me, though.

00:21:52 ◼   ► If you're annoyed by Twitter ads and you

00:21:54 ◼   ► don't care about any of the features that

00:21:56 ◼   ► are only in the official Twitter client,

00:21:58 ◼   ► please use a third-party Twitter client on your iPhone.

00:22:00 ◼   ► I don't know what the situation is on Android.

00:22:02 ◼   ► I'm sure there's a bunch of things you can get.

00:22:04 ◼   ► And then you just never see an ad again.

00:22:06 ◼   ► It's great.

00:22:06 ◼   ► Try it.

00:22:07 ◼   ► I know real honest to goodness nerds,

00:22:10 ◼   ► like people in our social circles,

00:22:12 ◼   ► that use the official client and swear by it,

00:22:14 ◼   ► and for the life of me, I do not understand it.

00:22:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, it's gotta be one of those features

00:22:18 ◼   ► that we don't use in third-party clients

00:22:19 ◼   ► that only exists in the official one.

00:22:21 ◼   ► Like that they don't browse their timeline,

00:22:23 ◼   ► or they only look at trending topics.

00:22:25 ◼   ► I don't even know what all the features are,

00:22:26 ◼   ► but there's surely some features that you can't do

00:22:28 ◼   ► for a third-party client that are only in the first party,

00:22:30 ◼   ► and that's how they use Twitter.

00:22:31 ◼   ► So if you don't have that feature, it's pointless to them.

00:22:34 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't get it.

00:22:35 ◼   ► John, can you tell me about a friend of ours

00:22:37 ◼   ► who is an Academy member?

00:22:39 ◼   ► - Sure.

00:22:40 ◼   ► Feedback about screeners.

00:22:42 ◼   ► The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

00:22:44 ◼   ► has an app for a few years that provides streaming screeners

00:22:46 ◼   ► and this is the first year where they were prohibited

00:22:48 ◼   ► from physical screeners to be sent to its members.

00:22:51 ◼   ► So that's, you know, cool.

00:22:52 ◼   ► If you think about all the different things

00:22:53 ◼   ► that have screeners, you know, the Oscars,

00:22:56 ◼   ► the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences,

00:22:59 ◼   ► probably gonna be like the top tier,

00:23:01 ◼   ► they have the best, the most money,

00:23:02 ◼   ► the most ability to move away from silly plastic discs.

00:23:05 ◼   ► Anyway, continuing this feedback.

00:23:08 ◼   ► "So the other guilds and groups are following the Academy's lead.

00:23:10 ◼   ► Physical screeners are environmentally wasteful and are much more expensive to create and

00:23:13 ◼   ► ship than digital streamers and much easier to pirate, and are also more difficult for

00:23:17 ◼   ► small studios to produce and send out."

00:23:19 ◼   ► That's another thing I hadn't thought of.

00:23:20 ◼   ► Like, if you're a small independent movie studio, you have to get a bunch of plastic

00:23:24 ◼   ► discs printed, which is probably hard to do now because it's not as common as it used

00:23:28 ◼   ► to be, whereas you just upload a digital file to something and it'd be way easier.

00:23:32 ◼   ► Anyway, continuing.

00:23:33 ◼   ► As of right now, 162 movies are available to stream on the Academy app.

00:23:38 ◼   ► So I guess everyone can't be an Academy member, but it's good to know that even that part

00:23:42 ◼   ► of the industry is slowly moving into the modern age.

00:23:46 ◼   ► We are sponsored this week by Linode, my favorite place to run servers.

00:23:50 ◼   ► Now you know, this is a nerdy show.

00:23:52 ◼   ► I'm a nerd, you're probably a nerd, and nerds sometimes just need to run servers.

00:23:57 ◼   ► And Linode is by far my favorite place to do that.

00:24:00 ◼   ► I've been with them personally since long before they

00:24:03 ◼   ► were a sponsor, I think for about 8, 10 years now,

00:24:05 ◼   ► something like that.

00:24:06 ◼   ► And I picked them initially because they had the best bang

00:24:11 ◼   ► for the buck, basically.

00:24:12 ◼   ► They had amazing value.

00:24:13 ◼   ► They had great-- everything you'd expect,

00:24:16 ◼   ► resizable, basically Linux virtual hosts.

00:24:19 ◼   ► And you could move them around to different physical hosts

00:24:22 ◼   ► and have all the backup tools and the resizing

00:24:24 ◼   ► and everything else.

00:24:24 ◼   ► And they have only-- not only have they

00:24:26 ◼   ► kept all those features for that entire 8 or 10 years

00:24:29 ◼   ► I've been with them.

00:24:30 ◼   ► but they have only gotten better over time.

00:24:32 ◼   ► So they have, of course, great support,

00:24:34 ◼   ► great control panel, a great API, great tools,

00:24:37 ◼   ► great capabilities.

00:24:38 ◼   ► They now have specialty capabilities

00:24:40 ◼   ► they've added in the meantime, things like GPU compute plans,

00:24:43 ◼   ► high memory plans, dedicated CPU plans,

00:24:45 ◼   ► a whole block storage offering, Kubernetes support,

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00:25:06 ◼   ► I host a lot of servers there.

00:25:08 ◼   ► If you're listening to this show from our members feed,

00:25:10 ◼   ► that's hosted on Linode.

00:25:11 ◼   ► If you've visited our website, that's hosted on Linode.

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00:25:32 ◼   ► Once again, linode.com/atp.

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00:25:38 ◼   ► Thank you so much to Linode for hosting all my servers

00:25:40 ◼   ► and for sponsoring our show.

00:25:42 ◼   ► - And then John, tell me more about Game Pass,

00:25:47 ◼   ► because apparently we still haven't quite gotten

00:25:50 ◼   ► this 100% right.

00:25:51 ◼   ► - Right, so the main thing we got wrong last show

00:25:53 ◼   ► was talking about how game pass is no good to you if you're into PC games but

00:25:56 ◼   ► there is a game pass for PCs it's called like whatever game pass PC for P just

00:26:03 ◼   ► for PC games right and on top of that there is also a game pass for more money

00:26:07 ◼   ► that will give you access to PC and Xbox games for I think it's like the regular

00:26:12 ◼   ► one is like $10 a month so you can choose do I want game pass for my console

00:26:15 ◼   ► $10 a month do I want it for my PC $10 a month or do I want game pass ultimate

00:26:20 ◼   ► which everyone insists on it abbreviating as GPU which I feel like

00:26:22 ◼   ► it's a little overloaded in the gaming space.

00:26:24 ◼   ► But anyway, Game Pass Ultimate for only $15 a month

00:26:27 ◼   ► gives you access to both PC and Xbox games.

00:26:30 ◼   ► And then in addition to that, I said it would be great

00:26:32 ◼   ► if you could pay a little bit more to get an Xbox Series X

00:26:35 ◼   ► as part of your Game Pass subscription,

00:26:37 ◼   ► because you can get the cheaper Xbox, the Series S.

00:26:40 ◼   ► You can, you can pay more money

00:26:41 ◼   ► and they will give you a Series X.

00:26:42 ◼   ► And from what people tell me,

00:26:44 ◼   ► it's more like a 0% interest loan than a rental.

00:26:48 ◼   ► So it's not like you can have it for one month

00:26:49 ◼   ► and just return it and just stop paying.

00:26:51 ◼   ► you're basically signing up to buy the console, but there's no interest on it.

00:26:56 ◼   ► And it's actually a fairly good deal.

00:26:58 ◼   ► If you if you actually do want the console and the games,

00:27:00 ◼   ► of course, the problem with getting, you know, you can in theory,

00:27:04 ◼   ► get the Xbox Series X console as part of Game Pass.

00:27:06 ◼   ► But good luck getting that because supplies are limited

00:27:09 ◼   ► because covid supply chain and so on and so forth.

00:27:11 ◼   ► And then finally, don't forget that we talked about this in past shows

00:27:16 ◼   ► Xbox cloud gaming where you can play any of these games on Xbox.com in the Xbox app on your PC,

00:27:25 ◼   ► in the Xbox game pass mobile app on not your iPhone because Apple doesn't like that,

00:27:32 ◼   ► and also on Xbox consoles. The fact that you can play on Xbox consoles is wild, right? So

00:27:36 ◼   ► you have an Xbox console, but rather than playing the game on the Xbox, you can stream it. It's

00:27:42 ◼   ► actually running, the game is actually running in a data center somewhere and you're streaming it.

00:27:45 ◼   ► I guess maybe that lets lesser consoles play better games,

00:27:48 ◼   ► but fascinating.

00:27:50 ◼   ► Anyway, this, Sir Tech already had a good interview

00:27:52 ◼   ► with the Microsoft gaming guy,

00:27:54 ◼   ► what's his name, Phil Spencer, a while back,

00:27:57 ◼   ► and he talks all about Microsoft's strategy of like,

00:27:59 ◼   ► "Look, we just want you to be able

00:28:00 ◼   ► "to play your game everywhere."

00:28:01 ◼   ► Of course, it's nice for Microsoft to say that

00:28:03 ◼   ► because they essentially own two of the platforms.

00:28:06 ◼   ► They have a console, and they also essentially own

00:28:08 ◼   ► the entire PC space, so they seem, "So we're so magnanimous.

00:28:11 ◼   ► "We want you to play anywhere on our platform A

00:28:13 ◼   ► and on our other platform, B.

00:28:15 ◼   ► I guess they don't have Windows Phone anymore,

00:28:17 ◼   ► so they're being nice, letting it be on Android,

00:28:19 ◼   ► and then Apple's being mean,

00:28:19 ◼   ► not letting them have it on iPhone.

00:28:21 ◼   ► But anyway, Game Pass, it's a pretty good deal

00:28:23 ◼   ► if you are interested in the games

00:28:25 ◼   ► that are available on Game Pass,

00:28:26 ◼   ► which are not all the games in the world,

00:28:28 ◼   ► but a lot of really good ones,

00:28:29 ◼   ► and if you don't want to pay for individual games.

00:28:33 ◼   ► - So moving right along, we had a fair bit of feedback,

00:28:36 ◼   ► and a lot of it was really, really good,

00:28:37 ◼   ► about Apple in the Netherlands and their fine,

00:28:40 ◼   ► which we had described as basically just a fee,

00:28:42 ◼   ► 'cause Apple is more money than God,

00:28:44 ◼   ► so why don't they just pay this fine,

00:28:46 ◼   ► treat it as a fee and move on with their lives?

00:28:48 ◼   ► - I wanna add one thing to that, by the way, though.

00:28:50 ◼   ► The fine is just a fee is a saying,

00:28:53 ◼   ► a common saying of like, if you have enough money,

00:28:56 ◼   ► if the only penalty for doing something wrong is a fine,

00:28:58 ◼   ► and then you basically get to do it whenever you want,

00:29:00 ◼   ► because money means nothing to you,

00:29:01 ◼   ► and you just get to go do it.

00:29:02 ◼   ► And a lot of people were pointing out,

00:29:04 ◼   ► just in general before we get to the specifics

00:29:06 ◼   ► of the Netherlands, that most places that have a fine,

00:29:11 ◼   ► it's not just you get a fine

00:29:12 ◼   ► then you're allowed to break the law forever.

00:29:13 ◼   ► Either that fine repeats or that fine increases or something else bad happens that escalates

00:29:18 ◼   ► and we'll talk about the potential escalations over the Netherlands situation in a second.

00:29:23 ◼   ► But I do want to point out that the reason a fine is just a fee saying is so common is

00:29:26 ◼   ► because if you are wealthy, very often you've already gotten to do the thing and reap the

00:29:32 ◼   ► benefits of it.

00:29:33 ◼   ► So yeah, maybe after you are fined, then the next level up the fine gets bigger or the

00:29:37 ◼   ► next level up you go out of business or whatever like the next level of like

00:29:40 ◼   ► punishment is you already got to do the thing and only had to pay the the fine

00:29:46 ◼   ► and that's simply a fee for you getting to do the thing so say the thing that

00:29:49 ◼   ► you were getting to do is this is obviously not particularly relevant to

00:29:52 ◼   ► apples example but it's the most egregious example say you're dumping

00:29:56 ◼   ► chemicals somewhere where you're not supposed to be dumping them you've

00:29:59 ◼   ► already dumped them you can't get the chemicals back out like they say there's

00:30:03 ◼   ► no process to like extract it or like remove it or clean it up it's like

00:30:06 ◼   ► like dispersed into the environment and it's like,

00:30:08 ◼   ► oh well Shrug, I guess I'll just pay the fine.

00:30:10 ◼   ► You already did the bad thing.

00:30:12 ◼   ► You already didn't have to pay to dispose of your whatever

00:30:14 ◼   ► and now it's just dispersed in the hole

00:30:16 ◼   ► and so you just pay the fine.

00:30:18 ◼   ► And in that case, there is no escalation

00:30:20 ◼   ► because maybe you get fined more the next time you do it

00:30:22 ◼   ► but maybe you just need to do this one time.

00:30:24 ◼   ► I don't wanna pay all these millions of dollars

00:30:25 ◼   ► to clean up this factory so I'm just gonna dump this all

00:30:27 ◼   ► and it'll disperse into the atmosphere and I'll pay the fine.

00:30:30 ◼   ► That is the worst case of the fine, it's just a fee.

00:30:33 ◼   ► In the case of Apple, you know, they're doing a thing

00:30:36 ◼   ► And you could say, well, they got to impose these unfair

00:30:39 ◼   ► App Store rules for years and years.

00:30:41 ◼   ► And then this fine comes along and they pay it

00:30:44 ◼   ► and they get to do it for an extra three or four weeks.

00:30:45 ◼   ► Apple getting to control the App Store

00:30:48 ◼   ► in the way it is a custom for an extra few weeks

00:30:50 ◼   ► or months or even years is not that big a deal.

00:30:53 ◼   ► But I just want to explain the saying

00:30:54 ◼   ► that it doesn't necessarily mean that like,

00:30:57 ◼   ► oh, well, it's not just a fine, it isn't just a fee

00:30:59 ◼   ► because eventually you're gonna have to stop doing it.

00:31:01 ◼   ► Very often, getting away with it for some period of time

00:31:05 ◼   ► is the whole ballgame.

00:31:05 ◼   ► and then you just pay the money

00:31:06 ◼   ► and then you're good after that.

00:31:07 ◼   ► - Yep, so we had said last week, you know,

00:31:10 ◼   ► that oh, well, the Netherlands is, you know, not 1,000,

00:31:13 ◼   ► like three million people or something like that.

00:31:15 ◼   ► I forget what the number was.

00:31:16 ◼   ► - 18 million, two big cities, two New York cities maybe.

00:31:18 ◼   ► - Okay, so it's two New York cities.

00:31:20 ◼   ► What are they really gonna do to Apple?

00:31:22 ◼   ► So, Rene Zwisterloot wrote,

00:31:24 ◼   ► and there were several others that wrote,

00:31:25 ◼   ► but I like this one a whole lot,

00:31:27 ◼   ► so let me read what Rene wrote.

00:31:29 ◼   ► If Apple just pays the fines,

00:31:31 ◼   ► and the ACM, that's the Dutch authorities,

00:31:34 ◼   ► will sue again, will win, and will get three zeroes appended to the penalties.

00:31:38 ◼   ► Neither the ACM nor judges are political, and they do not need to be elected.

00:31:42 ◼   ► So Apple can't simply rely on a horde of angry voters to fix this problem.

00:31:46 ◼   ► If they threaten to pull the App Store, then the ACM will simply tell them to go right

00:31:49 ◼   ► ahead.

00:31:50 ◼   ► And then the ACM will take their case to the European Court to get the App Store banned

00:31:54 ◼   ► for all of the EU.

00:31:55 ◼   ► That's more or less the point of the EU.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Whilst the EU is wildly at odds with itself about what the EU is and is not supposed to

00:32:01 ◼   ► stand for, the one thing that all member state rulers and governments generally all agree

00:32:05 ◼   ► on is that they won't stand for individual member states to be bullied by non-governmental

00:32:09 ◼   ► entities. Surely Apple is not willing to pull all products from the entire EU, which means

00:32:14 ◼   ► they will lose if they decide to die on this hill. I thought that was a really great summary

00:32:18 ◼   ► of the situation.

00:32:19 ◼   ► Yeah, that's, of course, the question is, will it escalate up to the level of the whole

00:32:23 ◼   ► EU thing, or would Apple do whatever it takes to appease them, and that what they're doing

00:32:27 ◼   ► now is flouting it and paying their fee or their fine, and they'll do that for as long

00:32:33 ◼   ► as they can until it seems like things might escalate and then they'll say, "Okay, okay,

00:32:36 ◼   ► what do you really want us to do?" And we'll see how it shakes out. I'm assuming Apple

00:32:39 ◼   ► wouldn't be stupid enough to, you know, antagonistically escalate this to all the EU, but that is a

00:32:44 ◼   ► possibility and that is, of course, what the EU stands for. In the EU, it is union. But

00:32:49 ◼   ► the UK can go after themselves, I guess.

00:32:51 ◼   ► Ooh.

00:32:52 ◼   ► Too soon. Too soon. All right, so a couple things about new beta bits, starting with

00:32:55 ◼   ► with the new Face ID unlock.

00:32:57 ◼   ► Ryan Booker writes, "Face ID with a mask

00:32:59 ◼   ► asks you to scan with and without glasses

00:33:01 ◼   ► if you're wearing glasses,

00:33:02 ◼   ► and you can add extra glasses," which is kinda cool.

00:33:06 ◼   ► And you guys haven't tried this, right?

00:33:07 ◼   ► You're not on the betas?

00:33:08 ◼   ► - I just installed it this morning

00:33:09 ◼   ► and have not tried it once.

00:33:11 ◼   ► - I would like to try it.

00:33:12 ◼   ► I'm excited to scan my glasses.

00:33:14 ◼   ► - Go team.

00:33:15 ◼   ► And then Carlos Carpio Garcia writes,

00:33:17 ◼   ► "New Face ID works within apps even if you're masked,"

00:33:20 ◼   ► which I think they talked about this on,

00:33:22 ◼   ► was an upgrade this week?

00:33:23 ◼   ► I think there was more discussion about that.

00:33:25 ◼   ► But basically, if you think about, say, Apple Pay, for example, or 1Password, when you're

00:33:30 ◼   ► using the Apple Watch-based mask unlock, you still have to enter your passcode for 1Password

00:33:35 ◼   ► for Apple Pay, things like that.

00:33:36 ◼   ► And apparently, the new eye-only Face ID scan, when you have a mask on, it actually will

00:33:43 ◼   ► work for 1Password, Apple Pay, so on and so forth.

00:33:45 ◼   ► So that's worth looking into, and I will definitely check that out when the beta is no longer

00:33:50 ◼   ► a beta and when it's released.

00:33:52 ◼   ► And then Carlos continues, also unrelated,

00:33:55 ◼   ► well, actually this is me saying also in unrelated,

00:33:58 ◼   ► apparently universal control works from WiFi to cellular.

00:34:00 ◼   ► I have not tried this myself because again,

00:34:02 ◼   ► I'm not on the betas, but this is what Carlos wrote.

00:34:05 ◼   ► But universal control is a big advantage over sidecar.

00:34:07 ◼   ► As expected, Carlos is a teacher,

00:34:10 ◼   ► my school's network has several resources

00:34:11 ◼   ► and web pages restricted,

00:34:13 ◼   ► but sometimes I have to access them.

00:34:14 ◼   ► They usually meant disconnecting sidecar

00:34:15 ◼   ► and using the cellular capabilities of my iPad

00:34:17 ◼   ► to access the web I wanted.

00:34:19 ◼   ► Well, universal control works even when the MacBook

00:34:22 ◼   ► and the iPad are in different networks.

00:34:24 ◼   ► I can use the MacBook Air to disable the iPad Wi-Fi

00:34:26 ◼   ► and continue controlling it to freely browse the web

00:34:28 ◼   ► from the iPad while the MacBook Air

00:34:30 ◼   ► is stuck on the school Wi-Fi.

00:34:32 ◼   ► This is the only place I've heard of this.

00:34:33 ◼   ► I have no idea if it's accurate or not,

00:34:34 ◼   ► but I have no reason not to believe it.

00:34:36 ◼   ► How freaking cool is that?

00:34:38 ◼   ► - Does an AirDrop use like a ad hoc local Wi-Fi network?

00:34:42 ◼   ► Maybe they use the same thing?

00:34:44 ◼   ► - It could be, I don't know.

00:34:45 ◼   ► I just thought that was super cool though

00:34:46 ◼   ► and that was the first I'd heard of it.

00:34:47 ◼   ► - I've seen a lot of demos of the universal control

00:34:49 ◼   ► and as delayed as it has been,

00:34:51 ◼   ► I can imagine it's tricky to pull off, but boy it looks really neat when you see it done.

00:34:55 ◼   ► It's got to be some kind of persistent, you know, whether it's the same technology as

00:35:01 ◼   ► AirDrop or not, it's not like there's a waiting cursor for some kind of connecting thing.

00:35:07 ◼   ► It makes me think of a recent complaint, a decades-long complaint that I've had.

00:35:12 ◼   ► I'm in my computer room here, my computer is here, the other side of the room is my

00:35:17 ◼   ► wife's computer on that desk, they're both connected to the same Ethernet network.

00:35:21 ◼   ► Very often I want to copy files from one Mac to the other and I'm cursed to use the finder

00:35:25 ◼   ► to do that.

00:35:27 ◼   ► And it's just so hard.

00:35:28 ◼   ► It's just so slow, so painful.

00:35:30 ◼   ► Like it's just bad.

00:35:32 ◼   ► Like I would be better off using FTP honestly because FTP clients can be persistent, they

00:35:37 ◼   ► always work.

00:35:39 ◼   ► Like when I try to, what I want to do is like, can you put your receipts into the expenses

00:35:43 ◼   ► folder because I'm doing taxes stuff, right?

00:35:45 ◼   ► I need to connect to her computer as her, which I can do because I know her password,

00:35:49 ◼   ► in my key chain and everything, right?

00:35:51 ◼   ► We're all in the family here.

00:35:52 ◼   ► But whenever I connect to that server,

00:35:54 ◼   ► Command + K or whatever, it connects as me.

00:35:57 ◼   ► Even if I connect to smb colon slash slash,

00:35:59 ◼   ► my wife's name at her computer named,

00:36:02 ◼   ► like I'm doing the syntax that says,

00:36:04 ◼   ► don't connect as me finder and finder's like,

00:36:06 ◼   ► I'm gonna ignore that crap before the at sign.

00:36:08 ◼   ► I mean finder successfully connects,

00:36:10 ◼   ► but it connects as me.

00:36:11 ◼   ► So I have to do that race,

00:36:12 ◼   ► where you have to click the connect as thing, right?

00:36:14 ◼   ► Where it opens up in the finder

00:36:16 ◼   ► and then it shows it's connecting,

00:36:17 ◼   ► and you click connect as, like disconnect,

00:36:19 ◼   ► then connect as, and then you get to type in your name,

00:36:21 ◼   ► and it has a checkbox to remember the password,

00:36:23 ◼   ► but it literally never, ever, ever does, right?

00:36:26 ◼   ► Maybe it's because I'm using the .local,

00:36:28 ◼   ► you know, Bonjour, Rendezvous names, who knows?

00:36:30 ◼   ► But it is so painful, I'm like,

00:36:32 ◼   ► these are two computers in the same room,

00:36:33 ◼   ► on the same wired network,

00:36:34 ◼   ► and I just can't have a persistent folder

00:36:36 ◼   ► that I can just double click and it will open?

00:36:38 ◼   ► Why don't you just make an alias of it?

00:36:39 ◼   ► Why don't you do this, why don't you do that?

00:36:40 ◼   ► I've tried all these things, they're just so unreliable.

00:36:42 ◼   ► And yet, apparently, two devices,

00:36:45 ◼   ► not even on the same wifi network,

00:36:46 ◼   ► You can drag your cursor between them seamlessly

00:36:48 ◼   ► and drag files between them.

00:36:49 ◼   ► Like, why does that work?

00:36:52 ◼   ► And why can't I just-- it's so painful.

00:36:55 ◼   ► Honestly, I should just use-- I should literally just use

00:36:57 ◼   ► transmit or some FTP client, because that will always work.

00:36:59 ◼   ► It will never connect as the wrong user.

00:37:01 ◼   ► It will just-- it's so frustrating.

00:37:04 ◼   ► I don't know if I'm the only one who has this problem.

00:37:06 ◼   ► Maybe it's because I'm not using the IP address,

00:37:08 ◼   ► but I'm using a dot local name.

00:37:10 ◼   ► And if I do use an IP address, the stupid alias would work.

00:37:13 ◼   ► The latest thing in Monterey is the alias

00:37:14 ◼   ► gets a generic document icon.

00:37:16 ◼   ► It's an alias to a folder on my wife's computer, right?

00:37:19 ◼   ► But now it just looks like a blank white document

00:37:22 ◼   ► with a little dog-eared corner of the page on it.

00:37:23 ◼   ► Why?

00:37:25 ◼   ► God only knows.

00:37:25 ◼   ► If I double click it, it will usually connect

00:37:27 ◼   ► and change back into a folder icon, but not always.

00:37:30 ◼   ► Anyway, sorry, sorry to derail.

00:37:32 ◼   ► - I get the feeling, you know, like, whenever,

00:37:35 ◼   ► Apple is not great at maintaining things

00:37:39 ◼   ► that they don't seem to use themselves,

00:37:42 ◼   ► and it seems to me every time I use, like,

00:37:45 ◼   ► any kind of finder, like network share feature

00:37:50 ◼   ► of any kind like this.

00:37:52 ◼   ► I think I would venture a guess,

00:37:54 ◼   ► Apple does not use this kind of function internally.

00:37:58 ◼   ► 'Cause it just seems like it always has been

00:38:02 ◼   ► mediocre at best, it almost never changes

00:38:05 ◼   ► except in the direction of gradually breaking more.

00:38:08 ◼   ► (laughs)

00:38:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, what do you all use for this thing?

00:38:11 ◼   ► Like when you need to drag things between your,

00:38:14 ◼   ► two different Macs that are on your home network.

00:38:16 ◼   ► How do you do that?

00:38:17 ◼   ► - I usually do that connect as thing if I have to,

00:38:20 ◼   ► but more often than not,

00:38:22 ◼   ► if we have to send files together,

00:38:23 ◼   ► we'll just AirDrop them,

00:38:24 ◼   ► because that works much more reliably than network shares,

00:38:28 ◼   ► which is annoying.

00:38:29 ◼   ► - When I'm the only person in the house, though,

00:38:31 ◼   ► I would have to go over to the other computer

00:38:32 ◼   ► and click accept, you know what I mean?

00:38:34 ◼   ► Whereas with file transfer,

00:38:35 ◼   ► I just don't wanna keep getting up

00:38:37 ◼   ► and going back and forth

00:38:38 ◼   ► when I'm doing a bunch of stuff like that.

00:38:39 ◼   ► - Oh, to be clear,

00:38:40 ◼   ► AirDrop is totally the wrong solution for this.

00:38:41 ◼   ► I mean, especially 'cause like,

00:38:43 ◼   ► If I presume both of those computers

00:38:45 ◼   ► would probably have wired ethernet,

00:38:47 ◼   ► it would be ridiculous to use AirDrop for this purpose,

00:38:51 ◼   ► and it would be slower to use AirDrop for this purpose.

00:38:54 ◼   ► But that's not how things work.

00:38:57 ◼   ► People are still emailing files to themselves

00:38:59 ◼   ► 'cause that often is the best way to transfer something.

00:39:02 ◼   ► - I mean, I think, Jon,

00:39:05 ◼   ► what I would recommend is what Aaron and I do,

00:39:08 ◼   ► is we have a shared Dropbox folder,

00:39:10 ◼   ► and even though I don't really use Dropbox anymore--

00:39:12 ◼   ► - It's such a long way to go.

00:39:13 ◼   ► - It is, but it works every time.

00:39:16 ◼   ► Like, do you care?

00:39:17 ◼   ► - I mean, like, once you get connected, it works fine.

00:39:19 ◼   ► I'm just frustrated with how cumbersome it is

00:39:21 ◼   ► to initiate that connection, right?

00:39:23 ◼   ► Like, once I'm connected and it's a Finder window open,

00:39:25 ◼   ► it's fine, like, it just files transfer,

00:39:27 ◼   ► it does all the things, right?

00:39:28 ◼   ► But it's just, it seems like it,

00:39:30 ◼   ► the reason I'm contrasting with Universal Control

00:39:32 ◼   ► is like, look how seamlessly these two

00:39:34 ◼   ► completely independent devices

00:39:35 ◼   ► running different OSes can be.

00:39:36 ◼   ► Like, you can drag your cursor between them seamlessly,

00:39:39 ◼   ► you can drag a file from one to the other

00:39:40 ◼   ► and it just instantly appeared.

00:39:41 ◼   ► I'm talking about all the demos I've seen.

00:39:43 ◼   ► Universal control is so impressive.

00:39:45 ◼   ► How can that be so seamless with no setup,

00:39:47 ◼   ► no configuration, no dialogues, no password login

00:39:50 ◼   ► or whatever, it's just so seamless.

00:39:52 ◼   ► And yet, getting that other Finder window

00:39:56 ◼   ► that is a folder on my wife's computer

00:39:58 ◼   ► to appear in my computer, in my Finder,

00:40:01 ◼   ► that sort of hurdle that you have to overcome each time

00:40:03 ◼   ► has just enough little stumbling blocks

00:40:05 ◼   ► that it just, I wish it was seamless

00:40:07 ◼   ► and I wish it was way faster.

00:40:09 ◼   ► Because even if everything goes perfectly

00:40:10 ◼   ► and you double click the alias,

00:40:13 ◼   ► the amount of time it takes before that finder window

00:40:15 ◼   ► appears and you can drag stuff into it,

00:40:16 ◼   ► is so long compared to again,

00:40:19 ◼   ► slamming your cursor against the edge of your Mac screen

00:40:21 ◼   ► and having it appear on your iPad.

00:40:23 ◼   ► - You know, another couple of things you might want

00:40:25 ◼   ► to at least consider, Synology Drive,

00:40:27 ◼   ► if you wanted a faux Dropbox that doesn't leave

00:40:29 ◼   ► your network, like that would be presumably much quicker

00:40:32 ◼   ► and it has a concept of like a team folder

00:40:36 ◼   ► or something like that.

00:40:37 ◼   ► I don't know if they do that.

00:40:38 ◼   ► - And you're saying leave that always mounted.

00:40:39 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:40:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, it operates much like Dropbox,

00:40:44 ◼   ► so think of it as like a fake Dropbox,

00:40:46 ◼   ► and so you could do something like that.

00:40:47 ◼   ► - Oh, so you need to run an app on your Mac, then?

00:40:49 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:40:50 ◼   ► But what you can do, though, is you can stop running--

00:40:52 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's never gonna happen.

00:40:53 ◼   ► - But you can stop running the Dropbox app,

00:40:55 ◼   ► because you can put your Dropbox within your--

00:40:57 ◼   ► - I'm running a Dropbox app now.

00:40:58 ◼   ► Dropbox is an on-demand launch for me.

00:41:00 ◼   ► - Oh, you are a weirdo.

00:41:02 ◼   ► But nevertheless, you could SCP,

00:41:04 ◼   ► and why wouldn't you just try VNCing,

00:41:06 ◼   ► or remote desktopping, or whatever?

00:41:08 ◼   ► 'cause that supports file transfer between Macs.

00:41:10 ◼   ► - Does it?

00:41:11 ◼   ► No, I don't wanna go that whole,

00:41:12 ◼   ► I don't want her entire screen on my Mac.

00:41:14 ◼   ► Just plus sometimes she's--

00:41:14 ◼   ► - I'm answering your question.

00:41:16 ◼   ► Well, anyway, Neil underscore underscore in the chat

00:41:18 ◼   ► swears that if you use .home instead of .local,

00:41:21 ◼   ► magic happens.

00:41:22 ◼   ► I don't know why, but that's what Neil--

00:41:24 ◼   ► - I mean, like I said, maybe there's some particular thing

00:41:26 ◼   ► that I'm doing that makes it cumbersome,

00:41:27 ◼   ► but the two basically bugs are that the Finder

00:41:32 ◼   ► insists on connecting as me instead of my wife,

00:41:34 ◼   ► even though I put the username in the URL,

00:41:36 ◼   ► And the other one is it just takes a long time.

00:41:38 ◼   ► It just takes a long time to, you know,

00:41:41 ◼   ► when it is in the process of connecting,

00:41:42 ◼   ► it's like the computer's right over there.

00:41:43 ◼   ► They're both, these are two idle, very fast computers,

00:41:47 ◼   ► like literally feet from each other,

00:41:48 ◼   ► connected to the same ethernet switch.

00:41:50 ◼   ► It should be like instant, kinda like Universal Control.

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00:43:37 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

00:43:40 ◼   ► - So Nintendo hasn't been purchased yet,

00:43:43 ◼   ► but apparently everyone else has.

00:43:45 ◼   ► So Sony has bought Bungie for $3.6 billion.

00:43:50 ◼   ► Now I'm hoping against all hope that that means

00:43:54 ◼   ► that we don't have to hear you speaking in other languages

00:43:56 ◼   ► about Destiny anymore.

00:43:57 ◼   ► Is that how this works?

00:43:58 ◼   ► - No, how is that not going to happen?

00:44:01 ◼   ► Of course that's gonna happen.

00:44:02 ◼   ► We're not that lucky.

00:44:03 ◼   ► I know.

00:44:04 ◼   ► This is like on topic.

00:44:05 ◼   ► Although I have to tell you when this happened, I thought of our long running joke of like,

00:44:09 ◼   ► oh, we're recording another episode until X time in the future unless of course Apple

00:44:14 ◼   ► buys Nintendo or something.

00:44:16 ◼   ► And that has been a joke for years.

00:44:17 ◼   ► And at this point it's becoming a lot less of a joke, isn't it?

00:44:22 ◼   ► Everybody's buying these big gaming companies that were not previously thought of as being

00:44:26 ◼   ► for sale.

00:44:27 ◼   ► You know Activision Blizzard obviously was 70 billion and Activision of course bought Blizzard before that and then what was it take to bought Zinga

00:44:35 ◼   ► And now Sony's buying Bungie and it's just it's a free-for-all in the gaming world

00:44:40 ◼   ► And so Apple buying I mean not that I think we've talked about this on pet

00:44:43 ◼   ► I don't want Apple to buy Nintendo. I think that would be bad for the world

00:44:46 ◼   ► And I don't think Nintendo is particularly for sale but geez that's scaring me with how close it's come anyway

00:44:54 ◼   ► - Right, first of all, for the record,

00:44:55 ◼   ► I don't think that's going to happen.

00:44:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, no. - For lots of reasons.

00:44:59 ◼   ► I mean, without getting too far into it,

00:45:01 ◼   ► the big ones are that Apple undervalues gaming,

00:45:04 ◼   ► and Nintendo's probably worth a lot,

00:45:06 ◼   ► so I don't think they'd come together on a price.

00:45:08 ◼   ► And also, Apple, I can't imagine Apple ever buying

00:45:13 ◼   ► a sizable company that is itself opinionated,

00:45:18 ◼   ► because Apple is extremely opinionated,

00:45:21 ◼   ► and I can't see them buying an opinionated company

00:45:24 ◼   ► in a way that wouldn't destroy that entire company

00:45:27 ◼   ► or clash heavily, 'cause Apple wouldn't let

00:45:30 ◼   ► whoever's being the opinion holder in that company now

00:45:34 ◼   ► continue to do that role,

00:45:35 ◼   ► 'cause Apple can't have that under them.

00:45:37 ◼   ► They would be the opinion directors

00:45:41 ◼   ► of whatever they're buying,

00:45:42 ◼   ► and so to have the idea that Nintendo

00:45:45 ◼   ► would be absorbed by Apple in any kind of graceful fashion

00:45:48 ◼   ► I think is a fantasy,

00:45:49 ◼   ► and so even if they could come together on price,

00:45:51 ◼   ► which they probably wouldn't

00:45:52 ◼   ► because Apple undervalues gaming,

00:45:53 ◼   ► I can't see that culture ever blend together.

00:45:57 ◼   ► - Yeah, I don't think Nintendo would ever be for sale

00:46:00 ◼   ► at any price at this point,

00:46:01 ◼   ► but stranger things have happened,

00:46:03 ◼   ► and time marches on and Apple's attitudes change,

00:46:06 ◼   ► and the culture fit between Nintendo and Apple

00:46:10 ◼   ► actually is closer than maybe any other purchaser

00:46:15 ◼   ► in terms of the sort of happy,

00:46:16 ◼   ► shiny, user-friendly type of thing.

00:46:19 ◼   ► And just because it would be terrible

00:46:21 ◼   ► doesn't mean some future Apple management wouldn't do it anyway and destroy Nintendo

00:46:25 ◼   ► in the process, which is why I keep saying it'd be bad for the world, because I agree

00:46:28 ◼   ► that this would not be healthy for either company, because to the extent that Nintendo

00:46:33 ◼   ► stays Nintendo, that would be unhealthy to Apple's culture and vice versa very strongly.

00:46:37 ◼   ► If Apple started to screw with Nintendo, it would just crush the company.

00:46:39 ◼   ► But in the future, a future Apple could somehow discover the technology of how to acquire

00:46:45 ◼   ► someone and not screw with their culture, because that has occasionally, not commonly,

00:46:50 ◼   ► But occasionally it has happened in the past in the entire world of business where someone

00:46:53 ◼   ► buys someone and doesn't immediately screw them up.

00:46:56 ◼   ► But yeah, it's not likely.

00:46:58 ◼   ► But anyway, getting back to the story, I think this has a chance of happening.

00:47:03 ◼   ► Other companies are better about acquiring certain kinds of other companies and not immediately

00:47:09 ◼   ► screwing them up.

00:47:10 ◼   ► So Sony's buying Bungie for a pittance, $3.6 billion.

00:47:15 ◼   ► It looks like a pittance compared to $70 billion for Activision Blizzard, but there's a lot

00:47:19 ◼   ► of IP under that 70 billion umbrella, whereas Bungie is just one company.

00:47:24 ◼   ► To sort of size this up, Star Wars was bought for 4 billion, so Bungie is worth almost as

00:47:28 ◼   ► much as a Star Wars.

00:47:29 ◼   ► Good grief.

00:47:30 ◼   ► Alright, which, you know, again, gaming is bigger than movies has been for a long time,

00:47:34 ◼   ► people don't realize it, but yeah.

00:47:36 ◼   ► But the reason this is extra significant to me, obviously, is because the game I play

00:47:40 ◼   ► all the time is from Bungie, and of course Bungie is a long time game developer, close

00:47:44 ◼   ► to my heart because they were a Mac game developer first, and Halo was supposed to ship on the

00:47:47 ◼   ► and the Mac and the Microsoft bought them,

00:47:48 ◼   ► they went independent, now Sony bought them.

00:47:50 ◼   ► - You're still bitter about this.

00:47:51 ◼   ► How many years ago was that, 20?

00:47:52 ◼   ► - Still bitter about it, yes I am.

00:47:54 ◼   ► - Oh my gosh.

00:47:55 ◼   ► - So, why is Sony doing this?

00:47:58 ◼   ► As a lot of people are saying,

00:47:59 ◼   ► this looks somewhat defensive,

00:48:01 ◼   ► because hey, everyone's buying everything.

00:48:04 ◼   ► You know, it's good for us to have a popular gaming company

00:48:09 ◼   ► with a popular gaming franchise in our pocket,

00:48:11 ◼   ► because Microsoft, our big competitor in the console space,

00:48:14 ◼   ► has a lot of things in their pocket now.

00:48:16 ◼   ► But interestingly, both companies, with Microsoft and Sony, are saying, "I know we just bought

00:48:22 ◼   ► a bunch of games, or gaming companies, or developers, or whatever, but don't worry game

00:48:28 ◼   ► players out there.

00:48:30 ◼   ► We're not going to make these games exclusive to our platforms, because that's not what

00:48:34 ◼   ► we do anymore."

00:48:36 ◼   ► And for the most part, I think they are believable.

00:48:42 ◼   ► That is a plausible thing, because that's not the best strategy anymore.

00:48:46 ◼   ► So right out of the gate, Bungie has said, hey, Sony bought us, but just to reassure

00:48:51 ◼   ► everybody, Destiny, which is currently available on many platforms, Xbox, PlayStation, Stadia,

00:48:57 ◼   ► I don't know if it still exists, PC, right, will continue to be on all those platforms.

00:49:03 ◼   ► Our future expansions will continue to be on all those platforms.

00:49:06 ◼   ► We're not even going to differentiate the platforms.

00:49:08 ◼   ► Like Destiny back in the day, back in Destiny 1, I think even a little bit in Destiny 2,

00:49:13 ◼   ► actually had PlayStation exclusives.

00:49:15 ◼   ► Like if you got Destiny 1, there was like a weapon

00:49:18 ◼   ► that you could only get if you had a PlayStation

00:49:19 ◼   ► or like a PvP map that was only available on PlayStation.

00:49:22 ◼   ► And that wasn't, you know,

00:49:24 ◼   ► that wasn't because Sony owned Bungie.

00:49:26 ◼   ► It was just, you know, Sony did a deal with Bungie

00:49:28 ◼   ► and said, "Hey, if we pay you some extra money,"

00:49:31 ◼   ► or I don't know what the deal was behind the scenes,

00:49:33 ◼   ► but give our players something extra.

00:49:35 ◼   ► So there'll be a reason that Destiny on PlayStation

00:49:38 ◼   ► is ever so slightly better than Destiny on Xbox, right?

00:49:41 ◼   ► They don't even do that anymore, right?

00:49:43 ◼   ► So Destiny now is everything's the same for everybody.

00:49:46 ◼   ► I think they, I thought Bungie did that back

00:49:47 ◼   ► when they were with Activision as well,

00:49:49 ◼   ► because Activision probably brokered that deal.

00:49:50 ◼   ► But anyway, when you have a game like this

00:49:53 ◼   ► that gets, like the more people that play it,

00:49:57 ◼   ► the more money you make, because the more people play it,

00:49:59 ◼   ► the more people buy the expansions,

00:50:00 ◼   ► the more people buy horse armor,

00:50:01 ◼   ► we talked about that in the past show,

00:50:03 ◼   ► you want as many players as you can playing your game,

00:50:06 ◼   ► and if you limit it to certain platforms,

00:50:08 ◼   ► you're giving up players

00:50:09 ◼   ► who could potentially be giving you money.

00:50:11 ◼   ► So Bungie says, "Don't worry,

00:50:12 ◼   ► Sony bought us, but Destiny will stay on all platforms.

00:50:15 ◼   ► But of course, Bungie has been for, I think,

00:50:18 ◼   ► at least one year, possibly multiple years,

00:50:20 ◼   ► been working on the next big thing,

00:50:21 ◼   ► because game development takes a long time.

00:50:23 ◼   ► So as Destiny is quote, unquote, winding down, right,

00:50:27 ◼   ► Destiny was conceived of as a 10-year game, a decade game.

00:50:30 ◼   ► It came out in 2014, I think.

00:50:33 ◼   ► And they're just about gonna hit that.

00:50:34 ◼   ► So Bungie has announced the future of Destiny,

00:50:38 ◼   ► the expansions they're gonna have up through 2024.

00:50:41 ◼   ► So that would be a 10 year game, right?

00:50:43 ◼   ► But you gotta start working on your next thing.

00:50:45 ◼   ► So Bungie has been working on, in secret,

00:50:47 ◼   ► whatever the heck its next thing is,

00:50:48 ◼   ► or its next two things or whatever, right?

00:50:51 ◼   ► For a while now, well before this acquisition.

00:50:53 ◼   ► And so the question is, okay,

00:50:56 ◼   ► Destiny's gonna be available on all platforms,

00:50:58 ◼   ► 'cause it already is,

00:50:59 ◼   ► and you're not gonna take it away from people,

00:51:00 ◼   ► 'cause why would you give that up?

00:51:01 ◼   ► You already paid the money to make Destiny on PC,

00:51:04 ◼   ► to make sure it runs well on Xbox,

00:51:06 ◼   ► to make sure it runs on PlayStation.

00:51:07 ◼   ► You already paid that money.

00:51:08 ◼   ► Of course you're gonna leave it on those platforms,

00:51:10 ◼   ► because you'd be losing money by sacrificing those people who play on those platforms.

00:51:15 ◼   ► But for your next game, surely that will be PlayStation exclusive because Sony's big strategy

00:51:20 ◼   ► is all these PlayStation exclusive games like The Last of Us and Horizon Zero Dawn and Uncharted

00:51:28 ◼   ► and I'm just naming games that I like but I'm sure there's lots of other exclusions

00:51:30 ◼   ► in PlayStation as well.

00:51:33 ◼   ► What about those next games?

00:51:34 ◼   ► But on the day of the acquisition, in little Bungie's little fact that we'll put in the

00:51:38 ◼   ► show notes, they put in an item that says in their fact,

00:51:43 ◼   ► question, Bungie has future games in development.

00:51:46 ◼   ► Will they now become PlayStation exclusives?

00:51:48 ◼   ► Answer, no, period.

00:51:51 ◼   ► We want, and then they expand.

00:51:53 ◼   ► We want the worlds we are creating to extend

00:51:54 ◼   ► to anywhere people play games.

00:51:55 ◼   ► We will continue to be self-published,

00:51:57 ◼   ► creatively independent, we will continue

00:51:58 ◼   ► to drive one unified Bungie community.

00:52:00 ◼   ► That is pretty unequivocal.

00:52:01 ◼   ► Now, just because you say something in a fact item

00:52:03 ◼   ► doesn't mean that four years from now things won't change,

00:52:06 ◼   ► 'cause that's the whole deal with acquisitions.

00:52:08 ◼   ► You see it all the time.

00:52:09 ◼   ► Usually it's more dire.

00:52:11 ◼   ► There's an acquisition and then there's some press release

00:52:13 ◼   ► that says, "Don't worry, everything you love

00:52:15 ◼   ► "about Company X will remain the same."

00:52:16 ◼   ► And then two months into it, it's like,

00:52:18 ◼   ► "Yeah, they fired everybody and they changed everything."

00:52:20 ◼   ► When you have a new owner, you can say whatever you want,

00:52:24 ◼   ► but you can't really, it's very difficult to put anything

00:52:26 ◼   ► into the agreement that says, "You are acquiring me.

00:52:30 ◼   ► "You will be in charge of me,

00:52:31 ◼   ► "but you agree not to be a bad parent."

00:52:34 ◼   ► There's no real way to enforce that,

00:52:37 ◼   ► because they're like, "What if we just fire you all?

00:52:39 ◼   ► Now we can do whatever we want."

00:52:40 ◼   ► Like, you can't, it's not like a partnership.

00:52:43 ◼   ► It is an acquisition.

00:52:45 ◼   ► So, anything can happen in the future.

00:52:47 ◼   ► But this is, I think, the first time I have ever seen

00:52:50 ◼   ► such a strong statement on day one

00:52:52 ◼   ► that not only will our current games not change,

00:52:54 ◼   ► but even the things that we're working on

00:52:56 ◼   ► that aren't gonna be ready for three years,

00:52:58 ◼   ► those will be multiplatform too.

00:53:00 ◼   ► And that speaks to the idea that in the gaming market today,

00:53:04 ◼   ► though exclusives are beneficial

00:53:07 ◼   ► for driving differentiation to your platform.

00:53:08 ◼   ► Certain kinds of games,

00:53:10 ◼   ► particularly what they call live games,

00:53:12 ◼   ► where a game runs for years and years

00:53:14 ◼   ► and they just give you new content and new content,

00:53:17 ◼   ► the best way to make money from that game

00:53:19 ◼   ► and the best way to get the most number of customers

00:53:20 ◼   ► is to make sure it is available everywhere

00:53:23 ◼   ► that people can conceivably want to play it.

00:53:25 ◼   ► Microsoft is obviously going to an extreme

00:53:27 ◼   ► by letting you play it on your cell phone

00:53:28 ◼   ► through their cloud gaming thing.

00:53:30 ◼   ► But, and you know,

00:53:31 ◼   ► Sony doesn't even have a subscription program yet

00:53:33 ◼   ► to rival Game Pass,

00:53:34 ◼   ► although like I said last week,

00:53:35 ◼   ► They are rumored to have something like that.

00:53:37 ◼   ► But that seems like it's the future of these type of games.

00:53:40 ◼   ► And Sony talked about, we acquired Bungie,

00:53:42 ◼   ► 'cause they have shown they know how to run a live game.

00:53:45 ◼   ► They've been running Destiny since 2014,

00:53:48 ◼   ► Destiny/Destiny 2.

00:53:49 ◼   ► The fact that there's one and two is a accident,

00:53:52 ◼   ► an unfortunate accident history,

00:53:53 ◼   ► there's neither here nor there.

00:53:55 ◼   ► But that is a type of game.

00:53:57 ◼   ► Not all games are like that.

00:53:58 ◼   ► Obviously, Candy Crush isn't necessarily like that.

00:54:00 ◼   ► It's a different thing.

00:54:01 ◼   ► But live games where, you know,

00:54:04 ◼   ► Millions of people play it for years and years,

00:54:06 ◼   ► and every year they give you money,

00:54:08 ◼   ► and also they buy horse armor inside the game,

00:54:10 ◼   ► and the whales buy tons of horse armor

00:54:11 ◼   ► across multiple platforms.

00:54:15 ◼   ► That is a very viable business model.

00:54:17 ◼   ► It doesn't matter how awesome that game is,

00:54:20 ◼   ► you shouldn't use a live game

00:54:21 ◼   ► to differentiate your platform.

00:54:22 ◼   ► You should use single-player games,

00:54:24 ◼   ► like again, The Last of Us or something.

00:54:25 ◼   ► When that's on your platform,

00:54:26 ◼   ► that can get people to buy it because like,

00:54:27 ◼   ► well, if I have to buy a platform to pay destiny,

00:54:29 ◼   ► I'm gonna buy the one that has the next Last of Us game

00:54:32 ◼   ► 'cause I love that franchise or something.

00:54:33 ◼   ► so you pick a PlayStation, right?

00:54:35 ◼   ► And that could be why PlayStation

00:54:36 ◼   ► is winning this generation.

00:54:37 ◼   ► But this, I have to say that I mostly believe

00:54:42 ◼   ► the statements here.

00:54:44 ◼   ► There's also statements about like creative freedom

00:54:47 ◼   ► and the fact that they will continue to be self-published,

00:54:49 ◼   ► right, that Bungie is trying to retain

00:54:52 ◼   ► as much of its independence as possible

00:54:54 ◼   ► while still being owned by Sony.

00:54:55 ◼   ► And I think Sony is the type of company

00:54:58 ◼   ► that has shown that it is plausible

00:55:00 ◼   ► that it could acquire a developer

00:55:02 ◼   ► and not ruin them by screwing it up,

00:55:03 ◼   ► because Sony has done it before.

00:55:05 ◼   ► They have bought a bunch of developers,

00:55:07 ◼   ► and they've generally not screwed them up.

00:55:10 ◼   ► Sometimes the developers themselves screw up,

00:55:12 ◼   ► but that's not Sony's fault.

00:55:14 ◼   ► But they buy these game developers,

00:55:16 ◼   ► and they become owned by Sony,

00:55:17 ◼   ► and they put out another hit game.

00:55:20 ◼   ► In a hit-driven business, nothing is guaranteed, right?

00:55:22 ◼   ► So you could get the biggest names

00:55:24 ◼   ► to direct your new movie for your streaming platform,

00:55:26 ◼   ► and maybe the movie's stinker, and maybe it won't.

00:55:28 ◼   ► But the best odds are by buying a company

00:55:29 ◼   ► that's made a lot of hits.

00:55:30 ◼   ► Bungie made a bunch of awesome games on the Mac that nobody knew about but that I played, right?

00:55:35 ◼   ► And then they made Halo, which is the whole reason the Xbox exists and is still a viable platform in my opinion.

00:55:39 ◼   ► And then you're like, "Okay, well that's great, you had one great hit."

00:55:43 ◼   ► And then they made Destiny, another great hit.

00:55:45 ◼   ► So they have a track record, right?

00:55:48 ◼   ► And it's mostly a lot of the same people there, and there's some continuity of culture,

00:55:53 ◼   ► so it is not implausible to say whatever Bungie is working on next for their next decade-long game

00:55:58 ◼   ► that will launch in 2024 or 2025 or something,

00:56:01 ◼   ► might also be a hit.

00:56:03 ◼   ► And even if it's not, you just bought a company

00:56:05 ◼   ► that has years and years of experience running a live game.

00:56:08 ◼   ► And Sony, if you want to have popular live games

00:56:12 ◼   ► that run really well on your platform

00:56:14 ◼   ► that are defense against the ones

00:56:16 ◼   ► that Microsoft just bought,

00:56:18 ◼   ► it's good to have Bungie in your pocket.

00:56:19 ◼   ► 'Cause if the Cold War becomes hot many years in the future

00:56:23 ◼   ► and they say, well, Microsoft says,

00:56:25 ◼   ► well, guess what, Sony, Call of Duty,

00:56:26 ◼   ► you can't have that anymore.

00:56:27 ◼   ► 'Cause we own that and we're taking it away

00:56:29 ◼   ► 'cause we're angry at you.

00:56:30 ◼   ► And they'd be like, okay, well, we'll take away

00:56:32 ◼   ► whatever the hell the name of the game

00:56:33 ◼   ► after Destiny is gonna be, right?

00:56:34 ◼   ► So it is good to have some extra weapons in your pocket.

00:56:37 ◼   ► But in the meantime,

00:56:38 ◼   ► they bought a really good game developer.

00:56:40 ◼   ► They probably won't screw it up.

00:56:41 ◼   ► And from Bungie's perspective,

00:56:42 ◼   ► this is super important to the game of Destiny

00:56:44 ◼   ► because Bungie's problem has been lately

00:56:47 ◼   ► that they don't have enough money or people

00:56:49 ◼   ► to keep up with the voracious hunger

00:56:51 ◼   ► of the people who pay for their live game.

00:56:53 ◼   ► When they were in a publishing deal with Activision,

00:56:55 ◼   ► Activision gave them an influx of money and said,

00:56:59 ◼   ► "Here you go, here's a bunch of money.

00:57:01 ◼   ► "Make the next expansion to Destiny really awesome,

00:57:04 ◼   ► "so we'll make lots of money from it.

00:57:06 ◼   ► "And by the way, I know you can't hire people this money,

00:57:08 ◼   ► "so you can contract out to,"

00:57:10 ◼   ► what are they called, Vicarious Visions, I think?

00:57:12 ◼   ► They contracted out to another developer to say,

00:57:15 ◼   ► "Please help us make this expansion to Destiny,

00:57:17 ◼   ► "because we don't have enough Bungie employees

00:57:19 ◼   ► "and we can't hire them fast enough."

00:57:21 ◼   ► And Activision gave us a bunch of money,

00:57:23 ◼   ► And that was the best recent expansion

00:57:26 ◼   ► when they had help from other people.

00:57:27 ◼   ► So when Bungie split from Activision,

00:57:31 ◼   ► said we didn't like Activision

00:57:32 ◼   ► 'cause Activision was a crappy company

00:57:33 ◼   ► and they were all mean there and it turned out to be true.

00:57:36 ◼   ► And they made us do dumb things in the game

00:57:40 ◼   ► and Activision did arguably make Bungie do dumb things

00:57:42 ◼   ► in the game that nobody liked or whatever.

00:57:43 ◼   ► And it was a fraught relationship.

00:57:45 ◼   ► So Bungie split from them and said, we are independent.

00:57:47 ◼   ► Now we have creative freedom and we can,

00:57:48 ◼   ► we're finally free to make our game better

00:57:50 ◼   ► in the ways that we want.

00:57:51 ◼   ► Because Activision did screw with Bungie's creative vision

00:57:54 ◼   ► and made the game worse.

00:57:55 ◼   ► And when Bungie got split from them,

00:57:57 ◼   ► they got to fix all those problems

00:57:58 ◼   ► and that really helped.

00:57:59 ◼   ► But they didn't have all that Activision money.

00:58:01 ◼   ► So post Activision, most of the content for a Destiny

00:58:06 ◼   ► was a little bit smaller, not as big, not as much stuff.

00:58:10 ◼   ► And actually that third party developer

00:58:11 ◼   ► they got to help them was really good

00:58:13 ◼   ► and added a lot of their own flair and panache

00:58:15 ◼   ► to the content.

00:58:16 ◼   ► Now they got Sony money and Sony has a lot of money.

00:58:19 ◼   ► So hopefully Bungie will have a bunch of cash

00:58:22 ◼   ► and maybe be able to contract out

00:58:23 ◼   ► if they can't hire people fast enough

00:58:25 ◼   ► or use some of Sony's other gaming talent

00:58:28 ◼   ► to make the next few expansions of Destiny.

00:58:30 ◼   ► But more likely that money will be falling

00:58:31 ◼   ► into whatever the game after Destiny is

00:58:33 ◼   ► and they retain their creative freedom.

00:58:35 ◼   ► And it was Sony that bought Bungie and not Microsoft.

00:58:38 ◼   ► And so I give a cautious thumbs up to this acquisition.

00:58:42 ◼   ► I hope that Destiny does continue through 2024

00:58:46 ◼   ► and is everything it could be.

00:58:47 ◼   ► And I hope the next franchise is good too.

00:58:49 ◼   ► - Cool. - Cool.

00:58:52 ◼   ► - So you're all gonna get PlayStations

00:58:53 ◼   ► and play Destiny with me for the big member special, right?

00:58:55 ◼   ► - Oh, yeah, about that.

00:58:58 ◼   ► - You have this gaming streaming setup.

00:59:00 ◼   ► Arco's got it over there, we're so close.

00:59:02 ◼   ► We just gotta shift over a little bit

00:59:04 ◼   ► to get a console streaming setup going.

00:59:06 ◼   ► - No, this setup can actually capture consoles just fine,

00:59:09 ◼   ► 'cause it's all based on HDMI capture.

00:59:11 ◼   ► However, I don't know how easy it is

00:59:14 ◼   ► to get a PlayStation right now.

00:59:16 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the thing.

00:59:17 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean that's like I said about the Xbox Series X,

00:59:20 ◼   ► you can get it as part of Game Pass

00:59:21 ◼   ► if you're willing to wait.

00:59:23 ◼   ► - I mean, I would entertain playing Destiny

00:59:27 ◼   ► on some sort of streaming setup,

00:59:28 ◼   ► even if that required getting a PlayStation,

00:59:30 ◼   ► but I would need to get the PlayStation, like you said.

00:59:33 ◼   ► I mean, it's--

00:59:34 ◼   ► - I mean, you can get a PS4 technically,

00:59:35 ◼   ► but that'd be gross, come on.

00:59:36 ◼   ► - That's right, I don't wanna have to fish

00:59:40 ◼   ► another damn HDMI cable through the wall either.

00:59:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

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01:01:44 ◼   ► - I got a problem.

01:01:49 ◼   ► So back in 2006, Google offered this thing

01:01:54 ◼   ► called Google Apps for your domain.

01:01:57 ◼   ► And at the time, I mean, Google,

01:02:00 ◼   ► man, there's so many problems with Google,

01:02:01 ◼   ► but one of the things is they like changing

01:02:03 ◼   ► the names of things 85 times and just keep throwing things

01:02:07 ◼   ► against the wall until something sticks.

01:02:08 ◼   ► And back in 2006, it was called Google Apps for Your Domain,

01:02:12 ◼   ► and then it became something else,

01:02:13 ◼   ► something else, something else.

01:02:14 ◼   ► It was G Suite for a while.

01:02:15 ◼   ► Is it still G Suite?

01:02:16 ◼   ► I don't even know.

01:02:17 ◼   ► It's like Google Workspace now or something?

01:02:19 ◼   ► I don't even, I can't keep it straight.

01:02:21 ◼   ► But one way or another in 2006,

01:02:23 ◼   ► you could get Google Apps for Your Domain.

01:02:24 ◼   ► If you were a nonprofit or like, you know,

01:02:26 ◼   ► basically just a family, you could get a custom,

01:02:29 ◼   ► you could get Gmail and, you know,

01:02:31 ◼   ► the things associated with it,

01:02:32 ◼   ► with a custom domain for free.

01:02:34 ◼   ► And I don't remember how long they said this was going to last.

01:02:38 ◼   ► Some people have said lifetime.

01:02:39 ◼   ► I don't know if that's true or not.

01:02:40 ◼   ► But one way or another, it was free at the time.

01:02:43 ◼   ► And they cut that off six years later in December of 2012.

01:02:46 ◼   ► And at that point, they were not accepting new free accounts

01:02:50 ◼   ► anymore.

01:02:51 ◼   ► And I have and had and have one of these free accounts.

01:02:55 ◼   ► My personal email is one of these accounts.

01:02:57 ◼   ► It's gmailunderthehood, but it's @caseylist.com.

01:03:02 ◼   ► And as of a couple of weeks ago, they've said,

01:03:05 ◼   ► "Hey, guess what?

01:03:06 ◼   ► "If you wanna hold onto that, you're gonna have to pay up."

01:03:08 ◼   ► And there's been a little bit of updates since then,

01:03:12 ◼   ► but they had said basically,

01:03:13 ◼   ► you have to sometime in the next couple of months,

01:03:17 ◼   ► I forget exactly when it is, I wanna say it's July,

01:03:20 ◼   ► you're gonna have to go ahead and start paying us.

01:03:23 ◼   ► And I think it's something like

01:03:24 ◼   ► five or six bucks a month per account.

01:03:28 ◼   ► And so obviously everyone who has these accounts

01:03:32 ◼   ► got very, very upset about it.

01:03:33 ◼   ► So as of just a week or so ago, Google relented slightly.

01:03:38 ◼   ► And they said, "Legacy G Suite users would be able to migrate

01:03:41 ◼   ► to free accounts." So reading from an Ars Technical article

01:03:44 ◼   ► we'll put in the show notes, "First, Google is launching a

01:03:46 ◼   ► survey of affected G Suite users.

01:03:48 ◼   ► Apparently, the company is surprised by how many people

01:03:50 ◼   ► this change affected.

01:03:51 ◼   ► Second, it's promising a data migration option, including

01:03:54 ◼   ► your content purchases, to a consumer account before the

01:03:56 ◼   ► shutdown hits." So Google said, "In the coming months,

01:03:59 ◼   ► we'll provide an option for you to move your non-Google

01:04:01 ◼   ► workspace paid content and most of your data

01:04:03 ◼   ► to a no cost option.

01:04:04 ◼   ► This new option won't include premium features

01:04:07 ◼   ► like custom email or multi-account management.

01:04:09 ◼   ► You'll be able to evaluate this option

01:04:11 ◼   ► prior to July 1, 2022, or should I say one July 2022,

01:04:15 ◼   ► and prior to account suspension.

01:04:17 ◼   ► We'll update this article with details in the coming months.

01:04:20 ◼   ► So first, I would like some advice,

01:04:23 ◼   ► but John in particular, since I know that you use Gmail,

01:04:27 ◼   ► do you have anything to add about the story so far?

01:04:31 ◼   ► - I mean, this, so the idea that you could get email

01:04:36 ◼   ► with a custom domain for free from Google

01:04:38 ◼   ► definitely falls into the category of

01:04:42 ◼   ► if you think you're getting something of value

01:04:44 ◼   ► but you're not paying for it,

01:04:45 ◼   ► you're obviously subject to the whims

01:04:47 ◼   ► of the company that's running it,

01:04:48 ◼   ► that one day they might decide to charge you

01:04:50 ◼   ► or they might just decide to make it go away.

01:04:53 ◼   ► But I have to say that whatever this was called

01:04:54 ◼   ► when you started it, what was it like,

01:04:56 ◼   ► Google Apps for your domain or whatever?

01:04:57 ◼   ► - I believe that's right, yep.

01:04:58 ◼   ► - It's had a good run.

01:05:00 ◼   ► - Oh, it has.

01:05:01 ◼   ► 2006 you did this not like they use this for a year and then and then like turn the screws in you

01:05:05 ◼   ► Haha, once I got you addicted to it now, I'm gonna start charging you a year later. What is it?

01:05:09 ◼   ► I can't do the math in my head like

01:05:11 ◼   ► 15 years

01:05:13 ◼   ► It's it got it. I don't I gotta do the math. It's very difficult. It's 15 and a half, isn't it? Okay

01:05:18 ◼   ► I just I'm always afraid that I'm getting math wrong on the fly. Anyway, it lasted a really long time and

01:05:24 ◼   ► I feel like you got your non money's worth. Oh, yeah

01:05:29 ◼   ► Now it is disappointing that it seems like you know, you know, like some people say I want them to charge money

01:05:35 ◼   ► So then I know it won't go away

01:05:37 ◼   ► But sometimes when they charge money and I'm assuming this is the case here in case you can tell me for sure

01:05:41 ◼   ► Sometimes they decide that the customer for this is not you like that. Yes, they're gonna charge money for it

01:05:46 ◼   ► But they're gonna charge so much money that it's clearly meant for

01:05:49 ◼   ► Businesses small businesses big business and not for individual people who just like that of any domain now

01:05:54 ◼   ► Is that the case like if you if you chose to pay for this how much would it cost?

01:05:58 ◼   ► So that's the shtick, right?

01:06:01 ◼   ► Or that's the thing, is that I need to figure something out.

01:06:05 ◼   ► And so, I will answer your question,

01:06:07 ◼   ► but just to set some understanding between all of us.

01:06:11 ◼   ► So I have almost 20 gigs worth of email.

01:06:13 ◼   ► I don't know how, I don't know why, but that's the case.

01:06:15 ◼   ► And I think part of the reason is because my earliest email,

01:06:17 ◼   ► I looked this up last week, I think,

01:06:19 ◼   ► my earliest email was the 16th of July, 2004.

01:06:23 ◼   ► So that's 17 years, six months, and 17 days ago.

01:06:25 ◼   ► - Do you have a lot of attachments?

01:06:27 ◼   ► 'Cause I remember you said that casually

01:06:29 ◼   ► like in the chat or something

01:06:30 ◼   ► and I looked at the size of my email

01:06:31 ◼   ► and it's not using that much.

01:06:35 ◼   ► - I would assume so.

01:06:36 ◼   ► And ETP gets a preposterous amount of email

01:06:38 ◼   ► but almost no attachments so it must not amount to much.

01:06:41 ◼   ► - Did you just email yourself like MP3s for a few decades?

01:06:44 ◼   ► - No, I don't think so.

01:06:45 ◼   ► I mean, anything is possible, but I don't think so.

01:06:47 ◼   ► - I mean, my earliest email is from 1997.

01:06:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, well.

01:06:51 ◼   ► - Oh, I technically have one from 1969

01:06:53 ◼   ► but everyone who knows Unix knows what that is about.

01:06:55 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep.

01:06:56 ◼   ► So anyway, so I have 17 years of history, 17 and a half years of history.

01:07:01 ◼   ► Also on Google is the shared family calendar.

01:07:05 ◼   ► So the way I've done this, and I will be the first to tell you this was a kludgy, silly

01:07:10 ◼   ► way to do it, but it is the way I did it, and I've done it for years, is that I would

01:07:14 ◼   ► sign into my Google account on Erin's phone, but the only thing I would turn on is the

01:07:19 ◼   ► calendar.

01:07:20 ◼   ► So I mean, yes, she could go in there and like flip on my email if she really wanted

01:07:22 ◼   ► to, but she would never do that.

01:07:24 ◼   ► And so our shared calendar is effectively my calendar, it's just that both of us have

01:07:31 ◼   ► access to it.

01:07:32 ◼   ► So I need to do something for both email, so I can keep my custom domain because I would

01:07:38 ◼   ► like to do that, and something about calendaring.

01:07:40 ◼   ► Now maybe, and we'll get to calendaring in a minute, maybe that's iCloud or something,

01:07:44 ◼   ► I don't know, but we need to do something about that.

01:07:46 ◼   ► Additionally, I should note that as of just a couple of months ago, I'm now paying $20

01:07:51 ◼   ► a year or a little under $2 a month

01:07:53 ◼   ► for 100 gigabytes in Google Drive, specifically for email.

01:07:56 ◼   ► Like I don't use Google Drive for anything else.

01:07:57 ◼   ► It's specifically to handle my preposterous amount of email.

01:08:01 ◼   ► - Quick update, I was just misreading the thing

01:08:02 ◼   ► at the bottom of the page.

01:08:03 ◼   ► I have 14 gigs of mail.

01:08:05 ◼   ► I thought I was reading it as 1.4 gigs

01:08:07 ◼   ► and I just, it was comma versus period.

01:08:09 ◼   ► Anyway, I have 14 gigs of mail,

01:08:11 ◼   ► so 20 gigs has not seen that ridiculous.

01:08:12 ◼   ► - Okay, thank you.

01:08:13 ◼   ► So I'm not sure exactly what to do.

01:08:16 ◼   ► And I feel like, so here are my options.

01:08:19 ◼   ► So Gmail, to answer your question from 20 minutes ago,

01:08:22 ◼   ► Gmail appears to be $6 a month for one account,

01:08:26 ◼   ► that's my caseloads.com account,

01:08:31 ◼   ► plus the $2 a month for storage, potentially,

01:08:33 ◼   ► so that's a total of $8 a month.

01:08:35 ◼   ► And that's not awful, especially for something

01:08:39 ◼   ► as critical as email.

01:08:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, for custom domain, that sounds like a good deal.

01:08:42 ◼   ► - It's not bad, but I don't know

01:08:45 ◼   ► if that's what I really wanna do,

01:08:46 ◼   ► and at this point, I kind of feel like

01:08:48 ◼   ► I should just divorce myself from Google entirely

01:08:51 ◼   ► 'cause I'm not using Google Photos anymore.

01:08:52 ◼   ► I'm not really doing anything Google anymore,

01:08:54 ◼   ► so I wonder if I should just divorce myself from it.

01:08:56 ◼   ► - You're using Google Calendar.

01:08:57 ◼   ► - Well, sure, but I feel like I think

01:09:00 ◼   ► that would be a reasonably straightforward thing to replace.

01:09:03 ◼   ► - As someone who uses Google Calendar as a family calendar,

01:09:05 ◼   ► but also for whatever reason,

01:09:07 ◼   ► continues to use the Apple Calendar as well,

01:09:10 ◼   ► I can tell you that,

01:09:11 ◼   ► and I have notifications on for both of them, Google wins.

01:09:15 ◼   ► It is more reliable, Apple's calendar thing,

01:09:18 ◼   ► I have no friggin' idea what it's doing.

01:09:20 ◼   ► I can't understand it, I can't control it,

01:09:22 ◼   ► whereas Google Calendar just works all the time.

01:09:25 ◼   ► So maybe you'll have better luck than I do.

01:09:27 ◼   ► I tried Fantastical, I tried Apple's calendar,

01:09:29 ◼   ► tried all sorts of things,

01:09:31 ◼   ► and Google's calendar just functions all the time.

01:09:35 ◼   ► As much as I love Gmail, I would probably give up Gmail

01:09:40 ◼   ► before I would give up Google Calendar.

01:09:42 ◼   ► - That's interesting, I did not expect you to say that.

01:09:44 ◼   ► That's very interesting.

01:09:45 ◼   ► We don't have particularly complicated needs

01:09:47 ◼   ► from our calendar at this point anyway,

01:09:49 ◼   ► so I feel like that's a conquerable problem,

01:09:51 ◼   ► but maybe my head's in the sand, I don't know.

01:09:54 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, they all have the same features, in theory.

01:09:57 ◼   ► Like, I think our Google Calendar really has come through

01:10:00 ◼   ► with us at the point where our kids got old enough

01:10:02 ◼   ► for them to have their own calendars.

01:10:03 ◼   ► We made them their own Gmail accounts

01:10:05 ◼   ► with their own Google Calendars,

01:10:06 ◼   ► and now I can see, I can put events on their calendar,

01:10:10 ◼   ► and so, and they'll get notifications on their thing,

01:10:12 ◼   ► so like, it becomes a family calendar

01:10:14 ◼   ► where it's not just you and your wife,

01:10:15 ◼   ► but also your kids' events when they're gonna go

01:10:17 ◼   ► to practice or go to this thing or gonna be over

01:10:20 ◼   ► their friend's house or stay late on it.

01:10:22 ◼   ► It's so nice to have that in all one unified calendar.

01:10:25 ◼   ► And yes, Apple Calendar can do that just as well.

01:10:27 ◼   ► In theory, in practice, I find Google much more reliable.

01:10:31 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I gotta look into the calendaring,

01:10:33 ◼   ► but leaving aside the calendaring just for a moment,

01:10:35 ◼   ► like what do I do?

01:10:36 ◼   ► So I told you it's about eight bucks a month

01:10:37 ◼   ► to stick with what I've got.

01:10:40 ◼   ► And that would have the advantage of,

01:10:41 ◼   ► I've actually recently, we haven't talked about it

01:10:43 ◼   ► on the show, but after hearing about it

01:10:44 ◼   ► from several different people on various podcasts

01:10:47 ◼   ► and whatnot, I've been trying MimeStream,

01:10:49 ◼   ► which is a hilariously bad,

01:10:50 ◼   ► although I understand where it came from,

01:10:52 ◼   ► a hilariously bad name for what is actually

01:10:53 ◼   ► a very good email client, but it specifically made it,

01:10:56 ◼   ► at least right now, to Gmail, or Gmail equivalents.

01:11:00 ◼   ► - Welcome to this world, Casey.

01:11:02 ◼   ► No one has made a good email app for non-Gmail email hosts

01:11:06 ◼   ► in probably a decade or more.

01:11:08 ◼   ► - Right, and truth be told, up until literally

01:11:11 ◼   ► a month or two ago, I was using Apple Mail,

01:11:12 ◼   ► And it was fine.

01:11:13 ◼   ► Like I don't love it, but it's sufficient for my needs.

01:11:17 ◼   ► So I could perfectly well go back to Apple Mail

01:11:20 ◼   ► and I'd be fine with it, but I do like MimeStream.

01:11:22 ◼   ► There's a lot to like about it.

01:11:24 ◼   ► So if I go to any other provider

01:11:27 ◼   ► other than just sticking with Gmail,

01:11:29 ◼   ► then I would have to give up MimeStream, which is fine.

01:11:30 ◼   ► In Google Calendar, which I think is fine.

01:11:33 ◼   ► So let's take it as fact, which it isn't,

01:11:35 ◼   ► but let's take it as fact that I wanna switch to something.

01:11:39 ◼   ► Well, what do I do?

01:11:39 ◼   ► I could do iCloud with a custom domain,

01:11:42 ◼   ► But how do I get my archive up to iCloud

01:11:45 ◼   ► and do I really wanna push another 20 gigs to iCloud?

01:11:48 ◼   ► I don't think that's really tenable

01:11:50 ◼   ► on several different levels.

01:11:51 ◼   ► Plus, even though I'm so hilariously in bed with Apple

01:11:54 ◼   ► at this point, it defies description,

01:11:57 ◼   ► do I really wanna add one more thing

01:11:59 ◼   ► and something as critical as email to that list?

01:12:00 ◼   ► - Yeah, I would add to my list of not trusting Apple

01:12:03 ◼   ► that I would have found Apple's email service,

01:12:06 ◼   ► whether it has been itools.com, mac.com, me.com,

01:12:10 ◼   ► cloud.com, under all of its various names,

01:12:13 ◼   ► has worked in the least-- not the least reliable,

01:12:18 ◼   ► but the least straightforward way.

01:12:19 ◼   ► For example, Apple's approach to spam filtering

01:12:23 ◼   ► has very often made it so that sometimes email

01:12:27 ◼   ► sent to their email service will just not

01:12:30 ◼   ► arrive in a way that is 100% invisible to you.

01:12:33 ◼   ► And if you really wanted to pursue it--

01:12:35 ◼   ► Sounds like Apple.

01:12:36 ◼   ► Cool.

01:12:36 ◼   ► Yeah, if you really wanted to pursue it,

01:12:38 ◼   ► you could go through all the tech support things

01:12:39 ◼   ► eventually to come down to like, yeah, we filter out certain email and your thing got

01:12:42 ◼   ► caught in there, but you don't have any visibility into it, right?

01:12:44 ◼   ► It's not like it ends up in the spam folder.

01:12:46 ◼   ► It just literally doesn't arrive.

01:12:47 ◼   ► Like the fact that that has ever happened in the past makes me incredibly wary of using

01:12:53 ◼   ► Apple for mail for my main mail.

01:12:56 ◼   ► I do have, I now I cloud.com, I do have Apple email accounts and I do get mail on them,

01:13:01 ◼   ► but I would never want to use them as my like main most important email because I just,

01:13:07 ◼   ► the idea that I'm waiting for an email that never comes

01:13:09 ◼   ► and I have to go through that dance,

01:13:10 ◼   ► 'cause you know that dance happens sometimes

01:13:12 ◼   ► and when that dance happens,

01:13:13 ◼   ► one of the variables I don't want to be,

01:13:15 ◼   ► well maybe they did send it,

01:13:16 ◼   ► but Apple threw it into Dev null before it sent it to me

01:13:20 ◼   ► and there's no way for me to find that out

01:13:21 ◼   ► without like six months of pursuing this.

01:13:24 ◼   ► - Yep, yep, yep.

01:13:25 ◼   ► - And then that's before you get to the idea of like,

01:13:27 ◼   ► oh and you're gonna import 20 gigs of mail,

01:13:29 ◼   ► good luck with that.

01:13:30 ◼   ► - No, that whole like, hosting everyone's email,

01:13:35 ◼   ► dealing with the spam filtering problems,

01:13:38 ◼   ► that's not the kind of stuff that Apple's really great at.

01:13:42 ◼   ► And I don't think that's ever going to change.

01:13:44 ◼   ► To me, look, there's what you should do,

01:13:50 ◼   ► what you really should do, and what you will do.

01:13:53 ◼   ► - I do wanna hear your recommendations,

01:13:55 ◼   ► but let me set another couple of options in front of you.

01:13:59 ◼   ► So we've got iCloud with custom domain,

01:14:00 ◼   ► I agree with everything that you said, Jon,

01:14:02 ◼   ► I don't think I wanna do that for several different reasons.

01:14:04 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, the custom domain part, I forgot all about that.

01:14:07 ◼   ► It's a new feature that Apple provides, it's kind of cool,

01:14:09 ◼   ► but that adds one more thing,

01:14:11 ◼   ► that like, do I want Apple to control DNS related things?

01:14:15 ◼   ► 'Cause anytime DNS gets screwed with,

01:14:16 ◼   ► or that MX record is screwed up for any short period of time,

01:14:18 ◼   ► talk about email going into dev, no,

01:14:20 ◼   ► like just, there's so many ways you can mess that up,

01:14:23 ◼   ► and just, even within Google,

01:14:26 ◼   ► there's been many reports, including I think from you,

01:14:27 ◼   ► that like, the fancy one, the one with custom domains

01:14:32 ◼   ► is worse than the free one because it's different

01:14:34 ◼   ► and all of the attention and bug fixes

01:14:36 ◼   ► and everything go on the free one

01:14:37 ◼   ► and sometimes you get weird behavior

01:14:38 ◼   ► from the custom domain.

01:14:40 ◼   ► It's really, and then Apple adds that feature.

01:14:44 ◼   ► I just don't think of Apple in that way

01:14:47 ◼   ► and everything they've done that's been close to that

01:14:49 ◼   ► has made me wary of giving them that kind of thing.

01:14:53 ◼   ► They're not a hosting company.

01:14:54 ◼   ► They don't have tools about, they're not all about,

01:14:57 ◼   ► hey, Apple will let you create your own identity on the web

01:14:59 ◼   ► with your own domain name, which we as tech nerds

01:15:02 ◼   ► are always recommending people do,

01:15:03 ◼   ► whether or not we all completely follow that advice.

01:15:05 ◼   ► If you want to be completely portable,

01:15:07 ◼   ► own your own domain, use one of our sponsors

01:15:09 ◼   ► or something to get it, and then move that domain

01:15:13 ◼   ► around with you from different email providers.

01:15:15 ◼   ► Then you'll always be the master of your own destiny

01:15:16 ◼   ► in exchange for managing a bunch of technical mumbo jumbo.

01:15:19 ◼   ► But hey, you're a tech nerd, you listen to a tech podcast,

01:15:21 ◼   ► you have the ability to do this,

01:15:23 ◼   ► and lots of hosting providers make it easier

01:15:26 ◼   ► and nicer to do that, but Apple is not one

01:15:28 ◼   ► of those companies, and kind of neither is Google,

01:15:31 ◼   ► at this point.

01:15:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I could do iCloud, custom domain.

01:15:35 ◼   ► We could, oh, so two more options,

01:15:38 ◼   ► both of which are former sponsors.

01:15:40 ◼   ► I could use Hey, which I know, you know,

01:15:43 ◼   ► we had a little bit of drama about that a few months ago,

01:15:46 ◼   ► but I did try it for a little while

01:15:48 ◼   ► as like an accessory email,

01:15:50 ◼   ► and I actually do really like it,

01:15:52 ◼   ► but here again, like similarly to what happens with Apple,

01:15:57 ◼   ► like do I really wanna go all in

01:15:58 ◼   ► on their completely proprietary setup?

01:16:00 ◼   ► Maybe I do, because there's a lot to like about it.

01:16:03 ◼   ► But I don't know if I do, and that's 100 bucks a year.

01:16:05 ◼   ► - The thing is, I would trust them more than Apple,

01:16:08 ◼   ► because 37signals/basecamp/whatever they're called,

01:16:12 ◼   ► has many, many years experience supporting web applications,

01:16:17 ◼   ► and they have shown, under current management,

01:16:19 ◼   ► a willingness to continue to support stuff

01:16:22 ◼   ► long after it stops making them money.

01:16:24 ◼   ► Like, I think like the original version of Basecamp,

01:16:26 ◼   ► they're still running it for the tiny amount of people

01:16:27 ◼   ► who still wanna use it.

01:16:29 ◼   ► that is above and beyond anything you'll ever see

01:16:31 ◼   ► a company like Google or Apple do.

01:16:33 ◼   ► - Totally.

01:16:34 ◼   ► - And so if you're worried, like if I put all my eggs

01:16:36 ◼   ► in this basket, am I gonna get screwed?

01:16:38 ◼   ► I mean, eventually, yeah, like the founders will retire

01:16:41 ◼   ► and then some private equity company will own it

01:16:42 ◼   ► and they'll screw the whole business up, right?

01:16:44 ◼   ► But for the lifetime of the people

01:16:46 ◼   ► who are currently running the company,

01:16:47 ◼   ► assuming they continue to run it,

01:16:48 ◼   ► they have a track record of continuing

01:16:51 ◼   ► to support their customers way beyond what you would expect

01:16:54 ◼   ► from other companies.

01:16:55 ◼   ► Now, and Hey also offers custom domains.

01:16:58 ◼   ► So you could have your own domain, which again is the big out, where it's like, "Oh, if they

01:17:01 ◼   ► get evil, I'll just move elsewhere and I don't know how to change my email address."

01:17:06 ◼   ► But I think Hay is very opinionated in terms of how they do email, so you have to kind

01:17:09 ◼   ► of buy into that part of it.

01:17:10 ◼   ► But I would, you know, this just shows how little I trust Apple is that I would trust

01:17:14 ◼   ► a tiny little company like Basecamp way more than Apple.

01:17:19 ◼   ► Yeah, and I agree again with all of your points there.

01:17:23 ◼   ► And that's the thing is that even though I genuinely do like the opinions that Hey has,

01:17:29 ◼   ► I don't know if I want to commit to that.

01:17:31 ◼   ► I mean, I don't have to commit to it forever, but you know what I mean?

01:17:34 ◼   ► Like I don't want to commit to it forever.

01:17:35 ◼   ► It's a different approach to email.

01:17:36 ◼   ► Like it may, I still use Hey for one of my email accounts.

01:17:41 ◼   ► And if you want that approach to your email, it works.

01:17:43 ◼   ► But I don't want that approach.

01:17:45 ◼   ► I don't personally want that approach for like my main like fire hose email address.

01:17:50 ◼   ► It's better for a personal email address of someone who doesn't want to or expect to get

01:17:53 ◼   ► a lot of email.

01:17:54 ◼   ► Hey, Excel's there, I feel like.

01:17:56 ◼   ► See, it's funny you say that, because I actually think it would be good on a fire hose email,

01:17:59 ◼   ► but we can argue that another time.

01:18:01 ◼   ► But that's $100 a year, and here again I have the problem of, well, what do I do with the

01:18:05 ◼   ► last 17 or whatever years of email that I have?

01:18:08 ◼   ► It isn't absolutely required that that ends up online somewhere, but I would like it to

01:18:14 ◼   ► be, because I do search my email relatively frequently, granted not for 17-year-old emails,

01:18:19 ◼   ► - And Google does that search really well, I have to say.

01:18:22 ◼   ► - Google does it really well.

01:18:23 ◼   ► - It's a reminder to put a note on your calendar

01:18:26 ◼   ► every six months, every year, whatever interval you feel like

01:18:28 ◼   ► to use the Google checkout feature or whatever

01:18:30 ◼   ► where they give you a data dump of all your email.

01:18:33 ◼   ► - That's a good point.

01:18:34 ◼   ► - And they give it to you in a format

01:18:35 ◼   ► that is in theory portable.

01:18:37 ◼   ► So if and when my Google account gets totally locked

01:18:40 ◼   ► and my life is destroyed, I will at least have

01:18:42 ◼   ► my legacy of email as of on average six months ago.

01:18:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, yeah.

01:18:46 ◼   ► So then the final option that I'm aware of anyway

01:18:48 ◼   ► is former sponsor Fastmail.

01:18:50 ◼   ► And I think the code is still valid, for what it's worth,

01:18:54 ◼   ► even though they haven't sponsored it in a little while,

01:18:55 ◼   ► but fastmail.com/atp, 10% off your first year,

01:18:57 ◼   ► not a sponsor for this episode, but hey, here we are.

01:19:00 ◼   ► Hey, here we are.

01:19:01 ◼   ► And that's five bucks a month.

01:19:04 ◼   ► And what's super appealing about Fastmail,

01:19:06 ◼   ► other than the fact that they sponsor us,

01:19:07 ◼   ► other than the fact that I've heard incredibly good things

01:19:11 ◼   ► from a lot of people, and I think we're about to hear more,

01:19:13 ◼   ► is that they specifically have a Gmail import thing.

01:19:18 ◼   ► So apparently on the server side, they will go crawling through all your email and just slurp it all up and suck it all in.

01:19:25 ◼   ► So my current theory, calendaring notwithstanding, is why wouldn't I just go ahead and use FastMail and just switch everything over there?

01:19:36 ◼   ► Because I've got all my archive, hypothetically anyway, I've got my archive, I've got my custom domain.

01:19:41 ◼   ► They might even do calendaring for all I know, I haven't looked into this yet.

01:19:44 ◼   ► And I've got everything I want and it's five bucks a month.

01:19:47 ◼   ► And granted, I don't particularly want to pay

01:19:50 ◼   ► any amount of money for my email,

01:19:51 ◼   ► 'cause I haven't for 17 years, six months, and 17 days.

01:19:54 ◼   ► But like you said, Jon, I've been freeloading long enough,

01:19:56 ◼   ► it seems reasonable, I'm an adult now,

01:19:59 ◼   ► so it seems like a reasonable thing to do.

01:20:01 ◼   ► So Marco, I kinda cut you off earlier,

01:20:05 ◼   ► I'd like to hear your opinion as to what I should do first,

01:20:08 ◼   ► and then Jon, I would like to hear yours as well.

01:20:10 ◼   ► - Okay, well there's, what you should do

01:20:13 ◼   ► for the maximum comedy value for our show

01:20:16 ◼   ► is try to host your own email on your Synology.

01:20:18 ◼   ► - Oh no, no, no, no, no.

01:20:20 ◼   ► - But you shouldn't actually do that

01:20:21 ◼   ► for practical reasons.

01:20:22 ◼   ► - Nobody should do that.

01:20:23 ◼   ► - Well actually, to quickly interrupt you,

01:20:25 ◼   ► there was a time that I think I was doing that

01:20:28 ◼   ► like years and years and years and years

01:20:29 ◼   ► before the Synology, years ago.

01:20:31 ◼   ► And what I found even then, like 15 years ago,

01:20:34 ◼   ► is that to get around like spam filtering,

01:20:37 ◼   ► I don't know anything about this world,

01:20:38 ◼   ► but to get around like spam filtering

01:20:40 ◼   ► and rules and so on and so forth,

01:20:41 ◼   ► it is like genuinely difficult to,

01:20:43 ◼   ► or at least it was then,

01:20:45 ◼   ► I presume it still is now.

01:20:47 ◼   ► - It's probably worse now.

01:20:48 ◼   ► - Right, exactly, to host your own email.

01:20:51 ◼   ► I remember there being some like,

01:20:52 ◼   ► for pay software as a service thing,

01:20:55 ◼   ► or maybe it was installable software

01:20:56 ◼   ► that was like a really good web,

01:20:59 ◼   ► gosh, I wish I remember the name of it,

01:21:01 ◼   ► but it was like a really, really, really good

01:21:02 ◼   ► web like email app.

01:21:04 ◼   ► Oh shoot, it ran on like Linux or something like that,

01:21:06 ◼   ► like the server was on Linux.

01:21:08 ◼   ► And I remember wanting to install it so bad

01:21:10 ◼   ► and use it so badly.

01:21:12 ◼   ► But it was hard to get your emails

01:21:14 ◼   ► to reliably get delivered

01:21:15 ◼   ► because they would see whatever domain

01:21:17 ◼   ► that you were serving from,

01:21:18 ◼   ► and the recipient servers would be like, pfft, no.

01:21:21 ◼   ► And so, I know you're joking, Marco,

01:21:23 ◼   ► I totally get that you're joking,

01:21:25 ◼   ► but the thought did briefly-- - Nobody shows their email.

01:21:27 ◼   ► - Yeah, but the thought did briefly cross my mind,

01:21:29 ◼   ► and then I realized, no, this is a terrible idea.

01:21:32 ◼   ► - And just to elaborate on it,

01:21:34 ◼   ► to explain to people why would it be a bad idea

01:21:35 ◼   ► to host their email, a lot of people probably think like,

01:21:37 ◼   ► oh, but if you have a server in your house

01:21:38 ◼   ► hosting your email, then like,

01:21:39 ◼   ► or you have a power outage, you missed email.

01:21:41 ◼   ► Well, email is storing forwards.

01:21:42 ◼   ► It's not because you'll miss email necessarily,

01:21:44 ◼   ► Although obviously if you really screw things up,

01:21:46 ◼   ► yes, your email can go away in a way

01:21:48 ◼   ► that you can't get it back.

01:21:49 ◼   ► But the real problem is what Casey was getting at.

01:21:51 ◼   ► Email is a protocol based on the hippie dippie days

01:21:55 ◼   ► of the internet where everybody trusted everyone else

01:21:57 ◼   ► and nothing was encrypted

01:21:58 ◼   ► and everybody will just behave themselves.

01:21:59 ◼   ► And as we learned, that's not the case.

01:22:01 ◼   ► Spam is a thing because it is essentially free to send email.

01:22:05 ◼   ► And so in the modern internet,

01:22:06 ◼   ► if you would like to be on the internet

01:22:09 ◼   ► and send and receive email,

01:22:12 ◼   ► Technically, anybody can start a mail server

01:22:14 ◼   ► and start sending and receiving emails

01:22:16 ◼   ► as long as they have all their DNS records set up.

01:22:17 ◼   ► But practically speaking, all of the real things

01:22:22 ◼   ► that send and receive email that trust each other,

01:22:25 ◼   ► that are not known spammers, have a trust relationship

01:22:28 ◼   ► based on sometimes cryptography,

01:22:31 ◼   ► sometimes paying money to do a thing,

01:22:33 ◼   ► sometimes various handshake protocols.

01:22:36 ◼   ► But in general, if you just pop up on the internet

01:22:38 ◼   ► on the IP address vended by your ISP

01:22:40 ◼   ► and start trying to send mail,

01:22:41 ◼   ► everyone will look at you and say,

01:22:43 ◼   ► "Get the hell out of here."

01:22:44 ◼   ► Because you look a lot like a spammer.

01:22:47 ◼   ► Because it used to be anybody could do that.

01:22:49 ◼   ► And you could run your Linux server in your basement

01:22:52 ◼   ► and send your email from it,

01:22:53 ◼   ► or everyone would just accept that mail.

01:22:54 ◼   ► But those days are long over.

01:22:55 ◼   ► That's one of the main tools against spam is saying,

01:22:58 ◼   ► "I'm not just gonna trust any old random computer

01:23:01 ◼   ► "on the internet and accept email from it.

01:23:03 ◼   ► "We're gonna have to do a thing."

01:23:04 ◼   ► And all these people who provide email,

01:23:06 ◼   ► whether it's Google, Apple, FastMail,

01:23:09 ◼   ► They have teams of people whose only job is to make sure

01:23:12 ◼   ► that A, they're not overwhelmed with spam,

01:23:14 ◼   ► which is like, someone was on the chat

01:23:15 ◼   ► we're talking about gray listing or whatever.

01:23:17 ◼   ► When I was talking about mail going into Apple

01:23:18 ◼   ► and then Apple would just throw it away,

01:23:20 ◼   ► everybody's throwing away a lot of mail.

01:23:22 ◼   ► It's just that Apple was more aggressive about it

01:23:23 ◼   ► and didn't give you any recourse

01:23:24 ◼   ► and didn't tell you they were doing it, right?

01:23:26 ◼   ► But everybody has to do that,

01:23:27 ◼   ► otherwise we would all be overwhelmed by spam.

01:23:29 ◼   ► If you think you're getting a lot of spam now,

01:23:30 ◼   ► you have to see how much email your email provider

01:23:33 ◼   ► is throwing away and not allowing to get to you.

01:23:35 ◼   ► And then B, there's all sorts of other

01:23:36 ◼   ► complicated relationships that I don't know

01:23:37 ◼   ► all the acronyms for that make it so that you are

01:23:40 ◼   ► a super duper trusted, no really it's okay,

01:23:42 ◼   ► you're not a spammer type of authentication

01:23:45 ◼   ► so people will make sure your email is delivered reliably.

01:23:49 ◼   ► And that's a problem for people running services.

01:23:50 ◼   ► You can talk to Marco about the services he runs

01:23:52 ◼   ► that sometimes have to send email.

01:23:55 ◼   ► And that's a difficult thing to do,

01:23:56 ◼   ► which is why AWS and other services like that

01:23:58 ◼   ► have sort of trusted mail delivery services.

01:24:01 ◼   ► Where they say, don't try to send email yourself,

01:24:03 ◼   ► send it through, I don't know what the AWS one is called,

01:24:05 ◼   ► like SendGrid or something.

01:24:06 ◼   ► No, I'm mixing up things, but anyway.

01:24:08 ◼   ► Send through this managed service

01:24:10 ◼   ► because we have a team of people

01:24:12 ◼   ► whose only job is to make sure that that mail system

01:24:15 ◼   ► is not used by spammers and is still trusted

01:24:19 ◼   ► by all the other trustworthy people.

01:24:20 ◼   ► It's the only way that the email system works at all.

01:24:23 ◼   ► You will never want to put in that amount of work

01:24:25 ◼   ► for the server running out of your house.

01:24:27 ◼   ► And having emails not arrive

01:24:29 ◼   ► or having to fight with deliverability

01:24:31 ◼   ► and being overwhelmed by spam

01:24:33 ◼   ► are two things you don't wanna deal with.

01:24:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, so what you should do for comedy

01:24:38 ◼   ► is host an ear synology, but that would be the only purpose.

01:24:41 ◼   ► There would be no other value to that

01:24:43 ◼   ► besides comedy for our show.

01:24:44 ◼   ► And even just making the joke right now,

01:24:45 ◼   ► I think we've gotten most of the value out of it,

01:24:46 ◼   ► so let's move on from that idea.

01:24:47 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:24:50 ◼   ► The most pragmatic thing you should do

01:24:54 ◼   ► is stop worrying about this and just pay Google

01:24:56 ◼   ► what they want and keep going with your life

01:24:57 ◼   ► and change nothing else.

01:24:59 ◼   ► But the ideal thing you would do

01:25:02 ◼   ► if you can get over the value of that pragmatism,

01:25:05 ◼   ► is try Fast Mail, it's really good.

01:25:08 ◼   ► So just to give you some idea,

01:25:10 ◼   ► I have a bit under 15 gigs of email,

01:25:14 ◼   ► my plan allows 100 gigs,

01:25:16 ◼   ► that's the $90 a year professional plan,

01:25:19 ◼   ► which is about, what is that, eight bucks a month?

01:25:21 ◼   ► So we're in the similar price ballpark here.

01:25:25 ◼   ► In practice, I haven't paid Fast Mail in a very long time,

01:25:29 ◼   ► because once I posted,

01:25:30 ◼   ► or a couple times I posted referral links

01:25:32 ◼   ► on my blog to my account,

01:25:33 ◼   ► 'cause they have a referral program,

01:25:35 ◼   ► and I currently have a referral balance of $2,600.

01:25:39 ◼   ► - Well, can you send some of that my way then?

01:25:41 ◼   ► - I don't think I can.

01:25:42 ◼   ► And it just, it goes up over time slowly,

01:25:45 ◼   ► so I haven't actually paid a fast,

01:25:47 ◼   ► like it just deducts from that every year when it renews.

01:25:50 ◼   ► So I haven't paid in a very long time.

01:25:52 ◼   ► - This is a multi-level marketing scheme.

01:25:55 ◼   ► - No, I don't even need your referrals now.

01:25:57 ◼   ► I can't use all this, it would take me 100 years to do.

01:25:59 ◼   ► - I'm still so annoyed that I didn't do that

01:26:01 ◼   ► with my Dropbox referral code back in the day.

01:26:03 ◼   ► Everyone who bought AdSense keywords for Dropbox

01:26:06 ◼   ► and just got unlimited money.

01:26:07 ◼   ► I did get a bunch of Dropbox referrals.

01:26:10 ◼   ► That's why I was on the free Dropbox plan

01:26:11 ◼   ► for just years and years and years,

01:26:13 ◼   ► but eventually I filled it up and had to start paying

01:26:14 ◼   ► and I'm still kind of bitter about that.

01:26:17 ◼   ► - Well anyway, so yeah, so what's great

01:26:20 ◼   ► about the Fast Mail option is that first of all,

01:26:22 ◼   ► it is a standard host.

01:26:25 ◼   ► When I was looking for this,

01:26:26 ◼   ► whatever it was a million years ago,

01:26:28 ◼   ► I wanted a regular IMAP email host

01:26:31 ◼   ► because I could move to and from it freely

01:26:34 ◼   ► because that's the wonderful nature of email standards.

01:26:39 ◼   ► And, you know, Fastmail, again, yes, previous sponsor,

01:26:42 ◼   ► possibly future sponsor.

01:26:44 ◼   ► Some of this is in their ads.

01:26:45 ◼   ► I'm not trying to give them a free ad here or anything.

01:26:46 ◼   ► I'm just genuinely talking about

01:26:47 ◼   ► how much I enjoy their service.

01:26:49 ◼   ► This is a great host if what you want

01:26:52 ◼   ► is a basic but good email host,

01:26:56 ◼   ► which there's, oh my god,

01:26:59 ◼   ► there is so much to be said for that.

01:27:00 ◼   ► In this world of tech companies trying to be everything

01:27:05 ◼   ► to everyone and trying to make ever increasing,

01:27:08 ◼   ► you know, giant walled gardens that lock you in

01:27:12 ◼   ► in all sorts of ways and try to shove more and more

01:27:15 ◼   ► like enterprise crap onto you all the time,

01:27:18 ◼   ► I really appreciate companies that just do a basic thing

01:27:21 ◼   ► really well and that's what this is.

01:27:24 ◼   ► Now, they have a lot of features I don't use.

01:27:27 ◼   ► Like, I never use the web interface at all.

01:27:29 ◼   ► Like, I just use Apple Mail on all platforms and it's fine.

01:27:32 ◼   ► They do have a web interface if you want it.

01:27:34 ◼   ► One area that's not gonna be as good as Gmail is search.

01:27:38 ◼   ► It's just, Gmail is really good at search.

01:27:40 ◼   ► I don't know anybody who's as good at Gmail as search.

01:27:43 ◼   ► One area that Fast Mail is great is spam.

01:27:46 ◼   ► Because, again, I've never actually used Gmail regularly

01:27:50 ◼   ► so I don't really know much about it.

01:27:51 ◼   ► but I will frequently hear my friends complaining

01:27:54 ◼   ► about how Gmail spam filtering is possibly not working

01:27:57 ◼   ► so well sometimes or working too well other times.

01:28:00 ◼   ► One thing about fast mail spam is that it is customizable

01:28:03 ◼   ► and you can do something like, you can set certain folders

01:28:08 ◼   ► to be your spam learning folders

01:28:10 ◼   ► for your personal spam filter.

01:28:12 ◼   ► So whenever I get an email from somebody,

01:28:15 ◼   ► I would rather never hear from again

01:28:16 ◼   ► like some terrible PR list that somehow I got put on.

01:28:20 ◼   ► I just drag it to my Learn Spam folder.

01:28:22 ◼   ► And it learns it, and that's it.

01:28:24 ◼   ► And I have it set to learn from the junk folder,

01:28:29 ◼   ► and then put its filed spam into a different folder.

01:28:33 ◼   ► That way it's not learning from its own poop or whatever.

01:28:37 ◼   ► Basically, that allows me to use the move to junk shortcut

01:28:40 ◼   ► buttons in mail clients.

01:28:42 ◼   ► And that's basically a Learn Spam button

01:28:44 ◼   ► for my fast mail setup.

01:28:45 ◼   ► So that's a nice little trick.

01:28:47 ◼   ► But otherwise, I love this because it is just, as I said,

01:28:50 ◼   ► It's just an email host.

01:28:51 ◼   ► And I am not an email power user.

01:28:53 ◼   ► I don't want all those advanced features

01:28:56 ◼   ► that all the cool Gmail trendy apps have done over time,

01:28:59 ◼   ► like snoozing and all, like I don't want any of that.

01:29:02 ◼   ► - You can do that on Fastmail apparently.

01:29:04 ◼   ► - Oh you can?

01:29:05 ◼   ► Well maybe not from Apple Mail, I don't know.

01:29:06 ◼   ► But like I love just using the boring Apple Mail client

01:29:11 ◼   ► for my boring email in my boring way

01:29:15 ◼   ► and it just works and I don't have to think about it.

01:29:17 ◼   ► Now again, they offer calendars.

01:29:19 ◼   ► I've never used them.

01:29:20 ◼   ► They offer synced notes and stuff.

01:29:22 ◼   ► I've never used any of that stuff.

01:29:23 ◼   ► I just use Fast Mail for email,

01:29:25 ◼   ► and I use it only through Apple's mail apps.

01:29:30 ◼   ► And that's it.

01:29:31 ◼   ► And it has worked rock solid reliably for, what, a decade?

01:29:35 ◼   ► Whatever it's been.

01:29:36 ◼   ► It's been so good that entire time.

01:29:39 ◼   ► I just never have to think about it.

01:29:40 ◼   ► And that is the amount of effort and focus

01:29:45 ◼   ► that your email hosting choices deserve.

01:29:47 ◼   ► You should never be thinking about them.

01:29:48 ◼   ► It shouldn't matter because email is boring and stupid

01:29:51 ◼   ► and you should just get done with it as quickly as possible.

01:29:54 ◼   ► - All right, Jon, what do you think I should do?

01:29:56 ◼   ► - You know, when I sort of put all my eggs

01:29:59 ◼   ► in the Gmail basket back in the day

01:30:01 ◼   ► and imported all my mail, whatever,

01:30:04 ◼   ► over the years I've sometimes regret

01:30:06 ◼   ► that I didn't do a custom domain

01:30:08 ◼   ► for the reasons that I said,

01:30:09 ◼   ► like you should have your custom domain,

01:30:10 ◼   ► it makes you portable,

01:30:11 ◼   ► you don't have to change your email address.

01:30:12 ◼   ► Like my email address that I use is my firehose,

01:30:15 ◼   ► it ends in gmail.com.

01:30:16 ◼   ► And it's like, oh, you're gonna regret that

01:30:18 ◼   ► 'cause eventually something's gonna change

01:30:19 ◼   ► and Gmail's gonna shut down or whatever

01:30:21 ◼   ► and you're just gonna have to change all your accounts

01:30:22 ◼   ► and this would be a giant headache.

01:30:25 ◼   ► But like I said about this Google Apps for your domain,

01:30:28 ◼   ► it's been a lot of years now, right?

01:30:31 ◼   ► Like I've got, I feel like I've already got

01:30:33 ◼   ► my non-money's worth out of Gmail,

01:30:35 ◼   ► even if they shut down tomorrow.

01:30:37 ◼   ► I say, well, that was a good run, you know.

01:30:40 ◼   ► When did Gmail launch in like 2000?

01:30:42 ◼   ► - It was 2004. - 2004, yeah.

01:30:44 ◼   ► It was my last year of college.

01:30:45 ◼   ► So 17 years, I'm just gonna give that a thumbs up,

01:30:50 ◼   ► I'm gonna say I've already got my money's worth, right?

01:30:51 ◼   ► But I basically trusted that Google as a company

01:30:53 ◼   ► would be around for a long time

01:30:54 ◼   ► and that they would continue to run Gmail for a long time.

01:30:57 ◼   ► And if they did start to charge for it, I would pay.

01:30:59 ◼   ► But this whole thing of like,

01:31:01 ◼   ► I get to continue to use it for free

01:31:02 ◼   ► because they're not charging for the Gmail.com ones, right?

01:31:05 ◼   ► But for you, they are charging.

01:31:06 ◼   ► And I think if it was in your situation,

01:31:08 ◼   ► I would just start paying.

01:31:09 ◼   ► Because I wouldn't be in a situation

01:31:14 ◼   ► where I regretted not having custom email,

01:31:15 ◼   ► 'cause you did, you were smart enough

01:31:17 ◼   ► to do the custom domain thing,

01:31:18 ◼   ► and that's the email address you use,

01:31:20 ◼   ► and I wouldn't want to give that up,

01:31:21 ◼   ► and I also wouldn't want to do anything

01:31:23 ◼   ► that could disrupt email,

01:31:24 ◼   ► and the least disruptive thing is to just start paying.

01:31:27 ◼   ► So that's what I would do.

01:31:28 ◼   ► But Fast Mail sounds fine, it's just like,

01:31:30 ◼   ► do you want to put in the work to do that?

01:31:32 ◼   ► For me personally, I like the Gmail web interface.

01:31:35 ◼   ► It's the main way I use email.

01:31:37 ◼   ► - Nah, you're messing up for me.

01:31:39 ◼   ► - That doesn't exist in Fast Mail,

01:31:40 ◼   ► so that would be a big hangout for me,

01:31:42 ◼   ► because then I'd have to pick another client, right?

01:31:44 ◼   ► because I'm just using the web interface.

01:31:46 ◼   ► So I would definitely stay.

01:31:48 ◼   ► And I think for you, the least disruption option is to stay.

01:31:51 ◼   ► Because I think Google is still a good mail hosting provider.

01:31:58 ◼   ► Complaints about the spam thing are valid,

01:32:01 ◼   ► but you can try to train it and correct it or whatever.

01:32:03 ◼   ► It's a little bit annoying.

01:32:05 ◼   ► But the search is amazing, and the reliability

01:32:09 ◼   ► has been very, very solid.

01:32:10 ◼   ► So that's my advice.

01:32:12 ◼   ► My number one choice, stay where you are, number two fast mail.

01:32:15 ◼   ► Fair enough.

01:32:16 ◼   ► Real time follow up, I asked a buddy of mine

01:32:18 ◼   ► who was also obsessed with this random email thing

01:32:22 ◼   ► that I think he had brought to me.

01:32:23 ◼   ► I think he had found it.

01:32:24 ◼   ► It still exists.

01:32:26 ◼   ► It's called Zimbra, Z-I-M-B-R-A. And it's like,

01:32:30 ◼   ► you can do it on prem.

01:32:31 ◼   ► You can do it in the cloud.

01:32:32 ◼   ► I'll probably look at it for three seconds

01:32:34 ◼   ► just to remind myself what it-- well,

01:32:35 ◼   ► it's surely totally different than it was 15 years ago.

01:32:38 ◼   ► But anyways, that is also an option.

01:32:40 ◼   ► I can't imagine me deciding to go with it,

01:32:43 ◼   ► but I guess I could run that on my own server.

01:32:47 ◼   ► Maybe I could put it in Docker on the Synology.

01:32:49 ◼   ► How about that, Marco?

01:32:50 ◼   ► Is that sufficient? - Mm-hmm, there you go.

01:32:52 ◼   ► - I could do that.

01:32:53 ◼   ► But I'm sitting here now--

01:32:55 ◼   ► - Can you somehow involve like RX Swift?

01:32:58 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:33:00 ◼   ► - No, at this point, I haven't written RX--

01:33:01 ◼   ► - KZ Greatest Hits.

01:33:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, right, I haven't written RX in a long time.

01:33:04 ◼   ► Still doing Combine here and there,

01:33:06 ◼   ► but no RX in a long time.

01:33:08 ◼   ► But yes, that would be a greatest hits album for sure.

01:33:11 ◼   ► I think sitting here now, what I'm probably going to do

01:33:17 ◼   ► is sometime in the next couple of months,

01:33:19 ◼   ► I'm going to sign up for Fastmail,

01:33:21 ◼   ► and I'm going to try to get it to suck in all my email

01:33:24 ◼   ► from Gmail and just take it for a spin for a month or so.

01:33:27 ◼   ► And if I decide it's sufficient, then I'll stick with it.

01:33:31 ◼   ► And if it's, for some reason, garbage,

01:33:32 ◼   ► then I'll go back to Gmail and give them my money.

01:33:37 ◼   ► Did you say what email client you use?

01:33:40 ◼   ► - So I use MimeStream on the Mac,

01:33:43 ◼   ► which is where I do most of my email.

01:33:45 ◼   ► - But you won't be able to do that with FastMail.

01:33:46 ◼   ► - And I won't be able to do that with FastMail, but--

01:33:48 ◼   ► - Although, isn't MimeStream promising support

01:33:50 ◼   ► for non-Gmail accounts?

01:33:52 ◼   ► - Yes, hypothetically.

01:33:54 ◼   ► - Let me tell you something, Casey.

01:33:55 ◼   ► As an on-Gmail user, every email app always promises that.

01:34:00 ◼   ► It's always coming in a few months, it never comes,

01:34:04 ◼   ► and they get bought or they shut down.

01:34:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, no, I totally agree with you.

01:34:07 ◼   ► - Don't count on that.

01:34:08 ◼   ► If you're gonna jump into any non-Gmail host

01:34:11 ◼   ► for your email options, get used to Apple Mail

01:34:15 ◼   ► or the web interface to that host, that's it.

01:34:17 ◼   ► I guess you could use Thunderbird,

01:34:19 ◼   ► but you're gonna be stuck with very few options.

01:34:22 ◼   ► It does still exist.

01:34:23 ◼   ► - I think you can use Outlook still, right?

01:34:25 ◼   ► - Well, and it's actually, it's funny you bring that up

01:34:27 ◼   ► because what I'm not sure of,

01:34:29 ◼   ► I do not have an Office 365 account,

01:34:31 ◼   ► nor do I particularly want one,

01:34:33 ◼   ► but if somebody wrote to me and said,

01:34:35 ◼   ► oh my gosh, outlook.com or whatever,

01:34:38 ◼   ► does custom domains and it's the best thing

01:34:40 ◼   ► since sliced bread.

01:34:40 ◼   ► I would at least take a moment to look at it,

01:34:42 ◼   ► although I can't imagine I would actually go for it.

01:34:45 ◼   ► But yeah, I agree with, to come back to your point,

01:34:47 ◼   ► I do agree with what you're saying,

01:34:48 ◼   ► that I fully expect that MimeStream

01:34:51 ◼   ► will go away forever for me, and that's fine.

01:34:54 ◼   ► It's only the last month or two I've been using MimeStream,

01:34:56 ◼   ► and I like it, I'm not like hell-bent on it.

01:35:00 ◼   ► So if I need to go back to Apple Mail,

01:35:02 ◼   ► which I can't stress enough,

01:35:04 ◼   ► I know I've said it like three times,

01:35:05 ◼   ► but I just stopped using Apple Mail

01:35:06 ◼   ► like two or three months ago at most,

01:35:07 ◼   ► probably a month or two ago, then that's fine.

01:35:10 ◼   ► I'll go back to what I've been using for the last,

01:35:12 ◼   ► what, 12, 13, 14 years or something like that,

01:35:14 ◼   ► so I'm not too worried about it.

01:35:16 ◼   ► And there is something to be said for using FastMail

01:35:18 ◼   ► in a traditional IMAP server,

01:35:21 ◼   ► and this is what you were saying, Marco,

01:35:22 ◼   ► because Gmail does a reasonable job

01:35:25 ◼   ► of mapping labels to folders and things like that

01:35:28 ◼   ► and trying to play nice with IMAP,

01:35:30 ◼   ► but it's not perfect, it's not stupendous, and so--

01:35:34 ◼   ► - That's why MimeStream is so great.

01:35:35 ◼   ► It doesn't try to treat Gmail as an iMac client, right?

01:35:37 ◼   ► It uses a sort of native Gmail interface,

01:35:39 ◼   ► and that's just way better.

01:35:41 ◼   ► - Yeah, so I think, again, the more I think about it,

01:35:45 ◼   ► the more I'm sitting here today,

01:35:47 ◼   ► the more I think about it, the more I think I wanna

01:35:49 ◼   ► just divorce myself from Google

01:35:51 ◼   ► and just go and get a FastMail account

01:35:54 ◼   ► and then try to use Apple for calendaring

01:35:58 ◼   ► and hope for the best.

01:35:58 ◼   ► And the thing is, if I start making these moves

01:36:02 ◼   ► in the next month or two,

01:36:03 ◼   ► I have some time to say, "Oh, just kidding."

01:36:05 ◼   ► But if I wait until May or June or July or whenever it is that Google starts terminating

01:36:10 ◼   ► me, then I'm going to be in a real bad place.

01:36:15 ◼   ► So hopefully in the next few weeks I'll be making moves on this and I'll have something

01:36:18 ◼   ► to report.

01:36:19 ◼   ► All right, let's do at least a little bit of Ask ATP.

01:36:24 ◼   ► And let's start with Carlos Moffat, who writes, "Any advice on how to back up shared albums?

01:36:29 ◼   ► I recently discovered in a painful way that if you delete one, they are basically unrecoverable,

01:36:34 ◼   ► as they are not included in iCloud backups.

01:36:36 ◼   ► The photos and video files can be recovered, I think, from a local backup, but I'm not

01:36:39 ◼   ► sure if all the files on a shared album are included if a machine is set up to download

01:36:44 ◼   ► all iCloud photos.

01:36:45 ◼   ► And Carlos doesn't mention, but I believe to be true, isn't it a thing or wasn't it

01:36:49 ◼   ► a thing that iCloud album shared albums do not upload in full resolution?

01:36:54 ◼   ► They do not.

01:36:55 ◼   ► That's what I was going to say.

01:36:56 ◼   ► the only place a photo exists is in a shared album, that's bad because it's a recompressed

01:37:01 ◼   ► smaller crappier version of that. Just because you put something in a shared album, don't

01:37:05 ◼   ► delete it from your photo library. The photo library is the real copy of the shared album,

01:37:09 ◼   ► it's crappier resolution, which is kind of dumb. I kind of understand why they did it,

01:37:12 ◼   ► but it seems like in today's storage and power of phone devices or whatever, that they should

01:37:18 ◼   ► just be full resolution and Apple should just have better on-demand downloading. But anyway,

01:37:25 ◼   ► My advice for how to deal with this is annoying.

01:37:29 ◼   ► Like I think it should be recoverable

01:37:31 ◼   ► and Apple should back it up,

01:37:34 ◼   ► especially since what Apple should probably do is like,

01:37:37 ◼   ► I mean, there's lots of different ways

01:37:39 ◼   ► that Apple would do this, but yeah,

01:37:40 ◼   ► make them full resolution and also make it

01:37:42 ◼   ► so that if you try to delete a picture

01:37:44 ◼   ► that's in a shared album, it would yell at you and say,

01:37:45 ◼   ► "You know, this isn't a shared album.

01:37:47 ◼   ► You sure you want to delete it?

01:37:47 ◼   ► It'll be deleted from the shared albums too, right?"

01:37:50 ◼   ► That would be a nice way to do it.

01:37:51 ◼   ► And so that it could just maintain a bunch of metadata

01:37:53 ◼   ► and back it up, but they don't.

01:37:55 ◼   ► So the way to do it is you start on the other end,

01:37:58 ◼   ► when you're, and I know this is hard retroactively,

01:37:59 ◼   ► but when you're creating a shared album,

01:38:02 ◼   ► I would recommend this just not just for backup purposes,

01:38:05 ◼   ► because it's a nice way to do it.

01:38:06 ◼   ► When you're creating a shared album,

01:38:07 ◼   ► make an album in photos.

01:38:10 ◼   ► I'm coming from a Mac centric viewpoint here.

01:38:11 ◼   ► I have no idea how to do this in your phone.

01:38:13 ◼   ► Just use a Mac.

01:38:13 ◼   ► And call that album, you know,

01:38:18 ◼   ► you can make a folder hierarchy in the sidebar in photos.

01:38:20 ◼   ► So just have a folder hierarchy

01:38:22 ◼   ► that says like shared albums or something.

01:38:23 ◼   ► if that name's taken, just use a different name.

01:38:25 ◼   ► And then make an album called whatever your shared

01:38:30 ◼   ► library's gonna be, not shared library,

01:38:31 ◼   ► shared album's gonna be.

01:38:33 ◼   ► And then drag all your photos into that album.

01:38:35 ◼   ► So you're basically making the shared album

01:38:37 ◼   ► as a plain local album.

01:38:39 ◼   ► Because Apple does back up the plain local albums, right?

01:38:43 ◼   ► Once you have that local album done,

01:38:45 ◼   ► just select all and then go and make

01:38:47 ◼   ► a shared album out of that.

01:38:48 ◼   ► There's a little bit of weird stuff

01:38:49 ◼   ► in terms of what order they appear in the shared album

01:38:51 ◼   ► versus what order they appear in the local album.

01:38:56 ◼   ► But as long as you're not too picky about that

01:38:57 ◼   ► or you just figure out the correct incantation to do it,

01:39:00 ◼   ► what it means is that if you accidentally delete

01:39:02 ◼   ► the shared album, all you have to do is go back

01:39:03 ◼   ► to that local album folder, select all,

01:39:05 ◼   ► and make a new shared album with the same name

01:39:06 ◼   ► and now you got all the same photos in it again.

01:39:08 ◼   ► And that will also remind you, by the way,

01:39:10 ◼   ► don't delete those photos, 'cause if you delete them,

01:39:11 ◼   ► they would be deleted from the local album as well, right?

01:39:15 ◼   ► You do end up with a lot of folders

01:39:16 ◼   ► if you make a lot of shared albums.

01:39:18 ◼   ► Apple's limit on shared albums, I think,

01:39:19 ◼   ► 5,000 pictures, which might not seem like a lot, but we've had a bunch of family members

01:39:23 ◼   ► who used to have a shared album for like pictures of their kids, and then they realized that if you

01:39:28 ◼   ► just keep having kids and you just keep passing, eventually you hit 5,000 photos and you need to

01:39:32 ◼   ► have a picture of your kids too, and then eventually some people just go with an annual

01:39:35 ◼   ► shared album or whatever. So again, the limits might have made sense, you know, a decade ago,

01:39:40 ◼   ► but now we're kind of silly, but they do exist. But because you can have folders within folders

01:39:44 ◼   ► in the sidebar, you can hide all this clutter, and then you'll always have sort of a backup of

01:39:48 ◼   ► of the contents of your folder.

01:39:49 ◼   ► What you're missing is the comments from Aunt Sue

01:39:52 ◼   ► says how cute the baby is.

01:39:53 ◼   ► Like you're not backing that stuff up,

01:39:55 ◼   ► which is kind of a shame.

01:39:56 ◼   ► - Are we really missing them, Bob?

01:39:58 ◼   ► - Yeah. (laughs)

01:39:59 ◼   ► At the very least, if you have,

01:40:01 ◼   ► if what you're trying to save is,

01:40:02 ◼   ► I have this carefully curated collection of images,

01:40:05 ◼   ► I pick the best 15 images that I sell

01:40:07 ◼   ► as shared with my family.

01:40:08 ◼   ► If that's what you wanna back up, you use a local album.

01:40:10 ◼   ► If you want to back up the likes and the comments,

01:40:12 ◼   ► there's no good way to do that.

01:40:14 ◼   ► - Anirudh Kuntur writes,

01:40:16 ◼   ► "When using the MacBook Pro's laptop desktop,

01:40:19 ◼   ► "do you keep the charger always plugged in?

01:40:21 ◼   ► "Does that spoil the battery life?

01:40:22 ◼   ► "Are there any tips to maintain the battery health

01:40:24 ◼   ► "of the MacBook Pro when using it that way?"

01:40:26 ◼   ► So as of a release or two ago,

01:40:29 ◼   ► Apple will try, or optionally I believe,

01:40:31 ◼   ► try to take care of this for you.

01:40:34 ◼   ► So if you go into System Preferences, Battery,

01:40:36 ◼   ► and then choose Battery in the sidebar,

01:40:39 ◼   ► Optimized Battery Charging is an option,

01:40:42 ◼   ► and it says, "To reduce battery aging,

01:40:43 ◼   ► "your Mac learns from your daily charging routine,

01:40:45 ◼   ► so it can wait to finish charging past 80%

01:40:49 ◼   ► until you need to use it on battery.

01:40:51 ◼   ► I like this a lot, I have this on,

01:40:53 ◼   ► and generally speaking, I think it works pretty well.

01:40:55 ◼   ► The one thing that I don't love is I kind of wish

01:40:58 ◼   ► it took a page out of, I guess Teslas

01:41:00 ◼   ► and a lot of other electric vehicles playbook,

01:41:03 ◼   ► where I wish there was a way to say,

01:41:05 ◼   ► no, no, no, I want all of it and I want it now.

01:41:07 ◼   ► - Oh, but there is.

01:41:09 ◼   ► - Well, okay, so I presume that just unchecking

01:41:11 ◼   ► this checkbox is the way to do it,

01:41:13 ◼   ► but is there a better way to tell my Mac,

01:41:16 ◼   ► hey, I know tomorrow or later today or whatever,

01:41:19 ◼   ► I'm gonna be away from power for hours and hours and hours,

01:41:21 ◼   ► I want everything you can give me.

01:41:23 ◼   ► How do you do that?

01:41:24 ◼   ► - Yes, so this is one of the wonderful handful of features

01:41:29 ◼   ► that on macOS should be in the system prep pane,

01:41:33 ◼   ► but only appear if you happen to add to your menu bar.

01:41:37 ◼   ► Here, I'll paste a screenshot into our chat,

01:41:40 ◼   ► I'll make this the chapter art for this chapter.

01:41:42 ◼   ► This is what happens for my desktop laptop.

01:41:44 ◼   ► This is how it looks.

01:41:45 ◼   ► So it says from the menu, if you have the battery enabled

01:41:49 ◼   ► in your menu bar, it'll say charging on hold,

01:41:52 ◼   ► parentheses, rarely used on battery.

01:41:55 ◼   ► And there's an item right below that that you can select

01:41:57 ◼   ► that says charge to full now.

01:41:59 ◼   ► - It's like you're an amateur Mac user.

01:42:01 ◼   ► You always hold down the option key

01:42:02 ◼   ► when you click the menu bar icons.

01:42:04 ◼   ► Have we not learned that?

01:42:04 ◼   ► - This isn't even with option.

01:42:06 ◼   ► This is just--

01:42:07 ◼   ► - This isn't even with option.

01:42:08 ◼   ► - No.

01:42:09 ◼   ► - I don't use laptops.

01:42:10 ◼   ► So people don't know, by the way,

01:42:12 ◼   ► Hold down the option key and click on various menu bar

01:42:14 ◼   ► icons.

01:42:15 ◼   ► You see all sorts of fun stuff.

01:42:16 ◼   ► - Yeah.

01:42:17 ◼   ► So this is how it works.

01:42:19 ◼   ► And this is by default. I didn't change anything

01:42:21 ◼   ► from the defaults here.

01:42:22 ◼   ► So this is by default. It keeps the battery at 80%

01:42:26 ◼   ► when it is plugged in as a desktop laptop,

01:42:29 ◼   ► where you almost never take it off.

01:42:30 ◼   ► And it notices that.

01:42:32 ◼   ► It says rarely use on battery.

01:42:33 ◼   ► And it gives you the menu item that you can just

01:42:35 ◼   ► click to say charge to full now, if you happen to need that.

01:42:38 ◼   ► That's it.

01:42:39 ◼   ► So I do keep it connected all the time.

01:42:42 ◼   ► It's being powered by the XDR.

01:42:43 ◼   ► In fact, I don't think there's a way to connect it

01:42:46 ◼   ► to the XDR without having it be powered by the XDR.

01:42:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, I was gonna bring that up too.

01:42:50 ◼   ► - You can maybe use a hub between it,

01:42:51 ◼   ► but then the hub would try to power the MacBook Pro.

01:42:53 ◼   ► Like they all do that.

01:42:54 ◼   ► So yeah, I don't know if there's actually a way

01:42:57 ◼   ► to refuse power while using any Thunderbolt display.

01:43:01 ◼   ► But regardless, yeah, you don't have to.

01:43:04 ◼   ► It manages it for you.

01:43:05 ◼   ► - I mean, even when it didn't, even when the best we did,

01:43:08 ◼   ► I think Apple's laptops used to like hover around 98 to 100 and they would oscillate around that range, right?

01:43:12 ◼   ► Which is better than just being cranked 100 all the time, but 80% is even better

01:43:16 ◼   ► I would still say like if it's gonna be plugged in all the time

01:43:20 ◼   ► Like don't worry. Yes

01:43:22 ◼   ► You are destroying your battery if it was been the bad old days when it was oscillating between 98 and 100

01:43:26 ◼   ► But you're using your computer and if you chose if you use if the way you use your laptop is almost all the time

01:43:32 ◼   ► It's plugged in then just use it almost all the time plugged in right if you're worried like oh now

01:43:37 ◼   ► I'm destroying a battery and now when I go on a road trip, it's gonna be crappy buy

01:43:40 ◼   ► Big external batteries like there's no free lunch here

01:43:44 ◼   ► So even the 80% thing 80% is not probably the ideal charge for the most longevity of a battery the last time we looked this

01:43:51 ◼   ► Up a few years ago

01:43:51 ◼   ► I think 40% charge for lithium-ion batteries like the best storage

01:43:54 ◼   ► Sort of thing if you just want the battery to not wear out when you're not really using it

01:43:58 ◼   ► But yeah, don't just don't worry about it

01:44:02 ◼   ► Like it's nice that macOS has this feature.

01:44:04 ◼   ► If you do want to do the thing where like,

01:44:07 ◼   ► I needed to be at 100%,

01:44:08 ◼   ► now you have to remember to pick the charge to full thing.

01:44:11 ◼   ► You know, like it's a little bit of extra bother,

01:44:14 ◼   ► but honestly, if you can't, if you feel like,

01:44:17 ◼   ► oh, I'm never gonna remember to do that charge

01:44:18 ◼   ► to full thing and now I'm only gonna have 80% power,

01:44:21 ◼   ► then just turn off optimized battery charging

01:44:22 ◼   ► and just sacrifice.

01:44:24 ◼   ► Sacrifice your batteries.

01:44:25 ◼   ► You bought this computer to use it.

01:44:27 ◼   ► And yes, the battery is gonna wear it as you use it

01:44:29 ◼   ► and it will wear out faster

01:44:30 ◼   ► if you don't optimize battery charging.

01:44:31 ◼   ► but if you really can't remember to ever do the charge

01:44:33 ◼   ► to full now option, just wing it, right?

01:44:37 ◼   ► Like, just, like, people, I always talk about empathy

01:44:39 ◼   ► to the machine, but you buy these machines to use them.

01:44:42 ◼   ► There's no way you're going to like,

01:44:44 ◼   ► there's no prize for having a battery

01:44:45 ◼   ► that's in pristine condition when you're done

01:44:47 ◼   ► with that computer, like, it's a waste,

01:44:48 ◼   ► it's there for you to use it.

01:44:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also, lithium batteries degrade slowly

01:44:53 ◼   ► over time whether you're charging them or not.

01:44:55 ◼   ► You know, they degrade faster under certain charge patterns,

01:44:59 ◼   ► but you're not gonna have this laptop plugged in

01:45:03 ◼   ► on your desktop for three or four years

01:45:05 ◼   ► and then sell it and it's gonna be

01:45:06 ◼   ► in perfect battery condition.

01:45:08 ◼   ► That's just, batteries degrade over time,

01:45:10 ◼   ► especially the ones we have in laptops these days.

01:45:13 ◼   ► It's not as bad as it used to be,

01:45:14 ◼   ► but they degrade over time no matter how you use them.

01:45:17 ◼   ► So yeah, I'm with Jon.

01:45:18 ◼   ► Use it however you want.

01:45:20 ◼   ► That being said, I think for most people,

01:45:22 ◼   ► leaving the setting on by default is fine

01:45:25 ◼   ► because if you are truly not bringing your laptop

01:45:28 ◼   ► for very many places most of the time.

01:45:30 ◼   ► If it's mostly on the desktop,

01:45:32 ◼   ► and the very first time you take it off the desktop,

01:45:35 ◼   ► you only have 80% battery, well, that's a lot,

01:45:38 ◼   ► and the battery life on these was really good.

01:45:41 ◼   ► And so that's not that bad of a thing.

01:45:43 ◼   ► Like, I didn't even realize this feature was on

01:45:45 ◼   ► for the first couple times I took it away,

01:45:47 ◼   ► because I just, you know, I got where I was going,

01:45:50 ◼   ► like for Thanksgiving and Christmas travel,

01:45:52 ◼   ► I got where I was going, and opened my laptop,

01:45:54 ◼   ► and yeah, it's fine.

01:45:55 ◼   ► It was down, quote, down to probably somewhere

01:45:58 ◼   ► in the high 70s by that point, but who cares?

01:46:00 ◼   ► That's still really great.

01:46:01 ◼   ► This has awesome battery life, and if I,

01:46:03 ◼   ► now that I know that this feature is there,

01:46:05 ◼   ► if I'm like, you know, gonna be on a cross-country flight

01:46:08 ◼   ► or something, then I'll charge it to full.

01:46:10 ◼   ► But until that happens, I'm not really in a big rush.

01:46:14 ◼   ► - And this, the thing you just read, Casey,

01:46:16 ◼   ► this is saying that it does the same thing as the phone does

01:46:18 ◼   ► where it tries to learn your patterns, right?

01:46:20 ◼   ► - I believe that's right, yeah.

01:46:22 ◼   ► - So like, your iPhone is doing this too,

01:46:23 ◼   ► we've talked about it in the past,

01:46:24 ◼   ► things like your iPhone when you plug it in

01:46:26 ◼   ► on your nightstand before you go to sleep.

01:46:28 ◼   ► It doesn't immediately charge to 100%

01:46:30 ◼   ► and then sit at 100% until you wake up in the morning.

01:46:32 ◼   ► Instead, based on when you've woken up in past mornings,

01:46:34 ◼   ► it waits until an hour or two before you wake up

01:46:38 ◼   ► and then it charges to 100%.

01:46:39 ◼   ► You can look at the little battery.

01:46:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, it goes to 80 first and then it holds it at 80

01:46:44 ◼   ► until like 6 a.m. or something like that.

01:46:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, and then it pushes it up.

01:46:46 ◼   ► And it's much more important for a phone

01:46:47 ◼   ► 'cause obviously the battery in a phone

01:46:48 ◼   ► is so much smaller than the battery in a laptop

01:46:51 ◼   ► that you're really kind of on the ragged edge

01:46:53 ◼   ► with the phone and phones are so important

01:46:54 ◼   ► that have batteries that they do want your phone

01:46:56 ◼   ► to be 100% when you're ready for it,

01:46:58 ◼   ► because you're not gonna be using your phone plugged in

01:46:59 ◼   ► all day at a desk unless you're a developer.

01:47:02 ◼   ► So the Mac is probably trying to do the same thing,

01:47:06 ◼   ► but like Marco said, the 40% charge thing,

01:47:08 ◼   ► that is in theory, based on, again, years ago,

01:47:12 ◼   ► we're reading this, the best charge level,

01:47:15 ◼   ► if you're just gonna set it in a drawer,

01:47:16 ◼   ► but no charge level stops degradation.

01:47:19 ◼   ► It's just how can we make the degradation

01:47:22 ◼   ► as small as possible?

01:47:23 ◼   ► If you leave it at 100%, leave it at zero,

01:47:25 ◼   ► leave it at 40, A, it won't stay there,

01:47:27 ◼   ► and B, time will slowly damage the battery

01:47:30 ◼   ► just because of the way current battery chemistry stuff works

01:47:33 ◼   ► so use it or lose it, or use it and lose it, there you go.

01:47:36 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:47:38 ◼   ► - Oh man, so Lars Beckema writes,

01:47:42 ◼   ► "My partner's phone was stolen out of her hands

01:47:44 ◼   ► "while walking, so yes, the phone was unlocked

01:47:47 ◼   ► "the other day.

01:47:48 ◼   ► "Unfortunately and unexplainably,

01:47:50 ◼   ► Find My was not enabled on our new iPhone 13 Pro.

01:47:54 ◼   ► Completely erasing and blocking the phone remotely

01:47:56 ◼   ► was out of the question because of this.

01:47:58 ◼   ► Out of curiosity, what do you do to make sure

01:47:59 ◼   ► Find My is always enabled on all of your family members'

01:48:02 ◼   ► devices?

01:48:03 ◼   ► And if this ever happened to you or any of your family members,

01:48:06 ◼   ► how would you make sure any sensitive data would not be

01:48:08 ◼   ► exposed or used in a harmful way?

01:48:10 ◼   ► I'm thinking of certain apps like Gmail, Notes, and Photos,

01:48:12 ◼   ► which can contain sensitive data and which do not require

01:48:16 ◼   ► passcodes or Face ID to open the app.

01:48:18 ◼   ► I don't know how Find My wasn't on,

01:48:21 ◼   ► because I swear that you have to like bend over backwards

01:48:24 ◼   ► to prevent a friend coming on.

01:48:26 ◼   ► And that's for good reason,

01:48:27 ◼   ► because it should be on as far as I'm concerned.

01:48:31 ◼   ► And in terms of protecting stuff,

01:48:32 ◼   ► like honestly I don't, because,

01:48:34 ◼   ► well first of all we'd never leave the house anymore

01:48:36 ◼   ► because COVID, but beyond that,

01:48:39 ◼   ► if we are not in a situation,

01:48:42 ◼   ► our lives do not put us in a place

01:48:43 ◼   ► where this is a thing that is likely to happen

01:48:46 ◼   ► while the phone is actively unlocked.

01:48:48 ◼   ► So I don't have any good advice on this one,

01:48:52 ◼   ► to be honest with you.

01:48:53 ◼   ► - I mean, the good thing is that if someone steals

01:48:55 ◼   ► your phone like this, unless you're being targeted

01:48:58 ◼   ► for some specific reason because you're a senator

01:49:02 ◼   ► or the CEO of some big company or whatever

01:49:04 ◼   ► and they want what's on your phone,

01:49:05 ◼   ► probably they just want your phone.

01:49:07 ◼   ► And so maybe they'd be like, oh, this sucker

01:49:10 ◼   ► left it unlocked, I'll go and try to steal

01:49:12 ◼   ► some credit cards, or maybe they'll do that too,

01:49:14 ◼   ► but you probably 50/50 chance that they just

01:49:16 ◼   ► want the phone, they just want to erase it and resell it or whatever.

01:49:18 ◼   ► So you have that going for you.

01:49:20 ◼   ► But if someone does get your phone and it's unlocked and they have access to all your

01:49:23 ◼   ► stuff, almost every one of these services and things has some way to individually lock

01:49:31 ◼   ► it.

01:49:32 ◼   ► So in Google, you can go to accounts.google.com in your web browser and say "revoke all access

01:49:37 ◼   ► for all devices immediately," right?

01:49:40 ◼   ► Log out of all devices.

01:49:41 ◼   ► Those type of things.

01:49:42 ◼   ► Apple ID I think you can forcibly lock it right by even if it's just by putting

01:49:46 ◼   ► in the wrong password a bunch of times to lock your Apple ID it's a race

01:49:50 ◼   ► against time because obviously they just got your phone they probably you know

01:49:53 ◼   ► if someone really did want to get it your sensitive stuff they probably

01:49:56 ◼   ► already got it but if they're just running you know with your phone and

01:50:00 ◼   ► then eventually they'll look at it later that night baby by then you will have

01:50:02 ◼   ► locked all your stuff so yeah if somehow you manage to have fine I'm not enabled

01:50:07 ◼   ► and couldn't do a remote wipe or remote lock or locks device or anything all the

01:50:11 ◼   ► cool things that you can do, you do have a certain period of time where you can frantically

01:50:15 ◼   ► go through all the services you care about and try to lock them down from a web browser

01:50:19 ◼   ► or another device.

01:50:20 ◼   ► Oh, you know what?

01:50:21 ◼   ► That reminded me too, for people that do the, you know, bring your own device thing for

01:50:26 ◼   ► your employer, a lot of times, particularly if you're connecting to like Exchange or Google

01:50:30 ◼   ► suite, G Suite, whatever it's called today, a lot of times, whether or not you realize

01:50:36 ◼   ► your workplace could lock your device

01:50:40 ◼   ► because by connecting to their email

01:50:43 ◼   ► and their domain and all of this stuff,

01:50:45 ◼   ► oftentimes they have the right to lock either a subset

01:50:49 ◼   ► of your device or your entire device.

01:50:51 ◼   ► So you could ask your work to do you a solid

01:50:54 ◼   ► and do what they probably would want to do anyway

01:50:57 ◼   ► and lock or erase your device on your behalf.

01:51:00 ◼   ► So it's something you could try as well.

01:51:02 ◼   ► - You can also, by the way, someone mentioned two-factor

01:51:04 ◼   ► in the thing, if your phone was your two-factor device,

01:51:06 ◼   ► you can revoke two-factor device access

01:51:10 ◼   ► from various services that you're worried about.

01:51:13 ◼   ► Of course, what if I can't log into that service

01:51:15 ◼   ► 'cause my phone was two-factor?

01:51:16 ◼   ► That's what backup codes are for.

01:51:17 ◼   ► When you set up two-factor, most good services

01:51:20 ◼   ► will give you backup codes that you should keep

01:51:21 ◼   ► like in a safe or something in a physical location.

01:51:25 ◼   ► Again, it's a race against time and it's a super hassle

01:51:27 ◼   ► and you'll probably lose this race,

01:51:28 ◼   ► but technically speaking, you can sort of have a,

01:51:31 ◼   ► hey, if my unlock phone is stolen by an inattentive person,

01:51:34 ◼   ► here's a list of things I have to do.

01:51:36 ◼   ► And it's a long, annoying list, but it is possible.

01:51:38 ◼   ► Even if your phone was your one and only two-factor device,

01:51:40 ◼   ► which I don't particularly recommend,

01:51:42 ◼   ► but there usually is a way to solve that.

01:51:44 ◼   ► Get your backup codes, go to the services,

01:51:47 ◼   ► deauthorize all accounts, log out of all devices,

01:51:49 ◼   ► change the two-factor to be something different than it was,

01:51:51 ◼   ► log in with one of your backup codes so you can get in.

01:51:54 ◼   ► Technically, it is possible.

01:51:56 ◼   ► It's just like a movie.

01:51:57 ◼   ► You're just gonna be doing it as fast as you can.

01:51:59 ◼   ► Maybe get your friend to type on the keyboard

01:52:01 ◼   ► at the same time as you.

01:52:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, but the reality is, like what Jon said at first,

01:52:05 ◼   ► like chances are, phone thieves are wanting your phone,

01:52:10 ◼   ► not your data most of the time,

01:52:12 ◼   ► because most people's data is worthless to them.

01:52:15 ◼   ► And like, if the phone they grabbed at your hand

01:52:17 ◼   ► happened to be unlocked at the time they grabbed it,

01:52:20 ◼   ► how far could they get,

01:52:22 ◼   ► and how long could they have access to that phone?

01:52:24 ◼   ► - I mean, they're gonna look for nudes.

01:52:25 ◼   ► Like, it's a thing that we don't think about,

01:52:27 ◼   ► because no one wants to see naked pictures of us,

01:52:29 ◼   ► but if you are someone who people

01:52:31 ◼   ► would want to see naked pictures of,

01:52:32 ◼   ► they will absolutely look through your pictures

01:52:34 ◼   ► and get all naked pictures and post them and everything,

01:52:35 ◼   ► which is terrible, but that is, I feel like,

01:52:37 ◼   ► the most likely thing that someone who grabs your unlock

01:52:40 ◼   ► phone is going to do.

01:52:40 ◼   ► - I didn't think about that.

01:52:42 ◼   ► - I know, we don't think about it

01:52:43 ◼   ► 'cause no one wants to see us naked,

01:52:44 ◼   ► but that's not true of everybody.

01:52:45 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, anyway, besides risks like that,

01:52:48 ◼   ► a lot of things, you don't have to worry so much

01:52:51 ◼   ► about them opening up your password manager

01:52:54 ◼   ► or being able to access certain things,

01:52:55 ◼   ► 'cause those things are already blocked

01:52:57 ◼   ► by additional passcode or face ID checks.

01:53:00 ◼   ► Making payments is not gonna be possible without you there,

01:53:03 ◼   ► So there's a lot of that surface area of possible risks

01:53:07 ◼   ► is not really there in this scenario.

01:53:10 ◼   ► Again, also keep in mind, it's kind of difficult

01:53:13 ◼   ► to keep an iPhone unlocked for a long time,

01:53:17 ◼   ► especially if you are in motion while doing this.

01:53:20 ◼   ► It would be very likely that this person

01:53:23 ◼   ► would either intentionally or inadvertently

01:53:26 ◼   ► relock your phone fairly soon after the theft.

01:53:30 ◼   ► And chances are what they want to do is erase it

01:53:34 ◼   ► and turn it off as quickly as possible

01:53:36 ◼   ► so that you can't find them.

01:53:38 ◼   ► And then they can then get some money for it somehow.

01:53:42 ◼   ► - 'Cause they don't know find Maya's off on your phone.

01:53:44 ◼   ► 'Cause it's on most phones.

01:53:45 ◼   ► - Right, this is the whole point of it.

01:53:47 ◼   ► But I would guess what they want to do

01:53:50 ◼   ► is get that phone erased and powered down

01:53:52 ◼   ► as quickly as possible.

01:53:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, agreed.

01:53:55 ◼   ► - So anyway, we don't know what we're talking about

01:53:56 ◼   ► 'cause we're not phone thieves, but fortunately,

01:53:58 ◼   ► we don't have to be.

01:53:59 ◼   ► of our wonderful sponsors this week. Thank you to them. Squarespace, Linode,

01:54:03 ◼   ► and New Relic. And thank you to our members who support us directly.

01:54:07 ◼   ► You can join at atp.fm/join. We will talk to you next week.

01:54:11 ◼   ► Now the show is over. They didn't even mean to begin.

01:54:18 ◼   ► Cause it was accidental. Oh, it was accidental.

01:54:23 ◼   ► John didn't do any research.

01:54:27 ◼   ► Marco and Casey wouldn't let him, cause it was accidental.

01:54:32 ◼   ► It was accidental.

01:54:35 ◼   ► And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM.

01:54:40 ◼   ► And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them at

01:54:45 ◼   ► C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S, so that's Casey List M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M

01:54:54 ◼   ► ♪ Anti-Marco Arman, S-I-R-A-C ♪

01:54:59 ◼   ► ♪ USA, Syracuse, it's accidental ♪

01:55:03 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:55:04 ◼   ► ♪ They didn't mean to ♪

01:55:07 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:55:08 ◼   ► ♪ Accidental ♪

01:55:09 ◼   ► ♪ Tech podcast so long ♪

01:55:13 ◼   ► - Amazon S-E-S, Simple Email Service,

01:55:17 ◼   ► is the name I couldn't think of

01:55:18 ◼   ► of their way to send email

01:55:20 ◼   ► in a way that presumably Amazon runs

01:55:22 ◼   ► make sure is not going to be flagged as a spammer.

01:55:24 ◼   ► Although I bet AWS has a harder time with it than most, because if you wanted to send

01:55:28 ◼   ► a bunch of spam, signing up for a quick free AWS account, paying some money and having

01:55:31 ◼   ► it spam is probably a very common thing, but that's Amazon's job, to make sure that email

01:55:37 ◼   ► from their service does not get rejected as spam.

01:55:40 ◼   ► Was that during the Gmail segment, or did we talk about that earlier?

01:55:42 ◼   ► Yes, it was about how hard it is to be on the internet as a sender and receiver of email

01:55:48 ◼   ► and to be recognized as legitimate.

01:55:50 ◼   ► Oh, right.

01:55:51 ◼   ► Okay.

01:55:52 ◼   ► - Oh, I wanted an update on Marco's car battery.

01:55:54 ◼   ► - Oh yeah.

01:55:55 ◼   ► - I don't have an update yet.

01:55:56 ◼   ► Everyone wrote in and told me what to do.

01:55:58 ◼   ► I haven't been to the car yet

01:55:59 ◼   ► 'cause we've had this bit of a problem

01:56:01 ◼   ► called a giant snowstorm like everyone else has had.

01:56:04 ◼   ► I have literally have not even been able to get to it

01:56:06 ◼   ► even by boat if I wanted to until yesterday.

01:56:09 ◼   ► My plan is to, I got some errands to run probably next week,

01:56:12 ◼   ► so ask me again next week.

01:56:14 ◼   ► - You're gonna go to the auto store

01:56:15 ◼   ► and have the cashier install it for you?

01:56:17 ◼   ► This is wild when people are telling me

01:56:18 ◼   ► that the cashier would do it,

01:56:19 ◼   ► but I guess it's just like an auto store employee.

01:56:21 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, look, you spent like an hour

01:56:23 ◼   ► telling me how easy it was, so.

01:56:24 ◼   ► - It is, I'm saying it is easy, but it seems like,

01:56:26 ◼   ► doesn't the cashier have to stay there

01:56:28 ◼   ► and check out the next customer,

01:56:29 ◼   ► like if they leave the store and just be like,

01:56:31 ◼   ► I'll, I don't know, anyway.

01:56:32 ◼   ► - No, but my plan is to, yeah, to just go to whatever nearby

01:56:36 ◼   ► like auto parts store is near here and just go buy a battery.

01:56:40 ◼   ► Even if the battery's not the problem,

01:56:42 ◼   ► I'll just go buy a battery anyway,

01:56:43 ◼   ► 'cause they're not that expensive

01:56:44 ◼   ► and it probably is the problem, and yeah.

01:56:47 ◼   ► Then I'll, if it ends up being something more complex

01:56:49 ◼   ► like the alternator, I'll deal with that later.

01:56:51 ◼   ► Yeah, it was interesting that some people suggested lithium ion batteries for cars and

01:56:55 ◼   ► I don't know...

01:56:57 ◼   ► Was it lithium or was it those glass sponge ones?

01:57:02 ◼   ► In any case, I feel like I would need to do research about that because we know battery

01:57:05 ◼   ► technology has moved on very much since the lead acid batteries of the Mac Portable, but

01:57:11 ◼   ► the specific application of a car, especially in a place with winter, is very different

01:57:16 ◼   ► than what you might use in your phone or laptop because as we know, phones and laptops tend

01:57:20 ◼   ► not to do well once they are freezing,

01:57:23 ◼   ► or very hot for that matter.

01:57:24 ◼   ► But cars get very cold and very hot all the time,

01:57:27 ◼   ► and lead acid batteries, you know,

01:57:29 ◼   ► I'm an old fuddy-duddy, they're a known quantity.

01:57:31 ◼   ► I know in where I live, I don't need a battery heater,

01:57:34 ◼   ► 'cause I don't live in like, you know,

01:57:35 ◼   ► the wilds of Canada or the Arctic or whatever.

01:57:38 ◼   ► And every place that I've lived has been

01:57:41 ◼   ► the type of temperature where a healthy car battery

01:57:44 ◼   ► will continue to function correctly.

01:57:46 ◼   ► I don't know if that's true of a lithium-ion battery.

01:57:48 ◼   ► Would I need to get a battery heater?

01:57:50 ◼   ► with a second battery to keep my other battery warm?

01:57:53 ◼   ► Or do lithium-ion batteries do better

01:57:54 ◼   ► than lead-acid batteries in New England-style temperatures?

01:57:57 ◼   ► I don't know, and so just go with the default,

01:58:00 ◼   ► which is, well, you know, I know what quote-unquote

01:58:02 ◼   ► car batteries work like, and I'll just buy a new one

01:58:05 ◼   ► when my old one gets bad.

01:58:06 ◼   ► - Did I tell you about my jumpstart batteries

01:58:09 ◼   ► that I have?

01:58:10 ◼   ► - I think you mentioned on the show

01:58:11 ◼   ► where you talked about the car battery.

01:58:13 ◼   ► - Yeah, okay.

01:58:14 ◼   ► - And your USB hand warmers, yeah.

01:58:15 ◼   ► Just big USB batteries to start your car when you need it.

01:58:19 ◼   ► and to pump up the tires, right?

01:58:21 ◼   ► - Yes, yeah, well, yeah, one of them is the lithium type.

01:58:25 ◼   ► The other one is the super cap type.

01:58:28 ◼   ► I haven't had a chance to use them yet,

01:58:30 ◼   ► but the lithium type I kept in the car.

01:58:33 ◼   ► I thought I was being a genius.

01:58:34 ◼   ► I'm like, I'm buying an older car,

01:58:37 ◼   ► and it's gonna have to operate in a lot of cold weather,

01:58:39 ◼   ► and it's gonna be sitting around for a while,

01:58:40 ◼   ► so I should probably get a battery jumpstart thing

01:58:42 ◼   ► just in case and keep it in the car,

01:58:43 ◼   ► 'cause I'm, you know, now in the age of lithium batteries,

01:58:46 ◼   ► they've come a long way.

01:58:46 ◼   ► What about a battery tender or a solar thing,

01:58:49 ◼   ► which is something everyone suggested.

01:58:50 ◼   ► Rather than having a thing that jump starts it when it dies,

01:58:52 ◼   ► something just trickle charge your battery all the time,

01:58:54 ◼   ► so it's always okay.

01:58:56 ◼   ► - I might look at that at some point,

01:58:57 ◼   ► but right now, it's not really in a controlled environment

01:59:00 ◼   ► where I would have any kind of, I don't know.

01:59:02 ◼   ► So at some point, I might look at that,

01:59:04 ◼   ► but hopefully that won't be necessary.

01:59:05 ◼   ► But anyway, so I thought, I have an idea.

01:59:08 ◼   ► Since the car, since it's an old-style car,

01:59:14 ◼   ► If I have something plugged into the 12 volt port on the car,

01:59:17 ◼   ► it's not going to constantly drain the battery when it's off.

01:59:20 ◼   ► Like, you know, some modern car might have some weird thing

01:59:22 ◼   ► that it does that.

01:59:23 ◼   ► It's only going to operate that 12 volt

01:59:25 ◼   ► port when the car is running.

01:59:26 ◼   ► So I can leave something plugged in there all the time,

01:59:29 ◼   ► and it would only charge the thing when it's running.

01:59:31 ◼   ► So I thought, great, I'll use one

01:59:34 ◼   ► of the ports on the USB dongle in that 12 volt plug

01:59:37 ◼   ► to--

01:59:38 ◼   ► every time I'm driving the car--

01:59:40 ◼   ► to trickle charge this giant lithium jumpstart battery.

01:59:45 ◼   ► And that way it'll be ready in all likelihood

01:59:47 ◼   ► whenever I would need it.

01:59:48 ◼   ► Or at least it'd be close enough to ready.

01:59:50 ◼   ► - I'll see the caveats about how well

01:59:52 ◼   ► a lithium battery survives extremes of temperature,

01:59:54 ◼   ► especially if it's inside your car in the sun

01:59:56 ◼   ► or freezing there in the winter.

01:59:58 ◼   ► - Right, so I went to the car,

02:00:00 ◼   ► last time I ran some errands

02:00:03 ◼   ► and I was talking about this battery problem.

02:00:05 ◼   ► Well, as I was struggling to start the car the first time,

02:00:08 ◼   ► and I thought, oh, well, it's okay.

02:00:11 ◼   ► I have this lithium battery thing here.

02:00:13 ◼   ► What could go wrong?

02:00:14 ◼   ► And I turn the lithium battery, the jumpstart thing on,

02:00:16 ◼   ► and it shows like an arrow light.

02:00:18 ◼   ► - Nice.

02:00:19 ◼   ► Too cold for me.

02:00:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, and I'm like, okay, well,

02:00:22 ◼   ► maybe I need something not this.

02:00:24 ◼   ► - You need a battery to power the warmer

02:00:26 ◼   ► for your other battery.

02:00:27 ◼   ► - Yes, exactly.

02:00:28 ◼   ► So to augment that, or to possibly replace it,

02:00:32 ◼   ► I ordered the super cap type, which was,

02:00:36 ◼   ► like when I was ordering this,

02:00:37 ◼   ► was waffling between these two types,

02:00:38 ◼   ► well there's this other kind that just uses super caps,

02:00:41 ◼   ► like super capacitors, instead of lithium batteries.

02:00:44 ◼   ► And it has its own trade-offs,

02:00:45 ◼   ► but it has the wonderful upside

02:00:49 ◼   ► that you don't really keep it charged by time,

02:00:52 ◼   ► so you don't have to worry about that,

02:00:53 ◼   ► and it works in more temperature extremes.

02:00:56 ◼   ► - But then you need some electricity

02:00:57 ◼   ► to go into the super cap,

02:00:58 ◼   ► and if you don't have any electricity, you're SOL.

02:01:01 ◼   ► I think we had the solution to this problem last show.

02:01:04 ◼   ► You just need those oxygen activated rust hand warmers.

02:01:08 ◼   ► And then so when you get into the car,

02:01:09 ◼   ► you're like, don't worry, I have a lithium battery.

02:01:11 ◼   ► But the lithium battery says it's too cold.

02:01:12 ◼   ► Well let me just open up these packets,

02:01:14 ◼   ► shake 'em up, wrap 'em around my lithium battery,

02:01:16 ◼   ► warm that sucker up, and then it'll make a happy face

02:01:18 ◼   ► and boot up and then I can start my car.

02:01:20 ◼   ► - Well the good thing is, so the SuperCap thing,

02:01:23 ◼   ► this is actually, I tested this, it actually works.

02:01:26 ◼   ► The SuperCap thing, I can charge it with my laptop

02:01:30 ◼   ► 'cause it charges, it has a USB input option as well.

02:01:34 ◼   ► - So okay, so the way they work normally is,

02:01:36 ◼   ► the idea is if the battery has too low of a charge

02:01:41 ◼   ► to start the car, it probably at least

02:01:43 ◼   ► still has some voltage.

02:01:44 ◼   ► So what the Supercap does is you connect it to the battery,

02:01:47 ◼   ► it takes like two minutes to basically suck as much power

02:01:50 ◼   ► as it can out of the car battery,

02:01:52 ◼   ► and then it can deliver it all at once to start the car.

02:01:55 ◼   ► So if the battery has some charge, which it usually does,

02:01:59 ◼   ► then you can turn that into a short burst

02:02:01 ◼   ► of a lot of charge to start it.

02:02:03 ◼   ► That's the idea.

02:02:04 ◼   ► However, it also supports, you can charge it via USB

02:02:08 ◼   ► over about maybe 20 or 30 minutes.

02:02:11 ◼   ► Well, it turns out that's how long the ferry ride is.

02:02:14 ◼   ► So my plan is to just charge it from my laptop

02:02:18 ◼   ► on the ferry when I'm going to the car

02:02:20 ◼   ► and that way I'll show up to my car

02:02:22 ◼   ► with a fully charged super cap in case I need it

02:02:25 ◼   ► and that will work in any conditions.

02:02:28 ◼   ► - Why don't you just charge the super cap

02:02:30 ◼   ► instead of on the ferry ride

02:02:30 ◼   ► from your outlet in your house?

02:02:32 ◼   ► - I'm never gonna remember to do that.

02:02:34 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:02:35 ◼   ► - The good thing is that having an EV for so many years

02:02:37 ◼   ► has prepared you for long periods of slow charging.

02:02:40 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:02:41 ◼   ► - Here's what would happen.

02:02:42 ◼   ► I would plug it into my house,

02:02:43 ◼   ► and then I would leave, and I would forget it.

02:02:45 ◼   ► It would be sitting here plugged into my house,

02:02:47 ◼   ► instead of in my backpack where it should stay forever.

02:02:50 ◼   ► - It can collaborate with your heated rug to start a fire.

02:02:52 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:02:54 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

02:02:58 ◼   ► What's the confusion with a couple of pistachios?

02:03:00 ◼   ► - Because pistachio size is pretty regular.

02:03:02 ◼   ► Like there's not a lot of variation.

02:03:03 ◼   ► You just fill the cup until the pistachios fill the cup.

02:03:07 ◼   ► - Well first, there's some ambiguity.

02:03:09 ◼   ► Are you volumetrically measuring them

02:03:11 ◼   ► with the shells or without?

02:03:13 ◼   ► I know granted it's probably without.

02:03:15 ◼   ► - It's absolutely without, but if the recipe says

02:03:17 ◼   ► a cup of chopped pistachios, you might have a point

02:03:19 ◼   ► because the size you chop them really dictates

02:03:21 ◼   ► how many we'll pack in, and yes, weight is better obviously,

02:03:24 ◼   ► but if they say a cup of pistachios

02:03:26 ◼   ► and they don't say chopped, they mean no shells

02:03:27 ◼   ► and they mean just pour them into a cup measure.

02:03:29 ◼   ► - That's so imprecise.

02:03:30 ◼   ► And with baking, precision is pretty important.

02:03:33 ◼   ► - I think it's actually pretty precise

02:03:34 ◼   ► because of the law of averages and pistachio size.

02:03:37 ◼   ► It's not like you're gonna, it's like,

02:03:38 ◼   ► well, I have a particularly large batch of pistachios

02:03:41 ◼   ► and it screwed up the average.

02:03:42 ◼   ► No, like I think they're very regular in size.

02:03:44 ◼   ► It evens out over the course of a cup.

02:03:46 ◼   ► And if you were to count how many pistachios

02:03:48 ◼   ► or how much weight there is,

02:03:49 ◼   ► if you just took cup after cup of pistachios

02:03:51 ◼   ► and measured them the same way,

02:03:52 ◼   ► I think you'd see that they really hover

02:03:54 ◼   ► around the same amount.

02:03:55 ◼   ► - Anyway.

02:03:58 ◼   ► - I mean, if you did a cup of mixed nuts,

02:03:59 ◼   ► it would be a problem.

02:04:00 ◼   ► Someone did their PhD thesis on this.

02:04:01 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, that'd be terrible.

02:04:02 ◼   ► - Someone did a PhD thesis about like,

02:04:04 ◼   ► if you, you know, you get like those Planner's mixed nuts

02:04:06 ◼   ► or whatever, like the cylindrical jar

02:04:08 ◼   ► that's about as tall as it is wide, right?

02:04:10 ◼   ► - And it has like mostly the crappy notes you don't want

02:04:12 ◼   ► and like two cashews and one with the cashew.

02:04:14 ◼   ► - And so the PhD thesis was trying to explain,

02:04:18 ◼   ► it's one of those things that like,

02:04:19 ◼   ► a thing that no one cares about,

02:04:20 ◼   ► but you can get your PhD if you figure out

02:04:21 ◼   ► how it actually works.

02:04:22 ◼   ► If you take one of those mixed nuts things

02:04:24 ◼   ► and you just shake it with the lid on

02:04:25 ◼   ► and you shake, shake, shake, shake, shake,

02:04:27 ◼   ► and you open it up, what you will find

02:04:28 ◼   ► is all the big nuts are on top.

02:04:30 ◼   ► And someone did a PhD on like, why is that?

02:04:33 ◼   ► It seems weird that the big nuts would come up.

02:04:34 ◼   ► You'd think the big nuts would go to the bottom

02:04:36 ◼   ► and the little ones would go to the top,

02:04:37 ◼   ► but they explained it, they figured it out.

02:04:39 ◼   ► Science!

02:04:40 ◼   ► And if you don't think that works,

02:04:42 ◼   ► get a thing of mixed nuts and shake it

02:04:43 ◼   ► and you will watch the stupid Brazil nuts

02:04:45 ◼   ► that nobody wants will be on top.

02:04:47 ◼   ► - But then everybody would have to get mixed,

02:04:49 ◼   ► mixed nuts, like those planters, tubs,

02:04:51 ◼   ► they're so bad.

02:04:53 ◼   ► Like the nuts that you get in there are,

02:04:55 ◼   ► first of all, grossly over-oiled and salted,

02:04:59 ◼   ► and then the nuts themselves are somehow stale,

02:05:01 ◼   ► and it's just, oh, they're the worst nuts.

02:05:03 ◼   ► I'm telling you, nuts.com, I'm telling you,

02:05:06 ◼   ► they're the best, they're so good,

02:05:08 ◼   ► they're so much fresher than anything else.

02:05:09 ◼   ► - Not a porn site.

02:05:10 ◼   ► - Oh my, no, no, that's something else.

02:05:12 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:05:15 ◼   ► - Least Planners has a good, they're mixed nuts, yeah,

02:05:17 ◼   ► they're just all the ones nobody wants, right,

02:05:19 ◼   ► but they do sell mixed nuts, and there's only two kinds

02:05:22 ◼   ► of nuts, and they're both ones you want,

02:05:23 ◼   ► so they'll have like cashews and,

02:05:27 ◼   ► well they never do cashews in Macadamias,

02:05:28 ◼   ► but they would do it-- - No, that's way too expensive.

02:05:30 ◼   ► - Yeah, but anyway, it's just like two good kinds of nuts

02:05:34 ◼   ► and there's the only kind in there,

02:05:35 ◼   ► and it's because when you do mixed nuts,

02:05:36 ◼   ► you know it's all gonna be the cheap ones

02:05:37 ◼   ► that nobody likes them with one or two good ones,

02:05:39 ◼   ► but you can buy them with just,

02:05:40 ◼   ► I don't think they're called mixed,

02:05:42 ◼   ► whatever they're called, you just get two kinds of nuts,

02:05:44 ◼   ► and if you like both those kinds of nuts, you're golden,

02:05:46 ◼   ► you know, unless you like one way more than the other

02:05:48 ◼   ► and then it's probably not gonna be.

02:05:49 ◼   ► - They would call it two nuts.

02:05:51 ◼   ► I'll tell you one thing, we were joking earlier

02:05:54 ◼   ► in our house here because the best response

02:05:57 ◼   ► we ever got from Siri.

02:05:59 ◼   ► So we were at dinner, me, my wife, and my son

02:06:03 ◼   ► were talking about God knows what,

02:06:05 ◼   ► and somehow the topic of the seven Cs came up

02:06:08 ◼   ► and we asked our cylinder, what are the seven Cs?

02:06:12 ◼   ► 'Cause I knew the concept, but I don't really,

02:06:15 ◼   ► what are, you know, we like Atlantic, Pacific,

02:06:17 ◼   ► like what counts?

02:06:19 ◼   ► So we asked, "Hey, what are the seven Cs?"

02:06:22 ◼   ► And Sierra responded, "I only know of two testes,

02:06:26 ◼   ► "the left teste and the right teste."

02:06:28 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:06:31 ◼   ► - I feel like Google would have gotten that one

02:06:34 ◼   ► if you'd asked.

02:06:35 ◼   ► I mean, setting aside the mishearing.

02:06:39 ◼   ► - That's something.

02:06:40 ◼   ► - Testes, one, two, three.

02:06:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:06:44 ◼   ► (jazzy music)

02:06:47 ◼   ► The other day, every morning we go upstairs

02:06:52 ◼   ► and we start making breakfast and the routine usually

02:06:56 ◼   ► is like as I start doing all the morning routine stuff,

02:06:59 ◼   ► I will usually, or whichever one of us is up there first,

02:07:02 ◼   ► will ask the HomePod to start playing some kind of music.

02:07:05 ◼   ► So I had this cool idea that I'm like,

02:07:08 ◼   ► hey why don't we every day we listen to one year

02:07:13 ◼   ► of that year's top hits and we go like one year at a time

02:07:16 ◼   ► per one year per day.

02:07:18 ◼   ► So we started out this week, or last week,

02:07:21 ◼   ► we started off with 1960.

02:07:23 ◼   ► - Top hits as in like the top 40?

02:07:26 ◼   ► - Yeah, we asked the HomePod play the top hits of 1960.

02:07:31 ◼   ► And then the next day, 1961, next day 1962, and so on.

02:07:35 ◼   ► And I figured this would be a cool thing to do

02:07:36 ◼   ► to hear all the music.

02:07:38 ◼   ► So first of all, I don't know what the HomePod is using.

02:07:41 ◼   ► Because when you ask for that, at least we're up to 65 now.

02:07:44 ◼   ► I don't know what happens as you get closer.

02:07:46 ◼   ► maybe there's like Billboard charts later on or something,

02:07:48 ◼   ► but in 1960s at least, it just says,

02:07:53 ◼   ► okay, playing the top 25 hits from 1960, whatever,

02:07:58 ◼   ► that's what it says.

02:07:59 ◼   ► Now, granted, songs from the '60s are very short,

02:08:02 ◼   ► but I feel like in a half hour,

02:08:06 ◼   ► I don't think we're getting through 25 of them.

02:08:08 ◼   ► (laughs)

02:08:10 ◼   ► And oftentimes, it will do the thing where after,

02:08:14 ◼   ► maybe 10, 12 songs, it'll play something

02:08:19 ◼   ► and it'll be like, that's not from the '60s.

02:08:22 ◼   ► It will jump forward like 20 years.

02:08:24 ◼   ► It'll do the thing that most modern Apple music things do

02:08:28 ◼   ► where after it hits the end of whatever it was told to play,

02:08:32 ◼   ► it'll just play something else

02:08:33 ◼   ► that it deems relevant to that.

02:08:35 ◼   ► So it's obviously doing this.

02:08:37 ◼   ► So I went to look and I was like, all right, first,

02:08:40 ◼   ► let me just check to see what is it playing this list from

02:08:43 ◼   ► to answer John's question.

02:08:45 ◼   ► And if you search Apple Music for, you know,

02:08:48 ◼   ► the top 25 hits of 1964 or whatever,

02:08:51 ◼   ► I didn't find any.

02:08:53 ◼   ► Like, I don't know where it's getting this from.

02:08:55 ◼   ► There is no playlist in Apple Music to name this.

02:08:57 ◼   ► If you search for like the year,

02:08:58 ◼   ► it doesn't show it as an option.

02:09:00 ◼   ► I don't know where it's getting this from,

02:09:02 ◼   ► but whatever it's getting this from

02:09:03 ◼   ► does not show up in any way I could find on Apple Music.

02:09:05 ◼   ► So that's problem number one.

02:09:07 ◼   ► - If you just ask Siri to list them,

02:09:09 ◼   ► 'cause I think maybe this is like Siri knowledge

02:09:11 ◼   ► and not Apple Music knowledge.

02:09:13 ◼   ► Maybe, I guess?

02:09:14 ◼   ► I don't know what kind of mess they have going on over there

02:09:18 ◼   ► but so that's, yeah, so problem number one

02:09:20 ◼   ► is that it occasionally forgets what I asked to play

02:09:24 ◼   ► and just like, oh, all of a sudden we're playing

02:09:26 ◼   ► Audioslave, pretty sure that wasn't around in the 60s.

02:09:29 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:09:31 ◼   ► And then, so there's that issue of like,

02:09:34 ◼   ► and then there's the typical Siri thing of like,

02:09:38 ◼   ► you'll hear the same song repeated within 15 minutes.

02:09:43 ◼   ► Not always, but like sometimes it'll play,

02:09:46 ◼   ► you know, oh great, I wanna hold my hand.

02:09:47 ◼   ► That finally came out and then like, you know,

02:09:50 ◼   ► four songs later, I wanna hold my hand again.

02:09:52 ◼   ► It's like, really?

02:09:53 ◼   ► Like do you have any short-term memory at all?

02:09:56 ◼   ► Like we literally just heard this song.

02:10:00 ◼   ► Like I, why, why is Siri so bad?

02:10:04 ◼   ► Why doesn't this work?

02:10:05 ◼   ► Like we've had voice-activated music cylinders now

02:10:09 ◼   ► in the world of tech for what, eight years?

02:10:13 ◼   ► Like when did the first Amazon Echo come out?

02:10:14 ◼   ► It's been a while.

02:10:15 ◼   ► And why are they still so bad?

02:10:19 ◼   ► And why can't Apple make theirs like passably okay?

02:10:22 ◼   ► Like I don't know what I'm supposed to do here.

02:10:25 ◼   ► Like I, oh, I'm so sad.

02:10:27 ◼   ► And what else am I gonna do?

02:10:29 ◼   ► Like I'm not gonna use Spotify for lots of reasons,

02:10:32 ◼   ► but like the experience of using it on a HomePod

02:10:34 ◼   ► is not great already.

02:10:37 ◼   ► Even if you can get past all the recent BS

02:10:39 ◼   ► they're going through.

02:10:41 ◼   ► And then, you know, any other music service on the HomePod

02:10:44 ◼   ► is gonna be difficult to use, at least.

02:10:49 ◼   ► I don't want non-HomePod speakers there

02:10:52 ◼   ► because like all the, like, Amazon Echo's have a lot

02:10:55 ◼   ► of their own problems recently, like a lot.

02:10:57 ◼   ► Like they're really diving into mediocrity very quickly.

02:11:02 ◼   ► And even those don't sound great.

02:11:06 ◼   ► I don't necessarily think I want a Google ball in my house,

02:11:09 ◼   ► even if it did sound great,

02:11:11 ◼   ► which so far nothing I've heard ever would indicate that.

02:11:13 ◼   ► What am I supposed to do?

02:11:15 ◼   ► - I mean, I just launched the Google app.

02:11:16 ◼   ► First I asked Siri one of the top songs in 1960,

02:11:19 ◼   ► and I got a one-line answer that was like,

02:11:21 ◼   ► "This was the most popular song of 1960."

02:11:23 ◼   ► I'm like, "That's not a list."

02:11:24 ◼   ► So I asked Google exact same question,

02:11:26 ◼   ► "What are the top songs 1960?"

02:11:28 ◼   ► And I'm doing it in the Google app on the iPhone.

02:11:30 ◼   ► Sure enough, it gave me a list of what,

02:11:32 ◼   ► 50, 47 songs or whatever,

02:11:34 ◼   ► And at the top, it has little buttons for 1960s rock, pop,

02:11:37 ◼   ► R&B, so you could narrow it down further.

02:11:41 ◼   ► So it seems like Google can give you the list.

02:11:44 ◼   ► And then if you just played it, if I could play it from here,

02:11:47 ◼   ► make this a playlist and Google play music or whatever,

02:11:50 ◼   ► and then just AirPlay it to your HomePods,

02:11:52 ◼   ► I guess you have to have the phone there.

02:11:53 ◼   ► And it's kind of annoying.

02:11:54 ◼   ► You don't get to use the I can control it

02:11:56 ◼   ► from any of my Apple devices thing.

02:11:57 ◼   ► But at the very least, it can come up with a song list.

02:11:59 ◼   ► And if you really wanted to pre-do it,

02:12:00 ◼   ► you could use Google to get the list,

02:12:02 ◼   ► and then pre-make them all in Apple Music,

02:12:04 ◼   ► put them as playlists.

02:12:05 ◼   ► And then you get to fight with the home bot

02:12:07 ◼   ► to try to get it to understand the playlist

02:12:08 ◼   ► you're trying to refer to.

02:12:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, right, that's not gonna happen.

02:12:11 ◼   ► - Especially if your playlist includes a year name,

02:12:13 ◼   ► it would constantly say, well, you said a year,

02:12:15 ◼   ► so I'm gonna try to do that thing I did before

02:12:17 ◼   ► and I'm not gonna look for a playlist by that name.

02:12:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

02:12:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, maybe the solution is to just like,

02:12:22 ◼   ► you know, run an app on the iPad from some other service

02:12:24 ◼   ► and then AirPlay it, but it's so, I don't know.

02:12:28 ◼   ► Like, and I also, I don't wanna see the list ahead of time.

02:12:31 ◼   ► I wanna be surprised.

02:12:33 ◼   ► That's part of the cool factor of this.

02:12:34 ◼   ► - I mean, if you just do all the list at a time,

02:12:36 ◼   ► you'll forget about them, right?

02:12:37 ◼   ► - I guess that's fair.

02:12:38 ◼   ► - 1960, top song, "The Twist," Chubby Checker.

02:12:42 ◼   ► - By the way, the '60s, so again,

02:12:44 ◼   ► we've only gotten through '65 so far,

02:12:46 ◼   ► but this is, wow, things move fast.

02:12:49 ◼   ► (laughs)

02:12:51 ◼   ► The songs in 1960 are a very different thing

02:12:55 ◼   ► from the songs in 1965.

02:12:56 ◼   ► It's a very short time where a lot changed.

02:13:01 ◼   ► This is why I wanted to do this.

02:13:02 ◼   ► It's really cool to hear these changes happen over time.

02:13:05 ◼   ► It's actually very cool when it works.

02:13:08 ◼   ► It's just hard to make it work reliably.

02:13:10 ◼   ► [beeping]

02:13:12 ◼   ► [ Silence ]