0:00:00I have no idea what day it is anymore.
0:00:02It's still Thursday.
0:00:04What week is it?
0:00:06The first week of April, is that right? I don't even know.
0:00:08Is the watch out yet?
0:00:10No it's not. Soon. But not yet.
0:00:12Check your wrist.
0:00:14Just look at your wrist.
0:00:16It's hair o'clock.
0:00:18So do we have some follow-up?
0:00:20Starting with cooking, apparently.
0:00:22Seriously? That's awesome.
0:00:24Yeah, this was last week on the toaster episode.
0:00:26I was making fun of the temperatures
0:00:28making fun of the temperatures printed on the glass door of the toaster saying that
0:00:32160 to 170 is not an appropriate temperature for pork despite the fact that it is printed
0:00:37on the door of the toaster that I tested last week. And I also blame the government for
0:00:42these crazy temperature ratings because they tend to be super conservative to make sure
0:00:47you don't get any food borne illnesses. Well, I was told by several people that the government
0:00:51had in fact changed their recommended temperature to pork. They changed it in 2011 and when
0:00:57people mention this to me I had then recalled reading the story back then but
0:01:00anyway the government now recommends a 145 for pork which is a perfectly sane
0:01:05temperature for pork and it will make it not taste like cardboard so everybody
0:01:08you can say the government says the US government that is that you can safely
0:01:13cook your pork to 145 and eat it and not have it taste like cardboard all right
0:01:17well I feel better knowing that piece of information I don't know about you guys
0:01:21all right so why don't tell us about the f-16 there's another thing last we got
0:01:26I think it was a four-touch trackpad.
0:01:29The trackpad doesn't move, but it feels like it moves, and it reminded me of the stick
0:01:33in the F-16, which doesn't move.
0:01:35A couple of people knowledgeable about this stuff wrote in to tell me that the F-16, the
0:01:40original F-16 stick, didn't move at all, and the pilots found it disconcerting because
0:01:45there was no feedback, and so it was modified so that it moves slightly.
0:01:49Some people say fractions of an inch, some people say it moves an inch total.
0:01:52I saw a video of it at one point moving.
0:01:54It doesn't move much, but it moves a little bit.
0:01:56Because there was no feedback, it just felt kind of weird.
0:01:58And I wasn't sure about the F-18, and people have already told me that the F-18 stick does
0:02:04move, and it actually has a mechanical connection to the flight controls as a backup.
0:02:11I remember reading about that years ago, the fly-by-wire thing.
0:02:14Before drive-by-wire came to cars, not that we want to turn this into neutral already,
0:02:19Fly-by-wire came to planes first, where the controls were not hooked up to the...
0:02:24things that you put your hands on were not hooked up to the
0:02:27control surfaces of the plane by a mechanical connection,
0:02:30but rather just by like you would move the stick and it would figure out what you were trying to do and then it would
0:02:34instruct electronics to move the control surfaces of the plane and predictably that freaked out pilots like "oh I got you know,
0:02:40I gotta have a direct connection. I don't trust these computers blah blah blah."
0:02:44But they made it triply and quadruply redundant. Anyway, in the F-18
0:02:47It's fly-by-wire my understanding, but there is a backup system where if the fly-by-wire system fails
0:02:52You can still move the surfaces with a stick
0:02:54So there you go the f-16 and needed with its unmoving stick needed some haptic feedback as well
0:03:02I don't they guess they did decide not to go with vibration and just go with tiny amounts of movement
0:03:06But it still seems pretty weird
0:03:08That's definitely wonky, but hey whatever works
0:03:12Tell us about the current MacBook Pro and how many monitors you can connect to it
0:03:17Yeah, the last week talking about the confusion of what would happen if they had two USB C ports on the new MacBook
0:03:25and
0:03:26But it only supported
0:03:28Two monitors so you could only have the intro monitor and one external monitor
0:03:31Wouldn't it be confusing that you had this other port that you thought you could hook something into it?
0:03:34I said it would not be confusing because you would know that you bought a machine that only supports dual displays you would
0:03:39Yeah, and Frank and Frank wrote in to tell me well the current MacBook Pro only supports two external displays
0:03:45But it has three places you can plug in monitor
0:03:47So those people must just be thoroughly confused when they plug in that third monitor, and it doesn't work alright, so there were two big
0:03:54Pieces of follow-up that we got or two pieces of follow-up that we got often
0:03:59One of them was everyone getting angry at you for falling into the Steve Jobs said or Steve Jobs did trap
0:04:06Would you like to defend yourself John? Yeah, that's not it's one of those things where there's sort of
0:04:11shared cultural knowledge of a meme or whatever and it
0:04:15All nuance is rung out of that meme and the meme is kind of when when Tim Cook took over Steve Jobs and Steve Jobs died
0:04:22Among the Apple nerd community where there were a lot of there was a lot of pushback on the idea
0:04:28On the other stories that were coming saying Oh Jobs is gone
0:04:31He was the only one who could have led Apple to victory now no matter what Tim Cook does he's doomed without
0:04:36jobs Apple can't innovate and everything Tim Cook did it was well Steve Jobs
0:04:40would have done it this way well he's no Steve Jobs well Steve Jobs would have
0:04:43done that and so the blowback meme in our little circle was always I don't
0:04:47want to see anyone comparing anything Tim Cook does to Steve Jobs I don't want
0:04:50to see anyone ever saying Steve Jobs would have done this and would have done
0:04:52that the spirit it was that meme is developed in was worthwhile and that
0:04:58when that transition did take place there were a lot of those hysterical
0:05:01stories about how Apple could never possibly succeed without Steve Jobs and
0:05:03so on. But it has morphed into "It is now impossible to ever compare and contrast Steve
0:05:10Jobs and Tim Cook." And that premise I reject. I think it is perfectly valid to compare and
0:05:15contrast Steve Jobs and Tim Cook, whether or not you think one is better than the other
0:05:19and whether or not you want to make that particular case. In the last episode, I was comparing
0:05:24them directly on things that they had each done with the product line, not saying, "Well,
0:05:29what would Steve Jobs have done about the watch or some product that he didn't even
0:05:32know about I don't even know about the watch but anyway that type of thing I
0:05:36think is not as useful but still I think is a valid line of inquiry as long as
0:05:41you're not using it as a cudgel to say like Steve Jobs would never have done
0:05:45that therefore what Tim Cook is doing is wrong because Steve Jobs was infallible
0:05:48and so on and so forth so anyway I reject that criticism because I think it
0:05:52is useful to compare these things and as long as you do it in a thoughtful way
0:05:55and not just you know elevate Steve Jobs to godhood and use him as a way to say
0:06:02whatever Tim Cook does is bad or to try to support your own opinion by saying
0:06:05I think the watch is a dumb idea and Steve Jobs would have agreed with me was he was here
0:06:10He's always right therefore. I'm right because I I'm telling you what Steve Jobs would have thought about the watcher
0:06:15You know I again
0:06:16I don't know if you knew about the watch it would be better if we had an example of a product that we were sure
0:06:19The Steve Jobs never knew about a lot of these things have been in the works for a long time
0:06:23But anyway, that's that's how I feel about the comparisons to Steve Jobs
0:06:27So you stand by your comparison from last week? Yes, totally because I you know, it is not like completely speculative
0:06:34I'm not using the ghost of Steve Jobs to sure I support my opinion
0:06:36I said I didn't even know which strategy was better than Tim Cook one of the Steve Jobs one and I could go either way
0:06:41On it and it's not clear like it's not it. It is completely valid
0:06:44All right
0:06:46Let's wake Marco up and have him tell us about something awesome and then he can go back to sleep for a few more minutes
0:06:50It's something going on. We're doing a podcast something like that is the show
0:06:54Is this what people tune in for do you want to explain why you're all sleepy because no one's gonna know why you're all sleepy
0:06:59When they like you you think that everyone follows your life down to the the tweet on Twitter
0:07:03But people are gonna listen to this who haven't been following you on Twitter have no idea why you're out of it
0:07:06So why don't you explain that? Thank God. I'm so tired of Twitter. People are so nasty there anyway
0:07:10Honestly, I'm I'm pulling away from Twitter I think I
0:07:16It's just not worth it. It is simply not worth it. You haven't even been tweeting that much
0:07:21What are you that's what I'm talking about. I'm pulling away from Twitter. All right
0:07:24Well, maybe we'll save us for the after show and we'll have a therapy session and see what's going on on your Twitter
0:07:28All right. Well, it's it isn't anything recent. It's like I'm slowly realizing over the course of time that
0:07:34Twitter is
0:07:37it's a tricky balance between whether it makes your life better or worse overall and
0:07:42and I've been questioning what the what the value of it is for me recently and whether it is a net gain or loss and
0:07:48I think
0:07:49Maybe it's probably a net gain still but the ratio there is not as good as it should be
0:07:55So I'm really not incredibly happy with it anyway
0:07:59And I'm exploring ways to try to fix it. Young man, when you are tired of Twitter
0:08:04You are tired of life. Another reference you will not get from a long time ago
0:08:09So the reason I sound like this and the reason I'm out of it
0:08:12And probably not making any sense is because I have just returned from a trip across the Atlantic Ocean
0:08:19To Ireland for the wonderful ool conference and I would I would tell you how amazing it is in great detail
0:08:24However, Casey didn't get to go this year
0:08:26And it would just be cruel for me for me to tell you how awesome it was
0:08:29But suffice to say it was awesome. And I've been awake for approximately 22 hours now. I
0:08:35Forget what time my body thinks it is. It doesn't really matter
0:08:39But I'm a zombie and I sound like this so I apologize
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0:11:32- All right.
0:11:33So I had said earlier that there were two major pieces
0:11:37follow-up that that we had got a lot of complaining about via the feedback just
0:11:43well this week there were two and the other one had to do with some of the
0:11:50statements we made on fabbing ram which in turn were based on some follow-up
0:11:55that we had gotten two weeks ago so John do you want to set all this straight
0:11:58yeah this was my memory I would which I just asserted as fact the first time I
0:12:02of I talked about it that when when using when fabbing silicon chips that
0:12:08the first thing they do to work out the kinks in a new process size was fab ram
0:12:12because it's simple and very regular and not as complicated as actual full-fledged
0:12:15CPU and then we got some feedback that said no no actually D RAM is really
0:12:19complicated because they have capacitors they're like they're not like two flat
0:12:22plates facing each other it's like a tube within a tube and it's really
0:12:25complicated to fab them and actually it's much harder to fab those capacitors
0:12:29than just regular planar logic transistors, so that's definitely not the case.
0:12:32And I was like, "Alright, well, maybe my data is old, maybe I'm just remembering this from
0:12:37when I was a kid and I never revisited maybe when they passed through 32 nanometers, something
0:12:42changed."
0:12:43Because things get weird when you start getting really small process sizes, like who knows,
0:12:45maybe we only have X-ray lithography, maybe we already have X-ray lithography, that's
0:12:49how much I've been keeping up with it, as in not much.
0:12:51It's not like it just shrinks, shrinks, shrinks, and it's going to shrink your whole life.
0:12:53We should have a whole episode about the end of Moore's Law, by the way, because Moore's
0:12:57law has existed for most of our life where it's like, "Oh, you know, they just keep shrinking
0:13:01in the process," but like, it doesn't take a genius to figure out you can't keep shrinking
0:13:05forever. Eventually you get down to the things that they're slamming together in that big
0:13:10ring underground somewhere in Europe, and you run into some problems. But anyway, we're
0:13:16not there yet. And so, last week I said, "What the heck was I remembering with this whole
0:13:22fabbing RAM first? Am I just crazy, or was it something they used to do but don't do
0:13:25anymore, and I got a lot of people who would be in positions to know telling me that what
0:13:30I was, it wasn't that they don't fab RAM, it's that they fab SRAM, not DRAM.
0:13:34SRAM is the stuff you use to make like the caches and stuff on CPUs.
0:13:38It is not the same as DRAM.
0:13:41It is much more expensive than DRAM and faster because you need to use way more transistors
0:13:44per bit of stored memory.
0:13:47But unlike DRAM, it doesn't need to be refreshed every X number of milliseconds.
0:13:50Anyway, we'll link to the SRAM Wikipedia page.
0:13:54SRAM is not a new thing, but the point is SRAM is not filled with capacitors, it's just
0:13:58a bunch of logic gates and it is very regular and that is what they use to test out the
0:14:02Kingston New Processes.
0:14:03In fact we have someone, Andrew Yang from, oh no he's not the one from Intel, but someone
0:14:07else from Intel.
0:14:08But anyway, he links to an Anetech story from a while back specifically talking about SRAM.
0:14:13The Anetech story says "The good old SRAM test vehicle is a great way to iron out bugs
0:14:17in the manufacturing process."
0:14:18and he talks about how Intel was demoing in 2007 their 32 nanometer SRAM test chip.
0:14:24And Eric, who used to work at Intel until 2006, says that each new process node in SDRAM
0:14:30module was fabbed prior to the main production of CPUs.
0:14:32I saw someone else, I don't have the notes here, was saying that that measurement of
0:14:36like how small were you able to get SRAM is kind of like the yardstick for how you're
0:14:40doing on your process size.
0:14:41Like oh, we first got SRAM down to this size at this date or whatever.
0:14:44So there you go, one letter makes a difference.
0:14:47If you don't know the difference between SRAM and DRAM,
0:14:49I encourage you to read the Wikipedia pages
0:14:50that we will put in the show notes,
0:14:51because all RAM is crazy,
0:14:53and examining the difference between SRAM and DRAM
0:14:55will make you appreciate the stuff
0:14:56that's inside your computer
0:14:58that you never need to think about.
0:15:00And finally, Gordon McGregor sent us a link to a chart
0:15:02that shows process size,
0:15:05and I didn't quite understand this chart,
0:15:06and it seems to contradict some of the things I just said,
0:15:08but this chart shows that DRAM
0:15:11still leads process development versus logic,
0:15:13but the gap is closing over time.
0:15:14Did you guys look at this graph here?
0:15:16No, it is somewhat confusing it shows logic and then D RAM the NAND flash and I don't know what that other line is there
0:15:23Anyway, I will leave the graph in the show notes
0:15:26Anyone wants to parse that out and figure what it is I'm looking at there
0:15:29But I'm fairly convinced that what I was remembering was s RAM and not D RAM in that first little letter
0:15:33Makes all the difference that took surprisingly little time John. I'm very proud of I tried to trim it down
0:15:39I didn't want it there was some more rehashing of the the new MacBook, but I felt we've covered it
0:15:43Yeah, I think we can definitely never talk about the one port on the MacBook again
0:15:48Oh, no, when Apple sends us all our free sample copies, then we'll talk about it some more. Oh, yeah that yeah
0:15:53Oh, I didn't mention I got I got five of them on my mailbox today. Yes. I said check your wrist
0:15:58You're wearing two Apple watches right now. Oh my god, you're right
0:16:02If it were only that easy, oh damn. It's the sport
0:16:05Okay, so
0:16:10So it's funny that this is the week that we run through follow-up so quickly because we don't really have any
0:16:15Terribly pressing topics. That's right. Now you where is your follow-up now?
0:16:18All right, so I don't know which one of you guys put this in the show notes
0:16:26But would you like to talk about our max and roadmap rumors? I think we all would I think we should all bring up
0:16:32This page which is from a long time ago and it is a complete the unsubstantiated rumor as far as I can tell
0:16:37- So we ran out of topics, so we're moving
0:16:40from discussing new BS rumors
0:16:42to discussing ancient BS rumors.
0:16:44- Yeah, well, I mean, this BS rumor is a jumping off point.
0:16:48First of all, it's in one of those sub-communities
0:16:51that we don't really travel in,
0:16:53like the whole semiconductor forums,
0:16:56where they're debating, they're really into
0:16:58who's particular process size
0:17:01and what particular technology is getting what contract
0:17:03for what chip and all that stuff.
0:17:07So at the very least, like, anyway, look at the story.
0:17:12It talks about like the A9, the A10, the A9X, the A10X,
0:17:15the S1 and the S2, all names that you could very easily
0:17:18make up based on, you know, Apple's current naming
0:17:20of their chips.
0:17:21And who might get those contracts
0:17:24and what technology they're using
0:17:26and the date they're supposed to start production
0:17:28and contracts that are split over different fabs
0:17:31like Samsung and TSMC and Global Foundry
0:17:33and whether Intel is fabbing anything.
0:17:37And there's a big table showing all this information, most of which is not that big of a deal except
0:17:41from the perspective of Apple, you know, how is Apple managing its relationship with its
0:17:47fiercest competitor Samsung that it is still relying on to fab a lot of its chips?
0:17:51And that's always an uncomfortable situation and we've talked in the past about perhaps
0:17:55getting Intel into the mix here because they are usually at the forefront of process technology,
0:18:01very often far ahead of the rest of the field but so far Apple hasn't been using them for
0:18:05anything but of course Intel has their own chips they want you to use instead of ARM.
0:18:09Anyway, inside this entire story is a one line item showing on the A9X and A10X line,
0:18:17on the A9 and A10 it says those are the iPhone.
0:18:18On the Apple Watch it says of course the S1 and the S2.
0:18:21And then it talks about the baseband chip on the iPhone and iPad.
0:18:24And then the middle item it says A9X, A10X, iPad and Mac.
0:18:29And that is not an exciting part of the story really to the people discussing this because
0:18:33'cause all they care about is who's fabbing
0:18:34and what technology it's on.
0:18:35But it's like, "Oh, we'll just throw that in there."
0:18:37Yeah, of course, the A9X and the A10X,
0:18:38of course there'll be Macs based on those.
0:18:40And this is the eternal ARM-based Mac.
0:18:43Remember that we've talked about at length in the past,
0:18:45I think it was worth revisiting.
0:18:47Do we think anything has changed on the feasibility
0:18:52and likability of ARM-based Macs in light of,
0:18:55let's say, like the new MacBook with its five watt CPU
0:18:59and the very latest iPad Air 2 with its benchmarks
0:19:04versus the existing computers.
0:19:05Do we think now is the time?
0:19:06Do we believe this little table here
0:19:10any more than we did in the past,
0:19:11or is it just still a wait and see attitude?
0:19:14- You know, I actually had an interesting
0:19:16and related realization at work the other day.
0:19:20One of my coworkers who is not a developer,
0:19:22she had just swapped a Dell iPad Air,
0:19:27excuse me, MacBook Air knockoff for a actual MacBook Air.
0:19:31And this MacBook Air happened to be a few years old.
0:19:33I don't recall exactly when it was built.
0:19:36But she didn't have VMware installed.
0:19:41Now, typically when we used to issue Macs to everyone,
0:19:44doesn't matter if you're a developer or not,
0:19:46we would, or our IT department of one,
0:19:49would install VMware Fusion on every single Mac.
0:19:53Because inevitably all of these people,
0:19:55be it business people, developers, whatever,
0:19:58are going to need to do something in Windows
0:20:01that they can't do in OS X.
0:20:02And so our IT guy would just get ahead of the curve
0:20:06and just put VMware Fusion on there.
0:20:09And I went to do something in VMware Fusion on her machine.
0:20:12I can't remember what it was, but it doesn't really matter.
0:20:14And VMware Fusion wasn't there.
0:20:17And that was a little bit odd for me
0:20:20because I thought it was a given that, say,
0:20:23for Visio, if nothing else, that VMware would be on every Mac we hand out in the company.
0:20:29And it isn't. And that relates to this discussion because I have to imagine that virtualizing
0:20:38a Windows installation, unless it was whatever that weirdo version of Windows is that runs
0:20:42on the surface, the ARM surfaces, virtualizing a Windows installation on an ARM Mac would
0:20:48be unbelievably slow. I mean, we've talked about this in the past, but my recollection
0:20:52of Macs before I ever touched a Mac was that they would have like separate daughterboards
0:20:56on some of these old Macs that would basically be a PC on a daughterboard that you would
0:21:01plug into your Mac in order to make emulation of PCs way faster. Do you know what I'm talking
0:21:06about, Jon?
0:21:07They had those, but nobody owned them. Like you would never see one in the wild. They
0:21:10made a couple machines that you can do that with a couple of third parties actual shoulder
0:21:14card, but it was not a thing like virtual PC was the thing. And that was all emulated
0:21:18x86 PC on my power PC Mac and it was super slow.
0:21:23Exactly, exactly.
0:21:24And so that's what that's that's one of the things that I love about my Macs and this
0:21:29is granted directly driven by the fact that I do all of my work on the Microsoft stack.
0:21:34But nonetheless, I love being able to boot into when I don't love being being able to
0:21:39boot into Windows, but I love being able to get my job done by booting into Windows and
0:21:43using Visual Studio and doing all that sort of thing.
0:21:46But it was very interesting to me that someone who isn't a developer apparently doesn't
0:21:51need Windows anymore.
0:21:52And that's a change from just a couple of years back, at least in my workplace.
0:21:56And that is kind of what you were talking about, Jon.
0:21:59Is this more feasible now?
0:22:01Well, I don't know, but certainly could be.
0:22:04I think it's not just Windows, because we always think, "Oh, x86, it's great that
0:22:08we can run Windows software.
0:22:09And now, finally, this divide that existed for so long."
0:22:12It was Mac versus PC, and it was the software compatibility problem.
0:22:15And when Apple went x86, it was cutting the Gordian knot
0:22:18and say, game over, it is not an issue anymore.
0:22:21You can boot Windows on these things.
0:22:23There is no excuse not to get this Mac.
0:22:26You know what I mean?
0:22:27It can do everything.
0:22:28You can kind of look at it as a transitional thing.
0:22:30Like we need to be able to do what the competition can do
0:22:35long enough to defeat the competition
0:22:37and then it doesn't matter anymore.
0:22:38It's not like the Mac is defeating Windows PCs,
0:22:40but what's happening is that the PC is being defeated
0:22:43by mobile, right?
0:22:45And so it becomes less relevant what goes on down here in the PC world.
0:22:50And maybe Windows becomes less relevant, even Microsoft is bringing all of its stuff to
0:22:54be, you know, net-based services and cloud subscriptions and web-based things.
0:22:59And you know, it's just the stakes are a lot lower, you know, the need for Windows is a
0:23:05lot lower.
0:23:08Within specific applications, like if you really need to use Windows stuff, x86 I think
0:23:12is still indispensable for those things.
0:23:14I don't think it's feasible for Apple to go all ARM for a variety of reasons.
0:23:18And for x86, so the reason I bring up Windows is from my perspective, in my particular job
0:23:24and everyone's varies, Windows, yes, is important, but I feel like Linux is just as important.
0:23:29And you say, "Well, it doesn't matter.
0:23:30Linux runs on everything.
0:23:31Linux doesn't need x86."
0:23:32You're right, Linux does run on everything.
0:23:33I had Linux on my PowerPC Mac.
0:23:35There was lots of different distributions.
0:23:36But practically speaking, it's a lot easier to get binary packages and to work out compilation
0:23:43problems than to just sort out everything you need to sort out on x86/64 Linux.
0:23:48Because that is the sweet spot.
0:23:50That is what everyone's using.
0:23:51That's the common thing.
0:23:52And if you have some exotic CPU like ARM or PowerPC or whatever, you are a little bit
0:23:57off the beaten path.
0:23:58Is that a big deal?
0:23:59No, but it's just a hassle.
0:24:01It's an annoyance.
0:24:03It's the kind of thing that Mac users used to have to deal with.
0:24:05Because they're like, "Oh, I can do that, but I'm a little bit different."
0:24:08It's like OS X in the beginning.
0:24:10try to compile your UNIX software and it'd be like, "You can build it on a Mac, but
0:24:13it's kind of weird.
0:24:14You might have to tweak a Makefile."
0:24:15And it's like, "Why doesn't this just build out of the box?"
0:24:17Luckily, all the people who maintain software packages for UNIX seem to get Macs, because
0:24:23it only took a few years for all those packages to start building, and now you just expect
0:24:26if I get something from the open source world, it will build on the Mac, and if it doesn't,
0:24:32you're angry at somebody.
0:24:33So we've already become entitled, like, "How dare that thing not build on the Mac!"
0:24:39But yeah, I think x86 still serves a role as the sort of common base Windows, Mac, Linux,
0:24:46even though the Mac in the past has run on different platforms, and even though Linux
0:24:49in the present runs on a bazillion different platforms, and even Windows has at various
0:24:53times run on different platforms.
0:24:54There's an ARM version of Windows now, there was a PowerPC version of Windows NT, for people
0:24:57who are really old, remember that one?
0:25:00But x86 is still that commonality.
0:25:02So regardless of what goes on at the low end of ARM, I have to think that Apple would have
0:25:08to keep x86-64 at the very least on the high end for some period of time.
0:25:12And the thing that trips me up about the ARM-based Mac is like, so do you have two different
0:25:17CPUs in Macs for a long period, for multiple years, where you can get both ARM Macs and
0:25:24x86 Macs?
0:25:26That seems like more trouble than it's worth to me.
0:25:30Yeah, that seems weird.
0:25:32I mean, that's what Microsoft is doing with the Surface, right?
0:25:35They have the Surface, what is it, RT, which is--
0:25:38Windows RT, yeah.
0:25:40I'm sorry, I'm conflating them.
0:25:42But yeah, there's a Surface that runs ARM, which
0:25:45at least the early ones--
0:25:46I haven't kept up with the later ones,
0:25:48but a few coworkers go to build every year,
0:25:50and that's kind of the Microsoft WWDC, if you will.
0:25:53It's in Moscone, the whole rigmarole.
0:25:55And anyway, unlike Apple, Microsoft
0:25:57gives away all sorts of awesome goodies.
0:26:01I think they got Xbox Ones last year, et cetera.
0:26:04Well, anyways, they got Surface RTs a couple of years ago, and they said that they were
0:26:10great for the three or four or 10 pieces of software that came with it, but they were
0:26:15pieces of crap for anything else.
0:26:18And the chat room is telling me, well, that's not really a thing anymore, but it's still
0:26:22an illustrative example of, well, it makes everything harder when you're not running
0:26:28on the platform that they're not running on the CPU that most of the platform is running
0:26:32on.
0:26:33just like you said, Jon, over time that would change. But it's weird from a consumer point
0:26:39of view. We've been lamenting, maybe not the three of us as much, but we as a community have
0:26:42been lamenting all the different skews that Apple has now between iPads and certainly the watch and
0:26:51iPhones and Macs. And this would just further complicate things. I don't know. I agree with
0:26:58you for sure, Jon, that it seems really aggressive to get rid of Intel. Even on the low end,
0:27:02even on like the little even on the low end it seems aggressive but i i would believe it because
0:27:08apple is aggressive i hear they're coming out with a computer that only is one port um these very soon
0:27:13don't know warning just acknowledge that the chat room is talking about that the arm-based version
0:27:20of windows has gone around in circles two times oh it's dead it's just going away it's just sleeping
0:27:26you know it is an x version of windows anyway that always struck me as a trial balloon we can
0:27:32make, you know, because it's when they were doing like the original Surface, right?
0:27:35And they were going to have one that was Intel power, but the best chips Intel could give
0:27:37them still required like vents to be on the side of their tablet, and that was kind of
0:27:41like, can we make one that's iPad-like, but still using, you know, like, can we do it?
0:27:47We want to make an iPad, and Intel doesn't have a chip for us, can we still put Windows
0:27:52on it?
0:27:53Because their whole thing was like Windows 8, it's the same everywhere, blah blah blah.
0:27:55Well, we can make an ARM version of Windows, how about that?
0:27:57And if it sold like gangbusters, they would be like full steam ahead on it.
0:28:01But Surface in general didn't sell like gangbusters and the ARM version even less so because just
0:28:05like Casey said, people bought them and either I can imagine people buying one saying "wow
0:28:09this runs Windows, I'll be able to run everything" and being mistaken despite the fact that I'm
0:28:13sure the nice Microsoft sales people tried to emphasize to them that you will not be
0:28:16able to run x86 software on your ARM based Surface.
0:28:20And then it required Microsoft to do the thing that has not been really good at doing lately
0:28:24which is make all the people who make its third party applications also compile an ARM
0:28:28version to make sure your app works on ARM.
0:28:30Like Apple is the king of hurting its developer community through platform transitions, whether
0:28:35it be from one CPU to the next, from desktop to phone, or from PowerPC to Intel.
0:28:41Apple has done that more times and more successfully than any other technology company, and Microsoft
0:28:46has not done a great job of hurting its developer community from one API set to the other, from
0:28:52one CPU architecture to the other.
0:28:54hell, they had a really hard time getting them onto the Windows NT codebase off of the
0:28:57you know, Windows 3.1, Windows 95, Windows 98 DOS-based codebase.
0:29:02So it could just be different strengths in the company.
0:29:05I totally believe Apple could pull off an ARM/Mac transition, but I'm always looking
0:29:09like aside from the obvious upside that we talk about all the time, Apple wants to own
0:29:13and control every important technology and its products, like that is there.
0:29:16That's the reason we're talking about this at all.
0:29:17It totally fits with everything they want to do, but then you say, "What are you going
0:29:21to do about the Mac Pro?
0:29:22What are you gonna do about the MacBook Pro?
0:29:24Are you gonna become a CPU design powerhouse?"
0:29:27He said, "We already are a CPU design powerhouse.
0:29:29Look at the A8.
0:29:30We're amazing."
0:29:31"Yes, alright, so I believe you could do it, but do you do it in all one big bang?"
0:29:36"Do you say, 'And all the Macs are armed now, and we've got a 12-core arm for our Mac Pros
0:29:41all the way down to the tiniest little arm in our Apple Watch, and we designed them all
0:29:45because now we're the new Intel, and I guess we get Samsung and TSMC to fab them for us
0:29:52a process node that may be a little bit behind Intel? I don't know. It worries me. The whole
0:29:57thing worries me.
0:29:58Well, and also, if we look at, like, did you see there was a benchmark on Geek Banks that
0:30:03has been since taken down, but I saw a screenshot of it earlier. This is a benchmark of the
0:30:11new MacBook, the new slow MacBook. And it's roughly equivalent to the performance of,
0:30:19like 2010 MacBook Airs, like it's in that ballpark.
0:30:23And I have reason to believe,
0:30:25from a few details about the screenshot,
0:30:28it looks legitimate.
0:30:29I think this is a real deal.
0:30:31So we now can see kind of what the CPU performance
0:30:35would be like, I mean what the CPU performance is
0:30:39as Intel tries to go all the way down to ARM level chips.
0:30:43And this is not an Atom chip,
0:30:44this is an actual core series chip,
0:30:47but it's pretty close.
0:30:49And if you think about like, compare this to the speed of the A8X chip in the iPad Air
0:30:552, which is currently the, I believe currently like the best, the best ARM chip that's kind
0:31:01of in that ballpark for like, you know, wattage and everything like that, right?
0:31:06It's fairly close, you know, it's in the ballpark, it's very similar to what we're seeing in
0:31:10the ARM chips, you know, in the same power envelope roughly.
0:31:14So I think if you look at this, you can kind of see, well, an ARM version of this laptop
0:31:19really wouldn't be that different performance or battery wise like I think
0:31:22it would be certainly in the same ballpark on both of those criteria so
0:31:26then the question is why go through the transition at all like if Intel can with
0:31:31enough pressure and enough technology if Intel can kind of reach down to the
0:31:36power levels of ARM chips to make a very low level chip that still performs okay
0:31:40even though it's not great and if ARM can reach up and try to make a chip that
0:31:44performs as well as Intel but still keeps that that envelope and they're
0:31:47both kind of reaching the same general range by doing that, then why should Apple transition
0:31:54a product line that is so well established on Intel chips and has all these massive transition
0:31:58costs if they were to choose to do it? Why make the jump? It seems like there's not enough
0:32:02gain to be had there.
0:32:04Simon Witte tweeted at us earlier on April 1st. He may have been in the air. He says
0:32:08the iPad Air 2, he just, there's not enough room in the tweet to expand this out, but
0:32:12He says 27.3 watt hours.
0:32:14Is that just the battery capacity?
0:32:16I don't know.
0:32:17Anyway, 1800, 4500 Geekbench.
0:32:19Those are two numbers separated by a slash.
0:32:22And it's at 20 nanometers.
0:32:23And the new MacBook is 39.7 watt hours.
0:32:25Again, I assume that's the battery.
0:32:271900, 4000 Geekbench.
0:32:29So it's a comparable Geekbench score and it's 14 nanometers.
0:32:33So like you're saying, they're ballpark, you know, close to each other, the iPad Air 2
0:32:37and the new MacBook.
0:32:39But the bottom line of his tweet is Core M is $200 more.
0:32:43Maybe that's retail price or whatever.
0:32:46What can Apple do if they fab their own chips, save money, sell their computers for less
0:32:53money, I guess?
0:32:54I still think it's about owning control and not about we don't want to give a portion
0:32:59of our profits to Intel.
0:33:01But as I've said on many past programs, I really wish Apple and Intel, those two crazy
0:33:05kids to just work this out. You know, I want I want the best I want my Macs and everything
0:33:12to be fab with the best process technology human beings can make. And usually that's
0:33:16Intel has that and the best CPU designs and like just I don't understand why we have to
0:33:21fight Why can't I have both like, anyway,
0:33:24well right now we have competition. That's great. I mean, right now you have like, you
0:33:28know, I'm sure we've all heard that Apple probably has had a an R Mac, like in the labs
0:33:34for testing as a contingency plan for years. I mean, that's not new, right? So, you know,
0:33:39anyone who would agree to that who knows anything about this stuff. So, you know, Apple knows
0:33:44they can make an ARM MacBook whenever they want to. Intel knows that Apple can make an
0:33:49ARM MacBook whenever they want to. And so I think that keeps, you know, that healthy
0:33:54competition there. Like, Intel has a bit of a fire lit under them in the last couple of
0:33:58years to try to get these power needs down to compete with ARM because they have no meaningful
0:34:03mobile presence. They really need a mobile presence if they want to see any more growth
0:34:08ever again. And they certainly can't lose the business they already have in PCs and
0:34:17servers. So they are working really hard and you're right, they do have the best process
0:34:23manufacturing technology in the world most of the time. So I think that competition is
0:34:28is great and I think we will see better results from Intel
0:34:33as long as they are separate,
0:34:34as long as this battle has not been settled yet.
0:34:37As long as there's a threat
0:34:40that Intel might lose their PC business
0:34:43or any part of it to ARM,
0:34:46Intel's gonna keep working really hard.
0:34:48And so is ARM, and that's great.
0:34:49- The semiconductor community site
0:34:51that this rumor thing is on,
0:34:54part of what they talk about in this article
0:34:55is speculating about the idea that for future chips,
0:34:59assuming this little table is correct, for future chips,
0:35:02that Apple is spreading the manufacturing around,
0:35:04not for technical reasons,
0:35:06but just sort of the same reason
0:35:07that the music makers went to Amazon
0:35:10and tried to spread their business around from Apple,
0:35:12just because they don't want to give any one fab
0:35:15more power than the other.
0:35:17So the idea is that Apple makes their own chip designs,
0:35:21they own the intellectual property for the chip designs,
0:35:23and they want to farm out fabbing of those chips
0:35:26to the best company.
0:35:27The same way they do, like who wants to assemble
0:35:30our computers, who wants to make our glass,
0:35:32who wants to, you know, like that's the relationship
0:35:35Apple is comfortable with.
0:35:36We own the intellectual property, we have a competition
0:35:39amongst all these other lower margin businesses
0:35:41to kill each other for our business.
0:35:43Who wants to manufacture the watch?
0:35:45Well, go ahead, you know, fight with each other
0:35:46and we will pick the winner.
0:35:47Like who wants to manufacture our car?
0:35:49Like, you know what I mean?
0:35:50Who wants to fab our chips?
0:35:52And even if one company clearly has the best deal
0:35:55and the best technology for a particular generation,
0:35:57the speculation in this semiconductor,
0:35:59semi wiki.com website is that Apple is saying,
0:36:03if we wanted the best for the best price,
0:36:05we would give all of our business to whoever,
0:36:07Samsung, TSMC or whatever.
0:36:08But long-term wise, it's better for us
0:36:11to kind of spread it around.
0:36:12So maybe give 75% to Samsung and 25% to Global Foundry,
0:36:16just because we don't want to put all our eggs
0:36:18in one basket.
0:36:21Intel as much as Intel is in this fight or whatever like
0:36:24That's the relationship. I feel like Apple once is
0:36:28We just want Intel to be just another fab just like all these other people are
0:36:33And then we will have you all fight amongst yourselves
0:36:36And they would love to have Intel like fabbing some of their chips like we'll give Intel 50% and TSMC
0:36:4125% and like but Intel's just not in it at all
0:36:45Maybe because Intel wants all their business or none of their business or demands that Apple use x86 and its phones
0:36:50I'm sure Intel is showing Apple roadmaps that show
0:36:53What amazing chips they're going to have that could be in an iPhone and the iPhone 7 or 8 like that's how Intel got Apple's
0:37:00Business to begin with they showed them the core lineup and they said I know we have stupid Pentium 4s now
0:37:04And they suck but like netburst is dead
0:37:06Here's what we're gonna make for you in the future and no one can compete with it and Intel was a hundred percent, right?
0:37:10They got Apple's business and they did have by far the fastest most power efficient chips
0:37:14During that first generation when they were you know coming out in Apple's laptop. So
0:37:19I'm sure those meetings are still taking place, but in the meantime Apple is shipping a hell of a lot of armed devices manufactured by
0:37:25nameless, faceless,
0:37:27sometimes very big competitors that we don't know or hear about and that's just the way Apple likes it.
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0:40:17Jon, you made an interesting observation, or at least I think it was Jon, maybe it was
0:40:21Mark. It's probably Jon. That maybe other people have also realized, but the first
0:40:27place I saw it was here in the show notes, and you had pointed out that the
0:40:30Apple TV is actually cheaper than the VGA adapter for the MacBook that only
0:40:37has one port. Yeah, I'm not the first person to make that analogy, but when
0:40:40Because in the same keynote, they announced the price drop of the Apple TV from $99 to
0:40:47$69.
0:40:48And they also announced the availability, or they announced the product, and did they
0:40:51announce the availability of the adapter?
0:40:53Maybe.
0:40:54Shortly after the announcement, we all went to the website and looked at the adapters
0:40:57for the OnePort MacBook, and one of those adapters is $79.
0:41:02Oh, they should have called it the MacBook One.
0:41:04What a missed opportunity.
0:41:06There you go, it's like the Xbox One, they'll start over.
0:41:09Exactly.
0:41:10named it like the 1-1, you know that one? The car, the supercar, the hypercar, sorry,
0:41:15the 1-1.
0:41:16I've lost track of what you're saying. They're still words, but they're not making any sense
0:41:20anymore.
0:41:21I believe the chat room will tell me, is it like O-N-E and then the number one or the
0:41:26reverse? You haven't heard of this either, Casey?
0:41:28No.
0:41:29It's because it wasn't on Top Gear, and that's where you get all your car.
0:41:31Oh, don't even bring it up. I can't handle another week of feedback about that.
0:41:35Anyway, the 1-1 is by the car manufacturer whose name I'm not going to attempt to pronounce,
0:41:40But you know it as the really long one on the Top Gear board.
0:41:43What's the name of that company with the K?
0:41:44Koning Seg.
0:41:45Yeah, OK, there you go.
0:41:46That one.
0:41:47They're making a car called the 1-1, spelled in some weird way.
0:41:51And I think it's because it's one horsepower per pound
0:41:54or something.
0:41:54Anyway, it's insane.
0:41:55Go Google the 1-1 and see what the crazy people are
0:41:59making for cars.
0:42:01Apparently, it's O-N-E colon numeral 1.
0:42:04That's not confusing at all.
0:42:05It is a cra-- you have to look at it.
0:42:07It's crazy.
0:42:08Anyway.
0:42:08The Ferrari love Ferrari.
0:42:10It is way more crazy than that and will probably break after being driven 100 miles.
0:42:14But you know, like anyway.
0:42:15It's, yeah, you just still get the LaFerrari, but this car is crazy.
0:42:20One horsepower per kilogram, sorry, they're in European.
0:42:23It's not one horsepower per man.
0:42:25All right.
0:42:26Anyway, the fact that the new Apple TV is cheaper than the adapter, I don't know what
0:42:32it highlights.
0:42:33Does it highlight the fact that that adapter is too expensive?
0:42:36Does it highlight the fact that that adapter also contains silicon chips?
0:42:39We know that.
0:42:41Are the silicon chips that are in that adapter actually more expensive than the ancient single-core
0:42:46A5 that's in the Apple TV?
0:42:50I don't know, but like the price drop itself, like dropping the Apple TV from $99 to $69
0:42:58all points towards, and the fact that they announced the HBO deal we'll talk about in
0:43:02a second, all points towards the idea that this current Apple TV is finally, blessedly
0:43:08going to not be the best Apple TV you can buy, whether it goes away or continues on
0:43:14in its $69 slot, as many people think it will.
0:43:17Either way, a new Apple TV is coming.
0:43:19It is long overdue, and when the new Apple TV comes, by dropping this one, it leaves
0:43:23room for the new Apple TV to come in at $99 to have an actual decent CPU and to not give
0:43:29me obscure errors when I try to watch television programs.
0:43:32And if I'm really getting greedy here, and I know everyone who has a Roku or some other
0:43:36box that they love is going to tell me this is not a problem there.
0:43:39But all the TV connected thingies that I have, anything that streams video, whether it's
0:43:44streaming from my Synology, streaming from my Mac, streaming onto my Playstation 3, Playstation
0:43:504, from my TiVo, from my Apple TV, what else do I have connected?
0:43:54All these different devices from my TV itself, streaming from Netflix, all these things,
0:44:00this one elusive piece of technology seems not to exist, which is the ability to scrub
0:44:05around in a television program in anything resembling a reliable, meaningful way.
0:44:10It is just like, fast forward, rewind, to be able to like, it just, sometimes fast forwarding
0:44:16a rewind scan totally screws the stream and you'll have to start from the beginning.
0:44:20Sometimes it kind of moves a little bit and stutters, sometimes a perfectly good stream
0:44:23will stop and just like, I don't know what the problem is with this, like I do it on
0:44:27web pages all the time, I move the little scrubber in YouTube and it actually works,
0:44:30and yet for everything connected to my television, if I ever want to fast forward a rewind scan,
0:44:35In not jump to the beginning not jump to the end but move in either direction at a speed faster than 1x playback
0:44:42These applications these devices throw up their hands and say you're crazy. That's not gonna happen
0:44:48Well, I don't know why you're even bothering now
0:44:50Europe I will punish you with at least a three-minute delay before any picture moves again
0:44:54And you won't know where you are in the stream and you won't be able to get back to where you are
0:44:57And sometimes I'm you know, I'm starting over entirely
0:45:00I'm gonna lose your place and you have to start over from the beginning and by the way
0:45:03You can't get back to where you left off
0:45:04because if you try to fast forward scan,
0:45:06that won't work either.
0:45:07Stream error.
0:45:08Oh, it drives me nuts.
0:45:09(laughing)
0:45:10- I wonder if any part of it is related
0:45:12to the hardware decoding chips they use
0:45:14for the video codecs.
0:45:16- I don't know what it's related to.
0:45:17- I don't know.
0:45:18I mean, that's probably not the problem.
0:45:19It's probably just because they're sloppy
0:45:21and cheaply made and their software
0:45:23is sloppy and cheaply made.
0:45:24I mean, this is like, I'm really not that into the idea
0:45:29of a new Apple TV right now.
0:45:30Like, I mean, it's fine.
0:45:31I hope they make one and I hope it does well
0:45:33and everything, but I'm not really excited
0:45:35about the idea of a new Apple TV hardware device
0:45:38because the problems I have with the existing Apple TV
0:45:42don't seem hardware related.
0:45:44- Well, that's the thing, that's what people are saying
0:45:45in the chatroom as well, it's like,
0:45:47when something like this happens,
0:45:48like the puck or anything you connect to your TV,
0:45:50you're like, what's the problem?
0:45:52Is the problem that I'm not getting data
0:45:53from the streaming service?
0:45:54Is the problem that the software is crappy?
0:45:56Is the problem that the hardware is crappy?
0:45:58Is it some combination?
0:45:59Sometimes is it one problem, sometimes it's the other.
0:46:01is the problem that my ISP is throttling connection
0:46:04to this thing and if I change my DNS,
0:46:05I'll get a better stream,
0:46:06is the problem that the authentication service
0:46:09for iTunes aren't working and really you would stream fine
0:46:10if only the authentication servers
0:46:12weren't constantly installing
0:46:13when it's trying to re-authenticate while I'm watching.
0:46:15There are so many moving parts and there is so little
0:46:18that you can debug with these closed systems
0:46:19that you're just like, look,
0:46:20it either has to work all the time 100%
0:46:23or I just throw up my hands and I say,
0:46:27I don't know what, you know, you go into Merlin Man mode,
0:46:29you're like, well, I guess I'm rebooting everything I own,
0:46:30I guess I'm unplugging my Apple TV from the power because it's the only way I can get
0:46:33the thing to reboot because even the secret command handshake that you hold down on the
0:46:37remote isn't working because the thing's frozen hard.
0:46:40It is so frustrating not to know where the problem is.
0:46:43Marco, you're diagnosed as saying you think it's not a hardware problem.
0:46:46I think there are problems at every level.
0:46:48And the hardware, because it's old, and the software, because it's so clearly in kind
0:46:53of like maintenance mode, I just hope that all the good people are working on the new
0:46:56version and the new version won't have these problems.
0:47:00But even if they come out with new hardware and new software that's better, I also believe
0:47:03that my streaming connection is crappy because I've heard that Apple uses a different connection
0:47:08for streaming its Netflix than the other Netflix clients.
0:47:10And I think this is mostly borne out by experimentation.
0:47:13When I can't get a stream on Apple TV, Netflix client, I use my TiVo Netflix client and it
0:47:17can.
0:47:18Or I go to Netflix in a web browser on one of my Macs and it works.
0:47:24The whole interconnected mess of things
0:47:27that have to work correctly and in harmony
0:47:31for me to watch a television program
0:47:32streaming over the internet,
0:47:34it seems like there's always at least one
0:47:36out of the three layers that's screwing up,
0:47:37and usually all three of them are screwing up in some way,
0:47:39and it's very frustrating.
0:47:41- The biggest frustration for me with these things,
0:47:44so I don't know, maybe a month or two ago, two months ago,
0:47:47whatever, I bought both a Roku TV,
0:47:51whatever the newest Roku is,
0:47:52and an Amazon Fire TV, like the big powerful one.
0:47:56'Cause we have two TVs in the house
0:47:58and they both have Apple TVs
0:48:00and the Apple TVs are getting so flaky,
0:48:02I'm like, let me just try something else
0:48:04to see what everyone's talking about.
0:48:05And wanted to check out Amazon Video Service anyway.
0:48:08So they're both just really mediocre.
0:48:12Like they're fine.
0:48:13If I had to pick one that is less crappy,
0:48:17I guess I'd pick the Amazon one.
0:48:18But what's really frustrating is that
0:48:21the Apple TV is still the best one.
0:48:23- That depresses me.
0:48:24I like having the fantasy that the Roku
0:48:26that everyone loves would be better.
0:48:27- That's the problem.
0:48:28I had that fantasy too, and now that I've been using them,
0:48:31like, the Apple TV is still the best one,
0:48:34which a few people on Twitter told me in advance,
0:48:36so I, but I was afraid that they would be right,
0:48:39and unfortunately they are.
0:48:40I mean, just by general, like, just usability,
0:48:43the basic interface, I mean, these other players
0:48:46have had years to rip off the good stuff from Apple,
0:48:49and they just haven't.
0:48:51And I don't know what it is.
0:48:54Maybe they just don't have the kind of sensibilities
0:48:59to develop simple interfaces, I don't know.
0:49:02Maybe they think the way to compete with Apple
0:49:04was by throwing on a whole bunch of stuff.
0:49:06- Well, but that is the, the Roku's leg up
0:49:08is like it's the most flexible, it can run Plex,
0:49:11it's gonna let you do everything, right?
0:49:13That's what it's trying to do.
0:49:14But all of these boxes, the problem is,
0:49:18for all the features and all the UI or whatever,
0:49:21like if I could put some big giant sign
0:49:23like the big old IBM Think pads or the big Think
0:49:27framed poster after that or whatever,
0:49:29but I would put it all, all these people's things
0:49:30is would be much longer and I'd have to come up
0:49:32with a snappy phrasing for it, but the bottom line is,
0:49:35when I wanna watch a program,
0:49:36I want to press a series of buttons and have video play,
0:49:39pretty much immediately.
0:49:41And that has to work, and that has to work every time.
0:49:44Maybe it's because I'm old,
0:49:46because I come from a place where a television,
0:49:48If your television wasn't broken, then you turned it on,
0:49:50you could see moving pictures pretty much instantly,
0:49:53every time, right?
0:49:54- The funny thing is, what you want out of seeking,
0:49:58VCR is offered that perfectly.
0:50:00- Right, exactly.
0:50:01It wasn't great, but you could do it on a VCR,
0:50:04you can do it on DVDs.
0:50:05It was like, wow, I can skip without scrubbing through.
0:50:07You know what I mean?
0:50:08- Yeah, and there wasn't little staticky lines on DVDs
0:50:10when you fast forwarded.
0:50:11- You could pause, you could like, right,
0:50:12we seem to have been making progress,
0:50:13and now streaming, when it works right,
0:50:15it's like, this is what I want, it's magic.
0:50:16I have access to a million shows anytime I want them.
0:50:19I can go to any part of the-- like, it's amazing, right?
0:50:21They're organized by season.
0:50:22Whole season's released at once.
0:50:23Like, all the magic-- but all the magic crumbles into dust
0:50:26as soon as I sit down in front of television,
0:50:27press a series of buttons on my remote,
0:50:29and moving pictures do not start happening.
0:50:32And I either get an error message or something else.
0:50:34And it's like-- and it doesn't happen to happen.
0:50:36Like, 90% of the time, it works, right?
0:50:38But that 10% just destroys the illusion
0:50:40that I'm living in a future where things work.
0:50:44So it's funny that Marco had brought up the Roku and the Fire TV and compared them to
0:50:50the Apple TV because I maybe a month ago got a Fire TV stick, which is the less powerful
0:50:57version of what Marco got. What Marco got is physically, as far as I know, is about
0:51:03the same size as an Apple TV. Is that fair to say?
0:51:05It's like an Apple TV that's been rolled over by a steamroller slightly. So it's like just
0:51:10Same volume roughly, but just flatter and mm-hmm wider
0:51:13Okay
0:51:14So the fire TV stick is more like a chromecast in that it's just a little HDMI dongle and a little power brick to power it
0:51:21And I got it on Dan Morin's recommendation because he had said he had had pretty good luck with fire TV
0:51:27And I don't believe he had said he had ever tried the stick
0:51:29But they're roughly equivalent unless you have a really really nice home theater setup
0:51:34Which I do not so I got this fire TV stick. I believe it's $40 in Amazon
0:51:39And I love it and the reason I love it mostly is because I can use Plex with it natively
0:51:48Basically the only things I tend to do with my Apple TV are
0:51:51airplane mirroring
0:51:54typically video, but not always or
0:51:57Netflix
0:51:59the fire TV stick
0:52:01Doesn't natively support a airplane mirroring of course there are apps that you can download and pay for to get airplane mirroring
0:52:08I have bought a couple and they're not very good, which is not surprising, but they're enough in a pinch
0:52:14But it has Netflix and it has Plex and that is easily 90% of what I want out of a
0:52:23Box or dongle connected to my TV and again what makes the fire TV stick so wonderful for me is that the Plex support is?
0:52:31Fantastic rather than airplane from my iPad or my iPhone or yes
0:52:36I'm aware of that god-awful hack you can do with the trailers app on the Apple TV. I'm not going to do that
0:52:41So it's I love it because it works great with Plex you can seek usually with Plex
0:52:47It works pretty darn well with
0:52:50Netflix so I really like it now that being said the user interface is crappy Marco is exactly right that the user interface
0:52:58It's it's different but and too much Android leaks out for my taste like not that I have anything
0:53:05Intrinsically against Android but fiddly bits that I shouldn't have to worry about
0:53:09Yeah, I guess I don't have to worry about them, but they're still there
0:53:13Like do you want to allow sideloading like that? Why is that even an option? No, I don't want that and
0:53:18The way you go and get like apps is a little weird
0:53:22It's just like a generic search which maybe is better
0:53:24But I it's weird to me that when I search for Plex I could be ending up an app so I could be ending up on
0:53:30Audio or whatever the case may be so there are definitely odd bits to the user interface
0:53:35But by and large I like it and the other thing I really like about it that just occurred to me
0:53:40Is that the remote is either Bluetooth or RF or something?
0:53:44so that you do not need to point the remote at the Apple TV, which is really awesome because our Apple TV is
0:53:49Kind of tucked away a little bit and not
0:53:52extraordinarily easy to point a remote at so for all of those reasons
0:53:57I really love my fire TV stick and I definitely recommend it if if you're if you have similar needs from your
0:54:04Device that I do now Marco
0:54:06I think you have very different needs from your device and as far as I recall you get a lot of your media through iTunes
0:54:12Is that right?
0:54:13It's not as much anymore
0:54:15the the the constant
0:54:18DRM errors on authentication trying to play my media that I've bought from iTunes
0:54:22Is really convincing me to try to stop doing that. I actually went when I got these boxes
0:54:27I did start using Plex I installed myself Plex for the very first time
0:54:31Using Plex for me feels a lot like building a gaming PC in the sense that I'm getting a lot of functionality
0:54:38more than I actually really need
0:54:41but also coming at a cost of maintenance and fiddliness that
0:54:47I'm sure I just have settings wrong, but it's just so freaking fiddly.
0:54:52Plex?
0:54:53Yeah.
0:54:54There's nothing, the only fiddly thing about Plex is that you have to use their naming
0:54:58convention which is not my favorite but not so egregious that I can't bend to it.
0:55:05Other than that, everything just works magically.
0:55:08I can watch my media that's stored on my Synology anywhere in the world as long as I have an
0:55:13internet connection.
0:55:14It will automatically transcode on the fly to whatever my speed is as it sees fit.
0:55:19And it will grab all the metadata it needs as long as I name things appropriately.
0:55:23Like I, I could not disagree more.
0:55:25I've had nothing but wonderful experiences with Plex.
0:55:28I've tried to use Plex, but like my problem has always been, I don't have anything attached
0:55:31to my television that can run it.
0:55:33And once the PS4 version of Plex came out, I'm like, now finally, well, now this is when
0:55:38my PS4 was still attached to my television.
0:55:39But anyway, I figured, well, the PS4 version of Plex came out, I should try it.
0:55:45And I did, and it's very bad, and the setup process was super painful, and there's no
0:55:49way a human could have figured out the crap that I had to go through to try to get this
0:55:52thing to work in terms of opening ports on my modem and getting reverse lookups.
0:55:55It was just like insanity, right?
0:55:57But what I'm looking for out of – yeah, that's just because of the PS4.
0:56:01I've used Plex on my Mac before, and it's way nicer.
0:56:03Like the Mac version of Plex – if I could get the Mac version of Plex on my TV, say,
0:56:06by having a Mac Mini or something,
0:56:07it would make a big difference, right?
0:56:10But anyway, what I'm looking for out of Plex,
0:56:12and why probably no one will ever have it,
0:56:14is I think what you're talking about, Casey,
0:56:16that the dream thing,
0:56:17sort of the software-connected box equivalent
0:56:20of the omnivorous box that I was dreaming about
0:56:22way back when, like that someone will make a box
0:56:25that takes video input from everywhere and unifies it
0:56:27so I don't actually care where it comes from,
0:56:29and it would do everything.
0:56:30Like, no one ever made that, and no one ever probably will.
0:56:33The software equivalent of that is like Plex,
0:56:35where it's like, give me your video.
0:56:38Do you have random BitTorrent things
0:56:40that you illegally downloaded?
0:56:41Do you have videos that you rip?
0:56:42Do you have videos of your kid?
0:56:44Do you have Blu-ray extractions that you made with MKV,
0:56:47make MKV from Blu-rays that you own?
0:56:51I don't care where this video came from.
0:56:53You just throw it all into the pit.
0:56:55And I don't care what you name them.
0:56:57I don't care what's in them.
0:56:58I have this crazy crowd-sourced internet-powered database.
0:57:03well I will figure out what the heck these files are,
0:57:05I'll look at the fingerprints of the data,
0:57:09organize it into seasons, give you cover art,
0:57:12give you descriptions of every episode.
0:57:14Plex does a hell of a lot of that.
0:57:17Plex you can more or less throw a bunch of stuff at,
0:57:19like the metadata lookup, the cover art,
0:57:22being able to play a million different crazy formats,
0:57:24transcoding on the fly, doing all that stuff,
0:57:28Plex and various other utilities
0:57:30and other sort of software apps do a lot of that,
0:57:33but they're a little bit flaky,
0:57:36they can't really play every file that you download.
0:57:38Sometimes the device you're running it on
0:57:39can't transcode fast enough to handle this thing.
0:57:42Sometimes you lose the 5.1 track
0:57:44and it mixes it down to something else.
0:57:46You can't see the special features
0:57:47from your DVDs or your Blu-rays.
0:57:48Like the limitations just start stacking up and stacking up.
0:57:52And because no one, like none of the legit people
0:57:55are motivated to be able to take your illegal downloads
0:57:58or your rips of DVDs and figure out what they are and sort them into sessions, Apple's never
0:58:02going to do that.
0:58:03Like, Roku's probably not even going to do that other than running the Plex app, right?
0:58:07And so this is definitely an in-betweeny stage where we are in the transition from broadcast
0:58:13television to streaming television, and there's lots of sort of do-it-yourselfer solutions
0:58:16that work to varying degrees, but I feel like to come over the hump, the non-broadcast television
0:58:25needs to be like the old one in one specific way.
0:58:29When you press play, video has to play.
0:58:31And I don't care where the problem is
0:58:33and neither does anyone else.
0:58:33Is it with the networks?
0:58:34Is it an ISP fighting with Netflix or something?
0:58:39Is it the hardware?
0:58:40Is it my router?
0:58:42Is it jumbo packets?
0:58:43I don't care.
0:58:44I just want video to play.
0:58:47And I have to say, of all this complaining
0:58:49about streaming devices,
0:58:50the one television connected device
0:58:52that I have in my house that is closest
0:58:53the ideal of press play and video plays is the TiVo. Why? Because it's piggybacking on
0:58:59the old cruddy coaxial cable that comes into my house that delivers television, which has,
0:59:04you know, developed over the years to be different than what it was. But, yeah, you know, I have
0:59:11a cable card, the coaxial cable goes into the back of my TV, I pay for all the pay channels,
0:59:16I pay for all the fancy stuff, right? And then there's a hard drive and an incredibly
0:59:20weak CPU and a bunch of video decoding chips that record six of those channels at once
0:59:25onto a hard drive and when I press play it plays the video off that hard drive and when
0:59:29I fast forward and rewind it fast forwards and rewinds and it works every time and it
0:59:34doesn't crash and I don't get authentication errors and that's you know it does have a
0:59:37Netflix client on it which is flaky and it does have all these other streaming clients
0:59:41on it which are flaky but for the core purpose of recording video that's coming over my house
0:59:44through the coaxial cable that I pay for it works and so my vast preference is record
0:59:50Game of Thrones on my TiVo, watch it on my TiVo.
0:59:53Yes, I have HBO Go, yes I have HBO Now, I have blah blah blah blah blah.
0:59:57You know what I know will work?
0:59:58Sit down in front of the TiVo, turn it on, go down to Game of Thrones, hit play, the
1:00:00video will play.
1:00:01Every time it plays.
1:00:03And that, like, that's going to keep me loyal to TiVo and it's going to keep me paying my
1:00:07whatever the heck it is, huge bill for real live old fashioned cable servers until these
1:00:12streaming people can get their acts together to the point where now I can start choosing
1:00:16things based on features or pricing or something like that.
1:00:19but right now I'm choosing based on reliability.
1:00:21- Yeah, I hear that.
1:00:22I mean, it sounds like we all
1:00:24sort of have our own unique needs.
1:00:26Jon apparently boils down to just freaking work.
1:00:29But yeah, I don't know.
1:00:31It's sad that this hasn't been solved,
1:00:35which I know, I think this is where you started, Jon,
1:00:37but it's sad that this is still,
1:00:39that Marco and I both felt like we needed
1:00:43two different manufacturers' boxes
1:00:46in order to fix this problem.
1:00:48And neither of us feels completely satisfied with that fix.
1:00:53- Yeah, all of us have multiple things.
1:00:54Like I have, I watch things from Netflix
1:00:57and I choose the Apple TV to be my Netflix client
1:00:59because it has no fan.
1:01:00I watch things from streaming video.
1:01:01I buy things from iTunes.
1:01:03Like I do all of it, right?
1:01:04But it's like, when I have a choice,
1:01:05sometimes you don't have a choice.
1:01:06Like when I have a choice, TiVo is my go-to.
1:01:08But if I don't, I go down the cascade.
1:01:10Do I wanna try to stream it off my Synology?
1:01:12Do I wanna try to watch it on Apple TV's Netflix client?
1:01:14Do I wanna try my TV's built-in Netflix client?
1:01:16Sometimes I make the rounds until one of them works right.
1:01:18Sometimes my kid wants to watch a movie that I have.
1:01:21I bought it on iTunes.
1:01:22I have an illegally downloaded file.
1:01:24I have the Blu-ray.
1:01:25I have the DVD.
1:01:26This is a very common case.
1:01:27There are movies where I have all those things, right?
1:01:30And it's like, how should we watch that file?
1:01:34Is it important to make pictures moving on the television as fast as possible before
1:01:37the kid gets cranky?
1:01:39Or is it, for me, is it important because it's a family viewing that I'm going to take
1:01:42out the actual Blu-ray disc and put it in because that has the highest fidelity video
1:01:45and sound and that's very important to me. Why I own a big stack of Blu-rays, right?
1:01:49Because movies that I already own and that I already watch, I like to have on Blu-ray
1:01:52if I really care about the movie because it is the best quality. So having to be like
1:01:57a connoisseur of like, "How do I want to watch this today?" and having to pick based on quality
1:02:03and predicted reliability and speed and which one is just going to work, especially with
1:02:08illegal downloads, which thing will actually successfully play this? Let's try it directly
1:02:12from the Synology on my TV. Let's try it through the PlayStation media server. Let's try it
1:02:16through Plex. Let's try transcoding it manually." And it's like, you know, sometimes you just
1:02:20want to watch a movie.
1:02:21Well, and the sad part is, like, I've hired almost nothing, and it still sucks. Like,
1:02:27you can do everything "right." You can totally buy into one of these ecosystems, you know,
1:02:33whether it's the Apple ecosystem, the Amazon, whatever, you can totally buy into it. You
1:02:37can do everything right the way most people do, and it still doesn't work very well.
1:02:42worse because that's a monoculture. You need biological diversity, right? That's why, like,
1:02:46doing illegally has the advantage that there won't be like unskippable FBI warnings at the
1:02:52front of it. You'll be, you won't have to fight through seven layers of menus and downloading new
1:02:56Java updates on your Blu-ray player just to get to the movie. Like, pirating is almost always better,
1:03:00but then like, okay, well now I don't get the, uh, I don't like the way this was transcoded,
1:03:04or it was cropped wrong, or I don't like the the audio tracks that were included in this,
1:03:08or they don't get the director's commentary. There's always trade-offs, but I would say,
1:03:12Overall, illegal gives you a better experience.
1:03:15Like again, even for movies that I own the discs for, sometimes if I just want to watch
1:03:20the thing right now, I will look at either the ripped version of it or the illegally
1:03:23downloaded version of it because I know I'll get to the movie part faster.
1:03:28And that's one of the reasons why I've been ripping all my Blu-rays using Don Melton scripts
1:03:32because like I bought this LG Blu-ray ripper and I have this Mac Mini that's doing this
1:03:37live stream now and when it's not doing live streaming tasks it's doing Plex and Blu-ray
1:03:41ripping and I'm doing all that because I keep having these stupid errors with stuff I've
1:03:45actually bought on iTunes and like yeah like when my kid wants to watch a Pixar movie and
1:03:50we try to play it and it doesn't and I can't get it playing after 10 minutes of fiddling
1:03:53with stuff because of random Apple TV or CDN or service errors it's I want to just have
1:03:59it locally on the LAN and have it play which used to work great but now home sharing sucks
1:04:06And it's like everything sucks.
1:04:08- You should never have turned off jumbo frames, Marco.
1:04:10(laughing)
1:04:12- Like I really, I don't get, it is so frustrating.
1:04:16And the good thing is I think there is hope in sight.
1:04:21Right now there is kind of this inconvenient hole,
1:04:26or this inconvenient division in the market right now
1:04:28because you can't get all the big stuff in one box basically
1:04:33because the biggest offenders are that Apple,
1:04:36the Apple TV is the problem basically.
1:04:38That the Apple TV is the only thing
1:04:40that can play iTunes stuff,
1:04:41and the Apple TV can't, for the most part,
1:04:43can't do Plex, and it can't play Amazon Instant Video.
1:04:47If there is a future Apple TV coming out soon
1:04:49that offers an app platform,
1:04:51maybe that is how Apple will kind of finally,
1:04:54quietly allow those things to happen on the Apple TV,
1:04:57without having to partner with Amazon,
1:04:59which they really probably wouldn't want to do,
1:05:01and without having to install Plex as a built-in app,
1:05:03which might cause piracy concern,
1:05:06pressure from their content partners, whatever.
1:05:08Like, if there's just another Apple TV
1:05:12that has great hardware and an app platform,
1:05:16and they permit Plex and Amazon TV to build apps for it,
1:05:20which they almost certainly would,
1:05:22then that, I think, will be a really great box, potentially,
1:05:27if it actually works.
1:05:28And maybe by then they will have fixed DiscoveryD,
1:05:31which I assume is probably what's causing
1:05:33all the home sharing issues.
1:05:35- I still feel like the ISP issue is unresolved.
1:05:38Like the battle between the content providers
1:05:41and the content owners, whether it be HBO or Netflix
1:05:43or some combination, and the ISPs who just want
1:05:46a cut of everything and want, you know,
1:05:47like the whole strangling networks that they know
1:05:49that Netflix content comes from and like the whole
1:05:51net neutrality thing, like that needs to sort it out.
1:05:55You know, you need everything to work.
1:05:56Even if all the hardware and software and business deals get worked out on the device
1:06:01connected to your TV, if the ISP is still in a spat with one or more of those people,
1:06:06your experience is going to suck.
1:06:07And there's like nothing you can do about it because you'll do like a speed test and
1:06:10you're like, "You've got 100 megabits down, but you can't watch a video at more than 480p."
1:06:15And even then it stalls sometimes.
1:06:16It's like, "Why am I even paying for this service?"
1:06:19You know, that's I guess the HBO Now deal that was part of the same keynote with the
1:06:24the one port MacBook, right?
1:06:25- It's called the MacBook One now, Jon.
1:06:28- Yes. - That's what we're calling it.
1:06:29- God, all right, but before we do the HBO One stuff,
1:06:32let's thank our last sponsor.
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1:09:14All right, so back to the HBO deal that came up in the last Apple keynote.
1:09:19Yeah, this is framed as an Apple win, but really it is just the natural evolution of
1:09:26HBO.
1:09:27In the past, they were a thing you had to buy as a premium addition to your cable bill.
1:09:32And they had the HBO Go application, which first you could only watch on iOS devices
1:09:37and then eventually they let you stream to your television.
1:09:39But the important point was you couldn't do anything with that iOS app at all unless you
1:09:43had a cable subscription that included HBO.
1:09:47And that frustrated people because they were like, "Come on, HBO.
1:09:50This is the future."
1:09:51The whole point of us watching your content on our streaming Apple TV puck thing or on
1:09:58our iPhone or on our iPad is that we don't want to pay for cable.
1:10:01In fact, we're cable cutters.
1:10:02We don't want to pay for cable at all, except of course for internet access, which we'll
1:10:05never get rid of that.
1:10:06But anyway, we don't want to pay for cable television.
1:10:09We don't watch ESPN or we watch it on their website or we watch things on YouTube or whatever.
1:10:15Divorce your service from the cable television industry.
1:10:17And now finally, HBO is ready to do that.
1:10:20They're not ready to do it themselves because apparently their technology act is not together
1:10:23on the whole HBO Go front, so they're outsourcing it, I believe, to the MLB.TV people, the people
1:10:28who do Major League Baseball television streaming, which by all accounts, despite the silly black
1:10:32out nonsense, the actual streaming part of it works pretty well. So there are high hopes
1:10:36for this business. If you pay them $15 a month, you can watch HBO. You don't need to have
1:10:41a cable subscription. All you need is some device that can do this. And it is exclusive
1:10:45to Apple for how long? Like six months or three months or…?
1:10:49I thought it was three. But I've also heard that it's not really
1:10:53exclusive to Apple. I didn't read up on this because I don't really watch HBO and
1:10:56and I don't have HBO, but I could swear I'd read somewhere recently that it may or may
1:11:02not actually be exclusive.
1:11:03Yeah, well, but the deal is like, you know, so the new season of Game of Thrones is starting,
1:11:08and Apple did just drop the price on its little silly puck thing. So for $69, cord cutters
1:11:14can buy a puck, and $15 a month, they can watch Game of Thrones. They can watch it in
1:11:18theory whenever they want without a cable subscription, without borrowing some borrowing,
1:11:23"someone's HBO Go password" who does subscribe to HBO, which was the past practice, and for
1:11:29a short period of time, which includes the time that the Game of Thrones season will
1:11:33be premiering.
1:11:34The only way to do this, or according to Apple the only way, is on their particular thing.
1:11:37But that will expire and very soon I'm sure HBO Now will be available everywhere and it's
1:11:42exactly what we all wanted out of HBO.
1:11:44And this is the slow crumbling of all the people who are holding out, holding the line
1:11:48and old media going towards, like what Margo said, eventually a potential app platform,
1:11:54kind of like we have on iOS today, where there's a series of applications that you can use
1:11:57to watch, you know, NBA or MLB or maybe, I don't know if the NFL is out there, all these
1:12:03three-letter acronyms for sport things that none of us watch.
1:12:06I do.
1:12:07Yeah.
1:12:08Do they have an NFL app?
1:12:09You can tell me, maybe.
1:12:10They do, but it only is useful if you get NFL Sunday Ticket, which you can only get
1:12:14if you're a DirecTV subscriber or live in, like, the UK or whatever.
1:12:18Yeah, so those deals, yeah, they're still kind of entrenched, but trying to slowly divorce
1:12:23themselves.
1:12:24Like, that I shouldn't have to pay for cable television or satellite television or whatever,
1:12:28I should just be able to a la carte buy the...
1:12:31It's still, you know, it's not the shows you want, you're still buying the channels you
1:12:34want, right?
1:12:35You're buying HBO, you're not buying Game of Thrones.
1:12:38People would rather just be able to get Game of Thrones without buying the season on iTunes
1:12:42after it's already aired or whatever, or the day after it aired.
1:12:45Like, we're narrowing it, getting closer and closer.
1:12:47There used to be you couldn't get a digital version of a television show ever, and then
1:12:51you could get a digital version of a television show much later, and then you could get it
1:12:54the next day, and now you're going to be able to watch it at the same time as the people
1:12:57who subscribe to HBO.
1:12:58Again, in theory, because if their servers are crushed under the weight of all the people
1:13:03trying to do that, I know my TiVo will record it and I'll be able to watch it in real time.
1:13:07That's the great thing about HBO, no commercials.
1:13:11You can watch it in real time because you don't have to wait for the commercials to
1:13:13queue up.
1:13:14But anyway, I continue to watch those things on my nice reliable TV, but they're trying to get to the future and I feel like
1:13:19If people go out and get the $69 puck so they can watch it and pay the subscription to HBO
1:13:26So they can watch Game of Thrones finally in you know without borrowing someone's password
1:13:30I'm without having to subscribe to HBO and they plug in the puck and they turn it on
1:13:34They're all excited to watch them and they got their popcorn and maybe there's some friends over and they hit play and it doesn't play
1:13:38They're not gonna be excited about the future of streaming TV
1:13:41They're gonna regret that $69 purchase and when the new Apple TV comes out for $99
1:13:46They're not gonna be enthused about buying that it is so easy to sour a normal person not a geek
1:13:50But like a semi normal person on the experience of TV connected pucks by just having it not work once and them going
1:13:57You know what? I didn't like paying for cable
1:13:59I didn't like paying extra on top of cable for HBO
1:14:01But at least I could watch my show when I wanted to watch my show. I have nothing to add
1:14:05I agree with you completely. I mean, I think you nailed it
1:14:10Thanks a lot to our three sponsors this week Reuters TV Squarespace and Harry's and we will see you next week
1:14:16Now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental
1:14:26was accidental
1:14:29John did any research Marco and Casey wouldn't let him because it was accidental
1:14:36was accidental
1:14:39And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM And if you're into Twitter, you can follow
1:14:46them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S So that's Kasey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
1:14:56Auntie Marco Armin S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A, Syracuse
1:15:06♪ It's accidental ♪
1:15:08♪ Accidental ♪
1:15:10♪ They didn't mean to ♪
1:15:12♪ Accidental ♪
1:15:13♪ Accidental ♪
1:15:14♪ Tech podcast ♪
1:15:16♪ So long ♪
1:15:18- My stories, they call it.
1:15:21Why do I watch my stories?
1:15:22- Wow. - Good God.
1:15:25All right, Marko, we talked a little bit earlier
1:15:29and we told you to save it for the after show
1:15:32about how you're falling out of love with Twitter,
1:15:34which is funny because I feel like you're coming
1:15:37to a conclusion quicker than I am,
1:15:39but I have been having similar feelings about,
1:15:43is really, is Twitter really doing anything positive for me
1:15:48or is it just making me angry all the time?
1:15:51- Well, like the thing that I quoted to you guys before,
1:15:54I put it in the show notes,
1:15:55so maybe you looked it up by now,
1:15:56but did any of you recognize the quote I was referencing
1:15:58when Marco first talked about this?
1:16:00- Nope.
1:16:00- This is an older quote, it's from 1777.
1:16:03I don't know if you guys remember back that far.
1:16:05- We're not as old as you, Jon.
1:16:06- Yeah, it's from Samuel Johnson,
1:16:08and the well-known part of it is,
1:16:11I'll read the whole thing.
1:16:13You find no man at all intellectual
1:16:15who is willing to leave London.
1:16:16No, sir, when a man is tired of London, he is tired of life,
1:16:19for there is in London all that life can afford.
1:16:22And that was my way of saying that
1:16:24it's not specifically Twitter that is a tiresome thing,
1:16:28in that I think at this point,
1:16:30Twitter offers all that life can afford, more or less.
1:16:34It is exposure to lots of people, which can happen anywhere on the internet, whether it
1:16:39be in a Usenet group, where the exact same toxic things that Marco is going to discuss,
1:16:43I'm sure, could happen and did happen, or it could be IRC, or it could be web forums,
1:16:51web bulletin boards, AOL chat room news group things, I don't know, there's never an AOL,
1:16:55whatever those things are called.
1:16:58The problem is not the medium.
1:17:00The problem is, and in fact Twitter is probably better than most in the ways that it handles
1:17:04the social interactions and limiting people and having the asymmetrical follow and everything,
1:17:09is being tired of life.
1:17:11And I'm not saying that means he's wrong or anything.
1:17:13I'm saying that we should put the blame where it lies, which is other people suck, right?
1:17:18Or whatever.
1:17:19However you want to deal with it.
1:17:22How are you current feeling?
1:17:23I'm going to put it in video game terms.
1:17:26How are your shields holding up against the current onslaught, right?
1:17:30Are you feeling weak?
1:17:31Are you feeling strong?
1:17:32Do you feel like it's wearing you down and doing something negative?
1:17:34And disengaging is the way you deal with that.
1:17:36Like if your shields are going down and you get bombarded from all sides, you go elsewhere.
1:17:41You pull your ship back, you hide behind a rock and let your ships regen—I don't
1:17:45know, I'm mixing video game metaphors here, but like—
1:17:47Well, you treat it like the Halo thing, so you can step back for a minute and you recharge
1:17:51your things.
1:17:52Right.
1:17:53And what I'm getting at is that it's not so much Twitter specifically, it really could
1:17:57be anything.
1:17:58It could be blog comments, if you have comments on your blog, and one way to fix that might
1:18:00be to turn off comments.
1:18:01It could be people sending you hateful emails.
1:18:03There are many vectors through which people who have any amount of notoriety can be put
1:18:08upon by others and it can start to affect them for a variety of reasons.
1:18:13And I think acknowledging that and dealing with it in a way that were expressed for you
1:18:16is healthy.
1:18:18My only point with the tired of life thing is that I don't think it's specific to Twitter
1:18:23or any one thing, and I don't think shifting your use to like App.net or Usenet or going
1:18:29back to IRC or whatever, like nothing is going to solve that problem.
1:18:31It is not a technology problem, it's just a like, a thing that you have to deal with
1:18:36that goes in cycles that you have to deal with no matter where it is, and you have to
1:18:39do whatever you need to do to make yourself, you know, be happier essentially.
1:18:44So I actually agree with most of what you just said. The problem I have with Twitter,
1:18:52the problem I'm having is partly my fault. It is partly that it is, and I've talked about
1:18:59it before, like struggles with trying to keep my Twitter usage under control so it's not
1:19:03just constantly sucking away little bits of time throughout the day and just being this
1:19:08massive time suck and distraction suck, which hurts my productivity. And when I see my report
1:19:14from Rescue Time every week and it says I spent X hours in Twitter, I don't feel good
1:19:19about that. So that's part of the problem. And I've always had that problem. And I've
1:19:24tried different techniques over the years to try to minimize that, like only using it
1:19:28on my phone or only using it in a notification center or quitting it during the workday or
1:19:33whatever, and they've all done slight help here and there,
1:19:38but they mostly just kind of move the problem around.
1:19:41They don't really tend to reduce the problem meaningfully.
1:19:44The problem there is just me,
1:19:45that I want to keep engaging and interacting with Twitter.
1:19:48- You're not a Twitter completionist, right?
1:19:50I keep forgetting. - No.
1:19:51- Yeah, so you don't have that problem.
1:19:52If you were, I would say that's one thing
1:19:54you should definitely stop, 'cause that--
1:19:56- And another problem that I have
1:19:58is that I'm not keeping up,
1:19:59because so much is going on on Twitter,
1:20:02I'm missing what my friends are saying.
1:20:05And I recently, a couple weeks ago,
1:20:08I unfollowed about a third of the people I was following.
1:20:10Like I went through and tried to call as much as I could.
1:20:13And I started using mutes here and there,
1:20:15but that's a little too much work for me,
1:20:17so I'm not gonna do much of it.
1:20:19But the problem is that all of my friends,
1:20:24for the most part, are talking to each other on Twitter.
1:20:28And if I wanna keep up with what my friends are doing
1:20:31or talking about or what's going on in the world,
1:20:33I need to be reading that.
1:20:36Right now, I'm already not reading most of it
1:20:38because I'm not a completionist.
1:20:40I can't keep up, so I'm already not reading it,
1:20:42but I'm missing all that, and at the same time,
1:20:44if I want to talk to my friends in that context,
1:20:48if I want to be part of that conversation, we're in public.
1:20:52And so what I need, what I'm looking for
1:20:55is some separation to, you know, in public,
1:20:58somebody, I forget who,
1:21:00somebody about a year ago I heard a talk where they were comparing like having a
1:21:04conversation briefly with your friends on Twitter it's like having a
1:21:08conversation like on your front porch with somebody and there's tons of people
1:21:12walking by in the sidewalk and they yell at you like responses that like that you
1:21:15weren't part of this conversation and they're like yelling butting in like
1:21:19you're a dick it's like what do you like get off my porch like but that's the
1:21:24that's one of the strengths of Twitter as well because if it was only happening
1:21:27in private fewer people would benefit the reason it kind of works the way it
1:21:30does is that groups of people can sort of organically form who like discussing a particular
1:21:36topic and like, you're doing it in public, partially because you want some of the public
1:21:41to see it.
1:21:42What you don't want is people going by your porch and yelling at you while you're doing
1:21:45your thing, but you do want, hey, maybe this interested guy who you met once or twice will
1:21:48hear your conversation and join in kind of like at a party, right?
1:21:51Like so the public nature of Twitter is both a strength and a weakness.
1:21:54And how it plays out really depends on how many people are walking by your porch, so
1:21:59to speak.
1:22:00agree that that is an important strength of Twitter.
1:22:04I like that that exists.
1:22:06I don't like that that is the far and away dominant place
1:22:10that my friends interact with each other
1:22:14and that I need to interact with my friends.
1:22:16Like, we are always in public.
1:22:19And I think it should be the opposite.
1:22:20I think we should interact in public sometimes
1:22:23and most of the time it would be more pleasant
1:22:26if it was private.
1:22:29And so there's different ways to do that.
1:22:31There's chat rooms and stuff, and Slack,
1:22:34and stuff like that.
1:22:36I think I'd rather spend more time looking
1:22:39at stuff like that these days,
1:22:40because it is so exhausting.
1:22:42It is like, I was just at a conference,
1:22:46and being at a conference was great,
1:22:49but most groups of people on Twitter
1:22:52are not as nice as the attendees of OOL.
1:22:55And it's a much bigger crowd on Twitter.
1:22:59You know, imagine going to a conference
1:23:02where you have tens of thousands of people all around you
1:23:05and listening to everything you say
1:23:07and being ready to butt in.
1:23:09And so you're gonna get a lot of good stuff out of that.
1:23:11You're gonna meet a lot of good people,
1:23:12you're gonna get a lot of good ideas
1:23:14and good conversations out of that.
1:23:17But you're also gonna get a lot of jerks,
1:23:19especially if it's free to enter
1:23:21and nobody knows your name
1:23:22and you don't have to show your face.
1:23:24So it is exhausting after a while to be always partially
1:23:29or fully in public like that when you're really just trying
1:23:32to have everyday interactions with mostly just your friends.
1:23:36And you're welcome, it's like always being at a conference.
1:23:39So there is value in being at a conference sometimes,
1:23:43but there is also, there's a certain level,
1:23:46there's a certain threshold of sanity
1:23:49where you can't be publicly performing all the time
1:23:54and have that be mentally healthy, at least I can't.
1:23:57And so what I'm saying is not that Twitter is bad.
1:24:00And by the way, and a lot of people rightly point out
1:24:04in the chat room, like, much of the problem
1:24:06when people complain about, quote, Twitter,
1:24:08is they're complaining about the group they're following,
1:24:10the group they're paying attention to.
1:24:12I'm aware that social networks are what you make of them
1:24:15with what you choose to follow.
1:24:16However, in a network like Twitter,
1:24:18they are not what you make of them in terms of
1:24:22who talks to you and what you receive, that is mostly up to the public. I mean, you can
1:24:29like, you know, try to avoid talking about certain topics, which is stupid, but you can
1:24:34do stuff like that to try to minimize what you get. But for the most part, once you have
1:24:38a non-trivially sized audience, you're going to have random jerks talking to you all the
1:24:42time in a jerky way, and no matter how much good is interspersed throughout that, it's
1:24:49just really exhausting.
1:24:50Well, the problem is, is that the cost of entry to affecting somebody else's day is
1:24:57almost zero, because you can fire off this 140 character or less message to darn near
1:25:04anyone you want.
1:25:07And that's free.
1:25:08And it takes almost no time.
1:25:11And just like you were saying, John, that's one of the strengths of Twitter is that it's,
1:25:14You can get messages across quickly and easily, and you can have access to almost anyone on
1:25:21the planet if you so desire, like celebrities.
1:25:25And I'm talking about actual celebrities, not us three idiots.
1:25:29But the problem with that is all of these people also have access to you.
1:25:35And the thing that I've been struggling with with regard to Twitter is I feel like maybe
1:25:40I'm just becoming more sensitive.
1:25:42I thought I'd be coming I'd been becoming less sensitive, but I feel like I'm seeing
1:25:46more and more negative or not constructive comments coming my way that bother me.
1:25:55And granted, the easy answer is, well, don't let it bother you, you idiot, but it's hard.
1:26:01I'm not good at just putting up that wall.
1:26:03So like, for example, I had put up a post about Apple Pay and about how I thought it
1:26:08was crummy that when my card had expired, the card didn't update, which I've since found out
1:26:14it is theoretically capable of doing if the bank handles it right. And it also didn't tell me when
1:26:19I went to use it to use the Apple Pay version of the credit card that had expired. It just said,
1:26:25denied. So I wrote a post about that. Well, somebody tweeted, Apple Pay messaging at
1:26:30Casey lists you're being ridiculous. Keep track of your cards
1:26:33Sorry that I made an honest mistake
1:26:37But did you also learn about the fact that your bank if your bank had handled it correctly?
1:26:42That you that wouldn't have happened. Did you also learn about that on Twitter or from some stranger?
1:26:47I learned about it from from some friends, but I also eventually heard about it on Twitter
1:26:54It's the blessing and the curse like you will I mean it with any it's kind of like, you know
1:26:58follow up, but anything we talk about here, if we were wrong, many people will tell us,
1:27:02which I like. I like the fact that that's an advantage of having an audience. Some of
1:27:06the people who tell you what we mean about it, that's the price you pay for having a
1:27:09bunch of people tell you, like, "solve your problems for it." A lot of people who only
1:27:15see the upside would love to do that. They're like, "Boy, it must be good to have a popular
1:27:19tech podcast because you can say, 'Hey, I'm having trouble getting my whozit, working
1:27:22with my whatever.'" And then a million people will tell you how to get them to work together,
1:27:27and some percentage of those people will be right.
1:27:29And you will have your solved problem, right?
1:27:31But then some percentage of the people will be jerks.
1:27:33- Like when I had my jumbo frame issue,
1:27:36I would never have found that problem
1:27:38if I hadn't asked on Twitter and gotten hundreds
1:27:41of responses of what it might be,
1:27:43and like two of them said jumbo frames.
1:27:46And that ended up being right.
1:27:48I am so lucky to have such a big audience on Twitter
1:27:51that I have access to that kind of information.
1:27:54I'm so lucky that I have a big enough audience
1:27:57that I can launch products and write blog posts
1:28:00that get attention.
1:28:01Like the audience, like I have built in attention
1:28:05for anything I do now.
1:28:06That's the problem.
1:28:07That's why I would feel like a jerk
1:28:09just walking away from this.
1:28:10I would feel ungrateful to other people
1:28:14who have been following me.
1:28:16And also I would feel like I was throwing away
1:28:18a giant professional advantage.
1:28:20So I feel like I can't leave Twitter.
1:28:23- Yeah.
1:28:24But that's why I need to find a better balance.
1:28:27- But yeah, that's a skill, like anything else,
1:28:29it's a skill you have to develop.
1:28:31It's like, none of us have experience with this,
1:28:34but can you imagine running a huge company,
1:28:36being the CEO of a company with thousands of employees?
1:28:39That is not usually a natural thing
1:28:42that most people are used to.
1:28:43You're used to just dealing with yourself when you're a kid
1:28:45and you learn to gain responsibility.
1:28:47But it is, at these extremes of extreme ratios
1:28:51of you to other people, it's a skill that you have to learn.
1:28:54There are things you can learn about being a manager
1:28:57and being a CEO or running a large company
1:28:59that you just have to figure out, right?
1:29:02And you have to research them and learn them.
1:29:04And some people are just not cut out for it.
1:29:06Some people will never be a good CEO
1:29:08or a good manager of a lot of people
1:29:09because it's just not how they work, right?
1:29:10So if suddenly you get an audience
1:29:13and you have to deal with notoriety and fame
1:29:15and a lot of input from other people,
1:29:17you have to either learn to deal with that
1:29:20or learn what your limits are.
1:29:21Learn that I don't wanna be the CEO of a big company
1:29:24because no matter how good I could possibly get at it,
1:29:26doing so doesn't make me happy.
1:29:27How big are you comfortable?
1:29:28How big, you know, you see a lot with actual celebrities
1:29:30who get big because of some talent they have.
1:29:34They're in a hit movie, they're a great singer,
1:29:36they have a hit song or something.
1:29:38And very often, the prerequisite is to get that fame,
1:29:42being very talented, being a good actor,
1:29:44being in the right place at the right time,
1:29:46some combination of those things,
1:29:47are totally unrelated to the ability to deal with the fame
1:29:51that is going to come with that.
1:29:52You know, the ones that stick, the ones that stay are like,
1:29:55yes, they're really talented, and also,
1:29:57they're able to figure out how to have a successful,
1:30:00well-balanced life in the face of what must be, you know,
1:30:04the insane onslaught of like real fame, right?
1:30:08Other people have the talent, get the notoriety,
1:30:10and very clearly can't deal with the onslaught of real fame
1:30:13and have tragic, terrible lives.
1:30:15We are lucky that in our tiny little dose of notoriety here,
1:30:19it's unlikely that Marco is going to, you know,
1:30:21go on a bender and drive his Tesla off a cliff or something.
1:30:24(laughing)
1:30:27But I think that's why I think our problem
1:30:29is more relatable because I think everybody has,
1:30:32even if it's just like someone said something mean
1:30:34on your Facebook post, who is like an acquaintance
1:30:37or someone you knew in high school and that ruins your day,
1:30:40that's pretty much the level we're talking about here.
1:30:42It's not like we're getting bombarded
1:30:44with thousands of people hating us,
1:30:45but it doesn't take much.
1:30:46It just takes one person making one mean comment
1:30:49to make you think like, and are you used to that?
1:30:51are used to acquaintances or even strangers perhaps
1:30:55telling you mean things about yourself.
1:30:56Maybe that's not something that happens in your regular life
1:30:58but suddenly it happens on the internet
1:30:59because they have access to you.
1:31:00And everyone I think,
1:31:01like this is the complaint we get when we talk about this,
1:31:03like would you stop talking about your problems of like,
1:31:05oh you have a lot of Twitter followers.
1:31:06I think everybody, if you have one Twitter follow,
1:31:08if you have 10 people who read your Facebook,
1:31:10everybody has this problem
1:31:11at pretty much exactly the same scale we do
1:31:13because what we're talking about here
1:31:15is handfuls of negative feedback from people.
1:31:21because we're not that big.
1:31:23And I think our handful is within an order of magnitude
1:31:26of your handful, and is really the same type
1:31:29of scope of prog, and I think everybody
1:31:31who has any interaction in any social media
1:31:33or any sort of one-to-many communication medium
1:31:36that's not just like face-to-face has to deal with this
1:31:39and has to figure out what are my limits?
1:31:41How do I feel about this?
1:31:42Am I gonna grow a thicker skin,
1:31:44or am I going to pretend I'm growing a thicker skin
1:31:47when really I'm just internalizing it all
1:31:48and it'll come to a breaking point,
1:31:50I'll like snap at my children and I realize I'm snapping at them because someone said
1:31:53something mean to me on my Facebook post two days ago and I'm still thinking about it,
1:31:58right?
1:31:59That I couldn't agree more.
1:32:00That's exactly how I feel.
1:32:01That I'm trying to just fabricate a thicker skin, but I don't think I've actually built
1:32:06a thicker skin yet.
1:32:08And it's hard.
1:32:09It's a hard thing to deal with.
1:32:11It's weird.
1:32:12And I think an ecstasy said a couple things in the chat that I thought were great.
1:32:16Some people are a pleasure to interact with.
1:32:18Others just suck your energy.
1:32:19And I think that's a really good way of putting it.
1:32:21That's that I see this comment like, oh, don't be ridiculous.
1:32:24Keep track of your or you're being ridiculous.
1:32:26Keep track of your cards.
1:32:27And that just kind of like sucks the air out of my day a little bit.
1:32:30Should it?
1:32:31No, I should be big enough to realize this is some stranger that I'm never going to interact
1:32:35with.
1:32:36And that shouldn't bother me.
1:32:38But it does.
1:32:39And the thing I'm struggling with, again, coming back to an ecstasy is in his or her
1:32:43case, I will also say the older I get less tolerance of energy sucking people I become
1:32:47I put up with a lot more crap at 18 than I do at 48. And I feel like even in the last couple of years
1:32:52as I've gained some fame, and I can't say notoriety because I was corrected once that it's not notoriety,
1:32:58it's fame for us because we didn't do bad things. But anyway, as I get more fame, I'm finding that I
1:33:05have less and less tolerance and time for the that kind of energy suck. And I've noticed kind of
1:33:10building on what Marco had said, that I'm getting much more aggressive with the block button and,
1:33:19and, and those sorts of things than I ever have been in the past. And granted, I'm, you know,
1:33:26just freshly 33. And so it's not that I'm getting too old age, but even as I'm getting older at this
1:33:34age, I'm finding that I'm less and less tolerant of it. And, and where we started this conversation
1:33:40is where I'm coming back to now, which is, is it really worth me getting upset over these random
1:33:46strangers on the internet? And I feel like I'm getting more and more upset over time. And in fact,
1:33:53at the end of last year in December, and this is a little bit of a corollary for half or so of
1:33:59December, I kept track every single day of what Twitter was pissed off about, because I felt like
1:34:06Every day there was some unbelievable travesty that Twitter was all fired up about.
1:34:14Every single day.
1:34:15Now that oftentimes it didn't relate to me at all.
1:34:17But that much negativity man, oh my goodness, eventually it just wears on you.
1:34:22And the reason I kept track of this because I intended to post a blog post about it.
1:34:28As it turns out, right around the time that the right I guess was midway through the month,
1:34:34I want to say maybe it was time, but somebody put up a post that had basically done that
1:34:41for an entire year.
1:34:42And so at that point I figured, well, my post wasn't really worth it, but it's just, it's
1:34:48stunning to me how much negativity I've seen on Twitter.
1:34:53And like Marco, I'm trying to evaluate where does that fit in my life?
1:34:59Because I don't want to eliminate it entirely, but I think I'm giving it much more time and
1:35:06too many thought cycles.
1:35:08And I need to back it off a bit, but I'm not sure the right way to do it.
1:35:12And like Marco, I'm a freaking addict, which is not I don't say that with pride.
1:35:16I wish I was less so.
1:35:19But it is it is unbelievably thrilling to get responses from people that you respect,
1:35:25Or even strangers that have good information like the big frames, fat frames, whatever
1:35:29you call it.
1:35:30That is the title, man.
1:35:33Big frames, fat frames.
1:35:36Fine.
1:35:37See, now I'm totally derailed myself.
1:35:39But one way or another, there's good things that come from Twitter, but there's also
1:35:44so much bad, and I can't figure out, is the bad outweighing the good these days?
1:35:49For me, anyway.
1:35:50What Marco is doing, like, he's doing all the logical things that you would think to
1:35:54Trim your follow this mute people try to cut down and when you do it don't be a completionist like he's going through he's
1:36:01He's going down the punch list of things you can do to manage this on
1:36:04Somewhere on the punch list for certain people maybe think your way out of it
1:36:08Most people that doesn't work like a little bit Casey
1:36:11It sounds like you're trying to think your way out of it like should I be upset intellectually?
1:36:15Can I can I rationally think about that?
1:36:17I shouldn't be bothered by what strangers that like I
1:36:20Don't know if you can have that conversation with yourself and have it have effect my experience. It is very rare that
1:36:25people can
1:36:28Can use reason to change their emotions they feel from input from other people?
1:36:33But some people can so it's worth at least giving that a try
1:36:36But you know and curating the follow us
1:36:40I think is probably the first thing you should do because you said like you know what is Twitter upset about today as Marco pointed
1:36:45Out Twitter is who you follow like what is Twitter upset about you have no idea what Twitter is upset about Twitter as an
1:36:50aggregate is probably talking about Justin Bieber. That is not in your headline, right?
1:36:53You know what I mean? Your Twitter is upset about some Apple thing that nobody knows about, except,
1:36:57you know, so changing your follow list. And it can be painful because even for all the asymmetry
1:37:02in Twitter, it can be painful to unfollow people who, you know, you may agree with them. And you
1:37:07may be, it is part of the reason you would unfollow them. Like, they're outraged about
1:37:11Issue X. You 100% agree with them about Issue X, and you are also outraged, and that outrage is a
1:37:15negative feeling. And so you're unfollowing them, not because they're posting things you disagree
1:37:19with but because they're posting because you agree with and you're like now I too
1:37:22am outraged you have transferred your outrage to me because we agree on
1:37:26everything therefore I'm going to unfollow you like you're not unfollowing
1:37:28people because their opinions are the opposite of yours you're following
1:37:31people who you agree with but we seem to be angry all the time that's rubbing off
1:37:35on you you know well and there's also you know to me I feel like there's
1:37:40there's a big difference with with Twitter and a lot of it comes from from
1:37:46the blog world too, which is that with Twitter, there's a very, very, you know, it is who
1:37:51you follow, that's like, you know, what you see in your timeline, but there's still the
1:37:54big problem with all of the, you know, replies from jerks and everything. And, you know,
1:38:00a few weeks ago I mentioned how, you know, like I feel more comfortable saying things
1:38:06in podcasts than I do on my blog, things that might be controversial or that might get people
1:38:12to call me a jerk or whatever. And the reason why is because in blogs and on Twitter it's
1:38:19really really easy to get drive-by rash reactions from people. And so when, and this is, you
1:38:26know, that anger that you see, that you see like bubbling up on Twitter, that's directed
1:38:30at something, that's a mood. It's this drive-by mood where someone sees a few words or a headline
1:38:38that they disagree with and they fit it into their narrative with their confirmation bias
1:38:43of whatever they think those people are like or whatever and they just lash out and yell
1:38:49immediately. They don't look at context, they don't know the people they're talking to,
1:38:54it's just this quick, harsh reaction. With podcasts, you don't really get a lot of that
1:39:01because podcasts are so undiscoverable fundamentally by the format mostly, and I know there's ways
1:39:07we can improve it, but ultimately the format is just pretty undiscoverable compared to
1:39:13text, and I think it always will be that way, relatively speaking, you know, with the exception
1:39:18of minor improvements here and there, but with podcasts, like most people who are hearing
1:39:24what I'm saying right now are subscribed to this show, who hear it on a regular basis,
1:39:29who hear the three of us talking for a couple hours every week, and who have probably heard
1:39:35us for a couple hours every week for a long time. So they, like, you listeners who are
1:39:40hearing me say this, you know us. Like, the vast majority of you know us on some level.
1:39:46You know the context. You know the kind of people we are. You know roughly, you know,
1:39:51the context in which we are saying the things we say, in which we think the things we think.
1:39:56You know, if we say something that's a little bit off, you'll probably give us the benefit
1:39:59doubt because you know who we actually are. And so there are, I think there are way fewer
1:40:06of those drive-by nasty interactions for things you say on podcasts than there are for things
1:40:12you say on Twitter or on blog posts. And for me, and the result is podcast audiences tend
1:40:19to be much smaller than popular blogs, popular, you know, tweets, accounts or whatever, YouTube
1:40:26channels that are a little more accessible to this kind of drive-by-ness. Like, podcast
1:40:30audiences are way smaller, but I get so much less nastiness per capita in podcasts than
1:40:38I do from any other audience, by a long shot. And I'll say things on here that are potentially
1:40:44way riskier to say than I would ever say on my blog, and yet I get almost no crap for
1:40:51it.
1:40:52It's just too much work to listen to a podcast. Anyone, if someone starts retweeting your
1:40:55tweet around you will get all the crazy drive-bys from people who have no idea who you are and
1:40:58who are angry but it is just so much work. You're like I gotta download a big audio file
1:41:02and then you gotta listen to audio and they don't know overcast exists so they don't know
1:41:05podcast lines exist so they don't know they can listen faster and it's like where is the
1:41:09part where they talked about this? Oh never mind. Whereas anyone can read a tweet in two
1:41:12seconds and get angry. So. Exactly. It is not, not, and even a blog post like when you
1:41:17know like when your blog post goes viral like you're on CNBC or whatever like you're just
1:41:22gonna drive by us for for half a year just because of that one thing right I
1:41:26mean here's like I would love I would absolutely love if Twitter had a setting
1:41:32that would not show me mentions from people who didn't follow me for more
1:41:38than the past week think about that yeah there's a lot Twitter can do for that
1:41:42but that does actually get into that does actually get into the realm of
1:41:47features that would only benefit the people who have a larger than normal
1:41:51a number of followers, but--
1:41:52- But they already have those features.
1:41:54Verified accounts have a setting where you can only see
1:41:56responses from people you follow, right?
1:41:59And that's too aggressive, yeah,
1:42:01'cause then you can't hear from strangers, right?
1:42:03So that's too extreme, but if you look at the trash
1:42:08that you get, if you look at the nastiness,
1:42:11the nasty comments from people on Twitter,
1:42:13the vast majority of them for me
1:42:15are from people who don't follow me,
1:42:17because they saw some retweet somewhere or something,
1:42:20they're like, "Ahh!" and they lash out and they yell at me.
1:42:22And they get nastier when they're eggs, I mean, we can talk to the whole thing.
1:42:25Yeah.
1:42:25Like, you know, we don't usually get the eggs, but we just get—we get the drive-bys of people
1:42:28who have established Twitter accounts, and they just talk in their circle, and we talk in our
1:42:31circle, and our circles don't interact, but some little thing from our circle lands over in their
1:42:35circle, and they will just come back and yell. But the good thing about them is, for the most part,
1:42:38you'll never see them again. Like, most of them won't make it their mission in life to make your
1:42:43life miserable. Like, my one was, they had that video of the woman being cat-called on the street,
1:42:48and I made one or two tweets about it and they somehow leaked out of our circle because
1:42:53some right-wing site put up one of my tweets on their page and it was just months.
1:42:59Months of random, fairly aggressive hate from people who are totally outside circles who
1:43:06have no idea anything about who I am or that I have a podcast or that I'm just a person.
1:43:15- That was miserable.
1:43:16It was like, I think I said, I tweeted about it.
1:43:18It was like, you know, five millisarkesians worth of hate.
1:43:23Right?
1:43:24But it just goes on forever.
1:43:26Like, and eventually, you know, like, I mean,
1:43:28I deal with things in a different way probably
1:43:30than you two do, but like, it was miserable.
1:43:33And it was like the rainstorm, it doesn't end.
1:43:36Like, you know, I don't know what your CNBC story,
1:43:41you know, the Apple functional high ground stuff is going.
1:43:44I'm assuming you're still getting those,
1:43:46but I'm hoping they're not as hate filled
1:43:49as the things I was getting for this thing.
1:43:51And at the very least, anyone who's gonna be angry
1:43:54about functional high ground probably cares about Apple.
1:43:57And so at least they're somewhere in your circle.
1:43:59In that respect, you may not get rid of them,
1:44:00but when I was getting the random hate from strangers,
1:44:03it helped that I knew these people
1:44:06didn't know anything about me.
1:44:08It helped that I knew that I was never gonna see
1:44:11these people on Twitter again.
1:44:13It helped that it was so outside of the normal things
1:44:16I tweet about, unlike your functional high ground things,
1:44:18which is you're just, you are like cultivating the worst
1:44:22of your actual audience.
1:44:23Like people who care a lot about Apple
1:44:25and you're really angry about you
1:44:26for saying stuff about Apple.
1:44:27Like, you know, if you say something,
1:44:30what I'm saying is I was able to deal with it by saying,
1:44:32by thinking to myself,
1:44:33I'm never gonna see any of these people tweeting again.
1:44:37It's probably not even worth my time to block them
1:44:39because like, if I just simply don't engage with any of them,
1:44:43They'll get it out of their system.
1:44:44They don't know who I am, you know,
1:44:46and it just, and it will blow over
1:44:49in two to three months, right?
1:44:51And so, and it did more or less,
1:44:53I haven't got one of those in a long time.
1:44:55And that was the way I dealt with that one.
1:44:57But you know, having to deal with that
1:45:00for two to three months, like going off Twitter
1:45:02would be another way to deal with that one.
1:45:04Like just say, I'm going to come back from Twitter
1:45:05in two to three months when this is blown over, right?
1:45:08And you just have to do whatever it takes
1:45:11for you to feel okay.
1:45:12and these unfortunate flare ups can happen to anybody.
1:45:15Like, and again, I would say again, this is not a thing,
1:45:17oh, poor you, you got too many followers.
1:45:19Anybody's tweet, not because I had a lot of followers,
1:45:21anybody's tweet can be pulled out
1:45:23and put into the right place on like, you know,
1:45:26some website or forum or bulletin board
1:45:30that has an organized presence that disagrees
1:45:32with whatever it is that you are passionate about.
1:45:35That can happen to anybody, because on the page I was on,
1:45:38there was 50 other people.
1:45:40You know, some of those people had 10 followers, right?
1:45:42they were gonna get the same exact volume of hate mail
1:45:45that I was gonna get,
1:45:46because nobody who's sending hate tweets to those people
1:45:49knows who they are.
1:45:50They just saw their tweets on a page,
1:45:51became enraged and funneled that rage
1:45:53into sending hate in their direction.
1:45:55It can happen to anybody.
1:45:56That's the beauty of the internet.
1:45:58If the Huffington Post grabs your tweet and puts it up
1:46:02and you could get angry, hate-filled email
1:46:05from people for months and you could have 10 followers.
1:46:08That is the beauty and curse of our age, I guess.
1:46:12And so I really think that everyone will eventually
1:46:15have to find their way of dealing with the situation
1:46:20and learning what their limits are.
1:46:22And I think what Casey was talking about before
1:46:23of like not lying to yourself about what your limits are,
1:46:26not thinking because it shouldn't bother me,
1:46:28therefore I will continue to do the thing
1:46:30that I know bothers me because I intellectually believe
1:46:33that it shouldn't bother me.
1:46:34That's probably not a healthy coping mechanism.
1:46:37- Yeah, that's what I've been attempting and failing at.
1:46:40just like Casey's, I've been failing miserably at that
1:46:43for years now and I think for me the ultimate solution
1:46:48is going to be reducing how much I use Twitter
1:46:51because Twitter's not gonna change.
1:46:53Twitter is, as a medium, that setting I just said,
1:46:56no client is ever gonna be able to add that really.
1:47:00They probably aren't even allowed to anymore
1:47:02with the new Twitter rules of the road.
1:47:04- Yeah, that would have to be a Twitter service thing
1:47:06'cause these are the type of features
1:47:08that Twitter as a service can do,
1:47:09and maybe they could think about that,
1:47:12but the fact that Verified is still this rare thing
1:47:15that not everybody can get shows they really have no idea
1:47:17what the hell they're doing in terms of making Twitter
1:47:18a more pleasant place.
1:47:19- Exactly, yeah, and it just seems like
1:47:21the leadership of Twitter has no interest
1:47:25from a product direction perspective
1:47:27in doing much about these kind of problems,
1:47:30and some of them are not problems
1:47:33that Twitter really can solve, and I recognize that.
1:47:36So for me, this is why I really,
1:47:39like the direction I'm going to really try to go now
1:47:42is just taking a lot of my usage
1:47:46that is currently on Twitter and just taking it private.
1:47:49Because being in public for everything I do
1:47:53is just not working, it's just not.
1:47:57- Yeah, it's funny because I have the show on Relay,
1:48:01because I have Analog on Relay,
1:48:03I've been a part of the Relay FM Slack channel,
1:48:06and that has a really awesome group of people in it.
1:48:10And I feel like that's kind of filling,
1:48:14not filling a void necessarily,
1:48:16but I'm getting more positive experiences from that.
1:48:20In fact, they're pretty much universally positive.
1:48:22And I've been, a lot of the little quips
1:48:25that I may throw into Twitter,
1:48:26a lot of times I'll just share with my close friends
1:48:30on the Relay chat or Slack,
1:48:32because I know reliably that they will understand
1:48:37where I'm coming from, get my intention
1:48:39and get what I'm trying to say.
1:48:41Or maybe I'm just whining about something.
1:48:44- They'll only secretly hate you.
1:48:45- Right, and I'm okay with that.
1:48:47I'm okay with them secretly hating me
1:48:49because this way I don't have to know that they hate me.
1:48:52But all kidding aside, I wonder if I sway,
1:48:57let's say the pendulum swings
1:48:58just all the way over to the relay FM slack,
1:49:01and I almost completely stop using Twitter.
1:49:06I think at that point though,
1:49:07I'll miss some of the random interactions.
1:49:10I'll miss hearing about fat frames
1:49:13and I'll miss hearing about,
1:49:15I'll miss hearing about,
1:49:17hearing things from people that I don't know
1:49:19because genuinely as much as we're complaining
1:49:21and moaning or sharing, if nothing else,
1:49:24our experiences with Twitter,
1:49:26both of you have said it and I can't agree more
1:49:28that some unbelievably wonderful, wonderful things happen on Twitter with random people.
1:49:36And some people have sent 140-character messages to me that are just heart-crushingly awesome
1:49:43in the best possible way.
1:49:46And so because of that, I don't think I necessarily want to give up on Twitter.
1:49:49And I'm not saying that either of you are saying that either, but I worry that if I
1:49:53I get into this echo chamber in the Slack chat, that maybe I'll miss out on some of
1:49:58the contrarian opinions that, if I'm honest, I'm probably not getting on Twitter anyway,
1:50:01but I like to think I'm getting on Twitter.
1:50:03Well, that's why it's a balance, right? It's a balance we all need to find. And I think
1:50:09right now, we've, in the last few years, with the rise of all this social stuff and mobile
1:50:14stuff, I think we've gone a little too far in the "everything is public on social networks"
1:50:20and now I think we're gonna start swinging back
1:50:23a little bit, hopefully on that pendulum,
1:50:24with like, okay, not everything needs to be public
1:50:27all the time, and being private can actually be
1:50:32quite peaceful and a relief from always being
1:50:35in public all the time.
1:50:37- Well, there's a gap in the model lineup, so to speak,
1:50:39going back to the MacBook type analogy,
1:50:41where we all have private messages,
1:50:42we all have iMessage, text messages, instant message,
1:50:45one on one or one on, you know,
1:50:48a small circle of people, right?
1:50:50There's that.
1:50:50Then there's the public thing over there on Twitter, right?
1:50:53And then the in-between thing is this,
1:50:55and I think there's a reason the in-between thing
1:50:56is a big gap.
1:50:57I think of things like Slack or Glassboard
1:50:59or like a small group of people, even an IRC channel,
1:51:02a small group of people who know each other.
1:51:05Because you don't wanna talk one-on-one
1:51:06with all your individual friends.
1:51:08You do want a place that's in between.
1:51:09Because if you wanna talk one-on-one,
1:51:10you'll just send people text messages or instant messages.
1:51:13Like, that's fine, that's a solved problem.
1:51:14But sometimes you wanna talk to two or three or four
1:51:16or be in a room or even be someplace as big as OOL
1:51:19with like a whole bunch of people, right?
1:51:20But it's still not public.
1:51:21There's a difference between, you know,
1:51:23even if you were talking to everybody in WWDC,
1:51:25that's only a few thousand people,
1:51:27it's not the entire world of, you know,
1:51:29whatever it is, 7 billion.
1:51:31So why is there that gap there?
1:51:33And I think one of the reasons that gap is there
1:51:35is we used to have, before we had the big public things,
1:51:38all we had were the little places.
1:51:40We had private, which would be like one-to-one email
1:51:42or instant message.
1:51:43we had self-constructed small social groups isolated by obscurity, like a bunch of people
1:51:49on Galapagos Island where you have this little miniature ecosystem, it would be like one
1:51:52Usenet group up in a corner with like 200 regulars and that makes a little community
1:51:57there.
1:51:58And technically it's in public, but it's protected by the fact that Google doesn't exist yet
1:52:02and there's no way for people to find you and it's like you're hiding on your little
1:52:05island until the boats show up, right?
1:52:07And even things like Slack or whatever, you end up with these little islands and I remember
1:52:11those days and what happened in those days was you ended up with too many islands.
1:52:15Here's where I go to talk about people at Star Wars.
1:52:17Here's where I go to talk to people about computer stuff.
1:52:20Here's where I, you know, talk to my family.
1:52:22And it was like, they were these little private islands at the scale that Marko was looking
1:52:26for but you ended up with 50 of them and you're like, "Geez, I don't like having to go to
1:52:29all these different protocols, all these different places, and sometimes I want to cross-pollinate
1:52:32and I got to check, you know, five different places for it."
1:52:36What happens is either those little places die out or those little places sort of metastasize
1:52:42and become Twitter essentially.
1:52:44That is the life cycle of those places.
1:52:46Things at that scale either just fizzle and die out or become like there's too many of
1:52:52them that you can't go to all the ones.
1:52:53The reason we aren't going back to app.net even if there's like seven people there we
1:52:56know it just doesn't have critical mass.
1:52:58Or they grow.
1:53:00They start just like, "Well, why isn't everybody on Usenet?
1:53:03Now why isn't everybody on Wellandson message?
1:53:06Why isn't everybody in this Slack room?
1:53:07There's some people I wish were in the Slack room
1:53:08who weren't, but the people you wish were in the Slack room
1:53:10were different than the set of people the other person
1:53:12thinks were in the, wishes were in the Slack room.
1:53:13And eventually everybody that you follow on Twitter
1:53:15is in the Slack room, you just recreated Twitter
1:53:16inside your Slack room, right?
1:53:18And so--
1:53:19- It's true, it's true.
1:53:20- That uncomfortable middle part is like,
1:53:22I think it's very difficult for things to live
1:53:25in that middle part because they always move
1:53:28in one direction or another.
1:53:29It's very difficult to find stasis there
1:53:31unless you have a very narrow focus.
1:53:33I think people find that stasis with Facebook,
1:53:35even though Facebook is basically public,
1:53:37because they have the same protection of obscurity,
1:53:39and because they have one axis.
1:53:41They just want to talk to their family and friends.
1:53:43Maybe that's two axes, but it's not like,
1:53:46it's probably you'll wanna say,
1:53:48where are the people I wanna talk about fixing up my car?
1:53:50Where are the people I wanna talk about metalworking?
1:53:51Where are the people I wanna talk about this sports team?
1:53:53Where are the people I wanna talk about that sports team?
1:53:55And then you end up with these little islands again.
1:53:56If you try to do it all at once,
1:53:57then you just end up with Twitter,
1:53:58and it is a difficult balance.
1:54:02Talking to all these people who you don't,
1:54:04who you never see, who live all over the world.
1:54:07- No, I couldn't agree with you more.
1:54:08And the funny thing is I have now dedicated
1:54:11one of the spaces on my work machine
1:54:13to be my communication pane.
1:54:16And accepting Twitter, I have Slack,
1:54:19I have, in like the upper left-hand corner,
1:54:22I have IRC in the upper right-hand corner,
1:54:24I have iMessage and IM in the lower right-hand corner,
1:54:29and I have HipChat for work in the lower left-hand corner.
1:54:32So I have four panes all on the screen at once
1:54:35that are the four different places
1:54:37that I have real-time communication,
1:54:39and then on top of that is Twitter,
1:54:40and on top of that is email.
1:54:42And I already am feeling a bit of exhaustion,
1:54:45but I'd much rather have tiredness
1:54:50than the sadness that I wonder if I'm getting more of
1:54:54than happiness from Twitter.
1:54:56- At least you don't have web forums and Usenet, right?
1:54:58So you're trying to list a little bit.
1:55:00I remember back in the days where most of my communities of this size were web bulletin
1:55:05boards.
1:55:06Like, because Usenet had gone away and the big web hadn't come and there were web bulletin
1:55:09boards that you just cycle through and check all of them.
1:55:11There were little communities in each one.
1:55:14And I don't think that was much better.
1:55:16In fact, I find Twitter freeing because if you're in a web bulletin board community or
1:55:22even a Slack channel and someone's being a jerk, you can't unfollow them or you couldn't
1:55:25back in the day anyway.
1:55:26There was no equivalent of like, "I don't want to see what they have to say again."
1:55:30you know, because other people would reply to them and then you would see their replies.
1:55:34Like Twitter has helped in that regard both by keeping their volume down because they
1:55:37can only post too much and by sort of letting you try to trace the outlines of your own
1:55:42little island by curating your follow list to give yourself a fighting chance.
1:55:47Whereas, you know, if for example in your Slack thing a bunch of people were invited
1:55:50in who you didn't like who didn't like you, you can't participate in that Slack room in
1:55:54an enjoyable way anyway.
1:55:55The tools aren't there for you to do it.
1:55:57It becomes dead to you.
1:55:58You have to just leave.
1:55:59If a bunch of people come on Twitter and are obnoxious to you, or start becoming obnoxious,
1:56:04you can either unfollow them or block them and still have the conversation with the people
1:56:06that you like.
1:56:11I think things are better now in the sense that the big public one is actually viable
1:56:18enough to fool us all into thinking like, "Oh, I don't need that in-between one anymore.
1:56:22The big public one is fine."
1:56:23And for a long time that kind of worked out.
1:56:25That's how good the big public one is now compared to what it was before, but we definitely
1:56:29do need those middle-sized islands of connections.
1:56:33I just don't know the solution to getting a set of those that is stable and satisfactory
1:56:38that don't either disappear or become big things.
1:56:40Yeah.
1:56:41Oh, we'll see what happens.
1:56:43But it's interesting.
1:56:44It's an interesting conversation.
1:56:46And I love when we get a little touchy-feely on this show.
1:56:49Yeah, we're just stealing all your analog.
1:56:51Yeah.
1:56:52Oh, I, Mike, is going to be so angry.
1:56:54- Oh, I wanna give you a couple more,
1:56:57I don't know if they count as tips,
1:56:58but things that I've been doing to try to help manage,
1:57:01like Twitter, Twitter negative,
1:57:03they may or may not work for you.
1:57:05But one of the things is like,
1:57:08you know how you're talking about
1:57:09people don't give us the benefit of the doubt
1:57:10and assume the worst about us and everything?
1:57:12It goes both ways.
1:57:13We do the same thing about them.
1:57:14Because it's like, you know,
1:57:16it's why smileys were invented.
1:57:17Because text is not the best medium.
1:57:18When someone types something like, you know,
1:57:20with the kids, "Well, you typed okay with a period,
1:57:22"that means you're angry," right?
1:57:23It is very easy to misread what people are saying
1:57:27and in the same way that you do.
1:57:29So very often, someone will come at me with something
1:57:32that I think that is aggressive.
1:57:34And I will do something to try to determine
1:57:37whether they were intentionally aggressive
1:57:39or whether they were trying and failing to make a joke.
1:57:41Because that's the whole thing like Mark was saying,
1:57:43these people listen to us and they know us
1:57:44and they feel like they're familiar in the same way
1:57:45that we can say things to each other that,
1:57:47we take for granted that the mean things we say
1:57:49to each other are jokes, right?
1:57:51And so at the very least, that gives us a leg up
1:57:53thinking, "Does he really think that?" Like, well, no, it's obviously a mental joke, but when strangers do it,
1:57:57they think they know us, we have no idea who they are,
1:57:59totally reads as naked aggression to us, and so I will reply to them in a way
1:58:03that will give them an opportunity to basically say,
1:58:08in whatever so many words, like,
1:58:12"I didn't mean it that way," or like,
1:58:15to reveal themselves as being, it was an attempt at good-natured joshing, and they were actually a fan,
1:58:20and they were trying to be nice, and they failed. Like,
1:58:23trying to give them the benefit of the doubt,
1:58:25especially if they follow me, because I am,
1:58:27unlike, you know, I am more aggressive
1:58:30in my blocking these days, but unlike Markowitz policy,
1:58:33I have not come to the point
1:58:33where I will reflexively block people,
1:58:35and I feel really bad about blocking anybody who follows me.
1:58:38Again, this is just my, how I'm dealing with things,
1:58:40but you would think like, okay, fine,
1:58:42do that thing where you try to see,
1:58:43if they give them the benefit of the doubt,
1:58:45all you're gonna do is just make them pissed off more
1:58:47and make yourself more miserable,
1:58:48and I have to admit that does happen sometimes,
1:58:50But what I have found is that the one or two times
1:58:53that I engage in someone in a way
1:58:56that lets them reveal the fact
1:58:57that I should have given them the benefit of that doubt,
1:58:59that it was just like a joke that came off wrong, right,
1:59:02or whatever, I feel better.
1:59:04Like that is a positive lift,
1:59:07more than I think even if they had just come out
1:59:09in the beginning and said something nice.
1:59:10Like I feel that there's a positive lift
1:59:12that like I was able to turn it around,
1:59:14that what could have turned into a fight
1:59:16didn't turn into one, and we came to an understanding
1:59:18that someone was misunderstood and that we worked it out,
1:59:21and that it gives me faith in humanity
1:59:24that not everyone who I think is evil and mean
1:59:27is actually evil and mean,
1:59:28and sometimes I just make a mistake with what they type.
1:59:31And it happens every once in a,
1:59:33it doesn't happen a lot, I have to admit.
1:59:35It's not gonna, they're not all good,
1:59:37but the few times it does happen,
1:59:38I think personally it gives me a lift to counteract,
1:59:41you know how the one bad comment
1:59:43is disproportionately weighing on you?
1:59:44The one good thing that happens,
1:59:46I find disproportionately lifts me.
1:59:49And I also think like, you know,
1:59:51the person on the other end of that
1:59:52feels better out as well and maybe learn something about,
1:59:55you know, not being mean.
1:59:56And the way I do this,
1:59:58someone says they just saw me do this on Twitter today.
2:00:01The way I do this is probably doesn't look very nice
2:00:03because very often I do this by coming back at them directly
2:00:07to essentially give them a reply that looks very aggressive,
2:00:10but it lets them know you said something
2:00:11that hurts my feeling and I don't even know who you are
2:00:13and maybe you didn't mean to do that.
2:00:15And if they are actually mean, I've done a comeback,
2:00:19like, you know, I've come back at them
2:00:20in the typical way that you argue with somebody.
2:00:23But if they didn't mean to be mean,
2:00:25like, I found that rather than trying to engage them
2:00:30and say, did you really mean that, or blah, blah, blah,
2:00:32if I come back at them in a way
2:00:34that would make a good person feel shame,
2:00:36they will feel shame and come back with a nice thing.
2:00:37If I come back at them in a way
2:00:38that would make a good person feel shame,
2:00:41and they did intend to hurt my feelings,
2:00:45then I still feel like I've made an aggressive counter move
2:00:49and then I just block them and move on, right?
2:00:51I don't know if that's gonna help for you guys.
2:00:53I don't know if it's ever happened to you,
2:00:54like you've turned someone around or like you,
2:00:56I mean, we kind of had it with like, you know,
2:00:57someone in the chat room who was, sent us an angry email
2:01:00and we talked about it and like, you know,
2:01:03kind of work things out and turn things around, right?
2:01:06That positive outcome lifts my estimation of humanity
2:01:10and can turn a bad day into a good one.
2:01:13I don't know if you guys wanna take that chance.
2:01:14certainly a lot of work, but I found that that does help me feel better about the whole thing.
2:01:19Yeah, you know, that's another thing I'm working on in that sometimes I'll try to reply with an
2:01:29equal amount, what I feel is an equal amount of snark for exactly the same reason, John. So,
2:01:35for example, the person who had tweeted to me, you know, "You're being ridiculous. Keep track
2:01:39of your cards, my reply to that person was, "It was an honest mistake. You're being ridiculous."
2:01:46Which I'm not saying I'm necessarily proud of that, but my thought was I have replied
2:01:54in kind. And the thing that bums me out about it, though, is that looking back on it, I
2:02:02don't think I feel good about that reply. And it's tough because it bothered me enough
2:02:07that I felt like I wanted them to, this person to know that I am bothered, but I don't know
2:02:15that I've gotten enough relief from replying in a snarky way either.
2:02:19Does that—
2:02:20But I don't think you let them know that you were upset, though.
2:02:22I think you just came back at them in the regular, just arguing way.
2:02:24Like the one from today, I can't remember what it was, but someone was complaining about
2:02:30my pronunciation of "Maria," which happens all the time.
2:02:32It's fine.
2:02:33Like, that's fine.
2:02:34That happens all the time.
2:02:35in a funny way or you can do that in a mean way, right? And this person did it in sort of a mean
2:02:42condescending way, right? But as far as I knew, they could have been in their mind and could have
2:02:48been exactly the same feeling as all the other people who like, you know, do it in a silly way,
2:02:52right? Like we do it to each other and so like it's a running gag on the show, right? But if
2:02:55someone misfires in an attempt at humor, it can come off seeming really mean. Rather than thinking
2:02:59that person is really mean and getting down about it, what I came back with them was like,
2:03:04you know, using a similar echo of their comments of like,
2:03:07you know, I told them basically like,
2:03:10being condescending, they're sometimes like,
2:03:12"How hard is it not to say the word Mario?"
2:03:14Like, you know, it's a subtle difference in phrasing
2:03:17of just, you know, you pronounce it a weird way,
2:03:20blah, blah, blah, or making a joke, or just saying,
2:03:22"I roll, how hard is it to pronounce this word?"
2:03:25Right?
2:03:26And depending on your mood,
2:03:27and I was in not a particularly good mood at that point,
2:03:29I'm like, "Really, you're gonna come up to me and say,
2:03:30"How hard is it to pronounce?"
2:03:31Like, there are ways to phrase that
2:03:33that are not quite as mean.
2:03:34It wasn't that mean, it's not that mean, but it annoyed me.
2:03:36So I said, "How hard is it not to be condescending
2:03:39"to strangers on Twitter?"
2:03:40Which emphasized a couple of things.
2:03:41One, that I don't even know you,
2:03:43that you are essentially like Marco said,
2:03:44walking by my porch, seeing me have a conversation,
2:03:46not even, because this is like from a podcast,
2:03:48from who knows when, and just yelling at me
2:03:51that you're disappointed that like,
2:03:52how hard is it to do this thing I find so easy?
2:03:54You're a terrible person, right?
2:03:57And my thing comes back at them, it's like,
2:03:59it is kind of a comeback, right?
2:04:01But it also emphasizes the fact that
2:04:03what were you just doing there?
2:04:05You were being condescending to someone
2:04:06you don't even know on Twitter.
2:04:08We have never met, I don't know who you are,
2:04:10I don't even know what you're referring to,
2:04:11and you're opening salvos to be condescending to me
2:04:14about how I pronounce something, right?
2:04:16And the person came back and,
2:04:18I forget what their reply was, but it was like,
2:04:21it was acknowledgement that that's really not
2:04:22how they meant to come across,
2:04:24and they just thought it was funny
2:04:25how it was pronounced or whatever,
2:04:26and then I explained to them it was a regional accent,
2:04:28and whatever, like, you know,
2:04:30it has an effectively a positive result.
2:04:35But the important point was to like,
2:04:37communicate to that, like make them realize
2:04:42how their actions look from my perspective.
2:04:44I don't know if you're saying that like, you know,
2:04:46that you said about the expiring credit cards,
2:04:49let them really communicate to them
2:04:52how you were feeling about it
2:04:53or what it looks like from your perspective.
2:04:55But like I said, sometimes, you know,
2:04:57I think the percentage of this working is really low.
2:04:59Like, and most of the time I don't do anything
2:05:02and I just ignore it and move on.
2:05:03But every once in a while I make a go at that
2:05:06and I'm just so happy and pleasantly surprised
2:05:10and it makes me feel better
2:05:11when it actually does work and someone,
2:05:13and what could have been a conflict
2:05:14turns into not a conflict.
2:05:16- I don't know.
2:05:17I just feel like in retrospect that maybe the right answer.
2:05:21I guess the reason I tweeted and replied
2:05:24was because I wanted some amount of closure,
2:05:26but in retrospect the closure I got
2:05:28was not the closure I wanted.
2:05:29Because if I just ignored it,
2:05:31it would have eaten at the back of my head,
2:05:33like all day long.
2:05:34Like, why was that person such a jerk?
2:05:35What did I ever do to bother them?
2:05:37It was an honest freaking mistake.
2:05:38Why are they so upset?
2:05:39And so that's why I replied
2:05:41because it did get it out of my head,
2:05:44but I am not getting the relief and satisfaction
2:05:47from my tweet that I wanted.
2:05:49And that's probably, it's certainly on me.
2:05:53I mean, I could have said something different
2:05:54like you're saying, John.
2:05:56I could have handled it differently, but I don't know.
2:05:59It's just, it's stuff like that.
2:06:01Like this little one shot thing that really,
2:06:03in the grand scheme of things, is not a big deal.
2:06:05But you get it constantly and it weighs on you.
2:06:10I'm telling you things you already know.
2:06:13It's just, it's constant, I feel.
2:06:15And a lot more constant than it ever used to be.
2:06:17And I think that's in large part because I have more
2:06:19of an audience than I never used to have.
2:06:21But I don't know, it's just, it's tough.
2:06:23It's been tough for me to deal with.
2:06:24And we're very lucky that we're receiving any sort of feedback at all.
2:06:30And we're not just shouting into the abyss, but sometimes the echo you get back is not
2:06:35the echo you want.
2:06:36[BLANK_AUDIO]