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274: ‘Sport Mode’ With Merlin Mann

 

00:00:00   I was so excited I found the best slippers I've ever had okay I'm so

00:00:11   excited to tell you about them I'm still going are they cozy oh they're so cozy

00:00:15   so they're there from they are not a sponsor of the show this week but they

00:00:21   formally sponsored the show Mack Weldon Mack Weldon shirt right now I've got me

00:00:28   undies. I'm sitting here. I think it rains. I had to take off my pants. I'm sitting here

00:00:32   my me. My me undies and my Mac Weldon shirt. You know, they make good stuff. They really

00:00:39   do. They actually really do. At first I thought it seemed too costly. But like my gosh, their

00:00:44   stuff is so good. So well made and so comfortable. Tell me about these slippers, man. I want

00:00:47   to look them up.

00:00:48   All right. All right. So I don't know if you remember but from many, many years ago, I

00:00:55   believe and I've you know, I also suffer terribly from podcast amnesia. But if I

00:01:00   recall correctly, on the previous incarnation of the show, Dan Benjamin and

00:01:07   I spoke a lot about slippers. Now I could be getting this wrong, because I have

00:01:11   podcast amnesia. So my apologies to Mr. Benjamin if if I'm getting it wrong, but

00:01:17   my everyday somebody's everyday somebody's born, he's never seen the

00:01:19   Flintstones. Don't worry. There's somebody who has not heard that about the one

00:01:22   Slipper and I really like slippers in the winter because I just I just Peter about the house, you know

00:01:28   I don't leave but you need slippers because it's it's cold and the floors, you know get get really cold

00:01:33   And you can't do good work with cold feet

00:01:36   Now I have very strong feelings about slippers I want slippers that have a bit of a back I don't like a

00:01:45   Slipper where you just slip it right in and there's no back. No, no scuffs for John. They you

00:01:52   You can't walk with slippers like that now if I recall correctly

00:01:55   That's that's what Dan like to see like the ones you just stick your foot in and there's no back

00:01:59   But to me it means you have to shuffle you have to shuffle your feet, and it makes that's not very dignified

00:02:06   It's not dignified. You're not modeling well for your son. It is not dignified it makes a noise that I find

00:02:13   to be unattractive

00:02:15   But you don't want too much of a of a back

00:02:21   Because then you might as well just be putting shoes on right you got to do much too much work

00:02:25   They kind of want it so that your foot can still just get in with no help from your hands, right?

00:02:30   I've been looking for a good pair of slippers. I believe I had a good pair of slippers years ago and

00:02:36   Whoever it was they they stopped making them and then I've been hunting for slippers ever since and

00:02:43   Did with absolutely zero satisfaction had a pair of lands ends that I was isn't that the worst it's like it's it's

00:02:50   I feel like it's really symptomatic of our age of Amazon,

00:02:54   where I get an extraordinary amount of stuff delivered

00:02:57   a lot of the time, including stuff you would typically

00:02:59   get from a store.

00:03:00   But one of the worst things is--

00:03:02   I ran through this with my Synology, for example,

00:03:05   where I tried to cheap out on my first Synology,

00:03:08   and I really regretted it, because I only

00:03:10   bought a two-bay Synology, which sounds like a lot.

00:03:12   But if you want to use a Synology for what it's really

00:03:15   for, you got to pop for the one where you

00:03:17   can put lots more drives in.

00:03:19   That's what makes Synology or any NAS good.

00:03:22   And I feel like one of the worst things you can do

00:03:24   for yourself is economize on the wrong thing

00:03:26   and then buy multiples of them

00:03:28   and you feel like such a cock.

00:03:29   Like what am I doing?

00:03:30   It's so annoying.

00:03:31   And they arrive and you put them on,

00:03:32   you're like, well, I hate these.

00:03:33   I guess I'll donate these.

00:03:34   Like donated slippers, hard pass.

00:03:36   - I, excuse me.

00:03:42   I took a look at these slippers.

00:03:44   I forget why.

00:03:46   I was, I guess I was just shopping for, you know,

00:03:49   like regular t-shirts and undies and stuff and some socks and and I saw that they had

00:03:55   these slippers I wasn't looking for slippers at Mac well done didn't even know they made

00:04:00   them but I took one look at them and I thought these might be these might be it you see the

00:04:05   you see the picture there I'll put this in the show notes for sure well I got a lot I

00:04:08   got a lot of questions all I will be acquiring these they if they they claim to have a memory

00:04:14   foam footbed, waterproof and slip resistant sole, and an anti-odor silver XT2 registered

00:04:21   trademark interior lining.

00:04:23   And they look like the right combination of easy to deal with, comfortable, but also sturdy.

00:04:29   You're not walking around looking like you're on.

00:04:32   It's a bit of a shoe bottom.

00:04:35   You can see from the pictures it's not big, it's not like a pair of sneakers.

00:04:40   You can be comfortable and dignified with the one-mile slipper, let's be honest.

00:04:43   let me tell you this too. I want before I went with the idea of

00:04:46   no backslip. I don't know what the industry term is. But the

00:04:50   other thing that bothers me about a no backslip is what if

00:04:54   something unforeseen happens and I need to I need to run. They're

00:04:59   just they they would come flying right off. What if there's some

00:05:02   like, tell some kids to get off your lawn, right? You you kick

00:05:06   in their direction, and then they're gonna know your slippers

00:05:10   All the Philly kids are laughing right fat Albert's out there going look at that man with the slipper

00:05:14   That those kids those kids will tell that story for weeks

00:05:18   You can't have your lucky. It can't have it. Yeah

00:05:21   One thing though, I don't like I also don't like and I'm not a germaphobe

00:05:26   But you know, I like to keep things tidy

00:05:30   It's like a mental thing so with my slippers I don't like them

00:05:35   To take one foot out out the door. They're in the house

00:05:39   us. Right? Now is the mat we have mats, you know, we're

00:05:43   civilized people, we've got a mat in the front door. So you

00:05:47   can, you know, wipe your feet now is that mat that you come in

00:05:50   and wipe your feet on? Is that any cleaner than the outside

00:05:55   stoop?

00:05:55   Listen, whatever you do in life, you're going to suffer from

00:05:58   cross contamination, but it's germs all the way down. You

00:06:01   can't think about that all day long. You need to get on with

00:06:03   your life just keeps it just keeps also if memory serves

00:06:06   your your your house is we have one of those Philadelphia houses

00:06:09   that's narrow and tall like the dash. Yeah, so you got it, you

00:06:12   got it, you have to go with steps that you fall down

00:06:14   sometimes and say, Jiminy. Yep. And and with a situation like

00:06:18   that, you're going to want not only dignity, but confidence.

00:06:21   And that's another reason who walks up to his private office.

00:06:24   That's it. That's another reason for me to get that hard rubber

00:06:27   soul though, is for taking the steps, you know, like these

00:06:29   lands and ones that I've been suffering with for years. Had

00:06:33   like a almost like a leather soul. Not good for not good for

00:06:38   the slip slipperiness anyway, the attraction anyway, the thing that got me worried about

00:06:43   these though is they don't sell the slippers like shoes, you know, like size 11 size 11

00:06:48   and a half size 12. They've just got like small, medium and large. And I think large

00:06:52   they're like it's sizes 11 to 13. Right here. What do they say here? Large doesn't even

00:06:59   well, this is my this is my question to you that you can come back to is Alright, so like

00:07:03   Given your shoe size small small as small as an eight to nine shoe size medium is a nine to ten and large is

00:07:10   Ten to thirteen now number one. What if you're ten right now? You're you get the medium?

00:07:16   That's nine to ten or do you get the large problem? This is this is our concern

00:07:19   I am a I used to be a nine and a half and as I age I'm getting closer to a ten

00:07:23   But I don't want it to be too loose, but I fo shizzle do not want it to be too tight

00:07:28   I had a good chance though because it with a lot of shoes

00:07:31   I take a 12 and so I feel like that's square in the middle of that large range.

00:07:36   But I can be really, really picky about shoes.

00:07:40   You picky about a product.

00:07:42   This is why I you know, you know, I you've known me for years, I for years and years

00:07:46   and years, I've been wearing black Adidas Samba Millennium Millennium.

00:07:51   I don't know what you call it.

00:07:52   I'm not the regular like indoor soccer shoes.

00:07:54   Yeah, indoor soccer shoes, but not the regular Sambas.

00:07:57   I like the Millennium ones.

00:07:58   Oh, you went with like a you know any for the enterprise? Yeah

00:08:02   Yeah, when they have some kind of advanced torsion control in the soul or some bullshit like that so important. Yeah

00:08:07   But one of the number one, I feel like they never go out of style number two

00:08:11   I know if I get the exact same size, it'll fit me the exact right way

00:08:14   Anyway, I'm happy to say these slippers feel as though they were custom made for me

00:08:21   Like I went to a slipper tailor and I had these custom made it could not fit my feet better

00:08:28   within the sort of diesel survey well for many years and mr. group

00:08:33   within about a day within about a day it went from sort of needing a little bit

00:08:38   of help with my fingers to get it over the lip to to just being able to slip my

00:08:44   feet right in you broke them in yeah oh let me tell you what else pet peeve

00:08:48   uh-huh here's one all right I got it when somebody buys a pair of slippers

00:08:55   that has a back and they don't step on them they step on them they treat them

00:09:00   like the slippers that don't before we call those scuffs when you got when you

00:09:04   got like us or like a lady might have a kind of she called a mule and that's the

00:09:07   kind where your foot just goes into it well you like some kind of monster and

00:09:10   if you're stepping on that and now I mean there's again dignity you know you

00:09:15   go through these could from from going through the gallery here okay yeah it

00:09:19   looks like you could step on oh yeah yeah it's a soft back so you could all

00:09:23   But hey, if that's and I understand that whole anecdote is about how hard it is to find the right pair of slippers

00:09:29   But keep looking if you want if you're the sort of person who don't give up don't give up

00:09:33   Don't treat don't treat slippers with the back like they don't have a back. Yeah. Anyway, couldn't be more comfortable

00:09:39   I even like the way they look I mean, it's a nice, you know, you could tell which color I got

00:09:44   I got the dark gray ones. Yeah, they look great. Yeah, there's a fella here

00:09:48   He's enjoying some coffee on what looks like his his deck. Yeah, you know, yeah

00:09:53   Anyway, you're never going to believe this. I couldn't wait to put these on and talk to you about them while I was wearing them.

00:09:59   I can't find the sons of bitches. I don't know where they are.

00:10:02   You should get a tile.

00:10:04   I don't know where they are. I don't know where they are.

00:10:08   You could just tape a tile onto each one of them and tell people it's steampunk.

00:10:12   It makes no sense. Our house is...

00:10:14   Where could they have gone? There's only a limited number of places. I bet they're under something.

00:10:19   I that's that's possibility. I wonder I may have to I

00:10:23   May have to go under I feel like the only places they could be are my closet in my bedroom or at the front door

00:10:32   where I take them off and put shoes on to go out, you know out and about and they're they're not at either place and

00:10:38   It's part of my pathology is and it made me late to start this podcast with you because I was ready

00:10:45   I was ready to go right on time, but I wanted the slippers

00:10:47   I go up to my room. I look in the closet and

00:10:51   My podcast here from from a cave in the basement. So actually I looked by the front door first

00:10:57   Which is where I assume they were

00:10:58   Yeah, couldn't find them haven't been wearing them for a couple of days because it's been a little warm

00:11:03   It's been been like up and up around 50 degrees didn't really need them could have used them

00:11:08   But it's really when he gets cold that out

00:11:10   Went up to my room looked in the closet

00:11:12   Went all the way back down to the first floor

00:11:14   Looked at the front door went all the way back up to my room looked in the same closet again

00:11:18   And they still weren't there hmm

00:11:20   um

00:11:23   I might go I might go with underneath the couch. I don't know how I don't know I mean okay

00:11:28   So here's the kind of thing I got I showed as you know you have you have a young person in your life

00:11:32   you can't tell them anything and

00:11:34   The thing that that so you know you know how it is where like the kid is so much like the one parent or so

00:11:40   Much like the other parent or sometimes completely different one way

00:11:43   I love my wife so much. One way she's a lot like my wife is they don't really understand how to look for things.

00:11:48   And so she's frantic because she can't find a thing.

00:11:52   And I say, "Well, did you look here?" She says, "Yes, I looked there." And she doesn't want to find it, she wants to be right.

00:11:58   And I say, "Now the thing about finding a thing is you can't just look in the places that you've looked.

00:12:02   That's not looking. You keep looking till you find it, and the reason that less civilized people say it's always the last place you look

00:12:09   is because nobody keeps looking for something after they found it.

00:12:11   That's the problem, is you've bought into that ideology.

00:12:15   So I'm gonna give you a note, and then I'd like to share an anecdote.

00:12:18   The note I'm gonna give to you, Jon, I assume you're doing pretty okay with some of this stuff.

00:12:23   You should do what I do, which is you stack.

00:12:26   You need two more pairs of these that you put aside.

00:12:33   In case our friends at MacWeldon--

00:12:34   Thank you so much to MacWeldon for sponsoring this.

00:12:37   You need to stack these and have a second pair ready for when they don't make these anymore.

00:12:44   Or, God forbid, something terrible happens to the pair you have or they get lost.

00:12:49   You need that. So what you could do right now is you go to mecweldon.com and you get the one-mile slipper,

00:12:55   order two pairs, and then put them away. Or take one of those pairs and until you find your other pair,

00:13:00   now you've got a pair of slippers. I know that sounds like a monstrous thing to do,

00:13:04   But these have made you so happy. I've never John. I've never I've known you for I was gonna buy

00:13:08   I've never heard you this happy before I was gonna buy two more pairs

00:13:11   I was already set to buy two more pairs. I do that with so many things like our

00:13:16   Drip coffee thing we use for like making a one hitter of coffee

00:13:20   It's it's hard to get and sometimes you order from the wrong people on Amazon and it's confusing and it's weird and you get now

00:13:27   You get the Chinese one that doesn't really work. God love them

00:13:29   And so I bought two more of those more I said why we have three of these

00:13:32   I said well ask me in two and a half years when the other one gets all janky now you now you can still enjoy

00:13:36   Your coffee like John's gonna enjoy his slippers. Here's the problem though. The problem is I was I was really looking forward

00:13:41   To having them in mint condition and I know exactly where I would put them

00:13:47   I would put them in the lower left corner of my back of my closet. That's where I would put

00:13:51   There's only one place that makes logical sense for me to put spare slippers. I would keep them in the box

00:13:56   Now if I if I go ahead and do this and I don't find the pair that I own which are

00:14:01   Obviously somewhere in the house. They must be in the house. There's it's

00:14:05   You could like unless you unless someone is gaslighting you your slippers are in the house

00:14:10   You don't you've already stipulated you do not go outside and nope and even if I did I'd come home with them, right?

00:14:16   I think I would remember coming home barefoot. Oh, you wouldn't like leave him at a pizza coffee or something. No, I don't think so

00:14:23   You wouldn't take them off. You're not the kind of person that takes off your shoes in public. Oh, yeah

00:14:27   No, I can't remember the last time I took off my shoes public other, you know

00:14:30   Other than I guess to buy shoes that should be in the federal code and don't don't put your feet up on the bulkhead

00:14:36   In the plane don't do that. Nobody wants to see your feet. Oh, man

00:14:39   You know, do you follow this guy you ever hear of him Tom Nichols is a

00:14:46   Sort of in it. You probably don't because he's sort of a sports guy. No, he's a Trump guy

00:14:53   My politics he's like he's a good follow on Twitter if you do want to follow he's one of these

00:14:58   Republicans who's always a radio free Tom. Yeah, and he's always been contrary to Trump, you know and very consistent on it

00:15:05   He teaches it like the Naval War College. He's a Russian foreign policy expert

00:15:09   But anyway, his pet peeve in life is people who take their shoes off on airports

00:15:15   It's so people send him pictures people know it bothers him and they you know

00:15:20   Some you know somebody who follows him gets on a plane and sees it. You know, they

00:15:24   They'll send them a picture

00:15:26   I like to be comfortable. Don't criticize me. I like you know what I like to not be nauseated for four and a half hours

00:15:33   Oh the people who do it in that front row. That's what I'm saying. They put the whole look at me

00:15:38   I popped for you know a Delta Plus and now I'm gonna I'm gonna put my bare feet on the bulkhead

00:15:43   Don't do that and it makes you really makes you really wonder about it really turn it turns your tell me a little bit

00:15:49   Okay, here's my confession to you, and I'm not proud of this, I hope not a lot of people

00:15:52   will listen to this, but for a long time, my secret shame in some ways, I don't like

00:15:58   to talk about it, is that I'll wear Crocs.

00:16:01   Okay?

00:16:02   Look, look, look, I like to be comfortable.

00:16:05   And so what I'll do, my house shoes in the Japanese style, is I'll walk around in Crocs.

00:16:09   Now let me be super clear, these are not the kind, I feel like when I met your son in New

00:16:14   Zealand maybe he was wearing Crocs, my kid was wearing Crocs.

00:16:17   a very high possibility. But here's the thing, and that's when you're gonna get them in a funny color,

00:16:21   and they have holes in them, and then you can put pins on them and stuff like that. No, I'm a grown

00:16:26   man, I'm 53 years old, and I have what are called professional Crocs. I have, that's funny how,

00:16:32   I have the kind of Crocs that a professional would wear. Like let's say it's somebody who's a

00:16:36   medical professional, and so they're very rugged, and they're really quite handsome, and if I were

00:16:43   to drop a hypodermic needle, I would not be instantly killed because there's a hole in my

00:16:46   shoes and in a hospital really no I have professional Crocs now what I want to

00:16:50   okay so let's get that out of the way now what I want to share with you the

00:16:54   minute that you mentioned open back shoes I thought of a fact that I learned

00:16:59   in 2019 so Crocs if you've ever seen a pair of Crocs and you probably have you

00:17:04   know most people wear them like a like a like a an open back clog and you walk

00:17:09   around you may I don't know if you've noticed that there's like a little strap

00:17:12   That flips over then goes around the back of your ankle. Yep. You know what that's called?

00:17:16   No sport mode sport mode. Sorry, but is that official that's official Crocs lingo

00:17:22   Don't follow the trades, but I'm pretty sure it's called sport mode

00:17:27   And then when you really need to start tearing ass and your professional clocks you go into sport mode

00:17:33   See, that's what it's a good, you know, I I'm not gonna lie to you Merlin

00:17:38   I wouldn't wear Crocs person, but but do each his own I don't pass judgment and their profession that I mentioned that they're professional

00:17:44   Yes, yeah, well I get it, but I I do I do appreciate the sport mode

00:17:48   I feel like that it solves the same problem that the back of the slipper that I'm

00:17:52   100% keeps keeps it on but it doesn't else. It's not like putting on a pair of shoes

00:17:57   You know that's the thing if you got a bend over there not right. Well. Here's my okay, so here's my question

00:18:01   I'll make this really fast

00:18:03   So the the one-mile slipper I once again I really want to thank everybody at Mac weldon

00:18:08   Um the one-mile slipper when I was sponsor though not okay. Are you sure I'm 100% sure that they are not sponsoring

00:18:15   This is gonna be one of those Teen Vogue things. We were eventually gonna have to take it down because it's monster content. Oh

00:18:20   It was in the CMS we accidentally hit the button sorry my bad

00:18:25   So my question to you is given that your knowledge of your shoe shot shoe size and the thing is the size you're working in

00:18:32   I'm a small man. I'm a little guy. I'm like a damn Benjamin size guy

00:18:35   I would say you're right in the middle what you say you take a nine a nine and a half a ten

00:18:39   I think just about the average American height which makes me seem short, but you know, I wear lifts and my Crocs which are professional

00:18:45   So my question to you is given what you know about your shoe size and you'll see this sometimes on like a Zappos or whatever

00:18:51   And and when people have the rate is one of the few things where they do a multi faceted approach to reviews

00:18:56   And if you know me, you know how frustrating I find it. There's only one facet to reviews, which is number of stars

00:19:01   Yeah, so stupid we talk about this on rectus all with us

00:19:04   They're accused all the time how frustrating that is people are mad that pet sounds by the Beach Boys got released again

00:19:10   And so they leave a bad review because they're mad and it's like wait a minute. You're you just gave a one star

00:19:15   What?

00:19:17   So what you'll see is one of the facets

00:19:19   What do they say true to fit is it true to fit and then you give a number of stars based on whether you think?

00:19:23   It's true to fit does it feel too big does it feel too little given what you know about your shoe size?

00:19:27   And you're in a range that's much broader than mine

00:19:31   Do you feel like these are true to fit should I be what I'm asking you is I think I want to go

00:19:37   It doesn't make sense to me if I'm on the on the edge of 10

00:19:40   Like the Stevie Nicks song it doesn't make sense to me to go into the 10 to 13

00:19:45   Yeah, if I'm Mike could slide by I I think if you were gonna buy a pair of these I would get that medium

00:19:50   That's a 9 to 10

00:19:51   I would because I can't imagine that if you if they fit me as well as they do I feel like you'd be you'd be

00:19:58   Be like you're wearing your dad's slippers, you know what I mean little boy with with yeah

00:20:01   He passed a long time ago. Is it true Navy or true black that I'm working with here?

00:20:05   Should I get true Navy's kind of handsome? Yeah, I think you don't think I'll get used you get true black

00:20:11   No, no, I went I went the gray with a chart like a charcoal. Yeah, all I see is true Navy and true black

00:20:17   Well, just just so we don't maybe I know then maybe I maybe I did get the black

00:20:20   I don't I'm gonna go with I did not get me maybe I hate those fake Navy's

00:20:24   I'm gonna go a true Navy in medium, and I'm adding to cart. Oh, no. I guess you're right

00:20:28   I guess I did get the black. I don't know maybe they

00:20:31   Did they get rid of the other one well this make me happy in life John?

00:20:35   It'll this finally be the thing where I buy the thing and it makes me happy in life. Do you like slippers?

00:20:39   I'm open. What kind of work does he do?

00:20:43   anyway um

00:20:46   Thanks one last time. Thank you so much to Mack Weldon. Let's do a real sponsor read it

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00:22:21   It's like node because it's Linode

00:22:23   and nano because it's small.

00:22:25   And five bucks a month,

00:22:27   but it's a totally credible hosting account.

00:22:31   A lot of people and a lot of websites

00:22:34   could do just fine on this $5 a month plan.

00:22:36   - Jason Snell runs his whole operation off that Linode.

00:22:40   He runs an entire broad ranging cultural podcast network

00:22:45   all on Linode.

00:22:46   - That's crazy.

00:22:47   It's a great company, great service.

00:22:49   Use this code.

00:22:49   - Marco Arment, Marco Arment does that.

00:22:51   He runs all his business off there.

00:22:52   - Sure.

00:22:53   - All the times he wants to complain about keyboards,

00:22:54   that's all Linode.

00:22:55   Just spin it right up, whatever you want.

00:22:56   - Right.

00:22:57   The whole overcast network full of servers and crawlers

00:23:02   and all that stuff.

00:23:03   Anyway, use this promo code talk show 2020 ta lk sh o w 2020. When

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00:23:29   code to get the 20 bucks is talk show 2020. But the URL they

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00:23:42   show 2020. Save you 20 bucks, four months free.

00:23:46   Hmm.

00:23:47   They can figure it out. If they can't figure that out. They

00:23:50   don't deserve they don't deserve one. I just literally used Apple

00:23:53   Pay and checked out. I'm done. They're on the way. I love it. I

00:23:57   love when I see a shipment from from national New Hampshire. I

00:24:03   swear to God and you know, too, that I'm talking about right.

00:24:05   Yeah. Oh, that's true. I know what that is. I you know, I'm

00:24:09   gonna get off the show and I'm gonna order myself another pair

00:24:11   and then I'm gonna find them. Good. No, you know what, I'm

00:24:15   gonna find them as soon as I take the new pair out and put

00:24:18   them on and sully them, you know, and take them out of mint

00:24:21   condition. And now it'll bother me forever that I've that I

00:24:24   don't have a that my spare pair isn't in mint condition either just don't don't

00:24:28   don't sit on it cuz the my concern I have to be honest with you my concern

00:24:32   this is your show my concern is that you will find these today if you don't find

00:24:35   these today you're being gaslighted by somebody I'm guessing probably your wife

00:24:38   who I love but if you do find them I don't want you to sit on this John don't

00:24:43   wait this happened to me this happened to me with I want to say the Nike

00:24:48   dynasty oh and you know I just suddenly occurred to me what if what if the

00:24:51   listeners of the show what if there's a run on them oh geez Louise I got you

00:24:58   know I had not even occur oh no this is this is why you always got to buy the

00:25:01   domain name right off the dome you guys go get it oh man is there okay so if it's

00:25:06   not Amy Jane is there a chance the contractor stole your slippers be honest

00:25:11   maybe they just took one of them and hid the other one it's you know that's it

00:25:15   has to be a possibility you know I wouldn't rule it out Sherlock I would I

00:25:18   would both don't sit on this John get some more and you know what treat

00:25:22   yourself you go to you go to Zappos I don't want to thank Zappos you go to

00:25:25   Zappos are similar and you pick you up some professional Crocs now here's my

00:25:29   tip you'll be able to use this in sports mode the other nice thing about the

00:25:32   Croc is you want to get them a little big you don't want them to be too tight

00:25:37   but just give them a spin maybe you use them for shower shoes you take off your

00:25:40   slippers put on your or if you want to do a shift at the hospital now you have

00:25:44   professional shoe it's a croc hey you know what I often think about this

00:25:49   slippers have me thinking about it but the purchases in my life that dollar for

00:25:55   dollar I would consider the best purchases I've ever made some of them

00:25:59   are big ticket items we bought we bought an Acura back in 2006 and still as our

00:26:07   car we don't really do a lot of driving now we what is 13 years old dollar for

00:26:12   dollar, one of the best purchases we've ever made. Just

00:26:15   the car just runs. It never gives us any trouble. Couldn't

00:26:18   be better. Also, sometimes it'll be something that I spend, you

00:26:22   know, like a buck or two on now look, I put this link there in

00:26:25   the in the iMessage for you. It's a little coffee filter. You

00:26:29   were talking about this pour over thing. This is do you know

00:26:32   how to make coffee like this with this little pour over

00:26:34   thing? You grind up your beans, you put a it's like a conical

00:26:37   filter you put in there. You boil some water.

00:26:40   I think I don't know if you sent the right link I are you talking about like where you've got like you talking about like a

00:26:45   European style cone filter, and you you fold over the edges and sticking the dingus. Yeah. Yeah, that's what we do

00:26:51   That's what we do. That's the only way we roll. I just put it. Are you sure you don't see this link?

00:26:56   Amazon.com I might be getting a different internet than you are using Tor

00:27:02   We're using Tor is this the dark is it a dark web dark web, okay, all right don't mess around with that stuff Joe

00:27:10   That's a picture of it

00:27:12   Yes, Melita Melita, baby

00:27:15   That looks exactly like the one that I bought and you go with the number two or the number four

00:27:19   I go number four and every once in a while

00:27:21   I sure you really read what it says because I've accidentally gotten a number two. Oh, yeah enough for daddy

00:27:26   I like to really load that thing up. Well, it makes and it makes a mess

00:27:28   You know what? I mean, then all of a sudden you got beans or grounds going over the edge, you know

00:27:33   They're getting your coffee. There's no way to live. It's no way to live

00:27:36   Anyway, I bought this thing mine looks exactly like this. It is also black. It is just a piece of plastic

00:27:41   This one on Amazon is $13, which seems ridiculous if you want a number four

00:27:46   They make you buy the pot with it. Yeah, this is a number this link is a number two

00:27:53   Yeah, but if you want the number four, which is the baller model

00:27:55   I think they I think they make you buy a pot with it now, you know, you got a pot

00:27:59   You're not using it. See you like a pot. I put it right in the mug

00:28:02   I'm gonna drink it now and I want it later, you know and some people it's the same style of making coffee that

00:28:06   the the kenex does and you know that's very you know i don't know those things are like 100 bucks

00:28:12   or something and they're very nice little cute little cute for me i've i got this at a local

00:28:17   coffee shop here in philadelphia it was absolutely without question either 1998 or 1999 so we're

00:28:25   talking i've had this thing for 20 years i have made i was thinking about it and i i'm convinced

00:28:31   i only spent about four bucks on it it and it looks like four bucks right it's just a little

00:28:35   piece of PVC plastic right yeah I've made I'm trying to think how much coffee

00:28:40   I've made for myself with this exact same thing in 20 years that's gonna make

00:28:45   you feel old if you think about it too much but these do they last forever

00:28:47   they're fantastic I feel like I make coffee at least 300 times a year I mean

00:28:52   maybe there's 60 days where I either are you the primary coffee maker in your

00:28:55   home oh you know Amy doesn't really drink coffee she'll show so you you are

00:28:59   literally mr. coffee she will drink coffee related beverages you know like

00:29:03   like, you know, like, get get some kind of frappuccino or some kind of thing if she's

00:29:07   out and about and in the summertime, she often enjoys a cold brew coffee, love and ice coffee.

00:29:12   I love an ice coffee when wherever we're whenever we're in New England where they got Dunkin

00:29:17   Donuts, you go in and get you you is hot in the summertime and go on the beach, you get

00:29:21   you one of those large, large ass ice coffees. Oh, brother. 20 years. Figure 300 times a

00:29:28   year I make coffee that's 6000 times I've made coffee with this thing hmm and

00:29:33   I think I spent four bucks on it and it still looks Brett looks as good as new

00:29:37   there's so many things like that I mean like Syracuse as always because he's how

00:29:41   he is is on this ongoing quest to find the spatula that he was greater that he

00:29:46   wants and and that's the thing though is like we have this one Cuisinart like I

00:29:52   say spoon but it's like a serving spoon that we accidentally stole from a pot

00:29:56   luck at my kids preschool and we still use it every single day and you gotta

00:30:02   try this is what's this this it's the slippers all over again you don't want

00:30:07   to be without when once you've bonded with your coffee dingus I sent you the

00:30:11   clever coffee dripper large 18 ounces and I'll tell you what I love about this

00:30:14   it's it's very similar to here now I'm not trying to upgrade you here you're

00:30:17   already gonna be blowing a lot of dough on Crocs today so the clever coffee

00:30:20   dripper large 18 ounces you put you a number four in there and you know what

00:30:23   There's a reason those crimps are on there people use them

00:30:26   You fold over the crimp fold the crimp on the bottom fold the crimp on the side

00:30:30   I know you don't think you need it that that's privilege

00:30:32   You need to fold the crimps you put it into the dingus you put in your coffee. Okay now it comes with this little

00:30:39   Coaster that you put it on you don't really need it, but it is hygienic right now

00:30:44   You put in your coffee and now here's what you're gonna

00:30:47   Do you're gonna pour you don't have to be a weirdo about this you're gonna pour I do boiling water

00:30:52   And from a Cuisinart pot, I think you do Cuisinart, and then you very slowly, it should take you almost 30 seconds to pour it in

00:30:58   And you're stirring, stirring, stirring. If you have good coffee, it's going to get a little foamy

00:31:04   And then when you sit for a while, you can put the lid on if you're fancy

00:31:08   Then you know what you do, you put that right onto your mug, it accommodates most mug sizes

00:31:13   And then that little plunger goes boop, gets pushed up

00:31:17   And now your coffee is is going it's had time to sit there and bloom as they say that's what makes the foam is called

00:31:23   Blooming that's how you know if it's fresh that goes into your mug, and then you rinse it out rinse it out

00:31:28   Don't wait don't don't sit on that either rinse this get the crocs and rinse this out

00:31:31   Don't wait it will get filmy and if you try to use a cleaner on it you might strip it

00:31:36   Yeah, that's why I like the black one, and then you can't you can't really stain the black one

00:31:40   But see this clear one to me looks like something that would get stained

00:31:43   If so, there's so many like wonderful small pleasures in life

00:31:46   I was trying to think of things like this for me and like apart from the Cuisinart thing. We stole again

00:31:50   I'm so sorry to my daughter's preschool cooperative preschool that we stole that that was wrong of us not to return it

00:31:55   I owe you an amends. Is it stealing if it was an accident?

00:31:57   I don't think it's stealing unless it's intentional that is that's in the federal kind

00:32:03   What's the obligation to?

00:32:05   You know, there's some that's that is a fantastic your wife if memory serves your wife as a lawyer

00:32:10   You should ask her I think the term they use is malice of forethought

00:32:12   Did you intend to steal the Cuisinart spoon at the playmates cooperative preschool?

00:32:16   It is called playmates by the way and and so anyway

00:32:20   There are so many joys the first one that copped in my mind of course are the new air pods which are costly

00:32:26   They don't fit your model of being

00:32:28   You know potentially uncostly, but it's so true

00:32:31   There's so much crap that you can blow money on in this life that will not make you happy

00:32:36   Right and there's so much stuff where like you find yourself clinging to this thing that actually really works

00:32:41   I mean, I'll tell you what man invest invest in

00:32:44   Some good screwdrivers you can get a set of screwdrivers on this side

00:32:49   I know this sounds random right but if you go I can I'll send you a link you can go and get this set of

00:32:54   Screwdrivers you can have it delivered in two hours to your house and that those screwdrivers are gonna

00:33:00   They're so sharp

00:33:02   Well-made they don't pop like if you're a clown in the basement trying to strangle a guy

00:33:06   It's not gonna break on you like these are really nice screwdrivers

00:33:09   and then what you do is you get you a magnetizer D magnetizer and that's

00:33:12   This thing right here. You ever have one of these no

00:33:17   I don't think you run your screwdriver almost like you're honing a knife you run the end of your screwdriver through the magnetizer and

00:33:23   it magnetizes

00:33:26   What kind of black magic is that you could just turn you're turning a non-magnetic screwdriver into a temporarily magnetic screwdriver?

00:33:32   is what you're saying you can do.

00:33:34   Hang on to your slippers, because then over here

00:33:36   on the other side is a demagnetizer.

00:33:38   And you can demagnetize.

00:33:39   If you chose to, if you decide you don't want to live

00:33:41   the magnetic screwdriver lifestyle,

00:33:43   then you go over here and you go shh, shh, real creepy like.

00:33:47   And then that takes the magnet off the blade.

00:33:49   They call it blades on a screwdriver.

00:33:51   Here's what I'm telling you, though.

00:33:52   Don't suffer with using a dime on a standard head.

00:33:56   Don't suffer with using like a leatherman

00:33:59   that you stole from the preschool.

00:34:02   You know, if you're going to have a roll Phillips head, if you're going to be changing the batteries

00:34:06   on your ring doorbell, you're going to want a really sharp screwdriver because gravity

00:34:10   is working against you, John.

00:34:12   And you want the magnetic tip, obviously.

00:34:14   I mean, I shouldn't have to spell it out, but that's because gravity.

00:34:18   It keeps the screw.

00:34:20   You don't lose the screw.

00:34:21   It'll just stay connected to the tip of the screwdriver.

00:34:24   Latest president I sent to John Siracusa, I hope he doesn't mind me saying, I just sent

00:34:28   him a headlamp because I think he needed a headlamp.

00:34:30   He's been you know, he's been preparing the way for his computer. It's been a lot of times back worrying about his cables

00:34:34   I just I'm telling you get a headlamp and I'll tell you what I told John Sirkusa

00:34:39   Once it's like having a space pen. It's like it's like having a field notes

00:34:44   Once you have a headlamp you first you go. Why would I need a head headlamp? I'm not I'm not a minor

00:34:50   I'm not a minor or like I'm not like like a peeping Tom. Why would I need this? Yeah

00:34:56   Well guess what once you got it. You're gonna find ways to use it take it out the trash of course

00:35:01   You're gonna put on your headlamp. I take off your slippers and put on something different

00:35:04   All right, that's let's get uncomfortable here

00:35:08   Let's do anything else about slippers that I should know about I've known those those will be coming from Nashua any day now

00:35:13   No, that's it. That's it. I'm telling him. I'm done with slippers close the book 36 minutes. Yeah

00:35:17   I

00:35:20   Think we got to talk about this

00:35:22   DOJ versus Apple iPhone encryption thing mm-hmm

00:35:27   Which it really really feels like deja vu all over again, right?

00:35:31   It feels like and I like looked it up like to refresh my memory about the San Bernardino

00:35:36   Which I always spell wrong by the way. I always want to spell it San Bernardino

00:35:42   I there's like a nickname it seems like his name is st. Bernard. They're like Bernardino. Yeah

00:35:47   There's an extra are in there that I that was it wasn't that around Christmas one year

00:35:51   Yeah, that guy was like a disgruntled government. I mean, yeah, he came well. Yeah, he came in and again

00:35:55   I don't mean to make light of it, but they know that the horrible horrible

00:35:59   I think it was a man and a woman they came in and shot up a Christmas party or something like that

00:36:03   I do believe it was a holiday party

00:36:05   But anyway, I do think I if if I may be so bold

00:36:09   I would just say for those of you if you are a listener from the San Bernardino area

00:36:13   I would I would consider maybe going to a city hall meeting and

00:36:17   suggesting that that the city remove that are

00:36:20   You know think about it. Oh, okay fool me once you know shame on shame on you. Yeah, but anyway

00:36:28   So horrible, but man what a what a dilly of a pickle this puts Apple in

00:36:33   So with the San Bernardino case it was still the Obama administration and and what they wanted

00:36:39   And they could the FBI came out of that looking really bad. I kind of forgot how it ended but

00:36:44   basically

00:36:47   with an encrypted iPhone

00:36:49   you

00:36:51   There's no magic way to

00:36:53   Decrypt it Apple does you can't just go to the Genius bar and you know

00:36:58   They do something and all of a sudden you're in the phone. It used to work that way right in the old days

00:37:02   it was just you know, uh, you know, your your your passcode was sort of a

00:37:07   suggestion

00:37:09   Not really, but they had a big red button that they could click to override it. Yeah, don't you remember?

00:37:14   I remember like troubleshooting phones you could do it like with iTunes

00:37:17   You could just connect an iPhone to iTunes and like I forget if you could get the access the contents

00:37:22   But you could at least put a new operating system on it

00:37:24   Anyway what the government wanted Apple to do was?

00:37:28   because the other thing is there's there's the 10 guests lock and if you and

00:37:35   After you make five guesses that are wrong

00:37:38   It'll lock you out for 30 seconds or something like that and then your next guess is wrong

00:37:43   You're locked out for five minutes and then by the time you get to the tenth bad guess you can

00:37:48   optionally have your phone configured to

00:37:51   like erase itself

00:37:53   But in the meantime, even if you hand it to like a baby to play with if they get to eight

00:37:57   I don't know. I don't know the math on this but like it can be an astronomically

00:38:01   Long wait time that you're just there's

00:38:03   They can't

00:38:05   Fix that they don't want to be able to fix that, right?

00:38:08   So what they what the government wanted Apple to do was to create a new version of opera of iOS just for them

00:38:14   That they would install on this flocked phone that would remove

00:38:19   That passcode checking and so that on this, you know suspects phone

00:38:24   then they could hook it up to one of those robots that that cycles through passcode guesses and

00:38:30   you know

00:38:33   get into the phone that way and

00:38:35   Apple's response was one of us that they don't you know it it seemed like an inner

00:38:39   It's an interesting technical dilemma that it seems like that was possible. It was something Apple could do

00:38:44   But it was something Apple did not want to do they did not want to create a version of iOS

00:38:50   That was in any way less secure than the regular one. It's just you know

00:38:53   It's like taking your slippers outside. You just don't want to break the seal on ever having you know

00:38:59   What a weird ask it would be like you know it's time to use an overused phrase

00:39:04   It is actually a dangerous precedent to set right in my at least in my in my view

00:39:09   I'm not I don't mean to sound like I'm like

00:39:11   pro

00:39:13   gun shootings

00:39:15   Not really quite the opposite, but like once like okay well

00:39:19   And I'll have more to say when you're done with this

00:39:20   But like yeah

00:39:21   I mean like there's there's a reason that doors have locks and like once you start once you give somebody the key that lets you in

00:39:27   You are literally opening little well anyway with the the San Bernardino case in 2016

00:39:33   It turned out the FBI was able to get in without Apple's help through some sort of like celebrator. Yeah, exactly

00:39:39   I don't know if it was they just did on the love Parnas phone, I think

00:39:42   Yeah, maybe there's a couple of these companies. I know a couple of company is in their company Israel

00:39:48   Yeah, that's the one that are all the sheriff's by yeah, and it's supposedly, you know, like the the Cadillac of

00:39:53   iPhone crackers

00:39:56   So they got in without Apple's help and I just out of curiosity are they using?

00:40:00   Exploits to do that or what? I guess what is I honestly don't know

00:40:03   I think that I think I'm fascinated by it and whenever I see a news story about it. I'm always left

00:40:08   Thirsting desperately for tell me how this happened. How what is this something I can defend against should I be worried about it?

00:40:15   I want the companies to tell me how they're doing this

00:40:17   But I also as we mentioned in text a little bit

00:40:20   I would like also I would love it if Apple got to a point where they were comfortable

00:40:24   Articulating. Yeah, what it is that they're buying is that they can and can't do will and won't do so

00:40:30   I if they literally can't do it. I would like to know what they literally can't do. I think it's a

00:40:34   Multi-factor. I think one of the factors is that a lot of the reporters who are writing about this for mainstream publications

00:40:40   You know like the New York Times or the Washington Post that they themselves

00:40:44   Aren't curious about the technical details like to them

00:40:47   It's good enough to know that the government wants to quote get into the phone, you know, and and that's it

00:40:52   They don't need the specifications of the battering ram. They just want to be able to use it

00:40:56   I also think that the companies like celebrate that do this

00:41:00   It's in their interest not to disclose how they do it

00:41:04   You know, they obviously are keenly aware of the exact technical details of how how they're doing it

00:41:10   But they don't want to let it out

00:41:12   Because you know, it's competition and I guess you know

00:41:17   It's the equivalent of a trade secret probably right and it's a cat-and-mouse game with Apple where when Apple discovers one of these things

00:41:24   You know one of these exploits that lets them get in they close it as best they if they can

00:41:30   you know that it

00:41:33   Apple considers them all security vulnerabilities whether it's criminals who are using them to

00:41:38   Get into a phone or whether it's law enforcement who are trying to get into a phone to gather evidence

00:41:44   Apple just considered all Apple sees that it's a security hole. So anyway now in this Pensacola Flace

00:41:50   shooter this guy shut up a

00:41:52   Navy Yard

00:41:55   So he's apparently got two phones. I don't know if he's like a day phone night phone

00:41:59   I don't know but there's a couple of phones the the FBI wants to get in

00:42:04   they apparently can't get in whatever they did the last time isn't letting them in and they want Apple to help and

00:42:10   a

00:42:12   lady from the FBI wrote a letter an open letter to Tim Cook and

00:42:15   And now the Attorney General in United States this William Barr fellow

00:42:22   It's quite a ballplayer. Yeah, I'm starting to think he may not be entirely on the up-and-up to be honest, but that's it's neither here

00:42:30   I mean, let's let's not go crazy, but he deaf he definitely seems

00:42:33   In his own way some but he's publicly sure whose side he's on

00:42:39   He was at some kind of press event and and you know at a lectern and and publicly called on

00:42:44   on apple apple to apple to let them in uh it's it seems to me and i i've talked to

00:42:54   some people you know i haven't talked to anybody like high level at apple but it seems to me

00:42:59   that basically i believe apple doesn't even really know what the government wants them to do

00:43:07   that help us get into the phone is the level of detail that the Department of Justice has given

00:43:14   them so far. It's just yada, yada, yada. It's just dot, dot, dot. And I think that it's just a facile

00:43:22   is, as I am pronouncing that word, facile, facile, facile. I think it's just a very facile,

00:43:29   superficial assumption that, and I even saw somebody on TV saying this, that of course,

00:43:36   Apple can you do you really think it's you know somebody was saying like it the gist of the argument was do you really think

00:43:41   That Apple's Apple's holding out that they're being disingenuous about the ability to do this

00:43:45   Do you really think that the company that has total control over the phone and designs every component and it has

00:43:51   $100,000,000,000 in the bank that they can't get into a phone

00:43:54   Speaking of I mean that is the skeleton key for every argument is well

00:44:00   They've got all this money of course they can do literally anything. It's like well. That's not how money or companies work

00:44:05   It you know III get that that might be it's not an unreasonable solution

00:44:11   right like I I think like you know talking about like cars and stuff like that like if

00:44:16   you know if you take your car in for service and the

00:44:20   The dashboard is giving you like hey, you know

00:44:24   There's a b2 check engine error and you don't know what this b b2 is you take it into the car dealer

00:44:31   You just assume that that they know how to sticks, you know something in that diagnostic port and reset it, right?

00:44:38   You just assume that they can get in I can see how you might assume that Apple can get into a phone

00:44:43   But they've really designed it not to be I really don't think that they have the capability that they're being asked to do. I

00:44:49   Well, I'll say on the thing I'm sure of is that I hope that's the case the thing I'm less sure of is if it

00:44:57   is the case and

00:45:00   First of all, I mean, there's there's the the experience of a modern Apple store visit

00:45:07   There's some commonalities. One thing is you will interact with no fewer than seven people in red shirts who ask you. Yes

00:45:12   Why you're there what's happening? It's a complicated place. The other thing is a

00:45:18   Surpassing amount of time there will be somebody there often an older person who is asking for help

00:45:24   because they don't know their password they lost their password something something came along and

00:45:29   And regardless of however that happened, you will probably at some point in your Apple

00:45:34   Store visit get to see a very sad thing, which is when the Apple employee at the store has

00:45:41   to tell them, "I don't have a way to do that.

00:45:45   Here are your options for doing that."

00:45:47   It becomes, I feel, almost more like counseling, which is like, "Oh my God, all my grandkids'

00:45:52   photos were on this.

00:45:54   What do I do?"

00:45:55   It's like, "Well, back up last year."

00:45:57   But everybody's been through it.

00:45:59   my mom, I remember my mom lost her her visor in the 2000s. And this is back before we

00:46:06   at all. Well, not all some of us had really gotten gotten the gospel about backup. And,

00:46:13   you know, and let's be honest, I mean, like, you're talking about you're talking about

00:46:16   the handspring visor, handspring visor that had all I mean, she that was her her life

00:46:21   that was had become her contact book, it was it was gone, gone, daddy gone. So okay, on

00:46:26   one hand we've all had that and we've all certainly I mean I have I have my

00:46:30   frustrations with how this stuff works I mean I feel like iOS 13 in so many ways

00:46:35   is a huge leap forward having that integrated password management letting

00:46:40   me use one password to get into stuff I won't say there's no excuse for getting

00:46:44   better at this stuff but there's fewer great excuses you still run into it

00:46:48   where you will occasionally have to put in a really crazy password you get this

00:46:52   with your bank sites, all the security theater sites.

00:46:55   But let's just say, for what it's worth,

00:46:57   and I know your listeners know this,

00:46:58   is that things have gotten a lot better on that front.

00:47:03   It's not something that everybody knows how to do.

00:47:05   And you see that when you're at the Apple Store

00:47:06   and that comes along.

00:47:07   I put something in the note to share,

00:47:11   which is a really good CGP Grey video, love his stuff.

00:47:15   - Yeah.

00:47:15   - And what is the name of the video?

00:47:17   It's a very short video, like his videos are,

00:47:19   And it is called should all locks have keys, phones, castles, encryption in you.

00:47:24   And I'm going to be somewhat unintentionally probably cribbing some of what he said there or what, what anybody says anywhere, which is the, when we talk about the precedents for these things, I don't think you, you not, what's your, you know, you love that Upton Sinclair quote about, uh, hard, hard to make.

00:47:42   Actually, I finally wrote it down so that I would always get it right.

00:47:46   Um, and the quote is right here.

00:47:50   Okay.

00:47:50   Stacker Pentecost, Nick Fury.

00:47:52   Yes.

00:47:52   He said, um, I used to, I used to say to our audiences, it is difficult to get a man

00:47:58   to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.

00:48:02   Um, and, and I, this is not, I'm just, I'm just stating a fact here.

00:48:07   Like even if you set aside confirmation bias, even if you set aside things like

00:48:11   the potential for things like corruption or, you know, for bad faith.

00:48:16   Uh, it's the, the, the police or law enforcement in general has a job to do,

00:48:21   and they are going to, like any of us, seek out the things that make their job

00:48:28   less difficult and try to reject or amend the things, you know, they're going to,

00:48:34   they're going to want to try to find the things that let them do what they need to

00:48:37   do. There's not going to be at the, in the same way that there's no, there's going

00:48:40   to be very few presidents that come along and say, wow, the creep in the amount of executive

00:48:44   power is really out of hand to take some of my power away.

00:48:46   Like that, that's not how life works.

00:48:49   And so like my concern, I don't mean to be all FUD about this.

00:48:53   My concern is that like you can always come up with a problem or a folk devil, de jure,

00:49:00   that will allow you to make a case to the public that there needs to be a fewer, fewer

00:49:06   rights and a more permissive approach toward letting people in positions of authority get

00:49:11   more power and use it. And I don't think that's particular to the FBI. I don't think that's

00:49:17   particular to anybody. A school principal will follow that same idea. But it's just

00:49:24   that, well, it used to be terrorism and then recently it's become pedophiles or it's shootings.

00:49:31   Well, why fix the shootings if we can get into your phone?

00:49:35   What?

00:49:36   Like, you're, I mean, what you're trying to say here is like, now that we have a precedent

00:49:40   for doing this, and everybody, I mean, there's nobody out there who's like, oh, yeah, let's,

00:49:44   you know, let's go protect these people who are a literal danger to the public.

00:49:50   It's just my concern, and I might be concern trolling here, but my concern is that like,

00:49:55   well, wait a minute, doors should have locks.

00:49:58   We shouldn't let everybody have the key.

00:49:59   And we should, in fact, be suspicious of the people who have all the keys, because what

00:50:04   is their obligation to make a case for how that is being used?

00:50:09   And I know you don't like to get political on here, but like, there are laws that we

00:50:14   come up with that end up being used primarily to target certain populations.

00:50:18   There's this whole class of like, in San Francisco, obviously, like, we have this homeless problem

00:50:23   more. You get, you see, you see, why is it so many black people get pulled over for speeding?

00:50:29   And then that that becomes like the way that you have this wedge to like further invade

00:50:34   their life. And I just, I don't think it's pure concern trolling to say that like, uh,

00:50:39   I, I applaud Apple for living up to the standard, the high bar that they've set for themselves.

00:50:46   And I don't think it's a great precedent to say, well, if it's a really super bad guy,

00:50:51   that's not it's not just going to be used for super bad guys. And once you give those keys over, it's, it's going to get used for increasingly more trivial things until you just accept that that's part of the authoritarian regime that we all seem destined for.

00:51:07   Right? Because there was even a I forget who it was, if it was the NSA, or I think it was the NSA

00:51:12   who had a rootkit leak out, you know, that they had, they, you know, the NSA is in the business

00:51:18   of building their own malware to use in, you know, spying on foreign governments. Yeah,

00:51:26   they've got all the good exploits. And one of them got out, you know, and started floating around,

00:51:32   you know, as we were talking about the dark web, you know, stuff like that can happen, you know,

00:51:36   There is no and the other thing that gets me as we as we talk around this issue in circles is it seems like everybody has come to the agreement now like we've we've we've not everybody but we've gotten most people on both sides of the issue to agree that a quote unquote back door is a bad idea.

00:51:54   And so you find them making this argument. We don't want a backdoor. We just want a way to get in

00:51:59   Like but a back window. I mean, it's the same thing right like you you're agreeing that the term is dangerous semantics

00:52:07   The semantics are not the issue right? It's it's an again. I mean, I mean, I'm even assuming goodwill

00:52:12   It's just that this is this is how it works

00:52:14   Like if you if you say well this particular nail is driving me crazy. I need a bigger hammer

00:52:18   You're gonna start using that on every nail. Yeah, and it's a tough spot for Apple

00:52:23   It was it was a tough spot four years ago. It's a tough spot now because

00:52:27   You know, they I just linked to a Bruce Schneier piece saying exactly what you did

00:52:33   You know that the new you know that there's always an effort to scare people

00:52:37   into making encryption even handing over more of their rights and freedom in the interest of

00:52:42   nominally being made more secure with the people who are meant to protect us people do have an emotional reaction to

00:52:49   terrorists and pedophiles, right, you know, these terrorists totally how it should be, you know,

00:52:55   And they should have that react they take these, you know, they're not picking these cases randomly, you know, like it's not like

00:53:02   It's like a test case like when you get something the Supreme Court you find the most sympathetic

00:53:06   Case you can to try and get a law changed, right?

00:53:10   Like just one that's always frustrated always frustrated me was that goofy shoe bomber back in

00:53:16   Almost 20 years ago and now people still have to take their goddamn shoes off at the airport

00:53:21   But the guy didn't it was such a he was a ding-a-ling. He's a ding-dong. He really was he

00:53:26   He didn't even do it right. No, he just like it was like an SNL bit

00:53:30   He just had like he didn't succeed had like a couple of bottle rockets taped to his sneakers, you know, let's appeal

00:53:35   Cory doctor oh here, but like let me understand this right? I can't have more than three ounces of liquid

00:53:40   Okay, and so what do they do with the liquid that is so potentially dangerous?

00:53:44   They throw it in a barrel with all the other deadly liquid in the airport

00:53:49   There isn't a hazmat is like 2319 and like the monsters Inc people run in and like in you know

00:53:54   And shave you and throw this into some kind of containment facility and blow it up off-premises

00:53:58   Oh, no, just throw it in there with all the other deadly liquids. It's just on the face of it is insane. Yeah

00:54:04   Well, you know, but that's the of course where we are and now we've got the president of the United States now it so apples

00:54:13   So on the aside from the encryption angle, there's also the recent story of you know from a couple weeks ago

00:54:20   where Apple invited

00:54:22   the president in the United States to tour the

00:54:26   Assembly plan you talk about the Texas facility that he personally opened that day

00:54:32   Yeah, the one that they've been making Mac Prose that for years and well clearly potato potato John, right?

00:54:38   And I wrote about this and and I I really think that I get I'm not some people have are so viscerally

00:54:46   Opposed to it that that they're just outraged

00:54:51   I'm not outraged by Apple's willingness to do this

00:54:54   But I do think it was and I get what Tim Cook was thinking I think you know

00:54:59   Mm-hmm, but I do think it was a mistake

00:55:03   Mention Oscar Schindler because that's not a good example

00:55:07   Opening of that wonderful movie where he's whining and dining all of these guys that he doesn't like because that's what he needs to

00:55:13   Do to get the contract it's business. That's what people do they have to they have to

00:55:18   Have relationships with people in power to at the very least keep them from harming their company

00:55:26   And in an ideal circumstance give them advantages over other now, you know, I don't do impressions, but I'm gonna read

00:55:32   This is Trump's tweet the other night. I think it's from two nights ago on this Apple iPhone thing

00:55:36   I will try to I will try to emphasize where he's used all caps

00:55:41   okay, we are helping Apple all of the time on trade and

00:55:46   So many other issues and yet they were few very strongly and yet they refuse to unlock phones used by killers

00:55:54   drug dealers and other violent criminal elements

00:55:58   They will have to step up to the plate and help our great country with a capital C

00:56:05   now

00:56:06   exclamation mark

00:56:08   Make America great again. Yeah, like I'm not sure we'll do the make America great again is part of his

00:56:13   That that would be part of making America great again would be if Apple would start

00:56:19   Unlocking phones used by killers and drug dealers and other violent criminal elements or if he just tacked on a little like campaign slogan

00:56:26   What why I wish I wish I had a Safari extension that would just change every use of make America great again to hakuna matata

00:56:32   You know pound sign Hakuna Matata is it well. It's just it seems like extremely random

00:56:38   But this to me was easily foreseeable

00:56:40   He's got now millions of people millions of people are gonna read that and probably at least dozens of thousands of them are

00:56:47   Gonna be incensed that this company that that dear leader is helping so strongly is

00:56:54   Is working at cross purposes with the elected agenda does does it put Apple in a worse spot politically?

00:57:02   that they've that now Trump thinks that they owe him I think it does a little

00:57:08   probably not a part of its part of it part of its potentially just at least

00:57:11   just optics yeah so if Apple had taken a different strategy in the Trump

00:57:16   administration and at least in the last few years you know let's say from 2017

00:57:21   onward once we saw it or I guess it would be 2018 onward 2017 was the year

00:57:26   he took office and kept more of an arm's length distance from him. You know, for

00:57:35   example, you don't really see, you don't see Jeff Bezos palling around with Trump

00:57:40   at factories and stuff like that. Maybe that's a bad example, I don't know, but

00:57:45   because he was there is the Washington Post problem, right? That's definitely

00:57:51   definitely part of it. But I do think I think that this sort of thing was easily foreseeable

00:57:57   that now you know, I think probably fairly Tim Cook saw the deal as transactional to

00:58:09   that there's these tariffs that for Chinese, you know, components coming in from China

00:58:15   that we're going to make iPhones significantly more expensive.

00:58:18   And they got some kind of an accommodation in the run up to the holiday season, didn't

00:58:23   they? Yeah, they got an accommodation so that the iPhones coming into the country are exempt

00:58:28   from these tariffs. And so they got that that they wanted Trump years ago when he first

00:58:34   came into office, pushed through the law to get the the foreign money and foreign banks,

00:58:41   you know, like when Apple makes money selling phones in Europe, they'd put it in a bank

00:58:45   in Ireland and it just all right, right, something up there. They got to repatriate that money

00:58:50   at a lower tax fee or something, you know, that they didn't have to pay tax on it twice.

00:58:58   They got the tariffs listed and and I feel like he thought so fair is fair. I'll let

00:59:01   him you know, because because he is so he appears to be so purely transactional, right?

00:59:07   And he loves deals. He's he's president deals. So we'll have you know, we'll have a dog and

00:59:12   Pony show at our Austin plant. I'm sure the least surprised person in the entire world

00:59:18   that Tim Cook or that that Donald Trump seemed to take credit for opening the factory was

00:59:24   Tim Cook. I mean, it was easily predictable. It was a parade. And then I feel like, you

00:59:29   know, well, that's it. Done's done. You know, wash your hands. You know, now we're done

00:59:34   with this guy. We got our tariffs lifted. We let him have a campaign event at our plant

00:59:38   and celebrate the fact that Apple is making

00:59:43   $25,000 personal computer workstations in Texas.

00:59:50   But you're never done with this guy, right?

00:59:55   Like in Trump's mind, Apple owes him big time.

00:59:59   - Every person who works with him

01:00:04   or appears to work with him

01:00:06   eventually becomes the giving tree.

01:00:08   And you're gonna, if you're lucky,

01:00:10   you'll be a stump that he can sit on eventually.

01:00:11   Who was it?

01:00:12   Was it David, no, it wasn't David Fahrenthold,

01:00:13   but it was one of the folks on political Twitter

01:00:15   that had that thread, like dozens of tweets thread

01:00:19   that was like, if you work with Donald Trump,

01:00:21   he will humiliate you.

01:00:21   It was just story after story of people.

01:00:24   I mean, look at that ding-a-ling Matt Gaetz

01:00:27   and how like, just he's been so in the bag

01:00:30   for all the weirdest Trump stuff for years and years.

01:00:32   And now he just, he wasn't loyal enough

01:00:35   when it came to the, his public statements on Iran.

01:00:39   And he wrote a probably ill-advised email,

01:00:41   like a dear colleague-ish letter.

01:00:43   And now he's tearing the guy apart.

01:00:45   He's been one of his most loyal supporters

01:00:48   since this whole debacle started,

01:00:50   ever since the holiday party.

01:00:51   And, but he wasn't loyal enough,

01:00:54   and he was not publicly loyal enough.

01:00:56   And that drives the man insane,

01:00:59   because now he looks like he got beaten.

01:01:05   He looks like he didn't decisively,

01:01:07   you know what, nevermind.

01:01:10   I don't wanna get into it,

01:01:11   but it really does kind of,

01:01:13   when I say the Giving Tree, you know what I mean, right?

01:01:15   It's like he's gonna whittle down,

01:01:16   he's gonna get every piece of bark,

01:01:18   every leaf, every bit of sap,

01:01:20   he's gonna get everything he can

01:01:22   out of all the people in his life.

01:01:23   And if for a second they say,

01:01:24   oh, is it cool if I get to keep a limb

01:01:27   so I can hug my kid?

01:01:29   He's gonna throw 'em under the tree, boss.

01:01:31   - All right, let's take a break here.

01:01:32   I'm gonna hold that thought.

01:01:33   I'm gonna come back to it.

01:01:34   But it's making me sad, John. All right, slippers come soon. I'll tell you happy hair. I'll tell you what the cherry up Squarespace

01:01:40   There's some people that don't have Squarespace sites, I don't know but they they should maybe they just really super like your show

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01:03:22   Are you sure this is the case? You're pretty sure about this, right?

01:03:25   I'm very sure.

01:03:26   Do you need to-- let me ask you a question.

01:03:28   Do you need to go in and add a special meta tag in the head

01:03:32   so it works right on Internet Explorer?

01:03:34   Is that a thing you need to do?

01:03:36   No, you do that.

01:03:36   OK, hang on.

01:03:37   What about if you want your table to look right?

01:03:40   Do you have to use separate CSS tags for every string of text

01:03:43   inside of a TD?

01:03:44   Is that a thing you need to do in Squarespace?

01:03:46   Yeah.

01:03:46   No.

01:03:47   What about, John, what about a single pixel invisible GIF

01:03:51   that you-- how can I explain this?

01:03:52   You make it different sizes so that things

01:03:54   get spaced right on the page is that they have a way to do that in our face I

01:03:58   don't believe so but I think they might your sites gonna look really weird it's

01:04:01   gonna look really weird on Netscape they might have a way to slice up an image

01:04:04   map though so that you can okay and then you would go in and like identify what

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01:04:44   and you get a free domain name. My thanks to Squarespace for their continuing support of the

01:04:48   show. So I feel like the big there's a risk to Apple here. And right now it feels like

01:04:54   you never know with Trump and you never know with politics, even Trump aside, you never know what's

01:05:02   going to catch fire in the zeitgeist, right? But if this Pensacola shooter thing continues to be

01:05:12   be an issue or if there's some other you know another high profile crime like

01:05:18   that and this could become part of Trump's stump speech you know I mean

01:05:24   this is like he gets up there at these Red Hat rallies and and you know and and

01:05:29   goes on and on it could turn into you know one of his bits is is railing

01:05:35   against Apple and I feel like that's a legitimate risk to the company

01:05:38   publicity wise do really you know and and how I mean it's you know it's had to

01:05:45   use a an off-color famous Roger Stone joke you don't want it to be your night

01:05:49   in the barrel right and when it's something was a joke people say we're

01:05:53   like every day there's somebody who's the star of Twitter and you don't want

01:05:56   it to be you you don't want to become and I have to be honest I do this really

01:05:59   weird thing where I will watch his rallies and it is it's amazing how much

01:06:04   he says pretty much literally the same thing over and over well we they want to

01:06:08   your guns, you know, we help veterans with choice and none of it's true. He doesn't

01:06:13   appear to actually understand how a tariff works. He doesn't

01:06:16   really, he actually seems to really believe, honestly to believe that a

01:06:21   tariff paid by Americans on products is making money from China and that's not

01:06:27   how tariffs do. But I totally hear you because even if you become caught in

01:06:32   that particular lobster trap and now you're the one that's part of his

01:06:35   stump speech and like he goes through this random random like sorting algorithm and lands

01:06:40   on iPhones like you that will tarnish the reputation of the company just because now

01:06:46   like he's just going to be saying the name of your company a lot it's it is it is I don't

01:06:51   know what you do to mitigate that risk but I because because again here's how a bully

01:06:55   works a bully works you don't capitulate to a bully even it's better to just keep getting

01:07:00   beat up because when you capitulate to the bully you don't get bullied less they don't

01:07:05   They don't have a file of facts where they figure out who's compliant in their beatings and lunch money

01:07:09   Handovers that a bully will just keep again go back to the giving tree. They're gonna whittle you down past the roots

01:07:15   You're just gonna become a bully hole

01:07:18   What do you what do you think they should do you sound like you have another thought on this

01:07:24   Well, we think they should be doing differently or they'd be messaging differently. What should they agree or not agree?

01:07:28   I think that they've handled it pretty well

01:07:30   well, I mean, and they have to try to make the case as best

01:07:33   they can that that you really, you know, and it's, you know,

01:07:36   it's the harder side to argue, you know, the decide of let us

01:07:40   in to these criminals phones is a lot easier to argue in the

01:07:44   public sphere, where you can just hand hand wave over all the

01:07:47   technical aspects of it. And the part where you explain how

01:07:53   encryption true encryption really means that Apple can't

01:07:56   just get into the phone, because that's actually the way it's

01:07:59   designed. It's a tough argument to make because it is

01:08:03   mathematically very complex. I mean, I'm, I'm pretty good at

01:08:06   math, and I know how to program computers. And I get I get lost

01:08:14   thinking about how, you know, serious encryption works, like

01:08:17   how, how it's mathematically provable, that if there aren't

01:08:22   any bugs in the implementation that the, you know, it would

01:08:24   take 77 years to unlock the phone or something like that,

01:08:29   or thousands of years, I guess, in some cases.

01:08:32   That's a hard argument to make,

01:08:35   especially against opponents like the Attorney General

01:08:39   and the President who are making 10-second arguments.

01:08:44   Let us in, these are bad people, right?

01:08:47   And then you're left doing it.

01:08:48   I don't know, I think they've handled it very well,

01:08:51   and I think it's, to their credit,

01:08:53   They've been very, very consistent about this over the years.

01:08:57   Mm hmm. Yeah.

01:09:00   No, I don't know. I don't know.

01:09:02   It's it's that you have to there are so many trade offs in life and in business.

01:09:09   There's so many things you have to do or choose to do to look a certain way.

01:09:13   But like the part of this is an asymmetric attack in so many ways, not in the security sense, but in the sense of Apple has

01:09:23   It's a real popular, they make a lot of real popular products that a lot of people use.

01:09:29   But there aren't that many people, even who love Apple a lot, where, how can I put this?

01:09:38   He's got a big stick.

01:09:39   He's got a very big stick and a very bully pulpit from which he can speak.

01:09:44   And that, and he's got, it's like I say, never fight a frat boy because, you know, they do

01:09:49   it all the time and they don't mind it.

01:09:52   And so in this case, and yeah, frap we're a bully, no offense to the wonderful fraternities

01:09:58   of our country, but like don't, don't, don't, you know, wrestle with pig.

01:10:01   And in this case, like he's so game for that.

01:10:04   He seems to rarely feel more alive than when he's defending himself against some perceived

01:10:09   slight.

01:10:10   And that is a primary reason in my opinion, it's not really about economic anxiety.

01:10:17   A lot of people don't feel like there's somebody being the bully for them to other people,

01:10:22   like to like cause retribution against the perceived enemies in their life and

01:10:27   and those get different names and different different funny nicknames but

01:10:32   people like him because they think he's a straight shooter who's looking out for

01:10:36   them or maybe it's partly that I think that I think we talked about this

01:10:40   probably in previous episodes but a lot of people in America just did they do

01:10:46   see themselves as an aspirational character where they should be in a very

01:10:51   different position in life except for all the things that are holding them back.

01:10:55   And I'm not trying to sound like Ayn Rand or something, but there are people who like

01:10:57   see themselves as much as being much closer to a billionaire reality star than they do

01:11:04   to the other people in their town who got laid off from the mine.

01:11:08   Mentally they are just there's something that has kept them from having that same success.

01:11:12   He speaks in a vernacular that really connects with them on an extremely emotional level.

01:11:16   You know people like you that love sports and like have that association with family.

01:11:20   It's the same idea of like, you've harmed my people have harmed my community.

01:11:24   They've harmed my family.

01:11:25   They've done all these things to me because they get to grow up thinking everything happens

01:11:30   to them.

01:11:31   And so when he when he when I'm trying to get out here is like, regardless of your feelings

01:11:35   about Apple, if you get in the sights of that horrible man, it's gonna make your life really,

01:11:41   really rough.

01:11:42   I think when you wonder what is happening in the Senate, what is happening in the Senate?

01:11:47   I think that's it.

01:11:48   I got a news alert. They don't want to have their night in the barrel.

01:11:51   I got a news alert while we were recording that. Apparently,

01:11:53   apparently they're starting up the, uh,

01:11:55   the impeachment thing in the Senate right now today as we speak.

01:11:59   It's all the ceremonial stuff. Yeah. But you know,

01:12:01   the Roberts isn't wearing the cool robe like Rehnquist has.

01:12:04   Rehnquist is more theatrical.

01:12:06   He's more of a Sondheim Sondheim man or a Gilbert and Sullivan man. I think.

01:12:09   Did you, I was reading the other day. It was a,

01:12:13   for those who don't recall when, when bill Clinton was impeached in 1998,

01:12:17   Chief Justice then at the time was William Rehnquist and he had he had

01:12:21   Recently at some point in the 90s. He had taken to instead of just wearing a plain unadorned black robe

01:12:28   He had had some gold stripes embroidered on the shoulder

01:12:33   Chevron's yeah, he looks like he looks like he's part of some kind of perhaps a death cult or at least a military tribunal

01:12:41   I just found out though recently it was like a what to expect an impeachment

01:12:46   Reader, you know and they were talking about that

01:12:48   I did not realize this at the time that Rehnquist had tried to get his colleagues to similarly spruce up their robes and

01:12:56   John Paul Stevens

01:12:59   Said no, we're not going to do that

01:13:01   I was under the impression at the time that what Rehnquist wanted was for himself to die. This actually makes me

01:13:08   III have a I have a knowing this story. I actually have a better opinion of Rehnquist and his robe

01:13:15   I thought at the time that he wanted to

01:13:19   Emphasize that he was the chief justice and and sort of visually elevate himself

01:13:25   Mortar, it's like mortar boards on a Navy officer's uniform. Yeah that that was your thought on that

01:13:32   Yeah, you know that you know, the general has more

01:13:35   More more metals on his jacket than than major, you know, that sort of thing

01:13:41   He wanted to lord it over the other just he's looking for rank

01:13:44   He's never ranked and the chief justice is a weird thing. Like you're not really a you know, yeah

01:13:48   You do get you know some authority that the the associate justices don't

01:13:54   But not a lot, you know, you don't get like an extra vote or something like that, you know, it's not survived

01:14:01   Right. You're right. He's not he's not even like the squad leader or the dead mother

01:14:05   But now it's just more like you're the administrative head now that I found out though that he was encouraging

01:14:11   his colleagues to similarly spruce up their their robes I

01:14:14   Have to say I find that charming. I think that's delightful

01:14:18   Looking for a project they get on this big stern man

01:14:24   I mean, you know, he really did, you know, I guess to some sense

01:14:28   He looks like Sam the Eagle a little bit a little bit. He looks like, you know, I

01:14:32   He looks like what a post-world war to 20th century American chief justice of the Supreme Court should look like

01:14:40   You know, he just had that look and I really enjoyed the fact that he wanted, you know

01:14:45   I'd like to bedazzle his robe and he wanted his colleagues to as well

01:14:48   But it starts out simple I start but it starts out with like wife

01:14:55   Oh, could you put some kind of like a like a silk lining in this something?

01:14:59   Maybe a tasteful pattern, you know, you just keep stepping it up until you look like Steven root in the ocracy

01:15:09   With this impeachment thing. I do think I predicted but I don't want to spend too much time on it because it's not a politics show

01:15:16   But I predicted back in April that he was gonna get impeached and that was at a time when everybody was sort of saying

01:15:22   On the Democrat side. Let's not impeach. Let's not impeach. Let's just you know

01:15:27   Go, let's just get him out. Let's try to get him out in the election. Right and then this would be

01:15:33   bad politics or whatever

01:15:35   But I could see it coming

01:15:38   And that was, you know, and then with this whole Ukraine thing where just sort of fell

01:15:43   in the Democrats lap and it's like, how could you not impeach him?

01:15:46   Yeah, it was it was like kind of a four quadrant oopsie because it had just happened.

01:15:52   There was something close to proof that it had happened.

01:15:56   And then there was all kinds of ways they just kind of they kind of bungled their ball

01:15:59   handling in like committing to a story story after story that for why this was okay or

01:16:04   didn't happen.

01:16:05   kept increasingly falling apart until as recently. Like, I'm not

01:16:08   sure I'm going to put that much credibility in Lev Parnas. I

01:16:11   think people can go a little little Rachel Maddow crazy on

01:16:14   this. Like I would the guy, the guys, obviously, he's he's a

01:16:17   human thumb and a very wide man. I'm sure he's a very sweet man.

01:16:20   But like, I would not put that much credibility in this guy

01:16:23   who's on the hook for some serious, serious stuff. But

01:16:26   we're not running out of evidence that something went

01:16:28   seriously tits up with Ukraine.

01:16:30   Yeah, I do think I you know, my prediction as to how it's going

01:16:35   play out. I think it's pretty pretty clear that the smart money is on the Republican Party sticking together and

01:16:41   He'll get acquitted now for those of you, you know, it's probably world news

01:16:47   But you got to get a super majority which I believe requires 67 votes

01:16:51   So you got to get 67 votes it's very unlikely I think that that you'd get enough, you know

01:16:59   You know if all of the Democrats voted to impeach or a convicted guy

01:17:05   But I don't think I I think some people are

01:17:09   Cynically, they're just so jaded and they just think there's 0% chance that they convict the guy

01:17:16   I

01:17:18   Think it's more complicated than that because I feel like his support is obviously very unified, but I think it is

01:17:25   It is very brittle and that's why you mentioned before a lot of people don't love being supporters

01:17:33   There are his hardcore folks and his 30 something percent.

01:17:36   But do you think the folks in the, the like the classic conservative,

01:17:40   like, you know, redneck tie conservatives are that super excited about him.

01:17:44   If he's not empowered or he's, or he's waning in power.

01:17:48   I don't know, man.

01:17:50   I, I, I feel like that's why,

01:17:53   and I just can't emphasize how weird this is.

01:17:56   Whether you are on the left side of politics or the right side of politics,

01:18:00   It is very strange and unusual and unprecedented that the Republican Party accepts absolutely

01:18:09   no criticism from within at all. None. It is a complete unified front. And I kind of

01:18:16   feel like my gut feeling is that it has to be that way. And that he knows it. McConnell

01:18:22   knows it. That that if there's any cracks in that support, it is, you know, it's like

01:18:28   the damn breaks and then all you know who knows where we go like if all it

01:18:33   takes you remember we thought nothing would ever be bigger than myspace

01:18:35   remember when we're in myspace before Facebook there's always been the dejour

01:18:40   you know social media site and as silly as myspace was to a lot of us olds like

01:18:45   there was that time where you're like wow this thing is it's so huge and then

01:18:49   how long did it take to go from being the something every something everybody

01:18:53   had to have whether you're a you know whether you're a high school student or

01:18:57   or a musician, remember you had to put music

01:18:59   on your MySpace page.

01:19:00   And then how long did it take to go from top of the game

01:19:03   to like, oh my God, that's such a dated reference.

01:19:06   - Right.

01:19:07   - I mentioned it in my inbox zero talk in 2000 something.

01:19:10   And I look back at that and it's one of the things

01:19:11   that makes me cringe is like, God, I wish, you know,

01:19:15   (laughs)

01:19:16   I wish I mentioned said Facebook instead,

01:19:18   but Facebook's not gonna be on top forever, ever.

01:19:21   And like you say, the cracks in the dam

01:19:23   become extremely meaningful

01:19:24   when there's several in several places at once

01:19:28   and those cracks start joining up.

01:19:30   - I do think though,

01:19:31   there's a weird timing issue with this too.

01:19:33   Like you would like to think that they'll just be fair

01:19:36   and of course, you can't take politics out of politics,

01:19:39   but you'd like to think that the Republicans

01:19:42   will listen to the evidence and make a reasoned decision.

01:19:46   But if they were, and again,

01:19:48   it's obviously not the smart money to bet

01:19:50   that they're gonna convict the guy in Buda-Mata office,

01:19:53   But if they did, how weird is it that it's an election year?

01:19:56   Like who runs as the Republican nominee?

01:20:00   Right, I guess Pence, you know, I guess Pence would run,

01:20:03   but there's nothing automatic about it.

01:20:04   I mean, he would become the president and then I,

01:20:07   but would others suddenly jump in?

01:20:09   Can you?

01:20:10   - I imagine Pence would be much easier

01:20:13   to work with on many levels.

01:20:14   - But can you, could some other Republican,

01:20:16   you know, people in Iowa start voting next month, right?

01:20:20   Like, you know, have--

01:20:22   - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:20:23   - It's just a weird situation.

01:20:25   But I do feel like that, this is all I'm gonna say,

01:20:28   I'm not predicting it will happen,

01:20:29   but I'm gonna say that I think that if three

01:20:32   or four Republicans do stand up, that more would follow.

01:20:37   That it's this idea that you can't accept

01:20:40   any criticism at all.

01:20:42   Like you said with that Matt Gaetz ding-a-ling.

01:20:45   - Yeah.

01:20:45   - You know, the guy could not have been

01:20:46   a more diehard supporter of him.

01:20:48   Says one bad thing about him, and all of a sudden,

01:20:50   He's, you know, he's like out of the party.

01:20:52   Okay.

01:20:54   Well, can I say one thing about this?

01:20:56   Yeah.

01:20:56   Um, okay.

01:20:58   So, um, I'm gonna, I'm gonna speak in analogy here.

01:21:03   Cause I got into this with some friends of mine not too long ago who were like,

01:21:06   you know, they're real jaded millennials and are like, wow, it's never,

01:21:10   never gonna happen.

01:21:10   And I said, well, like, so let me, let me, let me give it to you this way.

01:21:14   You ever seen the movie mean girls?

01:21:15   Yeah.

01:21:15   I think so.

01:21:16   Yeah.

01:21:17   You got, you got a Regina George.

01:21:19   It's also a really good musical.

01:21:20   highly recommend it. You get Regina George and they kind of run the school, right?

01:21:23   The plastics. Right. And then you get Tim Meadows, who's the principal in a very,

01:21:27   very funny role. You know, insert another high school of your choice. Let me,

01:21:31   let me put this to you. So, so the mean girls, every,

01:21:34   you've got to be respectful of the plastics,

01:21:37   especially Regina because they can, they will,

01:21:40   they will destroy any person at the school. And so they wield power.

01:21:46   They wield power in a way that is really they lead with this fear

01:21:51   Everybody's scared to mess with the plastics to jump ahead a little bit

01:21:55   Well until until that does fall apart for reasons in the movie you see the movie Mean Girls in theaters now

01:22:00   But let me put it to you this way

01:22:02   Let's say instead of just being mean and like giving people eating disorders

01:22:05   What if what if Regina and her friends were doing pipe bombs around the school?

01:22:10   and and and and but here's the thing then Tim Meadows says well, you know

01:22:15   it they're really popular and

01:22:19   If I pursue this and don't win it's gonna make me look

01:22:23   Really really bad and Tina Fey's like right like oh man. We should not pursue the plastics nobody likes the plastics

01:22:31   Except for the people who want to be the plastics

01:22:35   We better not pursue them because we're probably not gonna win and

01:22:42   And the pipe bombings, let's be honest, they kind of suck, but we shouldn't pursue them

01:22:49   because I'm pretty sure given the political climate, it's going to make us look bad.

01:22:53   Yikes!

01:22:54   What are we going to do?

01:22:55   Well, I guess we'll just kind of look the other way.

01:22:58   How would you evaluate the kind of principle who said, "I'm not going to enforce the rules

01:23:03   because it might be difficult.

01:23:04   I'm not going to enforce the rules because I might not win."

01:23:10   Would you allow that from the principal at a rural high school, let alone the House of

01:23:16   Representatives?

01:23:17   No.

01:23:18   You would say, "Well, that sucks, dude, but guess what?

01:23:20   You took the job.

01:23:22   That's your job.

01:23:23   Article One.

01:23:24   It's in the gosh-dang Constitution."

01:23:27   So it's not a question of whether you can win or whether it's politic.

01:23:32   Maybe I'm just a little old-fashioned about wanting to cling to this idea of October 2016,

01:23:38   But it strikes me that if you have that evidence and you believe that evidence, how do you

01:23:43   not pursue that?

01:23:44   District attorneys rarely say, "Well, I'm not going to pursue this."

01:23:47   I guess sometimes they say I might lose.

01:23:49   But I'm just saying, once again, we like to say that thing like, "Oh my God, we wouldn't

01:23:53   allow a school board member to behave like this when I'm a Republican president."

01:23:56   And it's like, "Well, okay.

01:23:58   So I mean, when is it going to be?"

01:24:00   There's never a good day to stop smoking crack, and there's never a great day to pursue something

01:24:06   thing. Civic, not political. Yeah, it ends up being political, but there's never a good

01:24:11   day to do that. But guess what? That's the job. Yeah. Well, let's move on to baseball.

01:24:17   Hey buddy. How about I got to tell you, do you, do you, I know you're, we don't, you're

01:24:22   not, you're not a baseball guy. And I know that famously on this show, you know, baseball

01:24:27   discussions often don't go over. I'm neutral, John. I'm neutral on sports and I'm suspicious

01:24:32   of sports culture and that's all I'm going to say about that. I'm not against baseball.

01:24:35   I want everybody to be I John if there's anything you know about me. It's I just want people to be happy

01:24:39   What about this this cheating story to me though is interesting? Oh, yeah, right, right, right with the Houston Astros now

01:24:45   They ain't got poor Pete Rose over here. What's going on, right?

01:24:47   Justice for Pete Rose. That's a hashtag, huh?

01:24:51   My favorite thing about the story is how low-tech it was and how obvious it was this so the base if you're not

01:24:57   As you know, I'm a real ball head and I'm always following the sports

01:25:01   But I understand that among those dorks and Emacs users in your audience

01:25:05   There may be people who don't know the very fine-grained details of this dust-up with stealing signals

01:25:12   I know this but there may be listeners could you just give a little bit of context for what happened with this cheating scandal?

01:25:18   So it's all it's a long-standing

01:25:20   Almost a tradition to try to steal the you know baseball's full of these hand signals, you know

01:25:25   And it comically so like you're pulling your nose. You're tugging your ear

01:25:29   You tap your eyebrow and it you know, it means you're supposed to bunt, you know

01:25:33   The third base coach gives you the coach the pitching coaches does not want to yell to the baseball man on the mound

01:25:38   Throw a breaking ball, right?

01:25:40   the catcher

01:25:41   signals to the pitcher

01:25:43   Which pitch to throw and they just typically put numbers down at their crotch and it might be I don't even know how it works

01:25:49   Really, but it's they might put you know one finger then two fingers then one finger again

01:25:54   And it could be everything's a faint except for the second to the last right or maybe it's that maybe it's the first one that

01:26:00   you that you see twice if you see one whichever one you see what you know, you work it out in advance and

01:26:05   And then you the pitcher knows which pitch to throw and it's a famous thing in baseball

01:26:10   They give you you're on the other team and you get to second base and you've got a view of the catchers crotch

01:26:15   You might try to you know, see if you can figure out what the hell's going on, you know

01:26:18   Maybe signal to your teammate, you know

01:26:20   It's almost like card counting or like you you probably have that much to do while you're waiting to run or go home

01:26:26   But if you're there, it seems to me that you could be watching and try to glean just one little bit of okay

01:26:32   It seems like he does. Yeah, it's like I said like card counting

01:26:35   You just you're gonna notice something about what if you do it that way if you do it with your eyeballs live

01:26:40   It is allowed. It's there's no rule against it. It is accepted. It's you know, a hundred over a hundred years of time in baseball

01:26:47   It's it's really it's sort of a tradition. What's not allowed is using electronic devices

01:26:53   So one guy's out in the field with like a telephoto well

01:26:57   I never was even a thing you know there was an apple angle on this a couple of years ago where there was

01:27:01   Allegations that the Red Sox had guys in the dugout wearing an Apple watch and they were getting text messages from their guy

01:27:08   viewing the signal

01:27:10   honest a guy Apple watch

01:27:11   but anyway what it turned out the Houston Astros did is they set up a camera out in center field and

01:27:17   To view the catchers signals and they had it hooked up to a TV just it just inside the dugout

01:27:24   You know you go down the steps and there's this TV

01:27:27   Really? Yeah, that's what happened and so brazen and they they would just watch it and they'd figure out the signals and

01:27:36   then

01:27:38   They would they would take George Brett had a little too much pine tar is bad

01:27:42   These guys are just just sitting there like just like with a big cheating sign

01:27:47   And the way that they would signal the pitches to the batter is let's say I'm watching and I figure it out one one fingers a

01:27:54   Fastball two finger is a curveball very different type of pitch, you know fastballs, you know

01:27:58   Is what it sounds like curveball is what it sounds like, you know slower and has like a looping banana, you know

01:28:04   like throwing a frisbee

01:28:06   So I'm I'm in the dugout. I'm down there in the tunnel. I'm not up yet or maybe I'm not even playing today, right?

01:28:12   I'm just a teammate who's down there doing the signal thing and if I figure out the next pitch is a fastball

01:28:16   What the Astros would do is they would take a baseball bat and beat it on a trash can right there in the hallway

01:28:22   I swear to God the equivalent of like baseball smoke signal and so you're the batter at the plate, right?

01:28:29   You're up there. Okay plate and if you hear tang tang, yeah

01:28:33   If you hear like if you know, it's a curveball you yeah

01:28:36   And then all of a sudden, you know, it's a curveball and you look for it

01:28:39   And then once this came out you think well, that's crazy, right?

01:28:43   Once this came out people started finding replays from the last two or three years like on YouTube

01:28:49   You know YouTube clips and you can hear it clear as a bell like on YouTube

01:28:53   It was like how did they how did the mind-boggling aspect of this is? How did they get away with it?

01:29:00   How did the other teams and I for help for how long were they doing this all season long in 2017? Oh

01:29:06   My god that's insane. And so they the commission they call boxing the sweet science. Yeah

01:29:13   It's just it's there is a and again

01:29:17   Hopefully people will forgive it but I do think that there is a trumpian angle to it, which is the

01:29:25   brazenness of the plan right like it's not some kind of

01:29:30   Elaborate thing where they hooked up electrical buzzers in and put it in your shoe, you know

01:29:36   like in that in that great scene in casino where you're you know, like there's some kind of gadget buzzing your foot and

01:29:41   And they didn't have that some kind of crazy thing where they would there's no like Dustin Hoffman counting matchsticks or right thing or toothpicks

01:29:48   They just had a guy watching the TV feed and then he would bang a trash can once or twice or not at all

01:29:53   If it was a fastball, right? Just banging a trash can and you could hear it

01:29:58   You could hear the bangs on TV. It was so loud

01:30:02   And then what so this this came out and what happened as a result so they had to fight well

01:30:13   They didn't have to fire but the the major league baseball suspended. Well, sorry, sorry real quick

01:30:17   um, how how was it discovered and decided as a mission a a

01:30:22   There's sort of a tradition it's like, you know, it's Omert, uh, you know tough guys sports, you know that

01:30:29   The other thing about about the cheating scheme though that it that's so crazy

01:30:34   Is that baseball players get traded and switch teams all the time?

01:30:38   Right and so like it's not like right not like once you're on the Houston Astros. You're you're you're in the mob

01:30:44   You're in the mafia

01:30:45   That's we see all my time like you mean like in that case like you always have a reason to not rat out

01:30:50   To drop a dime well on your buddies because you're all complicit in them

01:30:54   I guess but there's this I forget his name, but there was a player who?

01:30:59   Was a pitcher for them and went to another team and back in November. He went to there's an excellent website called the athletic

01:31:06   It's a subscription

01:31:08   Sports site Ken Rosenthal, I forget who the other writer was for the story

01:31:13   But he more or less went to them and dropped a dime on him and said here. This is this is how it worked

01:31:18   this is when they did it and

01:31:20   They wrote this story about it to whom to like based to let know but not buoy queuing

01:31:26   I don't think he's a commissioner anymore. But Bob and Fred is the kid. Okay, but they

01:31:30   they rad it out to the authorities. He went to this website. He went to these journalists.

01:31:35   Oh, I see. I'm sorry. Okay, I understand the athletic. Okay, the athletic and the story

01:31:39   was a sensation. Because again, there might be all sorts of, you know, people with binoculars

01:31:46   and stuff like that trying to steal signals, but an actual electronic connection from a

01:31:50   centerfield camera to a monitor in the hallway is just so clearly over the line. Yeah, but I feel

01:31:57   like they got away with it all season long because it was so brazen. You know, that I see what you're

01:32:03   saying where it's if I do it, if I do it and like try to like make it a secret or if I've got some

01:32:09   conniving but like, that's the Trump part is that it's right in place. So brazen, right? So Jimmy,

01:32:15   We made you get over here if you can overhear the phone call in a restaurant, right?

01:32:19   Then it's no must not be a bad thing

01:32:21   We made Jimmy Carter sell his peanut farm and we we and Trump opened up a luxury hotel

01:32:27   Across the street from the White House. It's

01:32:29   John sometimes Saudi Arabia just wants to make sure they got a couple floors of empty rooms in case they want to crash for the

01:32:36   Night, like you go to the buffet you get a little bit of full you get a little nappy. It's so

01:32:41   Clearly brazen that I feel like it's sort of how you know, how is how is he getting away with all this stuff?

01:32:46   I think because it's just like

01:32:48   You know

01:32:51   It it's just so over-the-top corrupt and he's not gonna ease in the I mean in

01:32:55   Stuff. I hate it John

01:32:58   It's also that his if we go back to the first first principles queries if we go back to the idea that a lot in

01:33:04   My in my estimation a lot of people who support him

01:33:07   They'll come up with the reasons why they do what they do

01:33:09   But it's also that they're just like I love to see that guy doing like he is he is president deals

01:33:15   He is he's working hard for the country and that guy is not gonna let anybody get in his way and he's he's

01:33:23   How do you say this in a way? He is without shame and my god, can you imagine?

01:33:29   It's like how George Costanza George wants to be able to like there's all the things George craves doing

01:33:33   He wants to be able to eat the cheese. He wants to sandwich while he's having sex

01:33:36   He wants to be able to just pee anywhere like imagine what that would feel like to be that free

01:33:40   You know and he's getting it man

01:33:43   He's he's getting the thing and he's not gonna let anybody stand in his way and that that is seen as very laudable

01:33:49   to a lot of people who feel that a bunch of like a bunch of

01:33:53   What's the what's the vernacular that?

01:33:56   Globalists

01:33:59   Who run Hollywood in the banks all those globalists have been getting away with shenanigans for years

01:34:04   It's finally time my big wet boy gets in there and starts cutting some deals. Yeah

01:34:09   Let me take a break here. Thank our third and final sponsor. I love this sponsor

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01:36:37   Alright, we got to wrap it up soon. But I thought this was an

01:36:41   interview you you toss this out. This is from your idea list for

01:36:44   the show.

01:36:44   It is in this could be either a brief topic or it could be I

01:36:48   I could play editor-in-chief of daring fireball net.

01:36:51   Don't put the www on there, it won't even work.

01:36:54   Daring fireball, I'm the new EIC.

01:36:56   We're gonna need to do your onboarding now.

01:36:59   I'm gonna open the kimono.

01:37:01   My assignment to you,

01:37:02   this could also be my assignment to you.

01:37:04   I just did something that occurred to me.

01:37:07   Do you want me to pitch this?

01:37:09   - No, you do it.

01:37:09   - Just talking to some friends on Slack

01:37:13   and we talked about this a little bit on

01:37:15   the show I do with Dan Benchman,

01:37:16   Back to Work the other day.

01:37:17   I just had this kind of random thought and,

01:37:20   don't tweet at me, just have John write it.

01:37:23   John will write it.

01:37:24   Here's my thought.

01:37:25   It occurs to me as somebody who's,

01:37:27   I'm not sexy and I'm not relevant,

01:37:30   but I don't want to be stupid

01:37:31   and I want to understand the way things work.

01:37:33   So, rather than guessing why things work a certain way,

01:37:37   I try to figure out why they are a certain way.

01:37:39   And, you know, me and some pals were tossing around

01:37:41   some stuff about shortcuts, which I'm getting way into,

01:37:44   thanks to friend of the show Federico Medici.

01:37:47   Long story short, there's all this stuff where like, you know, I've been using a Mac since 1987.

01:37:52   I'm a big fan. It's like, you know, one of the great things.

01:37:55   SE30 is probably one of the greatest products of all time.

01:37:58   Love Apple, love the Mac.

01:37:59   But, you know, sometimes there'll be stuff that comes along.

01:38:02   But you look at something like Catalyst is a good example, maybe.

01:38:05   You look at something like Catalyst and you're like, "What a crazy different time it is right now."

01:38:09   And as a consumer, maybe a power user, but definitely a consumer, it seems so odd to me in some ways.

01:38:17   Not odd to me.

01:38:18   I want to understand why Catalyst sucks.

01:38:20   Yes, I know it's getting better.

01:38:21   Email Jon.

01:38:22   But it's so odd to me that iOS is just so tight.

01:38:26   And iOS 13 has become so good.

01:38:30   Devices are so good.

01:38:32   They just came out with that amazing new Mac Pro.

01:38:35   I still have my eye on an iMac Pro

01:38:37   because I don't really super need it.

01:38:38   But oh my god, Macs are so great.

01:38:41   iOS devices are so great.

01:38:43   But then you look at some like Catalyst.

01:38:44   And you're like, it was so upsetting

01:38:46   to get that Twitter app the first day and go, "Hey, Catalyst arrived.

01:38:49   This seems like a really sweet solution.

01:38:51   You're going to be able to take this iOS stuff and run your math."

01:38:54   And you're like, "Okay, I hope here is button."

01:38:56   You're like, "What?

01:38:56   What?"

01:38:57   Then none of the key commands work.

01:38:58   And that's all very odd.

01:39:00   This feels like a port of something.

01:39:03   I guess it is a port of something.

01:39:05   It's so odd.

01:39:05   And then I stopped, but I think I go, "Wait a minute.

01:39:07   Why is that?

01:39:08   Why is it that iOS gets these great improvements and gets its own bespoke

01:39:12   iPad version?"

01:39:14   And I thought occurred to me that the I believe the iPhone was announced in 2007, right?

01:39:20   Okay, they came did it come out late 2007 or 2000 June? No, remember it came out the end of June

01:39:25   I think January it was the announcement. Yeah, January was the announcement at Mac World Expo and it's been it's been around for over a decade

01:39:32   iPhone and its various

01:39:35   OSes associated with that have come a long way a lot of folks these young these youngsters these millenniums

01:39:41   they might not even remember stuff like

01:39:43   Lonely sandwich doing that video for like what what copy and paste might look like right?

01:39:48   Remember like it didn't have that didn't there's so many things that just it couldn't or didn't do but it was still so magic

01:39:54   What here's what I'm trying to get out it occurred to me as I tried to turn over my mind

01:39:58   Why things are the way they are with some Apple things and it occurred to me that?

01:40:03   If you take whatever age you want

01:40:07   But there may be a lot of folks working at Apple that have used at working at Apple for their job who?

01:40:14   Is it possible that there are a lot of people working at Apple at this point?

01:40:20   Who through their sentient?

01:40:22   Pre-adult and adulthood have used iOS a lot more than they've used a Mac now

01:40:28   That's gonna either sound really stupid or really stupid

01:40:32   depending on which way you look at it.

01:40:33   But like I used a Mac, a Mac was my Apple product.

01:40:36   The Macintosh computer was my Apple product of,

01:40:39   you know, for years and like the,

01:40:41   all the other stuff was there.

01:40:43   But I mean, for a long time,

01:40:44   John Roderick continued to call Apple the Macintosh company

01:40:47   or something like that.

01:40:48   Cause he's like that.

01:40:49   But is it possible there are people who have been there,

01:40:51   who are there and maybe in their twenties,

01:40:53   who've used iOS way more than they've ever used a Mac?

01:40:56   - And I think you're right.

01:40:59   I think you're onto something here.

01:41:00   I think it is.

01:41:01   I'm really just asking the question.

01:41:03   No, but I think it's an interesting thing to think about.

01:41:05   And it's easy to, when you think about how much older the Mac is,

01:41:08   you know, it's easy to overlook how old iOS is now. 13 years.

01:41:12   A lot of people using a Mac were originally using an Apple II.

01:41:15   Right, like when Mac was 13 years old, it was 1997, you know, and Steve Jobs.

01:41:20   Wow, the dark years.

01:41:22   Well, I guess '97 was when the light came at the end of the tunnel

01:41:26   because Steve Jobs and the next team were there,

01:41:29   they were years away from shipping anything, but right, you know, and they were getting

01:41:33   ready to, you know, working secretly on the iMac and stuff, you know, sure. Yeah. But,

01:41:38   you know, the iMac is a good example. So interesting to me when you put those things, what was

01:41:41   the word I finally came up with for that when you take a an equivalent amount of time and

01:41:45   lay it over two different eras. I don't know what they call it, but I think I called it

01:41:49   a Syracuse says this is terrible. They call it a chronology because you're basically late.

01:41:57   But when you do that, you get into stuff like, well, if Synchronicity by the Police came

01:42:01   out in 1983, oh my God, that's what you're talking about, like practically World War

01:42:06   II is that same equivalent amount of time.

01:42:07   So the question on my assignment to you is, if you have any little birdies, or just maybe

01:42:12   ask around, like, so the informational part is, which seems knowable, is are there, how

01:42:20   many of the folks working at Apple, especially in product at some level right now, people

01:42:23   who are maybe even mid-level who are making decisions about stuff, how many of them, let's

01:42:28   put it this way, they say with Qatar, they say it's not how many years you play, it's

01:42:31   how many hours you play. How many people at Apple right now in product have spent more

01:42:37   hours using iOS than the hours spent on a Mac? And more importantly, if you can, if

01:42:44   that is knowable information, what does that mean to how those folks think about features

01:42:50   functionality what's what's Bob Seger says what's leaving what to leave out

01:42:53   and is it are they okay with the fact that you can't have folders and

01:42:57   shortcuts without a second I and I think I think part of it too and I've been

01:43:02   thinking about this a lot lately and you know it's you know it's getting older

01:43:06   you know and and the Mac is you know the Mac is at a weird spot you know Mac and

01:43:10   Windows both have been around for so long now that they're they're just the

01:43:16   oxygen in the air you know and that I think for a lot of people who are

01:43:19   younger and they've just always been there, right?

01:43:23   That you could actually be not that much younger

01:43:27   and not remember the time before there was

01:43:29   the Macintosh and Windows.

01:43:31   And people like me and my developer friends

01:43:36   of my basic generation, and I think you're the same way too,

01:43:42   like we really drank in the Macintosh, right?

01:43:47   We have, we, we, I, it, it, it was, I used to read,

01:43:52   I used to read three publications a week. Right. I read Mac world,

01:43:55   I read Mac user and I read Mac Mac week. I want to say, and you know,

01:43:59   things like, um, it,

01:44:02   you just know how,

01:44:05   how you make menu commands like menu commands in the menu bar are in title

01:44:10   case. And, um,

01:44:13   and so that was one of the things,

01:44:15   some of the catalyst apps when they first shipped, not apples,

01:44:18   I don't think but like like the Twitter app, I could be wrong

01:44:22   about this accusation. But I think that the Twitter app had

01:44:25   some menu item names that weren't in title case, they were

01:44:28   just, you know, up uppercase first word, and then the rest of

01:44:31   the words were, like, if there was a new tweet command, maybe

01:44:35   the word tweet was lowercase t, which in and of itself isn't in

01:44:40   theory, you could make a graphical user interface desktop

01:44:43   system where that's your style guide is to have menu commands

01:44:47   be lowercase.

01:44:48   Jay Haynes And you may not register as well, this is not

01:44:52   in the hick or whatever, I may not register on a very conscious

01:44:55   level, but there's some part of you could some doesn't feel

01:44:57   right about that.

01:44:57   But it's so and and so I don't know why it's just the way it's

01:45:01   always been. But like menu commands are in title case, a

01:45:05   checkbox in the preferences window is not in title case. So

01:45:09   like here in the notes app, there's a checkbox automatically

01:45:12   sort checked items. The only word that's capitalized is

01:45:16   automatically sort checked items isn't I don't know how I absorbed

01:45:20   this. And I know so many people of our era. It's not because we

01:45:25   read and memorized the Apple Humanis or interface guidelines.

01:45:28   We, you know, it's like in a way that you become a good writer

01:45:32   isn't by reading the dictionary, you just refer to it when you're

01:45:35   stuck. Like, you know, you don't pull it if something seems

01:45:37   awkward, you don't pull out your main, maybe you're at the early

01:45:41   ski poles level of like I pull out the dictionary and the thesaurus to find a fancy word, but

01:45:47   then you pop up to that next level and you go like well no I can just write a better

01:45:50   sentence than this or for that matter in baseball you would know if you walked on the field

01:45:54   and that wasn't grass. You would know you have something in the way that like I know

01:45:59   I mentioned this every episode John that I'm on but you know go back and think about you

01:46:04   and writing about tabs in Safari. I don't know how long I'm having to guess you spent

01:46:09   more than a day on that, the way the tabs look and work in Safari.

01:46:13   And it was one of the rare posts at the time that had any graphics in it,

01:46:16   because that was the point. But like, you're the kind of person,

01:46:19   you are the original Helvetica versus Ariel guy. I'm still like,

01:46:24   oh, you could fool me. But you're like, oh man, you, something, you,

01:46:26   the hairs on your neck go up.

01:46:28   And then I'm only trying to analogize because if you,

01:46:31   whatever your domain of expertise is in life,

01:46:33   you notice things other people don't notice.

01:46:35   And that's part of what makes you an expert. And like when you are a fan,

01:46:39   or an enthusiast for this technology, you notice something's wrong.

01:46:42   John Syracuse probably looks at looks at some Pearl and goes, Oh my God,

01:46:46   there's so many ways, you know, he looks at that and goes,

01:46:48   there's so many ways you could do this better.

01:46:50   I keep coming back to the word idiomatic and it's such an interesting word and

01:46:55   it's a good word. It certainly applies to language, you know, and you know,

01:46:59   you hear it, you can often pick up when somebody learned English as a second

01:47:03   language because they will make not necessarily grammatical mistakes,

01:47:09   they'll make idiomatic mistakes, they'll, they'll, they'll use a

01:47:12   turn of phrase in an unusual way. And it just, you know, if

01:47:17   you're a fluid clangs, like the sound of a bad against

01:47:20   right. The way you become a Macintosh developer and user

01:47:26   interface designer isn't by reading the HIG. It's by

01:47:29   studying and absorbing and obsessing yourself with all of

01:47:33   the Macintosh software. And yet, I think there's an entire

01:47:36   generation, not all of them, but I think there's a large number of younger people who they absorbed

01:47:45   iOS that way. And they know what feels like a phony iOS. I see we're going with this. Absolutely.

01:47:51   It's almost practically into your DNA, but it gets in your wiring a little bit. Like,

01:47:56   this is how this works. And I think with the Mac, they just sort of see it as a bunch of windows on

01:48:03   screen with red close buttons and yeah they you know and I think there are Xcode is a very big

01:48:09   app and it is very complicated and it's it just has an enormous amount of responsibilities and I

01:48:17   think that they just sort of blindly you know figure out you know well here's how I do it x y

01:48:23   and z but they don't they never absorb the y why is it why is the source list on the left why do you

01:48:29   use triangles to disclose the contents of a folder. They just absorb it. Yeah,

01:48:35   they don't absorb it. They just sort of it just is there and they never really

01:48:39   learned to speak idiomatic Mac. I so 1000% agree and I'll give you an example.

01:48:45   I don't if you've ever used the product from the company called Euro but we're

01:48:48   in your a family at my house and I I stand hero if for no other reason than

01:48:54   their app which has just gotten a big update is it's continually such a joy to

01:48:58   to use to me, to me. And like the way that they introduce features and like I was

01:49:03   saying to somebody like the most amazing thing we got a new printer and I thought

01:49:06   oh man it's gonna be such a pain I'm gonna need to get this thing a port

01:49:09   reservation. There goes my day. No a hundred percent so like I'm looking at

01:49:14   all this HP documentation which is lush and lavish it's just that there's 16

01:49:19   different corporate names for printing somewhere that's not connected to

01:49:23   Ethernet. Oh, you're gonna want HP, HP Jet Wi-Fi, and it's just maddening.

01:49:30   And I went in, I opened up Eero, and I went to Advanced Settings, and I clicked,

01:49:34   and it said, "Hey, hey buddy, hey buddy, hey buddy, do you want to give this a,

01:49:39   do you want to give this a reservation?" I'm like, "Uh, yeah, do I need to enter in the Mac address or

01:49:45   anything?" I'm like, "Oh no, don't worry buddy, just click here. Hey listen, while you're here, all you

01:49:49   All you gotta do is put some TCP and UDP stuff in these little fields, and now you not only

01:49:54   get that reservation, but I'll go ahead and forward the ports there for you, buddy.

01:49:58   That's all you've gotta do.

01:49:59   Now, okay, if somebody goes and uses that app and they go, "Okay, well, that didn't

01:50:02   suck as much as I thought," go and use almost any other app that does stuff like that.

01:50:07   I get my back on this, and it will be the most frustrating mismatch.

01:50:11   This is even before we get into the whole, like, things don't line up with horizontal

01:50:16   or where you get to like, this is like so many smart home dinguses come with the

01:50:21   craziest goddamn app you've ever used in your site. It looks like it was made in

01:50:26   Kai's power tools and swing. And you're like, what, what, why, why does it look

01:50:31   like this? Why does it work like this? Well, I don't know. Genesequoi. Somebody

01:50:36   at, with the team at Eero, whoever is putting those apps together, in my

01:50:39   opinion, they get that vernacular. And even when it's not the most standard

01:50:43   looking like it doesn't look like the settings area on your phone is a perfect

01:50:47   joy to use. And what I'm trying to get at is this, John.

01:50:50   There's a thing that happens sometimes where I'm compelled to not only use an

01:50:55   app or device or service, but to love that app or device or service or what it

01:51:00   can do. Right. But you ever get the feeling that the people who made this

01:51:06   don't love it? You ever get the feeling that the people like, and I'm gonna say

01:51:10   I'm gonna say one thing that's a little bit of a slam and I apologize. I doubt there are many people at

01:51:15   the company in Cupertino

01:51:18   who use their Apple TV as much or in the way that I do

01:51:23   because those people are extremely talented and if they

01:51:27   Used the Apple TV as much as I if the people on the team at the Hulu app at the Hulu company

01:51:33   Used Hulu as much as I would they would throw their television out the window and take a lift to the office

01:51:39   office and not leave until they'd fixed horizontal scrolling. Nobody there is using this as much

01:51:46   as I am. When I use the Eero app, I would not be surprised at all to know that there's

01:51:50   somebody who's not just testing, not just QA, not just unit tests, there's somebody

01:51:54   who is clicking with their goddamn sausage meat fingers on this screen as much as I do

01:52:00   and getting it perfect. And you feel it in your bones. It's called idiomatic, call it

01:52:06   vernacular, call it good taste, whatever it is, there's just times where you're like,

01:52:09   You don't love this as much as I do and it shows.

01:52:11   - Yeah.

01:52:13   And I kind of feel like to tie this up,

01:52:15   I kind of feel like there are now people at Apple

01:52:18   who don't love the Mac the way I love the Mac.

01:52:21   - You said it, I didn't say that you said that.

01:52:23   - Well, I kind of think there's something there

01:52:25   and there's clearly still a lot of--

01:52:26   - You gotta keep it around because that's how we make apps.

01:52:29   We gotta keep this thing rolling.

01:52:31   - Clearly a lot of people who still do,

01:52:33   I think Apple still make,

01:52:36   some of their apps are still really, really good.

01:52:38   I think Safari is a wonderful--

01:52:40   Safari's extraordinary.

01:52:42   Safari, especially on iPad, it's a first ballot Hall of Fame

01:52:47   app.

01:52:48   But I think Safari for Mac is such a great Mac browser.

01:52:51   And it's really the only Mac browser.

01:52:53   I know there are other browsers that run on the Mac,

01:52:57   but they're not Mac style.

01:52:58   Firefox is very, very--

01:53:01   Chrome is out of my life, except in the most extreme

01:53:03   circumstances, for the reason some people understand.

01:53:08   That's a perfect example though of what I'm talking about. Like it bothers me.

01:53:12   It bothers me so much that like Firefox and Chrome and all the,

01:53:15   we think about the square tabs, like the square tabs,

01:53:17   there's 90 degree edges. You like me? To me, it's the preferences.

01:53:21   It's you go to preferences and the preferences,

01:53:23   instead of being an actual proper preferences window, it's, it's a magical,

01:53:27   it's a magical webpage.

01:53:29   John click on Skype and please click command comma. No, I can't. I can't.

01:53:34   No, do it. John. John, tell me, go, go find what some,

01:53:38   Go find what my handle is. Can you find what my handle is? No, do you want to send card John?

01:53:41   Do you want to add funds John? What do you want to do? What do you want to do buddy?

01:53:44   Well, what's your location when I'm podcasting? I'm afraid to touch anything in Skype because I don't know

01:53:50   This app it's so freakin funny to me when you this app is like they hate us

01:53:56   So much and then they put an ad in well, if you click here, I'll hide this ad for 24 hours. Okay

01:54:03   Thank you, but if you really like this app this app hates me whoever made this app hates me

01:54:09   So much and they hate that I'm using this for something like a job. They hate me. I use Skype just for podcasting

01:54:16   I don't use it socially, you know, really like FaceTime type stuff

01:54:19   But have you ever looked at the iOS version of the the Skype app?

01:54:23   It makes so no while it makes so much more sense

01:54:25   Than the Mac version because it's less weird that would certainly explain why these this card like

01:54:32   Interfaces the way it is on a Mac, right? If you're using the same kind of design

01:54:36   vocabulary

01:54:38   It's just so much more

01:54:40   Natural even Chrome and like Chrome for iOS like when you use the Chrome app on your iPhone or something

01:54:46   It feels much more like a real iOS app than the Mac version of Chrome does

01:54:52   Is it Occam's razor to say that's just pure resources that your best people and the most resources go to the platform

01:54:58   Yeah, and I just start you start with this platform and that's where maybe that's where you're I don't know

01:55:04   What word am I trying to look for here? Like the way you've got that the way that I've everything on Android looks so the design

01:55:09   Language, right? I I don't know

01:55:12   I I just think that it's a

01:55:14   generational thing and that for an awful lot of people that they just use a Mac or Windows in the way that they use a

01:55:20   Web browser and it's it's fine, you know having all of your settings in one big scrolling web page. That's fine

01:55:27   Yeah, yeah, I mean this is even before we get into the Ben Thompson stuff. I love hearing Ben Thompson

01:55:30   He's so gosh dang smart

01:55:32   Here you talk about that app that everybody in China uses and how it really doesn't matter what phone you run it on and like

01:55:37   It's it's purely it would be like having a strong opinion about the counter at a dry cleaning place

01:55:42   What now that's just where I go to like exchange my my coin or whatever that's where I go

01:55:48   You know to order order dinner or whatever

01:55:51   It's it's a purely functional the same way that my kid uses a Chromebook you up. She has a Chromebook

01:55:56   Jonna kills me. She loves the Chromebook. She spends all her time watching TikToks on the phone,

01:56:02   or she's playing Minecraft on the iPad. If she has to do anything for school,

01:56:04   she cracks open the Chromebook, and she's in those Google Apps.

01:56:07   Which Google Apps run like homemade dog crap on iOS? Have you recently tried to use one of my

01:56:15   favorite web apps, Google Sheets? Have you tried to use Google Sheets lately on an iPhone?

01:56:20   No.

01:56:20   Oh, it's brutal.

01:56:21   I don't use Google Sheets.

01:56:25   I've never had a good experience with the Google apps on iOS devices.

01:56:30   Never.

01:56:30   You could say it really is pretty bad.

01:56:34   And so the one of one thing in Google's design language that drives me nuts is the triple dots.

01:56:40   Like if you go into the like the assistant, I think it's called Google home maybe or Google assistant.

01:56:44   There's the triple dust.

01:56:45   Now I gotta say the their home hub is wonderful.

01:56:49   The home hub is tremendous and we see pictures every day that are just delightful.

01:56:54   You go in and again, but they're leveraging what they're good at with that device.

01:56:58   They're good with mobile devices or that is to say non-desktop devices, and they're really good with the services.

01:57:05   So I don't need to enter in the same way that if I have to go in that goddamn Google Home app because of my Google dinguses,

01:57:11   it is so maddening to me. I'm back to the HP Office jet and the multiple, multiple, multiple, multiple levels.

01:57:17   Plus, there's always the same dots in the corner with always exactly the two same things.

01:57:22   It's just like sometimes you think you're gonna click on a hamburger and it's a hamburger

01:57:27   and then other times it turns out it's like a bowl of palmolive.

01:57:30   What is happening in here? What is this? And the first time that I opened up that

01:57:35   goddamn Twitter app, no sorry,

01:57:37   better, better still, the first time that I opened home

01:57:40   on my laptop and I was like

01:57:44   what in the name of sweet tap dancing Christ is this?

01:57:48   You're telling me there's a pull down menu to move between rooms?

01:57:51   really knows and it was like it was so like

01:57:54   who thought this was good who loves this

01:57:59   who gets up in the morning goes by but I bought a bubble I'm so pumped

01:58:03   to go change my hue lights on my laptop with this app the thing that still gets

01:58:07   me about the home app is the way that when you set

01:58:09   date you get the the scrolling

01:58:13   you know the that we'll you know I don't know what you call it the date picker

01:58:16   although I was a picker

01:58:18   Yeah, yeah the thing that you can spin like a wheel like you're on yeah, which makes 100% sense on reminders for iOS

01:58:25   It doesn't make it doesn't make those aren't fields John. Those aren't fields. You got a click click the clicker click it

01:58:32   Well anyway, are you gonna accept this assignment? Are you gonna punt? You don't even have to do it this week

01:58:37   No, but will you will you have somebody look into this for me, please? I will tell me what it means

01:58:41   I will it's really all I ask

01:58:43   Don't don't sleep on those slippers buddy get more boy still can oh, yeah, I'm on it

01:58:48   I'll send you a receipt appreciate that I'll prove it Merlin

01:58:51   It's always a pleasure to have you on the show you always keep me on my toes always

01:58:55   interesting conversation

01:58:57   Think of me as being your your friend in a personal sport mode yeah

01:59:02   So what do you want to pimp you already mentioned back to work the show you do nothing please stop, please?

01:59:06   I'm 53 I have a bearded dragon. Please just don't notice me. Yeah, well. I have a lot

01:59:11   I have a lot of problem. I gotta mention the the Dubai Friday Dubai Friday. Oh you've heard that is a fun show

01:59:17   I can't keep up. There's too many podcasts in the world, but I do enjoy whenever whenever I do listen to it

01:59:22   I enjoy it tremendously. Well, it's it's all in in great part to the team at Dubai Friday, which is

01:59:28   my pal Alex Cox and my pal max temp kin our editor Quinn our

01:59:33   our engineer Cameron

01:59:37   And it's a really great team and it's a lot of fun to do and it's it's really so important though that you're not actually

01:59:42   listen to the show. If you do, please get closed back headphones and move away

01:59:46   from your family. It's so important. It's so very important. You might even have it

01:59:50   appear on screen. Even the titles were burning. It's eye crimes that will burn

01:59:54   your children's eyes. But it's at DudeByFriday.com. Please remember to like and

01:59:58   subscribe. I will thank our sponsors for the show. Today's sponsors were

02:00:03   Squarespace, where you can build all-in-one, build your own website.

02:00:08   Linode a web server hosting company where you can host your own servers and

02:00:15   stuff like that it just nerd out as a system administrator type level of

02:00:20   hosting and third and absolutely not least the tech meme ride home podcast

02:00:28   which is a great list in 15 to 20 minutes every single afternoon with the

02:00:33   with the highlights of today's tech news. Merlin, I will talk to you soon. I hope.

02:00:38   Thanks, buddy. It's always a thrill. All right.

02:00:41   Goddamn it. It makes me so mad. It makes me so goddamn mad when I'm like using an app and you're

02:00:51   like, I mean, like you remember the days when anytime you bought fucking anything into the

02:00:55   2000s. It came with a CD. We talked about this. It came with a CD. You got to install the drivers.

02:01:00   You got to install the busted ass app and you're just like this is insane. This is like a play about software

02:01:06   I didn't none of this makes fucking any sense and when you run into that and you're like who thought this was good

02:01:11   Okay, I'm gonna eat now

02:01:14   Why did why did you do the buttons and Kai's power tools? Oh my god

02:01:20   So big they're so big and curvy so shiny at some point within the company

02:01:26   You just know there was a meeting where somehow

02:01:29   They decided that the problem with the app was that the buttons didn't look nice enough who made