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208: ‘Disgusting Inception’ With John Moltz

 

00:00:00   Well, this is gonna be a good one because I've been sick all week

00:00:02   So I'm gonna sound great ladies and gentlemen, my guest this week is Matt Lauer

00:00:07   formerly

00:00:09   Let me close let me close the door click

00:00:13   I

00:00:17   Can't help but laugh and I know it's that the issue is is not not yeah, it's not funny

00:00:28   But if you can't laugh at it, I mean, I think it's a good thing we're going on and I think it's so fascinating

00:00:33   the way that

00:00:35   This can go on for you know things that we can agree have not been

00:00:39   if you describe these actions like

00:00:42   for example inviting um

00:00:45   a

00:00:47   Man inviting a female colleague into his office where he then pulls his pants down exposing his penis

00:00:55   And I think that would be enough right there. Well you you could think you I think we could have won instance

00:01:00   I think we could agree that that that has never been appropriate right that now

00:01:06   100 years ago that would be inappropriate and it would be inappropriate 10 years ago 20 years ago. It was inappropriate yesterday. I

00:01:13   Think it's so interesting

00:01:16   The way that that and it really seems like it was triggered by this Harvey Weinstein

00:01:24   Outing in in the New York Times where you know, all these women came out against this guy who isn't even that well-known

00:01:32   You know, he's sort of a I mean as well-known

00:01:34   But it's sort of like that will not like Matt Lauer or or the or the president of the United States, right?

00:01:40   Right, I mean Matt Lauer literally is is one of the most you know, it's the nature of being a

00:01:48   mega TV

00:01:51   Star that you'd want to you know, his job title or his job effectively was being one of the most famous people in the country

00:01:58   I mean, that's really literally what he was

00:02:00   Yeah

00:02:01   but that it all of a sudden this behavior that everybody in a Greek can agree is is

00:02:06   unacceptable

00:02:10   But was you know

00:02:12   Kept under wraps for so long that all of it once like the dam just breaks and it all just comes out at once

00:02:18   it's just fascinating to me the way that this is unfolding.

00:02:22   Ben: Yeah, it's, well, I mean, snowballed. I mean, it's not really the right metaphor, but

00:02:29   the floodgates have opened and everybody's talking about it.

00:02:33   Trevor Burrus Yeah, all it takes. It's like one, you know,

00:02:36   it really is like, you know, the analogy to a dam breaking, I guess, is exactly right. Like, once

00:02:43   a little fissure happens, the whole thing just collapses.

00:02:47   Right? It's very bizarre. I do feel and I'll say this, you know, for me personally,

00:02:56   it's I just stand back and watch. I mean, I've linked to some of it. I don't even know how much

00:03:02   of it to to publicize myself, but I there is a certain to me a deep satisfaction in watching

00:03:13   these people who've done these took these men let's just face it it's all

00:03:16   men who've done these terrible things be humiliated in public it is you know I

00:03:22   get yes you know and and mm-hmm but some blues they're loose their livelihoods

00:03:29   really I mean I mean you're a guy like like Kevin Spacey I mean I was thinking

00:03:35   about this today like what does he do after this I mean he's pretty much you

00:03:40   he's been booted from everything that he was involved in currently and it seems like,

00:03:45   I mean, maybe he just appears in Woody Allen movies after this. I don't know.

00:03:49   I don't know. It is interesting. I mean, what does Matt Lauer do?

00:03:54   They all go and join their own club and...

00:03:58   I don't know.

00:04:01   He's got plenty of money, so he could probably just not work and still live comfortably.

00:04:10   I would imagine. I don't know why. I mean, maybe unless he's pissed it all away already, but

00:04:13   you'd think, I mean, all these guys who have been accused of this stuff are independently

00:04:19   wealthy anyway. So I'm not, I'm not shedding any tears from them. I just wonder what,

00:04:23   what happens in this instance. I don't know. You know, and, and again, you know, the money isn't,

00:04:32   hopefully is, you would think isn't an issue like Matt Lauer by what I read was making $25 million a

00:04:38   a year as the host of the Today show. So I don't think that, right, presumably he wasn't,

00:04:43   he wasn't spending it all as he went. Right. But pretty hard. But I don't feel, you know,

00:04:51   like if money was all that mattered, he would have quit. You know, he would have already

00:04:54   quit. You know what I mean? Like doing the show was being that lower was, was the, you

00:05:00   know, and you can see it with Bill O'Reilly from Fox that he's angling in certain ways,

00:05:05   know, seemingly to try to get back on TV somehow. Yeah. No, I mean, I mean, and that's happened.

00:05:13   That kind of thing has happened in the past. I mean, some of these guys, they do get back,

00:05:17   you know, and I don't know so much about the sexual harassment, but I know that, you know,

00:05:24   people who have certainly people who have said made racist remarks in the past have gotten

00:05:29   released and then, you know, they lay low for a few years and then they come back and

00:05:34   Yeah, but then there's some who never come back. Like, remember Jimmy the Greek?

00:05:37   Yeah. Where's Jimmy now? Jimmy's got to be dead, right?

00:05:44   I do believe Jimmy the Greek is dead. For those who don't know, when we were kids, CBS,

00:05:50   the National Football League, NFC rights were on CBS in the late 70s and the early 80s,

00:05:58   and they had a—before the game started, they'd have a pregame show hosted by Brent Musburger.

00:06:03   forget who else was on Irv Cross Irv Cross was was

00:06:06   Was there and and one of the other people at their roundtable was Jimmy the Greek?

00:06:12   I mean I can I'll put a link in the show nuts to his Wikipedia, but he was literally a

00:06:16   Professional gambler from Las Vegas. Yeah, right, right

00:06:22   I mean it's that's his claim to fame and that was literally like the name like when they put him on screen

00:06:28   It would just say Jimmy the Greek

00:06:32   He would give you like gambling tips for the week's NFL games right there

00:06:37   Yeah, right. It was he was talking odds and stuff basically, right? I mean, right. I mean he was

00:06:43   recommending wagers

00:06:46   It was effectively there for people who were waiting to put in their their bets for the games right at the last minute

00:06:52   You know, what does the Greek say and then anyway, he blew it by by making some racist really terribly racist comments

00:06:59   About black athletes and then they had a fire him and then you know never came back. Yeah. Yeah

00:07:06   It does raise a question. So I'm reading it's comment right now. What did he say?

00:07:11   It's just about like blacks being bred better to be

00:07:21   athletes

00:07:24   Yeah, that's how I would and it's very it's very loaded

00:07:28   It's a lot of talk about the Civil War and yeah

00:07:31   slave trade right but it was and and the defense was something to the effect of it wasn't racist because I'm explaining why

00:07:38   Blacks are superior athletes and it's like dude just

00:07:44   It's like you're

00:07:49   Just stop his last name was Schneider. Yeah Snyder

00:07:54   Did not only think I ever even knew that I don't think so either I guess I did but I never never

00:08:00   Never went into long-term memory. He was just Jimmy the kid a cameo in cannibal run. I

00:08:05   Remember that I do remember that

00:08:08   It's a serious question on this front though

00:08:16   with these

00:08:19   So like with Matt Lauer like the news guys

00:08:21   It's sort of like they're just done because it's like nobody goes back and like watches old episodes of the today show

00:08:27   right, but right right, but with like like a Kevin Spacey or

00:08:31   Louis ck. Mm-hmm, you know that

00:08:38   This does something like that make you less likely to watch a Kevin Spacey movie or to watch a Louis ck stand-up special from years

00:08:47   ago

00:08:49   Yeah, it does me anyway.

00:08:55   And I'm not sure if I have a hard and fast rule about it, but I don't think that I do.

00:09:00   I have a much... and maybe it will come around to that, because I know that I've not...

00:09:09   I certainly wouldn't go to a Woody Allen movie anymore.

00:09:11   I mean, the guy's still making movies somehow, despite all the things that he's been accused

00:09:15   of.

00:09:16   Yeah, and I don't even I can't even I find it hard to enjoy the movies of his that I've

00:09:23   loved in the past.

00:09:27   See which is my sad.

00:09:29   Yeah, I'm afraid I'm a I'm on the other side here. I like I completely disassociate the

00:09:38   work from the artist. And so the real I actually haven't watched Woody Allen a recent you know,

00:09:44   a new Woody Allen movie in a couple of years, but that's mainly because I sort of have,

00:09:49   I don't know, I think he's sort of lost it. You know, like I haven't enjoyed, I haven't

00:09:55   really enjoyed a new Woody Allen movie since the one with Jude Law a couple years ago.

00:10:01   It was like a nice murder mystery, a tennis caper.

00:10:03   Jared

00:10:03   Uh, oh yeah, I didn't see that one. Um, by then I was already, I checked out. So my, okay,

00:10:09   let me, let me clarify my thing because now I'm thinking about it. I'm reminded of what my,

00:10:14   my actual philosophy is. And that is that I don't want them to get any money. Um, that's the

00:10:19   baseline. So I'm not going to pay, I'm not going to go, I'm not going to go to the movies to see it.

00:10:24   And I, you know, don't want to, you know, I'm not going to buy it on iTunes or anything like that.

00:10:29   If I happen to have it lying around that I've already purchased from years ago, I might still watch it. Hmm. I

00:10:36   Understand the prince, but it does it still it still taints my view my enjoyment

00:10:41   Just like, you know seeing what he on on the screen is this kind of gross now?

00:10:47   Yeah, I don't know like and so for example like to have you do you watch would you not watch Roman Polanski movies I

00:10:58   The plants key for those of you who don't know I mean I write

00:11:01   Director of Chinatown and a whole bunch of you know Chinatown's his masterpiece, but at some point in the 70s

00:11:08   Was accused and by all appearances certainly his behavior since

00:11:14   did

00:11:17   Like drug and rape what 13 or 14 year old girl. I think she was 13. I think I was 13

00:11:22   Yeah, well, let's let's just say 13 because let's that you know, it doesn't yeah. Yeah, right

00:11:28   and

00:11:30   You know went on the lam and has you know stayed outside the United States since

00:11:35   You know lived living in France where they couldn't extradite him for years and continued but continued to make movies

00:11:42   Like I I I don't know I feel guilty saying it but I've never had a problem

00:11:48   Watching his movies even though I think that what he did was a terrible crime

00:11:54   But you know the movies there why not watch it, but I totally get your point about well

00:12:00   Me going to buy tickets. Yes, see to see his movies

00:12:03   Puts money in his pocket, you know, I get it. I actually feel guilty admitting it, but I don't have any problem with it

00:12:10   So like with Louis CK Louis CK had a new movie set to come out. It was like it's like done

00:12:14   It's in the can it was like he was like two days before his scandal broke

00:12:18   he was already booked on the Colbert show to promote his new baby and

00:12:24   This thing came out that he had this habit of

00:12:27   You know his mo was he didn't touch women. He would you know and ask them if he could

00:12:33   masturbate in front of them and

00:12:36   And then would just the most well yeah go ahead also like you're also apparently doing it on phone calls. Yeah. Yeah

00:12:44   Without asking yeah a lot of really just weird stuff that I didn't realize was even like a thing

00:12:51   No, but like the company this but like the company Purdue, I don't know, you know the studio

00:13:00   Whatever you want to call it, you know in charge of his movie literally just yanked the movie

00:13:04   You know like a movie that they had paid for

00:13:06   Was was literally like days away from world premiere just sitting there ready to go. So somewhere, you know, there's a

00:13:13   Shelf full of prints of or maybe if it's digital, you know, maybe it's just on a hard drive

00:13:18   But anyway, there's a Louis CK written and directed movie

00:13:21   Ready to go that is not going to be released or I guess maybe that won't be released until

00:13:29   The heat cools off on Louis CK

00:13:32   But I I hate to admit it and a weird thing about this movie is that the written and directed by him?

00:13:37   the movie is about like a guy with yes

00:13:41   Some it's very weird. Yeah, it's about a woody Allen like character played by John Malkovich

00:13:49   who has a thing for young girls and

00:13:51   develops a thing for Louis CK's teenage daughter

00:13:55   Right, or I don't know if she's teenage. Maybe she's you know, 20 or something

00:14:00   I'm very she certainly looks like she's teenaged but from the I would say like college-aged that's describe her as college-aged

00:14:07   Yeah, perhaps

00:14:10   Which is a you almost can't make it up

00:14:13   You know what?

00:14:14   I mean like it's almost like you want to go to the next you almost want to go to the next level and have

00:14:19   somebody write a movie about a guy like Louis ck who made a movie about a guy like Woody Allen who

00:14:27   On the cusp of releasing his movie had his own weird

00:14:30   Inappropriate sexual harassment behavior exposed and couldn't release the movie right you almost want to make a movie about gusting inception, right?

00:14:39   It's Disgusting Inception.

00:14:40   Disgusting Inception.

00:14:41   That could be the name of the movie.

00:14:42   Well, it certainly should be the name of this episode of the podcast.

00:14:47   Yeah, and I think, I mean, you know, if it had been something more benign, just like a buddy

00:14:55   movie or something like that, I wonder if they probably would have still released it. And it's

00:15:02   just the combination of the accusations against him and the subject matter of the movie. Somebody

00:15:08   probably said, "This is not a good idea."

00:15:11   - It's just bizarre, and it makes me wonder--

00:15:14   - Although I guess having him go on tour too, though,

00:15:17   I mean, having him appear on talk shows and things like that

00:15:21   that I think they still would have stopped that.

00:15:25   - I don't know.

00:15:26   I do wonder if the movie had an entirely,

00:15:29   like you said, if it was just a buddy movie,

00:15:31   would they have pulled it?

00:15:32   Is it, how much of the fact that the nature

00:15:35   movie itself played directly into this whole yeah and i don't know like if he's not gonna tour and

00:15:43   people aren't gonna let go right you know they're not gonna do the talk show circuit and stuff like

00:15:47   that or is it worth it to release the movie at all right and maybe if they i wonder if you're

00:15:53   gonna take a bath on it either way might as well look better right because like if you want to

00:15:59   release the movie it's it you need to do that promotion and go on the talk shows etc to

00:16:05   drum up interest in the movie otherwise you're doing a disservice to the movie and to the

00:16:09   investors behind the movie but on the other hand you there's not a single credible show that you

00:16:14   could go on where they're going to want to talk about the movie right yeah right and just the

00:16:21   movie right like you're not going to show up on steven colbert and colbert is just going to be like

00:16:25   like, you know, yeah, let's just forget that thing. No, let's talk about this

00:16:28   great movie. That isn't gonna happen. It's so bizarre. Uh, anyway, the one

00:16:35   thing I have learned and I'm among other things like, and I'm following

00:16:39   this and I am listening to, uh, women talk about it and I am learning, you

00:16:48   know, um, I feel like I'm on the good side of this because there's, I don't

00:16:54   do stuff like that. I mean, I feel like I'm,

00:16:58   for lack of a better term, one of the good ones. Um,

00:17:02   and I'm doing as much listening as opposed to talking as I can about it.

00:17:08   But the one thing, one of the things I've definitely learned is like,

00:17:13   except here we are two white men who are talking about it, but still,

00:17:15   this is very true. I want to note that because very true.

00:17:21   the other in the room, but but like the Harvey Weinstein thing was had a similar thing where

00:17:28   where one of the women was confronted by him back. I was gonna say backstage, but whatever

00:17:34   you call it behind the kitchen of a restaurant that Weinstein was an investor in just the

00:17:40   two of them alone in a hallway and he was physically blocking her from getting past

00:17:44   him to get out and you know just horrible horrible you know terrifying

00:17:50   really a description and that when she rebuffed him he eventually gave up but

00:17:57   his way of you know rather than like physically accosting her raping her he

00:18:03   just turned and in front of her masturbated into a plant like a like a

00:18:12   potted plant in the hallway. And, you know, and then there's the Louis C. K.

00:18:18   stuff and this thing with Matt Lauer. It literally, I apparently like in the

00:18:22   middle of the day, like in his office at NBC, just pulling his pants down in

00:18:26   front of a colleague who he wanted to, you know, have a thing with and, and all

00:18:33   of these things. I'm just, I read these things and I think, I cannot believe

00:18:38   that this is a thing. I didn't know this is a thing. And if you listen to women,

00:18:41   It's like ah yeah, this has been a thing forever like men doing really

00:18:46   Really anything you can imagine with their penises in front of women's the thing is there's a whole dick pic thing

00:18:54   I mean just sending taking a I mean I can't I

00:18:58   Don't think there's anything wrong with mine, but I'm not like

00:19:08   Emailing it to anybody you're DMing it to anybody what?

00:19:11   As has never had to see that has never occurred to me genitals are gross

00:19:17   I

00:19:22   Just didn't know and you know it turns out and you know this is one

00:19:26   You know and I mean I I don't crusade about this stuff

00:19:29   but but

00:19:31   And I know that some people

00:19:33   object to

00:19:35   the

00:19:36   Go not objective, but they just they they start rolling their eyes at the terms like male privilege and stuff like that

00:19:41   But it absolutely exists and and I would define like and then this is for me learning like here is a perfect example of

00:19:49   The male privilege that I've had for 44 years and counting is that I was completely unaware

00:19:56   That it was it's completely

00:19:59   common and every woman

00:20:02   Almost every woman has stories to tell along these lines of men doing weird things with their dicks in front of them

00:20:07   The fact that I didn't know that that was like oh yeah that's happened to everybody common

00:20:14   Mm-hmm. I I did not know and feel like a fool. I actually feel like a fool for not

00:20:20   Yeah, I

00:20:24   Was like that thing with the button it closes door

00:20:28   Remember like the for the few years that I had an office with a door and it in a corporate environment

00:20:33   It was like I I always used to just keep people out like everybody

00:20:38   I wasn't keeping anybody in I closed the door because I didn't want anybody to bother me

00:20:43   That's a Matt Lauer

00:20:45   So the store one of the things with Matt Lauer story was that he had a button installed underneath his desk

00:20:50   Like a like a James Bond villain where he could have this button and it would lock his door remotely close and lock his door

00:20:57   or so I heard from somebody yesterday after I linked to that and just was like, you know,

00:21:04   he had to install that and get permission. I actually heard from somebody, a, a daring

00:21:07   fireball reader who works in some kind of corporate environment who said that that's

00:21:12   actually not that uncommon a request that, uh, like executives who people have their

00:21:19   executives who have their own office and typically leave their door open so that colleagues or

00:21:25   whoever can, can stroll in or, you know, pop their head in the door that when they get like an,

00:21:30   an important confidential phone call, that they can immediately close the door without having to

00:21:36   tell the person on the phone, Hey, hold on one second. I gotta go close the door.

00:21:40   It's an executive perks, those sorts of thing. You know, it's like my office is so nice. The

00:21:46   door closes and locks. Well, well, I, so I, here's the thing about that though. The thing that I get

00:21:51   As I get the close the door button, I don't get the lock the door button

00:21:55   You know what? I mean? Like let's say I work for you

00:21:58   and I know that your office door is often open meaning like, you know, I

00:22:04   Not not unlocked but open and I come by and I see that your door is

00:22:10   Closed now if you certainly if you have like a glass wall and I can see that you're on the phone

00:22:15   There's no way i'm not even going to knock but even if you don't have glass and I can't see

00:22:19   the most I'm going to do is knock, and if I don't hear anything, then I'm not going to open it.

00:22:25   I don't know. I don't see the need for the button.

00:22:28   Jared I think the one thing you're not considering is assistance,

00:22:31   and I've never had one, but viewing people who had assistance, the assistant often feels like,

00:22:40   even if the person's on the phone, I can walk in and deliver them papers or stuff like that,

00:22:43   because often they have to do that. They need something while they're on the phone.

00:22:47   Pete Right.

00:22:47   So I think there's a there are different circumstances where maybe that comes into play but right so anyway bottom line

00:22:53   Maybe it's not that weird that he had a bucket locks to the door, but it's certainly really weird. He chose to use it

00:22:58   Yes, and that's completely wrong. I

00:23:00   Have some terrible news to report. I just I brought with me a bottle of my my home home fizzy SodaStream water

00:23:10   Mm-hmm wet my whistle during the show, you know, because I especially necessary because I've been under the weather

00:23:17   Yeah, well it turns out I never carbonated it. It's flat. That's a

00:23:20   flat water John

00:23:23   And I'm not gonna interrupt the show to go get a bottle of fizzy water

00:23:26   Because I tell you this is where your assistant your assistant would come in and where's Joe where's Jonas?

00:23:33   Go carbonate my water. Yeah

00:23:39   All right, we're gonna get a new soda stream ours ours broke oh, that's a bad one yeah

00:23:46   Yeah.

00:23:47   That happened to me.

00:23:48   So I think Christmas present.

00:23:50   Ooh, that's a good one.

00:23:51   I don't know if they have new technology.

00:23:52   I don't know if they have a new model yet or what.

00:23:55   The thing that I want to do is get the CO2 pumped into the house.

00:23:59   Because I hate dealing with the canisters.

00:24:03   Yeah, I do too.

00:24:05   I thought I was pretty smart.

00:24:07   It's not that.

00:24:08   I mean, like, you go to the grocery store and they swap them out.

00:24:09   It's not really that hard.

00:24:10   But I always feel like I get to the grocery store and I realize I left it in the car and

00:24:13   just, you know.

00:24:15   I do it.

00:24:16   problem. I don't have to drive to do it. I can walk here in the city, but it's like taking a bag

00:24:21   with these three big clanking canisters. It's like, you know, I don't know. I feel very conspicuous

00:24:28   walking down the city with these very loud clanking metal cylinders. And it's not like a backpack,

00:24:35   like a thing that looks like a jet pack. Just fit them right in there and go.

00:24:42   This is probably this you know what Amazon I don't know how you send them back like the key with these canisters for those of

00:24:48   You who don't know the SodaStream is is a product a wonderful wonderful product where you can turn your own tap water into

00:24:55   Carbonated water

00:24:58   And it gives you control over how much carbonation to put in so I I carbonate the hell out of mine like so like

00:25:05   You know like commercial like Sam Pellegrino or whatever. It's it's barely bubbly to me anymore

00:25:10   more but yeah and it's good because you don't throw the canisters away you you

00:25:16   take them back to the store and they take the empty ones and then they sell

00:25:19   you know like it's like Keurig right right it's coffee things yeah right only

00:25:25   thing that you're actually exchanging is empty air for carbon dioxide right

00:25:34   canisters full of carbon dioxide. So that, you know, I feel very, you know, I feel very

00:25:42   good about that. I feel like, you know, there's no guilt involved. But it is a pain in the

00:25:46   butt. I thought I'd be smart. I used to have three and then when they were empty, I would

00:25:50   go and the one time I just bought two more so I'd have five and I somehow thought that

00:25:57   then when I'd have three empties, then I would take them, but I'd still have two that are

00:26:02   full so that I wouldn't have to go the same day. I could do it at my least. You know,

00:26:06   guess what? I go, I go at all five.

00:26:10   Because you know, that's the problem. You know.

00:26:17   And there's also a very sad thing as you're pumping the carbonation. I get it. It doesn't

00:26:21   just like run out. It sort of tapers off. And so like instead of like struggling to

00:26:26   try and get that last little bit out. Right. Like maybe like when a canister is full, it

00:26:31   takes like, I don't know, 10, 10 pumps of the thing, you know, pump, pump, pump,

00:26:35   10 times. And then you got like a nicely carbonated thing. Um,

00:26:39   it squeaks mine, the penguin model. I have squeaks when it's,

00:26:43   when it's ready and they tell you like, you know, one is good to two or three.

00:26:47   Squeaks is very strongly carbonated. I go six or seven squeaks.

00:26:52   But, but what happens when we get, I think we've had this conversation before,

00:26:58   but like, I'm surprised that you're, that the thing hasn't shot off.

00:27:01   I

00:27:03   Saw a thing one time a reader did we talk about this does somebody sent me a thing one time

00:27:09   Because they I they know that I have one of these things and they know I like to over carbonate it where some guy open

00:27:15   up is

00:27:16   He opened it up some piece of it shot up and hit him in the eye

00:27:19   And he really yeah, he was alright like it wasn't I don't think he like lost his vision or anything

00:27:24   But he really looked like he'd been beaten up. I mean I mean it was like a real shiner

00:27:29   You got to be careful. You got to like turn your head away from it

00:27:31   You need a you need a helmet

00:27:34   Yeah

00:27:35   But when it when it runs low

00:27:36   It takes you know instead of like 10 10 pumps to get to the point where it squeaks

00:27:40   It might take like 15 or 16 and you're and you can feel there's less resistance

00:27:45   And when it's your last canister in the house, that's just like the worst feeling. Oh

00:27:50   Mm-hmm. It's just terrible

00:27:53   Good show folks so far

00:27:58   (laughing)

00:27:59   - Not a sponsor, Reid.

00:28:00   - Well, we could fix that.

00:28:02   - Sounds like it might be, but it's not.

00:28:04   They should be advertising.

00:28:05   (laughing)

00:28:10   - We could take a break.

00:28:13   I should take a break right here

00:28:14   and thank our good friends at Squarespace.

00:28:16   Look, if you need to make a website,

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00:29:19   And if you want to drag pieces around to rearrange it or drag something to take it off so that,

00:29:23   you know, maybe there's like a thing in the sidebar that has your Twitter feed or,

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00:29:29   You just get rid of it right there in the thing you're looking at. Uh,

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00:29:37   You're modifying the website in the web browser as you look at it because you're

00:29:41   logged in to your Squarespace account. It's, it's super, super easy. Um,

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00:30:20   and remember this code talk show at checkout and you will get 10% off your first purchase.

00:30:28   My thanks to Squarespace for their continued support of the talk show. How about this root

00:30:35   login bug this week? Yeah. How about that? I don't know how that happens. What a bizarre

00:30:42   story. It's just, it really, when I first saw it, I was like, "Well, that can't

00:30:49   be."

00:30:50   Right. Yeah.

00:30:52   And people, when it first broke, people were confused because they were like, "You may

00:30:57   need to hit the button a few times." And I'm like, "That doesn't make any sense.

00:31:02   Why would you have to, why would it work if you hit the button a few times?" And then

00:31:05   the more we learn about it, it makes sense. I mean, it still seems crazy, but the reason

00:31:09   you had to, it wasn't a few times, it was two. The basic gist of the bug was,

00:31:16   so it was, it was categorically to, yeah, cause it was, okay. The basic gist of the

00:31:21   bug wasn't that you could log in as root with an empty password.

00:31:25   The gist was that if you tried to log in as root with an empty password, it would

00:31:31   create or, or enabled the root account

00:31:34   on the first attempt. Because the way that it,

00:31:39   it checks it. It was like the logic, this is my,

00:31:44   the register had a good story about, about the,

00:31:47   somebody tracking this pseudo code, like somebody who went into the debugger.

00:31:51   Yeah. I tried to read that and I couldn't quite understand it.

00:31:54   The gist of it is that when you tried to log in,

00:31:58   it checks something system. Like you say, if your name is Moltz and the password,

00:32:03   it'll say, okay, is there a username Moltz? Here's the password.

00:32:07   they just typed in, let's salt it, you know,

00:32:10   meaning turn it into an obfuscated version of it and compare it to the salted

00:32:14   version of the password that's stored on disc. Do they match? Okay,

00:32:18   log them in. And I,

00:32:22   the part of the gist of it is that you couldn't just create any new account.

00:32:25   It's specific to root, which is this magic con,

00:32:28   the root user is a magic concept in Unix and it's so dangerous and so

00:32:32   unnecessary for a consumer to know anything about that. I,

00:32:36   I think for as long as I can remember on Mac OS 10 by default, the root user is not even enabled,

00:32:42   but there it's, it's there though. It's not exactly, it's not the same thing as not existing.

00:32:47   It's that the root user isn't enabled. And the bug was if you tried logging in as root,

00:32:52   it would enable the account to check the password. And it wouldn't, that it wouldn't get you in

00:33:00   because it wasn't enabled previously. But then the second time you tried like immediately afterwards,

00:33:05   it would let you in because the root user had been enabled by the first attempt to do it.

00:33:10   And when it was enabled, it was enabled with the empty string password.

00:33:14   Ben de la Torre

00:33:16   Empty string password.

00:33:17   Michael Green

00:33:18   Which is not absolutely positively not. Now, the good news is it effectively, for most users,

00:33:28   required physical access to the machine to take advantage of because

00:33:33   Every the ways that you could do use it remotely like through remote login and I

00:33:40   Forget what other things you could turn on but if you haven't liked the feature turned on where you can SSH into your Mac

00:33:46   You know, you could be vulnerable to it by anybody who tried it over the network

00:33:52   right

00:33:54   But those things aren't on by default. So that's the good news

00:33:57   - Yeah.

00:33:59   Screen sharing is not on by default, right?

00:34:01   - No, none of that's on by default.

00:34:03   - Yeah, yeah.

00:34:04   - VNC, I know that over VNC, you could,

00:34:09   that's the, what's that virtual network computing,

00:34:11   when VNC is screen sharing, I think that's the same thing.

00:34:16   I think when you turn on screen sharing,

00:34:18   it's actually on behind the scenes, it's the VNC protocol.

00:34:21   So if you have that turned on,

00:34:23   you were vulnerable to it by somebody

00:34:25   who could reach your machine over the network by VNC.

00:34:27   so I'm not trying to downplay it.

00:34:29   I mean, and it's an officially supported feature

00:34:31   of Mac OS X that you're allowed to turn on,

00:34:33   so it's not like your fault if you're using it.

00:34:36   I'm just saying, in terms of how catastrophically bad

00:34:39   this could have been, it wasn't something

00:34:40   that most people had on by default.

00:34:42   But still, it's...

00:34:46   (laughs)

00:34:47   - Yeah, and it's a bigger, even though you have

00:34:50   to have physical access, physical access is a lot easier

00:34:52   in certain environments.

00:34:54   Like, for you and me, it's not that big a deal,

00:34:56   the only people who have physical access to our machines are people in our family.

00:34:59   But if you work at a school or a company where the machines are just sitting there on desks,

00:35:07   particularly a school, I would think kids have kids. I know that if Hank had learned of this

00:35:14   thing and he was in a school that had Max, he would have been all over them.

00:35:18   Darrell Bock I would have. And when I was in school,

00:35:20   I would have. I absolutely would have. I mean, well, here's – I got an interesting email last

00:35:25   night from a reader and and it's a definite blind spot for me because I

00:35:33   don't work I in fact have never worked at an environment where my work machine

00:35:38   was locked down actually I did I had like a consulting a few consulting jobs

00:35:43   like temporary ones that lasted weeks when I used to do stuff like that but

00:35:48   any job that I've had for a significant amount of time I've just had like a

00:35:52   regular Mac that isn't under any kind of IT controller or something like that.

00:35:58   And I certainly don't at the Darren Fireball company. But I got an email from a DF reader,

00:36:09   you know, who I was, I was like, but you know, it seems as though nobody, you know,

00:36:11   as far as we could tell, it just hasn't really been widely exploded, exploited. And he said he

00:36:17   works in it at a large company, mostly windows, but they have a fair number of Macs. And this is,

00:36:22   you know, terrifying because, and I really just said this, this is just a blind spot for me. It's

00:36:27   not that they were worried about like attackers attacking their computer. It's, it's what about

00:36:31   the employees who aren't supposed to have administrator access on their Macs, who found

00:36:35   out about this bug and took control of it and gave themselves admin access. Like you could use this

00:36:41   bug to create the root user, log in as root, turn your user account into an admin account.

00:36:49   And then even when the bug fix came out, your account is still admin. It's not really an

00:36:57   attacker taking advantage of it. It's like the user themselves taking advantage of it to

00:37:01   circumvent the IT department's rules. Same thing in a school, right? I mean,

00:37:06   it's the exact same thing you can imagine happening in a school is in a workplace.

00:37:10   And that just hadn't occurred to me. It's just a total blind spot for me. And I can totally see

00:37:13   how that's sort of a, I wouldn't say nightmare scenario, but it's a huge problem because I don't

00:37:19   don't even know. I like do the tools that I IT sys admins have. I just don't even

00:37:27   imagine that they have like a tool to check hey this it's check all thousand

00:37:31   Mac users in our company make sure nobody accidentally became an admin.

00:37:36   Maybe? I don't I've never used I've never used those but I wouldn't be

00:37:40   surprised if they are able to cheat to change that though. Yeah they might but I

00:37:44   I guess but I don't know if they could do it in an automated fashion like you

00:37:48   have to go through you know a machine by machine.

00:37:52   - Well yeah I don't know I mean.

00:37:54   - 'Cause it just seems like.

00:37:55   - There's probably a window I mean there's probably

00:37:57   a window that lists like users across machines.

00:38:00   I would imagine they can probably,

00:38:02   there's gotta be an audit.

00:38:04   'Cause they probably need to audit that.

00:38:06   - Right.

00:38:06   - For like Sarbanes-Oxley and stuff like that.

00:38:08   So there must be.

00:38:09   I've just never used those tools on.

00:38:12   - I guess but it's just.

00:38:13   - On a Mac.

00:38:17   I guess it's just--

00:38:19   - But it's a pain in the ass.

00:38:19   And I mean, in the meantime before,

00:38:21   I mean, Apple was, you know, once it was,

00:38:24   well, at least once we all knew about it,

00:38:26   they were pretty quick in fixing it.

00:38:29   - Right.

00:38:30   - But I think in the, even that interim, like 24 hours,

00:38:34   if you were a sysadmin someplace

00:38:36   and had a whole bunch of Macs that you were in charge of,

00:38:39   you probably wanted to try and go around

00:38:40   and set that password and you had to do it on every machine.

00:38:44   - Yeah.

00:38:45   Yeah, the temporary worker--

00:38:47   I'm not sure if you could do, I mean, you might be able to, eh, I mean,

00:38:50   you could, yeah, I mean, you kind of, well, I guess you could VNC in.

00:38:52   I guess you'd have to do every machine individually.

00:38:58   There was nothing you could push out to every device automatically.

00:39:03   Right.

00:39:04   The workaround in between when it became publicized and when Apple issued the

00:39:09   fix at 8 AM Pacific the next day,

00:39:13   which truly was as a remarkable turnaround time. I saw people on Twitter,

00:39:17   I mean you'll see people complaining about anything

00:39:19   I mean, there's nothing that that people won't throw a fit about but I mean

00:39:23   I literally saw people who thought that it was shameful

00:39:27   Like I swear to God somebody asking, you know saying why aren't why is why isn't Craig Federighi?

00:39:33   Issuing a letter of apology. Why hasn't he resigned or been fired because it took 20 hours to fix, you know, like I

00:39:40   Honestly, I mean the only thing the only thing that I mean they did you notice this as well

00:39:45   I saw, but this had come up on Apple's forums weeks ago. And I don't know. I mean, it's easy

00:39:55   for stuff to get posted in the forums and Apple not actually see it, or at least somebody high

00:40:00   up enough to know that something needs to be done about it. Recognize the bug and diagnose it and

00:40:08   say, "Oh my God, that's really bad, and we need to do something about it immediately." So it might

00:40:14   not have gotten—it's understandable that it might not have gotten noticed that way,

00:40:17   but it's also unclear as to whether or not anybody who was in that thread filed a bug

00:40:23   report.

00:40:24   Darrell Bock I don't think they did. It just seemed—that

00:40:27   whole—I linked to that thread yesterday because it was so bizarre that—because the

00:40:32   person who reported it two weeks ago—here, I've got it here. It was, you know—and

00:40:42   You know the Apple forums everybody has like a nickname instead of a real name. So his name was

00:40:47   Chethin

00:40:50   177 I can't can you believe I

00:40:52   Chethin 176 was taken

00:40:54   But he's I guess it's a he I'm assuming it's a he

00:41:01   I'll just say they but they

00:41:05   They do not seem like an advanced user and it does not they don't seem like they're being cool

00:41:11   There really doesn't seem if you read the the reports it

00:41:15   It doesn't seem like they're being coy about it at all like trying to you know

00:41:20   Play coy and and put this, you know release this

00:41:23   Truly significant exploit into the wild they were just genuinely trying to help somebody who had the problem where when they upgraded to High Sierra

00:41:32   their

00:41:33   admin account

00:41:35   Had been turned into a lot of it or so. Yeah, they got no they got turned into a non admin account

00:41:40   Oh, okay leaving their machine with no admin account. No admin and

00:41:45   So anything you'd need to do on the system where it asks for admin authentication they couldn't do

00:41:51   There is a way to fix it

00:41:53   It's in the thread and it was issued months ago where you log in and the single user mode when you hold command s as

00:41:59   the Mac starts up and

00:42:01   There's some you know

00:42:04   you know command-line incarnation you can do to to create an admin account or

00:42:08   bless an account as an admin account from there and then restart and it fixes it but

00:42:14   This guy posted well, you could just use this root empty password trick and

00:42:20   Then go, you know

00:42:22   Once you're logged in as root turn the guy into turn an account into an admin account or create a new admin account

00:42:29   Restart log into that new admin account use that admin account to turn your old account back into an admin account and then delete the admin

00:42:35   Account you temporarily created blah blah blah, but how and then his explanation and then you know

00:42:40   This was there for two weeks and then all of a sudden

00:42:42   After this came out on Twitter it it became publicized again this two-week old version because the the guy who reported

00:42:54   You know who?

00:42:56   made this a

00:42:57   Explosive post on Twitter that brought this to light said that you know

00:43:01   they you know he and his colleagues had found this a few this whole a few days ago and

00:43:06   Even they when they googled around found this two-week old Apple support thing

00:43:10   So people chime back in and they're like hey, dude, you have to tell us

00:43:13   How'd you find out about this and he it really does seem genuine his answer was yeah

00:43:18   I don't know. I was you know googling around and I found I found it on a four found it someplace

00:43:23   You know, you can't remember where but he can't remember where and I of course tried searching too

00:43:28   But everything you tried searching for yesterday was all you know hours old stuff. There's right. There's absolutely

00:43:34   You know, no way to find it. Can't get past it. Yeah, right, right, which is the problem with their foot, right?

00:43:41   But it really does make you wonder, you know

00:43:43   What that forum was and whether it was you know?

00:43:46   As harmless as this guy's intentions were or whether it was you know something where it was being kept

00:43:53   you know, trying to be kept under wraps to be used maliciously.

00:43:58   And so I get after, so I changed the password when I found out about it as soon as I could.

00:44:04   And then now we have the patch, which I updated manually, but now has been pushed out automatically.

00:44:12   And so that's another thing that caused some confusion too.

00:44:15   Right. Because I got it twice, right?

00:44:18   Yeah, people got it twice, but also I think a lot of people were seemingly surprised that they could

00:44:25   do that, that they could push it out automatically. Even though it's not new. Which I didn't really

00:44:34   know that it wasn't-- I couldn't remember. I mean, I think I learned about this previously,

00:44:38   but I think it's something that goes back to like 2014 or something.

00:44:40   Yeah, well that was the last time, or the only other time it was used. When I wrote about the

00:44:46   fix being out, I said, what did I say here? I'm doing Fireball. To my memory, this is

00:44:53   only the second time Apple has used Mac OS's automatic, that is to say, non-optional update

00:44:58   mechanism. The other was the NTP security update in 2014. And I, after writing that,

00:45:07   got confirmation from somebody at Apple who said, "Yeah, this is only the second time

00:45:11   we've used this. And it's weird because it gave, you know, like you said, it gave

00:45:16   some people the heebie jeebies that Apple even has that ability. And I get it. I get

00:45:22   why you might, you know, you might have the heebie jeebies over it. But…

00:45:27   I would think that in this instance, it's definitely warranted.

00:45:32   Right. I mean, it's, there's a certain point where you really do have to, it's

00:45:37   The nature of being in the Apple ecosystem

00:45:42   is at a certain level you have to trust Apple, right?

00:45:45   This is not an open source operating system that--

00:45:50   - Yeah.

00:45:51   - That you could assume,

00:45:56   that you cede all control from Apple over.

00:46:00   I get it. - Yeah.

00:46:01   - And I get that in the old days,

00:46:04   That it was, it's sort of a,

00:46:06   it wasn't like a black and white switch.

00:46:09   It's like it went from, you know,

00:46:12   in 1984 when you bought a Mac, you know what I mean?

00:46:15   It never had contact from Apple again.

00:46:18   Like the only way you'd get any kind of update

00:46:20   is if you chose to put a new floppy disk into the machine.

00:46:23   - Yeah, right, go buy new floppy disks.

00:46:25   - Right. - Yeah.

00:46:26   I was thinking about that.

00:46:27   I was thinking about that today and yesterday,

00:46:30   but I've got this.

00:46:32   So I have a collection of older Macs, and this Performa 6400.

00:46:37   And a few years ago, I was playing around with it with Hank

00:46:41   and setting him up to play some old games and stuff like that.

00:46:43   And then there was only one user,

00:46:46   and he changed the password while he was playing with it

00:46:49   for a couple hours or something.

00:46:51   He changed the password while I was there.

00:46:52   And then we walked away from it and didn't think about it.

00:46:55   And then a few days later, he wanted to play with it again.

00:46:57   He had forgotten the password, of course.

00:46:59   [LAUGHTER]

00:47:00   And so I was like, I don't know what to do.

00:47:05   I don't know what to do here.

00:47:06   And because there was only that one user account,

00:47:08   and I didn't want to lose everything

00:47:10   that I had on there.

00:47:11   I mean, I could have reinstalled everything,

00:47:12   but I just didn't really want to do that.

00:47:14   And apparently, the trick was I actually--

00:47:19   if you take the hard drive, or you can access it

00:47:22   from another Mac somehow, I ended up actually just taking

00:47:24   the hard drive out and putting it in an enclosure

00:47:27   and booting it up, accessing it, connecting it to another Mac

00:47:30   and going in, but there was a system extension,

00:47:34   and if you just drag the system extension out,

00:47:36   it just restarts in open mode.

00:47:40   - Wait, what version of the system was it?

00:47:42   - There was like, because it was system,

00:47:45   I think it was nine.

00:47:46   - I don't even-- - It was nine one.

00:47:48   - I don't even remember having a login for system nine.

00:47:52   I just thought-- - Yeah, yeah,

00:47:53   they came in like eight or something like that,

00:47:55   I wanna say, but regardless,

00:47:58   the funny thing was just like,

00:47:59   It was just a system extension.

00:48:01   - You couldn't just restart with the shift key down

00:48:04   to get around it?

00:48:05   - No, that didn't work for some reason.

00:48:07   I'm not sure why.

00:48:09   You had to actually drag the thing out of the--

00:48:13   - Huh, like maybe it was--

00:48:14   - No, maybe it was deleting,

00:48:15   or maybe it was deleting a preference file.

00:48:17   I can't remember, now I can't remember.

00:48:19   But I remember that it was,

00:48:20   all I had to do was take the hard drive

00:48:21   and connect it to something else and remove a file,

00:48:23   and then I was able to get in.

00:48:25   (laughing)

00:48:28   That was the level of security you had back then.

00:48:30   - So I get it.

00:48:32   Like if your vision of computing was formed in the era

00:48:35   when you literally have to put a disc in your computer

00:48:38   to get a software update onto it,

00:48:40   I get it.

00:48:43   I get it that it can seem like a violation

00:48:44   that Apple can just force this merely by your computer

00:48:48   being connected to the internet,

00:48:50   can force an update on you.

00:48:51   But I totally get why Apple built that mechanism.

00:48:55   And this is to me a completely appropriate use of it.

00:48:58   - Yeah, I mean, yeah, the fact that they've used it

00:49:00   only for dire security patches and, you know,

00:49:05   I've only used it twice in the last three years.

00:49:08   - Twice in the entire existence of the feature.

00:49:10   I don't even know how long it existed

00:49:13   before they used it the first time in 2014.

00:49:15   That's actually it. - Right, I don't even, yeah.

00:49:17   - So I give Apple a pass on that.

00:49:20   There is the question of how in the world

00:49:23   did this bug ever get past QA testing?

00:49:26   - I think that's the big question, really.

00:49:28   - Right, and I don't know, it's almost,

00:49:32   I would love to hear the backstory of it.

00:49:36   You know, I would love to know more about that,

00:49:38   and I don't expect to hear that from Apple.

00:49:41   - No. - I don't think we'll ever.

00:49:42   - Somebody may leave. (laughs)

00:49:46   - But it's almost so, it's so preposterously stupid

00:49:51   that I can kind of see how, you know,

00:49:55   you know what I mean?

00:49:56   Like, it seems, it's more likely that something like this

00:49:58   would slip through the cracks than something like,

00:50:02   you know, like the empty string getting you

00:50:07   into a regular user account, you know?

00:50:10   Like, the idea that root and an empty password

00:50:13   would get you in is so ridiculous

00:50:15   that I could see why it wasn't even, like,

00:50:17   on a list of things to test for.

00:50:18   You know what I mean?

00:50:21   I suppose. Yeah. And it wasn't, it was,

00:50:26   I don't know. And, and testing, testing is hard. I mean,

00:50:30   having done some testing in the past,

00:50:32   it's hard to think of every single scenario.

00:50:37   However, this should have been one that they, yeah, you would think so. Or,

00:50:42   or I, I would, I still think that the,

00:50:45   I think that the, I,

00:50:50   I think that writing the bug in the first place was more of a crime even though I'm very very

00:50:56   sympathetic to the fact that bugs are inevitable, you know, and

00:51:00   And I I know how the enough about how the sausage is made with making software that it it, you know bugs just happen

00:51:09   right, but when you were

00:51:12   When you're writing code

00:51:16   That affects login and can possibly affect the logging in as an administrator. It's like you need to be like

00:51:23   in a mental model where you're

00:51:26   You're programming so defensively. It's not like programming other features. You know what I mean? Right? It's like, you know

00:51:34   It's really the crime you go to security

00:51:38   when you go to visit the doctor and and

00:51:42   the doctor is you know putting the stethoscope on your back and telling you to breathe and and

00:51:47   You know shining a light inside your ears, you know, you expect them to be careful and be paying attention

00:51:53   but when you're having open-heart surgery and they're like

00:51:57   Actually, oh, you know

00:52:00   performing surgery on your aortic valve

00:52:03   You expect a different level of concentration and precision, right? You know, I mean

00:52:09   You know, I mean you you you want good doctoring when you're in for an ear infection checkup

00:52:16   But

00:52:20   You know writing

00:52:22   Changing something in the code and this is obviously new because it only affected 10.13 high Sierra

00:52:26   It was not a bug in you know, 10 any previous version of Mac OS 10

00:52:31   Apparently so it's new so somebody run in and change something or added something like

00:52:38   When you're in that section of the code

00:52:40   It just seems to me like you should be in heart surgeon mode in terms of your

00:52:46   Concentration and care and your is there any way that I'm that what I'm doing here that this if statement or this else statement

00:52:54   Are there any assumptions I'm making here that are bad assumptions?

00:52:58   Yeah, like I don't know

00:53:00   I just don't see how hey check if you can log in as root with an empty password and to hit the button a couple

00:53:06   times I

00:53:07   Don't see how that would is a reasonable. I mean, I'm sure it's a reasonable test case. I'm sure it's added to the test cases now

00:53:15   Yeah, I just don't know. I really I really just don't I really don't see how that was not caught by QA

00:53:22   I really do. It's the bug in the first place that to me seems so baffling

00:53:27   Yeah, I mean I can see I can see I can see me doing it

00:53:29   Because like I would think I would think for five minutes

00:53:33   I'm gonna change this little thing because it's gonna make it so much easier to test this other thing

00:53:37   and then I forget to go back and change the original, you know, the thing that I did to enable that test

00:53:42   or whatever or make, you know, make a change or something like that. That was when I did SQL stuff and like that was,

00:53:50   I was famous for that.

00:53:52   Oh, I forgot to change that thing.

00:54:00   I don't know what that is why I do not I don't do deep level. That's also it's well, it's why I don't

00:54:04   program anymore. Really. It's also why I don't do people. Right? Yeah.

00:54:10   I you know, in some other universe, maybe I spent my career programming, but I don't I don't think

00:54:17   in any universe was I allowed near the code that lets you log into a system 100 million users.

00:54:27   backed by the most successful company in the world. Yeah, right, right. Who prides itself on its

00:54:33   security. Uh-huh. I mean, at least, you know, it wasn't iOS, which is, I think, limits, I mean,

00:54:45   if we would just look at it from a business perspective for Apple, I'm not trying to,

00:54:50   I'm not trying to whitewash this book because I think it was really bad, but it didn't affect iOS,

00:54:56   And so I you know, if you're a business and you're looking to purchase a bunch of iOS devices or something like that

00:55:02   You could probably still say well, okay

00:55:03   I guess they didn't you know, I don't care about the Mac as much because I'm mostly interested in these other things

00:55:08   Yeah doubt that I just I doubt that it's gonna make that much of a difference in their business

00:55:14   Yeah, I don't think there's any long term. I don't think there's any long term

00:55:19   I mean, I would think you know, like if you if you are in a business and you were looking to buy a bunch of Macs

00:55:22   and

00:55:25   You suddenly had to go up against some sort of committee and suggest buying them right now. I mean you probably get asked something

00:55:32   Well, somebody was the Mac is so big now. I mean I even you know and the it

00:55:41   The trend of you know corporate IT places opening themselves up to the Mac

00:55:48   I mean didn't Walmart just wasn't Walmart just in the news for doing a thing

00:55:52   Like you're doing pretty much the same thing IBM did where if you work for the Walmart, you know

00:55:58   Not like in the store, I guess but you know in the corporation corporate

00:56:01   You get to pick now, you know, you come in and they're like, well what type of computer do you want?

00:56:07   Do you want to think pad or do you want a Mac book?

00:56:09   You could just pick a Mac book and they're officially supported and they expect you know

00:56:13   Thousands tens of thousands even of people to be doing it. The IBM thing is apparently a huge success

00:56:20   Van very popular and and has employees very, you know, please are very happy about it

00:56:25   And so since that's going on and since that's an actual area of growth for the Mac you got it and it's so common

00:56:33   You've got to figure that every week of the year. There's somebody at some company

00:56:38   Who's petitioning hire, you know to make a move like that, right?

00:56:42   Yeah, yeah every week of every year

00:56:45   there's at least you know probably multiple cases of somebody who's gonna stick their neck out and say I think that you know,

00:56:51   I think we should you know

00:56:53   Allow people to I think we should officially support the Mac in our IT environment

00:56:58   Well, imagine being the poor the poor son of a bitch who was doing it this week, right? Right?

00:57:04   Just made a whole bunch of extra work for somebody or

00:57:11   Screwed up screwed up their business their business case again

00:57:14   It really does seem like something out of like if Woody Allen made a movie for nerds really does seem like they're like

00:57:20   Like two days ago like you just put together this big proposal and send it up the chain

00:57:26   You know your company should do the IBM thing and then all of a sudden all of a sudden it hits Twitter that you can

00:57:31   Log into any Mac on the planet with root

00:57:34   empty string

00:57:36   And you're you're the root

00:57:38   (both laughing)

00:57:41   - Oh man.

00:57:45   - You're like desperately trying to unsend an email.

00:57:47   (both laughing)

00:57:50   All right, let me take another break here

00:57:55   and thank our good friends at Audible.

00:57:59   Audible is a leading provider

00:58:00   of premium digital spoken audio information.

00:58:04   It's a bit of a mouthful.

00:58:07   Basically audible is it's it's audio content. It's spoken word audio. Everybody knows they have audible audio books

00:58:13   That's their big claim to fame

00:58:16   But they've got all sorts of stuff they have shows

00:58:20   like

00:58:23   Comedy shows news shows like daily news shows

00:58:26   and of course the books from all sorts of

00:58:30   Publishers everything from novels to business books to the classics

00:58:36   history, romance, mystery, thriller, sci fi, fantasy, you name it. It's like going into

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00:58:51   They've really just got it all. It's it's just there's nothing else like it. membership,

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00:59:13   They've got free apps, audible apps for iPhone, iPad, Android.

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00:59:37   also have what they call the "Great Listen Guarantee," where if you buy something

00:59:40   and don't like it, you can swap it for something else. So you're not stuck if you thought

00:59:44   this was going to be a good book. When I was younger, I used to finish every book I started.

00:59:50   And then I realized how stupid that was. If you're really miserable in a book, why in

00:59:54   the world? I don't know where this idea came from. I spent, I don't know.

00:59:59   I was like, you're gonna slog through this painful experience.

01:00:01   I was like, it probably came from school, right? Because you had to finish the book for school.

01:00:06   I was in my 30s before I gave that up, literally. And I remember what it was,

01:00:10   as I was like in my 30s and I was reading some book and I realized that I was halfway through

01:00:15   this book for like the last two months. And I also have a thing where I don't like to start a second

01:00:19   book until I finish the one I'm on. And I realized I was like, I'm at an impasse where I'm either

01:00:24   They're never gonna read a book again for the rest of my life

01:00:26   Or I'm gonna finish this terrible book

01:00:29   Which had hundreds of pages left or I'm gonna just throw this book in the garbage and I decided to do that and change it

01:00:36   Well anyway with audible you don't have to do that. It's hey, well, don't be stubborn just stop

01:00:40   But you don't have to feel like you wasted your money on it because they have the great listen guarantee

01:00:44   Anyway, it's so great. It's a great service and I've always said it

01:00:50   there are, in my opinion, the ideal sponsor for a podcast because the only people who

01:00:57   are hearing me talk about audible are people who by definition are already into spoken

01:01:02   word audio content. So if you feel like you don't have enough, if you don't have enough

01:01:06   stuff to listen to, if you've got a long commute, if you just like listening to spoken word

01:01:10   stuff while you're doing chores and stuff like that, audible is something you really

01:01:14   ought to check out. They're offering listeners of the show a free audio book with a 30 day

01:01:18   Trial membership just go to audible.com slash talk show and browse the unmatched selection of audio programs

01:01:25   Download a title free and start listening. It's that easy go to audible.com slash talk show and get started today

01:01:32   They also do a thing they ask if you want to recommend a book I would like to

01:01:40   To recommend a book that I'm about halfway through but really really

01:01:48   really, really enjoying. They've got the unabridged version on Audible, and it's

01:01:52   a book by a guy named Tom Nichols, who's a professor at the U.S. War College, and he's

01:01:58   written a book called The Death of Expertise, and it's more or less about—

01:02:02   Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:02:03   It is—

01:02:04   That's been on my wish list for a long time, actually.

01:02:08   It's really good and really satisfying, but I feel like maybe the people who want

01:02:12   to read this book aren't the people who need to read this book.

01:02:16   Of course.

01:02:17   But it's more or less an entire book addressing the notion that somebody who believes, and

01:02:26   a lot of people in America do, that their opinion is as good as your facts in an argument

01:02:32   for the facts, and dismissing experts' opinion as mere opinion when it's an end to death.

01:02:40   Steven: Bunch of eggheads.

01:02:41   Yeah, exactly. And in fact, that word is used several times in the book. I gave the audiobook,

01:02:47   I'm reading the book on a Kindle, but they have the audiobook at Audible and it sounds really good.

01:02:51   I listened to the preview and it sounds terrific. So that's my recommendation. And I feel like

01:02:56   people who like this show would absolutely love this book. You're going to listen to it and you're

01:03:01   going to be nodding your head the whole time like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes." So anyway, that's my

01:03:06   recommendation the death of expertise by Tom Nichols and I ch o l s anything else on the

01:03:16   root login bug. I mean, it's one of the things that's interesting about it is it's just so

01:03:21   simple, right? It's like it's like, okay, it was a terrible bug. Now it's over. But

01:03:27   yeah, it's a quick cycle to like it came out Tuesday afternoon. Yeah. And here it is Thursday

01:03:34   afternoon and it's basically it's well over now.

01:03:38   Yeah. I guess I'm I don't know if I'm a very good podcast host. I do things out of order.

01:03:43   I do have some follow up from previous episodes. I mentioned an app. I forget if it was last

01:03:51   week or when. But it was an app that I knew that I'd heard about from Jason Snell. And

01:03:57   it was a thing for the Mac that would let you control your bandwidth usage like so for

01:04:02   For example, if you're tethering from your phone and your phone has, let's say, only

01:04:06   5 gigabytes a month of bandwidth, you don't want your Mac to use it all up because the

01:04:10   Mac sort of assumes that when it has a Wi-Fi connection, it can just do whatever it wants.

01:04:15   That app is called Trip Mode.

01:04:17   I will put a link in the show notes to it.

01:04:20   It's pretty interesting.

01:04:22   I've since installed it.

01:04:23   It still is kind of hard.

01:04:26   I still feel like even with Trip Mode, the Mac just makes certain assumptions that iOS

01:04:32   doesn't. So when you're on a slurping bandwidth from something that's limited, iOS is better

01:04:39   in so many ways. I was using Trip Mode just to try it out, and I checked email. I swear

01:04:45   to God. And it tells you how much it has a really nice interface. It's like one of those

01:04:50   little menu bar apps, and it'll tell you when you turn it on. It's very easy. You

01:04:55   open it up, and typically it's off, and then when you need it, you just go to the

01:04:58   menu, turn it on, and then while you're turning it on, you can limit which apps get

01:05:04   bandwidth at all, and it tells you how much they use. I checked the email once, and it

01:05:08   used 35 megabytes. But I think that I guess what I should do if I really was going to

01:05:15   to be limiting my bandwidth on my Mac extensively as you go into mail and turn off the preference

01:05:21   to download attachments and images and stuff like that, I guess. But iOS does that automatically

01:05:29   when you're on cellular. At least it does for me. At least the preference is on by default

01:05:33   for me where you have to hit a little button at the top of the email that says "Load

01:05:38   all images" before the images load. But anyway, that's the name of the app. I will

01:05:42   put it in the show notes. The other one when I was almost serenity a couple episodes ago,

01:05:49   I was talking about this weird bug that I ran into where I use the mail VIPs feature

01:05:54   like this. So that you use that feature. I love it where you can set like, yes, set somebody

01:05:59   as a VIP and then set custom notification settings just for VIPs. So the way I get email

01:06:05   notifications is I have them off by default but on for anybody who's in my VIP list and

01:06:10   I ran into a bug or not a bug but a bizarre limitation where once you get to a hundred

01:06:15   it won't let you add anymore. And the first issue and I did follow up on a subsequent

01:06:22   show was how do you edit your list of VIPs and you can do that. I couldn't figure it

01:06:27   out but on the Mac in mail you go to the VIPs mailbox and there's a disclosure triangle

01:06:37   next on the mailbox and it lists all of your VIPs and so you could just see your emails

01:06:44   from one of your VIPs in there. Well, what you could also do is delete somebody from

01:06:50   that list in that in there and then that's takes them out of your VIPs. And then on iOS

01:06:57   you have almost you have almost 100. I had exactly 100 because it told me it wouldn't

01:07:01   let me add it. Yeah, right. Yeah. Wow. And you know, some of them built up over time,

01:07:06   - Like eight, no, I was 10.

01:07:08   - Well, here's an example.

01:07:09   So for example, whenever I have an interaction

01:07:11   with somebody from Apple PR, I add them as a VIP.

01:07:14   - Yeah, okay.

01:07:16   - And there's not a lot of turnover at Apple PR,

01:07:19   but there is some, it's a launching pad

01:07:22   and there's people who have left Apple PR

01:07:25   to go to places like Tesla and other companies.

01:07:29   And so there's some of the,

01:07:32   I have years worth of Apple PR people in my VIPs,

01:07:36   some of them no longer work at Apple.

01:07:37   And so I would no longer consider a VIP.

01:07:39   So you could go in there and do it.

01:07:40   On iOS, you can edit your VIPs

01:07:42   by hitting the little I and a circle button.

01:07:44   Anyway, I said that before.

01:07:47   The new bit of information I've gotten

01:07:49   from somebody who I didn't know their name,

01:07:51   so I apologize and I can't give you credit,

01:07:55   but that limit of 100 is only on the Mac version of mail.

01:07:59   So on the Mac, if you try to add your 101st VIP,

01:08:02   it just gives you an error that says,

01:08:04   sorry, you've got 100, you can't add anymore.

01:08:07   But on iOS, there is no limit.

01:08:08   So if you wanna add more than 100 VIPs,

01:08:11   just do it on your iPhone or iPad.

01:08:13   And hopefully somebody at Apple is listening to this

01:08:16   and is gonna go into mail and edit that 100

01:08:19   to make it 1,000 or something, I don't know,

01:08:22   or just get rid of the limit.

01:08:23   Why have a limit on how many VIPs?

01:08:24   - I know, I don't understand why there would be a limit.

01:08:26   - I don't know.

01:08:27   And the fact that it's exactly 100,

01:08:29   as opposed to like 256 or something like that,

01:08:34   like some kind of, or 255, you know,

01:08:36   like some kind of magic computer integer.

01:08:39   The fact that it's 100 just tells me it was just arbitrary

01:08:42   that, you know, somebody coding the feature was like,

01:08:45   I better make sure that this works

01:08:47   with a big number of these first.

01:08:48   So in the meantime, I'll put in the limit of 100, you know,

01:08:50   to make sure, and then never got back

01:08:52   to actually taking out the limit.

01:08:54   - Yeah, I don't use it for mail very much,

01:08:58   but I mostly use it for the phone to make sure that I,

01:09:02   like so overnight I can turn off notifications for everybody other than my VIPs,

01:09:07   which is why my list is very small. It's basically,

01:09:11   so you know, I don't get texts from Guy

01:09:16   at two in the morning and I don't get texts from,

01:09:20   from Dan at six in the morning.

01:09:23   That's it for my followup.

01:09:32   App the human story is out.

01:09:34   This is a long in the works documentary about,

01:09:38   God, I don't even know when they first started shooting it,

01:09:42   at least three or four years ago,

01:09:44   but it's finally out in final version.

01:09:46   I have a link already in the show notes,

01:09:49   but it's at appdocumentary.com.

01:09:51   I saw a rough cut or near final cut at,

01:09:56   it was at WWDC back in June.

01:10:00   I actually haven't watched again.

01:10:02   So I don't know what's changed from the WWDC version of it,

01:10:05   but it was very, very good.

01:10:07   I love that this movie exists.

01:10:09   I have a small part in it.

01:10:13   I'm glad that my part in it is small.

01:10:15   I love the people who have the bigger parts in it.

01:10:17   I feel like they chose some really interesting people,

01:10:20   including my good friend, our good friend, Brent Simmons,

01:10:23   plays a pretty significant role in it.

01:10:24   I don't know.

01:10:28   I really recommend it.

01:10:29   I really hope the fact, so it was a Kickstarter project

01:10:32   where they raised like $167,000 to make the movie.

01:10:36   For a movie that's four years in the works

01:10:39   and that is truly as professionally shot and edited

01:10:44   as this movie, and it's truly as good looking

01:10:49   a documentary as you're gonna find.

01:10:50   It's truly a professional looking movie.

01:10:52   $167,000 is not a lot of money.

01:10:55   - Yeah, looks great, the trailer looks great.

01:10:57   That's all I've seen so far.

01:10:58   Just honestly if you haven't seen this before just there's a trailer. I mean, it's lonely sandwich

01:11:02   Yeah, you know, he's the executive producer on the movie

01:11:06   Well, that's unfair what was that were they saying I've lost my train of thought I

01:11:12   Know what I wanted to say is that I first got introduced to them

01:11:15   This is a true story. It was a couple years ago at WWDC and

01:11:20   they were just beginning to make the movie and they wanted to

01:11:27   get like a half-hour interview with me on on video while I was at WWDC and

01:11:33   It was Adam Lisa Gore

01:11:37   aka lonely sandwich on Twitter who day aka the guy behind the sandwich videos a

01:11:43   Friend of the show, you know the guy who got Ryan Star Wars

01:11:47   The last Jedi director Ryan Johnson on this show just a couple years ago to talk about his movie looper

01:11:55   Yeah, when are you gonna do something like that for me molt?

01:11:57   I would say dear dear friend of the show Adam Lee cigar

01:12:07   It said to me. Hey these two guys. I know these two guys. They're gonna make this documentary. I think their idea is great

01:12:13   They want to make an idea about the the app

01:12:15   Community the Apple developer community the indie community

01:12:20   They want to talk to you, you know, and I said well, you know what we could maybe do it on Tuesday

01:12:25   At

01:12:28   mezzanine where I had the live episode of the talk show, you know in the afternoon while I'm you know

01:12:34   Rather than just sit there and be nervous about the talk show. I could I could give them a half hour back

01:12:38   You know with me backstage

01:12:40   And of course I forgot about it. I said, yeah just send them over I

01:12:46   completely forgot about it and then it's like Tuesday and I'm there and they they they come by and

01:12:53   I'm like, oh, yeah, I forgot about that

01:12:56   You know what? Can we do this another day?

01:12:59   And they're like sure, you know and they're like, you know, they were like gonna be there all week

01:13:04   Where this is a trap I ever told you this story

01:13:09   So the only thing we had arranged for the show was and and I think this is the

01:13:16   You know was to record the audio, you know that there'd be a live show with you know

01:13:21   I don't know three four hundred people at the event

01:13:24   but then the only thing that everybody else would get would be the audio and

01:13:28   But they showed up with all these cameras and stuff to to to to record me and I said well

01:13:35   um, what what if what if I paid you guys to video the show and then we could have a video of the show and

01:13:41   They're like we could do that

01:13:43   We would like to do that and I was like you sure because I know I'm putting this to you like 90 minutes before

01:13:49   before the show starts

01:13:51   And and my wife is there with me and she's like John you cannot ask these guys to do this and I like well

01:13:57   if they want to do it and they're like, no, no, we want to do it and

01:14:00   And so they shot it they did and it was turned out terrific

01:14:04   And they shot the crowd at lining up outside the doors and they edited the whole thing together

01:14:10   So whatever I don't whatever year it was that they're the first ever video of the live talk show from WWDC

01:14:17   was

01:14:19   The year that this this happened and I got them to do it after meeting them 90 minutes before the show

01:14:25   And was that the first time Schiller was on I think I think it might be or

01:14:32   Think it might have or was it the year that the ATP guys were on you should know this

01:14:37   Well, I I should remember but I don't I

01:14:40   Remember the first time Schiller was on the show and I remember the time that the ATP guys were on the show

01:14:48   But I don't remember if it would years. Yeah

01:14:51   It was probably then it was probably the other way. It was probably the other way around ATP was probably first, right?

01:14:57   Yes, I don't think he was first ATP was the last episode the last live show

01:15:01   before

01:15:04   The one was Schiller

01:15:06   Yeah

01:15:07   Is there a video there might be a video now, there is no video. So I believe it was the episode with Schiller

01:15:13   Okay, okay

01:15:16   No, no video of the event is now available so no it was the ATP one in 2014

01:15:24   Yeah, I will put a link to that in the show notes

01:15:28   So the first one with video was the year before Phil Schiller's surprise

01:15:34   appearance. Yeah, yeah. I will send a link to you as well. But anyway, that's the story.

01:15:42   It was these guys. That's how long the movie's been in their works where they started shooting

01:15:47   the footage in June 2014. They assembled a bunch of the interviews from the movie come

01:15:54   from that June 2014. And here we are in by the time most of you listen to this December

01:16:02   of 2017, and the movie is finally done. But anyway, Jake and Jed are both great guys.

01:16:09   Jake has continued to spearhead the live video of the talk show ever since. He's including

01:16:18   this year's at the California Theater in San Jose. And he continues, he does a better

01:16:23   job every time. So I consider him a friend. He does terrific work. But I'm not telling

01:16:28   you to go spend 15 bucks at Vimeo on this movie just because he's my friend and he does

01:16:33   the live talk show. I'm saying that he does the live talk show because he's so good and

01:16:37   talented and this movie is the biggest thing he's ever done.

01:16:41   And it really is.

01:16:42   And also, yeah, like if you listen to this show, this is something that you're going

01:16:46   to be interested in.

01:16:47   Yep. And the fact that it costs, you know, if you're a Kickstarter backer, you get it

01:16:52   for free. I mean, you're already in. And if you're not, it's he's using Vimeo is on demand

01:16:59   service and you could get it for 15 bucks. And I realized that there's some people out

01:17:03   there who don't like to spend money on video that you'd, you know, you like to use the Netflix,

01:17:10   you like to pick up videos that fall off trucks, stuff like that. And I'm telling you, if there's

01:17:15   a movie where you were your $15 is really going to go to somebody who deserves it. This

01:17:21   is it." You know what I mean? If you're reluctant in general to spend $15 on a 90-minute

01:17:28   documentary or something, or any kind of movie, but you're thinking, "Hmm, maybe. I'm

01:17:34   telling you this is the one," because most of it's going to go to the team that made

01:17:39   the movie and they could use it. I don't think that the Kickstarter funds covered the

01:17:45   production of the movie.

01:17:47   And if you've watched a video of the talk show live, you already owe these guys like

01:17:52   a buck fifty.

01:17:53   Yeah, exactly. I would say that's actually true. So, you know, you probably only owe

01:17:56   them like nine bucks. So, go cough up the fifteen bucks. I'm telling you, it is well

01:18:00   worth it. The Vimeo on-demand thing is pretty cool. I think that's pretty cool that an

01:18:08   independent production like this can, you know, can—

01:18:11   You don't hear much about I mean Vimeo is not as big a name as other tech or you know

01:18:18   whatever you want to call them media sites that came out around the same time.

01:18:24   Right.

01:18:25   I mean maybe it's been around longer than Twitter I guess it probably has but

01:18:29   it it's still chugging along and seems to be doing well.

01:18:34   Well I think the better comparison always the better comparison is better than like YouTube.

01:18:39   Yeah, absolutely. I mean, there's a lot of articles coming in. I've read some of these

01:18:44   articles about these things that are aimed at kids. It's unbelievable.

01:18:51   It's sick, right? Yeah. How would you even start to describe it?

01:18:58   Well, some of it's just like it's algorithmically generated. I think it's by accident. I mean,

01:19:07   is weird by accident. But then there's a lot of stuff that's just downright gross.

01:19:14   Well, and it starts with—

01:19:16   But is not—but doesn't catch the attention of their filtering system or process.

01:19:23   It starts with the fact that YouTube is very popular with toddlers. You could take any

01:19:30   tablet you want and set a toddler in front of it with YouTube and—

01:19:35   - They can watch video forever.

01:19:37   - Right, and so it's very popular.

01:19:42   It is, for a lot of people, most people,

01:19:45   many people, certainly many, many, many millions,

01:19:48   gazillions of people around the world,

01:19:50   it has replaced the idea of broadcast TV

01:19:54   as something that, even if you're being a responsible parent

01:19:57   and saying, "Oh, I'll let them watch video,"

01:19:58   and really put a time limit on it and say,

01:20:00   you know, here's, you know, you can have an hour of TV or 90 minutes of TV.

01:20:05   That TV now means a tablet and the tablet is probably running like

01:20:10   YouTube or, you know, well, YouTube or Netflix, I don't know. Um,

01:20:14   but stuff like that. So it's super popular.

01:20:17   And so there's money to be made from the ads. And like you said, it's,

01:20:22   it's like where there's money to be made, Algar, you know,

01:20:26   people and algorithms that are determining what is being shown next.

01:20:30   there are going to be people who try to exploit the algorithm

01:20:33   and they're doing it with like the weirdest videos

01:20:36   and not weird like they're showing inappropriate stuff

01:20:39   per se, but just stuff that is like mind numbing, right?

01:20:43   Like, you know, that you worry it's like sort of like

01:20:48   an infinite jest scenario, you know, where we're like,

01:20:51   oh my God, if your kid watches 10 minutes of this,

01:20:53   it's gonna, their brain's gonna turn to mashed potatoes.

01:20:56   - Yeah, I mean, that's not exactly the plot.

01:20:59   We had the banana splits, but the banana splits was only on for like 20 minutes or something,

01:21:06   right?

01:21:07   [laughter]

01:21:08   [music]

01:21:09   You're right. And the fact that it's infinite is, I don't know, it's worrisome. Anyway,

01:21:21   there's a link. There was a good post on Medium that delineated a whole bunch of this stuff.

01:21:27   It's just weird weird stuff. There was like and some of the stuff. It's not weird some of the stuff

01:21:31   That's like wow. They're really putting money into it. Did you did Hank when he was younger? Did he watch the Wiggles?

01:21:36   No, do you ever hear the Wiggles ever watch the Wiggles? I've heard of the Wiggles. Yes

01:21:41   There's like a new YouTube only is a goal

01:21:43   yeah, it was like it was like a show with these four guys and and

01:21:48   Jonas watched it somewhat. I mean, you know

01:21:54   They sort of had like Star Trek

01:21:56   Old-fashioned Star Trek jerseys on where the one guy always wear red red shirt a blue shirt a yellow shirt and a purple shirt

01:22:01   And like the purple shirt guy had like narcolepsy

01:22:04   It was like an Australian show but this they called the Wiggles and these four guys lived in a clubhouse and the

01:22:19   the guy who wore a purple shirt would just fall fall asleep at random time it was like the running

01:22:24   gag every episode is he he could just he would just fall asleep at a moment's notice and that was

01:22:30   treated as humorous i think it is humorous actually you know if you're gonna have you know

01:22:35   i i'm sure there's somebody out there listening who might suffer from narcolepsy and i'm not trying

01:22:39   to make fun of you but it was funny on the show anyway they'd always break into song and they'd

01:22:43   and they uh were fabulously popular and then they would tour we didn't jonas wasn't yeah they toured

01:22:49   Yeah, yeah, but they remember a friend a friend was like tweeting it like I'm at the wiggle show

01:22:53   Yeah, but they would get scared

01:22:55   But I I don't know if they still tore but they at least when Jonas was younger. They played like the big

01:23:00   18,000 seat arenas, you know what I mean? Like the you know, like one week. It's Bruce Springsteen

01:23:06   It was think it was the Tacoma Dome here, which is not small. Wait one week at Springsteen and the next week. It's the wiggles

01:23:12   Yeah, right. Anyway, there's like a YouTube only wiggles

01:23:16   I'm not gonna call it a ripoff but it's like obviously the same sort of premise where there's like a regular cast and they

01:23:20   Sing a bunch of you know

01:23:23   Silly easily understood by toddler songs and stuff like that

01:23:26   Here let me do I got one last sponsor to thank

01:23:30   And it's it's a very near and dear friend to the show

01:23:35   Casper Casper is the sleeper and that continues to revolutionize

01:23:39   Their line of products to create exceptionally comfortable sleep experience one night at a time

01:23:44   time. Look, we've got Casper mattresses here at the house. They're very, very popular with

01:23:51   the family. They're really great products. And they're so easy to buy. You just go to

01:23:59   the website and you pick the one you want and the size you want and it shows up in a

01:24:04   I forget what they call it, but it's like a too good to be true box. Like you just cannot

01:24:10   believe that there's a mattress in this box. Like it's heavy enough that you think that

01:24:13   that could be a mattress, but it's, it's remarkable how small the boxes, it's because they, they,

01:24:17   they use the mattresses are made out of some kind of magical foam type stuff. So you take

01:24:22   the box, you take it to the bedroom where you're going to use it and you follow the

01:24:25   instructions on the box and then it sucks all the air out of the room. So you gotta

01:24:29   be careful cause it'll suck all the air out and it fills the mattress with air and then

01:24:33   it just grows from this thing. You're like, what have I done? You buy this thing and you're

01:24:37   like, what have I done? This cannot possibly be a mattress. And then it's a good use for

01:24:41   the SodaStream canisters.

01:24:42   Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And then it sucks all the air out of the room and fills it fills

01:24:51   the mattress with the air in inside the foam and then all of a sudden you've got a mattress.

01:25:00   They've got they used to only have one kind and it's the original Casper mattress. That's

01:25:04   the one we have in the house. It's a terrific mattress. Really, really great. And they're

01:25:13   designed and made right here in the United States of America. They've literally got a

01:25:18   team of, it's not like a white label thing where Casper is buying these foam mattresses

01:25:24   from some no-name company elsewhere in the world and putting a Casper sticker on it.

01:25:28   They literally have like an engineering and design team making mattresses. I mean, they're

01:25:33   They're very serious about this.

01:25:35   And they do it right here in the United States.

01:25:37   They've got over 20,000 reviews and an average of 4.8 stars across their own website, Amazon

01:25:43   and Google.

01:25:44   And as they say it, they're fast becoming the Internet's favorite mattress.

01:25:53   So here's what you got to do.

01:25:55   If you want to get one of these mattresses, you can start sleeping ahead of the curve

01:25:58   with Casper and you'll get 50 bucks toward any mattress purchase by visiting Casper.com/the

01:26:05   talk show and use that same code from the URL the talk show at checkout and you'll get

01:26:11   that $50 discount that's Casper.com/the talk show and code the talk show with the the I'm

01:26:20   glad they use the the because I paid good money for that to get 50 bucks towards any

01:26:25   mattress. Terms and conditions apply. I don't know what the terms and conditions are, but

01:26:30   there are terms and conditions apply to that deal. And so my thanks to Casper. Really,

01:26:38   it's a great product. I really recommend it. And I always want to emphasize this. If you're

01:26:43   the least bit reluctant to buy a mattress without actually trying it over the web, that

01:26:47   they have like a hundred day guaranteed thing where like you get like three months with

01:26:52   it. If you don't like it, you just go to the website, click a couple buttons, and they

01:26:55   send people to your house to just take it away and give you all your money back. So

01:27:00   you really can't lose. Can't lose. My thanks to Casper.

01:27:04   All right, we've got to wrap up. We're coming down the home stretch here. What else is there

01:27:09   on the agenda this week?

01:27:10   Do you want to talk about the guy who deleted Trump's account?

01:27:15   You know what? I'm glad that he got his time in the spotlight, but it wasn't that interesting

01:27:21   I think it's kind of risky of him to come out and--

01:27:24   A little bit.

01:27:25   Talk to people.

01:27:26   I guess though because he's now living in Germany, it's probably not. I don't really think--

01:27:30   Oh, okay. I didn't notice that part.

01:27:32   No, he's--

01:27:33   Then that's better.

01:27:35   Yeah.

01:27:36   Because I think a lot of people here would probably, you know, we have some-- we've

01:27:41   got some nut cases here.

01:27:42   Yeah, and who like to do nutty things.

01:27:46   Right.

01:27:49   People are nuts on both sides, though. Ben Thompson, friend of the show, had a piece

01:27:54   this week on his trajectory, did you see, about the net neutrality. And the gist of

01:27:59   his piece I thought was very persuasive. And it's not that net neutrality is a bad idea.

01:28:05   And as he said, almost nobody is opposed to the precepts of net neutrality. The argument

01:28:10   is whether the best way to enforce it here in the United States is specifically through

01:28:14   this Title II designation for these companies, it, you know, basically is the exact way that

01:28:23   the Obama administration had the FCC change some regulations the best way to do it. And

01:28:30   Ben made a case that no, it's not, you know, that, you know, more or less that you're regulating

01:28:36   about a bunch of what bad things that could happen as opposed to issuing regulations after

01:28:41   after actual bad things happen to solve them. You may disagree. I found it persuasive. It

01:28:49   made me think about changing my mind on this. And anyway, I do think it's important. I

01:28:54   think it's worthwhile to separate the concepts of net neutrality, the advantages of it, why

01:28:59   it's important, from the specific regulations, that they're not the same thing, that you

01:29:05   can be in favor of net neutrality but opposed to these specific regulations. Anyway, it

01:29:09   It was all very reasonable, as you might expect from Ben, who's a very reasonable person.

01:29:14   He sent me a bunch of the tweets he was getting, because eventually what happened was Ajit

01:29:19   Pai, the FCC commissioner, retweeted Ben's story.

01:29:24   Oh no.

01:29:26   Oh my god, Jon.

01:29:28   I mean, honestly, and you know that I've gotten caught up in some of this truly widespread

01:29:34   political stuff because there's an economist at MIT who's considered the architect of

01:29:39   Obamacare. His name is Jonathan Gruber. He's widely considered, and talk about the death

01:29:45   of expertise, he's gen, you know, by all accounts, he's an expert on healthcare legislation

01:29:52   around the world.

01:29:53   Yeah.

01:29:54   And helped set up the very successful decade-long Romneycare program in Massachusetts that was

01:30:01   the foundation for Obamacare. But his name is Jonathan Gruber. He does not, from what

01:30:08   I've seen have a Twitter presence. So a lot of people, whenever he's in the news,

01:30:14   assume that his Twitter account might be @Gruber, especially since if you check out @Gruber,

01:30:20   it's somebody named John Gruber. Close enough.

01:30:23   Right. And these people are not really necessarily the kinds that are going to go and do a lot

01:30:29   of work and figure out if something is correct in the first place.

01:30:31   Right. So I've gotten caught up in that, and I've gotten a lot of hateful stuff in

01:30:35   my Twitter replies from people who assume that I might be that John Jonathan Kruber,

01:30:41   I've, you know, my, you know, JHN, nobody who's a J as you well know, nobody who's a

01:30:45   JHN is a Jonathan. I mean, come on. Yeah, right. You might be a Jonathan and go by john,

01:30:51   but then you're one of the goofy jail jail. And right, which is, let's face it, goofy.

01:30:57   I mean, you know, there's other good lesser, lesser john, lesser john. I mean, you know,

01:31:02   I think we can all agree on that. I think even the John's, the J-O-N's agree that

01:31:08   they're the lesser John's.

01:31:09   [laughter]

01:31:10   I bet they don't. But okay. Let's just say that they do.

01:31:16   But I never got tweets like what Ben got this week from this. I mean, just the violent,

01:31:21   "I hope you die. I hope you die slowly." I mean, it's just crazy stuff. I mean, who

01:31:28   the hell would write something like that over a reason, you know, questioning the regulatory

01:31:34   structure of net neutrality and lead to people saying, "I hope you die."

01:31:38   Right.

01:31:39   Very strange stuff.

01:31:40   The only time I've never had it, I don't think I've ever had anybody threatened to

01:31:43   kill me.

01:31:44   I have not.

01:31:45   The only thing I can remember is some years ago when I wrote a crazy Apple rumor, it was

01:31:50   like it was when Gore got elected to the Apple board. And when Bush was president, and I

01:31:57   And I just wrote a stupid story saying that Bush demanded a recount of Gore's Apple

01:32:03   board election, which is, you know, mildly amusing at best.

01:32:07   And some guy sent me an email, we got into this back and forth, and he threatened to

01:32:14   punch me in the face.

01:32:15   That was some Bush supporter.

01:32:19   And you think, I'll bet at the time, you were like, "Wow, this guy, this is nuts."

01:32:22   And you probably showed it to your wife, and you're like, "This is nuts, right?

01:32:25   This is nuts."

01:32:26   In hindsight you think well that was reasonable political discourse

01:32:29   There two things now remember the good old days

01:32:33   Right that was chose a charming exchange we had

01:32:36   To such a witty repartee two fellow citizens could could have a reasonable discussion

01:32:43   And a threat to punch the other one in a face. That's all

01:32:47   Those really were the good old days. Oh well sure John with an H

01:32:55   John "H" For appearing on the show. Everybody can enjoy your work.

01:33:02   Well, you got podcasts. What do you want to pitch?

01:33:05   I've got Turning This Car Around podcast with a lesser John and this other guy. And then

01:33:14   The Rebound with Dan Warren and the same other guy.

01:33:19   Yeah, so that's a good one. Yeah, that's a good one.

01:33:21   There's still money in podcasting.

01:33:23   There's no money in blogging anymore. You took it all.

01:33:29   My thanks also to our three sponsors of this episode, Squarespace, Audible, and Casper.

01:33:35   My thanks to them. John, as always, it was a pleasure. Thank you.

01:33:39   [BLANK_AUDIO]