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481: Accidentally Made It Too Good

 

00:00:00   Yes, I was a few minutes late today because I was battling with broken computer stuff.

00:00:06   Uh oh. Oh, me too!

00:00:08   No, not that kind of broken computer stuff.

00:00:10   I should I didn't know not to do this right before I was supposed to record a podcast, but whatever.

00:00:17   My son is setting up his account at his college. He's selected a college, he's enrolled.

00:00:23   Oh, congrats!

00:00:24   You know, you get to set up your computer account, right?

00:00:27   And I wanted to go through it and make sure everything was all right or whatever,

00:00:29   and all that stuff.

00:00:32   And the account made him set up two-factor, whatever.

00:00:34   I don't know, it asked him to set up two-factor, and he did.

00:00:37   And he used the Google Authenticator app,

00:00:38   because it's an app that he had used previously, I think,

00:00:40   for two-factor stuff.

00:00:41   But anyway, he had it on his phone, and he did that.

00:00:44   But I wanted to get it set up in the Apple two-factor thing,

00:00:47   because it's nice when you're in Safari or on your Mac

00:00:50   or whatever.

00:00:51   Apple has-- people who don't know--

00:00:53   the Apple has a thing in their iCloud keychain thing

00:00:56   where it can do two-factor stuff for you.

00:00:58   You don't have to launch a separate app or whatever.

00:00:59   It will auto-fill right in the thing

00:01:01   out of your iCloud keychain.

00:01:02   That's what I wanted to set up for him,

00:01:05   because yes, you can have the Google Authenticator app,

00:01:06   but it would be nice for also it to be integrated with,

00:01:09   you know, iOS and macOS and all that other stuff.

00:01:12   Seems like a simple task.

00:01:15   It is technically possible, technically 100% possible,

00:01:19   but frustratingly annoying to do.

00:01:21   So here are the two things.

00:01:25   So first of all, I wouldn't be angry and late if it wasn't for the fact that the school's

00:01:30   thing is broken.

00:01:32   So that's the first problem.

00:01:33   The first problem is that--

00:01:35   Definitely not your fault, John.

00:01:36   Definitely not.

00:01:37   I'll tell you how the school thing is broken.

00:01:38   The school thing was broken in a pretty bad way.

00:01:40   But how did I find out the school thing was broken?

00:01:41   Well, I was trying to accomplish that task.

00:01:43   So he'd already set it up.

00:01:45   It was set up, and we logged in with it with two-factor.

00:01:47   He's got a username.

00:01:48   He's got a password.

00:01:49   He's got two-factor right out of the little authenticator app.

00:01:51   Logs you in.

00:01:52   Right.

00:01:53   has ever done this now again it is technically possible to take that

00:01:57   information and shove it into the Apple thing but it is not easy and is

00:02:02   definitely not easy to do when you're trying to do it ten minutes before you

00:02:04   have to podcast right so here's the problem the Apple thing wants you to go

00:02:08   on the happy path which is I am using Safari to set up my account on this

00:02:14   website I'm going to enable two-factor it has presented me with a QR code or

00:02:18   some other thing oh look in Safari I can just right click on that and it says do

00:02:21   Do you want to set this up as the authentication thing

00:02:23   in the barber?

00:02:24   And I say yes, and it magically goes in.

00:02:26   That's what they want you to do.

00:02:28   But of course, that already happened a while ago.

00:02:32   It's already set up in two-factor,

00:02:33   and we didn't do it the Apple way.

00:02:36   So here we are now.

00:02:37   I say, I want to get this two-factor thing

00:02:40   into the Apple system without invalidating the existing

00:02:46   thing.

00:02:46   Again, technically possible, especially

00:02:48   since Google Authenticator added an export function.

00:02:50   can export and it'll show you a QR code with that export

00:02:53   information or whatever.

00:02:54   And then you can decode that QR code,

00:02:58   and then you can do basic base64 decoded,

00:03:00   and then you can run it through a protobuf thing

00:03:02   and try to get out the data.

00:03:03   Like this is what I'm doing.

00:03:04   10 minutes before the thing starts.

00:03:05   This is seriously what you have to do?

00:03:06   Oh my gosh.

00:03:07   But the point is, it's not like the data is there.

00:03:10   Like QR cards aren't magic.

00:03:11   It's just data, right?

00:03:12   But because you can export two-factor stuff

00:03:14   from the Google Authenticator app as a QR code.

00:03:17   What you can't do easily is get that QR code,

00:03:21   as far as I know, into Apple's system, right?

00:03:25   So you go to the Google Authenticator app,

00:03:26   you get the QR code, you can take a screenshot of it,

00:03:29   you can take a photo or whatever.

00:03:30   I just wanna get that into the Apple system

00:03:32   and they make it so hard.

00:03:33   The way I used to do it is I would go

00:03:35   to the two-factor setup page of the website

00:03:38   and I would take the QR code

00:03:40   from the Google Authenticator app, save it as an image,

00:03:43   turn it into a data URL,

00:03:45   use the DOM inspector to paste it in as the image source

00:03:49   of the setup thing.

00:03:49   And then Safari would be tricked into thinking,

00:03:51   "Oh, do you want me to use that QR code as the setup thing?"

00:03:54   'Cause it's on a setup page,

00:03:55   like whatever heuristics it uses,

00:03:57   I would bring to the real setup page,

00:03:59   but I wouldn't like click through it.

00:04:01   I would just bring to the real setup page

00:04:02   and I would replace the image with a data URL

00:04:05   of the QR code from the Google Authenticator app.

00:04:08   That used to work.

00:04:09   But now when you right click in Safari,

00:04:11   somehow it's smart and it goes,

00:04:13   I don't see any QR code here.

00:04:15   I don't know what you're on.

00:04:16   Like it doesn't even show the line item

00:04:17   for setup verification system.

00:04:19   So please, please Ricky, if you're listening.

00:04:22   (laughing)

00:04:23   I just, if I've got a QR code,

00:04:26   like if you go to the passwords thing

00:04:27   in system parameters, it says,

00:04:29   oh, do you want to enter a setup code here?

00:04:31   I don't know what it wants from me from a setup code.

00:04:33   Like I've got a QR code and I can decode it

00:04:35   and I can pull out different pieces,

00:04:36   but I don't know what it wants from me from a setup code.

00:04:39   It's like, please, can I just give you an image of a QR code?

00:04:41   I've got a ping, I've got a JPEG.

00:04:43   Can I just, can you let me scan it with my phone?

00:04:45   That's the one thing I didn't try.

00:04:46   Maybe there's a way if you do it on iOS,

00:04:48   maybe you can just take a picture of it

00:04:49   with the phone's camera and it'll let you edit.

00:04:51   But I couldn't figure it out

00:04:52   and it was making me very angry

00:04:54   and it's like, I'm so close.

00:04:55   Like, why Safari?

00:04:58   'Cause they want it to be magic.

00:04:59   Oh, you just right click on the QR code

00:05:00   and it says, set this up as authentication.

00:05:03   But it somehow is angered by me editing the DOM,

00:05:06   which maybe makes sense.

00:05:07   (laughing)

00:05:08   If you were to look at the webpage,

00:05:09   you'd say, there's a QR code.

00:05:11   when I right click in Safari, why doesn't it take it?

00:05:13   It's not the real QR code,

00:05:15   it's the one I made into a data URL

00:05:17   and paste it into the source thing.

00:05:19   I kind of get it, but it's just so much harder

00:05:22   than it needs to be because it's like,

00:05:24   you guys, the data is right here.

00:05:26   It's often on the same computer

00:05:27   'cause I had one window logged in and Chrome

00:05:30   and then the Safari window, it was like, same team people.

00:05:32   We're all here, let's just make this happen.

00:05:34   And I just could not do it.

00:05:36   So anyway, that's just angering me.

00:05:39   And so I'm like, okay, well, why am I trying to do this?

00:05:41   This is just stupid thing to be doing.

00:05:42   Like, oh, you have the two factor audio setup

00:05:44   and you're trying to transfer it to the Apple thing.

00:05:46   Well, yes, again, it is technically possible.

00:05:48   I know, I've done it.

00:05:49   I've done it multiple times,

00:05:50   but oh, you can't figure out how to get it to work this time.

00:05:53   It's obviously not a supported use case, just forget it.

00:05:55   And what's the thing you should do then?

00:05:56   How about just start over?

00:05:58   - Or use one password.

00:05:59   - Do you use one password?

00:06:01   No, I want it into the Apple thing.

00:06:03   - This is the most effort I've ever heard

00:06:06   to avoid using one password.

00:06:07   - Right?

00:06:08   - Thank you. - No, I don't wanna

00:06:09   use one password.

00:06:10   The goal is I want it in the Apple operating system thing,

00:06:13   in addition to other places that it might be.

00:06:15   So yes, it could be in one password,

00:06:16   but if it was a one password,

00:06:17   I would also want it in the Apple thing.

00:06:20   Like that's the goal here,

00:06:21   to get in the iOS, iCloud key chain,

00:06:23   you know, that whole deal, right?

00:06:26   Anyway, so I'm like, okay,

00:06:28   well you can just reset up Two-Factor.

00:06:29   Anyone who has Two-Factor knows you can do this.

00:06:31   If you just say, okay, I wanna set up Two-Factor again,

00:06:33   I got a new phone, or I'm gonna get a new phone,

00:06:35   or whatever, you can just go in,

00:06:37   you log in with your existing two-factor and you say,

00:06:39   I want a new two-factor.

00:06:40   And it gives you a new QR code, and you scan the new QR code,

00:06:43   or you're right-clicking Safari or whatever,

00:06:45   and that's your new two-factor.

00:06:47   And since I'm doing that from the beginning,

00:06:49   I can do that from the beginning from Safari, the happy path.

00:06:53   I go in and do a Safari, I right-click.

00:06:55   Then it does give you the option, set up a two-factor.

00:06:58   And of course, like all good two-factor things, it says,

00:07:00   but I'm not letting you off the screen

00:07:02   until you type in the magic code that you now get out

00:07:04   of the Safari Apple thing,

00:07:07   like to show that you successfully did it.

00:07:09   So I do that, I set it up in Safari,

00:07:11   it says please enter the six digit code here,

00:07:14   and Safari auto fills the six digit code, right?

00:07:16   'Cause that's the whole point of this feature,

00:07:18   and it works and it says, great,

00:07:19   I believe that you successfully set up two factor, right?

00:07:23   It even gives you backup codes, the whole nine yards.

00:07:25   You're like, this is awesome, everything's great.

00:07:27   But this is where the schools bugs come in.

00:07:30   If then you try to log in, in any other web browser,

00:07:34   your codes won't work, the six digit code,

00:07:36   which will not work, right?

00:07:38   And I tried it in different accounts

00:07:40   and different devices or whatever.

00:07:42   And even though it successfully worked

00:07:44   when I configured it, it won't work anywhere else.

00:07:48   And that's a scary situation to be in

00:07:50   where you think you've just successfully set up two factor,

00:07:52   you've verified to the system that you've set up two factor

00:07:55   by entering the six digits from the QR code

00:07:57   that you just scanned and it says, yes, great, that's good,

00:08:00   but you can't log in anywhere else

00:08:02   because everyplace else you go, you enter a username, password,

00:08:05   it prompts you for the code, and whatever code you enter

00:08:07   from your thing, it says, nope, not valid.

00:08:09   That is not encouraging at all.

00:08:11   That's the school's bug, OK?

00:08:12   Because that's not the way the world's supposed to work.

00:08:14   That's just broken.

00:08:15   It's a bug.

00:08:15   But then what do you do?

00:08:17   So luckily, the school had a big honking button

00:08:19   on the setup screen, which I'm frantically making sure

00:08:22   that I stay logged into, right?

00:08:24   That says, disable multi-factor authentication.

00:08:27   All right, I got a podcast.

00:08:29   Let me just disable multi-factor authentication entirely.

00:08:32   click disable multi-factor and says, boop, it goes back

00:08:34   and goes back to the screen.

00:08:36   And now the button is set up multi-factor authentication.

00:08:38   The disable button's gone, and now I

00:08:40   have a button to set it up.

00:08:41   But I don't want to set it up.

00:08:42   And I want to deal with this now.

00:08:43   Let me just disable multi-factor.

00:08:44   But of course, me being me, I don't trust the system anymore.

00:08:47   I try logging in from literally anywhere else.

00:08:50   And it prompts me for, please enter your verification code

00:08:53   for your multi-factor authentication.

00:08:54   Oh, no.

00:08:55   I just disabled it.

00:08:57   I'm logged in here.

00:08:58   I'm staring at the screen where it is disabled.

00:09:02   so angry, like it's just totally broken.

00:09:05   And of course, none of the, you know,

00:09:07   no codes from the existing ones that I had saved before

00:09:10   worked, the original one or the new one.

00:09:13   It doesn't matter what you enter, nothing works.

00:09:15   And I knew, I knew for a fact that if I logged out

00:09:17   of that one window where I was logged in,

00:09:18   I would never be able to log in again, right?

00:09:20   I just know.

00:09:21   Now I know the system is broken, I know how it's broken.

00:09:23   It thinks I've disabled two factor,

00:09:25   but it's still prompting me for it.

00:09:26   So the best I could do was it seemed there was an iOS app.

00:09:29   So I downloaded the iOS app on two different phones.

00:09:31   I logged into the iOS app using a special iOS app specific

00:09:35   login QR code.

00:09:36   So now I'm logged in on two iPhones.

00:09:39   And then I logged out in the web browser

00:09:40   and sure enough, no web browser can ever log in again

00:09:42   'cause even though two-factor is supposedly disabled,

00:09:45   it prompts you for the two-factor code.

00:09:47   So then from one of the logged in iPhones,

00:09:50   I contacted the online support chat and said, here I am.

00:09:53   And I'm locked out of my thing 'cause it says

00:09:56   because I disabled two-factor,

00:09:57   but it thinks I still have it enabled.

00:09:59   And they just directed me to talk to some other thing

00:10:01   or whatever, and then I had to start podcasting.

00:10:02   So school stuff is broken, whatever, that's annoying.

00:10:06   But I feel like the main, you know,

00:10:09   that's just bugs, that's just whatever.

00:10:11   But I really wish, and again, if you can do this in iOS,

00:10:14   I didn't get a chance to look at that,

00:10:16   but I really wish there was an easier way to say,

00:10:18   I've already got two-factor setup somewhere,

00:10:20   whether that's in 1Password, in Google Authenticator,

00:10:23   in one of the 50 other, in Authy,

00:10:25   in one of the 50 other two-factor apps.

00:10:27   Almost all of those systems have a way

00:10:28   to you sort of export that two-factor thing either by showing a QR code or whatever I

00:10:33   Want what's the point of exporting if I can't import it?

00:10:37   the only thing I can find to import an Apple thing is

00:10:39   Cleverly make a Safari web page on the actual website

00:10:43   So you can trick it into showing that line item on the right-click menu

00:10:46   which apparently I've now lost the ability to do no matter how clever I get or

00:10:50   Enter what it calls a setup key and I have no freaking idea what it wants for me. They're like

00:10:55   Is it the base 32 decoded section of the base 64 encoded data section of the proto buffer from the goo?

00:11:01   I don't know but anything I entered there it would accept all sorts of garbage, but it wouldn't be right

00:11:05   So I'm obviously entering the wrong thing there. So

00:11:07   Please make this easier like two-factor information is our information

00:11:13   We should be allowed to have it in off the in one password in Google authenticator and in iCloud keychain

00:11:18   There should be a way to go from one place to the other and it should be way easier than it is

00:11:24   So Alex's first real interaction with his forthcoming school is going to be his dad breaking his login

00:11:31   I didn't break his login the school broke the log

00:11:34   Yeah, not my fault. You guys my fault if I click disable multi-factor authentication

00:11:39   And then it proceeds to always prompt me for a multi-factor authentication. That's not me. That's not on me at all

00:11:44   That's just a broken system in school. You know, I wasn't hacking I was just discovering vulnerabilities. Mm-hmm

00:11:52   I'd like to start with a little bit of follow out if I may clockwise episode 449

00:11:58   It featured one John, Syracuse

00:12:01   And this is remarkable because of all the guest spots that you've done John on all the great podcasts and all the great shows

00:12:07   It was very unusual if it has ever happened

00:12:11   I know there was a little bit of debate on the show

00:12:13   But if it has ever happened

00:12:14   It's very unusual for you to be able to record clockwise at noon your time on a Wednesday

00:12:19   But it's a whole new world baby. And here is John Siracusa appearing on clockwise made me very happy

00:12:24   Yeah, Dan tells me that I did it in the past and I probably did back when Jason was hosting like years and years and

00:12:30   Years ago, but I had no recollection. I didn't even remember how the show worked

00:12:33   I didn't even know that there was a fixed order that people go around it

00:12:36   So I was just I was just total, you know as Allison called me on the show is total noob

00:12:41   Well, it was it was a good episode and well under 30 minutes

00:12:45   I was quite surprised. But I'm using this as a crummy excuse to ask you, you know, how is your new world?

00:12:50   I know a lot of this is covered on rectiffs and I know I'm kind of in

00:12:52   I'm inviting myself into Merlin's world and I apologize profusely. I'm stealing Merlin's valor on this but so now how is your whole new world?

00:13:00   He's so mad. How is your whole new world?

00:13:02   Is there anything you'd like to share with the group right here on ATP on your big show? I don't think there are any

00:13:07   New developments in that area. I did talk a lot about it on rectiffs and how weird it was and how strangely stressful and that

00:13:15   That kind of continues because I'm still working on those boulders, that giant life backlog

00:13:20   of things that I have to get done and we're still working through them.

00:13:24   Every time I think we're making progress – I did make progress on one.

00:13:26   I mean you've seen this in the neutral channel.

00:13:28   We had a little problem with the car.

00:13:30   We had a kind of a fender bender and getting that repaired was a surprise thing to be thrown

00:13:36   in the pile and we actually finally got the car back and despite – the only bad thing

00:13:42   that happened as a result of that, aside from us having to pay our deductible, is they tried

00:13:46   to clean the inside of the car and they used like Armor All and you know how that is. I

00:13:49   don't like it.

00:13:50   - Oh god, everything's all slippery and shiny.

00:13:53   - Yeah, it's gross. And so I spent a lot of the, it was spent a little while this afternoon

00:13:57   trying, it was like outgassing onto the windshield and gross. I spent a little while trying to

00:14:00   essentially wipe off the Armor All from the inside.

00:14:03   - Yeah, you gotta get in there like with a towel.

00:14:05   - Yeah, spent some time doing that this afternoon. But anyway, that's an example of like a surprise

00:14:09   I was like, "Surprise, you gotta deal with cars

00:14:11   "and insurance and whatever."

00:14:12   And I'm just glad I got that done.

00:14:13   But there's so many other big backlog items

00:14:15   that I just trying to drag kicking and screaming

00:14:18   across the finish line.

00:14:19   And I look at them and like, I have a to-do list,

00:14:20   you know, and a notes thing or whatever.

00:14:22   And I don't check them off until they're done.

00:14:24   So there was an item that said, you know,

00:14:26   "Fix car," right?

00:14:28   I just checked that off because like,

00:14:29   car is back on the driveway, it is fixed.

00:14:32   And I checked it off, but I can't check off

00:14:35   any of the other ones because they're all like,

00:14:37   Still one or two more things to be done.

00:14:40   And that's kind of still the phase I'm in, working on those boulders.

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00:15:41   is it's an incredible value at Linode.

00:15:44   This is why I've been with them

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00:15:47   and every time the technology moves on

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00:16:01   for the entire time I've been a customer there.

00:16:04   Every so often I'll look around and I'll see like,

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00:16:08   And Linode is always either matching or beating

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00:16:14   So I just love Linode.

00:16:16   They make cloud computing fast, simple, and affordable.

00:16:19   So you can focus on your projects, not your infrastructure.

00:16:21   Go to linode.com/atp, create a free account,

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00:16:33   Once again, linode.com/atp.

00:16:36   Thank you so much to Linode for being an awesome host

00:16:39   and for sponsoring our show.

00:16:40   - That brings us to my victory tour.

00:16:47   There was a great showing for t-shirts

00:16:50   and membership recently, so genuinely, thank you so much

00:16:52   to anyone who even thought about buying a t-shirt

00:16:55   or a mug or a glass or has considered a membership

00:16:59   or maybe bought a membership.

00:17:00   maybe you canceled, but you certainly don't have to.

00:17:02   Maybe you didn't.

00:17:03   - Well, and honestly, we're doing great,

00:17:05   and it's very clear that there was a

00:17:09   John Siracusa is now self-employed bump in membership.

00:17:12   - Oh yeah, that's no joke, that's for real.

00:17:13   - You know, normally when we have merchandise sales,

00:17:15   we get a small bump, just because people

00:17:18   actually listen to John and sign up for a little bit,

00:17:20   get the code, and then maybe cancel later if they want to.

00:17:22   But you know, you don't have to.

00:17:24   But this is a substantially bigger bump

00:17:26   than I think we usually get from membership sales,

00:17:29   And I attribute that entirely to the John effect,

00:17:32   because John is the public's favorite member of the show

00:17:34   by a long shot, and so.

00:17:36   - I don't know about that.

00:17:37   - Oh, 1000% true.

00:17:39   - I think the bump was the same size as it always is.

00:17:41   If you wanna make it a bump for me,

00:17:43   what I would say is more people need to forget to cancel.

00:17:46   So that's what we'll see.

00:17:47   What we see is we see the bump,

00:17:49   I didn't measure it last time,

00:17:50   but my recollection is that it is a similar size bump.

00:17:53   People know what we say.

00:17:54   Sign up for the membership, get the discount,

00:17:55   and then cancel if you want to.

00:17:56   but it's like how many people don't cancel?

00:17:59   How many people stick around

00:18:01   or will we just fall back to the levels we were before?

00:18:02   - All of them.

00:18:03   All of them should not cancel.

00:18:05   - Yeah, and so the final results,

00:18:06   this is where my victory lap begins.

00:18:08   The Ultra shirt, 311 sales,

00:18:11   as of when I looked right after the sale ended.

00:18:14   The Interposer shirt, 1,676, baby, that's 5.3 times.

00:18:19   So #CaseyWasRight.

00:18:22   Well, I'm kind of stealing your valor now

00:18:25   because it was your idea in the first place,

00:18:26   but then you poo-pooed it. I don't care. I'm taking it as mine.

00:18:29   Hashtag Casey was right. 5.3 times. I am so excited to get my interposer shirt.

00:18:34   Thank you genuinely to anyone who has signed up for membership or even considered

00:18:37   it, who's bought a t-shirt or any of the other merchandise. Oh,

00:18:39   and I should mention that if you did miss the sale,

00:18:42   you do not have to tweet me either comically or otherwise, but we do have, um,

00:18:47   the old shirts, the, the pre ultra shirts are up. Uh, the, the,

00:18:52   the print as you want shirts are up.

00:18:53   and remember that these do not have anything on the back

00:18:57   and the shirt themselves, or is it the shirt or the printing?

00:18:59   I always get it wrong.

00:19:00   - The printing, and it's not, we have the whole range up.

00:19:02   So the on-demand, you're blowing this one, let me help you.

00:19:05   The on-demand products that we have available

00:19:07   are all of our M1 shirts.

00:19:09   M1, M1 Pro, M1 Max, M1 Ultra.

00:19:13   Not the joke shirt, nothing on the back of any of these.

00:19:16   These are on-demand printed so the printing is not as nice

00:19:19   as it is on the real shirts.

00:19:20   These shirts are also cheaper.

00:19:22   That's why I tell all the people listening to the show,

00:19:24   buy during the sale, those are the good shirts.

00:19:26   They cost more, but they're better.

00:19:28   But if you totally missed it and you want one,

00:19:30   the on-demand printing is more like,

00:19:31   I don't know what the process is,

00:19:32   but it is not like, it's like they lay down

00:19:35   kind of like a lighter color and then do printing

00:19:38   on top of it as opposed to the real shirts

00:19:41   where they do multiple printing passes, I think,

00:19:43   which with colored ink.

00:19:44   So I hope you got one during the sale.

00:19:46   We just have those ones up there for the people

00:19:48   who see the shirt on a YouTube video

00:19:49   so we can have them buy a real shirt

00:19:52   instead of one of the million counterever ones

00:19:53   that's out there, right?

00:19:55   - Anyway, enough navel gazing, let's move right along.

00:19:57   We have-- - Oh, I have some

00:19:58   real-time follow-up before you go into that.

00:20:01   This is killing me, but I'm just looking

00:20:02   at the screen right now.

00:20:03   If I had just done it on the phone,

00:20:04   the phone has a scan QR code option.

00:20:06   - Oh, no! (laughing)

00:20:07   - The Mac doesn't have that.

00:20:10   The Mac says, please enter a setup key,

00:20:12   whatever the hell that is.

00:20:14   I wish the Mac had or drag an image here,

00:20:16   and I would have done that, 'cause I had an image of it,

00:20:18   and I should have just used the phone

00:20:20   and done scan QR code, my bad.

00:20:23   Doesn't change the fact that the website of the school

00:20:25   is totally host and hopefully I'll get that resolved.

00:20:27   But the next time I do this,

00:20:29   after we get everything resolved,

00:20:30   I'll do the right thing.

00:20:32   - I'll tell you what, a quick derail here,

00:20:35   'cause it's always a quick derail with me.

00:20:38   My tech to-do list is growing. (laughs)

00:20:43   - Oh, I feel the same way, but what's your,

00:20:45   why don't you lay down on the couch

00:20:46   and tell us what's bothering you?

00:20:47   - Oh my God, all right, so, you know, first of all,

00:20:50   yes, I'm back with the ultra fine for this recording

00:20:52   'cause I happen to be here this week and I hate it

00:20:54   and everything's diagonal and I can't get the monitor

00:20:56   straight and all this stuff.

00:20:57   Anyway, that's a separate thing.

00:21:00   So recently when recording another show that isn't out yet,

00:21:04   so I won't spoil what it is, but it's not out,

00:21:06   but I lost a portion of my audio.

00:21:08   - Uh oh.

00:21:09   - This has not happened to me in years.

00:21:14   I can't remember if I ever lost a recording

00:21:16   or part of a recording before this.

00:21:19   I might not have ever done it.

00:21:21   So this shook me to the bone, and here's what happened.

00:21:25   Listeners may recall a long time ago,

00:21:27   when I had to do MacBook Pros, the 14 and the 16,

00:21:31   and the 14 was always doing time machine backups over WiFi,

00:21:35   'cause that's how it was backed up,

00:21:37   and I noticed that on a pretty regular basis,

00:21:40   I would open it up from sleep,

00:21:41   after not using it for maybe half a day or a day,

00:21:44   things would be kind of unresponsive.

00:21:46   I would like, you know, right click on something

00:21:48   and nothing would happen, or I'd try to open or close an app

00:21:51   or navigate to a different page in Safari,

00:21:53   and like it would just hang weirdly

00:21:54   or nothing would happen.

00:21:56   Shortly after that, usually it would kernel panic.

00:21:59   And the kernel panic indicated something deep in,

00:22:01   like you know, possible file handling code or something,

00:22:04   and so I eventually realized,

00:22:06   let me try disabling network time machine

00:22:08   and see if that fixes it.

00:22:10   And it did, like that problem has never reoccurred.

00:22:14   But for some reason that problem,

00:22:16   even though I used Time Machine on my desktop laptop,

00:22:19   that problem never occurred on it.

00:22:21   Now I speculated at the time,

00:22:23   maybe it was because it was WiFi,

00:22:25   because the desktop laptop is always

00:22:27   Thunderbolt ethernet connected,

00:22:28   and the laptop laptop is always just on WiFi.

00:22:32   And so I thought maybe it was that,

00:22:33   and so I kind of left it alone.

00:22:35   Well, as we're recording this podcast,

00:22:39   people are talking, I'm occasionally talking,

00:22:42   and I'm occasionally navigating to a page in Safari

00:22:45   to look something up, and I notice that pages in Safari

00:22:48   kind of stopped loading completely.

00:22:50   And at some point I went to go,

00:22:54   I was gonna relaunch Safari.

00:22:56   I was gonna right click on the dock icon,

00:22:57   hit quit, relaunch Safari.

00:22:59   I right click on the icon and the dock beach balls,

00:23:04   like the dock process beach balls,

00:23:06   and I think, oh no, this is not good,

00:23:10   because this is how this problem began before

00:23:13   on the other computer.

00:23:14   I'm in the middle of a recording.

00:23:16   I can't launch any new apps

00:23:18   or close any apps I have running.

00:23:19   And the recording is still going.

00:23:22   Like in the recording app I'm using, it's still going,

00:23:24   so I thought, okay, don't touch anything

00:23:29   and just hope I can get through.

00:23:31   It was, we were most of the way through the shows

00:23:33   where I thought, let me just hope I can get through

00:23:35   the rest of the show.

00:23:36   I won't touch any apps.

00:23:37   I'll just let the recorder go

00:23:38   with Finder Beach Balling in the background,

00:23:40   and I'm just gonna let this go and hope I can make it.

00:23:43   And then every so often, the other person on,

00:23:47   it was Skype, the other person on Skype

00:23:50   would just cut out for a few seconds,

00:23:52   but then they'd come back.

00:23:54   So I thought, okay, that's not good, that's not good,

00:23:56   but we're still good, the recording,

00:23:57   look, it's still going, it's still, you know,

00:23:59   the recording app still says it's going, okay, okay.

00:24:01   Eventually, Skype, the other party just drops out completely.

00:24:06   I mean, I'm hearing nobody, and I thought,

00:24:08   "Okay, well, this I can't recover from.

00:24:11   "Let me just reboot everything."

00:24:12   So I typed a quick message in the Slack,

00:24:14   BRB, computer trouble, came back and I learned,

00:24:18   after I came back, I did finish the show,

00:24:20   I learned afterwards that I was missing

00:24:23   something like 10 minutes of audio in the middle there.

00:24:25   Like basically since the problem had begun,

00:24:28   it stopped recording.

00:24:29   I had no data from that segment.

00:24:31   And this shook me to the core.

00:24:34   Again, I've been podcasting professionally

00:24:36   for a very long time, I have never lost a recording

00:24:39   as far as I can remember.

00:24:40   If I did, it's been a long time ago.

00:24:42   - Oh, you get used to it, don't worry about it.

00:24:43   - Yeah, so to lose 10 minutes or so of audio,

00:24:46   that killed me.

00:24:48   I can't believe I lost that audio.

00:24:50   It drives me crazy, I can't believe that happened.

00:24:54   And so instantly I thought, I have to make a change,

00:24:57   this can never happen again.

00:24:57   So my recording setup for, I don't know,

00:25:01   the last two or three years has just been

00:25:04   the Sound Devices USB Pre 2,

00:25:05   which is my favorite preamp I've ever used

00:25:07   for a microphone USB kind of interface.

00:25:09   I love it.

00:25:10   And in part I love it because there is absolutely

00:25:13   no software.

00:25:14   It is just a simple USB preamp

00:25:18   that is covered in knobs and buttons and LEDs.

00:25:21   There's no software, there's no touchscreen,

00:25:23   there's nothing like that.

00:25:25   It's just covered in knobs and buttons.

00:25:27   And so everything is done on hardware.

00:25:29   And as far as I can tell,

00:25:32   the signal path that goes through

00:25:34   between the microphone and the headphone monitoring output

00:25:39   seems to be 100% analog, which means that when I'm speaking

00:25:44   through the USB Pre, there is zero latency

00:25:48   between the voice that's going into the microphone

00:25:51   and the voice I'm hearing in the headphones.

00:25:53   No latency whatsoever.

00:25:54   And that is something that is only possible

00:25:57   when the microphone is connected via analog

00:26:01   to the headphone output in some fashion.

00:26:03   - It's not zero, but we know what you mean.

00:26:05   - Yes, it's not going through an analog to digital converter

00:26:09   being processed somehow, being routed anywhere,

00:26:11   and then being spit back out.

00:26:12   There's nothing like that happening on that signal path.

00:26:16   And this is the way almost every low end to mid range

00:26:20   USB XLR interface works.

00:26:23   They almost all work this way.

00:26:24   Anything that has a headphone output or a monitoring output,

00:26:26   usually they work this way until you get into

00:26:28   the more advanced ones that have,

00:26:30   usually they have multiple, more than two inputs

00:26:33   sometimes they have built in mixing capabilities,

00:26:35   things like the sound devices MixPre series,

00:26:37   the Zoom F6, things like this.

00:26:40   These are mixers that usually have digital routing,

00:26:42   so you can change what signals contribute

00:26:45   to the headphone mix and stuff like that.

00:26:46   And so all of that is always,

00:26:48   at least as far as I can tell,

00:26:49   it seems to be always done now in the digital domain.

00:26:52   So you first convert the signal to digital,

00:26:54   route it, process it, whatever you wanna do,

00:26:55   then you output it to analog,

00:26:56   and that introduces usually on the order

00:26:59   of a few milliseconds of latency.

00:27:00   And the way this manifests itself to me is

00:27:04   I sound a little bit worse to myself in my headphones.

00:27:09   It's not a huge difference, but I notice it.

00:27:12   And I know it's related to latency.

00:27:13   Everyone on Twitter is like,

00:27:14   "You must not be hearing something right.

00:27:16   "Maybe it's a face thing."

00:27:17   Everyone's of course telling me that the problem I'm having

00:27:20   is not really the problem I'm having.

00:27:21   And I'm telling you it is, and the way I can tell

00:27:23   is because when you change the sample rate of the interface,

00:27:26   it decreases the latency and it makes the problem less bad.

00:27:28   So normally I record everything at 44.1 kilohertz,

00:27:32   but if you change the sample rate of the interface

00:27:35   from 44.1 all the way up to like 192 kilohertz,

00:27:39   then it's almost real time.

00:27:40   Like that becomes the point where I can't really hear

00:27:43   much of a difference.

00:27:44   But at 44.1 I very much can.

00:27:47   And so everyone keeps telling me I can't hear it,

00:27:49   I assure you I measured the mix pre line,

00:27:53   it has about 3.4, I think,

00:27:55   three point something milliseconds of latency

00:27:56   and I absolutely hear the difference,

00:27:58   It's clear as data mean.

00:27:59   And I think, I'm a professional podcaster.

00:28:01   I should sound in my ears as good as I possibly can

00:28:04   to myself because this is what I do.

00:28:06   I deserve to have myself be happy and sound good in my ears.

00:28:09   Okay, so.

00:28:11   (laughs)

00:28:12   But the problem is that almost anything

00:28:14   that has built in recording,

00:28:16   to like, almost any interface that records to an SD card

00:28:19   goes through that analog to digital cycle before the output

00:28:24   'cause they almost all have some kind of mixing features

00:28:26   or something like that.

00:28:27   And so I don't think there are any that I can really

00:28:31   replace this with that have that.

00:28:33   And furthermore, I love the USB Pre 2 for lots of reasons,

00:28:37   including the fact that it has analog limiters.

00:28:40   And this is again, something that almost no modern

00:28:43   interfaces offer, analog limiters.

00:28:45   So that way I can't clip and it doesn't sound bad

00:28:47   like some other methods do and there's no latency

00:28:50   like digital limiters introduce.

00:28:51   So all this is to say I wanna keep my USB Pre 2.

00:28:54   So I have this huge, ridiculous setup now.

00:28:58   Part of it is still coming from Amazon,

00:28:59   part of it is in Process Now,

00:29:01   where I bought a little Zoom F3,

00:29:03   which is this little tiny, newly released Zoom recorder

00:29:07   that right now I'm going through it at 192.

00:29:11   Once I get all my wires from Amazon,

00:29:13   I'll be able to actually not listen through it

00:29:16   and just have direct output from the USB pre-2.

00:29:18   Anyway, so I had this whole process going.

00:29:22   What I should probably do is switch to the MixPre

00:29:25   and just suck it up and maybe run it at 192,

00:29:27   but that's its own can of worms.

00:29:31   So I don't really wanna deal with that.

00:29:32   And the great thing about this setup,

00:29:33   having it totally separate,

00:29:33   is that even if the computer reboots,

00:29:36   even if the USB connection gets flaky,

00:29:38   this has nothing to do with USB.

00:29:39   Right now it's running on batteries.

00:29:41   It's totally separate.

00:29:42   So anyway, happy with that.

00:29:43   So moving on from that,

00:29:44   that's problem number one that I'm dealing with.

00:29:46   So my computer now did that.

00:29:48   By the way, to try to figure out what the heck that was,

00:29:53   first, the next day, I'm using my computer

00:29:55   and it just keeps happening.

00:29:57   So I'm using my computer regularly,

00:29:58   not recording a podcast, not running Skype,

00:30:00   doing other things on my computer.

00:30:01   And the problem recurs where all of a sudden

00:30:03   I can't click on apps, can't close apps,

00:30:05   then I eventually have to reboot.

00:30:07   And I try, all right, let me switch over

00:30:10   and stop using the Synology for Time Machine.

00:30:12   Let me change over to, I have a little external SSD,

00:30:15   a USB SSD, I'll try that.

00:30:18   That way it's not network time machine at all.

00:30:20   So I turn off the network time machine,

00:30:22   I connect the USB thing, format it,

00:30:24   you know, clear, start new, go.

00:30:26   And within a half hour it happens again, even with that.

00:30:30   So now I'm thinking, is it not time machine,

00:30:34   or is it just any time machine?

00:30:36   Turn off time machine, problem hasn't happened since.

00:30:39   So the problem happened, I believe,

00:30:41   four times in eight hours,

00:30:43   and then zero times after turning off time machine.

00:30:47   So I think it was probably Time Machine,

00:30:48   but what the heck is that?

00:30:50   And now I don't have Time Machine.

00:30:51   And like that's, so that's problem number one.

00:30:53   - When I see errors like the one you're describing,

00:30:55   maybe it's just me,

00:30:57   but I always think my file system is host.

00:31:00   - Thank you.

00:31:01   (laughing)

00:31:02   - That, because like, and you was like,

00:31:03   well, why would that manifest with Time Machine?

00:31:05   Time Machine, especially doing a full backup,

00:31:07   has to touch every part of your file system.

00:31:09   And if there's any part, it's like bad disk IO,

00:31:12   bad sectors, corrupt file system things,

00:31:14   if it gets to some point where it's like crawling

00:31:16   over your file system, and it's trying to read a file,

00:31:18   and it wanders into like a blocking I/O call, right?

00:31:22   And that thing just hangs forever

00:31:23   because it's local I/O call, and it's blocking,

00:31:26   and there's no timeout on it.

00:31:28   That's where you get like, you know,

00:31:29   something gets hung up in a beach ball or whatever.

00:31:31   So the first thing I do when I see something like that is,

00:31:35   you know, disk first aid, FSDK, all that whole nine yards,

00:31:38   boot into recovery mode, see if I have a corrupt snapshot

00:31:41   in Time Machine, which happens in APFS a lot,

00:31:45   see if I have any errors, and like,

00:31:46   I always suspect disk I/O, because if disk I/O goes bad,

00:31:50   that manifests in hard hangs from whatever is trying

00:31:54   to do that, and then eventually cascades into terribleness.

00:31:56   - Yeah, like it feels like the disk has just stalled,

00:32:00   or, you know, we're running out of file descriptors,

00:32:03   something like that, some kind of disk-related thing.

00:32:05   - Yeah, that could also be one of them, yeah.

00:32:07   - But what leads me to believe it might be like

00:32:08   a Mac OS bug is that this happened on the 14 inch

00:32:12   months ago, and that was a brand new computer,

00:32:14   These are both brand new MacBook Pros from last fall.

00:32:17   So I think any kind of hardware disk failure,

00:32:20   like bad sectors, I think is unlikely

00:32:21   to have happened both like this.

00:32:23   - Not hardware failure, but disk,

00:32:26   what do you call it, file system structure correction.

00:32:28   - Right, right.

00:32:29   But the other thing is they were both clean installs.

00:32:33   And they're both used very differently.

00:32:35   The small laptop has almost nothing on it

00:32:39   and is only used once every day or two.

00:32:42   And there's very few apps, very little new rights happening.

00:32:46   And these have very, very different usage patterns

00:32:49   and very different conditions.

00:32:50   And that's why I think it's a bug.

00:32:52   I think it's a Mac OS bug or an M1 Macs bug or something.

00:32:55   There's something wrong here.

00:32:57   So we'll see.

00:32:58   And maybe I'll try your suggestion

00:32:59   and see if they find anything,

00:33:00   but probably not during the show.

00:33:02   But--

00:33:02   - Wow.

00:33:03   - Yeah, and by the way, if you do find a corrupt snapshot,

00:33:05   you can just delete that snapshot.

00:33:07   I don't think you have any other choices.

00:33:10   In fact, I don't think you can repair a snapshot.

00:33:12   But if you find a bad snapshot, you can use TMUtil to delete that snapshot and then do

00:33:16   another run of disk utility from recovery mode and make sure it gives you a full clean

00:33:20   bill of health.

00:33:21   Because you'll see it checking all the things, you know, check the top level thing of the

00:33:28   device and then check the individual volumes and it'll check all the snapshots.

00:33:31   And once you get a clean bill of health and all those things, then at least you know that's

00:33:33   not the problem.

00:33:34   All right, I'll give that a shot.

00:33:36   So anyway, the other area that has been failing,

00:33:40   the home pods, they're on their last legs.

00:33:44   - Oh no, oh no.

00:33:45   - Now here's the thing though,

00:33:47   I actually, I am slightly optimistic

00:33:49   for a reason that I probably shouldn't be,

00:33:52   but it makes very little sense, but here's the thing.

00:33:55   So my home pods are continually having ridiculous problems.

00:34:00   Like they barely work anymore.

00:34:02   They work, you know, maybe two thirds of the time

00:34:06   I ask them to work.

00:34:07   That's not a good ratio.

00:34:08   And the number of bugs happening,

00:34:10   especially with the stereo pair,

00:34:11   the number of bugs where the stereo pair breaks

00:34:13   or one of them drops out,

00:34:14   or they just become two separate entities for some reason,

00:34:17   or like, it's happening a lot now.

00:34:20   Something is seriously wrong,

00:34:22   and it's very clear that Apple has totally broken

00:34:24   the software on them, or the hardware, or both,

00:34:26   and it's not going to get fixed

00:34:27   in a reasonable way any time soon.

00:34:29   So that being said, when you write an audio app for iOS,

00:34:36   and you pay attention to what your users say

00:34:38   or what you experience on the iOS point release betas,

00:34:44   you can usually predict when Apple's

00:34:46   about to either add a major audio feature

00:34:48   or release new audio hardware, which usually comes

00:34:51   with a new major feature.

00:34:52   So every time Apple has released new AirPods, say,

00:34:57   or something like that, or the HomePod,

00:34:59   they have usually somehow royally messed up audio,

00:35:04   usually in an iOS point release,

00:35:06   like 15.1, 15.2, not like 15.0,

00:35:09   like a regular .X release, audio gets messed up in the betas

00:35:13   usually, shortly before they're about to release

00:35:16   new audio hardware that uses something like that.

00:35:18   And that just happened for the first time in a while

00:35:20   in the 15 point, what are we on, four?

00:35:23   Whatever the recent iOS 15 point, whatever beta is.

00:35:26   they completely and in a major way broke

00:35:30   AirPlay audio for I think two beta builds

00:35:33   and then they fixed it.

00:35:35   And they haven't touched AirPlay audio in a little while

00:35:37   so I'm kind of thinking that we might,

00:35:41   this is again, this is the only thing

00:35:42   I have to support this hypothesis,

00:35:45   but we might be about to see new HomePod hardware.

00:35:47   If that, again, this is just a hunch,

00:35:49   I have nothing to support this,

00:35:50   there is no rumors to this effect

00:35:52   so it's probably wrong.

00:35:53   But I think we're about to maybe see

00:35:55   new HomePod hardware.

00:35:57   And while that would be great,

00:36:00   I don't know if I'm gonna make it.

00:36:01   (laughing)

00:36:02   Like I'm gonna use them every day

00:36:03   and they're breaking so badly.

00:36:04   And so here's, what's probably gonna happen is

00:36:08   I'm gonna get fed up with these

00:36:09   and replace them with something else.

00:36:11   And then that will guarantee new HomePod hardware

00:36:14   will come out shortly after.

00:36:16   - Hey man, my ultra fine says the system works.

00:36:19   - Right.

00:36:20   - Because I bought this ultra fine

00:36:21   and then sure enough we got the studio display

00:36:22   just a few months later.

00:36:23   So you're welcome world.

00:36:24   (laughing)

00:36:25   Yeah, so maybe I will, you know,

00:36:28   conjure new home pods into existence

00:36:30   by replacing mine with something else.

00:36:33   But we'll see.

00:36:35   They're so, they're like,

00:36:37   they're almost ridiculously broken now.

00:36:39   Nothing is working reliably anymore about them.

00:36:41   It's quite sad.

00:36:43   We'll see.

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00:38:41   - We had a lot of discussion last episode

00:38:47   about double-clicking for wallets and how we could save

00:38:52   the quickness or make the lock button quicker by disabling

00:38:56   double-clicking, triple-clicking,

00:38:57   things of that nature.

00:38:58   And we were wondering, well, how do you get into Apple Pay

00:39:01   if you can't double-click the side button?

00:39:03   And we didn't have a really good answer

00:39:04   for that at the time.

00:39:05   Well, a few people have written in.

00:39:06   Trevor Kay writes, "For getting into Apple Pay without

00:39:08   the side button double-click, first open the Wallet app,

00:39:11   then select a card, and then double-click the side button."

00:39:14   And then Andrew notes that this method still works even when double-clicking the side button

00:39:19   features disabled globally.

00:39:20   So again, if you're deliberately going into the Wallet app, selecting a card, if at that

00:39:25   point you double-click, it apparently will work.

00:39:29   Additionally, some other people have written in that you can add a Wallet button to Control

00:39:33   Center, which brings up the same double-click side button UI when you're on the lock screen.

00:39:38   And Michael Samuels writes, "Important that tapping the button in Control Center will

00:39:42   the payment sheet only if the phone is locked. If the phone is unlocked, the button will jump to the

00:39:47   Wallet app instead. So that's worth noting. And then finally, I tried this earlier today when I

00:39:53   was in Publix, which is a grocery store in the southeast. If you just hold a completely sleeping

00:40:00   locked phone up next to a payment terminal, it will actually pop up as though you've double

00:40:04   clicked, which I had no idea, and a few people have written in about that. That was news to me,

00:40:08   so that's kind of cool. So you can do that as well. Obviously, you know, and a lot of people

00:40:11   wrote in and said, "Well, don't you wear an Apple Watch?" Well, yes, but we weren't talking about

00:40:15   the Apple Watch at this point. I almost never Apple Pay with my phone anymore because anytime

00:40:19   I have the occasion to, I have a mask on, and so I would just use the watch, which is much easier,

00:40:25   in my personal opinion. But yeah, those are three different methods to, or a couple different

00:40:29   methods to, do the double-click dance without having it enabled all the time. So still keeping

00:40:34   your very fast lock button. The mask on lock doesn't work pretty well for me, speaking of

00:40:39   of doing face ID with mask.

00:40:40   And I think one of the,

00:40:41   this was working kind of before mask unlock,

00:40:43   but often when I'm brushing my teeth,

00:40:46   I will look at my phone and have to unlock it

00:40:48   while I'm brushing my teeth,

00:40:49   which I think is a challenging face ID scenario.

00:40:51   'Cause at the very least it's a toothbrush going down

00:40:52   in my mouth and also my hand is kind of

00:40:54   in front of whatever.

00:40:55   And I have pretty good success unlocking my phone

00:40:57   while brushing my teeth.

00:40:58   I think I had pretty good success doing that

00:41:00   before mask unlock, but I wonder if it helped a little bit.

00:41:03   But anyway, mask unlock has been working pretty well for me

00:41:06   and I don't wear an Apple watch,

00:41:07   so I can't do Apple Pay with Apple Watch.

00:41:09   - What did people do while we brushed our teeth

00:41:12   before smartphones?

00:41:14   - You walk around.

00:41:15   - Yeah, that's what I did.

00:41:16   - Yeah, but then doesn't toothpaste,

00:41:17   does a little toothpaste flex,

00:41:18   have the risk of getting in other places

00:41:20   and you don't want to look at your own teeth?

00:41:20   - Not only if you're really bad at brushing your teeth,

00:41:23   or you're five.

00:41:23   (laughing)

00:41:24   - The real question is what did people do

00:41:26   when they were pooping before WiFi?

00:41:27   That's what I wanted.

00:41:28   - You read, I read entire books on the toilet.

00:41:30   - Ah, that's true, that's a good point.

00:41:32   - Palm Pilot, I played Miele Born a lot, and Hearts.

00:41:35   - Yeah, I read books on my PalmPilot.

00:41:37   (laughing)

00:41:39   160 by 160 pixels, perfect for reading a book.

00:41:43   (laughing)

00:41:44   - I wonder if the smartphone era has actually made people

00:41:47   spend more time brushing their teeth.

00:41:49   It's easy to get to the full two minutes

00:41:51   on the electric toothbrush because you have something to do.

00:41:54   You're moving it around casually,

00:41:56   but I feel like it was much easier

00:41:59   in the pre-smartphone era to rush through it

00:42:03   and accidentally not spend your full two minutes

00:42:05   working with you that you're supposed to.

00:42:07   - Yeah, that's why walking around is the old standby,

00:42:08   so it always works.

00:42:09   - Yep.

00:42:10   All right, so we got some news about WWDC 2022,

00:42:14   and specifically the event, the in-person event

00:42:17   that's happening at Apple Park.

00:42:18   And so there is a special page on the developer site

00:42:23   with the URL /WWDC22/special-day.

00:42:28   But anyways, on that page it says,

00:42:29   We're hosting a special all day experience at Apple Park on June 6 to kick off WWDC 2022.

00:42:37   Gather with others in the developer community to watch the keynote and State of the Union videos

00:42:42   alongside Apple engineers and experts explore the only developer center and so much more.

00:42:46   We can't wait to connect in person.

00:42:47   I'm sorry.

00:42:48   All new developer center?

00:42:50   What?

00:42:50   Explore it.

00:42:51   Let's explore your explore our desks.

00:42:54   And then one of you, I presume John, put this link in the show notes that I completely missed when it flew

00:42:59   buy, which was apparently this time last year. And this is a link to Mac rumors, and it says

00:43:04   Apple's building developer center at Apple Park campus. And in this, it says that Apple's working

00:43:10   to build a dedicated developer center on its Apple Park campus, Apple fellow Phil Schiller

00:43:13   said today during his testimony in the ongoing Epic vs. Apple trial. Schiller did not provide

00:43:18   additional detail on the developer center and has not been previously announced by Apple. So

00:43:21   little information is available at this time. Again, that was a year ago. So I don't know what

00:43:25   what this is about. We can come back to that in just a moment, but moving right along to the

00:43:29   actual details about this event that's happening in next month. Attending this event is free and

00:43:34   open to members of the Apple Developer Program and Apple Developer Enterprise Program. Imitations

00:43:38   will be allocated through a random selection process and are non-transferable. This sounds

00:43:42   exactly like WWDC actually. Submit your request between May 9th at 9 Pacific to May 11th at 9

00:43:49   Pacific. You'll be notified of your status by May 12th at 6 p.m. Pacific. It requires a negative

00:43:55   COVID-19 test no more than three days before the event. Masks are currently optional. We'll

00:43:59   provide details on the latest requirements to attendees prior to the event. One thing

00:44:03   I would love to know, and I think James Thompson pointed this out, where is this happening?

00:44:08   Is this an indoor thing? Because that would make the very... I'm not going to sign up

00:44:12   regardless, but if I was going, if this is an indoor thing, I don't know about that.

00:44:16   If it's an outdoor thing, I think I can handle that. So what do we think of this event? What

00:44:21   do we think of this developer center thing? What do we think?

00:44:24   I wonder if the developer center is like a trap.

00:44:26   I was like, so everything pulled out of the story for May,

00:44:29   right?

00:44:29   For what?

00:44:30   It's like, oh, it's like a developer's check-in,

00:44:32   but they don't check out.

00:44:33   I don't know.

00:44:33   Like, yes, it's the Developer Re-Education Center.

00:44:37   I don't know.

00:44:39   I like this quote from the macro-mirrors thing

00:44:41   of saying that Schiller talked about it in the trial.

00:44:44   I mean, you know why they bring it up in the trial.

00:44:45   It's like, Apple would be like, what do you mean?

00:44:47   We love developers.

00:44:47   In fact, we're building a developer center right now.

00:44:50   And as the quote said, it's not been previously announced.

00:44:53   So little information is available at this time.

00:44:55   That was May 2021.

00:44:57   Well, I can tell you right now in May 2022,

00:44:59   little information is available at this time.

00:45:01   What the heck is the developer center?

00:45:02   Presumably it's like a bunch of machines and like,

00:45:04   you can go, it's like, imagine like WWDC Labs, right?

00:45:07   But on Apple's campus,

00:45:08   where a place where developers are allowed to go.

00:45:10   So it's no secret Apple stuff there.

00:45:12   You go in there, you bring your laptop and your app,

00:45:15   and there's a bunch of, you know,

00:45:17   Apple engineers that are to help you with your app

00:45:19   or whatever you need help with.

00:45:20   You need help with UI design,

00:45:21   you need help with a particular API,

00:45:22   just like WWDC Labs, except a dedicated little room for it

00:45:26   in Apple Park, cordoned off from everything else.

00:45:29   That's my best guess at what the developer center would be.

00:45:32   But, you know, they didn't say,

00:45:34   it's like, you know, you're gonna be here in person,

00:45:35   we're gonna watch videos, all right, sure, whatever.

00:45:38   We're going to explore the developer center,

00:45:40   I don't know what that means, and so much more.

00:45:43   They can't wait to connect in person,

00:45:45   even if you're not vaccinated and aren't wearing a mask,

00:45:46   which seems ill-advised to me,

00:45:49   especially since this is a lottery,

00:45:51   and honestly, how many people can they let there?

00:45:53   It's not like they're gonna have 10,000 people

00:45:56   at Apple Park, right?

00:45:57   It's gonna be a small number of people.

00:45:59   It seems, I don't know,

00:46:01   I still feel like this entire thing is kind of ill-advised,

00:46:04   but that's what they're choosing to do.

00:46:06   It's a small in-person gathering

00:46:10   of potentially maskless, potentially unvaccinated people

00:46:12   who three days in the past did not test positive.

00:46:16   I don't know.

00:46:19   We'll see, but I find the developer center

00:46:21   somewhat intriguing.

00:46:22   - Yeah, there's so much that we don't know here.

00:46:26   And I think, you know, we say that,

00:46:28   oh, we got an update from Apple about this whole thing,

00:46:31   but the update really only added new questions.

00:46:35   It's like an episode of Lost.

00:46:36   It's like, all right, well, now we know

00:46:37   a little bit more about it, but now we have

00:46:39   these new questions of what's the developer center,

00:46:41   and why no masks?

00:46:44   This whole thing is baffling to me.

00:46:48   And I do still wonder, as you said, Jon,

00:46:51   they're certainly incurring some degree of COVID risk here

00:46:55   by having this event.

00:46:57   And while it's probably going to be a low risk,

00:47:01   generally speaking, compared to worst scenarios

00:47:04   that could exist and worst seasons and worst places,

00:47:07   it still doesn't really seem like it's worth the risk

00:47:10   to have an event at all right now

00:47:13   if it's gonna be so limited and still bear some risk.

00:47:18   It's like, I feel like either have WWDC or don't, you know?

00:47:22   But I don't know, I could be wrong.

00:47:24   I mean, maybe this is just going to be

00:47:27   the way forward indefinitely for WWDC.

00:47:30   They've had this issue that we've talked about before,

00:47:32   how they made it online only for the last couple years,

00:47:36   and they accidentally made it too good,

00:47:38   and they spoiled us, and now we realize

00:47:41   that actually this is better for most people

00:47:44   most of the time, and it's better for all people

00:47:47   in certain ways, and so maybe this is the new

00:47:50   kind of compromise, of like, okay, well,

00:47:52   we still are going to have some kind of in-person

00:47:55   component for those who want it,

00:47:57   but it's not going to be the full conference

00:47:59   in person the way it used to be.

00:48:01   And so we'll see what that means.

00:48:03   Again, I still have so many questions

00:48:04   about how this actually works in practice,

00:48:07   and what is the developer center even,

00:48:10   what are their plans for that?

00:48:10   I mean, I'm sure that got derailed by COVID,

00:48:12   but what do they plan for that to be?

00:48:16   Who gets access, what does it take to get access,

00:48:18   what do you have access to once you get there,

00:48:21   is it gonna be like labs that are open year round?

00:48:25   That's kind of awesome if that's what it is,

00:48:27   and that's kind of what it sounds like it might be.

00:48:29   So we'll see, there's so much unknown

00:48:32   and Apple keeps dropping like one sentence at a time

00:48:35   of what this thing even is, what this event is,

00:48:39   and it's hilarious that when they drop these sentences

00:48:44   here and there, they act as though we all already know.

00:48:48   - Yeah. - And I'm sure they know

00:48:49   what they're doing, you know, but still,

00:48:50   like it's just kind of funny, like, they're like,

00:48:51   oh yeah, they'll preview the new developer center,

00:48:53   and everyone's like, wait, record scratch, what?

00:48:55   Like, what? (laughs)

00:48:56   - And then you dig up the Mac, the article from MacRumors

00:49:00   from May of last year, yeah, I mean, obviously,

00:49:02   like, doing the PR drip is a common strategy

00:49:05   of releasing a little piece of information at a time,

00:49:06   and also, like, Apple probably doesn't know the details

00:49:09   of exactly what it's doing at this point,

00:49:11   'cause they always plan the stuff at the last minute.

00:49:12   They probably know more than they're saying,

00:49:14   but it's the combination of those two things.

00:49:16   But yeah, it gets us to talk about it again

00:49:17   'cause they reeled a little bit more information,

00:49:19   but still my main overriding sense about this thing is

00:49:24   it's weird that they're doing anything in person

00:49:26   at this particular time.

00:49:27   I oppose the strategy of having a limited in-person thing

00:49:30   combined with a mostly on-plane link.

00:49:31   I think that's great.

00:49:33   And especially if they have a developer center

00:49:35   that's always there or more accessible,

00:49:37   that all makes sense too,

00:49:38   but the details of this particular event

00:49:41   at this particular time seems strange to me

00:49:43   and I continue to question who's gonna be super enthusiastic

00:49:46   about going to this, and who's gonna be super enthusiastic

00:49:49   about being the Apple people at this,

00:49:52   you know what I mean?

00:49:52   'Cause there have to be Apple,

00:49:53   presumably there's other Apple people

00:49:55   at the developer center, unless it is just like

00:49:56   one tour guide walking you through backwards

00:49:58   like Casey at Virginia Tech saying,

00:49:59   "And here's a developer center."

00:50:00   - Nice pull, nice pull.

00:50:02   - Were you actually able to use the developer center?

00:50:05   This is where you would sit and get help,

00:50:07   but anyway, let's continue on.

00:50:08   (laughing)

00:50:10   So let me be serious and then let me be silly for a minute.

00:50:14   I remember when the Apple Watch first came out

00:50:18   that a lot of developers that were potentially

00:50:22   publicly considering writing Apple Watch apps,

00:50:25   they quietly got whisked off to San Francisco

00:50:29   or Cupertino or whatever and were able to bring their code

00:50:33   and run it against not yet released Apple Watches.

00:50:36   I only ever heard this through the grapevine

00:50:38   and I don't know that this is true,

00:50:40   but I'm pretty sure it's true.

00:50:42   - Oh no, it was a public program.

00:50:44   - Oh was it?

00:50:45   Okay, okay, I wasn't sure if it was public.

00:50:46   - Yeah, well there's two stages

00:50:48   to pre-release hardware stuff.

00:50:49   There's like, before it's even announced,

00:50:52   Apple might approach certain developers and say,

00:50:55   "Hey, can you make us a demo for our new hardware

00:50:58   "that we can show off here in the keynote?"

00:50:59   That's a very, very small group that's kept very under wraps

00:51:02   with lots of limitations on how they even see the hardware.

00:51:07   It's usually in big boxes, it's guarded,

00:51:10   It's a whole thing.

00:51:11   Whereas between when something's been announced

00:51:14   to the public and when it's available to the public,

00:51:17   sometimes you get more access.

00:51:18   And in the case of the Apple Watch,

00:51:20   what happened was, they announced it,

00:51:23   I believe it was like a few months

00:51:25   before it was gonna be available,

00:51:27   something like that, right?

00:51:28   And so there was a big gap

00:51:30   between announcement and availability.

00:51:31   - Yeah, there was, there was.

00:51:33   - So during that time, they actually launched a program

00:51:35   for developers to apply to have this pre-release access

00:51:39   so that you could go, it was already announced

00:51:41   and shown to the public, so you didn't have to worry

00:51:43   about breaking the secret of this thing existing.

00:51:45   And if you were accepted into this program,

00:51:48   you would go and, you say they whisked them there,

00:51:51   no, the developers had to pay to whisk themselves there.

00:51:54   (laughing)

00:51:54   - Fair, fair, fair, that's a good point.

00:51:56   - But yeah, so if you were accepted,

00:51:58   you would have one day, you'd be like,

00:52:01   okay, well, you could be here during this one day,

00:52:04   and you'll have access to the hardware

00:52:06   and be able to bring your app already mostly done

00:52:09   from the simulator and you can run it

00:52:12   on the actual hardware and make tweaks for one day

00:52:14   and then see you later.

00:52:16   So that's what was happening.

00:52:17   I don't know if that has happened in any other way

00:52:20   for anything else they've done in recent history.

00:52:22   - Yeah, I'm not sure either, but I'm thinking of that

00:52:25   and I'm wondering if that's one of the uses

00:52:27   of the developer center is to be able

00:52:29   to have a specific place to, well I was gonna say

00:52:33   bring people, but to have people arrive

00:52:35   and let them play with something.

00:52:39   And then it got me thinking,

00:52:40   and this is where I'm getting a little bit silly,

00:52:42   what if this is all in preparation

00:52:44   for the supposedly forthcoming AR glasses?

00:52:47   Like what if this is,

00:52:48   I'm sure it's gonna be used for other things too,

00:52:50   but what if this is in large part to prepare a space,

00:52:53   or prepare the way even you could say,

00:52:56   for developers to come and use AR glasses

00:52:58   and test their presumably simulator

00:53:01   or whatever driven code on actual hardware.

00:53:04   Like I could see a world in which that's what this is about.

00:53:09   - Is this a room full of AR tables?

00:53:11   - Yeah, just empty blank tables.

00:53:14   - Like big places for you to be able to walk around

00:53:16   and not bump into things.

00:53:18   Speaking of this, by the way,

00:53:19   like the latest, I mean, rumors, whatever,

00:53:21   the latest round of rumors I heard was that,

00:53:23   oh, Apple was planning to do the AR stuff at this WWDC,

00:53:26   but it got pushed, but we'll see.

00:53:28   - Yeah, I mean, that's been the rumor for every WWDC

00:53:30   for the last three years.

00:53:31   - So far it's been true.

00:53:33   (laughing)

00:53:34   - No, I remember the last one they had in person.

00:53:36   I remember, I was in the room for that one

00:53:39   with you guys, I believe, and I remember

00:53:41   before the keynote started, they have the screen

00:53:46   showing the little animations or whatever,

00:53:47   and the animations they were showing looked very much

00:53:50   like they would be the style of something

00:53:53   drawn for air glasses.

00:53:54   It was almost like those laser portraits in the '80s,

00:53:56   but forming shapes, you know what I mean?

00:53:59   Like everything was made out of light sabers.

00:54:00   - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:54:02   - Like it was that kind of style,

00:54:03   And even, I remember looking at that thinking,

00:54:05   oh my God, are they about to do the AR thing right now?

00:54:08   Because that sure, like that art style sure looks like it.

00:54:12   And it turns out it was just,

00:54:13   that was just the art style for the year.

00:54:15   It meant nothing, it was just what they thought looked cool.

00:54:18   - It was like a virtual boy.

00:54:19   - Yeah, yeah.

00:54:20   - Getting ready.

00:54:21   Yeah, I don't know.

00:54:22   Yeah, we'll see what happens.

00:54:23   I mean, I'm enthusiastic about this for other people.

00:54:26   You know, it's one of those things like,

00:54:27   would you hire this person for your team?

00:54:29   No, but I'd hire them for that team over there.

00:54:32   I think this is an interesting way for Apple to dip their toe in the water. Personally, for me,

00:54:37   I am not in love with the idea of getting on an airplane yet, much less, you know,

00:54:42   going to a place where a bunch of people are milling about potentially indoors,

00:54:45   you know, potentially without masks. Like that's not my jam, but if it's your jam, like feel free.

00:54:49   And I'm very, very excited to see pictures, what will people be allowed to share anyway,

00:54:55   pictures and information about how this goes down, but we'll see.

00:55:00   All right, our friend Jason, friend of the show Jason, had something to talk about with regard to

00:55:06   the Apple Studio display and settings. And Jason lamented in Macworld, in his periodic column in

00:55:12   Macworld, that it would be cool if we had settings for the Studio display webcam. Wouldn't that be

00:55:17   interesting? So Jason writes, "We can debate the wisdom of putting center stage on a display,

00:55:22   most likely designed for the desks of nerds, but let's leave that aside." Actually, I would like

00:55:26   I'd like to talk about that briefly.

00:55:27   I stand by, I love center stage,

00:55:29   and I think this is a reasonable application of it.

00:55:31   I think I'm the only one,

00:55:33   or maybe Jason was saying the same thing.

00:55:34   - No, I agree with you.

00:55:35   I think center stage is good here.

00:55:36   It's just they need a camera that is capable

00:55:38   of doing center stage and not also looking like crap.

00:55:41   - Agreed.

00:55:42   So anyway, so back to what Jason wrote.

00:55:43   - By the way, the update to the firmware

00:55:44   still looks like crap, right?

00:55:45   We all are in agreement on that?

00:55:47   - Yeah, some people say it's getting slightly better,

00:55:48   but that's why I put this article in here,

00:55:50   'cause I think Jason really nailed the heart

00:55:52   of how Apple's traditional ethos

00:55:55   it makes it more difficult for Apple to get out from under this bad hardware that it has chosen to put in its display.

00:56:01   Right, so continuing with what Jason wrote,

00:56:03   "How about the audacity of Apple shipping it without any interface to speak of? And how much better might the camera on the studio display have

00:56:09   been received if it could be tweaked by its users to produce more pleasing images? The studio display users are reporting that

00:56:15   occasionally the studio displays audio speakers or microphones or both get a little choppy." Again, this is me interjecting. That is absolutely factual.

00:56:24   occasionally the speakers will have I don't even know how to describe it, but it they'll have like

00:56:29   Just a few milliseconds where they where there's no audio

00:56:33   It's enough that you notice but not enough that it's extremely jarring and then occasionally and this happened to me today

00:56:39   I was listening to a podcast using overcast on Mac and I don't think this was overcast. I think it was the display

00:56:44   I'll be listening to something and I'll get

00:56:46   And it'll just freeze like that for a while and eventually in what makes me think it was the display is

00:56:53   is eventually it stopped and then when I adjusted the volume just to see if anything was working

00:56:59   because I turned back on the pops when you adjust the volume, the boop boops boops.

00:57:04   Anyways, when I did that, I heard it on my clamshelled MacBook Pro.

00:57:10   So even though the sound settings, last I had touched it, were set to the studio display,

00:57:15   suddenly after the ggggg, the MacBook Pro is what was actually emitting sound.

00:57:20   And then I went back in System Preferences, moved it back to the studio display, and everything

00:57:22   was fine.

00:57:23   Very weird though, so yeah, a little bit of audio problems

00:57:26   are definitely happening from time to time.

00:57:28   Anyway, back to Jason.

00:57:30   The studio displays audio speakers or microphones

00:57:31   or both get a little choppy.

00:57:33   That's a common problem with audio hardware on the Mac,

00:57:34   but it's fixed by the classic tech problem solver.

00:57:37   Turn it off and back on.

00:57:38   Except the studio display does not have a button.

00:57:43   If the audio on the studio display gets weird,

00:57:45   your only option is to crawl under your desk,

00:57:47   pull the plug, and then plug it back in.

00:57:49   All true, all very true.

00:57:51   - See, and that's because, as we noted before,

00:57:53   You can't even pull the power cord out

00:57:55   of the back of your monitor.

00:57:56   You can if you really want to pull really hard,

00:57:58   but that's not supposed to be pulled out.

00:57:59   It's not a regular connector.

00:58:01   It is really well wedged in there

00:58:03   and it's not the type of connector

00:58:05   that they want you connecting and disconnecting.

00:58:06   So even though technically you can yank the cord out,

00:58:09   you really shouldn't.

00:58:10   And so, because it doesn't have a power button,

00:58:12   because why would you ever need a power button, right Apple?

00:58:14   You have to go and crawl under your desk

00:58:16   and find where it's plugged in and unplug it, right?

00:58:18   So these two things like, you know, the typical Apple Ethos,

00:58:20   you don't need a power button

00:58:22   'cause why would you ever need one?

00:58:23   It's just smart enough to know when to turn on

00:58:24   and smart enough to know when to turn off.

00:58:25   You don't need to worry about it.

00:58:26   That fails you when it turns out,

00:58:29   actually sometimes you do need to turn off

00:58:30   'cause there are bugs.

00:58:31   And then the total lack of settings, right?

00:58:33   A lot of webcams have,

00:58:35   and you can read the articles to see this,

00:58:36   there have been third-party apps in the past

00:58:37   that have let you tweak the image

00:58:39   of your Apple built-in camera.

00:58:41   And then of course, third-party cameras,

00:58:42   you often come with your own app

00:58:43   where you can tweak the brightness, the contrast,

00:58:45   the exposure, the focal distance,

00:58:47   all sorts of those things that maybe you could fiddle with

00:58:50   to make the image of yourself in center stage

00:58:54   look more pleasing to you.

00:58:55   Like I said in past shows,

00:58:56   a lot of the complaints about the center stage camera,

00:58:58   aside from the low resolution,

00:59:00   is that there is like some over-processing

00:59:02   that really smooths out, presumably,

00:59:03   the noise in your face,

00:59:05   and it's like low contrast and overexposed.

00:59:08   And so the over-processing,

00:59:10   if you could disable the processing or weaken it,

00:59:12   that might help,

00:59:13   but simple things like exposure, right, and contrast,

00:59:16   those are basic settings that a lot of webcams have,

00:59:20   And it could just be that people would be happier

00:59:23   if they could just have two sliders

00:59:25   to mess with those things to make it look more like it does

00:59:28   on the iPad.

00:59:30   Again, nothing's gonna save the hardware

00:59:32   like a lot of people who are frustrated

00:59:33   by the Studio Display are getting third party webcams

00:59:37   or taking like a point and shoot digital camera

00:59:41   or a mirrorless camera or whatever

00:59:42   and those just look fantastically better.

00:59:44   So there's no substitute for cubic inches

00:59:47   but with the existing hardware that's there,

00:59:50   some amount of settings might have actually

00:59:53   saved Apple from this,

00:59:55   because the only alternative people have now

00:59:57   is there's no, as far as I know,

00:59:58   there's no third party apps

00:59:59   that you can mess with this internal camera with.

01:00:01   And people are just waiting around for new, you know,

01:00:04   beta versions of Mac OS

01:00:06   that come with slightly tweaked firmware,

01:00:08   which again, you can't change.

01:00:09   The only setting you have is basically,

01:00:10   should I do center stage or not?

01:00:12   Jason also mentioned if you could select

01:00:15   how big of a crop it takes,

01:00:17   another setting that Apple just doesn't give you,

01:00:19   although Apple changes it from beta to beta,

01:00:21   it's not like they give you a setting of like,

01:00:23   how big do you want the crop to be?

01:00:24   And that could also help you be happier with your camera.

01:00:27   So lack of settings, it's a known thing with Apple.

01:00:30   And when there is a problem,

01:00:32   the lack of settings as we've discussed in the past,

01:00:34   when troubleshooting things really makes it

01:00:35   so the user has no recourse,

01:00:37   except for just to wait around

01:00:38   and hope Apple fixes their problem.

01:00:40   - For what it's worth,

01:00:42   the LG Ultrafine also has no buttons whatsoever,

01:00:45   which is also kind of annoying.

01:00:47   - Honestly, they would just screw them up.

01:00:49   - (laughs) Probably.

01:00:50   - It's better for LG to attempt fewer things

01:00:52   'cause they obviously can't do even the basics correctly.

01:00:55   - Oh, as quick aside, speaking of screwing up buttons,

01:00:57   did you guys see, I'm not gonna be able to find the website

01:01:00   while we were talking, but I'll put a link in the show notes,

01:01:02   did you see the new, the thing about the mechanical watches?

01:01:07   This was posted in a Slack we're all in.

01:01:09   - I think I still have it open, with my Windows.

01:01:12   I haven't finished going through it,

01:01:13   so it's still in a browser window.

01:01:15   I'll have it for you in a second.

01:01:16   Here you go.

01:01:16   - I got it, I got it.

01:01:17   - Put it in the chat room.

01:01:18   - I'm not gonna try to pronounce this name

01:01:19   'cause I'm not going to do it any justice.

01:01:21   But this is a website that this person

01:01:26   does some phenomenal live animations of things

01:01:29   and mechanical engineering and discusses

01:01:34   like how things work.

01:01:35   If I recall correctly, the same person did

01:01:37   an absolutely brilliant version

01:01:39   on the internal combustion engine.

01:01:42   This is so cool.

01:01:43   and to see, like I knew a little teeny tiny bit

01:01:47   about how a mechanical watch works,

01:01:49   but this is one of those things

01:01:50   where you literally build a mechanical,

01:01:52   well not literally I shouldn't say,

01:01:54   but you effectively build a mechanical watch

01:01:56   from first principles and from nothing

01:01:58   into a fully functioning watch with a complication,

01:02:01   the whole rigmarole.

01:02:02   Marco, if you haven't read this already,

01:02:03   this is straight up your alley, this is super cool.

01:02:06   But yeah, with regard to the display,

01:02:08   for my personal needs,

01:02:10   the camera doesn't really bother me that much.

01:02:13   of course I wish it was better, but I'm not sitting on Zoom calls all day long. If I was

01:02:18   sitting on Zoom calls all day long, this would really tick me off. Center stage is awesome,

01:02:21   and it works. I tried it with, I think it was with Zoom, and it did work with Zoom. And I, again,

01:02:27   I stand by center stage. I think it's huge on me, and I think Jason also did as well, if memory

01:02:32   serves. But we might be the only ones that, there are dozens of us, we might be the only ones that

01:02:38   are enthusiastic about it. But nevertheless, I still think center stage is a perfectly

01:02:42   reasonable application or it's perfectly reasonable on the studio display and and for my uses i'm not

01:02:49   too bothered by all this but golly if i was sitting on zoom all day every day this would

01:02:53   really really really frustrate me moving on uh we can't go another episode without talking about

01:02:58   elon musk apparently so we had some feedback um i don't want to read this person's name just in case

01:03:04   that would get them in trouble but we had some feedback and it is as false it's a little bit

01:03:09   bit long, but it's fascinating. I'm one of the attorneys suing Elon Musk for his delayed

01:03:13   disclosure of his stake in Twitter. John suggested that it was good that some probably rich shareholder

01:03:17   was taking this on. It's not actually how our system works, generally speaking. Our

01:03:22   firm does plaintiff-side securities litigation because the SEC, the Security and Exchange

01:03:27   Commission, cannot or will not take on so much wrongdoing. The laws in the courts have

01:03:31   left it to the private sector to enforce security laws through private civil lawsuits. The plaintiff

01:03:36   in our case actually sold very few Twitter shares, a lot of money for him but not a lot

01:03:40   of money in the scheme of things. There's a system and the attorneys who will ultimately

01:03:43   lead the case will be the ones to represent the investor who lost the most money and wants

01:03:47   to serve as lead. That may or may not be us. We take all our cases for securities fraud

01:03:52   and other security law violations on contingency and at risk and get paid a percentage of a

01:03:56   recovery if we are successful. This model may not be ideal, but it's the system we have.

01:04:02   class action lawyers are often maligned, and I agree with much of the criticism, millions

01:04:06   of dollars of fees for the lawyers when the injured class members get a coupon in the

01:04:10   mail for 10% off another product from the company that wronged them. Our cases don't

01:04:13   settle for coupons. The class usually gets around 75% of any recovery we ultimately obtain.

01:04:19   The security laws are written in such a way that there aren't any punitive damages, so

01:04:23   recoveries are often not 100%. But I feel great about what I do, both because of the

01:04:29   we are able to get for the classes we represent and for the hopefully deterrent effect we have in the markets.

01:04:33   Unfortunately in Elon's case, I don't think the system can provide much of a deterrent because there's no amount of money that will cause him to

01:04:38   lose sleep.

01:04:39   But that doesn't mean he's above the law and hopefully we'll get a chance to remedy that for those who sold their shares too cheaply

01:04:44   when he was hiding his stake. It's fun to hear my case discussed

01:04:47   —sorry Marco—even for just a few seconds. In a prior life, I used to defend Apple and privacy-related class actions,

01:04:53   so I guess it isn't the first time. I just thought that was all super interesting. So thank you to that anonymous person.

01:04:58   It's interesting that the one he's representing is not some super rich shareholder, but obviously

01:05:05   they're working, they say we don't make money unless we win, and they get, it's not like

01:05:09   class action like you said, but you described it well, a handful of lawyers get millions

01:05:12   of dollars and the class gets some pittance, but it is actually similar because if they

01:05:18   get a percentage, if they're representing someone who had millions and millions of losses,

01:05:23   they're going to get back 75% of their million and that means the lawyers get 25% of that

01:05:28   million back.

01:05:29   So anyway, I guess they don't get anything if they lose.

01:05:32   I mostly agree that it is good that someone's trying to hold him account for doing a thing

01:05:38   that he ostensibly wasn't supposed to do.

01:05:40   It's kind of sad that this is supposed to be against the law and you're not supposed

01:05:45   to do it according to the rules of the SEC that are supposed to govern business in the

01:05:50   United States, but you can just flout those rules and just assume no one's going to come

01:05:55   after you because apparently the SEC can't or won't kind of like how our IRS can't go after

01:06:00   rich people because they don't have enough money to audit them because it's very expensive and

01:06:05   time-consuming to audit rich people because rich people have lots of lawyers and accountants and

01:06:08   everything so the IRS goes ah we can't go after rich people we'll just go after slightly less

01:06:12   rich people who we can afford to pursue which is a totally broken system and in this case it seems

01:06:18   like the SEC is not interested in going after clear violations of their rules and so they leave

01:06:23   it to the private sector quote unquote where lawyers will take it up because if they can

01:06:27   recover some of the money that people say that they lost because you know again he was

01:06:32   hiding his stake in Twitter and had people known that he was buying up all those shares

01:06:36   they would have acted differently but they didn't so they ended up losing money on stock.

01:06:40   Seems like it's a difficult thing to prove or at least the very least a difficult thing

01:06:44   to obviously you can't you can't even get all your money back you can get some percentage

01:06:47   Jeremy money back but some percentage is better than zero so we can just like if

01:06:52   this succeeds it will be added to the list of sort of slap on the wrist things

01:06:56   that Elon has run afoul of so when someone says Elon Musk has never done

01:06:59   anything wrong you can say well he has he hasn't done anything wrong that has

01:07:02   caused them to as in the words of this you know feedback lose sleep like

01:07:07   nothing has actually hurt him because he's when you're very wealthy it's very

01:07:10   difficult to have anything that hurts you but has he ever done anything wrong

01:07:12   and you know provably wrong like where everyone agrees he did a wrong thing and

01:07:17   then he got either convicted or sued and lost or whatever. Yeah, sure, it happens all the

01:07:21   time. I mean, we'll see what happens with, for example, all the discrimination lawsuits

01:07:24   in the Tesla factories or whatever, and add that to the column of things that probably

01:07:29   don't make a difference in the grand scheme of things to Elon Musk personally, but never

01:07:34   let it be said that he has never done anything wrong and is the blameless angel that some

01:07:38   of our listeners may believe he is.

01:07:41   (laughing)

01:07:42   - All right, I wanted to channel Upstream

01:07:44   and do a couple of quick things,

01:07:46   cover a couple of quick things

01:07:47   that I thought were super interesting.

01:07:49   Over the last couple of weeks,

01:07:50   there's been rumors that Sunday Ticket

01:07:53   might be coming to Apple TV+.

01:07:56   Marco, could you describe to me

01:07:57   what Sunday Ticket is, please?

01:07:58   - Yes, you are going for a drive on the weekend,

01:08:03   and you go a little bit too fast,

01:08:06   and an officer of law prevents you from going further

01:08:11   and gives you a piece of paper that makes you pay money.

01:08:14   - I'm kind of annoyed at how good an answer that was.

01:08:16   That is not at all close to what it actually means,

01:08:18   but that was an annoyingly good answer.

01:08:20   Well done, sir.

01:08:21   So Sunday Ticket is a thing for American football.

01:08:25   It used to be for years, and as it stands still is,

01:08:28   for years and years and years and years,

01:08:30   the only way you could get access to, with exceptions,

01:08:33   NFL football game was to pay an obscene amount of money to a particular cable

01:08:38   provider and it's actually not cable it's satellite provider so dish network

01:08:43   which has had other names in the past had a exclusive deal with the NFL such

01:08:49   that in order to get Sunday ticket and again this is the thing that lets you

01:08:52   watch whatever games you want with exceptions any would no matter where

01:08:55   they are and and it had some other features to like a channel that showed

01:08:59   only the super exciting plays in football because as much as I do love

01:09:02   football let's be honest it's kind of boring I'm sorry it's direct TV not dish

01:09:06   thank you CMF so many people this is gonna be fantastic I can't like I love

01:09:12   football even though I shouldn't but nevertheless frankly it's just just a

01:09:17   quick aside I don't know what you're talking about for the most part but just

01:09:19   a quick aside you mentioned like yeah it lets you watch like some of the games

01:09:22   well most of the games well you know the feeling that the feeling I get and maybe

01:09:27   you know I could be wrong I don't know anything about sports I'm probably

01:09:30   wrong but it seems like the leagues really hate the fans like that's factual

01:09:37   they absolutely hate you all the crap they make you go through to have subpar

01:09:44   experiences and so many limits and I know that I know why I know you know

01:09:49   it's because of you know basically large money deals between large companies and

01:09:53   they don't hate the fans they just love money right it seems like they hate you

01:09:58   so, so much.

01:10:00   Like, I'm just, again, maybe it's just me

01:10:03   and my lack of a traditional father growing up

01:10:06   and that's why I'm not into sports at all,

01:10:08   but I don't understand why people would

01:10:11   care so much to get through all this crap.

01:10:14   Meanwhile, I guess, I mean, I'm buying Apple products

01:10:16   and putting up all their software bugs and everything,

01:10:18   so maybe a bad example.

01:10:20   - Just think of how much you went through back in the day

01:10:22   to watch the QuickTime 4 streaming video from WWDC keynote.

01:10:27   you would have gone through a lot to do that and people are willing to do exactly that

01:10:30   much. Think of our friend that we know who has a sling box in the Midwest to view sporting

01:10:37   events on the other side of the world. We would totally do that if that's what we needed

01:10:41   to do to be able to see WWDC keynote live. So I don't think we have any sort of high

01:10:45   ground to stand on here.

01:10:47   I suppose that's true.

01:10:48   And by the way, it's not a sling box. It's prior sponsor channels, which is excellent.

01:10:51   But anyways, I take your point, Marco, and it's exactly what Jon said. It's not necessarily

01:10:55   that they hate the fans, although in some cases I think that's kind of true, but it's

01:10:59   more that they want money. Money, money, money, money, money more than anything else in the

01:11:03   world and they make these ridiculous deals with anyone who gets near them about, "Oh,

01:11:07   well we can show this game in these areas in these markets, but not that market and

01:11:12   not when it's too close to home," and so on and so forth. It's a mess.

01:11:15   Yeah, they want to sell exclusive rights because you make money by saying, "We will sell you

01:11:20   this, and it's valuable because you will be the exclusive rights holder to air this type

01:11:24   of game for this team in this area or whatever.

01:11:27   And the exclusivity makes it valuable.

01:11:29   And the exclusivity means now all of a sudden there's a bunch of rules about what you can

01:11:33   show on the blanket streaming service or in their app or whatever.

01:11:37   It's like, well, we have this.

01:11:38   It's just, it's how they make money.

01:11:41   And sometimes it's a huge amount of money and sometimes these are weird legacy deals

01:11:44   and they'll slowly fade out.

01:11:46   You know, listen to someone talking to a sporting podcast about how the age of streaming is

01:11:50   is changing the landscape of local television contracts

01:11:53   and blackouts and a lot of this stuff,

01:11:55   but stuff like that changes slowly.

01:11:57   And in the end, there is value inherent

01:12:00   in the sporting events because people want to see them.

01:12:03   It's just a question of who is going to,

01:12:06   how much money that value is going to make and for whom.

01:12:09   And so I think the total amount of money that's gonna make

01:12:11   is probably gonna stay the same,

01:12:12   but that money is gonna move around.

01:12:13   I'm hoping, I bet sports fans are hoping that by the end,

01:12:16   there is a simpler way as a fan

01:12:19   to give the amount of money required

01:12:21   for you to see the things you wanna see.

01:12:23   Right now it seems anything but simple

01:12:24   because we're seeing like we're in this in-between period

01:12:26   of cable and streaming services and over-the-air live TV

01:12:31   all in the mix and I don't know how people even keep it

01:12:34   straight of how they have to watch a thing.

01:12:36   But then again, it's like that for streaming TV.

01:12:39   That's why things like Just Watch exists,

01:12:41   the Just Watch app and whatever it is, justwatch.com.

01:12:44   It's literally the second place I go.

01:12:46   First place is what am I gonna watch?

01:12:47   Second place is, how do I watch that?

01:12:49   And I just go to Just Watch and say,

01:12:51   "Just watch, please tell me how I can watch this."

01:12:53   And then it tells me of the umpteen services

01:12:55   I have to subscribe to,

01:12:55   here are the different ways you can watch it.

01:12:58   That's not an app I needed when I was a kid

01:13:00   and I had 13 channels.

01:13:01   (both laughing)

01:13:03   - Yeah, it's so true.

01:13:04   And this is all relevant because, you know,

01:13:08   the NFL wouldn't sell you,

01:13:10   the NFL had a streaming product years and years and years ago

01:13:13   before that was super duper popular.

01:13:15   The NFL had a streaming product

01:13:16   and I'm sure like the baseball people say,

01:13:18   "Oh, baseball was for," it doesn't matter.

01:13:19   But the point is, years ago, it had a streaming product,

01:13:21   but you could only subscribe to it if you were not American.

01:13:24   And if you entered American contact information

01:13:27   or came to the NFL website from America,

01:13:29   they would say, "Kindly pound sand and pay DirecTV."

01:13:32   So a friend of the show, Lex Friedman, many moons ago,

01:13:36   and this website is now gone from the internet,

01:13:38   but many moons ago, he put up a post that said,

01:13:39   "Hey, you can pay a company to give you a DNS server

01:13:43   "that's way off in Europe."

01:13:45   And that was all you needed in order to get the NFL

01:13:47   to serve you the European page.

01:13:49   And then you could pay the NFL like 150 bucks

01:13:51   to get Sunday Ticket via streaming,

01:13:53   but you had to masquerade as a European to do it.

01:13:56   And it was a total mess.

01:13:57   Well anyways, all of this to say,

01:13:59   yes, I totally understand Mark.

01:14:01   This seems bananas to you and you're not really wrong.

01:14:04   But Sunday Ticket may be coming to Apple TV+,

01:14:07   which would be wild and I think a huge deal.

01:14:11   Because a lot of Americans, myself included,

01:14:13   although I mostly don't pay attention to the NFL anymore,

01:14:16   a lot of Americans really love American football and the NFL

01:14:19   and for Sunday Ticket to be available via streaming

01:14:22   would be a big deal.

01:14:24   And maybe it is already on DirecTV and I misunderstand it,

01:14:27   but my understanding is you cannot get Sunday Ticket

01:14:30   without being a DirecTV member.

01:14:31   And yes, I would presume that you wouldn't be able

01:14:33   to get Sunday Ticket in this potential new world

01:14:35   unless you're an Apple TV+ member,

01:14:37   but that is a much easier thing to do

01:14:39   than putting a satellite dish on your friggin' house.

01:14:41   So I just think this is fascinating.

01:14:44   Even though I don't pay attention to the NFL,

01:14:46   I still think it would be super cool

01:14:48   if Sunday Ticket came to Apple TV Plus.

01:14:51   And I know they're doing the Friday Night Baseball games

01:14:53   and they're kinda dipping their toe

01:14:54   in the water of sports stuff.

01:14:55   So I really, really am keeping a keen eye on this

01:14:59   to see where it goes.

01:15:00   And I think it's a fascinating play.

01:15:03   And then additionally, very quickly,

01:15:05   there was rumor or there's been a statement actually.

01:15:08   This is from the Register Citizen,

01:15:10   which is a paper that I don't remember ever hearing about before. But apparently, Apple

01:15:15   TV+ has commissioned a movie on the Danbury Trashers, and you might say, "Well, what in

01:15:19   the hell are the Danbury Trashers?" So the story of me driving a family friend's Ferrari,

01:15:26   the family friend was the owner of the Danbury Trashers minor league hockey team. And this

01:15:32   you may have heard about many, many years ago in the early aughts, because he then made

01:15:36   his then 17 year old son, the general manager of the Danbury Trashers,

01:15:41   Monday League hockey team. And so there was a documentary done about this. It is

01:15:45   on Netflix. It is excellent. It is called "Untold Crime and Penalties" and I will

01:15:50   put that link in the show notes. I would watch it again but I just canceled my

01:15:53   Netflix subscription but that's neither here nor there. But either way,

01:15:59   yeah, so there's a documentary about this. It's like an hour, hour and a half and

01:16:03   it's excellent. And then I talked about all this on analog because, you know,

01:16:06   this guy, Jimmy Galanti, he was in the garbage business,

01:16:09   hence Danbury Trashers, he was very Italian.

01:16:12   - Had a lot of money from the garbage business

01:16:15   and he was an Italian from New Jersey, okay.

01:16:17   - Uh-huh, uh-huh, and he went to jail

01:16:19   for tax evasion for a while.

01:16:20   So I'll let you put the in between together.

01:16:23   But he was always super nice to me.

01:16:25   - He was over the head with it.

01:16:26   - He was always super nice to me

01:16:28   and let me drive a Ferrari once and that was pretty cool.

01:16:30   So anyway, so I just thought this was fascinating

01:16:33   and this is a little bit selfish

01:16:34   but I think it's super interesting and neat.

01:16:36   And apparently one of the stars of, shoot, what is this?

01:16:40   Stranger Things, this gentleman's name is David Harbour,

01:16:43   he's going to play the aforementioned Jimmy Galanti.

01:16:45   So it hits close to home.

01:16:47   It was super weird watching this documentary

01:16:49   and seeing their kitchen and being like,

01:16:51   "Wow, I've stood in that kitchen many times before.

01:16:54   "This is really weird and creepy."

01:16:57   But anyways, I just thought that was fascinating.

01:16:59   - I will say too, while we're on TV for a moment,

01:17:02   In a failed effort to find anything else to watch

01:17:06   for the moment, Tiff and I decided

01:17:08   to just start watching Severance again.

01:17:10   - Yeah, I was just talking to Aaron about this.

01:17:13   - What do you mean again?

01:17:14   I thought you already had started.

01:17:15   Did you start over again?

01:17:16   - Yeah, so we finished the season.

01:17:18   Right now they're between seasons.

01:17:20   - Oh, you're watching it a second time now.

01:17:21   - Yeah, so we're going back and rewatching a season one.

01:17:24   We're only a couple episodes in,

01:17:27   but there is so much to pick up on a second watch through.

01:17:31   So if you enjoyed season one,

01:17:33   and if you don't, what's wrong with you?

01:17:34   But if you enjoyed season one,

01:17:36   I strongly suggest go back and watch it again,

01:17:38   like while it's still fresh in your mind,

01:17:40   and there's so much there

01:17:42   that you will pick up the second time.

01:17:44   So it's pretty cool.

01:17:45   - Yeah, you know, I would recommend that for you as well,

01:17:46   Jon, but I hear that you didn't like "Severance" at all.

01:17:49   - Wait, I haven't heard the episode yet.

01:17:50   Saving it for a long drive tomorrow.

01:17:51   - I am actually watching it a second time,

01:17:54   'cause I'm watching it with a Wi-Fi.

01:17:55   (laughing)

01:17:56   Yeah, the frustrating thing that annoys everybody

01:17:59   that I will say again, so all you and all the listeners

01:18:02   can also be annoyed is, you know, a lot of the things

01:18:04   that Marco's picking up on the second time

01:18:05   were possible to also pick up the first time.

01:18:08   If you were paying attention.

01:18:11   - Not all of us are as smart and observant as you, John.

01:18:13   I'm sorry.

01:18:14   - That's not about being smart and observant, actually.

01:18:15   What it is, and this is why Marco is ill-equipped

01:18:17   to deal with it, is experience watching similar programs.

01:18:21   Right?

01:18:22   It's basically like, do you know the tropes?

01:18:24   Do you know how things are normally telegraphed?

01:18:25   When you see X, like, I don't wanna spoil anything,

01:18:28   but what they do in the, like, previously on, right?

01:18:33   When they do the previously on?

01:18:34   - Okay, I never watch those because they spoil too much.

01:18:37   - Right, so the reason they do the previously on,

01:18:40   like, I think on episode eight or nine,

01:18:41   they do a previously on that reminds you of something

01:18:43   that was in episode one or two,

01:18:45   because they assume most people have forgotten by now

01:18:48   about episode one or two,

01:18:49   or the thing that they are showing you previously on

01:18:51   wasn't noteworthy to people

01:18:53   because they're not familiar with the tropes,

01:18:54   but if you've seen lots of shows like this,

01:18:56   When it happened in episode one or two, you go,

01:18:59   oh, that probably means that X and Y are gonna happen.

01:19:02   And then when X and Y do happen,

01:19:03   and it's not about being observant or being smart,

01:19:06   it's just like, how many shows like this

01:19:07   have you watched before?

01:19:08   And for Marco, that number is usually zero, right?

01:19:11   Unless he's watching a sitcom, right?

01:19:13   So that's why, it's not a character judgment,

01:19:17   and it's not because Marco wasn't paying attention

01:19:18   and he was on his phone or whatever.

01:19:20   It is just simply like, how many similar shows like this

01:19:22   have you seen before?

01:19:24   I was just talking to Aaron and my parents about this and my dad, or my mom and dad had

01:19:29   just finished Severance for the first time and dad was like, "Man, I gotta watch it again."

01:19:33   I was like, "You know, I was thinking about this too."

01:19:34   And Aaron and me and dad were talking about this.

01:19:36   I feel like I do need to do a rewatch because I really enjoy it.

01:19:39   We don't need to go into this much more.

01:19:41   I really enjoyed it.

01:19:42   I don't know if I enjoyed it quite as much as everyone around me enjoyed it, but I definitely

01:19:45   enjoyed it a lot and I feel like I missed a lot and I need to go through it one more

01:19:50   time.

01:19:51   my favorite kind of rewatch is the kind I'm doing where I get to introduce the show to someone who hasn't seen it.

01:19:56   I haven't watched it and liked it and I could say to my wife,

01:19:59   "I like the show and I think you'll like it too." Which are not always the same thing,

01:20:02   but in this case, I think you'll like it too.

01:20:03   And then to be able to take her through with it and then refuse to answer her questions when you ask me,

01:20:07   because I don't want to spoil anything.

01:20:08   I'm pretty sure, John, that Merlin said that you didn't like it.

01:20:12   That's not what I heard.

01:20:13   Mm-hmm.

01:20:13   All right, let's talk iPhone 14 display panels.

01:20:18   There's been a picture leaked that purports to have the iPhone 14, 14 Pro, 14 Max, and

01:20:24   14 Pro Max all arrayed.

01:20:27   And it is, well, other than way too many words and way too many names, way too many numbers,

01:20:32   it looks like about what everyone's been saying it's going to look like.

01:20:35   So the iPhone, let me paint your word picture, the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 are, look to be approximately

01:20:40   the same size.

01:20:42   The 14, the non-pro, appears to have the traditional notch, whereas the 14 Pro has, what are we

01:20:48   calling this, the pill in something?

01:20:49   The pill in lozenge, is that right?

01:20:51   The sideways I.

01:20:52   A sideways I is actually a pretty good description.

01:20:54   No, it's not a pill, the hole in...

01:20:56   That's not what people are going to call it, but it looks like a little stylized letter

01:20:58   I on its side.

01:20:59   Yeah, yeah.

01:21:00   And then the 14 Max and 14 Pro Max, I think they're the same size, but again, the 14 Max,

01:21:07   the Notch, the 14 Pro Max, the sideways I.

01:21:11   Sideways lowercase I.

01:21:13   And again, this is around the time of year

01:21:16   that we would see fairly accurate leaks.

01:21:18   To my eye, this looks accurate,

01:21:20   but I'm no expert on these sorts of things.

01:21:21   And this is about what we'd expect.

01:21:23   I'm intrigued that the Pro models are the only ones

01:21:27   that go notch and hole or whatever we're calling it,

01:21:29   the side eye. (laughs)

01:21:32   But one way or another, this looks like it,

01:21:35   It smells like it's probably true to me.

01:21:37   - Yeah, all the iPhones always leak.

01:21:39   They leak, everything leaks, it's impossible to keep it.

01:21:41   These are real parts, I'm sure.

01:21:42   We've got everything about it, this is leaked.

01:21:44   We've got the whole, we've got what the case looks like,

01:21:46   we've got what the cameras look like,

01:21:47   we've got some specs on them.

01:21:48   Obviously we don't have the colors,

01:21:50   but we've got probably the names, we don't have the prices.

01:21:52   But anyway, the reason I thought this particular leak

01:21:54   was fun was because these phones,

01:21:57   especially in a year when there's not going to be

01:21:59   a quote unquote redesign, which basically means

01:22:01   they change the sides and the back,

01:22:03   These phones are so sort of defined

01:22:07   by looking at the face of them,

01:22:09   like that this part, this one part,

01:22:11   which is just like the cover glass or whatever,

01:22:14   if you see that, you've seen the whole phone basically,

01:22:16   right, 'cause you know what is it gonna be.

01:22:18   It's gonna be a rectangle that's gonna be that big,

01:22:20   and it's gonna have these features on the screen,

01:22:23   which is kind of what we're interested in terms of like,

01:22:25   is it full screen, how big is the notch, what else is there?

01:22:27   And then there'll be a phone behind that, right?

01:22:29   And what will look like, will look like your current one.

01:22:31   It's got a flat size, it's got a flat back,

01:22:32   it'll come in a bunch of different colors or whatever.

01:22:34   And then obviously what's inside it really counts,

01:22:36   like what processor is this, the specs on the camera.

01:22:38   Of course that also leaks in separate rumors,

01:22:40   but this one little part is such a sort of,

01:22:43   it's like, yep, this is what the next set of phones

01:22:44   are gonna look like.

01:22:45   And the reason I thought this was interesting

01:22:46   is because despite all the rumors of us talking about,

01:22:48   we talked about this on past shows,

01:22:49   like the little hole punched out for the camera

01:22:51   and the slightly longer hole for the Face ID sensors

01:22:54   versus the notch or whatever,

01:22:55   one thing that really stands out when you see

01:22:58   the parts sitting in front of you,

01:23:01   is the thing that a lot of the rumors had mentioned,

01:23:02   but it's more visceral when you see it,

01:23:04   is that the little, we'll put the link in the show notes

01:23:09   so you can see the image, but if you don't know,

01:23:10   it's like a circular cutout and then like a lozenge shape

01:23:14   next to it, as opposed to the notch, right?

01:23:16   Because the circular cutout and the lozenge

01:23:18   are near the top of the display where the notch would be,

01:23:21   but there's screen between them and the top of the phone.

01:23:25   Unlike the notch, there's no screen between the notch

01:23:28   and the top of the phone.

01:23:29   The notch is the top of the phone.

01:23:30   The screen ends, the notch begins, and that's it.

01:23:32   And this thing, if you're going up the middle of the phone,

01:23:34   you hit the lozenge, and then you hit some more screen,

01:23:37   and then you hit the top of the phone.

01:23:39   So, I'm not sure of the exact measurements,

01:23:41   but it looks to me like it's possible

01:23:44   that the little lozenge thing

01:23:46   is lower on the screen than the notch.

01:23:49   - Yeah, it does look like that from this picture.

01:23:51   It could just be a weird perspective trick,

01:23:52   but I think it does look like it's a little bit lower.

01:23:55   - And so you get more pixels of lit up screen,

01:23:58   but some of those pixels are on the other side

01:24:00   of the Lozenge and like if the Lozenge is blocking part

01:24:03   of your like video, if you turn the landscape

01:24:05   and you're watching some video

01:24:06   and the Lozenge is blocking it,

01:24:07   the Notch blocks video sometimes too, right?

01:24:10   But the Lozenge would block the video

01:24:12   and then you'd also be able to see a little bit

01:24:14   of the video on the other side of the Lozenge

01:24:17   and I do wonder, I know this is the pro models,

01:24:19   only the pro models have this,

01:24:20   only the more expensive ones will have the Lozenge

01:24:22   and I'm wondering, yeah, you get more lit up pixels

01:24:26   numerically on the pro ones,

01:24:29   but would you prefer to have the smaller notch

01:24:32   from the non-pro or the lozenge?

01:24:35   And I'm looking at this and I'm wondering

01:24:37   if I wouldn't rather have the knots

01:24:40   just because it might intrude less far into the content.

01:24:45   You know what I mean?

01:24:47   - Yeah, this does not immediately appeal to me very much

01:24:52   because what the notch effectively becomes is a status bar.

01:24:58   this is just where we shoved the status bar,

01:25:01   which wasn't exactly useful space before

01:25:04   for full color, full width stuff,

01:25:06   before it was a black bar, and you'd have stuff

01:25:09   on the sides and maybe a little thing in the middle

01:25:10   and that would be it, like the clock would be in the middle

01:25:12   or whatever, and they rearranged the status bar

01:25:14   when they brought the notch into things,

01:25:17   and they just shoved the stuff on the sides

01:25:19   and that was kind of it.

01:25:20   And so we didn't really lose much.

01:25:22   Similar, see also when they added the notch

01:25:24   to the MacBook Pro last year,

01:25:26   that well where the notch covers in the MacBook Pro

01:25:29   is just usually a blank part of the menu bar.

01:25:32   And so we weren't really losing any useful screen space

01:25:35   by that, it doesn't really matter.

01:25:36   Right, and so on the iPhone, same thing.

01:25:38   It's like they rearrange the status bar

01:25:39   to work around it, it's fine.

01:25:41   To then try to change from the notch

01:25:44   to this weird hole punch thing,

01:25:46   are we actually really gaining anything from that

01:25:49   besides it looks cooler?

01:25:51   Now, that being said, it looking cooler

01:25:54   is a major reason why they might want to do this

01:25:57   because the whole punch style is already occurring

01:26:01   in the Android world that does, I think,

01:26:04   look slightly more modern.

01:26:06   And so to have a visual differentiation,

01:26:10   especially for their pro models, that does make sense.

01:26:14   I see why they're doing it,

01:26:15   but from a utility point of view,

01:26:18   I don't see how that helps us,

01:26:19   with the exception that I will get to see

01:26:22   a little bit more blue at the top of my screen,

01:26:25   from my wallpaper on the lock screen.

01:26:27   That's like, I'll see a little bit more sky.

01:26:29   - Well, it's narrower than the Notch too, it seems like.

01:26:32   So you get a little bit, in terms of content,

01:26:34   it's a little, for the status bar, for example,

01:26:36   up there in the ears, where the ears of the Notch are,

01:26:39   there's a little bit more space,

01:26:40   and then it also means when you're,

01:26:42   I'm thinking of losing landscape video.

01:26:44   When you're in landscape mode,

01:26:45   and the content is trying to go to the edge of the phone,

01:26:47   but there's either the Notch or the Lozenge there,

01:26:49   the Lozenge will cover less of it

01:26:52   just because it's not as wide.

01:26:53   But my main thing is like, okay, so it's not as wide,

01:26:56   but if it is lower on the phone,

01:26:58   that it is intruding farther into my content.

01:27:00   Again, I'm sure this is mostly a non-issue

01:27:02   because like the Notch, we will eventually just get

01:27:05   Notch blindness, Ad banner blindness, Whole Bunch blindness.

01:27:08   We will all just collectively,

01:27:10   we learned this with the Notch.

01:27:10   We were worried about how it would be.

01:27:12   We all got our phones with the Notches.

01:27:13   Now we just do not see it and think about it at all.

01:27:15   I think that is universal,

01:27:16   and I'm sure that will happen with this too.

01:27:18   I'm just like, you were getting at it, Margaux.

01:27:21   But is it actually any sort of upgrade

01:27:24   or is it just status quo?

01:27:26   Like if you didn't have this, right?

01:27:28   I guess the only upgrade is that you can,

01:27:30   it's easier to visually distinguish

01:27:32   the more expensive phone.

01:27:33   So whatever thrill you get from having

01:27:35   the more expensive model is a little bit keener or something.

01:27:38   And I don't even know if it looks cooler

01:27:40   'cause like hole punch phones remind me of Android.

01:27:42   They've had it for years and years and years.

01:27:44   And so for me, it's not a status symbol.

01:27:47   It's on the way towards, you know,

01:27:49   let's have a full screen phone, right?

01:27:52   We're not there yet.

01:27:53   Presumably we'll get there eventually, but not this year,

01:27:56   and probably not next year, but eventually,

01:27:58   iPhone 16 maybe, or whenever they go full screen.

01:28:00   We talked about this when the notch came out.

01:28:01   It's like, Apple does not want the notch.

01:28:04   It is a necessary evil,

01:28:05   and the moment Apple can get rid of the notch, they will.

01:28:07   Can't get rid of a net.

01:28:08   They've shrunk it, and they've turned it into a lozenge,

01:28:12   and eventually it will be gone entirely,

01:28:14   and we'll all be happy, but until they can get there,

01:28:16   just keep pushing on the perimeter of that thing

01:28:20   and then we'll just ignore it out of the corner of our eye

01:28:23   and just go on with our lives.

01:28:25   - I do think though, having it look different

01:28:29   and cooler and newer, even if the function

01:28:32   is not that different, that is a major thing

01:28:34   that Apple is always seeking and needs to seek.

01:28:37   They have challenges getting people to upgrade their phones

01:28:40   if their phones still work.

01:28:42   And if Apple doesn't change much year to year,

01:28:45   they get criticized for it, like,

01:28:47   oh, why does this phone look the same as my old one?

01:28:49   So they do actually need things like this

01:28:52   to keep moving the design forward,

01:28:54   to keep appealing to people, and to look fresh and new.

01:28:57   So even if all it is is a reshuffling

01:29:01   of the existing trade-offs with a new shape

01:29:04   that doesn't actually really give you that much extra,

01:29:07   that is itself a valuable thing,

01:29:09   because people will say, oh look, they redesigned it.

01:29:11   It looks fresh and new.

01:29:13   So I see why they're doing this if they can,

01:29:17   but for actual utility, it won't matter too much,

01:29:19   I don't think, but it will look cooler temporarily.

01:29:22   - Yeah, and that probably is for all the tech nerdery

01:29:24   that we talk about, that probably is one of the most

01:29:26   important factors, making regular non-tech nerd

01:29:31   enthusiast people get the Pro.

01:29:34   We know that the Pro, according to the rumors,

01:29:36   is gonna have a totally different system on a chip

01:29:38   that's gonna be way better than the 14,

01:29:40   because the plain 14's gonna have A15,

01:29:41   and the A15 and the A14 Pro's gonna have the A16, right?

01:29:46   But nobody cares about that except for us.

01:29:49   That is a way bigger differentiating factor

01:29:52   if you wanted to say, what's the difference

01:29:53   between the Pro and the Max?

01:29:54   Well, the cameras are gonna be different,

01:29:55   but also an entirely different system on a chip,

01:29:58   and the new one presumably is way better

01:29:59   in a bunch of ways, right?

01:30:00   But nobody cares about that,

01:30:01   but everybody can see notch versus lozenge.

01:30:04   And does it matter?

01:30:05   Like we said, is there any practical benefit?

01:30:07   No, but look, lozenge, and they tell me lozenge is better,

01:30:10   So therefore, you know, it's like, like that is so that and colors are like so much more important to getting people to the pro

01:30:16   They're trying to explain to them that the number after the a on the system on its ships

01:30:20   People don't even have any concept of it's one bigger on this one. This is a 16. That's a 15

01:30:25   What difference is it?

01:30:26   Like with the sort of a B test put the two phones in people's hands and cover up the the lozenge and let them swipe around

01:30:32   How long do you think it would take a regular human being or us for that matter?

01:30:36   to be able to tell one is an a16 one is an a15 like you have like you're never gonna be able to tell

01:30:41   Looking at Safari looking at the phone like you'd have to like run a benchmark or maybe play a game

01:30:47   With a with an FPS counter because if you just play a game, you know

01:30:50   It's like it's so hard to tell right or you'd have to use it all day

01:30:53   Like say the a16 has better battery life. It's

01:30:55   Even though that is the differentiating factor of these phones and the a15 is an existing chip that you can buy today

01:31:02   What people will probably care more about is Lawson's versus notch

01:31:05   - Yeah, and I think when you look at this lineup,

01:31:09   the other big piece of news here is that this

01:31:11   pretty clearly is supporting the rumor for a while

01:31:15   that there's going to be a quote low-end Max.

01:31:20   And I know this is all relative, right?

01:31:22   These are all expensive phones.

01:31:24   Apple doesn't make a low-end phone.

01:31:25   But so they're gonna have not only the regular 14,

01:31:30   14 Pro, and 14 Pro Max, but now they're also having

01:31:35   a 14 Max that is not a Pro.

01:31:38   So they're gonna have two sizes with two families,

01:31:42   and you'll have all four combinations

01:31:43   of which pairing you wanna get.

01:31:45   And because they're moving to that,

01:31:46   and I think it's fairly obvious to guess

01:31:50   why they are doing that, because they will capture

01:31:53   more of the market by having a large phone

01:31:55   that is not super expensive, it's only regular expensive,

01:31:59   which is as best as Apple can hope for.

01:32:03   So there is market to capture there,

01:32:04   So I see why they are doing that.

01:32:06   But this also being the year that they are

01:32:10   more differentiating the pro family

01:32:12   from the non-pro family, I think it's not a coincidence

01:32:15   that they're adding that big non-pro phone

01:32:19   the same year the pros are gonna have

01:32:21   more differences between them and the non-pros.

01:32:23   And that goes for both the system on a chip

01:32:26   that allegedly is happening where they're only gonna have

01:32:29   the 16 and the 14s are gonna keep the 15.

01:32:31   This is getting very confusing.

01:32:33   And also, they're gonna look visually different still.

01:32:37   Now, I think personally, Apple overvalues the difference

01:32:42   in materials used on the phone,

01:32:44   because what they've done so far with the Pro phones

01:32:47   in recent years is they have this stainless steel band,

01:32:51   which makes it heavier, and they have the textured glass

01:32:55   back, which makes it more slippery to hold.

01:32:58   So the way they make the Pro phones look different

01:33:01   from the non-pro phones to date

01:33:03   has made them physically worse phones

01:33:05   by being both heavier and slipperier.

01:33:09   And so maybe by taking a different method of,

01:33:13   you know, these screens are gonna actually look different

01:33:14   from the front, it's gonna look very different.

01:33:16   Maybe they can stop using the fingerprint magnet

01:33:19   heavy stainless steel on the case band

01:33:21   and maybe make it a little bit nicer of a phone to hold

01:33:25   by maybe shedding some weight

01:33:27   and making it a little more grippy.

01:33:29   - I hope I don't get rid of the stainless steel.

01:33:30   Yes it is heavier, but it's not that much heavier and I really do think it feels more

01:33:35   expensive.

01:33:36   It's like in luxury cars, you can do things to the control surfaces that don't make them

01:33:38   any better and in fact are probably heavier than the previous ones, but they feel more

01:33:42   expensive.

01:33:43   I love the feel of the stainless, because I used my stainless steel Pro phone without

01:33:46   a case for as long as I could tolerate it, which wasn't that long, granted, but I think

01:33:50   it feels great.

01:33:52   It feels more expensive.

01:33:54   Does it have any functional difference?

01:33:55   No.

01:33:56   Is it the correct fingerprints?

01:33:57   Yes it does, but it feels so good.

01:33:58   I love this stainless steel thing and you know, whatever.

01:34:01   Like I don't think they're gonna give that up

01:34:02   because they do want to visually differentiate the surfaces

01:34:06   and they probably do wanna use a more expensive material.

01:34:09   That's the whole point.

01:34:10   That's like, you know, heavy AV equipment

01:34:11   where they put lead weights in it.

01:34:12   They just want it to feel more expensive.

01:34:14   And in some ways being a couple ounces heavier

01:34:17   and having that stainless steel feel

01:34:19   is that luxury feel they're going after.

01:34:21   The slipperiness is harder to excuse though.

01:34:23   It was like, even if you really like a matte surface,

01:34:25   how much are you gonna like

01:34:26   and your phone falls out of your hand

01:34:27   and breaks on the ground.

01:34:29   - And yeah, I mean everyone uses cases, I know, I know.

01:34:31   - Yeah, but still, they should not make

01:34:34   the Pro1 slipperier, but I'm okay with it being

01:34:36   a little bit heavier in exchange for the really cool

01:34:39   stainless steel, 'cause I think it's great.

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01:36:30   - All right, so let's do some Ask ATP.

01:36:35   Andre Videlo writes, "Is Casey still using Combine?

01:36:37   "If so, what is it like since it came out in 2019?

01:36:40   "How does it compare to RxSwift in practice,

01:36:42   "and what's the future of declarative

01:36:43   "or event-based frameworks on the platform?"

01:36:46   And have Marco and John tried them as well.

01:36:49   So I do still use Combine, but relatively sparingly.

01:36:54   So Combine is, I would argue, functional reactive

01:36:57   programming.

01:36:58   It's trying to embrace that, hey, things are going to

01:37:01   happen asynchronously over time.

01:37:04   Let's just make that a thing.

01:37:07   Let's deal with that in an intelligent way.

01:37:09   And what's great about Combine and RxSwift is that you can

01:37:13   take something, an event happening, and you can say,

01:37:16   all right, well, out of this class that represents this event, I only care about this object,

01:37:21   and then I want to do something with it, and this, that, and the other thing. And you can

01:37:24   kind of transform these chains of events, or you can make these chains of functions

01:37:29   that transform an input into an output and do something with it. And Combine lets you

01:37:33   do this, ArcSwift lets you do this. A great example of this is using Notification Center.

01:37:37   If you're an iOS developer, Notification Center is a way to pass messages, you know, around

01:37:41   your app, you know, you can go--it's one of--it's the kind of the global message bus that I

01:37:46   feel like maybe it's a me thing, but like all developers eventually want a global message

01:37:51   bus, and that's what Notification Center is. And Combine has a really great--or Notification

01:37:56   Center has a really great Combine API for it and where you can say, "All right, when

01:37:59   such and such notification happens, give it to me and then I'll do things with it." That's

01:38:03   a great example where I still use Combine. But I don't really let it take over my apps

01:38:08   in the same way that I did with RxSwift.

01:38:10   And that's largely because with RxSwift,

01:38:12   it had a kind of a sub-project called RxCoco,

01:38:15   which gave you observables,

01:38:17   that's kind of like publishers and Combine speak,

01:38:20   but it gave you events when things happen with Cocoa.

01:38:25   So like when buttons were tapped,

01:38:26   when things were scrolled, and so on and so forth.

01:38:29   And Combine doesn't really touch Cocoa Touch.

01:38:32   Like that's its own thing.

01:38:34   Like it doesn't really touch UIKit.

01:38:35   And there's good things about that,

01:38:37   there's bad things about that.

01:38:38   But because it doesn't really have an equivalent of RxCoco,

01:38:42   I don't use it near as much as I used RxSwift.

01:38:45   And I think for the most part, that's probably OK.

01:38:48   But I definitely do use it sometimes.

01:38:49   Now, with regard to what's the future,

01:38:52   I think it's pretty clear that async/await is where Apple

01:38:55   thinks the future is going and where

01:38:58   they're putting their efforts.

01:39:00   And this has been made even more clear with the recent,

01:39:04   just in the last month or two, release of async algorithms.

01:39:07   And async algorithms is an open source package that's not part of the Swift runtime or package,

01:39:15   but it's stapled on the side of Swift, or optionally you can staple it on the side of

01:39:18   Swift.

01:39:19   And what it basically does is it fills in a lot of the gaps that Async/Await doesn't

01:39:25   have on its own.

01:39:26   So it has operators like combine latest, join, zip, merge, things of that nature, and different

01:39:31   ways of creating asynchronous sequences and things like that.

01:39:36   And so this fills in a lot of the gaps that Combine was able to do that Async/Await was

01:39:42   not.

01:39:43   And I haven't really played much with async algorithms yet, but it seems clear to me that

01:39:48   for most use cases, in my opinion, I would start with Async/Await, maybe paired with

01:39:54   async algorithms, and then I would use Combine not when I'm forced to, because obviously

01:40:00   I'm never forced to, but only when that is really, truly, clearly the best available

01:40:05   option. With all that said, I'm happy to honor questions if either of you two fellows have

01:40:10   any, but I'd love to ask, Jon, I mean, you're not really doing iOS development at the moment,

01:40:14   so I assume you've not really touched Combine?

01:40:17   I haven't, and hearing you say all these things, and I also saw the async algorithms thing

01:40:21   when it was announced, I'm wondering, what do you think this means for Combine? Is Combine

01:40:26   going to go away, and these are the replacements? It's so weird, because Apple releases these

01:40:31   things to the public, so there has to be, you know, Combine has to exist because people

01:40:34   wrote apps against it, right? So it has to be there for some period of time. But do you

01:40:39   think this is a sign that Combine is out of favor at Apple and they prefer to go with

01:40:44   just, you know, SwiftUI, Async/Await and Async algorithms instead?

01:40:47   Oh, yes, asterisk. So I think you're absolutely right in your implication that Combine is

01:40:53   kind of on life support, maybe going the way of the dodo. I think that's pretty clear,

01:40:57   since Combine landed in 2019, it's basically been crickets since then. The only thing that

01:41:05   gives me pause about Combine really and truly going away, other than, you know, a lot of

01:41:09   people like me have embraced it, is that a lot of SwiftUI is lever--well, not a lot,

01:41:15   but a not insignificant amount of SwiftUI is leveraging Combine under the hood, like observable

01:41:19   objects, for example, published properties, for example, things of that nature. And so

01:41:25   They would need to revise their story and replace Combine in order to really and truly

01:41:31   deprecate it.

01:41:33   Replace it in the context of SwiftUI to really and truly deprecate it.

01:41:36   I think in the future, yeah, Apple's star eye emoji is looking at async/await and async

01:41:44   algorithms.

01:41:45   But yeah, for the time being, I don't think Combine is necessarily going away.

01:41:50   And if they do replace things like published or even just re-implement the internals and

01:41:54   and we somehow found out about it,

01:41:56   of like published and observable object

01:41:58   and things like that,

01:42:00   I think that's when I start to get really worried

01:42:03   about the future of Combine.

01:42:04   Although I think the official word is,

01:42:05   no, it's not going anywhere,

01:42:07   but I think it's pretty clear to me

01:42:09   that that's where the wind is blowing.

01:42:10   Marco, you've used a little bit of Combine

01:42:13   here and there, haven't you?

01:42:14   - Yeah, so besides published and observable object,

01:42:17   which I've used as I bridge my old code

01:42:21   into the SwiftUI world, so I use that,

01:42:24   and I make pretty good use recently in my recent code

01:42:27   of the publisher for KVO bridge thing,

01:42:32   that there's a method that you can get a publisher

01:42:35   for a key value thing on an object.

01:42:38   So I use that a lot.

01:42:40   And otherwise, that's about it.

01:42:42   And so I've never written something

01:42:46   that you would recognize as functional reactive programming,

01:42:49   ever. - Sure.

01:42:51   That being said, I do intend to lean more

01:42:54   into the async stuff shortly.

01:42:57   I have recently crossed over the threshold

01:42:59   that I think it's safe for me to require iOS 15 for my app.

01:43:03   I don't require it yet, just because I don't have

01:43:04   any reason to yet, but next time I do a major thing,

01:43:08   which is probably going to be when I redo

01:43:09   the Now Playing screen, I'm probably gonna require 15

01:43:12   from that point forward, because there's a couple things

01:43:15   I wanna use from it.

01:43:16   So once I start requiring iOS 15,

01:43:19   which will then allow me to use the native Swift async stuff,

01:43:24   then I will probably jump more heavily into it.

01:43:27   But that being said, I still have a ton of legacy code

01:43:31   in my app that works fine and doesn't justify replacement,

01:43:34   and that doesn't use this whole system.

01:43:37   And most of it isn't even Swift, most of that kind of stuff.

01:43:40   I already have libraries for things

01:43:42   like collating messages over time and stuff like that.

01:43:46   I've already written a lot of those, and they work,

01:43:48   and they're already done.

01:43:49   So a lot of that stuff, my legacy baggage

01:43:54   is going to keep me from using a lot of that stuff

01:43:55   just because I don't need to.

01:43:56   But over time, I'll start using more and more of it.

01:43:59   - Yeah, that makes sense.

01:44:01   Stephen Garrity writes, Marco has talked in the past

01:44:03   about designing directly via code.

01:44:05   I'd like to know what the design process

01:44:06   for the recent Overcast redesign was like.

01:44:08   Did you redesign major screens with the actual code in app?

01:44:11   Or did you use any design tools and mockups?

01:44:14   - One of the reasons why it takes me a while

01:44:19   to design things in the app is that I build everything.

01:44:24   Like the way I design something is I try it in the code.

01:44:28   I just try doing it and I see how it looks, how it works,

01:44:33   what challenges have arisen as a result of me doing that.

01:44:36   And so I end up building a lot of things

01:44:39   that I never ship design-wise.

01:44:40   Or I try a lot of weird little tweaks here and there.

01:44:43   And that's just how I work.

01:44:45   I've never gotten into design via design apps,

01:44:50   never gotten into graphic Photoshop

01:44:52   or the mock-up tools that exist now

01:44:55   that aren't exactly Photoshop

01:44:57   but allow you to do mock-ups in a more specialized tool.

01:44:59   I've never gotten into any of those things.

01:45:01   And part of that's simply because I'm not a designer,

01:45:04   part of that's simply because I can't draw,

01:45:07   but part of that is also just like the language I use,

01:45:10   like the creative tool I use to try out a design

01:45:13   is just building it.

01:45:15   That's, it's as simple as that.

01:45:16   And until I build it, I can't really tell

01:45:19   whether and how it's going to work.

01:45:21   I build it and I put it on my phone in hardware,

01:45:25   so off of my Mac screen, like let me see it in hardware

01:45:27   to see how this works and how it feels and everything.

01:45:30   And that's how I design.

01:45:31   So it takes a while, but that's just always

01:45:36   been how I do it and yeah, that's as simple as that.

01:45:39   And I think this is also kind of the luxury

01:45:42   of being a one person shop that because I am doing

01:45:47   the design myself, because I'm conceptualizing

01:45:49   the design myself, I don't have to worry about

01:45:52   the intermediary representations or steps or processes.

01:45:56   If I'm working with a designer, obviously I wouldn't

01:45:59   expect the designer to be able to code everything

01:46:01   up in UIKit or SwiftUI, so that would be a different story.

01:46:05   I would have to use one of these tools.

01:46:07   But because I'm the programmer and the designer

01:46:10   and I'm coming up with these designs myself

01:46:14   and trying them out, I have that feedback loop

01:46:16   of like, okay, well, I think this might look good

01:46:18   if I do this, let me try this.

01:46:20   And then I see, okay, well here's the challenge

01:46:21   of doing that, if I do that, it's gonna break here,

01:46:24   here, and here, or I can do 80% of what I want visually

01:46:28   for 10% of the effort in the codes,

01:46:30   let's probably do that instead.

01:46:32   I have all the benefits of that kind of feedback loop.

01:46:34   And I can see instantly what doesn't work,

01:46:37   what works, what's made difficult by the frameworks,

01:46:40   what's made easy by the frameworks.

01:46:42   And that allows me, I think, to have a lot of advantages

01:46:44   in the way I do that.

01:46:44   But the disadvantage is that it does take

01:46:47   a little bit longer to iterate on a design

01:46:49   because I'm actually building and like,

01:46:51   I'm not even using like the live previewing stuff

01:46:53   in Swift and SwiftUI because it always breaks for me,

01:46:55   I can never get it to work reliably.

01:46:57   So I'm literally just like trying something

01:46:59   and hitting build and run every single time.

01:47:01   Every time I change anything, tweak a color,

01:47:03   tweak a spacing, change it in the code,

01:47:05   hit build and run, pops up.

01:47:08   I'm doing all of that every single time.

01:47:10   And it works for me, but obviously that kind of thing

01:47:13   does not work for everybody.

01:47:15   - All right, so Carl Friar writes,

01:47:16   "I'm new to the Mac, and I am missing a feature

01:47:18   "on Windows called Sound Mixer.

01:47:20   "It is a function of the audio system

01:47:21   "that allows the user to control volumes

01:47:23   "of specific applications.

01:47:24   "Is there a good third-party program for this on the Mac?"

01:47:27   - Is there ever?

01:47:28   - Is there ever.

01:47:29   - I put in the screenshot here of,

01:47:31   he provided a screenshot of the Windows feature

01:47:33   that shows little application icons with volume sliders,

01:47:35   and the matching screenshot from Rogamube's Sound Source

01:47:39   that shows little icons of applications with volume sliders.

01:47:42   It was so perfect.

01:47:43   It was just right on their marketing page.

01:47:44   I didn't even know SoundSource did this,

01:47:45   but if your question is how can I do something

01:47:47   with audio on the Mac, Rogue Amoeba is the place to

01:47:50   check Amoeba.

01:47:51   Someone said, Paul was on a talk show

01:47:52   and he was saying they have Rogue Amoeba,

01:47:53   but Rogue Amoeba is hard for people to spell

01:47:55   because they write rouge and who knows how to spell Amoeba.

01:47:58   So I think they have like macaudio.com.

01:48:01   Anyway, learn how to spell the word rogue

01:48:03   and the word amoeba.

01:48:03   It's a good exercise and go to rogueamoeba.com

01:48:05   and check out SoundSource,

01:48:07   which looks like it is a very fancy way

01:48:09   for you to pick the source of your sound,

01:48:11   but it has so many features,

01:48:12   and one of them is per application volume control.

01:48:15   - Thanks to our sponsors this week,

01:48:17   Squarespace, Linode, and Collide,

01:48:19   and thanks to our members who support us directly.

01:48:21   You can join atp.fm/join,

01:48:24   and we will talk to you next week.

01:48:26   (upbeat music)

01:48:29   ♪ Now the show is over ♪

01:48:31   ♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪

01:48:34   ♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪

01:48:36   ♪ Accidental ♪

01:48:36   Oh it was accidental John didn't do any research

01:48:41   Margo and Casey wouldn't let him Cause it was accidental

01:48:46   It was accidental And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM

01:48:55   And if you're into Twitter You can follow them @C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S

01:49:04   So that's Casey Liss, M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M, N-T-M-A-R-C-O-R-M-N-S-I-R-A-C-U-S-A-C-R-A-C-U-S-A

01:49:16   It's accidental, accidental They didn't mean to

01:49:21   Accidental, accidental Tech broadcast so long

01:49:29   So I've realized something about myself, and maybe everyone around me can do this,

01:49:34   but me, but I feel like I am following in my dad's footsteps as I get ever older, and I need a project.

01:49:40   So if you remember early on in pandemic, my project was "use 300 raspberry pies to do something

01:49:46   very very simple, because I can." And then I didn't have a project for a long time, then I had the

01:49:52   "replace all the switches in the house with" — I think they're called decorator switches instead of

01:49:55   toggle switches, which in my opinion look way better, maybe you disagree, it doesn't really matter.

01:50:01   Now that I've completed that project, I need a new project.

01:50:04   And I have semi-decided that my new project is going to be put at least a couple of Ethernet drops in the house, in the walls.

01:50:15   Oh boy.

01:50:16   Which is not something I should be doing for about 300 reasons.

01:50:20   But that is the project that I am considering embarking on.

01:50:24   And the issue that I have, I have many issues, trust me, but one of the primary issues that I have is that I would like, so my office, if you imagine my house is a, I was going to say a big rectangle, it's not a very big house, but if you imagine my house is a rectangle, and if you, if you think about the northeast corner of the rectangle, that is where the office is.

01:50:46   I would like an Ethernet drop on the western side of the house, so clear across the house,

01:50:53   but also upstairs like my office is.

01:50:55   So presumably I can get into the attic and go across the attic and that wouldn't be too

01:51:00   terrible.

01:51:01   But the other place I want an Ethernet drop is directly below my office and across the

01:51:08   house the short way.

01:51:10   So my office and my bedroom are across the house the long way, but on the same floor.

01:51:17   The living room, which is the other place I want the Ethernet drop, is across the house

01:51:21   the short way, but down a floor.

01:51:24   And I don't know what to do about this.

01:51:29   Because at first I thought, "Oh, you know, let's just assume I can get into the walls,

01:51:33   so to speak, and like, fish wire through the walls.

01:51:36   Well, that shouldn't be too bad."

01:51:37   But then I got wondering, well, if I'm doing that, is it really the right answer to put

01:51:41   like a panel of Ethernet drops in the office as like as that's the place that terminates

01:51:47   all these Ethernet drops?

01:51:48   Because what if the office, which is bigger than Michaela's bedroom right that she's using

01:51:51   right now, what if she moves into the office at some point and I go back to her bedroom,

01:51:56   which was my original office when Declan was first born, when we first moved in the house?

01:52:00   So then I've got all these Ethernet drops terminated in her bedroom.

01:52:04   And then that makes me wonder, well, okay,

01:52:06   where would I terminate all these Ethernet drops otherwise?

01:52:09   I don't particularly want it in my room.

01:52:10   - The garage.

01:52:12   - Well, and so that's, I think,

01:52:14   the most logical conclusion.

01:52:16   And I guess my question, I'm mostly just talking

01:52:19   just because I wanted to tell the story

01:52:21   and see what you guys had to say about it,

01:52:23   but one of the things I was wondering is

01:52:25   if I terminate in the garage,

01:52:26   like that has some semi-wild temperature swings.

01:52:30   Like I'm not saying it's as much as you guys get.

01:52:32   - It doesn't matter. - It's different for sure.

01:52:33   - This kind of stuff, it doesn't matter.

01:52:35   - So that's what I was gonna ask.

01:52:36   Like, does your average not crappy switch,

01:52:39   and like Eero, for example,

01:52:41   could that handle the 20-ish degrees to,

01:52:45   well, and this is outdoors, but--

01:52:47   - Eero, Eero is maybe not as robust

01:52:50   as like a business enterprise data center type thing,

01:52:53   'cause data center stuff are built to handle

01:52:56   difficult temperature situations.

01:52:57   I'm not sure if the Eeros are.

01:52:59   Did I miss the part where you eliminated the basement?

01:53:01   - Well, I only have a crawl space,

01:53:02   And that is a possibility for sure.

01:53:04   And the crawl space is not terribly,

01:53:06   like it's more of a crouch space than a crawl space.

01:53:09   But it is not--

01:53:10   - How is the environment control in there?

01:53:12   Is it better than the garage

01:53:13   in terms of temperature fluctuation?

01:53:16   - I mean, it would be a little better, but not tremendous.

01:53:18   But the thing is, I don't wanna terminate

01:53:20   all the ethernet down there

01:53:20   'cause what if I have to futz with it?

01:53:22   Then I don't wanna have to crawl under the crawl space.

01:53:23   - No, you want the garage.

01:53:25   Like here, I've had switches in my garage here for 12 years.

01:53:31   At first I had an HP big 18 port one,

01:53:34   and then I moved over to the Ubiquiti stuff,

01:53:37   whatever that was four or five years ago.

01:53:39   It's been fine, it's been rock solid,

01:53:40   I've never had a problem.

01:53:42   And the garage here is uninsulated,

01:53:44   it's only touching the house on two of the four walls,

01:53:48   and so it has one exterior wall

01:53:51   plus the big front wooden door thing,

01:53:53   so it's been fine, it's been totally fine,

01:53:56   and so that's your answer.

01:53:57   - I mean, you don't have that many devices though.

01:53:59   I know Marco's got the overkill thing with a rack

01:54:02   and rack-rounded things or whatever,

01:54:03   but honestly, how many things are you gonna use?

01:54:05   - Rack is generous.

01:54:06   It's a bent piece of metal that holds three or four U

01:54:11   just against the wall.

01:54:14   Like it's not--

01:54:14   - No, but you could just Velcro an eight-port switch

01:54:17   to any wall and it's fine.

01:54:19   - Well, and I think I would probably do something like that.

01:54:21   The other thing that's really appealing

01:54:22   about using the garage is that when the house was built,

01:54:26   it was a single-zone air conditioner.

01:54:28   and the furnace was in the garage.

01:54:31   And so that means there at the time was a bunch of,

01:54:35   I don't know the technical term for this,

01:54:36   but a bunch of ductwork running under the house

01:54:38   to service the downstairs.

01:54:40   And then there is some ductwork that was running

01:54:43   up to the attic to then split off to the upstairs.

01:54:45   Well, around the time Declan was born,

01:54:47   we went to a two-zone system,

01:54:48   so now there's a furnace in the attic

01:54:50   and there's a furnace in the crawl space.

01:54:51   And that means, interestingly,

01:54:53   that the area that is in the garage

01:54:57   where the ductwork went to the attic is just empty now.

01:55:01   Like it's capped off, but there's basically ductwork

01:55:04   that is not being used and nothing in it.

01:55:06   And it's a obscenely large circle

01:55:09   in which I can put ethernet cable

01:55:12   to get from the downstairs to the upstairs.

01:55:14   But then what I need to do though

01:55:15   is I would need to run one or more ethernet runs

01:55:19   from the office, at least the way it is today,

01:55:21   clear across the house to go down into the garage.

01:55:26   - But you're running across in the attic, right?

01:55:27   That's ideal, right?

01:55:28   - Yes, yes, I am running across in the attic,

01:55:30   but I'm talking about considerably more distance

01:55:33   than I would otherwise need to do if I was just going.

01:55:36   - I think that's fine.

01:55:37   I think you have an ideal scenario.

01:55:38   You have a way to easily get from your garage

01:55:40   up to your attic, and from your attic,

01:55:42   you can go across to any room and drop down into the walls.

01:55:44   - Yeah, that's pretty good.

01:55:45   - Hypothetically, yeah.

01:55:46   - That's what to do, 'cause think about,

01:55:48   you can burn length like crazy here,

01:55:51   'cause the Ethernet is pretty good up to 100 meters

01:55:54   without any really compromises,

01:55:56   100 meters can wrap around your house a number of times

01:56:00   on the outside, you'd be fine.

01:56:02   So it would be, you can do things that are,

01:56:06   that you wouldn't necessarily think of as solutions,

01:56:09   like what Jon said, just everything goes up to the attic,

01:56:12   and you go across, you move laterally across the attic

01:56:15   as much as you need to, and then you drop down

01:56:17   through the wall cavities as you go.

01:56:19   That's the way to go.

01:56:21   - Yeah, I think you're probably right,

01:56:22   And the only thing that gives me a little bit of pause is,

01:56:25   and I forget the numbers off the top of my head,

01:56:26   but I'd started asking these questions

01:56:28   in some slacks that we're in,

01:56:30   and I think you had pointed out, Marco,

01:56:32   that Cat 6, and jump in when you're ready,

01:56:34   - 6A is what you want.

01:56:36   - Well, so hold on.

01:56:38   So Cat 6 can only do 10 gigabit,

01:56:40   which I do not have a single piece

01:56:42   of 10 gigabit equipment in the house right now,

01:56:45   but eventually I might.

01:56:46   And Cat 6 can only go something like 100 meters,

01:56:50   which is like 300 feet or something like that, without having real problems at 10 gigabit

01:56:56   speed. But Cat6a, to your point, can go something like 500 meters. And although I agree, I don't

01:57:01   think any single run would be 100 plus meters. That makes me wonder if I should go 6a, but

01:57:08   I've heard rumblings having never handled, or having never had to crimp or anything with

01:57:13   Cat6 versus Cat6a. I've understood that 6a is kind of a pain in the rear to deal with

01:57:18   as compared to 6, I am talking way outside.

01:57:20   - Not as much as 7.

01:57:21   - Well, so I hear Mr. Cat 7 everywhere.

01:57:24   - What's the difference between 6A and 6 in terms of crimping?

01:57:27   We know why 7 is a mess, it's totally different,

01:57:29   like end connector.

01:57:30   - Yeah, it's solid core, which is the worst,

01:57:32   yeah, the solid core is the worst

01:57:34   'cause it pulls out of everything.

01:57:35   - And also that has the conductor sheath thing

01:57:39   that has to be like grounded.

01:57:40   The 7 is a big pain, but 6 and 6A should be the same, right?

01:57:44   Like what's even the difference,

01:57:45   maybe a little bit thicker wires?

01:57:47   I think the wires are thicker,

01:57:48   and I thought that there was some sort of sheath

01:57:50   around all the twisted pairs,

01:57:52   like more than normal or something.

01:57:53   - I think that's seven you're thinking.

01:57:54   - Seven definitely has that. - Maybe, maybe.

01:57:55   - Regardless, oh, RPL Mac or RLP Mac in the chat

01:57:59   says 6A also has metallic shielding.

01:58:02   So maybe it's just metallic shielding,

01:58:03   but not solid core cables.

01:58:04   But either way, that's a minor difference.

01:58:06   But one thing you want is,

01:58:08   first of all, future-proofing, et cetera,

01:58:10   but also you have to account for the fact

01:58:12   that your installation's going to be imperfect.

01:58:14   And so, if you can get 6A instead of six,

01:58:18   maybe the metal shielding is a little bit of a pain,

01:58:20   but that might get you a little bit more protection

01:58:22   against this one cable that has a bend in it

01:58:26   that goes in a way it shouldn't,

01:58:28   or that got a little bit scraped along the way

01:58:30   into the connector or something.

01:58:31   You get a little bit more forgiveness buffer there

01:58:34   for when things don't go exactly perfectly

01:58:36   according to spec with your actual installation.

01:58:38   So that's why it's nice to have some kind of headroom.

01:58:40   But again, there's a balance here.

01:58:43   if it's going to make every single termination point

01:58:46   much more likely to have problems or fail

01:58:48   or to not be in spec at all,

01:58:50   then obviously that's not, maybe that might be going too far.

01:58:53   But I would say, you know, CAT6 is totally fine.

01:58:57   If you wanna just run CAT6 and be done with it,

01:58:59   that's totally fine.

01:59:01   I would look into 6A just because, you know,

01:59:03   it is the higher standard and you can get,

01:59:05   if it's not gonna be too much more trouble to run 6A,

01:59:08   you might as well have that additional flexibility

01:59:10   and possible speed down the road.

01:59:13   - Yeah, I agree with you.

01:59:13   So who did this?

01:59:14   Neil underscore underscore put in the chat

01:59:16   an image that they found that's a really good visual,

01:59:19   if this is accurate, and I have no reason to believe it,

01:59:21   isn't a really good visual representation

01:59:22   of what this looks like

01:59:23   in the difference between 6 and 6a.

01:59:25   And that looks to me like it's kind of a pain in the butt,

01:59:27   but again, I don't know what I'm talking about.

01:59:29   I did help my dad run God knows what version of,

01:59:33   it was probably cat one, if such a thing even exists.

01:59:36   Ethernet through our house back in the late 90s.

01:59:40   But this was almost 30 years ago now,

01:59:43   so I barely remember any of that effort.

01:59:45   But yeah, 6A looks like it's a minor pain in the butt,

01:59:49   but maybe I'm getting myself worked up over nothing.

01:59:53   - Plus then you'd be future proof for when your Macs

01:59:55   finally get the stuff that my Mac Pro already has,

01:59:57   the 10 gig ethernet.

01:59:58   - Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

02:00:00   - It'll trickle down to lesser Macs eventually.

02:00:04   - And the chat says it's really not that bad to go 6A

02:00:06   and I should just stop being a baby.

02:00:08   I would also put forth the idea

02:00:12   that you don't necessarily need

02:00:14   to do this entire job yourself.

02:00:16   I know this is foreign, but like,

02:00:19   so for instance, it might be worth hiring someone

02:00:21   to maybe do the patch panel for you.

02:00:23   You know, maybe you run the cable

02:00:24   if you insist on running the cables,

02:00:26   but like, wiring up a patch panel sucks,

02:00:28   and if you can have somebody do that

02:00:29   who is an expert in that field

02:00:30   and who doesn't think it sucks

02:00:31   or is being paid to ignore the fact that it sucks,

02:00:34   that is potentially a huge like headache saver for you

02:00:38   while you still get to have the rest of it

02:00:40   be a Casey project.

02:00:42   - That is a fair point.

02:00:43   You're also not considering the fact that--

02:00:44   - Oh, jacks too, oh, jacks and patch panels.

02:00:47   That sucks, you don't wanna do that.

02:00:49   - Well, from what I saw, I watched a friend of the show,

02:00:52   Quinn Nelson's video on when he wired his house,

02:00:55   and it didn't look like jacks were that terribly bad,

02:00:59   but again, I haven't done this in a long, long time,

02:01:01   so maybe I'm dead wrong, maybe it's a nightmare, but--

02:01:03   - Well, the good thing is you don't have to do a lot,

02:01:04   that's what I'm saying, you don't have to do a lot of them.

02:01:06   You could, you're gonna have like what,

02:01:07   like five jacks, right?

02:01:09   And so you do it 10 times, each one of you do twice.

02:01:11   Like you're gonna screw it up a whole bunch of times,

02:01:13   but eventually on the third or fourth try,

02:01:16   you'll get it right and then you're done.

02:01:17   It's not like you're trying to wire

02:01:18   an entire office building, right?

02:01:19   - Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:01:20   - There's gonna be trial and error.

02:01:21   Maybe you even have to buy twice as much cable

02:01:23   as you can do because you screwed up.

02:01:24   But like in the end, it is a tractable problem

02:01:27   because you are not doing like wiring convention center.

02:01:30   - Right, and beyond that, with regards to like a patch panel

02:01:35   Also consider that if this does go in the garage,

02:01:39   which I think makes the most sense,

02:01:41   I'm not necessarily above having a bunch of ethernet cables

02:01:44   just appear out of this plenum or whatever it is,

02:01:46   this hole in the ceiling, and then just come into a switch.

02:01:49   Like I am not above that.

02:01:51   - Look, I have that with my stupid CAT7 setup,

02:01:54   and it sucks because that's why,

02:01:56   like one time I had to replace the switch,

02:01:59   so I had to unplug all the cables

02:02:01   and plug them into a new switch,

02:02:02   and then three of them, like some pin,

02:02:04   pulled out somewhere and they stopped working.

02:02:05   - Well, that's why you don't go cat seven.

02:02:07   - Yeah, but the point is, even if you're gonna go 6A,

02:02:11   every time you have to unplug those root cables,

02:02:15   whatever you refer to those as,

02:02:17   the main backbone cables to your house,

02:02:20   you don't wanna have to be unplugging those ever.

02:02:22   You want those to terminate into something

02:02:23   that is fixed in position, like a patch panel

02:02:26   and like wall jacks.

02:02:27   You don't want anything to ever have to flex those.

02:02:29   Yeah, you get it working and then you don't touch it.

02:02:31   - And again, I think you're right,

02:02:33   that the right-est answer is to pay somebody

02:02:36   to do the whole damn thing,

02:02:37   but the whole point is to keep me from,

02:02:39   or to keep me from going bananas

02:02:41   while I'm still not quite out in the world.

02:02:43   Although, supposedly, Michaela's gonna get her shot

02:02:45   in the next couple of months.

02:02:46   - Oh, that's great. - Fingers crossed.

02:02:48   I mean, this is still, they're talking about it next month.

02:02:50   They should've been talking about it already,

02:02:51   but that's neither here nor there.

02:02:53   But they're gonna talk about it in June,

02:02:55   so maybe July, it might be a 4th of July miracle

02:02:58   or something like that.

02:02:58   But anyways, since I'm not back in the world quite yet

02:03:01   in any meaningful way, I need something to do with my time

02:03:04   and I've gotten masquerade over the line.

02:03:07   I actually have a peak of view update,

02:03:09   a very minor peak of view update waiting to be released,

02:03:12   which I'm excited about.

02:03:14   - Yeah, I saw that come through Tesla,

02:03:15   it kind of made me smile, like oh yeah, peak of view.

02:03:17   - That's still a thing, who knew?

02:03:19   But anyways, so yeah, so I need something to occupy my time

02:03:22   and it also is worth noting,

02:03:26   I should have said this at the beginning,

02:03:27   I have no need for this, like zero need for this,

02:03:30   because remember, I am a humongous fan and a cheerleader for Mocha bridges. So thanks

02:03:37   to the coaxial cable that's in the house, the main place that I really want to have

02:03:43   Ethernet other than in my office is downstairs in the living room, because that's where the

02:03:47   Apple TV is, and that's also where the screen and porch has an Ethernet jack in it, and

02:03:53   connected via the living room. I can get like 600 megabits through Ethernet

02:04:00   to MochaBridge, to coax, to MochaBridge, to Ethernet. I can already do that today.

02:04:05   There is no point in me doing this other than I need something to occupy my hands

02:04:10   and my brain and my time. So I just wanted to project. You get three to four hundred more

02:04:16   megabits. Well that's the thing I could get more I could get more of the bits

02:04:19   man I want the bits you got the MOTS I got the MOTS so anyway that's a

02:04:24   reference John also like why do you want it like all those different bridges and

02:04:27   everything that's just more things that can go wrong like the simpler you can

02:04:31   make it the better that is true but a how many wires are in cat six eight how

02:04:37   many tell me things can I make go wrong there but but and B these mocha bridges

02:04:42   have been freaking bulletproof they have been some of the most bulletproof

02:04:45   hardware I've ever owned, as I knock furiously on wood, but they are just preposterously reliable,

02:04:50   especially since the coaxial cable was an afterthought in this house and must have been

02:04:57   run in like the late 90s or early 2000s, and I'm still getting almost a gigabit through it. So this

02:05:02   is entirely useless, but that is basically the definition of my life. So here we are. But anyway,

02:05:10   - Genuinely, all kidding aside,

02:05:12   if you have done this yourself

02:05:14   and have tips other than hire somebody,

02:05:16   which is the correct answer,

02:05:18   please reach out via Twitter or email if you must.

02:05:20   If you've been here, lived it, done it,

02:05:22   if you have a YouTube video that you suggest me to watch,

02:05:25   I'm all ears because I would really love,

02:05:28   I'd really love pointers

02:05:29   'cause I'm probably gonna screw something up doing this.

02:05:31   But that's part of the fun.

02:05:32   - I will say too, this is one of those areas

02:05:34   where if you're gonna do this,

02:05:36   figure out what the really good tools are

02:05:38   and just buy the absolute best tools,

02:05:40   the best crimp things.

02:05:42   - Marco found a way for you to spend money on this.

02:05:44   - Surprise, surprise.

02:05:45   - Well, they aren't that expensive.

02:05:47   It's like maybe 100 bucks at most

02:05:48   for the combination of things you're gonna need here.

02:05:51   But there's certain things that you can do stuff

02:05:54   without crimping, crimpless kind of things,

02:05:56   or these weird past things, I don't know.

02:05:58   Every time I've tried to do this, I've failed,

02:06:00   so maybe I'm not the best person to take advice from.

02:06:02   But having the right tools for this job

02:06:05   can make a very big difference in how much work it is,

02:06:09   what your failure rate is for your punchdowns

02:06:11   or your connectors, it's very much,

02:06:14   definitely figure out what the right tools are

02:06:17   and get them, get a tester, all this stuff.

02:06:20   Heck, I'll probably just mail you mine

02:06:22   'cause I can't use it.

02:06:23   - Ask Quinn what he used 'cause apparently

02:06:25   he won't hand me out. - Well, and actually,

02:06:27   Quinn's video, if you look at the description,

02:06:29   he includes almost everything, like Amazon links,

02:06:33   presumably affiliate links 'cause that's what I do,

02:06:35   links to almost everything he used and suggested

02:06:37   in the video and including a couple things

02:06:39   that he actively suggests not to use.

02:06:42   So I've gotten a lot of the tool recommendations

02:06:44   from his video.

02:06:45   I haven't actually spoken to Quinn about this,

02:06:46   I should at some point.

02:06:46   But yeah, if you have personal experience with it

02:06:49   and have pointers, I'd love to hear.

02:06:52   Or if you need to, maybe the right answer is all of you,

02:06:55   just tell me don't do it, don't do it.

02:06:57   Which maybe is the best answer.

02:06:59   But I need a project, y'all, I need a project.

02:07:00   - No, and honestly, it's fun.

02:07:02   Like dealing with EaseMed stuff,

02:07:04   like it's kind of old school.

02:07:05   (laughs)

02:07:06   So it's very physically satisfying.

02:07:11   You get to physically punch these wires into these things

02:07:15   and then all of a sudden your stuff is fast and reliable.

02:07:18   It's very cool and having Ethernet in your house

02:07:21   is a very good idea.

02:07:23   For all the reasons I just mentioned,

02:07:24   you don't want to have to deal with bridges

02:07:26   and weird other broadcast standards

02:07:28   and you wanna be hardwired directly from your computer

02:07:32   through a switch to your Fios box.

02:07:35   You want all that to be hardwired ethernet.

02:07:38   Exactly, as fast as it can be.

02:07:40   You don't wanna have to deal with,

02:07:42   oh, I can only get three to 600 megabits.

02:07:44   No, get your gigabit.

02:07:45   Don't you have ethernet service from Fios?

02:07:50   Yeah, so get your full gigabit.

02:07:52   That you should have that.

02:07:53   You're a computer professional.

02:07:54   If it takes running one $15 span of wire

02:07:59   between your computer and the garage to make it happen,

02:08:02   make it happen, you know?

02:08:04   - Yeah, and it's actually, one of the things I looked at

02:08:07   and that's given me a little bit of pause

02:08:08   'cause I'm cheap, is the cheapest spool of Cat6

02:08:12   or Cat6a maybe I was looking at,

02:08:14   it's like $200 for a spool of like a couple hundred feet

02:08:18   of ethernet cable, which is probably reasonable,

02:08:20   but I did not realize it was that expensive.

02:08:23   It's like, holy God, I better be really sure

02:08:25   that I accomplish this if I'm gonna spend

02:08:27   a couple hundred dollars on cable alone.

02:08:28   But this all started, the funny thing is,

02:08:29   this all started with, you know, I kept going to Monoprice,

02:08:32   which I do love, in buying a one-foot Ethernet cable here,

02:08:35   three feet there, two feet there,

02:08:37   for one-off little uses all around the house.

02:08:39   And it occurred to me, none of these,

02:08:41   I always, even if I measure, I always get it wrong.

02:08:45   I either buy something too short or too long.

02:08:47   I could fix this.

02:08:49   I have crimped Ethernet cable in the past,

02:08:51   granted I was 16, but I've done it.

02:08:52   And it's easier now with the pass-through stuff,

02:08:54   like you mentioned, Marco.

02:08:55   So why don't I just buy a spool of Ethernet

02:08:58   and just make my own little one-foot,

02:08:59   two-foot, three-foot cables?

02:09:00   and then it's a small jump from there to screw it,

02:09:03   let's wire the whole darn house.

02:09:04   - You don't wanna do that.

02:09:06   'Cause like, first of all, getting really good

02:09:10   Ethernet cables pre-made is actually not that expensive.

02:09:14   - No, but when you're doing it--

02:09:16   - The pre-made short ones use stranded wire too,

02:09:18   which is way more sort of supple and flexible

02:09:20   for short runs, whereas the spools you're gonna get

02:09:22   are all gonna be stiffer and gnarlier

02:09:26   and you're not gonna wanna use them for your two foot cable.

02:09:28   - Yeah, 'cause if you're gonna get a spool,

02:09:30   but presumably you're gonna want some kind

02:09:31   that's rated to be in walls.

02:09:33   That's a somewhat important factor here,

02:09:35   so that's gonna be thicker, yeah, as Jon said.

02:09:39   But also just, that's not worth the time

02:09:41   to crimp on an end.

02:09:43   When you can get a really good ethernet cable

02:09:45   for a few dollars, yeah, just buy them.

02:09:48   And one option you may want to consider,

02:09:51   I don't know if you should consider this

02:09:53   off the top of my head, especially in regards

02:09:54   to things like in wall ratings

02:09:55   that I literally just mentioned,

02:09:57   But another option you could get is just buy a few

02:10:01   100 foot ethernet cables pre-made

02:10:03   and just fish them through the walls.

02:10:05   Like that is an option.

02:10:06   Like I don't think it's a very good option

02:10:09   but it would avoid a lot of problems.

02:10:11   So like it is-- - That's what I did.

02:10:12   In my house right now is I bought a couple hundred feet

02:10:15   of cable that is, well not exactly the right length,

02:10:18   but that is long enough to reach everywhere that I get,

02:10:21   all with pre-made ends on them and so far so good

02:10:24   for 10 years or whatever I've been running this.

02:10:27   Yeah, like that is a totally valid option.

02:10:29   You could totally do that.

02:10:30   Because I only have to go to like, I go to the computer room and I go to the

02:10:34   television. What do I go anywhere else? No, that's it.

02:10:36   Computer room and television. And so that covers my PlayStation,

02:10:39   all the computers in the house and anything ever connected to the TV,

02:10:43   all directly connected to ethernet, which by the way,

02:10:44   your kids will appreciate because they will have lower latency when playing

02:10:47   online games.

02:10:48   Well, and there is an ethernet drop via Mocha, via coax in the living room.

02:10:52   But I hear you now. So somebody in the chat room suggested true cable.com.

02:10:56   - ChewCable.com's CAT6 plenum unshielded,

02:11:00   $200 for 500 feet, I don't know,

02:11:03   what's a thousand feet shoe, that's not fair.

02:11:05   So it's $289 for a thousand feet of CAT6.

02:11:08   - Do you need a thousand feet?

02:11:10   - Probably not, but it's almost $300.

02:11:13   The smallest amount of CAT6A I can get

02:11:15   that's plenum rated is a thousand feet, $513!

02:11:20   Holy jamoles, I don't need that.

02:11:21   - Well wait 'til you see how much it would cost

02:11:23   to have someone else do it for you.

02:11:24   - Well that's true, that's a fair point.

02:11:26   (beeping)