ATP

00:00:00 ◼   ► - Marco, I have two questions for you deeply unrelated.

00:00:02 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:03 ◼   ► - To each other or to Tech?

00:00:05 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:06 ◼   ► - Deeply unrelated to each other.

00:00:07 ◼   ► First of all, how's your call recorder doing?

00:00:10 ◼   ► - It's gone, man, I'm all M1.

00:00:12 ◼   ► - Jon, how's your call recorder?

00:00:14 ◼   ► - I have a question for Marco about call recorder

00:00:16 ◼   ► before I tell you about my call recorder.

00:00:18 ◼   ► - Oh, no.

00:00:19 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:00:19 ◼   ► Oh, no, this must be quick.

00:00:21 ◼   ► What are we doing?

00:00:22 ◼   ► - Did you actually try call recorder on your M1?

00:00:25 ◼   ► - Well, yes, because I have to,

00:00:27 ◼   ► because the stupid installation that I'm still on,

00:00:30 ◼   ► that it was imported from my iMac,

00:00:32 ◼   ► call recorder's on it, and so every time I launch Skype,

00:00:34 ◼   ► it pops up a thing saying, "Hey, you gotta update me."

00:00:36 ◼   ► So I humor it, I'm like, "All right, sure, go ahead.

00:00:39 ◼   ► "Let's see what you got."

00:00:41 ◼   ► And so it tries to update, and it instantly launches,

00:00:44 ◼   ► and it's like, "Oh, I can't do this.

00:00:46 ◼   ► "What am I talking about?

00:00:47 ◼   ► "I can't run on this architecture.

00:00:48 ◼   ► "I'll never run on this architecture."

00:00:50 ◼   ► - But see, that's my question.

00:00:52 ◼   ► Why can't it, is it a dialogue from the app itself?

00:00:55 ◼   ► Why can't it just run on Rosetta?

00:00:56 ◼   ► - I don't know how exactly it hooks into Skype.

00:00:59 ◼   ► My best guess is that whatever mechanism it uses

00:01:02 ◼   ► to hook into Skype has been tightened security-wise

00:01:06 ◼   ► on the M1 Macs and no longer works,

00:01:09 ◼   ► and there probably is no good alternative

00:01:10 ◼   ► without doing a kernel extension or something,

00:01:13 ◼   ► which if you had to install any of our friend

00:01:16 ◼   ► Ruger Mieba's audio product, you know that that process

00:01:19 ◼   ► is kinda cumbersome in Big Sur on an M1 Mac,

00:01:22 ◼   ► and so I'm guessing that's the kind of thing they ran into.

00:01:26 ◼   ► It's not that they have some x86 assembly code

00:01:29 ◼   ► they don't wanna port.

00:01:30 ◼   ► It's much more likely that the mechanism

00:01:32 ◼   ► by which it hooks into Skype at all

00:01:35 ◼   ► is somehow broken with this new architecture.

00:01:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I assumed,

00:01:38 ◼   ► but I hadn't actually heard anyone who had tried it,

00:01:40 ◼   ► so I guess Merlin asked about that on our last podcast.

00:01:42 ◼   ► He's like, "Well, does it just not run at all,

00:01:44 ◼   ► "or does it run just in Rosetta?"

00:01:46 ◼   ► And I didn't know, so it's good to know

00:01:47 ◼   ► that it's not unsupported.

00:01:50 ◼   ► It just is a no-go entirely.

00:01:52 ◼   ► - It launches, presumably using Rosetta,

00:01:54 ◼   ► to display a dialog box saying this doesn't work,

00:01:56 ◼   ► and then quits. (laughs)

00:01:58 ◼   ► - All right, anyway, yeah, my call recorder's fine,

00:01:59 ◼   ► 'cause I'm on Intel, and it'll be fine

00:02:01 ◼   ► until I'm not on Intel.

00:02:03 ◼   ► - I gotta get rid of this installation.

00:02:03 ◼   ► - Old Mac users unite.

00:02:05 ◼   ► - Like, I'm still on it because I haven't,

00:02:09 ◼   ► there's never a good time to reinstall your OS

00:02:11 ◼   ► on your main computer.

00:02:12 ◼   ► That's never a fun thing, but,

00:02:14 ◼   ► and man, I've gone so many years

00:02:17 ◼   ► using the same installations.

00:02:19 ◼   ► My entire time using Macs, which is since 2004,

00:02:23 ◼   ► I think I've had a total of three installations

00:02:26 ◼   ► of Mac OS on my desktop.

00:02:27 ◼   ► Laptops, they're throwaway, whatever.

00:02:29 ◼   ► But desktop, my main desktop installations,

00:02:31 ◼   ► I bring them forward for a long time.

00:02:34 ◼   ► That seems to be impossible on Catalina forward.

00:02:37 ◼   ► Like, they just, Catalina was such a garbage fire

00:02:40 ◼   ► that anything that has ever touched Catalina

00:02:43 ◼   ► is messy and has problems like the weird

00:02:47 ◼   ► Chrome is bad Windows Server thing.

00:02:48 ◼   ► There's so many weird things that seem to be related

00:02:51 ◼   ► to Catalina installs rotting and going badly.

00:02:54 ◼   ► The same way old Windows installs used to slowly

00:02:56 ◼   ► just slow down and accumulate problems over time.

00:02:59 ◼   ► It feels like Windows, it really does.

00:03:01 ◼   ► Now, this feels like back when I used to reinstall

00:03:04 ◼   ► Windows XP and Windows 2000 every nine months,

00:03:07 ◼   ► this feels like that again.

00:03:08 ◼   ► It feels like you kinda have to keep things clean.

00:03:10 ◼   ► The installation I have on my Mac Mini,

00:03:13 ◼   ► which is the imported iMac installation,

00:03:15 ◼   ► is so much worse and has so many weird problems

00:03:18 ◼   ► than the one I have on my fresh new MacBook Air

00:03:20 ◼   ► that was a fresh installation.

00:03:22 ◼   ► So, I gotta move over.

00:03:24 ◼   ► But again, there's never a good time to do that.

00:03:27 ◼   ► - You can try just doing some house cleaning.

00:03:28 ◼   ► I mean, I'm using essentially my install

00:03:31 ◼   ► that I imported from Catalina,

00:03:32 ◼   ► that I imported from whatever.

00:03:34 ◼   ► I'm using my 2008 Mac Pro, brought onto this Mac

00:03:38 ◼   ► through Migration Assistant and then upgraded

00:03:40 ◼   ► to Big Sur in place.

00:03:42 ◼   ► I haven't done any clean installs is what I'm saying.

00:03:44 ◼   ► I did spend a little bit of time going through the cruft

00:03:47 ◼   ► and cleaning out things that I thought were old.

00:03:50 ◼   ► I did that actually before Big Sur.

00:03:52 ◼   ► I just did it when it was still in Catalina,

00:03:54 ◼   ► using just the normal suite of tools

00:03:56 ◼   ► that are available to do that.

00:03:59 ◼   ► Actually, I'm gonna do a recommendation

00:04:00 ◼   ► for one of these things.

00:04:01 ◼   ► What the hell is it called?

00:04:02 ◼   ► Hang on.

00:04:03 ◼   ► - You should use a utility, like a Mac cleaning utility.

00:04:05 ◼   ► Or a defragger.

00:04:07 ◼   ► - No, that's not actually what I want.

00:04:08 ◼   ► The application that I like for the type of thing

00:04:11 ◼   ► that most people forget about is called Launch Control.

00:04:15 ◼   ► And it's a launch services editing application.

00:04:20 ◼   ► Again, you don't need an app to do this.

00:04:21 ◼   ► It's all a bunch of XML files

00:04:22 ◼   ► and you can do it all yourself.

00:04:24 ◼   ► But having an app that does it is super convenient.

00:04:26 ◼   ► And that's where you find the real dark matter

00:04:29 ◼   ► of stuff that you had no idea

00:04:30 ◼   ► was still running on your computer.

00:04:31 ◼   ► Now, I will caution you that if you don't understand

00:04:34 ◼   ► what these things are, you can really screw up your computer.

00:04:36 ◼   ► So don't just get it and say,

00:04:38 ◼   ► "I don't know what any of this crap is."

00:04:39 ◼   ► Delete it all, 'cause you will break everything.

00:04:41 ◼   ► But if you have some confidence

00:04:43 ◼   ► that you can tell what things are,

00:04:46 ◼   ► and if you're super duper sure,

00:04:48 ◼   ► "Oh, I'm not running VirtualBox anymore.

00:04:50 ◼   ► "It's totally uninstalled and I haven't used it in 60 years,

00:04:52 ◼   ► "and yet there is a VirtualBox user agent running.

00:04:56 ◼   ► "I know I don't need that."

00:04:57 ◼   ► And yes, I'm sure that because it says VirtualBox,

00:05:00 ◼   ► it really is VirtualBox.

00:05:01 ◼   ► And I'll double check and I'll look,

00:05:03 ◼   ► then you can clean that out and say,

00:05:04 ◼   ► "Why am I running this?"

00:05:05 ◼   ► And all these things aren't running.

00:05:06 ◼   ► They're just available to run on demand

00:05:08 ◼   ► in response to certain things.

00:05:09 ◼   ► So you kinda also have to understand

00:05:10 ◼   ► how LaunchD works on the Mac and it's complicated.

00:05:13 ◼   ► But anyway, I found tons of old crappy stuff

00:05:16 ◼   ► to be able to be cleaned out.

00:05:17 ◼   ► And then also just looking for,

00:05:19 ◼   ► in your case you'd be looking for Intel binaries

00:05:21 ◼   ► where you're like, "Ah, let me just delete that

00:05:23 ◼   ► "because I don't plan on using it.

00:05:24 ◼   ► "If I ever do, I should re-download the M1 version."

00:05:28 ◼   ► I did this for 64-bit to 32-bit transition.

00:05:31 ◼   ► Just general house cleaning of finding stuff

00:05:33 ◼   ► that you haven't used in forever that you don't want

00:05:35 ◼   ► and then really cleaning it off of your system

00:05:37 ◼   ► instead of just dragging the icon to the trash.

00:05:39 ◼   ► - One thing, all of my Adobe stuff is broken.

00:05:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:05:43 ◼   ► - Well, I mean, how can you tell?

00:05:44 ◼   ► - Well, that's fair.

00:05:46 ◼   ► Like won't launch, broken.

00:05:48 ◼   ► - So I've got, speaking of that,

00:05:49 ◼   ► I just launched Launch Control.

00:05:50 ◼   ► They're one of the user agencies.

00:05:53 ◼   ► com.adobe.gc.invoker-1.0.

00:05:56 ◼   ► I have long since refused to let that thing load.

00:05:59 ◼   ► So it's not, you can set it in various different states.

00:06:02 ◼   ► Again, you have to look up the LaunchD documentation

00:06:03 ◼   ► to figure this out.

00:06:04 ◼   ► So it is unloaded right now.

00:06:06 ◼   ► So it's not running.

00:06:08 ◼   ► But I still am not sure if I can actually delete it

00:06:11 ◼   ► because Adobe stuff puts so many things on your system.

00:06:13 ◼   ► And I do wanna use Photoshop.

00:06:15 ◼   ► Like I pay for Photoshop and have it and use it

00:06:18 ◼   ► and you have to get the Creative Cloud and all.

00:06:21 ◼   ► Like that has to be there,

00:06:22 ◼   ► otherwise nothing for Adobe will work.

00:06:25 ◼   ► But I never know which part of it is like from a decade ago

00:06:27 ◼   ► that I can safely delete and which part of it

00:06:29 ◼   ► if I delete that one file,

00:06:30 ◼   ► I'll never be able to update an Adobe app again.

00:06:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, I eventually was able to reinstall Creative Cloud

00:06:37 ◼   ► and I got Audition working.

00:06:39 ◼   ► Audition is the only Adobe app

00:06:40 ◼   ► that I really don't have any good other apps

00:06:44 ◼   ► that can replace.

00:06:45 ◼   ► I don't have anything else

00:06:47 ◼   ► that can do what Audition does for me.

00:06:49 ◼   ► Now maybe I'll start looking a little bit harder

00:06:51 ◼   ► because it's crazy for me to think that I'm keeping

00:06:56 ◼   ► all of this Adobe craft around

00:06:58 ◼   ► and paying this subscription

00:06:59 ◼   ► for basically just Photoshop and Audition.

00:07:01 ◼   ► And Photoshop, I haven't gotten to launch

00:07:03 ◼   ► in this computer yet.

00:07:05 ◼   ► And so it turns out I had bought Pixelmator Pro

00:07:09 ◼   ► during one of the times it was on sale

00:07:10 ◼   ► like in the last couple years.

00:07:12 ◼   ► And I just never opened it because I'm like,

00:07:13 ◼   ► oh, I should buy this, I might need this someday.

00:07:15 ◼   ► And I always have Photoshop

00:07:17 ◼   ► so it was always the easier path to just use the app I knew.

00:07:20 ◼   ► But last week I had to do some basic manipulation

00:07:23 ◼   ► of something for, I think for our show art actually,

00:07:25 ◼   ► for whatever I was doing for chapter art and stuff.

00:07:28 ◼   ► And I did it, I couldn't launch Photoshop

00:07:29 ◼   ► and it was easier for me to just launch Pixelmator

00:07:32 ◼   ► instead of trying to fix Photoshop.

00:07:33 ◼   ► So I launched Pixelmator Pro

00:07:37 ◼   ► and just started hitting the key commands

00:07:39 ◼   ► that work in Photoshop

00:07:41 ◼   ► and they all work in Pixelmator Pro

00:07:42 ◼   ► 'cause a lot of people would face this problem

00:07:44 ◼   ► so they've accommodated for that.

00:07:46 ◼   ► And so I just started doing things

00:07:48 ◼   ► the way I would do it there.

00:07:50 ◼   ► And it mostly worked,

00:07:52 ◼   ► like the icons are in different places

00:07:53 ◼   ► and everything looks a little bit different

00:07:55 ◼   ► but most of the functionality that I actually needed,

00:07:58 ◼   ► I don't know about the rest of the app,

00:07:59 ◼   ► which it's a pretty big app,

00:08:00 ◼   ► but most of the functionality that I needed

00:08:02 ◼   ► out of a basic image editor,

00:08:04 ◼   ► Pixelmator Pro had it just fine.

00:08:05 ◼   ► And so that's one more Adobe thing off my list.

00:08:08 ◼   ► Like I might not need Photoshop anymore.

00:08:11 ◼   ► So maybe I'm just gonna get Audition

00:08:13 ◼   ► and then they actually,

00:08:14 ◼   ► I think they have a special subscription

00:08:15 ◼   ► that's just for one app,

00:08:16 ◼   ► if you just only need one.

00:08:18 ◼   ► Just down to Audition now,

00:08:19 ◼   ► I gotta figure out how to either fix Photoshop or downgrade.

00:08:24 ◼   ► - I got super into the Affinity suite of products,

00:08:28 ◼   ► Affinity Designer, Affinity whatever,

00:08:30 ◼   ► there's like three or four apps.

00:08:31 ◼   ► There's like the one that's Illustrator,

00:08:33 ◼   ► the one that's Photoshop,

00:08:34 ◼   ► they have to have a photo thing.

00:08:36 ◼   ► I got into them when I was working on the T-shirt stuff

00:08:38 ◼   ► 'cause I used to have a thing of Illustrator

00:08:41 ◼   ► and then it was no longer licensed.

00:08:43 ◼   ► And so I was getting like,

00:08:43 ◼   ► like you said, the one application for one month

00:08:46 ◼   ► and you pay like eight bucks.

00:08:47 ◼   ► And so I would just like pay eight bucks for Illustrator

00:08:48 ◼   ► for a month to do a T-shirt for us

00:08:50 ◼   ► and then just let it expire.

00:08:51 ◼   ► And then you couldn't do that anymore, I think.

00:08:53 ◼   ► And so it's let me just get the Affinity Designer.

00:08:55 ◼   ► And I use that for a bunch of shirts and I liked it.

00:08:57 ◼   ► And when I was going through and cleaning stuff out,

00:08:59 ◼   ► I think it was maybe the 32 to 64 transition

00:09:02 ◼   ► or maybe a little bit later,

00:09:03 ◼   ► I was going through like my serial numbers

00:09:05 ◼   ► and all the other stuff.

00:09:06 ◼   ► And I realized I bought most of the Affinity suite twice.

00:09:10 ◼   ► I don't know how they even let me do that.

00:09:12 ◼   ► But like I bought it once when it was like,

00:09:13 ◼   ► oh, it's a cheap bundle, get all these apps for a price.

00:09:15 ◼   ► And then I also bought the individual three apps

00:09:17 ◼   ► that I want.

00:09:18 ◼   ► So I really need to pay attention

00:09:19 ◼   ► to what the hell I'm buying in software.

00:09:21 ◼   ► - All right, so Marco, I said I had two questions for you.

00:09:26 ◼   ► My other-

00:09:27 ◼   ► - Two quick questions, 10 minutes later.

00:09:28 ◼   ► - Well, I thought that the first one was gonna be quick.

00:09:31 ◼   ► I should have known better.

00:09:31 ◼   ► I should have in retrospect reversed these.

00:09:33 ◼   ► Maybe we'll do it from the magic of editing, I don't know.

00:09:35 ◼   ► But- - No, we won't.

00:09:37 ◼   ► - Yeah, I know, my icebreaker/warmup/let's ease

00:09:41 ◼   ► into the show, I don't know, five, 10 minutes in,

00:09:44 ◼   ► is, and I think we've discussed this in the past,

00:09:47 ◼   ► but I'm curious to hear your answer now,

00:09:50 ◼   ► because I think it may have changed quite dramatically.

00:09:53 ◼   ► If you had to pack up and leave New York State,

00:09:57 ◼   ► and in fact leave the entire Eastern Seaboard,

00:10:01 ◼   ► where would you go?

00:10:02 ◼   ► - Oh, geez.

00:10:04 ◼   ► See, before I discovered the beach,

00:10:07 ◼   ► and I found my happy place, I would say,

00:10:10 ◼   ► "Yeah, I don't care, whatever, it doesn't matter."

00:10:12 ◼   ► But now that I like this place a lot,

00:10:16 ◼   ► it's a little harder of a decision,

00:10:17 ◼   ► I think I like being near the water a lot.

00:10:22 ◼   ► And so I think I would, with a heavy heart,

00:10:28 ◼   ► go to California.

00:10:29 ◼   ► - Oh, that's a bad choice, no.

00:10:31 ◼   ► You want sort of Long Island methadone,

00:10:34 ◼   ► and Long Island methadone is called like Cape Cod,

00:10:36 ◼   ► Nantucket, Martha Zinnia.

00:10:37 ◼   ► - He said the whole Eastern Seaboard.

00:10:38 ◼   ► - No, the Eastern Seaboard's off limits.

00:10:41 ◼   ► - Those are not.

00:10:41 ◼   ► And I could go to the Gulf, maybe, but like,

00:10:44 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:10:45 ◼   ► - If you're looking, I'm saying like,

00:10:47 ◼   ► the beaches in California are very different.

00:10:49 ◼   ► - Agreed.

00:10:50 ◼   ► - Than the ones in Long Island.

00:10:51 ◼   ► And the land that leads up to the beaches are different.

00:10:54 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, I care less about the actual

00:10:56 ◼   ► like sand and water interface,

00:10:58 ◼   ► and more about just like the air, and the sound,

00:11:03 ◼   ► and the climate that you get when you're next to the ocean.

00:11:06 ◼   ► Like that is what I like much more.

00:11:07 ◼   ► - I know, but that's different too,

00:11:09 ◼   ► because it's a gigantic landmass

00:11:11 ◼   ► butting up against the Pacific Ocean

00:11:13 ◼   ► with all these weird weather patterns.

00:11:14 ◼   ► It's nothing like where you are.

00:11:15 ◼   ► Forget about the water,

00:11:16 ◼   ► say you never even touch the water.

00:11:18 ◼   ► Like just the land is different.

00:11:19 ◼   ► You need like an, you're on a little island.

00:11:22 ◼   ► You want island life.

00:11:23 ◼   ► Maybe you should go to the Bahamas, I don't know.

00:11:24 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, maybe like, you know, Caribbean,

00:11:26 ◼   ► 'cause like it's all, there's no winter there.

00:11:28 ◼   ► That would be nice.

00:11:29 ◼   ► The, but yeah, the answer is probably like,

00:11:31 ◼   ► I would go to some other coast, you know.

00:11:33 ◼   ► Maybe even Europe, maybe?

00:11:35 ◼   ► Like Europe seems a little more stable

00:11:38 ◼   ► than California in certain ways.

00:11:40 ◼   ► But it has its own issues, you know.

00:11:43 ◼   ► So I don't know, I mean, everywhere has its issues.

00:11:46 ◼   ► So hopefully I wouldn't have to make that decision.

00:11:49 ◼   ► But if I did, I think the most likely outcome

00:11:50 ◼   ► would probably end up being California.

00:11:53 ◼   ► - See, I think for me,

00:11:54 ◼   ► I would probably stay on the Eastern Seaboard,

00:11:56 ◼   ► but I already declared that's not allowed.

00:11:58 ◼   ► So with that in mind--

00:11:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, if that was allowed, I'd just go,

00:12:00 ◼   ► yeah, I don't know, Boston or, you know,

00:12:02 ◼   ► the Carolinas or something like that.

00:12:03 ◼   ► There's lots of other good places on the Eastern Seaboard.

00:12:06 ◼   ► - And I think I speak for all three of us in saying,

00:12:08 ◼   ► whether we're from the north, from the south,

00:12:11 ◼   ► or somewhere in between, I think all three of us

00:12:13 ◼   ► seem to dramatically prefer the Eastern Seaboard

00:12:15 ◼   ► to anywhere else.

00:12:17 ◼   ► For me, I think if I had to leave the Eastern Seaboard,

00:12:20 ◼   ► I would really want to investigate the Pacific Northwest,

00:12:23 ◼   ► 'cause I've never even visited,

00:12:24 ◼   ► and I've heard universally good things,

00:12:26 ◼   ► and except maybe weather.

00:12:29 ◼   ► And so I would want to at least check it out,

00:12:31 ◼   ► but I think I might end up in Austin,

00:12:34 ◼   ► 'cause I lived in Austin as a middle schooler

00:12:37 ◼   ► and really enjoyed it,

00:12:38 ◼   ► and I know that's super trendy to say now,

00:12:40 ◼   ► but I was there before it was cool.

00:12:42 ◼   ► - There's a lot more traffic now.

00:12:43 ◼   ► - Yeah, a lot more traffic as well.

00:12:45 ◼   ► - I don't know, I'm not sure how well you'd deal with that.

00:12:49 ◼   ► I know Austin seems super cool and everything,

00:12:51 ◼   ► but it's in the middle of a not super cool area.

00:12:54 ◼   ► - Remember where I live today.

00:12:56 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly.

00:12:57 ◼   ► - So John, where would you go?

00:12:58 ◼   ► - Still not the same.

00:13:01 ◼   ► I mean, I obviously need to be somewhere near the coast,

00:13:04 ◼   ► even though you think I'm not now,

00:13:05 ◼   ► but I really am in the grand scheme of things.

00:13:07 ◼   ► If you look at the dot on the map, it's near the water.

00:13:10 ◼   ► California is such a big place

00:13:12 ◼   ► that I'm pretty sure there's some place in California

00:13:15 ◼   ► that I could probably tolerate,

00:13:16 ◼   ► I just haven't found it yet.

00:13:18 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:13:19 ◼   ► - Probably tolerate.

00:13:20 ◼   ► - It's a big place, right?

00:13:21 ◼   ► I haven't been to all of it.

00:13:23 ◼   ► Pacific Northwest, I don't think I would be able

00:13:25 ◼   ► to handle the weather and the vibe.

00:13:29 ◼   ► I don't know, I always think about, I mean, this is Canada,

00:13:32 ◼   ► but some places in Canada I think I would be happy

00:13:36 ◼   ► for two months out of the year.

00:13:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's the problem.

00:13:39 ◼   ► - The warm two months?

00:13:40 ◼   ► - Yeah, I could just live on Prince Edward Island

00:13:41 ◼   ► for two months out of the year

00:13:43 ◼   ► and then just blink out of existence

00:13:45 ◼   ► for the rest of the year and then blink back into existence

00:13:47 ◼   ► for those two months on Prince Edward Island.

00:13:48 ◼   ► I think I'd be pretty happy there.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - That's fair.

00:13:51 ◼   ► - The Pacific Northwest, whenever I've been there,

00:13:54 ◼   ► I've thought, this is a very nice place

00:13:56 ◼   ► for people who are not me.

00:13:58 ◼   ► It seems like it's a fantastic place for a lot of people,

00:14:03 ◼   ► but it's not for me.

00:14:04 ◼   ► And California, I think I'm with Jon on that,

00:14:08 ◼   ► I find a lot of nice places in California.

00:14:11 ◼   ► I've never found the place yet

00:14:13 ◼   ► that I would want to live, necessarily.

00:14:16 ◼   ► And I can tell you one thing, it would not be San Francisco.

00:14:19 ◼   ► That is not for me at all.

00:14:20 ◼   ► But I have-- - Hard to agree.

00:14:21 ◼   ► - The parts of California that I've seen

00:14:23 ◼   ► that have been a little bit outside of San Francisco,

00:14:26 ◼   ► the various suburbs, up north, the Marin area,

00:14:28 ◼   ► down south, basically between that little beach town

00:14:32 ◼   ► and Santa Cruz, that whole strip,

00:14:33 ◼   ► there's a lot of very nice places.

00:14:36 ◼   ► Half Moon Bay is what I'm thinking of,

00:14:37 ◼   ► Half Moon Bay and Santa Cruz, that whole area.

00:14:40 ◼   ► I've liked seeing a lot of that,

00:14:41 ◼   ► but again, I don't know enough about it

00:14:43 ◼   ► to actually say I'd want to live here.

00:14:44 ◼   ► And I've actually never seen LA in that whole area,

00:14:46 ◼   ► like the whole bottom half, I've never seen it.

00:14:49 ◼   ► - I feel like it's trendy to hate on LA,

00:14:50 ◼   ► and insert the letter Kenny, LA right here.

00:14:53 ◼   ► But I actually quite enjoy LA,

00:14:55 ◼   ► and in fact, I strongly agree with you

00:14:57 ◼   ► that San Francisco's not for me.

00:14:59 ◼   ► I think that having never experienced

00:15:02 ◼   ► the Pacific Northwest, I suspect if I went,

00:15:04 ◼   ► I would come to a similar conclusion.

00:15:05 ◼   ► Great place, not for me.

00:15:07 ◼   ► But I actually really enjoy Southern California,

00:15:10 ◼   ► and I've only ever been to the greater LA area.

00:15:12 ◼   ► I've been to LA proper, I've been around LA a lot.

00:15:15 ◼   ► I've never been way Southern California,

00:15:17 ◼   ► like San Diego, for example.

00:15:19 ◼   ► And honestly, I can only speak for me,

00:15:21 ◼   ► but there's no way I could afford

00:15:22 ◼   ► to live in basically anywhere in California.

00:15:24 ◼   ► But I actually prefer LA in that area.

00:15:27 ◼   ► Sprawl be darned, I prefer LA over Northern California,

00:15:31 ◼   ► for me, I'm not saying it's the same for everyone else.

00:15:33 ◼   ► - So far what we've learned is that

00:15:34 ◼   ► you wanna live places with terrible traffic.

00:15:36 ◼   ► - Yeah, I guess, which is funny, 'cause I really don't.

00:15:39 ◼   ► - I mean, you said the same thing, Marco.

00:15:40 ◼   ► Have you been in those areas of California long enough

00:15:43 ◼   ► to actually try getting to that beach

00:15:44 ◼   ► on a day when you might want to go to the beach?

00:15:47 ◼   ► Like, the traffic in California is ridiculous.

00:15:49 ◼   ► - I live on the beach, man.

00:15:51 ◼   ► - I know, but you don't have, like, that's the secret.

00:15:52 ◼   ► You don't have the traffic.

00:15:54 ◼   ► To getting away from the people,

00:15:55 ◼   ► one of the beautiful and terrible things about Long Island

00:15:58 ◼   ► is as you go out on it to the extremities,

00:16:00 ◼   ► both man-made and natural forces align

00:16:04 ◼   ► to make it very difficult to get there,

00:16:06 ◼   ► which is terrible when you're trying to get there,

00:16:08 ◼   ► but good once you're there.

00:16:09 ◼   ► - Right, yeah.

00:16:10 ◼   ► - So that's, if you're, again, California,

00:16:13 ◼   ► being this massive place with all of these highways,

00:16:17 ◼   ► and you can get right to the water in all of them,

00:16:19 ◼   ► it's very difficult, unless you're gonna go out

00:16:21 ◼   ► to one of the islands off the coast of California

00:16:22 ◼   ► or something, it's very difficult to get away

00:16:24 ◼   ► from the people, you know,

00:16:26 ◼   ► to get to lower population density, essentially.

00:16:28 ◼   ► If you want lower population density, it's real easy.

00:16:30 ◼   ► If you go to live in the desert or someplace, you know,

00:16:33 ◼   ► in the middle of the country

00:16:33 ◼   ► that has much lower population density,

00:16:35 ◼   ► and I feel like that's one of the things

00:16:36 ◼   ► that you've always said you appreciate about Fire Island

00:16:38 ◼   ► is there's not, you know, a traffic jam every day

00:16:42 ◼   ► and, you know, tons of people, like, coming and going

00:16:45 ◼   ► and all that other stuff.

00:16:47 ◼   ► It is, you feel like you are, it's more relaxing

00:16:49 ◼   ► because you're away from the rad race, right?

00:16:52 ◼   ► - Yes, but in a strangely dense place,

00:16:56 ◼   ► but it's just everyone, but almost everyone's on foot

00:16:58 ◼   ► most of the time, like--

00:16:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, you're on top of each other

00:17:00 ◼   ► 'cause you're on this tiny, tiny little thing, right?

00:17:02 ◼   ► But it's not, you know, no one is commuting

00:17:05 ◼   ► to and from Manhattan from Fire Island every day,

00:17:08 ◼   ► and there's a giant traffic jam when you try to go shopping

00:17:10 ◼   ► because everyone's on their way home from work

00:17:12 ◼   ► also stopping at the store.

00:17:13 ◼   ► That doesn't exist.

00:17:14 ◼   ► - That's the thing, like, when you,

00:17:16 ◼   ► I mean, so much of your happiness in life depends on,

00:17:21 ◼   ► like, your daily grind.

00:17:22 ◼   ► Like, do you have a bad commute?

00:17:24 ◼   ► Do you have a super long commute?

00:17:25 ◼   ► Is your commute always full of, you know,

00:17:27 ◼   ► angering traffic or stuff like that?

00:17:29 ◼   ► Like, that stuff matters so much to everyone's happiness.

00:17:31 ◼   ► - Okay, when you wanna go food shopping,

00:17:33 ◼   ► do you dread it because it's gonna be so packed

00:17:35 ◼   ► and you're gonna be waiting on a checkout line for an hour

00:17:37 ◼   ► and you won't be able to find a parking spot,

00:17:39 ◼   ► like, that type of stuff?

00:17:40 ◼   ► - Exactly, like, if doing everyday stuff is hard.

00:17:42 ◼   ► Like, I remember, like, one of the impressions I had,

00:17:45 ◼   ► we lived in Brooklyn for a year,

00:17:46 ◼   ► it was very clear that, like, all of the, like,

00:17:48 ◼   ► delivery people, like, you know, UPS drivers, the mail people,

00:17:51 ◼   ► like, everyone who kinda, like, had to work in Brooklyn

00:17:54 ◼   ► was always angry because doing common tasks

00:17:58 ◼   ► in the area of Brooklyn we were in is just difficult

00:18:00 ◼   ► 'cause there's just tons of traffic constantly

00:18:03 ◼   ► and everyone's mad at each other all the time.

00:18:05 ◼   ► It's very, like, tense and it just,

00:18:07 ◼   ► there's just tons of friction to a lot of stuff.

00:18:10 ◼   ► Whereas, like, here, everyone's really chill and happy

00:18:14 ◼   ► because there is so little friction

00:18:16 ◼   ► to the admittedly limited things that we have access to

00:18:19 ◼   ► but what we have access to is really great

00:18:22 ◼   ► and really easy to just go do.

00:18:24 ◼   ► And so, like, and this is a place where, like,

00:18:26 ◼   ► people come here and they can just kinda be happy

00:18:28 ◼   ► and they can, like, you know, it's like a storybook.

00:18:30 ◼   ► You're like, ride your bike to the grocery store

00:18:31 ◼   ► and you ride home with, like, a bag in your bike basket

00:18:34 ◼   ► with, like, a baguette and a pineapple sticking at the top

00:18:36 ◼   ► so that you know it's from a grocery store.

00:18:38 ◼   ► That's how you indicate that.

00:18:40 ◼   ► And it's just nice, it's like a, it's a nice, pleasant thing

00:18:42 ◼   ► and, you know, compared to before where we were living

00:18:46 ◼   ► and just, I'd have to, you know, get in the car,

00:18:48 ◼   ► drive across, oh, of course, they're tearing up the street

00:18:52 ◼   ► again to put in more water main work somehow.

00:18:56 ◼   ► Somehow this work needs to be done every six months

00:18:59 ◼   ► on every street in Westchester.

00:19:01 ◼   ► I don't know, like, we joke,

00:19:03 ◼   ► there must be, like, a construction mafia.

00:19:04 ◼   ► Like, there's some kind of, like, under the table deals

00:19:07 ◼   ► where somehow they're tearing up every main street

00:19:10 ◼   ► in Westchester to do water main work every six months.

00:19:14 ◼   ► I don't know why it still needs to be done so often,

00:19:16 ◼   ► more often than anywhere I've ever lived.

00:19:18 ◼   ► - They should come to my neighborhood

00:19:19 ◼   ► because the road in front of my house

00:19:20 ◼   ► desperately needs work and it's never gonna get done.

00:19:23 ◼   ► - Yeah, oh, and when, you know, when they're done,

00:19:25 ◼   ► they don't repave the road nicely,

00:19:26 ◼   ► they just kind of patch it up and so it's all,

00:19:28 ◼   ► it's a bumpy mess of, like, patches

00:19:30 ◼   ► and those iron plate things.

00:19:32 ◼   ► But, like, you know, there's so much friction involved

00:19:35 ◼   ► and just, like, okay, I have to go pick up something

00:19:37 ◼   ► at the grocery store or I have to go, you know,

00:19:39 ◼   ► it's time to go pick up our kid at school or something.

00:19:41 ◼   ► Like, common tasks, when common tasks have lots of friction,

00:19:45 ◼   ► that is a recipe for just stress and anxiety

00:19:47 ◼   ► and frustration and anger and just unhappiness.

00:19:50 ◼   ► Whereas the more of those everyday things

00:19:52 ◼   ► that you can strip that frustration from,

00:19:54 ◼   ► the, like, it pays massive dividends in overall happiness.

00:19:58 ◼   ► And that's part of the reason why I love it here,

00:20:00 ◼   ► is, like, a lot of that stuff is just a lot nicer.

00:20:03 ◼   ► - You know, it's interesting to me,

00:20:04 ◼   ► I wonder if in the after times I could convince,

00:20:07 ◼   ► you know, you guys to come down to Cape Charles,

00:20:10 ◼   ► which in so many ways, having never experienced Fire Island,

00:20:13 ◼   ► in so many ways strikes me as a very similar thing

00:20:15 ◼   ► because there's this historic district

00:20:17 ◼   ► where it's a grid of, you know, not that many streets

00:20:20 ◼   ► and not that many avenues,

00:20:21 ◼   ► and you can walk to pretty much anything.

00:20:24 ◼   ► There are cars, for sure,

00:20:26 ◼   ► but most people don't bother using them

00:20:28 ◼   ► 'cause you really don't need to.

00:20:29 ◼   ► It's a very chill, laid back vibe.

00:20:31 ◼   ► But the difference is it's not separated

00:20:33 ◼   ► from the rest of the world, well, it kind of is,

00:20:37 ◼   ► but it's not as dramatically separated

00:20:38 ◼   ► from the rest of the world that requires a ferry.

00:20:40 ◼   ► Like, you would still need to drive over

00:20:41 ◼   ► a humongous, tremendously long bridge tunnel thing,

00:20:44 ◼   ► but you don't need to take a ferry in,

00:20:46 ◼   ► so you can get deliveries in less than a week,

00:20:49 ◼   ► which is kind of cool.

00:20:50 ◼   ► So I wonder if you would enjoy,

00:20:52 ◼   ► not to say it would cause you to move or anything like that,

00:20:54 ◼   ► because there's a million and seven reasons

00:20:56 ◼   ► why I know you'd want to stay in New York,

00:20:57 ◼   ► but just, I think a lot of the perks,

00:21:01 ◼   ► again, not apples to apples,

00:21:02 ◼   ► but a lot of the perks from Fire Island you can get,

00:21:04 ◼   ► or I can get in Cape Charles,

00:21:06 ◼   ► with in some cases fewer of the drawbacks.

00:21:09 ◼   ► Yeah, it would never happen.

00:21:10 ◼   ► (electronic beeping)

00:21:12 ◼   ► - All right, gentlemen, your DTKs,

00:21:14 ◼   ► they are worth a lot more today

00:21:16 ◼   ► than they were a week ago today, which is super exciting.

00:21:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, this was great.

00:21:21 ◼   ► You know, we talked briefly last week

00:21:23 ◼   ► about how Apple had offered a very weirdly

00:21:26 ◼   ► short time windowed $200 credit

00:21:29 ◼   ► for the Apple Silicon DTKs back,

00:21:33 ◼   ► and they have heard us and they agree,

00:21:37 ◼   ► us being the general community developers

00:21:40 ◼   ► who was kind of like, that's not very good.

00:21:42 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:21:44 ◼   ► So yeah, they are revising their offer.

00:21:47 ◼   ► No one's actually gotten this yet,

00:21:48 ◼   ► 'cause they still haven't sent the email

00:21:50 ◼   ► that says, all right, now send it in with this label.

00:21:52 ◼   ► They're just saying that this will happen shortly.

00:21:54 ◼   ► But yeah, they've revised it,

00:21:56 ◼   ► so now instead of a $200 credit that expires on May 31st

00:22:00 ◼   ► that seemingly could only be used on an M1 Mac,

00:22:04 ◼   ► now they're giving us a $500 credit,

00:22:06 ◼   ► which is the entire purchase price of the DTK.

00:22:09 ◼   ► So they're basically giving us 100% refund

00:22:11 ◼   ► on having used it, and we can use it

00:22:14 ◼   ► on any Apple product through the end of the year.

00:22:17 ◼   ► So that's fantastic.

00:22:18 ◼   ► That is like, again, what I said last week,

00:22:21 ◼   ► I still stick with, of like,

00:22:23 ◼   ► modern Apple is usually pretty stingy

00:22:27 ◼   ► about any kind of hardware discounting

00:22:29 ◼   ► or giving away free hardware.

00:22:30 ◼   ► They almost never do it.

00:22:31 ◼   ► And so, like, when they said, you know,

00:22:34 ◼   ► you can buy this DTK for $500 through this

00:22:37 ◼   ► kind of invite only or application-based program,

00:22:39 ◼   ► I figured they're not gonna give us anything for these.

00:22:42 ◼   ► So to have even offered us the $200 last time,

00:22:46 ◼   ► I thought it was weird how many weird limitations

00:22:48 ◼   ► there were on it, but it was still more than the zero

00:22:51 ◼   ► I thought we'd get, and to have those limitations

00:22:54 ◼   ► be largely lifted and to have the amount

00:22:56 ◼   ► also be raised to $500, that's really nice.

00:23:00 ◼   ► That this was, this is the kind of thing that like,

00:23:03 ◼   ► this is gonna cost them almost nothing,

00:23:07 ◼   ► relative to like the other, like,

00:23:09 ◼   ► the difference between this for such a small-volume program

00:23:11 ◼   ► is gonna cost Apple like maybe 90 seconds of profit

00:23:14 ◼   ► or something, it's gonna cost them like nothing

00:23:16 ◼   ► in the grand scheme of things.

00:23:17 ◼   ► But this is such a nice gesture, and Apple does

00:23:22 ◼   ► have this weird habit recently of really

00:23:25 ◼   ► reading the room wrong.

00:23:27 ◼   ► Like that initial offer they did last week

00:23:29 ◼   ► was really like reading the room wrong.

00:23:31 ◼   ► I don't know why anyone at Apple thought

00:23:34 ◼   ► that would go over well.

00:23:35 ◼   ► When they put their foot in their mouth like that,

00:23:38 ◼   ► it's nice to see them sometimes remove it again

00:23:40 ◼   ► and resolve the problem and say, all right,

00:23:43 ◼   ► that wasn't very good, here's something better.

00:23:45 ◼   ► And that's what they've done here,

00:23:46 ◼   ► and it's a nice thing, it's a nice gesture.

00:23:50 ◼   ► They didn't have to do it, but I'm very glad they did.

00:23:53 ◼   ► - This move is like the least Apple-like thing

00:23:56 ◼   ► I can recall them doing in recent history

00:23:58 ◼   ► just because it's so low stakes.

00:24:00 ◼   ► Like the thing that we're talking about here

00:24:02 ◼   ► is a program that only affects a limited number,

00:24:05 ◼   ► just a low number of developers,

00:24:06 ◼   ► let alone a limited number of customers.

00:24:07 ◼   ► It's a fraction of a fraction.

00:24:09 ◼   ► - Like how many of these do you think are out there?

00:24:10 ◼   ► Like how many people do you think actually got DTKs?

00:24:13 ◼   ► - I mean, many more than got the Intel one for sure,

00:24:15 ◼   ► 'cause it was cheaper and there are just

00:24:16 ◼   ► so many more developers, but nothing compared

00:24:18 ◼   ► to like their actual customer base,

00:24:20 ◼   ► and it's probably not even like, you know,

00:24:23 ◼   ► it's probably only a single digit percent

00:24:25 ◼   ► of their developers, 'cause they have so many developers,

00:24:27 ◼   ► and most of them are not Mac developers.

00:24:29 ◼   ► - What do you think it is?

00:24:30 ◼   ► Maybe like 50,000?

00:24:32 ◼   ► - Yeah, but the real thing is like they had a program,

00:24:37 ◼   ► and nowhere in that program did it say,

00:24:41 ◼   ► oh, and when you send these back,

00:24:42 ◼   ► we're gonna give you a treat.

00:24:43 ◼   ► Now, we talked about that because that's what they did

00:24:47 ◼   ► with the Intel thing, but that was like 15 years ago.

00:24:51 ◼   ► Like how many people, of the people who got this DTK,

00:24:54 ◼   ► how many of them were Mac developers 15 years ago,

00:24:57 ◼   ► or whenever the hell the Intel thing was?

00:24:59 ◼   ► - It's a very different environment.

00:25:00 ◼   ► - There was no reason that anybody

00:25:03 ◼   ► should have expected anything,

00:25:05 ◼   ► and then Apple decided to give us something,

00:25:07 ◼   ► albeit slightly weird, and you know,

00:25:10 ◼   ► I feel like of all the circles that we travel in,

00:25:13 ◼   ► the old school Mac developer circle is one of the ones

00:25:16 ◼   ► that we are the most deeply entrenched in.

00:25:19 ◼   ► We know a lot of old school Mac developers, right?

00:25:21 ◼   ► That's our circle of people, and I did not see

00:25:25 ◼   ► like an incredible outpouring of anger.

00:25:27 ◼   ► Like we see so much more anger of like everyday apps

00:25:30 ◼   ► or stuff and all sorts of other things

00:25:31 ◼   ► where people are just genuinely pissed and angry.

00:25:34 ◼   ► There was some discussion of this,

00:25:35 ◼   ► but it was discussion in the context of

00:25:37 ◼   ► they did a nice thing, eh, it could have been nicer.

00:25:40 ◼   ► Like you said, Mark, like oh, maybe reading the room

00:25:41 ◼   ► a little bit wrong or whatever,

00:25:42 ◼   ► but there was also the discussion of like,

00:25:43 ◼   ► well, they could have just done nothing

00:25:44 ◼   ► and solved this problem too,

00:25:45 ◼   ► 'cause they didn't promise us anything,

00:25:47 ◼   ► and it's just like of all the things to immediately come in

00:25:52 ◼   ► and say, oh no, nevermind, we're totally,

00:25:54 ◼   ► we're gonna double it, and you have a longer time.

00:25:56 ◼   ► It's like, A, totally un-Apple-like,

00:25:58 ◼   ► 'cause they almost never react that quickly

00:26:00 ◼   ► to something so low stakes, and B,

00:26:03 ◼   ► the fact that it is un-Apple-like

00:26:05 ◼   ► is a condemnation of modern Apple,

00:26:06 ◼   ► of what Apple-like has come to mean

00:26:08 ◼   ► in terms of developer relations,

00:26:09 ◼   ► because this is exactly what they should do.

00:26:10 ◼   ► You should, you know, if you make a fumble like this,

00:26:13 ◼   ► just quickly correct it, it's no big deal,

00:26:15 ◼   ► and the fact that I was so shocked by it made me think,

00:26:19 ◼   ► you shouldn't be shocked by a company

00:26:20 ◼   ► essentially having good customer support

00:26:21 ◼   ► or good developer relations.

00:26:22 ◼   ► Like this is basic table stakes,

00:26:25 ◼   ► good developer relations, right?

00:26:27 ◼   ► And the other thing I thought was like,

00:26:29 ◼   ► boy, inside Apple, I'm sure there is at least one person

00:26:32 ◼   ► somewhere saying, see, I told you we should've just given

00:26:35 ◼   ► them the DDK for free and asked for it back for free

00:26:37 ◼   ► and paid for shipping, we wouldn't have any

00:26:39 ◼   ► of these problems.

00:26:40 ◼   ► Think of how much more simple that would be.

00:26:41 ◼   ► Hey, if you want a DDK, sign up here, we'll send it to you,

00:26:44 ◼   ► and then later we'll send you a prepaid thing

00:26:46 ◼   ► to send it back.

00:26:47 ◼   ► So think of how simple that arrangement is.

00:26:49 ◼   ► $0, it gets people to develop for your platform,

00:26:52 ◼   ► no one is angry about it.

00:26:54 ◼   ► This, instead they did this, give us $500

00:26:57 ◼   ► with this vague potential expectation

00:26:59 ◼   ► if you're a crusty old Mac user

00:27:00 ◼   ► that we might give you something back,

00:27:02 ◼   ► and then we'll give you something back,

00:27:03 ◼   ► but not in a satisfying way, but then whoops,

00:27:04 ◼   ► we'll give you more back.

00:27:06 ◼   ► It's like, this is not Apple developer relations

00:27:12 ◼   ► finest moment, and it was like, like I said,

00:27:15 ◼   ► it was a depressing revelation to think that

00:27:17 ◼   ► what you would expect from good developer relations,

00:27:20 ◼   ► essentially like, hey, we want, you know,

00:27:22 ◼   ► if you're inside Apple, you're like, we want people

00:27:24 ◼   ► to develop for our platform, we want people

00:27:26 ◼   ► to port to the M1, how much can we afford to spend

00:27:29 ◼   ► to make that happen?

00:27:30 ◼   ► And someone's like, well, we gotta charge them

00:27:32 ◼   ► for this Mac Mini with an iPad inside it, don't we?

00:27:34 ◼   ► No, you don't actually, I mean, they did it

00:27:36 ◼   ► with the Apple TV where you got it for a dollar

00:27:38 ◼   ► and you got to keep it afterwards,

00:27:39 ◼   ► you didn't even have to send it back, like.

00:27:40 ◼   ► - Yep.

00:27:41 ◼   ► - Anyway, this is fine, Apple did the right thing,

00:27:45 ◼   ► I'm all happy about it, I'm especially happy

00:27:47 ◼   ► because I have the full year, so now I can just let

00:27:49 ◼   ► that $500 sit there until like in a panic in December

00:27:51 ◼   ► I buy something, right?

00:27:53 ◼   ► I don't have to buy a Mac Mini or a MacBook Air,

00:27:57 ◼   ► I can wait out the rest of the year where presumably

00:27:59 ◼   ► there will be at least one or two more ARM-based Macs

00:28:03 ◼   ► to come out during the year and then I can put this money

00:28:05 ◼   ► towards one of those, so I'm very happy.

00:28:07 ◼   ► - And it doesn't even have to be a Mac,

00:28:09 ◼   ► I think it's just gonna be like an Apple Store credit.

00:28:11 ◼   ► It says any Apple product, so maybe it wouldn't work

00:28:14 ◼   ► on like, you know, a pair of B&O headphones

00:28:16 ◼   ► or something like that, but like, it's probably gonna work

00:28:18 ◼   ► on a lot of stuff that we're gonna be buying this year.

00:28:20 ◼   ► - This would pay for like the Apple Care on my monitor

00:28:22 ◼   ► or something. - Yes it would.

00:28:23 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:28:25 ◼   ► - Someone asked about that, did I get Apple Care

00:28:28 ◼   ► on my stuff, I think I got Apple Care

00:28:29 ◼   ► on all my expensive stuff. - You did.

00:28:31 ◼   ► - Maybe I just blocked it out, but like,

00:28:32 ◼   ► I think that Apple Care was not cheap.

00:28:34 ◼   ► - It was $500, yeah, I'm very familiar with those.

00:28:38 ◼   ► All right. (laughing)

00:28:41 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

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00:30:24 ◼   ► - iOS 14.5 Watch and Lock.

00:30:30 ◼   ► We've been discussing kind of the implementation details

00:30:33 ◼   ► as best we can figure out for that.

00:30:35 ◼   ► And apparently it wants to see a masked face first

00:30:40 ◼   ► before it offers or investigates the option

00:30:43 ◼   ► of using the watch for unlocking.

00:30:45 ◼   ► And one of you, probably John,

00:30:47 ◼   ► wrote any masked face, question mark?

00:30:50 ◼   ► - We talked about this last time.

00:30:51 ◼   ► Why do you need to see a face first?

00:30:52 ◼   ► If you're gonna let me unlock because of the watch,

00:30:55 ◼   ► just let me unlock because of the watch.

00:30:56 ◼   ► And a lot of people were discussing this on Twitter

00:30:59 ◼   ► and sending feedback.

00:30:59 ◼   ► They're like, oh, well, it wants to see

00:31:00 ◼   ► the top half of your face.

00:31:02 ◼   ► It does a partial face match because that's more secure

00:31:04 ◼   ► than not looking at your face at all,

00:31:06 ◼   ► which makes some kind of sense,

00:31:08 ◼   ► but something in my mind was just itching in me.

00:31:11 ◼   ► - I don't know much about machine learning,

00:31:13 ◼   ► but it seems to me that a lot of the machine learning models

00:31:15 ◼   ► if they're trained on your actual face,

00:31:16 ◼   ► the whole reason they don't unlock for your whole face

00:31:19 ◼   ► is that they're just,

00:31:20 ◼   ► machine learning is not where someone just writes a program

00:31:23 ◼   ► to recognize a face.

00:31:24 ◼   ► It's different than that.

00:31:25 ◼   ► If you could write the program,

00:31:26 ◼   ► you wouldn't need machine learning.

00:31:27 ◼   ► The whole point is it's really hard to write that program

00:31:29 ◼   ► so you sort of let the program write itself by teaching it,

00:31:32 ◼   ► by showing the face, and it's complicated.

00:31:34 ◼   ► I don't understand, oh, that's more or less how it works.

00:31:36 ◼   ► What it means is what you end up with,

00:31:37 ◼   ► that model that recognizes faces,

00:31:40 ◼   ► what you end up with is not a sort of a program

00:31:43 ◼   ► that a human could look at and understand,

00:31:45 ◼   ► because if it could,

00:31:45 ◼   ► they would've just written it in the first place, right?

00:31:48 ◼   ► And so just because we conceptually can think of the idea

00:31:52 ◼   ► of like, oh, I can recognize your whole face,

00:31:54 ◼   ► and I could probably recognize the top of your face,

00:31:56 ◼   ► but we're human beings.

00:31:57 ◼   ► Just because you have a machine learning model

00:32:00 ◼   ► that can recognize the whole face,

00:32:02 ◼   ► who's to say it can make heads or tails

00:32:03 ◼   ► of half your face with a mask on it?

00:32:05 ◼   ► As far as it's concerned, it's like no match.

00:32:07 ◼   ► Now, I don't know.

00:32:08 ◼   ► I don't know if that's the case,

00:32:09 ◼   ► but either way, that was my thought when I was suspicious

00:32:12 ◼   ► that it's not doing a partial face match,

00:32:16 ◼   ► and so why look at the face at all?

00:32:18 ◼   ► And I have at least one report from someone

00:32:20 ◼   ► who has used the iOS 14.5 beta to say that you can take,

00:32:25 ◼   ► you can be wearing your watch and take your phone

00:32:29 ◼   ► and show your phone anyone's masked face,

00:32:32 ◼   ► your wife's masked face, your child's masked face,

00:32:34 ◼   ► just show anyone's masked face,

00:32:36 ◼   ► and then your watch will unlock your thing afterwards.

00:32:39 ◼   ► So it doesn't even need to be your masked face.

00:32:41 ◼   ► Now, granted, this experiment was with people

00:32:43 ◼   ► related to the person, so maybe the top of their faces

00:32:45 ◼   ► looks enough like theirs that it was able to unlock,

00:32:47 ◼   ► but the fact that it worked on a wife and a child

00:32:50 ◼   ► makes me think that maybe it's not actually

00:32:52 ◼   ► doing a partial face match, or if it is,

00:32:54 ◼   ► all it cares about is that it's a human face

00:32:56 ◼   ► with the same number of eyes as you or something.

00:32:59 ◼   ► So I still don't quite know how this book works,

00:33:02 ◼   ► and I still think it's weird

00:33:03 ◼   ► that it wants to see anything first.

00:33:05 ◼   ► And by the way, I don't know if we mentioned this last time,

00:33:07 ◼   ► but it does buzz your watch when it unlocks

00:33:09 ◼   ► and gives you the option to immediately relock it, right?

00:33:11 ◼   ► So it's trying to do the right thing.

00:33:12 ◼   ► No one's gonna secretly unlock your phone

00:33:13 ◼   ► without you knowing, 'cause if you have the watch

00:33:15 ◼   ► on your wrist and it just unlocked it,

00:33:16 ◼   ► it will buzz you and then you'll look at it and say,

00:33:18 ◼   ► "Hey, someone just unlocked your phone,"

00:33:19 ◼   ► and you can just smack it and say,

00:33:20 ◼   ► "Lock it," because it wasn't me.

00:33:22 ◼   ► Anyway, and it's opt-in, so this is not going to happen

00:33:25 ◼   ► to you unless you turn this feature on.

00:33:27 ◼   ► But I'm interested to see, for those of us

00:33:30 ◼   ► who have iPhones and watches, which is, I guess, YouTube,

00:33:33 ◼   ► when the 14.5 comes out for real,

00:33:36 ◼   ► setting aside whatever the betas do,

00:33:38 ◼   ► does it need to see a face, and does it take any face?

00:33:41 ◼   ► Or does it require your face?

00:33:42 ◼   ► - All right, moving on, Mike Vossler has some information

00:33:46 ◼   ► with regard to listing your trash.

00:33:49 ◼   ► Can you tell me about that, Jon?

00:33:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, last week I was surprised

00:33:52 ◼   ► that Marco couldn't even just list the contents

00:33:54 ◼   ► of his .trash directory and his home directory.

00:33:57 ◼   ► And I had long since forgotten that it has been my habit

00:33:59 ◼   ► ever since whatever OS this was introduced in

00:34:03 ◼   ► to give the terminal application full disk access,

00:34:05 ◼   ► because I find it maddening when I'm asked for permission

00:34:08 ◼   ► to do stuff from the command line.

00:34:09 ◼   ► So I always just give terminal full disk access,

00:34:12 ◼   ► and a lot of people reported that if you do give terminal

00:34:14 ◼   ► full disk access, then you can go into .trash just fine.

00:34:18 ◼   ► Still, yet, some people have said,

00:34:20 ◼   ► "I have terminal with full disk access,"

00:34:22 ◼   ► but the particular problem Marco was talking about,

00:34:24 ◼   ► I had something like that too, where there was some sort of,

00:34:27 ◼   ► you know, something in my .trash directory

00:34:29 ◼   ► that was somehow protected by system integrity protection,

00:34:32 ◼   ► I needed to reboot in recovery mode to remove it.

00:34:34 ◼   ► So both of those are failure modes that might happen.

00:34:36 ◼   ► But if you're just wondering why terminal

00:34:38 ◼   ► is not letting you see things that normally it used to,

00:34:41 ◼   ► and you don't mind opening up a, you know,

00:34:43 ◼   ► what we now call a giant security hole,

00:34:45 ◼   ► but what we used to just call the way Unix works,

00:34:48 ◼   ► give the terminal application full disk access,

00:34:51 ◼   ► and then when you're in terminal, it won't complain.

00:34:53 ◼   ► I mean, you're still subject to Unix permissions, obviously.

00:34:56 ◼   ► That's so weird when you say full disk access.

00:34:59 ◼   ► What it means is go back to just honoring

00:35:01 ◼   ► Unix file system permissions.

00:35:03 ◼   ► So you can't actually see everything, right?

00:35:06 ◼   ► But we call this full disk access,

00:35:09 ◼   ► and the opposite of that is, oh, you can't see anything

00:35:11 ◼   ► unless you explicitly ask permission for it,

00:35:13 ◼   ► and that is a little bit annoying.

00:35:15 ◼   ► - By the way, for some actual follow-up on this topic

00:35:17 ◼   ► on whether it solved my issue, nope, sure didn't.

00:35:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I think there's the one where you actually

00:35:22 ◼   ► have to go into recovery and delete the thing,

00:35:24 ◼   ► and you probably have that one.

00:35:25 ◼   ► - Yeah, I didn't attempt that yet, because I don't want to.

00:35:29 ◼   ► I'm like, to me, having my stupid X11 alias

00:35:33 ◼   ► stuck in my trash forever is just kind of this reminder,

00:35:37 ◼   ► like I have to get rid of this installation in Mac OS.

00:35:40 ◼   ► I don't, I just have to get rid of this.

00:35:43 ◼   ► That is not the real problem.

00:35:45 ◼   ► The real problem is not my X11 alias.

00:35:46 ◼   ► The real problem is that this installation is broken,

00:35:48 ◼   ► and I have to get rid of it.

00:35:50 ◼   ► - You're just making me want to dive in there

00:35:51 ◼   ► and nurse it back to health.

00:35:52 ◼   ► Just give feed it chicken soup and clean out

00:35:55 ◼   ► all of its old launch agents

00:35:57 ◼   ► and find all your old corrupt fonts

00:35:59 ◼   ► and just really just shine it up.

00:36:01 ◼   ► It's like those car detailing videos

00:36:03 ◼   ► where they find the old car in the barn

00:36:04 ◼   ► that hasn't been out in 20 years,

00:36:05 ◼   ► and then by the end of the thing, it's all shiny.

00:36:07 ◼   ► That's what I want to do to your Mac OS.

00:36:09 ◼   ► - Excellent, and then this next item in follow-up,

00:36:13 ◼   ► I haven't a clue what is happening here.

00:36:16 ◼   ► So John, tell me about SSD traffic.

00:36:19 ◼   ► - Last week, there was an Ask ATP question

00:36:22 ◼   ► where someone was saying, "Hey, if I get the M1

00:36:24 ◼   ► "with eight gigs of RAM, am I going to shorten

00:36:26 ◼   ► "the life of my SSD just from swap file usage?"

00:36:30 ◼   ► - Yes.

00:36:31 ◼   ► - And my general answer to that was like,

00:36:33 ◼   ► "Don't worry about it.

00:36:34 ◼   ► "It'll probably be fine.

00:36:34 ◼   ► "SSDs are fairly sturdy, and you're not going

00:36:39 ◼   ► "to be swapping that much, and if you are,

00:36:40 ◼   ► "you're going to have other problems that you notice

00:36:42 ◼   ► "way before you wear out your SSD," so on and so forth.

00:36:45 ◼   ► And there was some thread on Twitter

00:36:47 ◼   ► where people were discussing this and saying,

00:36:49 ◼   ► "Well, I'm looking at my M1 Mac,

00:36:52 ◼   ► "and I looked at the total data written to the SSD

00:36:56 ◼   ► "over some period of time, and I was shocked

00:36:58 ◼   ► "at how much it was."

00:37:00 ◼   ► And so the tweet was, this is actually on a MacBook Air

00:37:06 ◼   ► with an M1 and 16 gigs of RAM,

00:37:08 ◼   ► so it's not even an eight gig model.

00:37:09 ◼   ► And this person was shocked.

00:37:11 ◼   ► Two months in, the data written to the SSD

00:37:15 ◼   ► was 13.4 terabytes.

00:37:17 ◼   ► It was like 15.5 terabytes read,

00:37:20 ◼   ► 13.4 terabytes written.

00:37:23 ◼   ► And everyone in the thread was like,

00:37:24 ◼   ► "Oh, that seems like a lot, right?

00:37:26 ◼   ► "Like, you've only had it for two months.

00:37:28 ◼   ► "Like, boy, at that rate of IO,

00:37:29 ◼   ► "are you gonna wear out this SSD?"

00:37:32 ◼   ► And so I was curious.

00:37:33 ◼   ► I decided to look at my work laptop,

00:37:35 ◼   ► which is an Intel machine, but it also has 16 gigs of RAM,

00:37:38 ◼   ► and I had it for a really long time,

00:37:39 ◼   ► so I figured it would even out.

00:37:41 ◼   ► And my work machine is thrashed by corporate malware, right?

00:37:46 ◼   ► It's got SOPOS antivirus that's constantly scanning things.

00:37:48 ◼   ► It's constantly doing an inventory.

00:37:50 ◼   ► It's constantly searching my hard drive

00:37:51 ◼   ► for personally identifiable information

00:37:53 ◼   ► and running reports on it, right?

00:37:55 ◼   ► Like, everything you can imagine

00:37:56 ◼   ► is just incredibly abused by that.

00:37:58 ◼   ► I can tell you that the fans run high a lot of the time.

00:38:02 ◼   ► A lot of the time, it is swamped by CPU.

00:38:04 ◼   ► And like I said, disk IO, you know,

00:38:06 ◼   ► when it's just grinding over your whole disk,

00:38:07 ◼   ► looking for stuff, not to mention running, like,

00:38:10 ◼   ► you know, the Microsoft OneDrive and Dropbox

00:38:14 ◼   ► and plus, you know, running large VMs on the thing

00:38:17 ◼   ► and pushing it into swap.

00:38:18 ◼   ► And you know, so I really, this is,

00:38:19 ◼   ► I feel like this is a heavily used laptop

00:38:21 ◼   ► that is, you know, slowly wilting under the load

00:38:24 ◼   ► that I put it in on top of all the corporate malware.

00:38:27 ◼   ► So I'm like, this is gonna be a good test

00:38:29 ◼   ► to see what, you know, what the IO is.

00:38:31 ◼   ► And by the way, the way we're getting these numbers,

00:38:34 ◼   ► both the Twitter thread and this is using smart utilities.

00:38:38 ◼   ► I forget what smart stands for.

00:38:39 ◼   ► It's probably an acronym for like, anyway,

00:38:41 ◼   ► it's the tools that like measure hard drive health

00:38:44 ◼   ► or whatever.

00:38:45 ◼   ► So we'll put a link in the show notes too.

00:38:47 ◼   ► I just searched for it on Google

00:38:48 ◼   ► and I found this smartmontools.org website

00:38:51 ◼   ► that downloaded the command.

00:38:52 ◼   ► It's called smart control or smart control.

00:38:56 ◼   ► And it's just, you know, run smart control dash dash all

00:38:59 ◼   ► slash dev slash disk zero for, you know,

00:39:01 ◼   ► built-in SSD probably.

00:39:03 ◼   ► And the number I got was 246 terabytes written

00:39:08 ◼   ► on my internal SSD.

00:39:11 ◼   ► And that is over the course of the entire life

00:39:13 ◼   ► of the 2017 MacBook Pro.

00:39:15 ◼   ► So I did some math to figure out how many gigs per day

00:39:18 ◼   ► of writes.

00:39:18 ◼   ► I never really care about the reads.

00:39:19 ◼   ► We're just worried about writes for like wearing out the SSD.

00:39:22 ◼   ► How many gigs per day is that?

00:39:23 ◼   ► The shocking one that was in the Twitter thread

00:39:25 ◼   ► that was only two months old on the M1 Mac

00:39:27 ◼   ► was 223 gigs written per day.

00:39:30 ◼   ► And my, you know, four-year-old Intel MacBook Pro

00:39:34 ◼   ► was 197 gigs written per day.

00:39:37 ◼   ► And I'm shocked that the two numbers

00:39:38 ◼   ► are that close to each other

00:39:39 ◼   ► because surely the usage patterns are different.

00:39:42 ◼   ► Like I don't think this person has sofas antivirus scaling,

00:39:44 ◼   ► scanning every single file on their hard drive

00:39:46 ◼   ► every single day.

00:39:48 ◼   ► But yeah, they're both in the same ballpark,

00:39:50 ◼   ► 200-ish gigs per day written.

00:39:52 ◼   ► There's some other stats that are printed out

00:39:54 ◼   ► by this thing that I don't understand, but I can surmise.

00:39:56 ◼   ► One of them is available spare.

00:39:58 ◼   ► Remember we talked about over provisioning,

00:40:00 ◼   ► how much extra storage is in there

00:40:03 ◼   ► just in case you wear out some part of the SSD,

00:40:05 ◼   ► you can use the extra stuff that it keeps in reserve.

00:40:08 ◼   ► My available spare is at 100%.

00:40:11 ◼   ► I think that means it's all available.

00:40:12 ◼   ► I don't know.

00:40:13 ◼   ► There's a bunch of other fun stats in here

00:40:16 ◼   ► if you wanna take a look at what your laptop is doing,

00:40:18 ◼   ► but I can tell you that it never crossed my mind

00:40:20 ◼   ► to worry about wearing out my SSD on this laptop.

00:40:23 ◼   ► I did worry that it was gonna overheat and explode

00:40:25 ◼   ► because the fans are running high all the time,

00:40:28 ◼   ► but 200 gigs per day of writes

00:40:31 ◼   ► seems like a not unreasonable thing

00:40:34 ◼   ► for a laptop to be writing to its SSD

00:40:37 ◼   ► if it's used in a reasonable amount,

00:40:39 ◼   ► whether it's an M1 Mac or an Intel Mac for many years ago.

00:40:43 ◼   ► - So now, hold on.

00:40:44 ◼   ► So you are, how are you getting how many days

00:40:47 ◼   ► to divide by, by power on hours?

00:40:49 ◼   ► - No, I'm getting that by the date I know

00:40:51 ◼   ► I got the laptop from work.

00:40:53 ◼   ► It was new, brand new laptop, fresh out of the box,

00:40:56 ◼   ► and then I'm gonna start counting from there.

00:40:58 ◼   ► And obviously I don't use it on weekends for the most part

00:41:00 ◼   ► 'cause it's my work laptop,

00:41:01 ◼   ► but this laptop probably has more,

00:41:05 ◼   ► I didn't run this on my Mac Pro,

00:41:06 ◼   ► but this laptop is definitely the hardest used

00:41:09 ◼   ► piece of hardware that's in my house right now.

00:41:11 ◼   ► - Okay, 'cause I ask because I have 1,295 power on hours

00:41:15 ◼   ► and 54 terabytes written, and so computing that out,

00:41:20 ◼   ► if you treat it as powered on hours,

00:41:24 ◼   ► that's 1,001 gigabytes a day.

00:41:27 ◼   ► But again, that's power on hours,

00:41:29 ◼   ► so it's not exactly the same as what you're computing.

00:41:33 ◼   ► But that's considerably more than what you're talking about.

00:41:35 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, it really depends on what you're doing.

00:41:37 ◼   ► Like I said last time, you can wear out an SSD

00:41:39 ◼   ► if you're doing something that's just constantly doing

00:41:42 ◼   ► a huge amount of I/O,

00:41:43 ◼   ► but most normal loads don't do that, right?

00:41:46 ◼   ► So it really depends on the specific things

00:41:49 ◼   ► that you're doing.

00:41:50 ◼   ► The question was about whether swap would do it,

00:41:52 ◼   ► and I think if you're swapping that much,

00:41:53 ◼   ► you're gonna be suffering in so many other ways.

00:41:56 ◼   ► Your concern is not gonna be SSD.

00:41:57 ◼   ► Some other interesting stats here

00:41:59 ◼   ► that make me wonder what it's actually showing,

00:42:01 ◼   ► power cycles.

00:42:03 ◼   ► I'm assuming that means maybe the OS or the hardware

00:42:08 ◼   ► takes power away from the SSD when it doesn't need

00:42:10 ◼   ► to be there or something,

00:42:11 ◼   ► because my power cycles number is 26,000,

00:42:13 ◼   ► and I know I did not turn this computer on and off

00:42:15 ◼   ► to 26,000 times, right?

00:42:18 ◼   ► So that must mean something else.

00:42:20 ◼   ► Unsafe shutdowns, I think we all know what that means, 160.

00:42:24 ◼   ► I'm like, yeah, that seems about right.

00:42:26 ◼   ► It's because this machine did have a tendency

00:42:29 ◼   ► to kernel panic for at least the first year or two

00:42:30 ◼   ► of its life, it's settled down a little bit now.

00:42:34 ◼   ► Media and data integrity errors, zero, no errors.

00:42:38 ◼   ► - Oh, interesting.

00:42:39 ◼   ► So I recomputed your laptop as per what's in the show notes,

00:42:44 ◼   ► and I computed it the same way that mine was computed,

00:42:47 ◼   ► and yours is actually 847.2 gigabytes a day,

00:42:50 ◼   ► and I'm still sitting at 1,001.

00:42:52 ◼   ► I have no idea how.

00:42:53 ◼   ► - Yeah, I feel like those are shockingly

00:42:55 ◼   ► in a similar ballparks, right?

00:42:58 ◼   ► For two machines that are used

00:42:59 ◼   ► for entirely different purposes,

00:43:00 ◼   ► running entirely different software,

00:43:02 ◼   ► it's amazing how these are not double each other

00:43:06 ◼   ► or have a huge range,

00:43:07 ◼   ► 'cause I have no idea how you use your computer,

00:43:09 ◼   ► but it can't be like I use my work laptop,

00:43:12 ◼   ► which does such weird things.

00:43:14 ◼   ► I'm running database servers on my work laptop,

00:43:19 ◼   ► and I feel like it almost doesn't matter

00:43:21 ◼   ► unless you're doing something that you know

00:43:23 ◼   ► is intentionally, not abusive,

00:43:24 ◼   ► but intentionally extremely heavy.

00:43:27 ◼   ► Like say you're constantly recording 8K video

00:43:30 ◼   ► to the drive 24 hours a day from a security camera.

00:43:32 ◼   ► That's the type of thing where you'd expect

00:43:34 ◼   ► to see a 10X difference or whatever,

00:43:35 ◼   ► but if you just use your laptop like a human,

00:43:38 ◼   ► it seems like the numbers sort of regress to a mean here,

00:43:41 ◼   ► with our three data points,

00:43:42 ◼   ► because Marco hasn't downloaded this thing and tried it yet.

00:43:45 ◼   ► - No.

00:43:46 ◼   ► - And all his computers are so new that it's like,

00:43:48 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:43:49 ◼   ► power on hour seven.

00:43:51 ◼   ► - Three.

00:43:52 ◼   ► - Soon I'll be leaving Marco's house.

00:43:54 ◼   ► You just see the number of battery cycles

00:43:56 ◼   ► whenever I sell a laptop, it's embarrassingly low.

00:43:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, Marco has charged his battery 10 times.

00:44:03 ◼   ► Looking at our two readouts, your controller busy time

00:44:06 ◼   ► is 21,799, would you like to guess what mine is?

00:44:11 ◼   ► - I don't even, what's the units for that?

00:44:12 ◼   ► Is that seconds, is that minutes?

00:44:13 ◼   ► What is that? - No idea.

00:44:14 ◼   ► I have no idea.

00:44:16 ◼   ► - But remember, this is a 2017 laptop, it's old.

00:44:18 ◼   ► - Sure, well, but would you like to guess what mine

00:44:22 ◼   ► controller busy time is?

00:44:23 ◼   ► - Well, how old is your computer?

00:44:25 ◼   ► - What, a year-ish, something like that,

00:44:27 ◼   ► a little over a year?

00:44:28 ◼   ► It's zero.

00:44:29 ◼   ► - Yeah, well, I don't know what that number means,

00:44:32 ◼   ► but my computer is stressed.

00:44:35 ◼   ► It should move to the beach.

00:44:38 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what it needs to do, yeah, that's it.

00:44:40 ◼   ► You know, you also have 60 error information log entries

00:44:43 ◼   ► and I have zero.

00:44:44 ◼   ► - Yeah, but I have no data integrity error,

00:44:46 ◼   ► so I'm happy about that.

00:44:47 ◼   ► - By the way, while we're doing things

00:44:50 ◼   ► that are gonna generate tons of email over the next week,

00:44:52 ◼   ► thanks a lot, guys, I'll add to the pile.

00:44:55 ◼   ► I would like recommendations from listeners,

00:45:00 ◼   ► not an overwhelming number of them, maybe,

00:45:02 ◼   ► but I would like recommendations from--

00:45:03 ◼   ► - Listeners can't control that, they don't know

00:45:05 ◼   ► what other people are doing.

00:45:06 ◼   ► There's no global knowledge.

00:45:07 ◼   ► - Organize amongst yourselves to submit one copy

00:45:11 ◼   ► of each thing.

00:45:11 ◼   ► - Oh, God.

00:45:12 ◼   ► - The problem I need to solve here is every time

00:45:15 ◼   ► there's a new Mac OS update or something,

00:45:19 ◼   ► I have to set up a new computer or the OS changes

00:45:23 ◼   ► some policy or PHP gets updated or stuff like that,

00:45:28 ◼   ► it always breaks my local web development stuff.

00:45:31 ◼   ► Like what I want to do is run PHP, Nginx

00:45:35 ◼   ► or any other web server, but hopefully Nginx

00:45:38 ◼   ► with PHP and MySQL locally on my Mac.

00:45:43 ◼   ► I have done this for over a decade just by usually

00:45:47 ◼   ► either using the built-in stuff, like back when it was

00:45:50 ◼   ► present and reasonably good, which it mostly still is,

00:45:53 ◼   ► but I think they're phasing that out,

00:45:54 ◼   ► or I would use Homebrew or similar package managing

00:45:59 ◼   ► kind of stuff to install a different version

00:46:02 ◼   ► or a newer version of something like PHP

00:46:05 ◼   ► and have that be automated in some big script.

00:46:07 ◼   ► And every six months, whatever process I did before breaks,

00:46:12 ◼   ► and whatever installation I had before either can't

00:46:15 ◼   ► be carried into the new OS or some component of it breaks.

00:46:19 ◼   ► This is just the world of package management.

00:46:21 ◼   ► And trying to run a package manager on Mac OS

00:46:26 ◼   ► seems like a very hostile environment to try to operate in.

00:46:29 ◼   ► I think it seems like the OS is constantly changing

00:46:31 ◼   ► and breaking stuff like that in ways that Homebrew

00:46:34 ◼   ► tries its best to get around, but it often doesn't succeed.

00:46:37 ◼   ► And so I'm kind of at my wits end here,

00:46:41 ◼   ► and what I would ideally like, I don't even know

00:46:43 ◼   ► if this necessarily is possible with what we have

00:46:47 ◼   ► so far today, what I would ideally like is a Linux VM

00:46:52 ◼   ► that I could run, that could just be like a file

00:46:56 ◼   ► or a folder on my computer that is mounted into a Linux VM.

00:47:00 ◼   ► And that folder, I could still edit all my code,

00:47:03 ◼   ► like in TextMate, all my PHP copies of everything.

00:47:05 ◼   ► That could all still be in a regular Mac editing app,

00:47:09 ◼   ► so mounted natively in the Mac file system.

00:47:11 ◼   ► But I want just a Linux VM that I can set up

00:47:14 ◼   ► that can actually execute this code.

00:47:17 ◼   ► - This is amazing.

00:47:18 ◼   ► - You should listen to some tech podcasts

00:47:19 ◼   ► where they talk about things like Docker,

00:47:21 ◼   ► which we've talked about on the show many, many times.

00:47:23 ◼   ► - You realize you just invented Docker.

00:47:25 ◼   ► - Well, so, right, so I've never used Docker.

00:47:28 ◼   ► Is Docker the solution to this?

00:47:29 ◼   ► And second question, does it work on M1 Macs yet?

00:47:33 ◼   ► Now, here's the thing, other qualifications.

00:47:35 ◼   ► So number one, it has to work on Apple Silicon,

00:47:37 ◼   ► which I know most of the virtualization stuff doesn't yet.

00:47:40 ◼   ► Number two, I don't care how fast it is.

00:47:44 ◼   ► It doesn't need to be fast.

00:47:45 ◼   ► In fact, if it's slow, that's actually kind of a feature,

00:47:48 ◼   ► because then I'll be forced to optimize my web code

00:47:51 ◼   ► if anything is noticeably slow, but it won't be.

00:47:53 ◼   ► I mean, PHP and MySQL, even if it was doing

00:47:57 ◼   ► full x86 machine emulation on the M1,

00:48:02 ◼   ► I would still not notice the slowness.

00:48:04 ◼   ► So performance does not matter at all.

00:48:06 ◼   ► What does matter is it has to work on M1.

00:48:08 ◼   ► It can't have any kernel extensions.

00:48:10 ◼   ► It can't have the old virtualization methods

00:48:12 ◼   ► where you'd install kexts all over the place.

00:48:14 ◼   ► None of that, if that even still works,

00:48:16 ◼   ► I don't think it does.

00:48:17 ◼   ► So I just want a container that I can keep

00:48:22 ◼   ► independent of what the OS does,

00:48:25 ◼   ► and I don't care how much overhead it takes

00:48:27 ◼   ► to execute the contents of that container.

00:48:29 ◼   ► So it can be very, very slow.

00:48:30 ◼   ► It can be full emulation of x86 if it needs to be.

00:48:33 ◼   ► It can be ARM probably, but ideally it would be x86,

00:48:36 ◼   ► just 'cause that's what I'm running on the servers,

00:48:37 ◼   ► and it would be nice to match everything exactly,

00:48:40 ◼   ► to just be able to install my server Ubuntu distribution

00:48:43 ◼   ► with my server install script here locally.

00:48:46 ◼   ► So that's ideally what I want.

00:48:48 ◼   ► I'm interested to know what is the best solution to this

00:48:51 ◼   ► that actually works on M1 Macs in any possible way.

00:48:56 ◼   ► - So I mean, you have three main options here.

00:48:58 ◼   ► One, I know you said you didn't like this,

00:49:00 ◼   ► but homebrew has been updated for the M1 Macs,

00:49:02 ◼   ► and so if you still wanna go that route,

00:49:05 ◼   ► you actually have that option available to you.

00:49:07 ◼   ► Two, you got plain old VMs, lots of options for them,

00:49:10 ◼   ► and as you noted, the ones that you installed--

00:49:12 ◼   ► - Do I have lots of options for them?

00:49:14 ◼   ► - I mean, you're going to have lots of options.

00:49:17 ◼   ► People are going to-- - Oh yeah, right,

00:49:18 ◼   ► I'm going to, I don't right now.

00:49:20 ◼   ► - But it could be like by next week.

00:49:22 ◼   ► Things are happening fast here, right?

00:49:24 ◼   ► But I'm saying don't set that aside,

00:49:25 ◼   ► because traditional plain old VMs,

00:49:27 ◼   ► whether you use VMware, commercial product,

00:49:29 ◼   ► or VirtualBox or whatever, you could literally run

00:49:32 ◼   ► the same version of Linux that your servers run,

00:49:34 ◼   ► and yes, most of them have some way for you

00:49:36 ◼   ► to essentially mount through some folder on your Mac

00:49:38 ◼   ► so you can use all your native Mac tools.

00:49:40 ◼   ► They all do that.

00:49:41 ◼   ► And the good thing is on Big Sur

00:49:43 ◼   ► with the virtualization framework,

00:49:44 ◼   ► they don't need Kext anymore,

00:49:45 ◼   ► because the OS supports virtualization itself.

00:49:48 ◼   ► So I bet the people at VMware,

00:49:49 ◼   ► I mean, I haven't talked to them,

00:49:50 ◼   ► but I bet they're excited, because they're like,

00:49:52 ◼   ► oh, thank God, we don't have to do this part.

00:49:54 ◼   ► The whole part of our application that we had to write

00:49:56 ◼   ► that was a pain in the butt to maintain,

00:49:57 ◼   ► now we don't have to use it anymore.

00:49:59 ◼   ► Apple gives us one, and we can essentially ship you an app

00:50:01 ◼   ► that just runs without asking for weird permissions

00:50:04 ◼   ► to install a Kext or whatever.

00:50:06 ◼   ► Like, that's great for them.

00:50:07 ◼   ► Now, this is assuming Apple's virtualization framework

00:50:09 ◼   ► actually works well, and I'm sure the people

00:50:11 ◼   ► who worked in that part of VMware say ours was better

00:50:14 ◼   ► and had better features, but what I'm saying to you

00:50:16 ◼   ► is that don't be afraid of virtualization,

00:50:17 ◼   ► because all the things that we complain about on Big Sur

00:50:21 ◼   ► and locking stuff down or whatever,

00:50:22 ◼   ► it makes things like virtualization less scary,

00:50:26 ◼   ► because now they're not allowed to do that dangerous stuff,

00:50:29 ◼   ► and they can't, and the OS supports it natively.

00:50:31 ◼   ► So look into virtualization,

00:50:33 ◼   ► whoever ends up supporting that the best.

00:50:35 ◼   ► And then finally, there's Docker,

00:50:36 ◼   ► which is probably, of all those solutions,

00:50:39 ◼   ► going to be the weirdest to you,

00:50:41 ◼   ► and I also don't know whether it's entirely supported

00:50:43 ◼   ► in M1 Macs yet, but it will be inevitably.

00:50:46 ◼   ► - It looks like it's in tech preview mode right now.

00:50:48 ◼   ► - Yeah, and also, I believe it will be able

00:50:51 ◼   ► to do x86 stuff for you, which is what you want.

00:50:53 ◼   ► So those three options should cover all of the possibilities,

00:50:57 ◼   ► and I think you should try all three of them when you can.

00:51:01 ◼   ► So you can try Homebrew now

00:51:02 ◼   ► and get angry at it all over again.

00:51:03 ◼   ► - Yeah, I will.

00:51:04 ◼   ► - And then as soon as VMware or something like that is out,

00:51:08 ◼   ► try that, and then try Docker.

00:51:10 ◼   ► Docker is free for you to just run locally.

00:51:12 ◼   ► And my experience with the Mac version of Docker

00:51:13 ◼   ► has actually been pretty good, obviously not on the M1,

00:51:15 ◼   ► but the Mac version of Docker,

00:51:18 ◼   ► it's not super duper Mac-like,

00:51:20 ◼   ► but it's way more Mac-like than you would think

00:51:22 ◼   ► something like Docker would be.

00:51:24 ◼   ► You probably do have to learn a little bit about Docker,

00:51:27 ◼   ► and you're not gonna like what you learn

00:51:28 ◼   ► 'cause it's weird, but learn a little bit about Docker

00:51:31 ◼   ► to do the thing that you want,

00:51:32 ◼   ► where you wanna sort of mount through the directory

00:51:33 ◼   ► and have it visible and all that stuff.

00:51:34 ◼   ► You'll have to mess with that in some ways

00:51:36 ◼   ► that are gonna be a little bit scary

00:51:38 ◼   ► and more complicated to you than,

00:51:39 ◼   ► VMware is like you can practically drag a folder over

00:51:42 ◼   ► and make a shared thing, and it's really easy,

00:51:44 ◼   ► you know, like VMware, right?

00:51:45 ◼   ► But of those three options,

00:51:47 ◼   ► surely one of them will work for you

00:51:49 ◼   ► better than your current setup.

00:51:50 ◼   ► And I guess the fourth option is what I did,

00:51:52 ◼   ► which is you compile everything from source

00:51:53 ◼   ► and just deal with it, but it seems like you're-

00:51:55 ◼   ► - Oh, I'm not doing that, no.

00:51:56 ◼   ► - It's the best though, no.

00:51:58 ◼   ► - The best for what, in what way is it the best?

00:52:01 ◼   ► It's the worst.

00:52:02 ◼   ► - It's the best in that you have, you should love it.

00:52:04 ◼   ► It's the Marco solution that you have total control.

00:52:06 ◼   ► You're such a control freak

00:52:07 ◼   ► about so many parts of your tech life, but not this one.

00:52:09 ◼   ► - Well, because this is an environment that like,

00:52:13 ◼   ► this is to me a tool.

00:52:14 ◼   ► Like I don't want to build like my text editor from source.

00:52:18 ◼   ► I just want this to be a package that I download

00:52:20 ◼   ► as like a complete polished thing that is easy,

00:52:23 ◼   ► because this is an area of my toolkit

00:52:24 ◼   ► that I don't wanna become a power user or nerd about.

00:52:27 ◼   ► This is something that I currently am forced

00:52:29 ◼   ► to be a power user or nerd in trying to keep

00:52:31 ◼   ► all the native, you know, homebrew kind of stuff

00:52:34 ◼   ► working through our installations.

00:52:36 ◼   ► And I just, to me, like any time I spend maintaining that

00:52:41 ◼   ► is a waste of my time.

00:52:42 ◼   ► Like any time I spend on that is like,

00:52:44 ◼   ► I'm not working on my app, I'm not doing anything I like,

00:52:46 ◼   ► I'm not doing something productive,

00:52:47 ◼   ► like customers won't see or care about any of this.

00:52:49 ◼   ► Like that to me is like burned time.

00:52:52 ◼   ► And so that's exactly the kind of context where I would pay.

00:52:56 ◼   ► If like, you know, VMware worked perfectly

00:52:59 ◼   ► the way I want to and was out today and was $300,

00:53:01 ◼   ► I would buy it.

00:53:02 ◼   ► They'd be like, great, I can throw money at this problem

00:53:04 ◼   ► and get all this time back to not have to deal with this.

00:53:08 ◼   ► - I think it might already be out.

00:53:09 ◼   ► I might just be thinking of the big Sur update

00:53:11 ◼   ► and not the M1 update.

00:53:12 ◼   ► But it's so much like your other situations

00:53:14 ◼   ► in that when it breaks you get frustrated

00:53:15 ◼   ► if you don't know exactly what's going on

00:53:17 ◼   ► because it's using some third party thing.

00:53:19 ◼   ► And so let me just write my own library

00:53:20 ◼   ► to do this thing, right?

00:53:21 ◼   ► So that way I know the code from top to bottom.

00:53:24 ◼   ► Every time your homebrew stuff breaks or whatever

00:53:26 ◼   ► you're like, and like you don't control homebrew

00:53:28 ◼   ► and it's not your thing and it's big and it's complicated

00:53:31 ◼   ► and it's like, ugh.

00:53:32 ◼   ► So I can imagine you would derive some satisfaction

00:53:35 ◼   ► for like understanding how your local setup works

00:53:39 ◼   ► from top to bottom in the same way that you do with code

00:53:41 ◼   ► instead of dealing with, oh, well why did you use

00:53:43 ◼   ► a third party library that does that?

00:53:44 ◼   ► It does it for you and it's like,

00:53:45 ◼   ► but I don't want the whole third party library

00:53:47 ◼   ► and it's complicated and when it breaks

00:53:48 ◼   ► I don't understand why.

00:53:50 ◼   ► So I feel like that the compiling from source,

00:53:53 ◼   ► as ridiculous as it sounds to you,

00:53:55 ◼   ► actually does fit with some of your other tech habits

00:53:57 ◼   ► in the vein of I know exactly how it works

00:54:00 ◼   ► and it does just what I need it to do and only that

00:54:03 ◼   ► and when it breaks I understand and can fix it.

00:54:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, I'm still not doing it.

00:54:07 ◼   ► - I know, no one is, just me, but I enjoy it.

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00:56:08 ◼   ► - All right, moving on.

00:56:12 ◼   ► Oh God, we're gonna get so much email this week.

00:56:14 ◼   ► Tesla.

00:56:15 ◼   ► - Oh no.

00:56:16 ◼   ► - As if we didn't have enough email coming our way.

00:56:18 ◼   ► - Can you put this in here, Casey?

00:56:20 ◼   ► This is all you.

00:56:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is my fault.

00:56:22 ◼   ► Everyone has a reason for email apparently.

00:56:25 ◼   ► We had discussed, I think a couple of weeks ago,

00:56:27 ◼   ► how Marco has to periodically reboot half of his car

00:56:31 ◼   ► as he's hurtling down the road because that's totally safe.

00:56:35 ◼   ► And don't worry, Elon will fix it, I'm sure.

00:56:38 ◼   ► Well, apparently he is fixing it

00:56:39 ◼   ► because they've basically been forced

00:56:42 ◼   ► to do a recall for touchscreen failures.

00:56:44 ◼   ► And so NHTSA has all but compelled Tesla,

00:56:48 ◼   ► and I guess this is normal,

00:56:49 ◼   ► that NHTSA will basically say,

00:56:51 ◼   ► "Hey, we're going to make you do a recall

00:56:53 ◼   ► "if you don't voluntarily do it."

00:56:55 ◼   ► And then the car manufacturer, not just Tesla,

00:56:57 ◼   ► will fight it for a little while.

00:56:58 ◼   ► And then they're like, "No, really, this is gonna happen."

00:57:00 ◼   ► And the car manufacturer says, "No, no, no, no, no.

00:57:02 ◼   ► "We'll do it voluntarily, no need for a recall.

00:57:03 ◼   ► "It's cool, it's cool, it's cool, it's cool, it's cool."

00:57:05 ◼   ► So anyway, we will put a link in the show notes.

00:57:08 ◼   ► And from that link,

00:57:09 ◼   ► NHTSA, what is it?

00:57:11 ◼   ► The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration,

00:57:14 ◼   ► something like that?

00:57:15 ◼   ► Is that right? - Yeah.

00:57:15 ◼   ► - All right, go team.

00:57:17 ◼   ► The agency said touchscreen failures

00:57:18 ◼   ► posed significant safety issues,

00:57:20 ◼   ► including the loss of rear view or backup camera images,

00:57:22 ◼   ► exterior turn signal lighting,

00:57:24 ◼   ► we were wondering about that when we were discussing it,

00:57:26 ◼   ► and windshield defogging, I almost said defragging,

00:57:30 ◼   ► defogging and defrosting systems that--

00:57:31 ◼   ► - I think if you're just to defrag your windshield,

00:57:33 ◼   ► do you have other problems?

00:57:34 ◼   ► - That's a big worry.

00:57:36 ◼   ► That quote, "May decrease the driver's visibility

00:57:38 ◼   ► "in inclement weather."

00:57:39 ◼   ► Quote.

00:57:40 ◼   ► NHTSA said last month that, quote,

00:57:42 ◼   ► "During our review of the data,

00:57:43 ◼   ► "Tesla provided confirmation that all units

00:57:45 ◼   ► "will inevitably fail,

00:57:46 ◼   ► "given the memory device's finite storage capacity."

00:57:50 ◼   ► Quote, are you kidding me?

00:57:52 ◼   ► I guess they're just vomiting up like log files or something

00:57:56 ◼   ► until kingdom come and--

00:57:57 ◼   ► - No, the way I interpreted it was not about that,

00:58:00 ◼   ► it was actually about flash wear.

00:58:01 ◼   ► That's how I interpreted this.

00:58:03 ◼   ► - Ah, okay, okay, then maybe I'm wrong.

00:58:04 ◼   ► That's fair.

00:58:05 ◼   ► - Yeah, whoever wrote this,

00:58:06 ◼   ► NHTSA doesn't understand the tech involved,

00:58:07 ◼   ► but that's my understanding too,

00:58:08 ◼   ► that it is actually a case of wearing out flash memory.

00:58:12 ◼   ► - So it's actually topical for this week's show.

00:58:14 ◼   ► - Yeah, exactly, exactly.

00:58:16 ◼   ► - I mean, but who's gonna think when designing a car system

00:58:18 ◼   ► that the cars will be running for a long time?

00:58:20 ◼   ► - Yeah, I mean, why would you think that?

00:58:22 ◼   ► (laughing)

00:58:23 ◼   ► - Like such a Tesla move where they're just like,

00:58:27 ◼   ► we don't need to do things the car way,

00:58:28 ◼   ► let's just do things the fast and nimble way.

00:58:31 ◼   ► Why would we spend all this money

00:58:33 ◼   ► for this really enterprise grade

00:58:35 ◼   ► over-provisioned car industry flash module

00:58:37 ◼   ► that costs a bazillion dollars?

00:58:38 ◼   ► I can just buy a bunch of these on Amazon

00:58:40 ◼   ► and stick 'em in the cars

00:58:41 ◼   ► and oh, now they're all wearing out.

00:58:43 ◼   ► - Whoopsies.

00:58:44 ◼   ► - But we need to do all that logging

00:58:45 ◼   ► to find out why things are broken.

00:58:46 ◼   ► - Heyo!

00:58:47 ◼   ► Oh god, we're gonna get so many emails, but you're so right.

00:58:50 ◼   ► - Yeah, this is a super old story, isn't it?

00:58:52 ◼   ► I guess it's finally getting around

00:58:53 ◼   ► to recalling it or whatever,

00:58:55 ◼   ► but I remember reading about this particular problem

00:58:57 ◼   ► years ago.

00:58:58 ◼   ► - Yeah, it isn't on any of their recent cars.

00:59:00 ◼   ► I think the latest effect of cars

00:59:02 ◼   ► are probably from like three years ago, right?

00:59:04 ◼   ► It's not super recent, right?

00:59:06 ◼   ► - Well.

00:59:06 ◼   ► - Yeah, and it's the type of thing

00:59:07 ◼   ► that happens after over time, right?

00:59:09 ◼   ► So if it is happening on the current cars,

00:59:10 ◼   ► we wouldn't know it for years.

00:59:12 ◼   ► - That's true, yeah, that's true.

00:59:14 ◼   ► - Now, with all that said,

00:59:16 ◼   ► Michael Swindler wrote in to say,

00:59:18 ◼   ► "In my Model 3, I had to reboot while driving recently."

00:59:20 ◼   ► Why is this such a thing?

00:59:21 ◼   ► Why are people okay with this?

00:59:23 ◼   ► Oh my god.

00:59:24 ◼   ► It happened to be at night,

00:59:25 ◼   ► so I could see that the turn signal did still work,

00:59:28 ◼   ► just no sound.

00:59:29 ◼   ► Oh, that's reassuring.

00:59:30 ◼   ► I'm glad we had that. - So that's the Model 3,

00:59:31 ◼   ► which is a newer car, I'll say.

00:59:33 ◼   ► - Yeah, that's what I hoped was happening,

00:59:35 ◼   ► but yeah, I don't, uh.

00:59:38 ◼   ► It's still not a good thing

00:59:40 ◼   ► to have to reboot your car while driving it,

00:59:41 ◼   ► and also, it just shows,

00:59:44 ◼   ► anytime, we keep getting email from people who are like,

00:59:48 ◼   ► "You guys don't understand the new Model S.

00:59:50 ◼   ► "It's all about self-driving.

00:59:52 ◼   ► "They're going all in on full self-driving,

00:59:54 ◼   ► "so they don't need a steering wheel.

00:59:55 ◼   ► "They're just designing it so you don't need to drive it."

00:59:57 ◼   ► It's like, yeah, that's wonderful.

00:59:59 ◼   ► - Full self-driving's coming out in 2018, Marco.

01:00:02 ◼   ► - Yeah, right.

01:00:03 ◼   ► (laughing)

01:00:04 ◼   ► Yeah, like, the,

01:00:06 ◼   ► you don't buy a car or design a car

01:00:10 ◼   ► for promises of future software capabilities,

01:00:14 ◼   ► especially things that seem really hard

01:00:17 ◼   ► for anybody to actually achieve.

01:00:20 ◼   ► If you ship a car, and it turns out that in one year,

01:00:23 ◼   ► you have amazing full self-driving capabilities

01:00:25 ◼   ► somehow magically, and it turned out

01:00:27 ◼   ► that the steering wheels you put on the first,

01:00:29 ◼   ► on the car for that whole year were redundant,

01:00:32 ◼   ► oh well, you get some redundant steering wheels.

01:00:34 ◼   ► No big deal.

01:00:35 ◼   ► If you bet wrong, (laughing)

01:00:37 ◼   ► and you have, like, you design a car

01:00:40 ◼   ► for a software future that doesn't ship on time,

01:00:44 ◼   ► or never, maybe, makes it in the lifetime of that car,

01:00:47 ◼   ► and now you just have a badly designed car

01:00:49 ◼   ► that could get people killed,

01:00:51 ◼   ► I'd say that you've made the wrong bet,

01:00:53 ◼   ► and that's a bad design.

01:00:55 ◼   ► - Agreed.

01:00:55 ◼   ► - And also, I mean, I know we discussed this

01:00:57 ◼   ► a little bit tangentially, the whole split

01:00:59 ◼   ► between the car computer and the infotainment computer,

01:01:03 ◼   ► and whether they were merged or whatever,

01:01:05 ◼   ► but just in general, the idea that rebooting your car

01:01:08 ◼   ► while you're driving it is in any way a common thing,

01:01:11 ◼   ► even if it's just the non-driving computer,

01:01:14 ◼   ► does not make me particularly confident

01:01:16 ◼   ► about any kind of self-driving future,

01:01:17 ◼   ► which, by the way, I continued to see years ago episodes

01:01:21 ◼   ► super pessimistic that we will ever see anything like that

01:01:23 ◼   ► in our lifetime, but regardless,

01:01:26 ◼   ► if you have to reboot your car while driving it,

01:01:30 ◼   ► the one thing that probably won't work,

01:01:31 ◼   ► if you're, you know, forget about turn signals,

01:01:33 ◼   ► the part where the car drives itself,

01:01:35 ◼   ► yeah, I'd worry more about that,

01:01:37 ◼   ► 'cause if you don't have a steering wheel,

01:01:39 ◼   ► and the driving part of the car reboots,

01:01:42 ◼   ► and you're going 70 miles an hour, that's a bad situation.

01:01:45 ◼   ► So add yet one more pebble to the giant pile

01:01:49 ◼   ► of reasons why full self-driving continues to be a fantasy

01:01:53 ◼   ► in the way that most people envision it.

01:01:56 ◼   ► - That's the thing, like, I'm so happy,

01:01:58 ◼   ► and I'm so fortunate that my entire career

01:02:02 ◼   ► has been spent writing software that,

01:02:04 ◼   ► in the grand scheme of things,

01:02:06 ◼   ► doesn't really have any major stakes,

01:02:08 ◼   ► doesn't really matter, like, if I write something

01:02:11 ◼   ► that has a bug, or if I mess up a server,

01:02:14 ◼   ► and something crashes, no one dies.

01:02:17 ◼   ► I don't have any kind of heavy stakes on what I do.

01:02:20 ◼   ► I've made an entire career basically out of helping people

01:02:24 ◼   ► waste time in various ways.

01:02:26 ◼   ► And it's kind of wonderful in the sense

01:02:28 ◼   ► that I don't have all that stress,

01:02:30 ◼   ► you know, that like, I might, you know,

01:02:32 ◼   ► mess up somehow and really get somebody hurt or killed,

01:02:36 ◼   ► but I also then don't tackle problems with this skillset

01:02:40 ◼   ► that might result in heavier stakes.

01:02:43 ◼   ► Tesla, the way, their software quality of their cars

01:02:47 ◼   ► is, granted, better than anything I could write.

01:02:52 ◼   ► And you look at like all the miles driven

01:02:54 ◼   ► on autopilot and everything,

01:02:55 ◼   ► and they are largely pretty good.

01:02:58 ◼   ► But to take on something like full self-driving

01:03:01 ◼   ► requires a level of rigor and perfection

01:03:05 ◼   ► and conservatism in development methodology

01:03:07 ◼   ► and things like that, like, you have to be so careful

01:03:10 ◼   ► and so rigorous and so slow moving and well tested.

01:03:15 ◼   ► That's just not how Tesla does almost anything.

01:03:21 ◼   ► And so I see them having a wonderful present and future

01:03:25 ◼   ► in doing stuff like Autopilot on the Highway,

01:03:29 ◼   ► which is like, this is a smaller problem set,

01:03:32 ◼   ► we can do a pretty good job of it

01:03:33 ◼   ► that works almost all the time,

01:03:35 ◼   ► and is a nice convenience feature,

01:03:37 ◼   ► and maybe improves average safety of our cars

01:03:40 ◼   ► per highway mile driven compared to humans

01:03:43 ◼   ► doing their own cruise control stuff.

01:03:46 ◼   ► That is a narrower problem domain

01:03:48 ◼   ► that they have proven to be pretty good at.

01:03:50 ◼   ► And as a five year Tesla owner,

01:03:53 ◼   ► I can say that has worked great so far.

01:03:57 ◼   ► Not 100% of the time.

01:03:58 ◼   ► There's still a lot of conditions in which it doesn't work,

01:04:00 ◼   ► but it is a wonderful convenience feature.

01:04:04 ◼   ► When you design convenience features though,

01:04:05 ◼   ► that's a whole different ballgame

01:04:07 ◼   ► compared to full self driving.

01:04:09 ◼   ► What that actually means,

01:04:10 ◼   ► not whatever Tesla's package of options calls that.

01:04:13 ◼   ► What full self driving actually means

01:04:15 ◼   ► is such a different ballgame,

01:04:17 ◼   ► requires such incredibly different

01:04:19 ◼   ► and much more advanced and much higher quality control

01:04:24 ◼   ► in that software development.

01:04:26 ◼   ► I don't see that just magically coming out next year

01:04:30 ◼   ► based on what Tesla has delivered so far.

01:04:33 ◼   ► And I don't even see Tesla being a company

01:04:36 ◼   ► that's gonna be the world leader in that

01:04:38 ◼   ► if and when it ever comes.

01:04:40 ◼   ► I don't see them being that kind of software organization

01:04:44 ◼   ► to have that kind of engineering discipline

01:04:47 ◼   ► and quality control, frankly.

01:04:49 ◼   ► I see them making really great cars

01:04:51 ◼   ► that are driven mostly in the traditional way

01:04:55 ◼   ► that have occasional convenience features like autopilot.

01:04:57 ◼   ► That they're very good at,

01:04:58 ◼   ► and I'm very happy using their cars that way.

01:05:02 ◼   ► But they seem to be wanting to push the cars

01:05:05 ◼   ► into a direction that I don't think they can do very well.

01:05:07 ◼   ► And I'm worried about that.

01:05:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, if you look at the industries

01:05:10 ◼   ► that are tackling similar problems,

01:05:12 ◼   ► they have gone through and continue to go through

01:05:14 ◼   ► all the things we always talk about with Tesla.

01:05:16 ◼   ► Like aviation, for example.

01:05:17 ◼   ► Planes that essentially fly themselves,

01:05:19 ◼   ► they have the exact same problem of like,

01:05:21 ◼   ► well, if the plane almost flies itself,

01:05:23 ◼   ► it can train the pilot into assuming

01:05:24 ◼   ► that the plane knows what it's doing,

01:05:25 ◼   ► but then the times when it gets it wrong,

01:05:27 ◼   ► then the pilot's not ready to intervene at the right moment.

01:05:29 ◼   ► And lots of crashes are about, you know,

01:05:31 ◼   ► if it was just the human, the human error causes crashes.

01:05:35 ◼   ► If it was just the computer,

01:05:36 ◼   ► computer error can cause crashes.

01:05:37 ◼   ► And if it's the human and the computer,

01:05:38 ◼   ► they can collaborate to get a whole new series of crashes

01:05:41 ◼   ► that would not happen if either one of them

01:05:42 ◼   ► was solely in control, right?

01:05:44 ◼   ► Like even just like the, what do you call it,

01:05:46 ◼   ► 737 MAX thing of like how the plane behaves

01:05:48 ◼   ► slightly differently and the control program

01:05:51 ◼   ► was trying to do something safe,

01:05:52 ◼   ► but the pilot didn't know

01:05:53 ◼   ► and they're fighting each other, right?

01:05:54 ◼   ► That anti-pattern of like, well, it's not,

01:05:58 ◼   ► the human needs to be there and needs to be aware

01:06:00 ◼   ► and might need to intervene in a moment's notice,

01:06:02 ◼   ► but most of the time the computer does it

01:06:03 ◼   ► and it makes the humans not be able to be vigilant

01:06:06 ◼   ► for that amount of time.

01:06:07 ◼   ► And so aviation is constantly struggling with that.

01:06:09 ◼   ► Yes, we do want these safety features

01:06:11 ◼   ► because the plane can know and do things by itself

01:06:14 ◼   ► and eliminate human errors from many areas,

01:06:16 ◼   ► but we can't disengage the pilot.

01:06:18 ◼   ► The pilot still needs to be there.

01:06:20 ◼   ► It's super important that the pilot be there

01:06:21 ◼   ► because we know for a fact that there's no such thing

01:06:24 ◼   ► as full self flying.

01:06:25 ◼   ► Like, it's just, you need to have a pilot with controls

01:06:29 ◼   ► and the human, it's super important that the human is there

01:06:31 ◼   ► because sometimes it's super important

01:06:33 ◼   ► that the human take over, right?

01:06:35 ◼   ► And you have to manage that relationship

01:06:38 ◼   ► so that the human is not expected to do things

01:06:41 ◼   ► that no human should be expected to do, right?

01:06:44 ◼   ► And making that interface, making it help,

01:06:46 ◼   ► but not help too much, but not help too little,

01:06:48 ◼   ► but not, you know, like it's super hard.

01:06:51 ◼   ► And aviation is, like Mark was saying,

01:06:53 ◼   ► the opposite of how Tesla does things.

01:06:55 ◼   ► Everything in aviation has so many regulations

01:06:58 ◼   ► and so, you know, they're so careful

01:06:59 ◼   ► and such a long history that's respected about what works

01:07:02 ◼   ► and so conservative in every possible way.

01:07:05 ◼   ► Every time they push the envelope a little bit,

01:07:07 ◼   ► like the 737 MAX, like, oh, with software, we can do this

01:07:10 ◼   ► and do this advance and save money for the shareholders

01:07:12 ◼   ► if we just reuse some of this,

01:07:14 ◼   ► but just modify the plane in this way

01:07:15 ◼   ► and just like, just the littlest nudge in the direction

01:07:19 ◼   ► of trying to be like, move fast and break things

01:07:21 ◼   ► and hundreds of people die, right?

01:07:23 ◼   ► So I'm setting aside Tesla when I'm pessimistic

01:07:28 ◼   ► about self-driving.

01:07:29 ◼   ► I'm self-testimistic about it just in general.

01:07:30 ◼   ► Someone asked in the chat what episode

01:07:32 ◼   ► we talked about that last.

01:07:33 ◼   ► I think it was 165.

01:07:35 ◼   ► We'll put it in the show notes

01:07:36 ◼   ► if you wanna re-listen to that episode

01:07:37 ◼   ► and hear what we had to say years ago about self-driving,

01:07:39 ◼   ► but my attitude towards it hasn't changed.

01:07:41 ◼   ► But yeah, to Mark's point, Tesla is the company

01:07:44 ◼   ► that I least trust to do the default safe thing

01:07:48 ◼   ► when it comes to self-driving,

01:07:49 ◼   ► even if they happen to be the company

01:07:50 ◼   ► that actually has the most expertise in the area right now,

01:07:53 ◼   ► which is not a great combination.

01:07:55 ◼   ► Lots of expertise, but not a lot of wisdom, let's say.

01:07:59 ◼   ► - Yeah, and in the defense of Tesla,

01:08:01 ◼   ► which I can't believe I'm the one saying this,

01:08:03 ◼   ► I remember when I was working government contracting

01:08:06 ◼   ► that a lot of the stuff we did was like C++ and C#,

01:08:10 ◼   ► but I vividly remember that one of my coworkers

01:08:13 ◼   ► had to learn, I think it was Ada, if I'm not mistaken,

01:08:16 ◼   ► and there was a completely different programming language

01:08:19 ◼   ► that the government had basically compelled us to use,

01:08:24 ◼   ► and I probably have the details wrong,

01:08:26 ◼   ► and it doesn't really matter,

01:08:28 ◼   ► but I remember being told something along the lines of,

01:08:32 ◼   ► "With Ada, every entrance and exit from every function

01:08:35 ◼   ► "has to be defined," or something like that.

01:08:37 ◼   ► That sounds wrong, but it was extremely explicit

01:08:40 ◼   ► about everything that happened

01:08:42 ◼   ► in every piece of the program,

01:08:44 ◼   ► and so because of that, you knew with increased confidence,

01:08:48 ◼   ► if not perfect confidence, that what you were writing,

01:08:52 ◼   ► you have covered every possible case involved,

01:08:55 ◼   ► every outside of the envelope case,

01:08:57 ◼   ► inside the envelope case, happy path,

01:09:00 ◼   ► unhappy path, and everything else,

01:09:01 ◼   ► and that's why they used it

01:09:04 ◼   ► for some more embedded-style systems

01:09:06 ◼   ► at the place in which I was working

01:09:08 ◼   ► for government contracting stuff,

01:09:10 ◼   ► and it wouldn't surprise me, I bring this up

01:09:12 ◼   ► because it wouldn't surprise me

01:09:13 ◼   ► if the car control computers are using something

01:09:17 ◼   ► along the lines of Ada, maybe not Ada exactly,

01:09:20 ◼   ► but something along those lines,

01:09:22 ◼   ► even if the infotainment is running on Java

01:09:24 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:09:26 ◼   ► - Oh yeah, that's one of the reasons

01:09:28 ◼   ► why they're totally separate computers.

01:09:30 ◼   ► The infotainment system should have nothing

01:09:32 ◼   ► to do with driving, and from my understanding,

01:09:34 ◼   ► it doesn't now, which is good.

01:09:36 ◼   ► - I mean, whatever system has to do with the turn signals,

01:09:39 ◼   ► at least on your car, potentially is the system

01:09:42 ◼   ► that needs to be rebooted, so that's not great.

01:09:44 ◼   ► - Well, the display or the sound of the turn signals

01:09:47 ◼   ► is different from the operation of the turn signals, but--

01:09:50 ◼   ► - Right, well, think of the recall, though.

01:09:51 ◼   ► The recall was about like, oh, well, climate control

01:09:53 ◼   ► won't work and you can't turn on the defroster.

01:09:55 ◼   ► Okay, so now climate control, which I would argue

01:09:57 ◼   ► is part, and NHTSA would argue as well,

01:09:58 ◼   ► is part of the safety features of the car.

01:10:01 ◼   ► If the computer that is the only thing in the car

01:10:04 ◼   ► that can turn on the defroster, if that one has to reboot,

01:10:06 ◼   ► I'd say let's move that out of wherever it is now

01:10:09 ◼   ► and into the computer that supposedly doesn't crash.

01:10:11 ◼   ► - Yeah, and to be fair, that is true.

01:10:13 ◼   ► The climate control is controlled

01:10:15 ◼   ► by the navigation and media computer,

01:10:17 ◼   ► and that's another reason why physical controls can win out,

01:10:22 ◼   ► because anything that is on the touch screen,

01:10:24 ◼   ► this is why this came up in the first place

01:10:25 ◼   ► like two episodes ago, anything on the touch screen,

01:10:27 ◼   ► you might occasionally have to go without

01:10:29 ◼   ► for a few minutes while the system reboots,

01:10:32 ◼   ► and so that could be a problem.

01:10:34 ◼   ► You don't have to worry about the car suddenly

01:10:37 ◼   ► stopping and flying off the road,

01:10:39 ◼   ► but you might have to worry about the defroster

01:10:41 ◼   ► not being accessible or not knowing

01:10:43 ◼   ► whether your turn signal is on or not,

01:10:45 ◼   ► or not being able to control your drive direction

01:10:48 ◼   ► in the new one if the car guesses wrong.

01:10:51 ◼   ► So yeah, that's--

01:10:52 ◼   ► - Well, you do have to worry about it flying off the road,

01:10:54 ◼   ► but just you're supposed to take over control

01:10:56 ◼   ► immediately when you see that happening, just FYI.

01:10:58 ◼   ► - Oh, right.

01:10:59 ◼   ► - Or all your die, like that guy who,

01:11:00 ◼   ► that poor guy who died commuting to work

01:11:02 ◼   ► at the same place his car had veered

01:11:04 ◼   ► towards the barrier multiple times,

01:11:06 ◼   ► and then the one day he was just too sleepy to catch it,

01:11:08 ◼   ► and he died, that's just so terrible.

01:11:09 ◼   ► - Yeah, that really is.

01:11:11 ◼   ► - I mean, granted, people die every single day in cars

01:11:13 ◼   ► from their own mistakes, but it's like I said last week,

01:11:15 ◼   ► somehow, because humans are weird,

01:11:17 ◼   ► somehow it feels more fair when you screw up yourself

01:11:20 ◼   ► and die, you're just as dead,

01:11:21 ◼   ► and you're dead maybe even more often than you would be

01:11:23 ◼   ► if the car was helping you drive,

01:11:25 ◼   ► but it just feels worse when it's like,

01:11:27 ◼   ► hey, like, I, you know, car, you turned toward that tree,

01:11:32 ◼   ► and yeah, I was too slow in yanking the wheel back,

01:11:34 ◼   ► but honestly, car, you turned towards that tree,

01:11:36 ◼   ► and I feel worse about that than me just not paying attention

01:11:40 ◼   ► and hitting the tree myself.

01:11:42 ◼   ► - I don't know, it's so wild to me listening again

01:11:45 ◼   ► to you describing this operation, Marco, and thinking--

01:11:48 ◼   ► - The rebooting while driving.

01:11:49 ◼   ► - The rebooting operation, yeah.

01:11:51 ◼   ► This is the same man who refused to use a monitor

01:11:55 ◼   ► that was slightly wobbly and occasionally

01:11:57 ◼   ► didn't work perfectly, and yet his 4,500-whatever

01:12:02 ◼   ► pound automobile, he can occasionally reboot the infotainment

01:12:05 ◼   ► and just shrug it off as, oh, no big deal.

01:12:07 ◼   ► - Oh, it makes me angry every time,

01:12:09 ◼   ► but I just like the car so much and every other,

01:12:12 ◼   ► like, I love this car, I really do,

01:12:15 ◼   ► and I mean, we'll see, you know, my living situation here

01:12:20 ◼   ► is going to make it difficult to decide what to do

01:12:23 ◼   ► this fall when my lease is up,

01:12:25 ◼   ► but if I end up not keeping a car like this,

01:12:30 ◼   ► I'm going to be very upset, I'm going to very much miss it,

01:12:32 ◼   ► 'cause I love this car so much.

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01:13:37 ◼   ► (upbeat music)

01:13:40 ◼   ► All right, so moving on to topics.

01:13:42 ◼   ► This is actually really exciting.

01:13:43 ◼   ► This is the second exciting thing I've seen from iOS 14.5.

01:13:46 ◼   ► I'm not running it yet, so I'm just looking at reports,

01:13:49 ◼   ► but supposedly, iOS 14.5 lets you set Spotify or others

01:13:53 ◼   ► as Siri's default music service.

01:13:56 ◼   ► How cool is that?

01:13:57 ◼   ► So it used to be, even today,

01:13:59 ◼   ► in the released versions of the OS,

01:14:01 ◼   ► you can say, "Hey, dingus, using Spotify,

01:14:04 ◼   ► play the most recent album by Meat Math,"

01:14:06 ◼   ► or something like that.

01:14:07 ◼   ► And it would work, usually.

01:14:09 ◼   ► But now it appears, from what I've read,

01:14:11 ◼   ► that you can just say, "Hey, dingus,

01:14:13 ◼   ► play the most recent album by Meat Math,"

01:14:15 ◼   ► and it'll just go and do it using Spotify

01:14:17 ◼   ► or whatever your service may be, which is super great.

01:14:19 ◼   ► - Yeah, and this seems like it's super early still.

01:14:21 ◼   ► Like, I mean, granted, this is reporting a feature

01:14:23 ◼   ► that's still in a relatively early beta series of iOS,

01:14:28 ◼   ► but even its implementation in the beta

01:14:30 ◼   ► seems a little bit flaky so far.

01:14:32 ◼   ► So we'll see if this ships with 14.5.

01:14:35 ◼   ► I would not recommend that anybody install the beta

01:14:38 ◼   ► right now just for this feature