347: Not Enough Carrot to Take the Stick
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So what computer are you on right now?
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- The fact that you even have to ask that question
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is really depressing, really, really depressing.
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I'm on my iMac, I think last we spoke,
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nothing has changed with regard to the iMac, so it was--
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- So you still only had it repaired once,
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and then you did a software restore, basically?
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- Well, so, I had it repaired once,
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I restored from Time Machine, things got wonky,
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and then last Monday, so not October, what is today,
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it's the ninth, so not October 7th,
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but September 30th, I believe it was,
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I decided I'm just gonna nuke everything from orbit,
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and what is the genesis of that reference, John?
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- You don't know, you're making me so disappointed.
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I use it, you use it, I'm like,
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yeah, we're all on the same page, we all get this reference,
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but now you're admitting that you don't,
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and of course Marco doesn't.
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- No, of course not.
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(John laughs)
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- What is genesis of that?
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- Aliens, the one with the S, the plural one,
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the second one, the James Cameron one.
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- I've never seen it.
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- You've never seen aliens?
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- Wait, hold on, there are two different movies,
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one called Alien and one called Aliens.
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- There sure is.
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- That's terrible.
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- Are they related?
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- They sure are, 'cause the first one had one alien,
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and the second one had more than one,
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thus the plural. - Spoiler alert!
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- That's terrible. - Right there in the title,
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Casey, Alien, that's not terrible, that is classy.
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That is, before it was like--
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- Aliens 2, more aliens.
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- Furious 5, and The Fate of the Furious,
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and Fast Five, and all this ridiculous,
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we had Alien, and then it was followed up by Aliens,
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which is a perfect way to amp up the sequel
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while not being too loud about it.
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It's like, you get where I'm coming from.
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You had Alien, and it was a great movie,
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and you all loved it, guess what?
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Aliens, also James Cameron.
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And it's another rare sequel that is,
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let's say, almost as good as the original,
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some would say better, some would say,
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oh, it'll never match the original,
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'cause it's a different kind of movie,
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but I think we can all agree, it's a very good sequel.
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- Oh, God. - Totally, totally.
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- Marco, you and I are gonna get right on that, right?
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That's our homework, you and me?
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- I'm assuming neither of you has seen the original Alien,
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the singular one, right?
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- I don't think so.
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- 'Cause that's like a '70s movie,
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and that's before your time, but Aliens,
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I think Casey, at least, would enjoy if he's not too scared.
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- If anything, I think Casey and I have proven to you, John,
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over the years, that whether or not a movie was in our time
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has nothing to do with whether we've seen it.
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The answer is we've never seen it.
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- You've seen a lot of garbage '90s movies.
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There's a higher chance of you seeing it
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if it's in your time,
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whereas the classic '70s movies you haven't seen,
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but you've seen no garbage '70s movies, right?
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And you've seen few classic '70s movies,
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but '90s movies, you're probably all,
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you know, you've seen all sorts of trash.
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- So when Erin and I were engaged,
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she was living in Richmond,
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and I was still in Charlottesville,
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and that meant I had lots of time on my hands
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with nothing to do,
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and this was back when Netflix still sent DVDs,
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and I went on a binge of watching the original versions
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of then modern films that I really loved.
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So I watched the original "Italian Job."
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I watched the original "Oceans 11."
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- The original "Dodgeball."
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- I hope you're kidding, 'cause if that's a remake,
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I've gotta watch the original right away,
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but I'm pretty sure you're full of it.
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Anyway, I watched the original "Gone in 60 Seconds,"
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and I don't know if it's my,
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as we've long established, terrible sensibilities,
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but not a one of those was any good at all.
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Even, what was it, "Italian Job" had Michael Caine,
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who I love, my cocaine,
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and I absolutely love Michael Caine,
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and that movie was also terrible.
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So I have seen some things from the '60s and '70s,
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and I did not enjoy them, but that's okay.
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So to come back around to my computers,
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a week ago Monday, I had nuked the iMac from Orbit,
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as we discussed, that's from the movie "Aliens."
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That's right, right?
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"Aliens" got "alien"?
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That doesn't matter.
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Anyway, it's from some movie I haven't seen.
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So since then, knock on my glass desk,
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it seems to be behaving considerably better.
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Then a few days ago,
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I was attempting to use my MacBook,
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and I would start it up either from sleep or rebooting it,
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and it would work for a little bit,
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and then it would refuse all input
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from the mouse and the keyboard.
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Now, the mouse was clicking, because, mind you,
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this is one of the, what's the term for the fancy track pads
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where it's all haptic, right?
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There's no-- - Oh, it's a 3D Force.
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- Whatever, yeah, sure.
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But anyway, the point is,
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it's a mini haptic engine that's causing the clicking.
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It's not an actual physical motion
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that's causing the clicking, and it was clicking,
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which typically indicates that somewhere deep
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in the software, something is working.
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But I couldn't change focus to a different window.
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I couldn't do anything with the keyboard.
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It was just a disaster.
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And this happened reliably several times in a row,
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and I thought, well, I guess it's time
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to nuke this bad boy from Orbit, too.
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So that's what I did.
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I did an internet recovery, which actually,
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quick aside, works stunningly well,
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at least for me on my very fast internet connection.
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So if you hit, I'm gonna get this wrong,
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but it's Command + Option + R,
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or maybe it's Command + R, I forget what it is.
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- Command + R is regular recovery.
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Command + Option + R is the one
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where it gets the latest version of the internet.
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- Yes, and then there's Command + Option + something else R
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that gives you the version that came with the computer,
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again, off the internet.
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- No, no, Command + R does that,
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because it's just booting from your recovery partition,
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which probably has not been updated
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since you installed the original operating system
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or since it came with the computer.
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Command + R boots off the recovery partition,
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I'm pretty sure, and the Command + Option + R is internet.
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- Right, and I thought, maybe I'm wrong,
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it doesn't really matter,
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but I thought there was another key modifier
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that you could do an internet recovery
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against the version of the OS that your computer came with.
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- Oh yeah, there probably is.
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I didn't know if it would be presented with you,
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a menu or something.
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Once you're going to the internet,
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you have the option to pull different versions, I'm sure.
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Yeah, so anyway, so I did an internet recovery,
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and this was, I think the day that Catalina came out,
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it was this past Monday or something like that.
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It was shortly after Catalina came out,
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and sure enough, it gave me Catalina,
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and so far, it actually seems to be working better,
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I would say.
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The iMac in particular had a fair bit of cruft within it,
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but the MacBook, I don't think it had very much cruft
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from years and years and years
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of the same load being brought forward
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with each new computer, but even still,
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a couple of years on, I feel like the MacBook,
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and maybe it's a placebo,
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but I feel like the MacBook
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is operating considerably better now.
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So my MacBook, and we'll talk about this more later,
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my MacBook is on Catalina.
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I have not yet touched Catalina on the iMac.
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I'm not really sure why, except that everyone seems
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to be up in arms about the thought of upgrading.
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I think I would be fine, but I'm so scared
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to touch anything at this point
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that I figure I'll just wait it out for a little while.
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But yeah, all seems well in my computing world,
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at least for the time being, and I really am impressed.
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I really honestly am impressed
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with how well the internet recovery worked on the MacBook,
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because I have a gigabit connection,
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basically both directions, and it didn't take
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considerably longer than I would have expected.
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It took about as long as I expected,
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especially given that it's a MacBook,
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which is slow and underpowered, et cetera.
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And it worked really, really, really well.
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And so I think everything's good, believe it or not.
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I don't know, we'll see.
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(electronic beeping)
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Tell me, gentlemen, I did not put this in the show notes,
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but as soon as one of you did, I kinda slapped my forehead
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and realized, oh man, I completely forgot about this.
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Did FaceTime attention correction ship?
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- I check on my phone, but my phone is still not running
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iOS 13 'cause I'm a scaredy cat.
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Why don't one of you check for me?
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- All right, so where would this be?
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I'm looking in settings, let me search for FaceTime.
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- Well, that's assuming the search is working.
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- Yeah, that's true too.
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- No, don't search, just search with your eyeballs.
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- While I'm looking at the FaceTime portion of settings,
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I see allows FaceTime to access Siri and search,
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FaceTime on or off, my Apple ID, where I can be reached,
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my caller ID, FaceTime Live photos,
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and blocked contacts, and that is it.
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- And I can verify on 13.2 it's exactly the same.
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- Interesting, so I would say that no, it has not shipped.
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Where did we come down on this?
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If I recall correctly, I thought that this was really cool,
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and I thought that both of you guys
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were kind of anti-attention correction, is that right?
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- Yeah. - I was very anti.
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For reasons beyond the technical,
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'cause I just thought it was the wrong thing
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to try to accomplish.
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I don't remember what Marco's stance was.
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- Mine was almost as anti as you, basically.
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It's a very risky thing to try to do,
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because if you do it even slightly wrong,
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it really messes up badly.
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- Yeah, I was saying that even if you did it perfectly right,
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and perhaps especially if you did it perfectly right,
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I still don't like it.
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Anyway, we'll add that to the bin of things
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that didn't quite make it into 13.0 or 13.1 or 13.2.
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Stay tuned, brutal.
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- And speaking of, one of you has noticed
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that at apple.com/macos/catalina/features,
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we'll put a link in the show notes,
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there is a genuinely long list of features,
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I didn't even realize this page was here,
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a very long list of features that are new in Catalina,
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but if you look closely,
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two of them have little asterisks next to them.
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One of them is iCloud Drive folder sharing,
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which I think I speak for all three of us in saying
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we were very excited to have,
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because we could have maybe stopped using Dropbox
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for sharing audio files between the three of us.
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- You two were excited about that, I was not.
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I continue not to be excited by iCloud Drive
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or folder sharing or anything related to it.
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- Well now I'm not.
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I was very excited about that,
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but now I'm thinking when it comes out,
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are we gonna trust it?
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You know, it has had such a rocky summer,
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like the early betas,
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the reason it was delayed it seemed was
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that the early betas were really bad
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and people were losing data and files.
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And it seems like now it's even,
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it was so hard apparently to fix that and get it right
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that they were delaying it until next spring.
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So I don't know, when it does finally come out,
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are any of us gonna trust it?
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How long is it gonna take for any of us to trust it?
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I mean, I feel like in this context specifically,
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so the three of us are trying to share files
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amongst ourselves, where presumably these files
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will get caught up by time machine
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on each of our respective computers
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within an hour of them being generated.
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I feel like I would be okay with it.
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I don't think I would be too scared,
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but you know, you never really know what can happen,
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especially when it comes to iCloud.
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I haven't yet been burned by iCloud really badly
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and I almost wonder if that shoe is about to drop,
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especially given the conversation we just had
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about everything else in my computing life
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being a little rough these days.
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But I don't know, I feel like Apple has had themselves
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burned by this whole beta experience
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and one would hope that they have learned their lesson
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and one would hope that they will not make
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this mistake again.
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But I don't know, with Apple,
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especially when it comes to services,
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can you ever really be confident ever?
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- Well, a lot of their services do work well,
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but the ones that don't, they seem to never really fix
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in a way that earns our trust.
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- I mean, some of them, they've done a good job with.
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I feel like the backend for the Photos app,
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we had so many reasons not to trust it
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and there were bugs in the beginning
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and people did lose photos and have weird glitches
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and stuff, but overall at this point,
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I think the Photos backend has matured to the point
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where the vast majority of complaints about Photos
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have nothing to do with the backend
00:11:32
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and everything to do with the application
00:11:33
◼
►
that through which you use the backend,
00:11:35
◼
►
but in general, I think the Photo backend sinks.
00:11:38
◼
►
And that's a hard problem, I mean,
00:11:40
◼
►
'cause Photos are numerous and large and just ever-growing
00:11:43
◼
►
and I don't think there are as many light users of Photos
00:11:47
◼
►
because like on Drive, you can put three or four things there
00:11:50
◼
►
and that's it, right?
00:11:51
◼
►
Whereas Photos, if you take any photos,
00:11:53
◼
►
presumably if you continue to live,
00:11:55
◼
►
you will take more photos.
00:11:56
◼
►
And you probably don't delete your old photos
00:11:58
◼
►
and so it's a larger volume problem.
00:12:02
◼
►
The main reason I put this in the notes is,
00:12:04
◼
►
here we've talked about iCloud Drive folder sharing
00:12:06
◼
►
being delayed or whatever and we're thinking like,
00:12:10
◼
►
oh, maybe it's delayed till 13.1 or maybe 13.2
00:12:12
◼
►
if you wanna be pessimistic, but as Mark already noted,
00:12:15
◼
►
this page from Apple says, coming this spring,
00:12:19
◼
►
which you'll note is next year,
00:12:22
◼
►
like not even, but in the fall or by the end of the year
00:12:27
◼
►
or in early next year, I guess spring could be early
00:12:31
◼
►
next year, but as Marco also noted on Twitter today,
00:12:34
◼
►
this spring or whatever, you were saying mid-year
00:12:36
◼
►
or whatever, could also mean like WWDC.
00:12:38
◼
►
I guess this spring can't mean WWDC.
00:12:40
◼
►
- Yeah, I was talking about the Mengxi quote rumor
00:12:42
◼
►
about second half or Q2 or like first half,
00:12:45
◼
►
but it's like the first half of the year ends in June
00:12:48
◼
►
and so anything that says, oh, it's gonna be announced
00:12:51
◼
►
by Q1 or Q2, that could be WWDC.
00:12:54
◼
►
- Yeah, anyway, they're giving themselves a lot of time,
00:12:57
◼
►
which is fine, like if that's how long it takes,
00:13:00
◼
►
that's how long it takes.
00:13:01
◼
►
None of us want them to ship this in a broken state,
00:13:04
◼
►
so take your time and get it done.
00:13:06
◼
►
Hopefully you get it done before whatever's after Catalina.
00:13:10
◼
►
There's one more item here that I hadn't even recalled,
00:13:16
◼
►
but I saw it on the same feature page,
00:13:17
◼
►
which is communication limits where it's kind of like
00:13:20
◼
►
part of the screen time where you can limit
00:13:23
◼
►
who your children can communicate with
00:13:26
◼
►
during certain periods maybe or all the time.
00:13:29
◼
►
Like when they're in downtime,
00:13:31
◼
►
they can use the Messages app,
00:13:32
◼
►
but they can only use the Messages app
00:13:33
◼
►
to communicate to you and not to their friends
00:13:35
◼
►
or something like that.
00:13:36
◼
►
That feature is apparently so complicated
00:13:39
◼
►
that it's also not coming until spring.
00:13:42
◼
►
- It is a cool feature though.
00:13:42
◼
►
I don't remember them having talked about that at all
00:13:45
◼
►
when I saw this in the show notes.
00:13:46
◼
►
- I remember it 'cause I'm more attuned
00:13:48
◼
►
to the parental control-y type things,
00:13:51
◼
►
mostly because I, well, I don't know.
00:13:53
◼
►
I do use screen time,
00:13:54
◼
►
but it's basically like a bedtime enforcement mechanism
00:13:58
◼
►
to say, just so the kids don't secret their phones
00:14:00
◼
►
into the bed and stay up until 1 a.m.
00:14:02
◼
►
texting under the covers, they need to get sleep, right?
00:14:05
◼
►
But I do want their devices to be useful in an emergency,
00:14:07
◼
►
so Apple has all these sort of exceptions
00:14:09
◼
►
where you can carve out,
00:14:11
◼
►
like if they're stranded on the side of the road,
00:14:12
◼
►
they can always call you, they can message you,
00:14:14
◼
►
they can email you, they can do all sorts of things,
00:14:18
◼
►
but it's very difficult to strike the balance
00:14:19
◼
►
between having a device that works in emergencies
00:14:22
◼
►
for everything they could possibly need,
00:14:23
◼
►
maps, so on and so forth,
00:14:25
◼
►
but also that doesn't let them burn too many hours of sleep
00:14:30
◼
►
chatting with friends.
00:14:31
◼
►
- Makes sense.
00:14:32
◼
►
Can we pivot ever so slightly?
00:14:34
◼
►
What are your guys' expectations
00:14:36
◼
►
with regard to the remainder of this month in an Apple event?
00:14:38
◼
►
Because a week or two ago, I would have said,
00:14:42
◼
►
without question, there's going to be an Apple event
00:14:46
◼
►
shortly before Halloween, just like there was last year,
00:14:48
◼
►
and that is going to be the deal.
00:14:50
◼
►
There'll be new MacBook Pros,
00:14:52
◼
►
there will probably be a new iPad Pro.
00:14:55
◼
►
We'll get more details about your beloved Mac Pro,
00:14:58
◼
►
God rest my soul,
00:14:59
◼
►
and we'll probably get some of the things
00:15:02
◼
►
that have been promised software-wise,
00:15:04
◼
►
like Photoshop for iPad,
00:15:05
◼
►
but I don't know, after seeing this Ming-Chi Kuo rumor
00:15:09
◼
►
and some of the other talking heads like ourselves
00:15:11
◼
►
have started to pump the brakes a little bit on this,
00:15:14
◼
►
and now I'm starting to waffle a bit and wonder,
00:15:16
◼
►
do you guys still think there will be an October event,
00:15:19
◼
►
and if so, what do you think will be there?
00:15:21
◼
►
And let's start with Marco.
00:15:22
◼
►
- The rumors are, the latest rumors are basically
00:15:25
◼
►
that new MacBooks with scissor keyboards are coming out
00:15:28
◼
►
basically next year by June,
00:15:31
◼
►
but that is actually,
00:15:33
◼
►
we've actually heard rumblings of that same thing before
00:15:36
◼
►
with that same schedule.
00:15:38
◼
►
What those rumors didn't mention
00:15:39
◼
►
is the rumored 16-inch MacBook Pro.
00:15:42
◼
►
Those rumors were about the other models
00:15:44
◼
►
of various Apple laptops.
00:15:46
◼
►
The 16-inch is still unknown,
00:15:48
◼
►
but the latest rumors of the 16-inch
00:15:51
◼
►
were that it's coming imminently,
00:15:53
◼
►
that it's coming this fall,
00:15:54
◼
►
like possibly even this month.
00:15:57
◼
►
So as far as I know,
00:16:00
◼
►
or as far as we've heard, rather,
00:16:03
◼
►
that hasn't changed.
00:16:05
◼
►
So I still believe, I'm still holding onto the dream
00:16:09
◼
►
that we're getting this 16-inch.
00:16:12
◼
►
I could really, really use a 16-inch laptop this weekend,
00:16:17
◼
►
and so therefore, it's gonna be announced next week,
00:16:21
◼
►
because I need it this weekend. (laughs)
00:16:23
◼
►
- So thank you, Marco.
00:16:24
◼
►
- Yeah, so to answer your question,
00:16:27
◼
►
there is still so much that's rumored in the pipeline
00:16:30
◼
►
that seems like it's fairly imminent.
00:16:31
◼
►
So things like the little tag tile tracker things
00:16:35
◼
►
that the U1 chip is supposed to help locate,
00:16:38
◼
►
the rumored, and that we'll talk about later,
00:16:41
◼
►
maybe the leaked image of the AirPods with the rubber tips,
00:16:46
◼
►
so some kind of new AirPods model,
00:16:48
◼
►
a rumored cheaper HomePod that was rumored recently.
00:16:53
◼
►
There's all this different stuff.
00:16:54
◼
►
And not to mention,
00:16:57
◼
►
maybe when the TV service launches,
00:17:01
◼
►
maybe they'll wanna do something too.
00:17:02
◼
►
Oh, there's also rumored Apple TV hardware update as well.
00:17:05
◼
►
So there's all this rumored stuff
00:17:07
◼
►
about these lower-priority products
00:17:10
◼
►
that are all still waiting in the wings somewhere.
00:17:13
◼
►
And the iPhone event did seem
00:17:14
◼
►
like some stuff was cut out of it.
00:17:16
◼
►
So I'm still holding on to hope.
00:17:19
◼
►
I'm not actually hopeful for iPads.
00:17:21
◼
►
iPads seem like the rumors are all saying next year,
00:17:24
◼
►
and that's fine.
00:17:25
◼
►
The iPad Pro was just updated one year ago,
00:17:28
◼
►
and they tend to be on a year-and-a-half or so cycle,
00:17:30
◼
►
so that would be totally fine.
00:17:33
◼
►
But I still think there is room for a smaller event
00:17:36
◼
►
that would be the 16-inch MacBook Pro,
00:17:39
◼
►
new HomePod, new AirPods, new Apple TV,
00:17:42
◼
►
maybe something like that,
00:17:43
◼
►
and maybe that tile tag tracker thing.
00:17:45
◼
►
- Yeah, I started to get doubtful about the iPads
00:17:48
◼
►
after the phone event just had the cheap one.
00:17:51
◼
►
It's like, why wouldn't they say that for the iPad event,
00:17:53
◼
►
oh, maybe there's not gonna be an iPad event.
00:17:54
◼
►
But it seemed like it was still a thing that they could do.
00:17:57
◼
►
But this new rumor about the next iPad having
00:17:59
◼
►
what they keep calling a 3D ToF, or Time of Flight camera,
00:18:05
◼
►
which is basically a camera that emits stuff,
00:18:08
◼
►
I think it's light,
00:18:09
◼
►
and tracks how long it takes to bounce off things.
00:18:13
◼
►
- It's stuff.
00:18:14
◼
►
- Yeah, I mean, it might be, I don't know if it's IR,
00:18:17
◼
►
if it's visible light, if it's a laser,
00:18:19
◼
►
if it's, you know, whatever.
00:18:20
◼
►
Anyway, it times how long it takes to hit something
00:18:22
◼
►
and bounce back to it to get a better depth map
00:18:26
◼
►
for the purposes of AR and all that other stuff.
00:18:28
◼
►
That's the rumor that the next iPad Pro
00:18:32
◼
►
has that on its rear camera.
00:18:34
◼
►
And also coming along with that rumor is,
00:18:37
◼
►
and it's coming in the first half of next year.
00:18:39
◼
►
So that, I feel like if there's any foundation at all,
00:18:42
◼
►
kind of squashes any hope of a boring iPad Pro update,
00:18:47
◼
►
which is basically take the existing iPad Pro,
00:18:48
◼
►
put an A13 in it, you know,
00:18:50
◼
►
that doesn't seem like it's gonna happen.
00:18:52
◼
►
But like Marco said, the 16-inch rumors continue to be
00:18:56
◼
►
that this is a thing that Apple could announce at any time.
00:19:00
◼
►
Obviously all the rest of the laptops
00:19:03
◼
►
have never really been rumored for imminent release
00:19:06
◼
►
and are probably into next year.
00:19:08
◼
►
That's fine.
00:19:09
◼
►
I think the laptop can carry an October event.
00:19:11
◼
►
Now, what do you have besides the laptop?
00:19:13
◼
►
I think you can have the laptop
00:19:15
◼
►
and like one other thing and it's fine.
00:19:18
◼
►
I don't think all the things Marco listed
00:19:19
◼
►
are gonna be there.
00:19:20
◼
►
You can have laptop in the tiles, fine, there's your event.
00:19:22
◼
►
You can have laptop and Apple TV, fine, there's your event.
00:19:25
◼
►
You can have the laptop and the earbuds, fine,
00:19:26
◼
►
there's your event.
00:19:27
◼
►
Because if Apple's smart, well, I don't know.
00:19:30
◼
►
I don't know if this is the right PR move,
00:19:31
◼
►
but I think it would make everyone feel better
00:19:35
◼
►
for Apple to make a very big deal
00:19:37
◼
►
about how great this new laptop is.
00:19:39
◼
►
Now, they don't have to have any self-flagellation
00:19:41
◼
►
about oh, we made a bad keyboard, we're so sorry.
00:19:43
◼
►
But they know that we know that they know.
00:19:46
◼
►
You know, and they're just like,
00:19:48
◼
►
look at our amazing new laptop.
00:19:51
◼
►
This is the best laptop we've ever made
00:19:52
◼
►
and we're really proud of it.
00:19:53
◼
►
They can say all positive things and we'll get the subtext.
00:19:56
◼
►
The subtext is they're not crap anymore.
00:19:58
◼
►
And you know, actually, I have to make it not crap, right?
00:20:01
◼
►
So new keyboard and one new port, that's all we ask
00:20:04
◼
►
and we'll probably get half of that, so.
00:20:07
◼
►
Anyway, yeah, we're hungry for new laptops.
00:20:11
◼
►
Apple tends to make us think when they say like,
00:20:15
◼
►
this is what all our new laptops will look like
00:20:17
◼
►
going forward, presumably this is that moment
00:20:19
◼
►
that we've been waiting for for so long.
00:20:21
◼
►
So yeah, I think they just need that laptop
00:20:23
◼
►
and want another thing.
00:20:23
◼
►
And surely, of all the stuff that was possible
00:20:26
◼
►
for release in the September event,
00:20:28
◼
►
one of those things should be ready
00:20:30
◼
►
to be announced alongside.
00:20:31
◼
►
Maybe not shipping, I mean, forget about shipping,
00:20:33
◼
►
but if you got an event, you can announce stuff.
00:20:35
◼
►
And especially for things like the noise canceling AirPods,
00:20:40
◼
►
which I remember thinking about that way back when,
00:20:42
◼
►
like how can you make an AirPod noise canceling?
00:20:44
◼
►
But I kept thinking of the AirPod as like a current AirPod.
00:20:46
◼
►
You can't make the current AirPod noise canceling,
00:20:50
◼
►
I suppose, because it doesn't seal your ear canal.
00:20:53
◼
►
It just kind of rattles around there, which is fine
00:20:56
◼
►
when you're just emitting sound.
00:20:57
◼
►
But if you want to counteract outside sound,
00:20:59
◼
►
you have to have a much more controlled sort of sound chamber
00:21:02
◼
►
so you gotta plug it up.
00:21:03
◼
►
So anyway, the rumors of those things are AirPods
00:21:07
◼
►
that look more like, I don't know what you would call them.
00:21:09
◼
►
Are they, they'll call those in-ear?
00:21:11
◼
►
I think they're just like not quite in-ear,
00:21:13
◼
►
but squishy into-ear.
00:21:16
◼
►
- I mean, yeah, they look like PowerBeats,
00:21:18
◼
►
but without the earhook.
00:21:19
◼
►
- Yeah, what do you call that style of ear thing?
00:21:22
◼
►
- I, you know, they're not quite in-ear monitors
00:21:25
◼
►
'cause they don't really seal.
00:21:27
◼
►
- I don't actually know what that style,
00:21:29
◼
►
it's just like, it's a rubber-tipped earbud, basically.
00:21:33
◼
►
- It used to be the only kind of earbud
00:21:35
◼
►
before I think they started popularizing,
00:21:37
◼
►
the kind that don't actually squish
00:21:39
◼
►
into your ear canal in any way.
00:21:40
◼
►
Like the AirPods just kind of, you know,
00:21:42
◼
►
are grasped by the funny little cartilage in your ear
00:21:44
◼
►
and they just hang out there,
00:21:46
◼
►
but they don't shove into your ear hole
00:21:47
◼
►
in any way whatsoever.
00:21:49
◼
►
But before that, if you had said earbuds,
00:21:51
◼
►
you would have thought of something
00:21:52
◼
►
that looks like these AirPods with a little rubbery tip,
00:21:54
◼
►
maybe changeable tips, maybe that's too much for Apple.
00:21:57
◼
►
- The PowerBeats have changeable tips.
00:21:59
◼
►
It's really nice, actually.
00:22:01
◼
►
- Yeah, I mean, I suppose they have to make changeable tips
00:22:03
◼
►
because if it's shoving into your ear canal,
00:22:05
◼
►
it's harder to come up with a one-size-fits-all,
00:22:07
◼
►
even harder than it is for the AirPods,
00:22:09
◼
►
so I suppose it has to be changeable.
00:22:11
◼
►
- Yeah, and like, this is, I'm actually,
00:22:12
◼
►
I'm really hoping they ship something like that
00:22:15
◼
►
because I like the PowerBeats.
00:22:18
◼
►
So I have both PowerBeats and AirPods.
00:22:20
◼
►
I don't use the AirPods frequently
00:22:22
◼
►
because they are not very comfortable on me,
00:22:24
◼
►
even with the little like aftermarket silicone wraps
00:22:27
◼
►
that I put around them.
00:22:28
◼
►
Like, that makes them a little bit better,
00:22:29
◼
►
but they're still not very comfortable on me.
00:22:31
◼
►
The PowerBeats, which have those changeable rubber tips,
00:22:34
◼
►
and they come with three or four sets of them
00:22:36
◼
►
in different sizes, those fit me very well,
00:22:39
◼
►
but they have the giant earhook
00:22:41
◼
►
and the giant case to accommodate that,
00:22:43
◼
►
and so they're a much bigger thing that's harder to pocket.
00:22:47
◼
►
If Apple can make something that's close to AirPods
00:22:50
◼
►
in size and form factor,
00:22:51
◼
►
that can also have a pocketable case like AirPods do,
00:22:55
◼
►
but that has that rubber tip for a better,
00:22:57
◼
►
more comfortable fit, I am so in on that.
00:23:00
◼
►
I really, really hope they do.
00:23:02
◼
►
- Yeah, 'cause you always wanted to use the AirPods,
00:23:05
◼
►
but they don't quite fit your ears,
00:23:06
◼
►
so this is another chance for Apple to not fit your ears.
00:23:08
◼
►
- Well, and not only that,
00:23:10
◼
►
but if they have this kind of changeable tip thing,
00:23:12
◼
►
that also means that even if Apple totally blows it
00:23:15
◼
►
and doesn't give you multiple tips,
00:23:16
◼
►
other people can probably make them and sell them
00:23:18
◼
►
because they probably will have one of those little like,
00:23:20
◼
►
like stick port things on it that all these headphones do
00:23:23
◼
►
that you can, you know, it would take two seconds
00:23:25
◼
►
for a third party manufacturer to design something
00:23:27
◼
►
that could fit it if it's any kind of like
00:23:29
◼
►
removable rubber tip.
00:23:30
◼
►
We are sponsored this week by Linode, my favorite web host.
00:23:35
◼
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Go to linode.com/atp to learn more
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and get a $20 credit with code ATP2019.
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Linode lets you host virtual servers in the cloud,
00:23:44
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and you know, I've been with a lot of web hosts
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that do similar kinds of things in my career,
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and I've been with Linode the longest.
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I've been with them for about nine years or eight years now.
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It's simple, they just, they're really good.
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They're a really good host.
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Their servers are super fast, super capable, super flexible.
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Not only can you pick your resource level,
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The pricing is the best value in the business,
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and I've seen it over the entire time I've been there.
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They have been the best value in the business
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the entire time.
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As technology gets better,
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as they're able to offer things cheaper, they do.
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As they're able to offer faster hardware for the same price,
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They let you upgrade, you know, one click,
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and whenever they have something new.
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It's a great host, it's a great setup.
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Again, their hardware is great,
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their software is very flexible.
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You can install your Linux distro
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and whatever else you want on it.
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Their support is fantastic if you ever need it.
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All the extras are there.
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They have load balancers, they have managed backups,
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they have block storage now,
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and they let you place your servers
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in any of their data centers.
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So you can have, you know,
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all over the world their data centers.
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They just opened up one in Canada,
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and they're always opening more.
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The pricing is super flexible and easy to predict,
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so they have hourly pricing,
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but if you use less than a month,
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you just get to pay like the hourly price.
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It's just wonderful.
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00:25:16
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By far my favorite web host.
00:25:18
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Thank you so much to Linode for sponsoring our show.
00:25:21
◼
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(upbeat music)
00:25:24
◼
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- Can we talk a little bit about,
00:25:25
◼
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this has been going around on other podcasts
00:25:27
◼
►
and in our various slacks,
00:25:28
◼
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and I know we talked about it in the past,
00:25:30
◼
►
but I want to revisit it again.
00:25:31
◼
►
The idea of, oh, I know IY came up,
00:25:33
◼
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'cause there was a story about how you can get Apple
00:25:35
◼
►
to replace your AirPod when the batteries go dead.
00:25:38
◼
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The idea that AirPods are completely sealed
00:25:41
◼
►
and you use them and eventually use them
00:25:43
◼
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for a certain amount of time
00:25:44
◼
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and the battery no longer holds a charge,
00:25:46
◼
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and then what recourse do you have?
00:25:47
◼
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Because you can't change the batteries.
00:25:48
◼
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Apple can't change the batteries.
00:25:50
◼
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You just have to essentially either throw them away,
00:25:52
◼
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buy new ones, or get them replaced.
00:25:54
◼
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And the story, well, we should find a link
00:25:56
◼
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for the show notes for this,
00:25:56
◼
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but the story was like, if you know the magic words to say,
00:26:00
◼
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you can go into an Apple store and be like,
00:26:02
◼
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I've had these AirPods for two years
00:26:04
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and now they last like 20 minutes.
00:26:06
◼
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Can I get a battery service?
00:26:08
◼
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Can I get the battery service for them?
00:26:10
◼
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And they charge you less than the price of new AirPods
00:26:13
◼
►
and essentially give you new AirPods.
00:26:14
◼
►
Like they don't actually change your batteries,
00:26:16
◼
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but, and it's not much less than the AirPod.
00:26:19
◼
►
They get to pay $98 and then you get two refurbished AirPods,
00:26:23
◼
►
which is cheaper than $160.
00:26:25
◼
►
So maybe go in and say battery service.
00:26:27
◼
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Obviously if your batteries are crappy
00:26:29
◼
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within the one year warranty,
00:26:30
◼
►
they'll just give you new ones for free or whatever.
00:26:32
◼
►
Like this, we find there are articles to the other options.
00:26:35
◼
►
But anyway, this is renew the debate about,
00:26:38
◼
►
is this product a good idea?
00:26:40
◼
►
Like, yeah, we all love our AirPods,
00:26:41
◼
►
but it's another Apple thing with sealed batteries.
00:26:45
◼
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And unlike some of the other sealed batteries,
00:26:47
◼
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this literally can't be replaced
00:26:50
◼
►
because it's just totally glued in there
00:26:51
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and there's no way to get it out
00:26:53
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►
without destroying the thing.
00:26:54
◼
►
So once those batteries die, which they inevitably will
00:26:58
◼
►
because the lithium ion batteries only last
00:27:00
◼
►
a certain number of cycles and then they're no good,
00:27:02
◼
►
it seems wasteful to throw them out.
00:27:05
◼
►
Well, let's, I don't wanna say it seems wasteful.
00:27:07
◼
►
Look, here are the different angles on why it's bad.
00:27:10
◼
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One is that it costs you lots of money.
00:27:12
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You paid $160 and that lasts you 18 months,
00:27:14
◼
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then you have to pay another $160
00:27:16
◼
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and then you get 18 months.
00:27:16
◼
►
That's not a great treadmill to be on.
00:27:19
◼
►
These are not a cheap product.
00:27:20
◼
►
No one wants to keep paying for that,
00:27:22
◼
►
says the person who buys a new phone
00:27:24
◼
►
for $1,000 every two years.
00:27:27
◼
►
Or a new computer for 12 grand every 10 years.
00:27:31
◼
►
- I think you're getting away with just 12.
00:27:33
◼
►
- Yeah, that's laughable.
00:27:34
◼
►
- Well, we'll see.
00:27:35
◼
►
Well, I know.
00:27:37
◼
►
So that's the cost argument.
00:27:38
◼
►
It doesn't feel good to spend that money.
00:27:39
◼
►
Second is environmental argument.
00:27:42
◼
►
You buy this thing and you just throw it away
00:27:45
◼
►
and then you buy another one and you throw it away.
00:27:48
◼
►
Is there a third argument?
00:27:49
◼
►
You got cost environmental.
00:27:51
◼
►
There's a right to repair angle.
00:27:54
◼
►
I mean, I feel like you have the right to try to repair that,
00:27:56
◼
►
but they're assembled in such a way
00:27:57
◼
►
that it's not gonna happen.
00:27:59
◼
►
I mean, yeah, I think those are the two major angles,
00:28:04
◼
►
cost environmental, unless there's some other thing
00:28:06
◼
►
that I'm thinking of.
00:28:07
◼
►
Anyway, I've been thinking about them
00:28:11
◼
►
and we talked about it last time.
00:28:12
◼
►
Last time I think where I came down was
00:28:15
◼
►
I would rather have an AirPod with a changeable battery
00:28:18
◼
►
on it would be a worse product given the technology
00:28:21
◼
►
that existed at the time,
00:28:24
◼
►
because it would have to be bigger and bulkier
00:28:25
◼
►
and it wouldn't be as sort of, you know,
00:28:28
◼
►
lightweight and svelte and perfect and beautiful
00:28:30
◼
►
as the AirPod is.
00:28:32
◼
►
But we're on our second generation of AirPods now
00:28:35
◼
►
and it's been a few years.
00:28:37
◼
►
And I think it's worth revisiting the idea of, you know,
00:28:40
◼
►
revisiting the idea of these particular harms
00:28:43
◼
►
and how they could be mitigated.
00:28:45
◼
►
- I have such mixed feelings about this.
00:28:50
◼
►
I agree that this is an example of consumerism
00:28:55
◼
►
kind of run amok.
00:28:56
◼
►
You know, I happily spent almost $200
00:29:01
◼
►
on my AirPods 2 with wireless charging case,
00:29:05
◼
►
just two years after I spent 150 bucks,
00:29:08
◼
►
whatever it was, on the AirPods 1.
00:29:09
◼
►
And I use my AirPods every day.
00:29:11
◼
►
I freaking love these things.
00:29:13
◼
►
I still think they might be the best Apple product
00:29:16
◼
►
I've ever purchased.
00:29:17
◼
►
And if they were made appreciably worse
00:29:21
◼
►
by having say a removable battery,
00:29:23
◼
►
that would make me really, really sad.
00:29:26
◼
►
That being said, it is bananas that in probably
00:29:29
◼
►
another year and a half or whatever it's been
00:29:30
◼
►
since I bought this set,
00:29:31
◼
►
I will be buying yet another set of AirPods.
00:29:34
◼
►
And it is bananas that the old ones are probably
00:29:37
◼
►
just gonna end up in a landfill somewhere.
00:29:38
◼
►
And that's really, really crummy.
00:29:41
◼
►
- Is it really, really crummy?
00:29:42
◼
►
How crummy is it?
00:29:44
◼
►
- Well, I think it's really crummy
00:29:46
◼
►
from an environmental perspective.
00:29:49
◼
►
- Well, because it's just very wasteful.
00:29:50
◼
►
- It's very wasteful as compared to what?
00:29:53
◼
►
- I mean, yeah, I think it pales in comparison
00:29:56
◼
►
to the other waste that we will generate
00:29:58
◼
►
over that same timescale.
00:29:59
◼
►
- Yeah, that's fair.
00:30:00
◼
►
- How, like, how much mass is in an AirPod?
00:30:04
◼
►
And how much mass is in every disposable plastic cup
00:30:07
◼
►
you get from a fast food restaurant in a month or whatever?
00:30:09
◼
►
Like, AirPods are very small and very light.
00:30:12
◼
►
Now, there is a manufacturing cost,
00:30:14
◼
►
'cause they're not just simple plastic.
00:30:15
◼
►
Like, there's electronics inside them,
00:30:16
◼
►
there's mining that goes into that.
00:30:18
◼
►
There is, they have a hot,
00:30:19
◼
►
they punch above their weight
00:30:20
◼
►
in terms of environmental costs.
00:30:22
◼
►
But the bottom line is, they're very small.
00:30:24
◼
►
There is very little actual mass in these things.
00:30:27
◼
►
And when I think about a replaceable battery
00:30:29
◼
►
from the environmental perspective,
00:30:30
◼
►
it's like, I mean, like the cost thing aside,
00:30:33
◼
►
from an environmental perspective,
00:30:34
◼
►
if you had to throw out,
00:30:35
◼
►
what percentage of the mass of AirPods
00:30:38
◼
►
do you think the battery is?
00:30:40
◼
►
Over 50, surely, right?
00:30:42
◼
►
60, 70%, 80% of the mass is battery?
00:30:46
◼
►
So if you're like, this isn't wasteful,
00:30:47
◼
►
I'll just put in a new battery.
00:30:48
◼
►
You're basically throwing away 80% of the device anyway.
00:30:53
◼
►
And it's not a particularly environmentally friendly 80%,
00:30:56
◼
►
because lithium ion batteries
00:30:57
◼
►
are not great at sitting in a landfill.
00:30:59
◼
►
But mass-wise, as compared to almost anything else
00:31:04
◼
►
that we consume and throw out,
00:31:05
◼
►
a wrapper, a waste, packaging, whatever from,
00:31:09
◼
►
it's so small.
00:31:10
◼
►
Every two years, you throw out like the equivalent
00:31:13
◼
►
of 1/18th of a golf ball worth of industrial waste.
00:31:17
◼
►
That's nothing compared to the amount of crap
00:31:19
◼
►
that the average person throws out.
00:31:21
◼
►
And how many AirPods are there in the world
00:31:23
◼
►
given that they're like a $200 wireless earbud
00:31:27
◼
►
that nobody actually really needs?
00:31:29
◼
►
Again, as compared to like anything else
00:31:32
◼
►
that you can imagine, plastic shopping bags
00:31:34
◼
►
before they were banned everywhere,
00:31:36
◼
►
cups, fast food cups, containers,
00:31:38
◼
►
like just all the plastic stuff
00:31:41
◼
►
that comes in the packaging of all the food that we buy,
00:31:43
◼
►
every package thing of strawberries
00:31:45
◼
►
and blueberries or whatever.
00:31:47
◼
►
And yeah, some of that can be recycled
00:31:48
◼
►
and see that depressing, what was that?
00:31:51
◼
►
99% invisible, I forget.
00:31:52
◼
►
Some depressing podcast episode
00:31:53
◼
►
about exactly how grim the recycling situation is.
00:31:56
◼
►
But bottom line is AirPods are really small.
00:31:58
◼
►
Now, I'm not saying we should throw them out.
00:32:00
◼
►
I'm saying of all the things
00:32:01
◼
►
that you should be concerned about waste-wise,
00:32:03
◼
►
I feel like you can offset that waste
00:32:05
◼
►
by buying three fewer plastic cups per every two years.
00:32:10
◼
►
And you've offset most of the plastic.
00:32:14
◼
►
The manufacturing and the sort of the microchip part
00:32:18
◼
►
of that or whatever, I can see where,
00:32:21
◼
►
again, it punches above its weight
00:32:22
◼
►
in terms of how much energy it takes
00:32:23
◼
►
to actually create these things and all the mining involved.
00:32:26
◼
►
But it's still so tiny,
00:32:28
◼
►
so tiny compared to almost anything else.
00:32:31
◼
►
The old laptop that you have,
00:32:32
◼
►
how much more electronics is in an old laptop
00:32:35
◼
►
that you're no longer using
00:32:36
◼
►
that you maybe didn't throw away
00:32:38
◼
►
because you remembered how much it costs,
00:32:39
◼
►
but bottom line is you're gonna eventually throw it away
00:32:41
◼
►
if you didn't sell it immediately
00:32:42
◼
►
because it becomes obsolete.
00:32:44
◼
►
And phone's the same deal.
00:32:45
◼
►
Like it's just AirPods, environmentally speaking,
00:32:48
◼
►
I'm not saying it doesn't matter.
00:32:50
◼
►
I'm saying it is not the top of my list for concern.
00:32:55
◼
►
And furthermore, that replaceable batteries
00:32:57
◼
►
does not really help the environmental story for these.
00:33:00
◼
►
Like lithium ion batteries are not great for the environment
00:33:03
◼
►
because they have a limited number of charge cycles,
00:33:05
◼
►
and when they're done,
00:33:05
◼
►
we don't have a good way to dispose of them.
00:33:08
◼
►
Again, a single Nissan Leaf that didn't come
00:33:11
◼
►
with climate control for the battery to save costs
00:33:14
◼
►
and therefore destroys its battery
00:33:16
◼
►
in like three to five years,
00:33:18
◼
►
how many AirPods worth of lithium ion battery cells
00:33:21
◼
►
are in a Nissan Leaf?
00:33:22
◼
►
All of them?
00:33:23
◼
►
All the AirPods ever manufactured?
00:33:25
◼
►
I don't know.
00:33:28
◼
►
- So I don't think there's a good solution
00:33:31
◼
►
to the environmental thing.
00:33:33
◼
►
Even replaceable batteries,
00:33:34
◼
►
although it would make people feel better,
00:33:36
◼
►
doesn't actually solve the environmental impact of AirPods,
00:33:38
◼
►
which itself is tiny.
00:33:41
◼
►
- Yeah, you make a really good point.
00:33:42
◼
►
And can we just address that you and I drive combustion cars
00:33:47
◼
►
because anytime anyone says anything about the environment,
00:33:50
◼
►
then we have to address the fact that we drive a car
00:33:52
◼
►
that does not burn electricity, good grief,
00:33:55
◼
►
that does not use electricity.
00:33:56
◼
►
Like can we just--
00:33:57
◼
►
- That's incredible mileage.
00:34:00
◼
►
It's like a 1.5 liter four cylinder, naturally aspirated.
00:34:04
◼
►
- You get a lot better mileage than me.
00:34:05
◼
►
But yes, the thing is, you can what about your way
00:34:10
◼
►
all the way down when it comes to really anything,
00:34:12
◼
►
but particularly the environmental stuff.
00:34:14
◼
►
And I am just so tired of hearing what about your car.
00:34:18
◼
►
But anyway, to come back to the actual point,
00:34:21
◼
►
you make a very good point actually,
00:34:23
◼
►
that these things in terms of mass alone are not big.
00:34:26
◼
►
And even if millions upon millions of them
00:34:28
◼
►
have been produced, well, there's been millions
00:34:30
◼
►
and millions of of a cords produced,
00:34:33
◼
►
and we don't know where all of that scrap metal ended up.
00:34:35
◼
►
And we don't know where all of the car batteries
00:34:37
◼
►
that have ever been replaced in the history of time
00:34:39
◼
►
have ended up.
00:34:40
◼
►
We don't know where Marco's prior Tesla's battery pack
00:34:44
◼
►
And so, yeah, I think you're right.
00:34:46
◼
►
And maybe it's one of these things
00:34:48
◼
►
that I'm majoring on a minor.
00:34:50
◼
►
Well, I mean, I don't, I'm not really,
00:34:53
◼
►
my engine is not really that revved one way or another
00:34:55
◼
►
about this, but for the purposes of this discussion,
00:34:58
◼
►
maybe I'm majoring on a minor when it comes to the AirPods.
00:35:01
◼
►
I do think it is unfortunate that there is no way
00:35:04
◼
►
to keep them going.
00:35:05
◼
►
You know, the advantage of say my car and yours, John,
00:35:08
◼
►
and maybe Marco's, is that even when we're done with them,
00:35:12
◼
►
in theory, they can continue on in the hands of somebody else
00:35:16
◼
►
and continue to be used as a car.
00:35:18
◼
►
And then hopefully, eventually,
00:35:20
◼
►
when they are no longer being used by someone else,
00:35:22
◼
►
they will be piecemeal, taken apart,
00:35:25
◼
►
and used in other cars or sold for scrap metal
00:35:28
◼
►
or what have you.
00:35:29
◼
►
But I just, I kind of wish, it's so hard,
00:35:33
◼
►
because I kind of wish that I had a computer
00:35:37
◼
►
with a removable battery, for example,
00:35:39
◼
►
so I could easily prolong the life of that computer
00:35:42
◼
►
and do that myself.
00:35:43
◼
►
You know, my first Mac laptop had a removable battery,
00:35:46
◼
►
if I'm not mistaken, and it eventually swelled, swelled?
00:35:51
◼
►
And swelled.
00:35:51
◼
►
- Swelled as something else.
00:35:52
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, something else in time.
00:35:54
◼
►
Yeah, yeah, I went to the gym, got real swole.
00:35:57
◼
►
Anyway, it eventually swelled and it got replaced,
00:35:59
◼
►
and it was pretty easy, and I kind of missed those days,
00:36:02
◼
►
but that being said,
00:36:03
◼
►
I freaking love carrying my MacBook Adorable.
00:36:06
◼
►
I freaking love that my AirPods fit
00:36:08
◼
►
in the little change pocket in my jeans,
00:36:10
◼
►
and neither of those things would be true,
00:36:12
◼
►
to your point, John, if they were easily serviceable.
00:36:16
◼
►
- Yeah, so the cost angle is the other part of this.
00:36:18
◼
►
Like, set aside the environmental thing.
00:36:21
◼
►
I feel like, you know, the environmental thing,
00:36:24
◼
►
we're stuck due to battery technology,
00:36:25
◼
►
no matter what Apple does.
00:36:27
◼
►
If they had 100% replaceable batteries,
00:36:30
◼
►
it wouldn't help the environmental factor,
00:36:31
◼
►
but if they had 100% replaceable batteries,
00:36:34
◼
►
it could definitely, if Apple prices it right,
00:36:36
◼
►
help the cost, because although the battery is
00:36:40
◼
►
over 50% of the mass of AirPods,
00:36:43
◼
►
it is not over 50% of the cost, I would imagine.
00:36:45
◼
►
Maybe I'm wrong.
00:36:46
◼
►
Maybe I'm overestimating how much
00:36:48
◼
►
the integrated circuits in it cost,
00:36:50
◼
►
but either way, I feel like if Apple wanted
00:36:53
◼
►
to do the right thing and make people happier
00:36:56
◼
►
with their AirPods, it eventually came out well
00:36:57
◼
►
in the removable batteries.
00:36:58
◼
►
When the batteries died, as they definitely will
00:37:01
◼
►
with current lithium ion technology in a year or two,
00:37:04
◼
►
you know, when they get so annoyingly run down,
00:37:08
◼
►
Apple could sell you new batteries for a reasonable price.
00:37:12
◼
►
I don't know, 50 bucks, maybe, 60 bucks
00:37:15
◼
►
for two of them for a pair, like, you know,
00:37:18
◼
►
that's, I feel like the margins on that would be good,
00:37:20
◼
►
given the size of these batteries, right?
00:37:22
◼
►
You know, as Marco would know,
00:37:24
◼
►
how big a lithium ion battery can you get
00:37:26
◼
►
for one of your weird flashlights?
00:37:27
◼
►
How much mass is in that battery
00:37:29
◼
►
as compared to how much mass is in the Apple ones?
00:37:30
◼
►
I know the Apple ones are odd shape,
00:37:32
◼
►
and the Apple, you know, anyway,
00:37:33
◼
►
feel like there's plenty of profit margin in that,
00:37:35
◼
►
and you could bring in your AirPods
00:37:36
◼
►
when you buy the new ones,
00:37:38
◼
►
and give Apple your old batteries,
00:37:39
◼
►
which they could then, I don't know, try to recycle?
00:37:41
◼
►
Is there some way to recycle
00:37:43
◼
►
lithium ion batteries, presumably?
00:37:45
◼
►
- Yes, in general.
00:37:46
◼
►
I mean, I don't know about these specific ones
00:37:48
◼
►
that they're using in AirPods,
00:37:49
◼
►
but yes, you can, like, you know,
00:37:50
◼
►
extract some stuff out of lithium ion batteries.
00:37:52
◼
►
- Yeah, I mean, again, the mass is so small
00:37:53
◼
►
that it may not be economically worthwhile to do that,
00:37:56
◼
►
but it's the right thing to do,
00:37:57
◼
►
and it will get, if you get people into your store,
00:38:00
◼
►
and they're willing to, you know, again,
00:38:01
◼
►
this is the fictional AirPod
00:38:03
◼
►
with an unscrewable battery stick thingy.
00:38:06
◼
►
Go into the store, give 'em 60 bucks,
00:38:08
◼
►
give 'em your old little sticks, screw in the new ones.
00:38:10
◼
►
Now, what you're actually doing is you're saving,
00:38:12
◼
►
like, once you unscrew the battery part,
00:38:14
◼
►
and you realize, this is what I'm saving?
00:38:16
◼
►
These two little turds here that weigh like nothing?
00:38:18
◼
►
It's like, yeah, that's where all
00:38:19
◼
►
the amazing, magical smarts are.
00:38:22
◼
►
You could prolong the life of your AirPods
00:38:24
◼
►
until they eventually die from earwax impaction,
00:38:27
◼
►
as all AirPods, I presume, will eventually.
00:38:31
◼
►
Just keep shoving 'em in your ears,
00:38:33
◼
►
and they get pushed into that little mesh grill,
00:38:35
◼
►
and anyway, right to repair and right to remove earwax.
00:38:40
◼
►
You need to be openable.
00:38:43
◼
►
But, you know, I feel like that is a worthy endeavor,
00:38:47
◼
►
because it makes a product
00:38:48
◼
►
that people will be more satisfied with.
00:38:50
◼
►
Apple, like, oh, doesn't Apple,
00:38:52
◼
►
Apple wants you to buy a new $160 one.
00:38:54
◼
►
I think Apple would be fine with you buying
00:38:56
◼
►
very high-margin $60 lithium-ion batteries
00:39:00
◼
►
that weigh as much as a bird's feather every 18 months.
00:39:04
◼
►
They would be better with you buying AirPods every 18 months,
00:39:09
◼
►
but unless they can keep adding new features,
00:39:10
◼
►
that road is harder for Apple to go down,
00:39:15
◼
►
to say, every year, we're gonna give you a reason
00:39:17
◼
►
to buy, you know, a brand, or every 18 months,
00:39:20
◼
►
we're gonna give you an actual, real reason
00:39:22
◼
►
why you want to buy a new pair of AirPods.
00:39:24
◼
►
Instead, right now, we have to buy new AirPods
00:39:28
◼
►
if we wanna keep using them,
00:39:28
◼
►
because the battery ends up lasting 20 minutes,
00:39:30
◼
►
and that really just makes them not useful
00:39:33
◼
►
for their intended purpose for most people.
00:39:35
◼
►
So, I'm rooting for Apple to get replaceable batteries
00:39:39
◼
►
in their AirPods eventually,
00:39:41
◼
►
but not really for environmental reasons.
00:39:43
◼
►
- We are sponsored this week by Fracture,
00:39:46
◼
►
who takes your photos and prints them in vivid color
00:39:49
◼
►
directly onto glass.
00:39:51
◼
►
Almost all of us take photos,
00:39:53
◼
►
and usually what we do is we share them somewhere online,
00:39:56
◼
►
and then they disappear off the social feed
00:39:59
◼
►
after, what, a day?
00:40:00
◼
►
And you never see them again.
00:40:02
◼
►
Almost none of the pictures that we take
00:40:04
◼
►
really end up printed, even fewer of them
00:40:07
◼
►
end up being displayed and enjoyed anywhere
00:40:09
◼
►
past that first day.
00:40:10
◼
►
Focus on the moments that mean the most in your life
00:40:13
◼
►
by turning your favorite digital memories
00:40:14
◼
►
into meaningful photo decor.
00:40:17
◼
►
Fracture prints are made by printing directly onto glass.
00:40:20
◼
►
The prints look fantastic.
00:40:22
◼
►
The colors really pop,
00:40:23
◼
►
and it's printed edge to edge on this glass.
00:40:26
◼
►
And so it's own self-contained decoration.
00:40:29
◼
►
You don't have to get it framed.
00:40:30
◼
►
In fact, I don't think you really could.
00:40:32
◼
►
You don't have to do anything else to it.
00:40:34
◼
►
It is the standalone edge to edge print
00:40:36
◼
►
on this piece of glass.
00:40:37
◼
►
Lots of different sizes, from big to small,
00:40:39
◼
►
square and rectangle.
00:40:40
◼
►
And I gotta say, we have these all over the place.
00:40:42
◼
►
We have, I think I have seven of them
00:40:44
◼
►
in the office right now.
00:40:45
◼
►
Plus I have them, we have a few in the rest of the house.
00:40:48
◼
►
Different sizes, huge to tiny.
00:40:50
◼
►
We also given them as gifts.
00:40:52
◼
►
They make wonderful gifts.
00:40:54
◼
►
Because a good photo print,
00:40:55
◼
►
that's an emotionally important gift to somebody.
00:40:59
◼
►
And to have it be on such a nice medium is just bonus.
00:41:02
◼
►
If you're gonna send a gift to friends or family,
00:41:06
◼
►
you can send them a photo that really means something
00:41:08
◼
►
to you and to them.
00:41:09
◼
►
And to have it on a fracture print makes it look awesome.
00:41:12
◼
►
It fits in with any decor.
00:41:13
◼
►
It's low hassle, super easy.
00:41:15
◼
►
It comes with everything you need right in the box
00:41:16
◼
►
to hang it up.
00:41:17
◼
►
It's such a nice present.
00:41:19
◼
►
And it's such a nice thing to have in your own place.
00:41:21
◼
►
So check it out today at fractureme.com/atp
00:41:25
◼
►
for a special discount on your first fracture order.
00:41:28
◼
►
And you can feel good about this too.
00:41:30
◼
►
'Cause they're handmade in Gainesville, Florida
00:41:31
◼
►
from US source materials in a carbon neutral factory.
00:41:34
◼
►
Fractureme.com/atp for a special discount
00:41:38
◼
►
on your first fracture order.
00:41:39
◼
►
They will ask you where you came from after checkout.
00:41:41
◼
►
Make sure to tell them you came from ATP.
00:41:43
◼
►
Once again, fractureme.com/atp.
00:41:46
◼
►
Thank you so much to Fracture for sponsoring our show.
00:41:49
◼
►
(upbeat music)
00:41:52
◼
►
- Let's talk about Catalina.
00:41:53
◼
►
We glanced off of this earlier.
00:41:55
◼
►
I had told you to recap from just a little while ago
00:41:58
◼
►
that I do have it on my MacBook Adorable.
00:42:00
◼
►
I do not yet have it on my iMac.
00:42:02
◼
►
And so far so good, just a few days in.
00:42:04
◼
►
I also wanted to quickly, before I pitch to you guys
00:42:07
◼
►
and ask what your status is,
00:42:09
◼
►
I wanted to say that having just reformatted,
00:42:13
◼
►
to use Windows-ism, reformatted both of my computers
00:42:17
◼
►
and started from scratch, surprisingly refreshing.
00:42:20
◼
►
I feel like the iMac in particular
00:42:24
◼
►
had a lot of cruft and garbage and junk on it
00:42:28
◼
►
that I didn't even, couldn't even keep track of.
00:42:31
◼
►
And I don't know what about it.
00:42:34
◼
►
Maybe it's again, all a placebo,
00:42:35
◼
►
but having this like new fresh installation,
00:42:38
◼
►
even of Mojave, has felt really, really good.
00:42:41
◼
►
And I really, really recommend it
00:42:43
◼
►
if you haven't done this in a long time.
00:42:44
◼
►
And I'd be curious, Marco,
00:42:46
◼
►
particularly when I stop talking,
00:42:48
◼
►
how you feel about the idea of doing that.
00:42:50
◼
►
Because last I had heard, I thought Marco,
00:42:52
◼
►
you and maybe John as well,
00:42:54
◼
►
were carrying basically a build that had been migrated
00:42:57
◼
►
from, I don't know, 15 years ago,
00:43:00
◼
►
carrying it through all the way to your iMac Pro today.
00:43:02
◼
►
And as a final quick note,
00:43:05
◼
►
I wanted to call attention to Homebrew Bundle,
00:43:09
◼
►
which I wrote a small blog post about this week,
00:43:11
◼
►
and I'll link that as well.
00:43:12
◼
►
But Homebrew Bundle is kind of like a bundler for Ruby gems,
00:43:15
◼
►
if you're familiar with that at all,
00:43:16
◼
►
and basically lets you put together a file
00:43:19
◼
►
that Homebrew will use to look at,
00:43:21
◼
►
to install a whole bunch of software on your computer.
00:43:23
◼
►
And that doesn't necessarily mean just command line stuff.
00:43:25
◼
►
It can be Mac App Store stuff, it can be GUI stuff,
00:43:29
◼
►
all sorts of different things.
00:43:30
◼
►
And I found that having done this
00:43:33
◼
►
and worked out exactly what I wanted in my brew file,
00:43:36
◼
►
as they call it,
00:43:37
◼
►
working out exactly what I wanted my brew file for the iMac
00:43:42
◼
►
and getting it kind of locked in there,
00:43:44
◼
►
it made it that much easier and less daunting
00:43:46
◼
►
to go ahead and refresh and reformat my MacBook Adorable,
00:43:51
◼
►
because all I had to do was run this brew file
00:43:53
◼
►
I just worked on the week prior,
00:43:55
◼
►
and 90% of the stuff I needed was automatically installed,
00:43:58
◼
►
which was really, really great.
00:43:59
◼
►
So let me start with Marco, two questions.
00:44:01
◼
►
One, are you running Catalina, and if so, where?
00:44:04
◼
►
And two, are you still carrying around
00:44:07
◼
►
a 10 or 15 year old builds, for lack of a better term?
00:44:11
◼
►
- So in typical style,
00:44:12
◼
►
I'm going to answer your second question first,
00:44:14
◼
►
and answer your first question later.
00:44:16
◼
►
Second question is,
00:44:18
◼
►
am I still carrying the same installation?
00:44:21
◼
►
I've had two unique Mac desktop installations
00:44:25
◼
►
during my Mac using career since 2006,
00:44:30
◼
►
since 2004, rather.
00:44:31
◼
►
I forget when I did the second one, but it's old.
00:44:35
◼
►
So I did one for a few years, then reset it,
00:44:37
◼
►
did a fresh one, but last time I did the fresh one
00:44:40
◼
►
was a long time ago.
00:44:41
◼
►
To answer your first question a little bit later,
00:44:45
◼
►
before that, to jump back for a second,
00:44:46
◼
►
your homebrew thing.
00:44:48
◼
►
So I read this blog post, I was very interested
00:44:50
◼
►
because as you mentioned,
00:44:51
◼
►
that it doesn't just install command line stuff,
00:44:53
◼
►
I'm really curious to learn about how it can also install
00:44:56
◼
►
other apps that are not,
00:44:57
◼
►
that are in the Mac App Store and stuff.
00:44:59
◼
►
But my concern, or my hesitation before I invest
00:45:02
◼
►
any time into this, the idea of having a script
00:45:06
◼
►
to set up a fresh installation of Mac OS,
00:45:09
◼
►
I love that idea.
00:45:10
◼
►
I tried making one of those, using homebrew
00:45:12
◼
►
for some of my command line stuff, you know,
00:45:14
◼
►
about a year ago.
00:45:16
◼
►
And as has been the case with most package managers ever,
00:45:21
◼
►
and especially for me with homebrew,
00:45:25
◼
►
it seems like if I write the script, get it all working,
00:45:30
◼
►
and then I buy a new computer in six months,
00:45:35
◼
►
the chances of the script still working are extremely low.
00:45:39
◼
►
And the chances that I'm gonna have to mess with it
00:45:41
◼
►
and fix things that have broken in the meantime
00:45:44
◼
►
is almost 100%.
00:45:45
◼
►
And therefore-- - Well of course you have
00:45:46
◼
►
to have a new version of your package manager
00:45:48
◼
►
for the new OS, so just do that before you get it set up.
00:45:50
◼
►
- Right, and so, but it's like,
00:45:52
◼
►
this gets me every time with package manager stuff,
00:45:54
◼
►
and especially with homebrew.
00:45:56
◼
►
Homebrew is so bad about this,
00:45:57
◼
►
'cause they change stuff so often.
00:45:59
◼
►
Like, I have a really hard time getting excited
00:46:03
◼
►
about this stuff, because I don't need to set up,
00:46:05
◼
►
like if I had to set up five computers this week,
00:46:08
◼
►
I would get one of these going,
00:46:09
◼
►
if I didn't have any kind of other automation thing,
00:46:11
◼
►
I would get one of these things going, and that'd be great.
00:46:13
◼
►
But for my actual need for it,
00:46:16
◼
►
which is setting up a new computer maybe once or twice a year
00:46:19
◼
►
it's so unlikely that it's actually gonna end up
00:46:22
◼
►
saving me time, because I have to mess with it
00:46:24
◼
►
the next time I actually have to use it, 'cause it breaks.
00:46:26
◼
►
- You know, I hear you, I really honestly do,
00:46:28
◼
►
and all I can tell you is that I first started working
00:46:32
◼
►
on a brew file like a year and a half ago,
00:46:34
◼
►
maybe two years ago, when I was at my jobby job,
00:46:37
◼
►
my last jobby job, and I think I did have to make
00:46:40
◼
►
a couple of small changes, and as I've lamented before,
00:46:44
◼
►
homebrew is a blessing and a curse,
00:46:46
◼
►
like the error messaging is both obnoxious
00:46:49
◼
►
and not very useful, and there were a couple of things
00:46:52
◼
►
that I needed to tweak, but it was very, very low impact,
00:46:56
◼
►
and for me, I still had this brew file from like,
00:47:00
◼
►
I don't know, 18, 24 months ago,
00:47:02
◼
►
and it almost entirely worked as is.
00:47:04
◼
►
So I totally sympathize with what you're saying,
00:47:07
◼
►
you are not wrong, but there's not a lot
00:47:09
◼
►
to these brew files, it's not like I'm running shell scripts
00:47:11
◼
►
or anything like that, which actually those don't really
00:47:13
◼
►
change over time, but you get my point, right,
00:47:15
◼
►
that there's not a lot of execution that's happening here,
00:47:18
◼
►
I'm just pointing homebrew at a bunch of different
00:47:20
◼
►
either Mac App Store IDs or brew package names
00:47:24
◼
►
or whatever the case may be, and it's just going
00:47:27
◼
►
to fetch them, so there's so little,
00:47:29
◼
►
there's so many, there's so little moving parts
00:47:32
◼
►
in the brew file, obviously there's a ton of moving parts
00:47:34
◼
►
behind the scenes, but in the brew file itself,
00:47:35
◼
►
there's so few moving parts that I'm not too worried
00:47:38
◼
►
about keeping it up to date between OS releases,
00:47:40
◼
►
but again, I totally hear what you're saying,
00:47:42
◼
►
and especially if you're the kind of person
00:47:44
◼
►
that only does this once every five years,
00:47:47
◼
►
then this is kind of useless, but for me,
00:47:50
◼
►
I like having this as a tool in my tool belt,
00:47:53
◼
►
so if I get a new 16-inch laptop, for example,
00:47:56
◼
►
I can just run this file and it will make all my software
00:48:00
◼
►
just get magically installed in one shot,
00:48:02
◼
►
and Marco, as someone who buys computers as often
00:48:05
◼
►
as I change underwear, this seems like something
00:48:07
◼
►
that might appeal to you.
00:48:09
◼
►
- You change underwear about once a year?
00:48:10
◼
►
- Yeah, I was waiting for that, I was waiting for it,
00:48:13
◼
►
fair play, fair play.
00:48:14
◼
►
- Yeah, and to be fair, while I just said that
00:48:17
◼
►
I hardly ever change over and start fresh
00:48:19
◼
►
on my main desktop Mac, I usually will start
00:48:22
◼
►
any laptop I get fresh, and I usually do buy
00:48:25
◼
►
about one laptop a year, so it's, yeah,
00:48:28
◼
►
I do need this, but I need it just infrequently enough,
00:48:32
◼
►
like about once a year, maybe twice if it's a really
00:48:34
◼
►
crazy year, or maybe every two years if I'm exercising
00:48:37
◼
►
some self-control, but I need it infrequently enough
00:48:40
◼
►
that it usually breaks and it drives me nuts,
00:48:42
◼
►
but anyway, so going back to your original question
00:48:44
◼
►
about Catalina, I have not yet installed it,
00:48:48
◼
►
I installed the early betas here and there
00:48:50
◼
►
like on second partitions, but I have not upgraded
00:48:52
◼
►
my main partitions to them, I didn't even keep up
00:48:54
◼
►
with the betas, I eventually just stopped caring
00:48:55
◼
►
and have just abandoned those partitions.
00:48:58
◼
►
I haven't booted into Catalina in months now,
00:49:02
◼
►
because ultimately, the only reason I wanted to boot
00:49:04
◼
►
into it was to develop for Catalyst, or play with
00:49:07
◼
►
SwiftUI live previewing, and I quickly learned
00:49:10
◼
►
that A, I wouldn't have time for either of those things
00:49:13
◼
►
this summer or fall, and B, I quickly learned
00:49:17
◼
►
those things were very, very, very early,
00:49:19
◼
►
I had still lots of problems, and so I didn't want
00:49:21
◼
►
to get into it yet, so I'm mainly looking at Catalina now
00:49:25
◼
►
as a user, not as a developer, and as a user,
00:49:30
◼
►
there are so many downsides and removals
00:49:35
◼
►
and somewhat hostile changes in Catalina.
00:49:39
◼
►
- Such as what?
00:49:41
◼
►
- Well, all the permissions stuff, all the 32-bit apps
00:49:44
◼
►
breaking, all of the new dialogs and exceptions,
00:49:48
◼
►
a lot of stuff has changed under the hood
00:49:50
◼
►
for various reasons, the new partition thing,
00:49:53
◼
►
which might, who knows what little problems
00:49:56
◼
►
that might cause for various scripts
00:49:57
◼
►
and other apps and everything, all the crazy stuff
00:50:01
◼
►
you have to do to get terminal to work correctly,
00:50:03
◼
►
they changed my shell on me, there's so many changes
00:50:06
◼
►
that are going to be little pains in the ass to me
00:50:09
◼
►
that I have to look at the other side and say,
00:50:12
◼
►
all right, what's the benefit here,
00:50:14
◼
►
what am I getting for this?
00:50:16
◼
►
And there's also the risk, by the way, of quality issues.
00:50:21
◼
►
Like, it's very clear that Apple has released
00:50:24
◼
►
all the software this fall, not because it's ready,
00:50:28
◼
►
not because it's good, but because it was time.
00:50:32
◼
►
And so, as a user, I'm not particularly excited
00:50:37
◼
►
to jump into this, I'm scared about it,
00:50:40
◼
►
because I know that there is going to be regressions,
00:50:45
◼
►
there's going to be feature losses,
00:50:46
◼
►
I'm going to probably have to replace some old software,
00:50:49
◼
►
or I might not even know that very quickly,
00:50:51
◼
►
it might take a while to even realize that,
00:50:54
◼
►
I know there's going to be some friction involved
00:50:55
◼
►
in getting through all the apps, permissions, dialogs,
00:50:59
◼
►
and fixing terminal, all this stuff,
00:51:01
◼
►
I'm going to have to probably fix my PHP
00:51:03
◼
►
and Nginx setup again, using Homebrew
00:51:06
◼
►
to rewrite my entire script again.
00:51:09
◼
►
Like, this happens with every OS.
00:51:11
◼
►
So, there is a significant cost to me as a user,
00:51:16
◼
►
and I look at, well, okay, what am I getting for it?
00:51:20
◼
►
And I just don't see it, I'm not motivated at all,
00:51:23
◼
►
I'm not excited, I don't want to jump into it,
00:51:26
◼
►
because it seems like what you're getting with Catalina is,
00:51:30
◼
►
Apple really needs a lot of this stuff.
00:51:33
◼
►
Like, it benefits Apple to remove all this crap
00:51:37
◼
►
and change all this stuff and lock everything down even more.
00:51:41
◼
►
Does it really benefit me?
00:51:43
◼
►
I'm not sure a lot of it does.
00:51:45
◼
►
And so, for me, there's just not enough carrot
00:51:50
◼
►
to take the stick, I guess.
00:51:51
◼
►
Like, there's not enough good stuff here
00:51:54
◼
►
to motivate me to want to update,
00:51:56
◼
►
and not to mention the fact that I'm concerned about quality
00:51:59
◼
►
and so, you know, I will eventually update to it.
00:52:02
◼
►
I might last another like, you know, point one or point two,
00:52:07
◼
►
and I'm sure whenever the new laptops come out,
00:52:09
◼
►
I'm gonna buy it immediately,
00:52:11
◼
►
and so I'll have Catalina on that.
00:52:13
◼
►
But, you know, otherwise, like on my desktop,
00:52:17
◼
►
I'm not motivated yet to upgrade,
00:52:19
◼
►
because there just seems to be not enough upside,
00:52:22
◼
►
and there's significant possible downsides.
00:52:25
◼
►
- You know, I think the key thing you just said
00:52:28
◼
►
was on my desktop, because the one thing
00:52:30
◼
►
that I really was enthusiastic about putting Catalina
00:52:34
◼
►
on my MacBook was Sidecar, which is the Luna Display-esque,
00:52:39
◼
►
you know, use your iPad as a secondary display
00:52:43
◼
►
when you're perhaps away from the house.
00:52:45
◼
►
So, as an example, I did not use it this morning,
00:52:47
◼
►
but this would have been the sort of time I would have.
00:52:49
◼
►
I went to Wegmans, which is a local fancy pants grocery store
00:52:53
◼
►
kind of in the vein of Whole Foods, if you will,
00:52:55
◼
►
and I was sitting in their little like cafe area,
00:52:58
◼
►
and I was using both my laptop and my iPad.
00:53:00
◼
►
Now, today, it just so happened
00:53:02
◼
►
I was doing different things on both,
00:53:03
◼
►
but generally speaking, especially if you have,
00:53:05
◼
►
oh, I don't know, a 12-inch laptop,
00:53:08
◼
►
that would have been the perfect opportunity to use Sidecar.
00:53:12
◼
►
And I am really excited to use it.
00:53:15
◼
►
I did use it very briefly when I first installed Catalina
00:53:17
◼
►
just to try it out, and in the literally five minutes
00:53:20
◼
►
I used it, it seemed to work really, really well.
00:53:23
◼
►
And so, I think if you're the kind of person
00:53:26
◼
►
who likes having two displays when you're,
00:53:29
◼
►
I don't know, on a graycation,
00:53:31
◼
►
then maybe you would enjoy Catalina on a laptop,
00:53:34
◼
►
but I think that's ultimately why I am not in a huge rush
00:53:38
◼
►
to put it on my iMac.
00:53:39
◼
►
Like, of course, I want the new Shiny,
00:53:41
◼
►
but to your point, Marco, on a desktop anyway,
00:53:44
◼
►
there's nothing that I can think of off the top of my head
00:53:46
◼
►
that I can point to that makes me say,
00:53:48
◼
►
this is what I need Catalina for, and I need it for now.
00:53:51
◼
►
It's my OS, and I want it now.
00:53:54
◼
►
So, I'm curious how long both of us last before our iMacs,
00:53:58
◼
►
well, in your case, iMac Pro, gets Catalina.
00:54:02
◼
►
Any other thoughts before we punt to Jon?
00:54:04
◼
►
- I mean, I think what's gonna finally make me do it
00:54:07
◼
►
is when I wanna start playing with Catalyst.
00:54:10
◼
►
Overcast, I'm finally catching up with some of the stuff
00:54:12
◼
►
I wanna do this summer, and I would still like
00:54:16
◼
►
to do a Catalyst app.
00:54:18
◼
►
I still have a lot of work to do before that's a good idea,
00:54:21
◼
►
but I'm probably gonna do it over the next month or two.
00:54:24
◼
►
So, I'm guessing I'm probably gonna upgrade,
00:54:27
◼
►
I don't know, in a month or two.
00:54:29
◼
►
- That's fair, and sitting here now,
00:54:32
◼
►
to the best you're willing to share,
00:54:33
◼
►
you view Catalyst and a Mac app as more important
00:54:37
◼
►
or interesting to you than doing something with SwiftUI?
00:54:41
◼
►
- At this point, yes.
00:54:42
◼
►
I think Catalyst is going to change over the next few years,
00:54:47
◼
►
a lot less than SwiftUI will.
00:54:51
◼
►
It seems very clear, looking at what they've done
00:54:54
◼
►
with Catalyst, and what's considered okay,
00:54:57
◼
►
and what's some things that seem not okay
00:55:02
◼
►
that they're considering okay.
00:55:04
◼
►
It seems clear to me that Catalyst is not gonna be
00:55:07
◼
►
an area of heavy investment for Apple.
00:55:10
◼
►
That what they really, I think the direction
00:55:12
◼
►
they're trying to go is SwiftUI.
00:55:14
◼
►
'Cause SwiftUI, Catalyst is like,
00:55:16
◼
►
let's put iPad code in a window and very lightly
00:55:21
◼
►
reskin some parts of it to be kind of Mac-like.
00:55:25
◼
►
Whereas SwiftUI is, let's let people write
00:55:30
◼
►
higher level code that doesn't give a lot of the specifics,
00:55:33
◼
►
and then the operating systems can deal with these specifics
00:55:38
◼
►
differently in ways that are native to them.
00:55:40
◼
►
That's probably the better approach for cross-platform code.
00:55:44
◼
►
And it does seem like SwiftUI is like the ultimate plan
00:55:48
◼
►
of where Apple wants us to go in the future.
00:55:52
◼
►
And it seems like Catalyst is a stopgap.
00:55:55
◼
►
Catalyst is our carbon to the carbon-cocoa divide
00:56:00
◼
►
of years ago.
00:56:01
◼
►
And so it will serve a function,
00:56:05
◼
►
but I don't know how much investment it's going to get,
00:56:07
◼
►
and it certainly doesn't seem like it's going to be
00:56:09
◼
►
the focus of a whole lot of excitement
00:56:11
◼
►
or necessarily high-quality apps.
00:56:14
◼
►
And it's also just, I mean, part of it,
00:56:17
◼
►
it's still super early.
00:56:18
◼
►
Like everything else they shipped this summer,
00:56:20
◼
►
it's not really ready yet in a lot of ways.
00:56:22
◼
►
There's still some pretty annoying limitations
00:56:26
◼
►
and just like oversights.
00:56:28
◼
►
Like one of the things that a lot of people are facing
00:56:31
◼
►
is that you can't share purchases,
00:56:33
◼
►
and it can't be the same bundle ID.
00:56:34
◼
►
There's all sorts of weird stuff,
00:56:37
◼
►
because it's still two separate app stores.
00:56:40
◼
►
And so it's a whole thing.
00:56:41
◼
►
But anyway, I am not excited about Catalyst at all.
00:56:47
◼
►
I view it simply as a tool.
00:56:49
◼
►
Like I'm as excited about Catalyst
00:56:51
◼
►
as I am about App Store Connect.
00:56:53
◼
►
It's like this is a tool that I will have to use
00:56:57
◼
►
to achieve a goal I want,
00:56:59
◼
►
but I'm not excited about it at all.
00:57:00
◼
►
- Yeah, I hear you.
00:57:01
◼
►
And for the record, I think that that is the correct call,
00:57:03
◼
►
not that you really need my approval,
00:57:04
◼
►
but I think Catalyst probably makes a lot more sense for you
00:57:07
◼
►
than doing something with SwiftUI.
00:57:10
◼
►
But I view them as somewhat related,
00:57:12
◼
►
since both of them to be used properly
00:57:14
◼
►
really do require Catalina.
00:57:17
◼
►
- Yeah, and SwiftUI I think is gonna be very important
00:57:21
◼
►
to me in the future, but I kinda wanna hold off.
00:57:24
◼
►
My initial plan of SwiftUI was to redo my watch app
00:57:28
◼
►
is with SwiftUI first, learn it there
00:57:30
◼
►
on that much simpler, smaller canvas
00:57:33
◼
►
and smaller problem space,
00:57:35
◼
►
and then be able to apply those skills
00:57:37
◼
►
to other stuff in the main app.
00:57:39
◼
►
And that's probably still what I'm going to do.
00:57:41
◼
►
I haven't started yet.
00:57:42
◼
►
That's probably still what I'm going to do,
00:57:44
◼
►
but even doing the watch app in SwiftUI,
00:57:48
◼
►
SwiftUI itself is still so early and still so,
00:57:52
◼
►
like almost everything Apple has done recently,
00:57:54
◼
►
so poorly documented and undiscoverable.
00:57:58
◼
►
And it's still, as mentioned before,
00:58:01
◼
►
the error messages are comically hostile
00:58:03
◼
►
and it's still very obtuse in lots of ways.
00:58:06
◼
►
And so I might even wait still on that.
00:58:10
◼
►
But SwiftUI I think has a much more exciting future
00:58:13
◼
►
than Catalyst in the present.
00:58:16
◼
►
Frankly, I'm not that excited about either of them.
00:58:18
◼
►
- Yeah, that makes sense.
00:58:19
◼
►
Can we do a quick tangent if you don't mind,
00:58:22
◼
►
and you can just-- - Us?
00:58:23
◼
►
- Through the magic of, yeah, through the magic of editing,
00:58:24
◼
►
you can just put this somewhere where it makes sense.
00:58:26
◼
►
How is the documentation so bad this year?
00:58:30
◼
►
How is this a thing?
00:58:31
◼
►
- Honestly, it's not just this year.
00:58:33
◼
►
Like this is, I think it's worse this year
00:58:36
◼
►
than it had in previous years,
00:58:39
◼
►
but almost all new APIs that Apple has released
00:58:44
◼
►
over the last few years have very little
00:58:47
◼
►
to no documentation.
00:58:49
◼
►
There are so often that I have to jump
00:58:51
◼
►
into the header file for something just to see
00:58:53
◼
►
what the heck even the methods and properties do.
00:58:56
◼
►
- Speaking of that, with Swift not having header files,
00:58:59
◼
►
how do you deal with that?
00:59:01
◼
►
- I haven't had to deal with that yet,
00:59:02
◼
►
but that's gonna be an issue.
00:59:04
◼
►
And even the things that aren't header file based,
00:59:09
◼
►
a lot of the APIs, the documentation is,
00:59:12
◼
►
oh, go watch this WWDC session video from three years ago.
00:59:16
◼
►
That's the only time this was ever explained.
00:59:18
◼
►
- Yep, and that just grinds my gears so much.
00:59:20
◼
►
It's so unbelievably frustrating.
00:59:23
◼
►
Apple says, here, developer, here's this magical API
00:59:27
◼
►
that we allege will do exactly what you've wanted to do,
00:59:32
◼
►
but (bleep) you, figure it out yourself.
00:59:34
◼
►
It's just so frustrating.
00:59:36
◼
►
And I understand that it is more important
00:59:41
◼
►
to have a functional API, and you were kind of going
00:59:44
◼
►
on a tear about this briefly earlier on Twitter, Marco,
00:59:46
◼
►
and I agree with you.
00:59:48
◼
►
It is more important to have a functional API,
00:59:49
◼
►
which doesn't always work these days with Apple,
00:59:51
◼
►
but it is more important to have a functional API
00:59:53
◼
►
than it is perfect documentation.
00:59:55
◼
►
But it is genuinely unfortunate and frustrating.
01:00:00
◼
►
And I would almost go so far as to say unfair
01:00:04
◼
►
that Apple is expecting all these developers like you,
01:00:07
◼
►
like me, to adopt all these new APIs,
01:00:09
◼
►
but yet there is no formal documentation for them.
01:00:12
◼
►
And I know that some of the developers internal to Apple
01:00:16
◼
►
will put just unbelievably good documentation
01:00:19
◼
►
in their header files.
01:00:20
◼
►
Like, look at the Collection View header files
01:00:22
◼
►
and how unbelievably good they are
01:00:23
◼
►
with all of the ASCII art that's in there.
01:00:25
◼
►
But is there any good Collection View proper documentation
01:00:29
◼
►
on any of this stuff?
01:00:31
◼
►
I haven't seen much.
01:00:32
◼
►
And a lot of times, it's like you said,
01:00:33
◼
►
go to the dub dub session and you'll be fine.
01:00:35
◼
►
And that's just not acceptable.
01:00:38
◼
►
And it makes me wonder if the people who are writing,
01:00:41
◼
►
like Collection View and some of these other things,
01:00:43
◼
►
are taking the time to do this header documentation,
01:00:46
◼
►
is that because something outside of their org
01:00:49
◼
►
is preventing them from doing the real documentation?
01:00:52
◼
►
Like, is it that the lawyers are holding it up
01:00:54
◼
►
or the people who, maybe it's a different org
01:00:57
◼
►
that writes the documentation,
01:00:58
◼
►
which actually is probably the case,
01:00:59
◼
►
and they're just behind or slow or gosh knows what else.
01:01:03
◼
►
But man, what a frustrating and silly self-own,
01:01:07
◼
►
at least to my eyes.
01:01:08
◼
►
- Oh yeah, I mean, which is honestly,
01:01:09
◼
►
that's kind of the story of a lot of the Apple stuff
01:01:11
◼
►
recently, but yeah, like, and you know,
01:01:14
◼
►
you mentioned a second ago that like, you know,
01:01:15
◼
►
that's probably a separate team
01:01:17
◼
►
that writes the documentation.
01:01:19
◼
►
It seems, first of all, that's probably true,
01:01:20
◼
►
and it seems like that should be an easy thing to scale.
01:01:25
◼
►
- Yeah, one would think.
01:01:26
◼
►
- 'Cause you don't have to have the engineers
01:01:27
◼
►
who wrote the stuff be the ones who documented everything.
01:01:31
◼
►
And it seems like it should be relatively easy,
01:01:34
◼
►
'cause that's relatively orthogonal
01:01:36
◼
►
to the development of the APIs.
01:01:37
◼
►
Like, you can have people who make documentation.
01:01:40
◼
►
You can have people who make sample code
01:01:42
◼
►
and sample projects.
01:01:43
◼
►
Like, that seems like it would be easy
01:01:46
◼
►
to hire totally separate people to do those things.
01:01:49
◼
►
One of the biggest problems that I have
01:01:51
◼
►
as a developer with Apple's APIs,
01:01:52
◼
►
in addition to the lack of documentation,
01:01:55
◼
►
is that a lot of the APIs simply don't work,
01:01:58
◼
►
and it seems like no one in Apple
01:01:59
◼
►
ever actually tried to use them.
01:02:01
◼
►
And this is like yet another thing
01:02:03
◼
►
that you would think a similar orthogonal group could do.
01:02:07
◼
►
Have a group of people at Apple employed
01:02:09
◼
►
who just try to build something
01:02:11
◼
►
with every new API they make,
01:02:13
◼
►
using only the public stuff that developers get to use.
01:02:16
◼
►
Because I've faced so many problems over the last few years
01:02:20
◼
►
of seeming like I'm the only person
01:02:22
◼
►
who's trying to build on something,
01:02:23
◼
►
or building on an API that's like two years old,
01:02:26
◼
►
and finding critical flaws in it
01:02:29
◼
►
where it doesn't actually work,
01:02:30
◼
►
and it's like, has anybody actually shipped anything
01:02:33
◼
►
using this API over the last two years?
01:02:35
◼
►
'Cause you can't.
01:02:36
◼
►
And it seems like, with so much other stuff,
01:02:39
◼
►
they don't seem to actually be even trying it
01:02:42
◼
►
before they ship it, or after they ship it.
01:02:44
◼
►
- Anyway, John, I'm sorry, we got on a tangent,
01:02:47
◼
►
which was my fault, so tell me,
01:02:48
◼
►
how do you feel about Catalina,
01:02:49
◼
►
and how many decades has this Mac probe been in existence?
01:02:54
◼
►
Has that build lived?
01:02:57
◼
►
- Actually, before we get off that tangent,
01:02:59
◼
►
I'm really surprised that Marco would be even considering
01:03:02
◼
►
SwiftUI in any form, except for the fact
01:03:05
◼
►
that it's your only option if you wanna do
01:03:06
◼
►
like good WatchKit apps.
01:03:08
◼
►
Like that's, because SwiftUI is,
01:03:10
◼
►
it's not as young as the original Swift, but it's close.
01:03:14
◼
►
The only reason I say it's not is because
01:03:15
◼
►
the integration with Xcode necessarily
01:03:18
◼
►
is much richer than the original Swift had,
01:03:21
◼
►
because of the whole like, you know,
01:03:22
◼
►
real-time updates of the UI and the thing, or whatever.
01:03:25
◼
►
Swift 1.0 didn't have that.
01:03:26
◼
►
But other than that, I would imagine SwiftUI
01:03:29
◼
►
is probably gonna go through the same sort of
01:03:31
◼
►
tumultuous series of changes that Swift, you know,
01:03:34
◼
►
2.0 through 4.0 went through.
01:03:37
◼
►
Hopefully not syntax-wise and breaking your code-wise,
01:03:39
◼
►
but it's got a long way to go.
01:03:41
◼
►
Like, we see the promise, you know,
01:03:44
◼
►
much more so than with Swift itself, I think.
01:03:46
◼
►
We see what SwiftUI could bring
01:03:50
◼
►
when it gets more full-featured,
01:03:52
◼
►
when the tooling gets even better,
01:03:53
◼
►
when, as you both complained,
01:03:55
◼
►
the error messages get better.
01:03:56
◼
►
And by the way, the error message,
01:03:57
◼
►
it's not just a matter of like writing good error messages.
01:03:59
◼
►
Structurally, there are things about the way SwiftUI works
01:04:02
◼
►
that's going to make it very difficult to be sensible,
01:04:06
◼
►
and they have to come up with solutions
01:04:08
◼
►
for all of those problems.
01:04:09
◼
►
It's not just, oh, we didn't have time
01:04:10
◼
►
to make good error messages.
01:04:11
◼
►
It's like sort of the tooling around React
01:04:14
◼
►
or any other kind of like various event-driven frameworks
01:04:18
◼
►
where things happen asynchronously,
01:04:21
◼
►
where just getting a stack trace tells you nothing, right?
01:04:24
◼
►
And just getting an error from the point where it occurs
01:04:26
◼
►
tells you nothing about where it originated, right,
01:04:28
◼
►
because of the nature of the sort of execution model
01:04:31
◼
►
and the fact that it is declarative and not imperative,
01:04:33
◼
►
and you're not controlling when everything happens.
01:04:34
◼
►
Things just happen in response to things that you declared,
01:04:37
◼
►
but you're not quite sure what thing you declared
01:04:38
◼
►
caused that thing to happen at that time.
01:04:39
◼
►
And, you know, it's a hard problem to solve.
01:04:42
◼
►
So for how long Marco stayed away from Swift,
01:04:46
◼
►
I'm really surprised that he's even looking at SwiftUI
01:04:49
◼
►
at all, except when forced, like with the Watch app.
01:04:51
◼
►
So in other words--
01:04:52
◼
►
- That just tells you how bad WatchKit is.
01:04:55
◼
►
- Well, yeah, 'cause it's an upgrade over like
01:04:57
◼
►
just describe a window for me,
01:04:59
◼
►
and I'll put it on the screen for you.
01:05:01
◼
►
At least you get to use two interactive elements
01:05:03
◼
►
and you like draw things and stuff.
01:05:05
◼
►
- Yeah, like WatchKit is like that much
01:05:08
◼
►
of a bane of my existence whenever I go near it.
01:05:10
◼
►
Like I hate WatchKit so much that I will tolerate
01:05:14
◼
►
learning the new craziness with SwiftUI
01:05:17
◼
►
because WatchKit's that bad.
01:05:18
◼
►
- Yeah, and plus you would imagine like
01:05:20
◼
►
there's not that many controls on WatchKit,
01:05:22
◼
►
and so even with the current limits of SwiftUI,
01:05:25
◼
►
plus or minus the error messages,
01:05:26
◼
►
like you're not gonna have that many controls
01:05:28
◼
►
on screen at once.
01:05:29
◼
►
They're not gonna be that complicated,
01:05:30
◼
►
so it feels like it actually is a good fit
01:05:32
◼
►
for a first foray, but then you'll have to change
01:05:36
◼
►
all that code like next year and the year after
01:05:38
◼
►
as they break stuff or quote unquote improve things.
01:05:41
◼
►
They will improve things, and that will mean
01:05:42
◼
►
your crusty old original SwiftUI stuff has to be changed.
01:05:46
◼
►
- Yeah, well that's okay.
01:05:47
◼
►
I rewrite my Watch app every couple of years anyway.
01:05:50
◼
►
- Who doesn't, right?
01:05:52
◼
►
Really quickly, Scott Horn on Twitter just posted,
01:05:55
◼
►
which I thought was very well put.
01:05:57
◼
►
If you can't properly document your API,
01:05:58
◼
►
the chances are that it works as intended are slim to none.
01:06:03
◼
►
Documentation forces testing,
01:06:04
◼
►
and I think that's a very good call.
01:06:06
◼
►
- Documentation forces testing, so optimistic.
01:06:09
◼
►
Yeah, right, forces testing.
01:06:11
◼
►
You know what tells you if your API works?
01:06:12
◼
►
Tests, that's what tells you your API works, do you?
01:06:14
◼
►
But here's what documentation does.
01:06:16
◼
►
Documentation, this is why I always press at work
01:06:19
◼
►
and no one ever believes me,
01:06:20
◼
►
so I'm the only person who thinks this,
01:06:21
◼
►
but it is actually right.
01:06:23
◼
►
Writing documentation-- - Of course it is.
01:06:25
◼
►
Everyone else is wrong, John.
01:06:26
◼
►
- You'll agree with me, you'll see.
01:06:27
◼
►
Writing documentation for your API, your code, your library,
01:06:32
◼
►
is a great way to let you know if you have a good API,
01:06:37
◼
►
because if you find yourself struggling
01:06:38
◼
►
to explain how something works,
01:06:41
◼
►
if you find yourself having to write paragraph
01:06:42
◼
►
after paragraph, including caveats and prerequisites
01:06:45
◼
►
and assumptions and everything, you have a bad API.
01:06:48
◼
►
It may work great and the tests may all pass,
01:06:50
◼
►
but then you're like, when it comes time
01:06:52
◼
►
to explain the purpose of this function,
01:06:54
◼
►
explain what arguments it takes
01:06:56
◼
►
and what it returns under what conditions,
01:06:58
◼
►
if you end up writing a choose-your-own-adventure novel
01:07:00
◼
►
underneath that thing, guess what?
01:07:03
◼
►
You just discovered that your,
01:07:04
◼
►
and that's why you can't leave, that your API is bad.
01:07:06
◼
►
You can't leave this to the end,
01:07:08
◼
►
because at the end when you're all done,
01:07:09
◼
►
like we wrote our API and people are building on it
01:07:12
◼
►
and all our tests pass and it's awesome
01:07:13
◼
►
and we did performance improvements,
01:07:15
◼
►
now, finally, the last step, the cherry on top,
01:07:17
◼
►
I'm gonna go write the docs, and you're like,
01:07:19
◼
►
oh my God, this API is terrible and we have to change this.
01:07:22
◼
►
There's no way I can explain to a user how to use this API.
01:07:24
◼
►
Like, I'm embarrassed for myself
01:07:26
◼
►
that I have to say these words, like,
01:07:28
◼
►
well, I can do this, but if you pass that and it does that,
01:07:30
◼
►
make sure you do this, but don't call it in this context
01:07:31
◼
►
and then just, like, oh God, what have we done?
01:07:34
◼
►
Like, it works, but, so you can't save the documentation
01:07:37
◼
►
at the end, you have to write the docs,
01:07:39
◼
►
maybe not at the beginning, but somewhere in the middle,
01:07:41
◼
►
because you will learn that your API is screwed up
01:07:44
◼
►
through writing the documentation,
01:07:45
◼
►
or someone else will learn it and come tell you.
01:07:48
◼
►
- Well put, you're right, I did end up agreeing with you.
01:07:51
◼
►
All right, I'm gonna stop talking.
01:07:53
◼
►
Marco is hopefully gonna stop talking.
01:07:54
◼
►
Tell us about Catalina.
01:07:56
◼
►
- Oh, I'm gonna talk about my, you know,
01:07:57
◼
►
so I do upgrade installs on my Mac forever.
01:08:00
◼
►
I am pretty sure that I have files on my Mac
01:08:04
◼
►
that came from classic Mac OS.
01:08:06
◼
►
- Wow, that's interesting. - Because remember,
01:08:08
◼
►
when, you know, my Blue and White G3 was purchased with
01:08:11
◼
►
and ran for most of its life, classic Mac OS.
01:08:13
◼
►
Eventually it ran Mac OS X, but I installed it on top of
01:08:16
◼
►
my installation of classic Mac OS.
01:08:18
◼
►
So yeah, I've just been,
01:08:21
◼
►
I just peeked in my library preferences folder
01:08:23
◼
►
and the oldest file I have in there
01:08:25
◼
►
was last modified in 2003.
01:08:27
◼
►
So I have files that, - Oh, golly.
01:08:29
◼
►
- I have files that predate both of your use of the Mac.
01:08:31
◼
►
You can know that, you know they're old files from classic
01:08:33
◼
►
when they, the file names don't have file name extensions.
01:08:36
◼
►
That's a good way to tell.
01:08:37
◼
►
- Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:08:38
◼
►
- Yeah, anyway, that's what I do
01:08:39
◼
►
and I will continue to do with my installs.
01:08:41
◼
►
Although it's like, transferring to the new Mac Pro
01:08:46
◼
►
is gonna be, I gotta figure out how I can actually
01:08:49
◼
►
connect them with a cable that's not ridiculously slow
01:08:51
◼
►
'cause you can like firewire to Thunderbolt to USB to,
01:08:56
◼
►
maybe I'll just do ethernet, I don't know.
01:08:58
◼
►
I'll figure something out, but it's gonna take a while
01:09:00
◼
►
'cause I have a lot of files.
01:09:03
◼
►
So Catalina, obviously I'm not running it on this Mac
01:09:06
◼
►
because I can't.
01:09:07
◼
►
- Oh, wop wop.
01:09:09
◼
►
- I feel very similar to Marco in that,
01:09:14
◼
►
like there's not much pulling me into Catalina
01:09:18
◼
►
and there's lots of stuff keeping me away.
01:09:20
◼
►
Aside from bugs, like oh, I'm afraid the first version
01:09:22
◼
►
will be buggy or whatever.
01:09:24
◼
►
There's the whole 32-bit apps going away.
01:09:27
◼
►
I have a lot of 32-bit apps, most of which I've been
01:09:30
◼
►
saying my goodbyes to, like all right,
01:09:32
◼
►
I'm gonna live without you, like saying my goodbyes
01:09:34
◼
►
to Drag Thing, all my games and like, you know.
01:09:38
◼
►
There's a lot of stuff, but there's a couple ones
01:09:40
◼
►
that are really just, I bought a new version
01:09:42
◼
►
of Microsoft Office because the version of Microsoft Office
01:09:45
◼
►
I had was so old that, I don't know if it was 64-bit or not,
01:09:48
◼
►
but it was like, I was just, let me just solve that problem.
01:09:51
◼
►
The one that's really killing me though is Photoshop CS6.
01:09:55
◼
►
And I checked Photoshop CS6 as soon as I knew
01:09:58
◼
►
that Apple was dropping, like it was like two years ago
01:10:00
◼
►
when they made the announcement like this version
01:10:02
◼
►
will run 32-bit and then they stopped talking.
01:10:04
◼
►
It's like okay, well the next version won't.
01:10:05
◼
►
I'm like well I have to buy a new Photoshop
01:10:07
◼
►
and I did a little, you know, get in, I launched Photoshop,
01:10:09
◼
►
my Mac and I got in, oh, Photoshop CS6 is a 64-bit process,
01:10:12
◼
►
everything's fine and then I forgot about it
01:10:15
◼
►
and then I redid it, I downloaded like that,
01:10:17
◼
►
but Sinclair Software has this Go 64 application
01:10:20
◼
►
that will just scan your thing for 64-bit applications
01:10:23
◼
►
and, or 32-bit applications.
01:10:25
◼
►
And you know Photoshop CS6, it's a 64-bit application,
01:10:28
◼
►
I'm okay, right?
01:10:29
◼
►
But I did notice a lot of other 32-bit things
01:10:32
◼
►
with the word Adobe and I'm like, how do I do that stuff?
01:10:36
◼
►
So this is a question I have.
01:10:37
◼
►
I meant to tweet it earlier today
01:10:39
◼
►
and I'd already have the answer by now if I had tweeted it
01:10:41
◼
►
but I'll just, I shouldn't ask it on the program
01:10:43
◼
►
but anyway, 'cause I don't want a million people to tell me.
01:10:47
◼
►
I'll find out next week.
01:10:48
◼
►
But the question I have is if I upgrade to Catalina,
01:10:52
◼
►
can I even launch CS6 or will I, you know,
01:10:55
◼
►
like it's a 64-bit app, presumably it will launch,
01:10:57
◼
►
will it immediately crash because some Adobe utility
01:10:59
◼
►
won't work or is it like, you can launch it
01:11:01
◼
►
but you can't use like Bridge or some import functionality
01:11:04
◼
►
that I never use, like I'm a very light user of Photoshop
01:11:07
◼
►
but I do want to have it, I'm accustomed to it.
01:11:11
◼
►
So I don't, and I don't want to pay Adobe
01:11:15
◼
►
a monthly or yearly fee for Photoshop
01:11:17
◼
►
'cause I use it so rarely.
01:11:18
◼
►
Like I basically use it as like an image resizer,
01:11:23
◼
►
slight modification, you know, like I do, yeah,
01:11:26
◼
►
whatever weird t-shirt designs we're doing,
01:11:29
◼
►
sometimes I do in Photoshop, you know, or mock-ups.
01:11:32
◼
►
Like I don't use it that much.
01:11:33
◼
►
It's not worth it, it's not worth it for me to pay
01:11:36
◼
►
even like $5 a month for Photoshop
01:11:39
◼
►
or the equivalent yearly fee and you can't,
01:11:41
◼
►
as far as I know, you can't buy Photoshop anymore.
01:11:43
◼
►
I bought CS6 specifically because it was the last version
01:11:47
◼
►
that wasn't infected with Creative Cloud, not infected.
01:11:50
◼
►
Like I'm not against that model, I think it's fine.
01:11:51
◼
►
It just doesn't fit my use, my use of Photoshop.
01:11:54
◼
►
I'm not a professional person who makes their living
01:11:57
◼
►
using Photoshop, put it that way.
01:11:59
◼
►
So I don't want to upgrade to Catalina and lose Photoshop.
01:12:02
◼
►
And that's currently my biggest barrier,
01:12:06
◼
►
that and there's one application my wife uses
01:12:08
◼
►
for budgeting that she's saying her goodbyes to
01:12:10
◼
►
and she's like, she's told me before she left
01:12:13
◼
►
on another one of her trips, like don't upgrade my computer
01:12:17
◼
►
when I'm gone because I know that my budgeting application
01:12:21
◼
►
will not be supported anymore and I'm auditioning a new one
01:12:25
◼
►
but until that happens, you can't upgrade it.
01:12:27
◼
►
So there are a couple things keeping me away from it
01:12:29
◼
►
and the main thing pulling me into it is,
01:12:33
◼
►
I'm not really interested in Sidecar
01:12:34
◼
►
but I am interested in like the new applications,
01:12:38
◼
►
believe it or not, like the ability to watch 4K video
01:12:42
◼
►
if I wanted, yay, I'm entering the modern era.
01:12:44
◼
►
The new version of Photos, I spend a lot of time in Photos
01:12:46
◼
►
and I'm always hungry for a new version of Photos
01:12:48
◼
►
which tends to be tied to the OS.
01:12:50
◼
►
This new version of Photos might be good, might be bad
01:12:54
◼
►
but any change is an opportunity for things to be better
01:12:59
◼
►
whereas just for the entire life Mojave, I was like,
01:13:02
◼
►
yeah, here's Photos, it's never getting any better
01:13:04
◼
►
until the new version, so I do want to see that
01:13:06
◼
►
and by the way, my favorite plugin for doing
01:13:12
◼
►
the books that I print, Mimeo, that is not ready
01:13:15
◼
►
for Catalina yet either so I gotta wait for that update.
01:13:17
◼
►
There's an update coming soon that will make it work
01:13:19
◼
►
in Catalina and all the preference, the permission dialogue
01:13:24
◼
►
stuff, I'm not really too worried about that.
01:13:25
◼
►
It will be annoying but I'm the type of user
01:13:28
◼
►
that can handle that assuming I eventually defeat it all
01:13:32
◼
►
and it goes away.
01:13:33
◼
►
So the iMac hasn't been upgraded, long way of saying
01:13:36
◼
►
but I did willingly upgrade the laptop, the MacBook Air
01:13:41
◼
►
because, mostly because I want screen time
01:13:44
◼
►
'cause that's the kid's homework, quote unquote
01:13:46
◼
►
homework laptop but it's also their bypass of screen time
01:13:49
◼
►
if they want to watch YouTube all hours of the night,
01:13:51
◼
►
they can do so on the laptop.
01:13:53
◼
►
So I, and also I just wanted to see what it was like.
01:13:56
◼
►
I had Catalina installed on a separate APFS volumes
01:14:00
◼
►
on my, in my US container on the iMac.
01:14:03
◼
►
So I'd seen Catalina before, I'd run a bunch of the betas,
01:14:05
◼
►
I'd looked at it like, not like I'm too surprised
01:14:07
◼
►
but I upgraded the MacBook Air to Catalina.
01:14:12
◼
►
So far seems fine, a little bit of wonkiness
01:14:14
◼
►
around Apple ID stuff as usual, like it's always not
01:14:17
◼
►
a great first run experience like, you know,
01:14:19
◼
►
it's a bunch of permission dialogues,
01:14:21
◼
►
this app wants to do that, do you want to allow this
01:14:23
◼
►
after that, yeah, buh buh, go through all that thing
01:14:25
◼
►
and then I go into system preferences and I go
01:14:27
◼
►
to the new Apple ID screen, it's got like a red badge
01:14:29
◼
►
on it that's like, you need to update your Apple ID
01:14:33
◼
►
settings or something, like all right, fine, whatever,
01:14:36
◼
►
enter your Apple ID password, all right, fine,
01:14:38
◼
►
enter your Mac password, all right, fine,
01:14:40
◼
►
and then it grinds for a really long time
01:14:42
◼
►
and then it's done grinding and then I'm like,
01:14:44
◼
►
okay, I guess I'm done but the badge is still on the thing.
01:14:48
◼
►
It's like close to some preferences and then later
01:14:49
◼
►
I come back to the computer and it's like,
01:14:51
◼
►
you need to update your Apple ID settings.
01:14:53
◼
►
I went through the NAS like six times,
01:14:56
◼
►
the badge never went away, I kept asking,
01:14:57
◼
►
like what do you want from me, what am I,
01:15:00
◼
►
you want to update my Apple ID settings, then do it.
01:15:02
◼
►
It never did, I just logged out, I set up the kids' accounts
01:15:06
◼
►
you know, I launched all the stuff and got rid of all
01:15:08
◼
►
the permission dialogs for them, I set up screen time
01:15:10
◼
►
on the Mac which I'm assuming will work
01:15:13
◼
►
which is a big assumption because I have to say,
01:15:15
◼
►
these screen time reports for family sharing,
01:15:17
◼
►
like where you can see what your kid's usage is or whatever
01:15:20
◼
►
across all their devices, how long has that been out now?
01:15:23
◼
►
A year and a half, two years?
01:15:25
◼
►
It has never worked right and continues not to work right.
01:15:28
◼
►
Some devices don't show up at all,
01:15:29
◼
►
some activity doesn't show up at all,
01:15:30
◼
►
sometimes I go into my kid's screen time report
01:15:32
◼
►
and it's just blank, there's like no activity,
01:15:35
◼
►
activity will appear here once people use their devices,
01:15:37
◼
►
oh really, once people use their devices,
01:15:39
◼
►
two years later something will show up here?
01:15:41
◼
►
Sometimes it shows up, sometimes I can see one device
01:15:43
◼
►
but not another, like it's really bad, it's really,
01:15:46
◼
►
it's so unreliable, it's like what am I even
01:15:48
◼
►
getting reports on, you know?
01:15:50
◼
►
Like I don't think I've ever seen anything reported
01:15:52
◼
►
from my son's iPad but I do see his phone sometimes
01:15:55
◼
►
and it just doesn't make any sense,
01:15:57
◼
►
it's one of those features that's like, is this a feature
01:15:59
◼
►
or is this a thing that like might work sometimes
01:16:01
◼
►
but you know, check back later, same thing with the,
01:16:04
◼
►
you know, the weird first round bugs in Catalina.
01:16:06
◼
►
But I'm actually kind of interested in seeing
01:16:10
◼
►
the new music app and having the,
01:16:13
◼
►
all the device stuff in the finder,
01:16:15
◼
►
like most of those UI changes and the new applications
01:16:18
◼
►
I'm actually interested in, the new, is the new version?
01:16:20
◼
►
No, I think Maps is not the new good version, right?
01:16:23
◼
►
Messages got changed a little bit, anyway,
01:16:25
◼
►
I am interested in the new OS but I'm just scared
01:16:28
◼
►
to lose all my stuff and scared to break things so,
01:16:31
◼
►
on the laptop it goes and you know, I have to say,
01:16:34
◼
►
other than my complaints about those weird things,
01:16:37
◼
►
it's been okay, like it hasn't crashed,
01:16:40
◼
►
it seems to be running fine, it's not making the fan spin,
01:16:42
◼
►
I, you know, I did a full time machine back above it
01:16:45
◼
►
and that all seemed to go well.
01:16:46
◼
►
So, you know, I don't recommend people upgrade to Catalina
01:16:51
◼
►
but it has not been disastrous to me so far.
01:16:54
◼
►
- We are sponsored this week by Clearbank.
01:16:57
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Clearbank is changing the way entrepreneurs raise money
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with equity free capital.
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which is the Canadian version of Shark Tank,
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co-founded Clearbank with her partner Andrew D'Souza
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after seeing how many companies were willing to part
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with precious equity in exchange
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for a bigger marketing budget.
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Clearbank believes that founders shouldn't give up a piece
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of their company to fund marketing and inventory expenses.
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So Clearbank makes equity free investments from 10K
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to 10 million dollars and can get you a term sheet
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in less than 20 minutes.
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They charge a small flat fee for the capital
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and you pay them back using a win-win revenue share.
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This is not a loan, there's no interest rate,
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no credit checks and no financial covenants.
01:17:42
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Clearbank also has relationships with marketing agencies,
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e-commerce professionals, venture capitalists,
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accountants and more, giving you a true unfair advantage
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in the market.
01:17:52
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Clearbank invested over 150 million dollars in 2018
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and is on track to invest over a billion this year.
01:17:59
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Some of their notable portfolio companies are Public Goods,
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Lease Asleep, Le Tote and Buffy, just to name a few.
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So if you're doing over 10,000 a month in revenue,
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find out how you can receive Clearbank capital
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by getting your 20 minute term sheet at clearbank.com/atp.
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Clearbank, stop pitching and get back to doing
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◼
►
what you love, growing your business.
01:18:21
◼
►
- All right, let's bring back Ask ATP,
01:18:27
◼
►
I think because we've been just full of stuff to talk about,
01:18:30
◼
►
we've skipped it for the last couple of weeks
01:18:32
◼
►
and so let's bring it back.
01:18:33
◼
►
Dan Stanton writes, "With the advent of family sharing,"
01:18:35
◼
►
speaking of, "why do you think contacts have been ignored?
01:18:38
◼
►
In my mind, contacts in a family should be bucketed
01:18:40
◼
►
just like calendar entries, yours, mine and ours."
01:18:43
◼
►
Dan's wife doesn't want to see a couple hundred
01:18:45
◼
►
of my work acquaintances in her address book,
01:18:47
◼
►
but it would be nice if I updated random aunt's info
01:18:50
◼
►
that my wife got the change.
01:18:52
◼
►
Do y'all experience this issue, any creative solutions?
01:18:54
◼
►
- Yes, this is a problem that Aaron and I face.
01:18:58
◼
►
Because I am, I don't know,
01:19:01
◼
►
like a pack rat of contact information,
01:19:03
◼
►
I have the kind of official contact list of the family,
01:19:07
◼
►
but that causes Aaron to oftentimes have to ask me,
01:19:10
◼
►
oh, what's so-and-so's address?
01:19:11
◼
►
What's this person's phone number?
01:19:12
◼
►
What's this person's email address and so on,
01:19:14
◼
►
which is fine, but it's frustrating for both of us.
01:19:17
◼
►
I don't know of any fix.
01:19:20
◼
►
I would imagine that if you had some sort of
01:19:24
◼
►
like Google app setup, which we actually do,
01:19:27
◼
►
maybe you could share contacts that way,
01:19:30
◼
►
or perhaps like I could log Aaron into my Gmail account
01:19:35
◼
►
and I could have both of us sharing our contacts
01:19:39
◼
►
with my Gmail account even if she doesn't look at my email.
01:19:42
◼
►
But that seems very, I don't know, kludgy.
01:19:45
◼
►
So I don't have any really good solutions,
01:19:47
◼
►
but Dan, I feel your pain.
01:19:48
◼
►
Marco, I get the feeling you have not a lot of input here.
01:19:52
◼
►
- Yeah, I mean, Tiff and I both have contacts.
01:19:55
◼
►
We occasionally have to ask each other,
01:19:58
◼
►
hey, can you iMessage me that contact card for somebody
01:20:02
◼
►
so we could get it?
01:20:04
◼
►
But we don't have so much overlap
01:20:06
◼
►
that it's a frequent problem.
01:20:08
◼
►
But that being said, I would love for Dan's
01:20:12
◼
►
proposed solution here to bucket them
01:20:14
◼
►
as yours, mine, and ours.
01:20:16
◼
►
That would be awesome.
01:20:17
◼
►
We do that with one password.
01:20:19
◼
►
We have a one password family setup.
01:20:21
◼
►
- Yep, same.
01:20:22
◼
►
- So we each have our own vaults,
01:20:24
◼
►
but we can also put stuff in the shared area
01:20:26
◼
►
that we can both access.
01:20:28
◼
►
- And I think that would be wonderful,
01:20:29
◼
►
but Apple's not historically great at supporting
01:20:33
◼
►
things that families need to do.
01:20:35
◼
►
- I was just trying to Google to find out exactly
01:20:37
◼
►
how long ago No iLife is an Island episode
01:20:40
◼
►
of Hypercritical was.
01:20:41
◼
►
This is the exact same problem again.
01:20:43
◼
►
It occurs to me, I usually complain about it
01:20:45
◼
►
in the context of photos, but contacts is a perfect
01:20:48
◼
►
opportunity for Apple to work out what our,
01:20:52
◼
►
I was gonna say to be fair, but I was like,
01:20:53
◼
►
what are difficult issues?
01:20:55
◼
►
Like it's not easy to do this in a way where the UI
01:21:00
◼
►
makes sense to people.
01:21:01
◼
►
It is a difficult interface problem.
01:21:03
◼
►
But I feel like contacts, as I've complained about
01:21:07
◼
►
in the past, just for a single person,
01:21:09
◼
►
the current siloed version of contacts
01:21:11
◼
►
still sometimes doesn't work for inexplicable reasons.
01:21:14
◼
►
We went through on this show several episode run
01:21:16
◼
►
of trying to figure out with like,
01:21:18
◼
►
contacts aren't syncing 'cause the images are the wrong size
01:21:20
◼
►
and it just silently doesn't sync
01:21:21
◼
►
and you would never figure that out if you didn't listen
01:21:23
◼
►
to weird tech podcasts or for us if we didn't have listeners
01:21:26
◼
►
who knew this weird information and told us
01:21:28
◼
►
that we then broadcast in our weird tech podcast.
01:21:31
◼
►
So I kind of understand why they haven't done
01:21:35
◼
►
the harder thing 'cause they can't even get
01:21:37
◼
►
the easy thing right all the time,
01:21:38
◼
►
which I find endlessly frustrating.
01:21:40
◼
►
But if and when they tackle this idea,
01:21:42
◼
►
contacts is a perfect place to do it
01:21:44
◼
►
because the data volume is so much lower than photos.
01:21:48
◼
►
Like it's just text and some small images
01:21:51
◼
►
and the number of contacts you have does not,
01:21:53
◼
►
as I mentioned before, grow essentially without bound
01:21:55
◼
►
like photos does 'cause you just don't keep meeting
01:21:58
◼
►
that many people like, you know, maybe if you're something--
01:22:01
◼
►
- Speak for yourself.
01:22:03
◼
►
- Maybe if you're like a salesperson
01:22:04
◼
►
and you wanna keep everything in contact,
01:22:05
◼
►
they just keep growing.
01:22:06
◼
►
But in general, people have a much smaller number
01:22:08
◼
►
of contacts than photos.
01:22:09
◼
►
It doesn't grow as fast and the data is really tiny
01:22:11
◼
►
so this would be a perfect test bed, Apple,
01:22:13
◼
►
to finally figure out a solution to hey, families exist
01:22:18
◼
►
and you know, you figure that out and you can make a family
01:22:21
◼
►
and by the way, families don't wanna have two, three,
01:22:24
◼
►
four copies of grandma's address
01:22:26
◼
►
or someone's got their birthday
01:22:28
◼
►
and someone has the anniversary and someone has the address
01:22:31
◼
►
but you have the old address
01:22:32
◼
►
but you have the new phone number.
01:22:34
◼
►
It's a nightmare, we all do it.
01:22:36
◼
►
But it's like which one of our address books
01:22:38
◼
►
has this person's address
01:22:39
◼
►
and so many things are duplicated.
01:22:42
◼
►
Family, perfect, they're all of our family.
01:22:44
◼
►
It's not like I just have my parents
01:22:46
◼
►
and my wife just has her parents.
01:22:47
◼
►
We both have both parents, right?
01:22:49
◼
►
Common friends.
01:22:50
◼
►
When an address is updated.
01:22:52
◼
►
Now we have to update it in both places.
01:22:54
◼
►
Now every time, I have to do this thing,
01:22:55
◼
►
like every time I want to contact somebody
01:22:57
◼
►
or mail somebody something in the mail
01:22:58
◼
►
which you rarely do these days,
01:23:00
◼
►
I have to diff both of them.
01:23:01
◼
►
I have to say here's what I have for the address,
01:23:04
◼
►
here's what you have for the address.
01:23:05
◼
►
Which one was updated more recently
01:23:06
◼
►
and which one looks like it's more right?
01:23:08
◼
►
- No, that's when we mail people things,
01:23:10
◼
►
like we mail Christmas cards every year
01:23:11
◼
►
to a bunch of friends and that's contact hell
01:23:15
◼
►
as Tiff and I go back and forth like oh, do you have,
01:23:18
◼
►
didn't they move, would you have their address?
01:23:20
◼
►
- Yeah, what's the more recent one?
01:23:22
◼
►
- Yeah, right, exactly.
01:23:23
◼
►
- Well, I updated this more recently
01:23:25
◼
►
but I don't know if the address is more recent
01:23:26
◼
►
'cause you don't have per time stamped fields
01:23:28
◼
►
and the things and it's so bad.
01:23:30
◼
►
It's just, and this is the case where it is a regression
01:23:34
◼
►
from the old system which is you'd have
01:23:35
◼
►
a family address book of this little black book
01:23:38
◼
►
somewhere in your house that you'd write people's addresses
01:23:40
◼
►
and phone numbers in and when someone updated their address,
01:23:42
◼
►
you'd update it in one place and multiple people
01:23:45
◼
►
in the family could pick up that address book.
01:23:48
◼
►
Yeah, so I feel like we have the technology
01:23:50
◼
►
to solve this problem.
01:23:51
◼
►
Apple's not tackling it, they totally should
01:23:53
◼
►
and here's the thing, Dan is asking for like,
01:23:56
◼
►
any creative solutions, there are all sorts of quote unquote
01:23:58
◼
►
creative solutions, I don't recommend any of them.
01:24:00
◼
►
I know because my parents who apparently still want
01:24:04
◼
►
that old black book have tried so many different things
01:24:08
◼
►
to achieve this 'cause they have almost
01:24:11
◼
►
all the same contacts.
01:24:12
◼
►
They don't want them to have separate pools of things.
01:24:14
◼
►
They get very frustrated when they have to update it
01:24:17
◼
►
in two places or it's just in one place.
01:24:20
◼
►
It's just, it is a nightmare.
01:24:22
◼
►
They've tried all the terrible things like trying to sync it
01:24:25
◼
►
through some third party service or sharing an Apple ID.
01:24:28
◼
►
Do not do this, like any way you go off the sort of the way
01:24:32
◼
►
Apple wants you to do things, you're just asking
01:24:33
◼
►
for more problems and bugs and even if you can get it
01:24:35
◼
►
to work for some brief moment in time,
01:24:37
◼
►
it will eventually break and you'll end up
01:24:39
◼
►
with duplicated or lost contacts and just the pain
01:24:42
◼
►
and suffering of using, of sharing an Apple ID
01:24:46
◼
►
but also wanting to have your own separate Apple IDs
01:24:48
◼
►
and then trying to figure out what's what,
01:24:50
◼
►
it's not an easy thing for people who are not
01:24:54
◼
►
tech enthusiasts to keep track of and it does eventually
01:24:56
◼
►
break and they can't fix it and they get even more
01:24:58
◼
►
frustrated so there are creative solutions
01:25:01
◼
►
but I don't recommend any of them.
01:25:02
◼
►
Please just, you know, Apple needs to solve this problem
01:25:05
◼
►
for us and it's not that hard to solve and they should do it
01:25:09
◼
►
in contacts, it's a great first place to try it so
01:25:11
◼
►
take Dan's recommendation Apple and do this now.
01:25:14
◼
►
- I would prefer you to do photos 'cause I spend more time
01:25:17
◼
►
interacting with photos than with contacts
01:25:19
◼
►
but I understand that contacts are easier.
01:25:20
◼
►
- You know, if there's an app in the App Store
01:25:23
◼
►
that does this and does this well, I would love to hear
01:25:24
◼
►
about it so please tweet at me.
01:25:26
◼
►
- Oh, there are apps that do it, do it well.
01:25:30
◼
►
- Yeah, exactly, exactly.
01:25:32
◼
►
- 'Cause any time you're asking an application
01:25:34
◼
►
to programmatically modify one of your sort of precious
01:25:38
◼
►
data sets, oh, programmatically modify my contacts
01:25:40
◼
►
in response to something else, the potential for danger
01:25:44
◼
►
is big and again, I'll endorse the idea that you can
01:25:47
◼
►
back up your entire contacts database from within
01:25:49
◼
►
the contacts application.
01:25:51
◼
►
I recommend that, again, the data set is small,
01:25:54
◼
►
you will make a little archive file, worst case scenario,
01:25:57
◼
►
you can just destroy everything, delete everything,
01:26:01
◼
►
delete it all from iCloud, delete it all from your contacts,
01:26:03
◼
►
delete, delete, delete and then restore it
01:26:05
◼
►
with your contacts database.
01:26:06
◼
►
I think it's lossless, I've had to do it a few times
01:26:08
◼
►
so I hope it's lossless if I'm losing something,
01:26:10
◼
►
I haven't noticed what I'm losing but unlike photos,
01:26:13
◼
►
it's so easy to do that, make it an address book database,
01:26:16
◼
►
backup, make five of them, stick them in a little folder,
01:26:19
◼
►
stick those in Dropbox, have them go to Time Machine,
01:26:21
◼
►
have them go to Backblaze, like have a million backups,
01:26:24
◼
►
then start your experimentation, enjoy your life
01:26:27
◼
►
and contact hell as they duplicate and copy all the place
01:26:30
◼
►
and revert back to old versions and it's not good.
01:26:34
◼
►
- Yeah, also I'd really like to quickly reiterate
01:26:37
◼
►
what Marco said about 1Password.
01:26:38
◼
►
We went to 1Password for families
01:26:41
◼
►
right when that was first announced
01:26:43
◼
►
and I cannot speak enough good things
01:26:44
◼
►
about 1Password in general but particularly about families
01:26:46
◼
►
and it is extremely convenient to have, like Marco said,
01:26:51
◼
►
my personal vault, my limitless vault which is my LLC
01:26:56
◼
►
to have a family vault so things like social security numbers
01:27:01
◼
►
or something like that can go in the family vault
01:27:03
◼
►
whereas a login to Twitter that Aaron doesn't ever need
01:27:06
◼
►
can go in my personal vault and stuff like that
01:27:08
◼
►
so it's super convenient and we do the exact same thing
01:27:11
◼
►
as you and Tiff and I cannot recommend it enough.
01:27:14
◼
►
- It's right there in the name, 1Password for families
01:27:16
◼
►
and it seems like someone at 1Password understands
01:27:19
◼
►
what families do when they live together
01:27:22
◼
►
and exist as a family.
01:27:24
◼
►
March 11th, 2011 by the way, no iLife was an island.
01:27:28
◼
►
We're not at a 10-year anniversary
01:27:30
◼
►
but we'll be sure to celebrate that.
01:27:32
◼
►
- Cameron writes, Casey and John don't always upgrade
01:27:35
◼
►
their phones every year.
01:27:37
◼
►
Why not use the iPhone upgrade program?
01:27:39
◼
►
For me, a couple of reasons.
01:27:40
◼
►
First of all, it used to be and I don't know if this is true
01:27:43
◼
►
that you needed to unfreeze your credit
01:27:45
◼
►
in order to join the program
01:27:46
◼
►
and I'm just too lazy to do that.
01:27:48
◼
►
Secondly, I don't always buy AppleCare
01:27:50
◼
►
but as recently discussed on this very program,
01:27:53
◼
►
I am glad I did this year.
01:27:54
◼
►
Third of all, I'm kind of allergic to having something
01:27:59
◼
►
that I don't own.
01:28:02
◼
►
I mean, obviously I don't own my home outright
01:28:04
◼
►
but I really try hard not to have a loan of any sort
01:28:09
◼
►
if I can avoid it and that to the best of my understanding
01:28:13
◼
►
is exactly what this is.
01:28:14
◼
►
Now, the last I had looked, it's not really costing users
01:28:19
◼
►
of the upgrade program money.
01:28:21
◼
►
Like when it first came out, I remember doing the math
01:28:23
◼
►
and it was within like a nickel of,
01:28:26
◼
►
if you were to take the cost of the iPhone plus AppleCare
01:28:30
◼
►
plus and add that up and it turns out
01:28:34
◼
►
if you divide by 24 or whatever,
01:28:35
◼
►
that was the exact monthly price.
01:28:37
◼
►
They weren't like fleecing you or anything
01:28:39
◼
►
with the iPhone upgrade program
01:28:41
◼
►
and I presume that's still the case.
01:28:43
◼
►
But I don't know, I just don't really like,
01:28:45
◼
►
I don't like owing people money if I can avoid it
01:28:49
◼
►
and that's what this feels like to me.
01:28:50
◼
►
So it's probably not a logical answer,
01:28:52
◼
►
it's probably an emotional one
01:28:53
◼
►
but I'm an emotional being.
01:28:56
◼
►
John is a logical being.
01:28:57
◼
►
Why aren't you on the upgrade program, man?
01:29:00
◼
►
- I just want the control of when I get a new phone
01:29:02
◼
►
and when I don't.
01:29:03
◼
►
Having another, as John Rock was saying, another eel,
01:29:06
◼
►
another like sort of payment and contract
01:29:09
◼
►
and thing I have to remember that exists
01:29:11
◼
►
in terms of service and it's just so much easier
01:29:13
◼
►
to say like when I want a new phone, I'll buy one.
01:29:15
◼
►
When I don't, I won't and it's a much simpler relationship.
01:29:19
◼
►
And as you noted, like it's not a money,
01:29:22
◼
►
even if there was a discount,
01:29:24
◼
►
even if you saved money by doing this,
01:29:25
◼
►
I probably still wouldn't do it
01:29:26
◼
►
just for the convenience reason.
01:29:28
◼
►
'Cause who knows when I'm gonna buy a phone again?
01:29:29
◼
►
Just, I have been getting one every two years
01:29:31
◼
►
but they could come up with a phone
01:29:33
◼
►
that I really don't like
01:29:33
◼
►
and I would keep my phone for an extra year.
01:29:35
◼
►
And I know you can do that with the upgrade program
01:29:37
◼
►
but it's just one more thing to have sort of running
01:29:38
◼
►
in the background that you have to keep track of
01:29:40
◼
►
and yeah, it's not to my taste.
01:29:43
◼
►
- Fair enough.
01:29:44
◼
►
Philip writes, "What non-high tech tech
01:29:47
◼
►
do you like at the moment/which items
01:29:49
◼
►
have had a nice impact on your lives?"
01:29:51
◼
►
And Philip continues, "For example,
01:29:53
◼
►
I have a nice hairdryer
01:29:53
◼
►
that automatically lowers the temperature when it gets hot
01:29:56
◼
►
and that's just so especially nice."
01:29:58
◼
►
I came up with two answers.
01:29:59
◼
►
One is kind of cribbing what Philip had said.
01:30:02
◼
►
We recently joined the early 2000s
01:30:05
◼
►
and got electric toothbrushes.
01:30:07
◼
►
And one of the nice features about this is that they will,
01:30:11
◼
►
obviously they're shaking and there's a motor running
01:30:14
◼
►
as you're brushing your teeth
01:30:16
◼
►
and they will like, I don't know, change the RPM
01:30:18
◼
►
or do something so it sounds like an obvious change in pitch
01:30:22
◼
►
when you need to move to a different section of your mouth
01:30:24
◼
►
and then it'll turn itself off
01:30:25
◼
►
after like a couple of minutes or whatever it is
01:30:27
◼
►
when you can be all done.
01:30:28
◼
►
And I really like that.
01:30:29
◼
►
- Do you think electric toothbrushes were invented
01:30:31
◼
►
in the early 2000s?
01:30:33
◼
►
- I don't know.
01:30:34
◼
►
My point was a long time ago.
01:30:35
◼
►
My point was a long time ago.
01:30:37
◼
►
- Aren't they from like the '50s?
01:30:39
◼
►
- Well, okay.
01:30:40
◼
►
- Well, these ones tell you when you need to move
01:30:42
◼
►
to the next tooth, so.
01:30:44
◼
►
- That's really, really, otherwise you would just there,
01:30:46
◼
►
you just grind that one tooth down to nothing.
01:30:47
◼
►
You'd be like, "Oh, toothbrush never told me to move.
01:30:50
◼
►
What am I supposed to do?" - I just wanted to do
01:30:50
◼
►
you guys, I didn't know what to do.
01:30:53
◼
►
And then the other one,
01:30:53
◼
►
which is probably an even better answer is,
01:30:56
◼
►
I don't know if there's like a technical name for this.
01:30:59
◼
►
The one that I found that most closely resembles
01:31:01
◼
►
the one we have is listed as, in all caps,
01:31:04
◼
►
cast iron apple peeler.
01:31:06
◼
►
And then it goes on for another 35 minutes
01:31:08
◼
►
with different words and I don't know,
01:31:10
◼
►
the random stuff to spam the search engine.
01:31:13
◼
►
But anyways, in game the search engine,
01:31:14
◼
►
what this is is you put an apple on a series of three spikes
01:31:18
◼
►
and attached to those spikes is a hand crank
01:31:22
◼
►
and you crank this apple through like a circular cutter.
01:31:27
◼
►
And then there's a thing around the outside
01:31:29
◼
►
that peels the apple at the same side.
01:31:31
◼
►
And in summary, what you end up with is apple slices
01:31:35
◼
►
that are peeled when all you have done
01:31:37
◼
►
is turned a crank for a while.
01:31:38
◼
►
It is magnificent.
01:31:40
◼
►
And this particular one I'm looking at is 30 bucks on Amazon.
01:31:44
◼
►
And I generally follow the Alton Brown school of thought,
01:31:48
◼
►
which you know, don't have a unitasker that's a waste.
01:31:51
◼
►
And certainly you can do all this by hand for sure.
01:31:54
◼
►
But if your wife makes a phenomenal apple pie, as mine does,
01:31:59
◼
►
and you wanna make sure that she does that
01:32:01
◼
►
as frequently as possible, as I do,
01:32:03
◼
►
then one of these is super helpful
01:32:05
◼
►
and it saves a whole ton of time.
01:32:08
◼
►
- Well, you say it saves time, but speaking of wives,
01:32:11
◼
►
my wife is actually a very fast apple peeler.
01:32:14
◼
►
She's one of the kitchen skills that I don't have,
01:32:16
◼
►
which is, you know, the thing where you cut
01:32:18
◼
►
with a paring knife towards your thumb?
01:32:20
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:32:21
◼
►
- To peel things.
01:32:23
◼
►
I cannot master that skill.
01:32:25
◼
►
I mean, I can do it, but it's clumsy and slow
01:32:27
◼
►
and I take off way too much apple.
01:32:29
◼
►
She can do that with any shape thing,
01:32:31
◼
►
potato, apple, or whatever.
01:32:33
◼
►
And this thing goes, whizzes right through it
01:32:35
◼
►
in two seconds, but you do have to mount it first.
01:32:38
◼
►
And so I would be interested to see an actual competition
01:32:41
◼
►
starting from apple on table
01:32:43
◼
►
between mounting and whizzing and unmounting.
01:32:45
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:32:46
◼
►
- And her just going, "Sheep, sheep, sheep, sheep,"
01:32:47
◼
►
with the little paring knife.
01:32:49
◼
►
But yeah, these things are super cool.
01:32:50
◼
►
For me, 'cause I'm terrible at peeling apples,
01:32:52
◼
►
if I had to make an apple pie,
01:32:53
◼
►
I would love to have one of these things.
01:32:55
◼
►
My parents had one.
01:32:56
◼
►
I don't think we have one.
01:32:58
◼
►
If we do, it's probably lost somewhere in the house.
01:33:00
◼
►
But yeah, she makes apple pies with her paring knife.
01:33:04
◼
►
But if I had to be involved,
01:33:06
◼
►
I hate peeling oddly shaped things.
01:33:09
◼
►
Yeah, these things are really cool.
01:33:10
◼
►
Plus they're fun to watch.
01:33:11
◼
►
If you have kids, get them in the kitchen
01:33:13
◼
►
to watch the little peel go flying off.
01:33:14
◼
►
Everything gets cool.
01:33:15
◼
►
- Yep, Marco.
01:33:17
◼
►
- I recently did an episode of "Due by Friday,"
01:33:20
◼
►
our friend's wonderful podcast.
01:33:22
◼
►
And I talked all about flashlights,
01:33:25
◼
►
my love of modern LED and lithium battery-based flashlights.
01:33:30
◼
►
So I will refer people to listen to that episode.
01:33:34
◼
►
And specifically, I think my two favorites right now
01:33:38
◼
►
are both by Phoenix, the PD-25 and the LD-12.
01:33:43
◼
►
We'll put links to both of those in the show notes.
01:33:45
◼
►
The PD-25 is a little bit smaller,
01:33:47
◼
►
but uses a kind of non-standard kind of battery type.
01:33:50
◼
►
The LD-12 is almost as small.
01:33:53
◼
►
Both of them are similar brightness
01:33:55
◼
►
and uses double A's or the crazy battery
01:33:59
◼
►
that is like a double A,
01:34:00
◼
►
but is lithium rechargeable and red.
01:34:02
◼
►
Which off the top of my head,
01:34:03
◼
►
I think is a 14500 battery, something like that.
01:34:05
◼
►
So anyway, beside that, I want to also refer back
01:34:09
◼
►
to something that I recently took out of the closet
01:34:12
◼
►
for the season, my beloved Patagonia Micro Puff hoodie.
01:34:17
◼
►
We had a very cold couple of mornings here last week.
01:34:21
◼
►
And this is a jacket that weighs less than most hoodies
01:34:25
◼
►
and is warm enough to be your only winter jacket
01:34:28
◼
►
if it doesn't get too cold where you are.
01:34:30
◼
►
And certainly by far my most frequently used jacket
01:34:33
◼
►
in the winter.
01:34:34
◼
►
- John, I don't think I ever got your answer, did I?
01:34:36
◼
►
I think we skipped ahead after you were commenting
01:34:38
◼
►
on my beloved apple peeler.
01:34:39
◼
►
- No, I'll go now.
01:34:41
◼
►
Speaking of Margot's flashlights,
01:34:43
◼
►
I've been aware of the fancy flashlight world for,
01:34:46
◼
►
I mean, since the internet existed.
01:34:47
◼
►
I think that's where I discovered it, the internet.
01:34:49
◼
►
I think one of the, you know, that wasn't the first webpage,
01:34:52
◼
►
but very soon after webpages became a thing,
01:34:55
◼
►
people would have put their cool, you know,
01:34:57
◼
►
their everyday carry, I think that term came later,
01:34:59
◼
►
but people would put their cool little flashlight stuff
01:35:02
◼
►
in there and like, oh, these flashlights are cool.
01:35:04
◼
►
I would love to get this, you know, it's LED technology,
01:35:06
◼
►
it's lithium ion batteries, they can be small and powerful,
01:35:09
◼
►
especially as LEDs got cheaper or whatever.
01:35:12
◼
►
But that's where I've always run into a problem.
01:35:14
◼
►
Every time Margot recommends these, I'm like,
01:35:16
◼
►
I really want one of these cool flashlights.
01:35:17
◼
►
And then I see the prices and I'm like,
01:35:19
◼
►
I don't want it that much.
01:35:22
◼
►
They're so expensive compared to, like,
01:35:24
◼
►
compared to, you know, a $5 stupid cheap,
01:35:28
◼
►
like, especially now you can get cheap LED flashlights
01:35:31
◼
►
for like no money.
01:35:32
◼
►
I want one of the good ones,
01:35:34
◼
►
but I want them to be less money.
01:35:35
◼
►
They're so expensive, I just can't bring myself to do it.
01:35:38
◼
►
So I continued to limp along with what I consider to be
01:35:41
◼
►
a series of really terrible flashlights
01:35:44
◼
►
that cost $3 each and they last like three years.
01:35:47
◼
►
So it's like a dollar a year.
01:35:48
◼
►
It's like, boy, I would have to,
01:35:49
◼
►
I'm not gonna live long enough to recoup the cost
01:35:51
◼
►
of these other flashlights.
01:35:53
◼
►
Mostly I use them for morning dog walks
01:35:55
◼
►
when it's pitch black because I live in New England.
01:35:59
◼
►
It's to be able to see the poop to pick it up, right?
01:36:01
◼
►
So you need a flashlight,
01:36:02
◼
►
but I want it to be a small flashlight
01:36:03
◼
►
so it can be in my pocket and everything.
01:36:04
◼
►
So the ones I have now, you know, I get along with.
01:36:08
◼
►
But I would like one of those cool ones.
01:36:10
◼
►
I might, I should, when you put the links in,
01:36:11
◼
►
maybe I'll look at them again.
01:36:12
◼
►
Are they still, they're still like 60 bucks?
01:36:14
◼
►
- Yeah, about 60 bucks is what a good,
01:36:16
◼
►
like, you know, nerd flashlight costs.
01:36:18
◼
►
- Yeah, it's too much.
01:36:19
◼
►
- But they seem to last forever.
01:36:21
◼
►
I mean, like, I've had,
01:36:22
◼
►
I started buying good nerd flashlights
01:36:24
◼
►
probably about almost 10 years ago now.
01:36:26
◼
►
I've yet to have one die.
01:36:28
◼
►
Like, they're really good.
01:36:29
◼
►
They're built, you know, very heavy duty.
01:36:31
◼
►
- I think I'm gonna like lose it or break it.
01:36:33
◼
►
I don't think it's gonna die.
01:36:34
◼
►
I think I'm gonna like, it's gonna get lost somewhere
01:36:36
◼
►
or the kids are gonna lose it
01:36:37
◼
►
or I'm gonna break it in some way.
01:36:39
◼
►
- Yeah, you'd have to try pretty hard to break these.
01:36:42
◼
►
I'm not saying that you or your kids can't do it
01:36:44
◼
►
if you've really tried, but like--
01:36:45
◼
►
- They're very good at breaking things.
01:36:47
◼
►
- Yeah, it would be, you know,
01:36:48
◼
►
it would take some doing to break one of these.
01:36:52
◼
►
Losing it, I think, would be the bigger concern.
01:36:54
◼
►
But yeah, if you are willing to spend 60 bucks
01:36:58
◼
►
on a little flashlight, these are delightful
01:37:00
◼
►
because it's delightful, like, first of all,
01:37:02
◼
►
like how heavy duty and just, you know, well-built they are
01:37:05
◼
►
and also just like how much light you get
01:37:08
◼
►
out of something that is so tiny
01:37:11
◼
►
compared to like what we all grew up with.
01:37:12
◼
►
You know, 'cause the world of LEDs
01:37:14
◼
►
and now like, you know, higher voltage lithium batteries,
01:37:16
◼
►
like it's really amazing what you can get
01:37:18
◼
►
in a very tiny flashlight.
01:37:20
◼
►
- Oh, the whole street,
01:37:21
◼
►
now exactly where I'm picking up the poop?
01:37:23
◼
►
I don't need to be that bright.
01:37:24
◼
►
- Well, you don't have to, there's a button on it
01:37:26
◼
►
that like you select your brightness level,
01:37:28
◼
►
but so like, you know, most of the time
01:37:29
◼
►
I don't have it on full brightness,
01:37:31
◼
►
but it is nice to occasionally, like if I wanna like,
01:37:33
◼
►
you know, when I'm walking my dog at night in the winter
01:37:35
◼
►
and I wanna like, you know, scan the poorly lit street
01:37:38
◼
►
ahead of me for like, is there like a deer or a raccoon
01:37:40
◼
►
or a cat ahead of me, I wanna know that.
01:37:42
◼
►
- Or a skunk, I don't watch for the skunks.
01:37:44
◼
►
- Yeah, like I need to know that,
01:37:45
◼
►
and so it's nice for, you know,
01:37:47
◼
►
to amp up the brightness for a minute
01:37:49
◼
►
while you scan around and turn it back down.
01:37:51
◼
►
- Have you ever, has your dog ever gotten skunked?
01:37:53
◼
►
- No, I've dodged that, fortunately.
01:37:56
◼
►
- I know, I've heard.
01:37:57
◼
►
- All right, so my, what is this,
01:37:59
◼
►
non-tech, non-high tech product at the moment.
01:38:04
◼
►
I talked about this same thing on another podcast,
01:38:05
◼
►
just like Marco talked about his on another podcast,
01:38:08
◼
►
and mine is cheap.
01:38:10
◼
►
I spend a lot of time in the kitchen,
01:38:12
◼
►
I do most of the dinner cooking,
01:38:14
◼
►
and so I spend a lot of time cutting things,
01:38:17
◼
►
and the world of fancy knives is very much like
01:38:19
◼
►
the world of fancy flashlights,
01:38:21
◼
►
where you can just, you know, go nuts,
01:38:23
◼
►
and like, it's more like the world of watches, actually,
01:38:26
◼
►
'cause like at a certain point,
01:38:27
◼
►
performance characteristics stop being meaningful,
01:38:29
◼
►
and now you're buying like pieces of art or whatever.
01:38:30
◼
►
Anyway, a while back, after a series of knives,
01:38:34
◼
►
I was, you know, I was fine with,
01:38:35
◼
►
like we got a set of knives from a local place
01:38:38
◼
►
near my wife that we had, we got when we were married,
01:38:40
◼
►
and we still have that set of knives,
01:38:42
◼
►
so it's fine.
01:38:43
◼
►
It was cheap, we didn't have a lot of money,
01:38:44
◼
►
we married in our early 20s, we got a set of knives,
01:38:47
◼
►
but it's still sturdy and working,
01:38:49
◼
►
and so, you know, good investment.
01:38:52
◼
►
But they weren't great knives,
01:38:53
◼
►
so I've always been looking for, you know,
01:38:55
◼
►
a good chef's knife to replace my, you know,
01:38:59
◼
►
my wedding knives, and maybe 10 years ago or whatever,
01:39:03
◼
►
one of the many nerd cooking shows that I watch,
01:39:06
◼
►
I think it might have been Cook's Illustrated,
01:39:08
◼
►
I don't even remember,
01:39:09
◼
►
might have been America's Test Kitchen,
01:39:10
◼
►
did a thing where they test a bunch of knives
01:39:12
◼
►
and they pick their favorite,
01:39:13
◼
►
and their favorite was this, how do you say this,
01:39:18
◼
►
Victorinox, the Swiss Army knife company, right?
01:39:21
◼
►
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:39:22
◼
►
- Victorinox Fibrox Pro Chef's Knife, eight inch.
01:39:27
◼
►
And you can still buy this to this day,
01:39:29
◼
►
and I'm very glad, because I didn't want it
01:39:31
◼
►
to be like one of those things where I bought it,
01:39:32
◼
►
and then like, I wanna get a new one in a decade
01:39:34
◼
►
and then no longer make it.
01:39:36
◼
►
I just had that experience with my garbage can, by the way,
01:39:37
◼
►
my garbage can finally broke after like a decade,
01:39:39
◼
►
I'm like, oh no, I don't wanna have to shop for a new,
01:39:42
◼
►
I just want this exact same garbage can again.
01:39:44
◼
►
I did find almost the same garbage can,
01:39:46
◼
►
I bought two of them, so being smart.
01:39:48
◼
►
- Of course you did.
01:39:49
◼
►
- Yeah, anyway, this knife, it's not like a great knife
01:39:54
◼
►
in terms of like how knives are,
01:39:56
◼
►
how much carbon is in the carbon steel,
01:39:57
◼
►
how fancy is the handle, it is like,
01:40:00
◼
►
the most straightforward knife
01:40:01
◼
►
you could ever possibly imagine,
01:40:03
◼
►
probably made of a middling quality of steel.
01:40:06
◼
►
The handle is just cheap textured plastic,
01:40:10
◼
►
and that's exactly the way I want it.
01:40:12
◼
►
It's like the Oxo Good Grips of chef knives,
01:40:14
◼
►
it's $36 on Amazon, and we've had ours
01:40:18
◼
►
for at least 10 years, probably longer.
01:40:21
◼
►
I just bought a second one out of paranoia,
01:40:23
◼
►
like the first one was perfectly fine,
01:40:24
◼
►
I didn't want a second one, 'cause I'm like,
01:40:25
◼
►
I just need to have another one of these.
01:40:27
◼
►
It's like my main knife, I cut,
01:40:32
◼
►
like every night I cut something with that knife,
01:40:34
◼
►
I use it all the time, I've got a knife sharpener,
01:40:37
◼
►
which is again, probably a cruddy knife sharpener,
01:40:38
◼
►
I don't care, I'll put my $36 knife
01:40:40
◼
►
into my cruddy automated knife sharpener,
01:40:42
◼
►
I feel perfectly good about that,
01:40:43
◼
►
and it's worked great for 10 years.
01:40:44
◼
►
So if you don't have a chef's knife that you're happy with,
01:40:49
◼
►
maybe you have a chef's knife that costs $120
01:40:51
◼
►
that you don't like 'cause it's weird and uncomfortable,
01:40:53
◼
►
get this knife, it is the Oxo Good Grips of chef knives,
01:40:55
◼
►
and it's so cheap that you won't care
01:40:57
◼
►
if you dull it or sharpen it badly,
01:40:59
◼
►
or it gets caught in the garbage disposal and gets bent,
01:41:03
◼
►
it's 36 bucks, get this knife.
01:41:04
◼
►
I should probably get an infomercial,
01:41:06
◼
►
like you can't afford not to buy this knife.
01:41:10
◼
►
Four and a half stars on Amazon,
01:41:12
◼
►
that is an accurate rating, it is not a fancy knife,
01:41:14
◼
►
and so you'll feel good about using it.
01:41:16
◼
►
The only thing I have to say is when I bought the new one,
01:41:17
◼
►
I noticed the ridge on the cheap handle,
01:41:20
◼
►
like the cheap molded plastic handle
01:41:22
◼
►
with the textured plastic, there's a ridge on it,
01:41:24
◼
►
but apparently that goes away after a while
01:41:25
◼
►
'cause I looked at my old one and it's not there,
01:41:28
◼
►
and so I started using it and eventually it wears down,
01:41:30
◼
►
but yeah, get this knife, it's great.
01:41:32
◼
►
- Thanks to our sponsors this week,
01:41:34
◼
►
Linode, Fracture, and Clearbank,
01:41:36
◼
►
and we will talk to you next week.
01:41:38
◼
►
(upbeat music)
01:41:41
◼
►
♪ Now the show is over ♪
01:41:43
◼
►
♪ They didn't even mean to begin ♪
01:41:45
◼
►
♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪
01:41:48
◼
►
♪ Oh it was accidental ♪
01:41:51
◼
►
♪ John didn't do any research ♪
01:41:53
◼
►
♪ Marco and Casey wouldn't let him ♪
01:41:56
◼
►
♪ 'Cause it was accidental ♪
01:41:59
◼
►
♪ Oh it was accidental ♪
01:42:01
◼
►
♪ And you can find the show notes at ATP.FM ♪
01:42:06
◼
►
♪ And if you're into Twitter ♪
01:42:09
◼
►
♪ You can follow them at C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S ♪
01:42:14
◼
►
♪ So that's Casey List M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M ♪
01:42:20
◼
►
♪ Auntie Marco Armin S-I-R-A-C ♪
01:42:25
◼
►
♪ U-S-A Siracusa ♪
01:42:27
◼
►
♪ It's accidental ♪
01:42:29
◼
►
♪ It's accidental ♪
01:42:31
◼
►
♪ They didn't mean to ♪
01:42:33
◼
►
♪ Accidental ♪
01:42:34
◼
►
♪ Accidental ♪
01:42:36
◼
►
♪ Tech broadcast ♪
01:42:38
◼
►
♪ So long ♪
01:42:40
◼
►
- Listeners of our show will know
01:42:44
◼
►
that you occasionally hear the ringing of a call bell
01:42:49
◼
►
in the background of our show.
01:42:50
◼
►
It sounds something like this.
01:42:52
◼
►
(bell ringing)
01:42:53
◼
►
- What's that bell sound that I always hear?
01:42:54
◼
►
It's so weird, I've been listening for years.
01:42:56
◼
►
I've been understanding when that bell sound appears.
01:42:59
◼
►
- So this bell sound originates with our friend Merlin Mann,
01:43:03
◼
►
who has a bell like this and would occasionally ring it,
01:43:07
◼
►
accenting a joke or something.
01:43:10
◼
►
Mostly early on, I heard it mostly on "Back to Work,"
01:43:13
◼
►
and then of course it has migrated to other shows as well,
01:43:15
◼
►
and he is the master of these bells.
01:43:17
◼
►
- Speaking of mastery of the bells, by the way,
01:43:20
◼
►
this complaint has been voiced by listeners,
01:43:22
◼
►
and I kind of agree with them.
01:43:23
◼
►
You may have different things to say
01:43:25
◼
►
as the performer of the bell.
01:43:27
◼
►
This is your instrument,
01:43:28
◼
►
and I understand that you may have
01:43:29
◼
►
your particular techniques, but--
01:43:31
◼
►
- Traditionally speaking, a bell of this kind
01:43:34
◼
►
should be rung by tapping and allowed to ring,
01:43:37
◼
►
and people don't like it when you mute it
01:43:39
◼
►
after hitting the plunger.
01:43:41
◼
►
You're doing that on purpose, or is it just--
01:43:43
◼
►
- Yes, because I learned that from Merlin.
01:43:46
◼
►
- All right.
01:43:47
◼
►
- You know, Merlin used to just ring it fully like that
01:43:50
◼
►
and let it ring out, but then as he developed
01:43:54
◼
►
the comedic stylings of using the bell,
01:43:56
◼
►
he would have a really quick joke
01:43:58
◼
►
and do a quick little hit and move on.
01:44:00
◼
►
- He's got a fever.
01:44:03
◼
►
- It's not a cow bell.
01:44:04
◼
►
- It's slightly less bell.
01:44:05
◼
►
- Anyway, so a while back, around like,
01:44:08
◼
►
we started the show, what, like 2013 or something?
01:44:12
◼
►
- Forever ago.
01:44:12
◼
►
- Yeah, so yeah.
01:44:13
◼
►
I occasionally, I have a whole folder of sound clips
01:44:16
◼
►
that I'll occasionally drop in to punctuate a joke
01:44:20
◼
►
or be funny or be a reference to something
01:44:23
◼
►
or delineate sections of the show or whatever else.
01:44:26
◼
►
And forever ago, I clipped out a sound effect
01:44:30
◼
►
of Merlin's bell doing that short bell, that short ring,
01:44:34
◼
►
and I used that for a little while here and there.
01:44:37
◼
►
And it was some clip I stole from Back to Work
01:44:39
◼
►
for like two seconds.
01:44:40
◼
►
- Turns out.
01:44:41
◼
►
- This was all before 2016,
01:44:43
◼
►
that I would occasionally use that.
01:44:44
◼
►
And we developed this joke on the show that,
01:44:48
◼
►
I didn't wanna overuse Merlin's bell, because it's his.
01:44:51
◼
►
I don't wanna steal or ruin his gag,
01:44:54
◼
►
so I didn't wanna overuse it.
01:44:56
◼
►
So we kind of came into this pattern that I would,
01:44:59
◼
►
I only would use the bell during,
01:45:02
◼
►
right after John mentions file systems,
01:45:06
◼
►
either file systems in general, the file system,
01:45:08
◼
►
or a particular file system,
01:45:10
◼
►
and only the first time during a show.
01:45:12
◼
►
- And I just wanna point out that that's not like
01:45:15
◼
►
a thing that you do sometimes.
01:45:18
◼
►
It's very consistent.
01:45:19
◼
►
Literally every single time you hear that bell,
01:45:22
◼
►
I have just said something about file systems.
01:45:25
◼
►
So it kind of amazes me that people can listen
01:45:27
◼
►
to the show for years, literally for years,
01:45:31
◼
►
and not pick up, like you always say,
01:45:33
◼
►
how good humans are at pattern matching,
01:45:34
◼
►
and they find patterns when they don't even exist.
01:45:36
◼
►
This is a definite pattern intentionally put there,
01:45:39
◼
►
very consistently, and yet it doesn't connect
01:45:44
◼
►
to a lot of people listening.
01:45:46
◼
►
Maybe they're tuning out 'cause I'm talking
01:45:47
◼
►
about file systems, and they're not even listening,
01:45:49
◼
►
and then they hear the bell and it brings them back,
01:45:51
◼
►
and they don't know what I just said.
01:45:52
◼
►
So maybe I'm to blame here, but I'm always,
01:45:54
◼
►
and that's why I don't answer them.
01:45:56
◼
►
I'm not doing it to be mean, but I don't wanna explain
01:45:58
◼
►
why the bell is.
01:45:59
◼
►
I want people to sort of discover the bell on their own.
01:46:01
◼
►
I mean, now obviously Marco's explaining it,
01:46:03
◼
►
and I think that's fine after 60 years we've been podcasting
01:46:06
◼
►
or whatever the hell it's been.
01:46:07
◼
►
It's fine to explain it in the after show
01:46:08
◼
►
where half the people probably won't listen
01:46:10
◼
►
because those same people probably think
01:46:11
◼
►
that when the show says, "Now this show is over,"
01:46:15
◼
►
they're like, "Okay, well, turn this podcast off."
01:46:18
◼
►
- Yeah, so, pro tip, the show is not over.
01:46:20
◼
►
- Actually, before we go any further,
01:46:22
◼
►
I would like to point out that to the best
01:46:25
◼
►
of my recollection, once Marco acquired a physical bell,
01:46:29
◼
►
and I'm jumping slightly ahead here.
01:46:30
◼
►
- Which I get to, yeah.
01:46:31
◼
►
- Yeah, once Marco acquired a physical bell,
01:46:33
◼
►
I cannot remember a time that John has mentioned,
01:46:38
◼
►
one of the qualifying phrases, file system, APFS, et cetera,
01:46:42
◼
►
I cannot remember a time that John has made mention
01:46:44
◼
►
of one of those things, and Marco has not immediately
01:46:47
◼
►
rang that bell with his hand.
01:46:50
◼
►
It has been unreal how consistent he has been
01:46:54
◼
►
over the course of the, I don't know, two or three years
01:46:56
◼
►
that this bell has been a thing.
01:46:57
◼
►
- So, I was using the sound effect.
01:46:59
◼
►
I would just put it in during editing.
01:47:00
◼
►
I would use the sound effect for the first couple years.
01:47:03
◼
►
And because we talked a lot about file systems,
01:47:07
◼
►
John was known for it, and we got a tip
01:47:11
◼
►
a couple of months before WWDC 2016
01:47:15
◼
►
that they were going to announce a new file system.
01:47:17
◼
►
And so I thought, wouldn't it be funny
01:47:20
◼
►
if I brought a bell into the keynote
01:47:23
◼
►
and rang it when they said file system
01:47:26
◼
►
like during the keynote?
01:47:27
◼
►
But I didn't have one, so I ordered myself a physical bell.
01:47:33
◼
►
I figured I have to get a physical bell,
01:47:36
◼
►
then I have to teach myself how to do the short ding
01:47:39
◼
►
that I was using the sound effect for
01:47:40
◼
►
that Merlin was doing.
01:47:42
◼
►
So I went on Amazon, ordered a bell,
01:47:45
◼
►
and the one I ordered, unfortunately, had a much higher
01:47:48
◼
►
pitched sound, it was like the wrong note.
01:47:51
◼
►
And what I was trying to do was match the sound effect
01:47:54
◼
►
I'd been using exactly, have it be the exact same bell tone
01:47:57
◼
►
so that nobody could even tell that I was now
01:47:59
◼
►
using a real one.
01:48:00
◼
►
And in fact, still, people who listen to the livestream
01:48:03
◼
►
are still very surprised that it's a real bell
01:48:05
◼
►
like the first time they hear it.
01:48:07
◼
►
That yes, this is actually a real bell that I'm hitting now
01:48:09
◼
►
ever since early 2016.
01:48:11
◼
►
But anyway, so I was trying to find exactly Merlin's bell.
01:48:13
◼
►
First one I bought was the wrong note.
01:48:15
◼
►
And you can't really search Amazon listings for like,
01:48:18
◼
►
what is the frequency of this bell's ring?
01:48:22
◼
►
None of them really have that information published.
01:48:25
◼
►
And so eventually I just asked Merlin,
01:48:27
◼
►
hey, what's the one that you got?
01:48:29
◼
►
And he sent me this link, and we'll put it in the show notes
01:48:32
◼
►
and it's of course, of course this is what Merlin has.
01:48:36
◼
►
It is this gag ring bell for service
01:48:39
◼
►
by this brand, Accoutrements, or Accoutrement,
01:48:43
◼
►
I don't know, it's probably French.
01:48:44
◼
►
And it's like this gag gift bell.
01:48:46
◼
►
The kind of thing you get in a Spencer gift.
01:48:48
◼
►
Like this is the bell, all right?
01:48:51
◼
►
So I thought, okay, so I ordered that, got it,
01:48:55
◼
►
and sure enough it was a perfect match.
01:48:57
◼
►
So I've been using that bell ever since.
01:48:58
◼
►
I've been bringing this bell everywhere we do a live show.
01:49:01
◼
►
So I brought it to WWDC like literally four times,
01:49:04
◼
►
or three times.
01:49:06
◼
►
I traveled with it to and from the beach.
01:49:09
◼
►
Like anywhere I'm going to where I'm recording this show,
01:49:11
◼
►
I bring this bell.
01:49:12
◼
►
- You forgot to, by the way, for the WWDC thing,
01:49:14
◼
►
you forgot to mention the best part of that story.
01:49:16
◼
►
- Oh yeah, well yeah, so I actually did bring the bell
01:49:19
◼
►
into the keynote.
01:49:21
◼
►
They didn't announce it during the keynote.
01:49:24
◼
►
They did announce it during the State of the Union.
01:49:27
◼
►
And you can hear us discuss this on ATP episode 174
01:49:31
◼
►
titled A Ding in the Room.
01:49:33
◼
►
I can tell you that somebody brought a bell
01:49:35
◼
►
into the State of the Union and didn't tell anybody,
01:49:38
◼
►
including all the co-hosts that were sitting next to him,
01:49:40
◼
►
and hit it real hard and it was clearly audible
01:49:45
◼
►
in the stream and the video.
01:49:46
◼
►
But anyway, I had this bell,
01:49:48
◼
►
I've been traveling with it all these years.
01:49:50
◼
►
This year when I brought it back from the beach,
01:49:52
◼
►
it got all rattly.
01:49:53
◼
►
Like something here, I'll show you.
01:49:55
◼
►
- What happens, you bring anything to the beach,
01:49:57
◼
►
it just destroys it, it's the salt air.
01:49:59
◼
►
- And it's just something has become mechanically wrong
01:50:02
◼
►
with my bell and I couldn't figure out how to fix it
01:50:05
◼
►
so it sounded right again.
01:50:06
◼
►
It was just all rattly.
01:50:07
◼
►
- You have the right to repair that bell.
01:50:09
◼
►
It's not glued together, you can get right in.
01:50:10
◼
►
- No, I've tried, right?
01:50:12
◼
►
So I went back to the original Amazon listing
01:50:14
◼
►
that I bought in 2016 and I ordered myself two more.
01:50:17
◼
►
I figured, let me get, I'll get a spare.
01:50:19
◼
►
- Okay, John.
01:50:20
◼
►
- And I'll get, 'cause I mean one lasted three years
01:50:23
◼
►
with a lot of travel.
01:50:23
◼
►
Let me get two more, I can leave one at the beach,
01:50:26
◼
►
that'll cut out a lot of the travel
01:50:27
◼
►
and have like a travel bell and that'll be it, okay.
01:50:29
◼
►
And it was a third party seller,
01:50:30
◼
►
it was all that was selling there.
01:50:33
◼
►
But they arrived a few days later
01:50:35
◼
►
and it wasn't the blue box novelty ring bell for service.
01:50:40
◼
►
It was a generic Graphco call bell
01:50:43
◼
►
and instead of sounding like this,
01:50:44
◼
►
it sounds like this, which is totally the wrong note.
01:50:47
◼
►
- Oh no, oh no.
01:50:49
◼
►
- And by a lot too, like that's totally wrong.
01:50:52
◼
►
It's way higher.
01:50:54
◼
►
So I thought, oh God, okay, so I requested a return,
01:50:58
◼
►
I went back to the same listing,
01:50:59
◼
►
which still had the picture of the nice blue box one
01:51:02
◼
►
I was looking for and I went to a different seller
01:51:05
◼
►
that was listed there and I ordered two more
01:51:09
◼
►
from them and I figured, you know what,
01:51:12
◼
►
just in case this is wrong, these aren't very expensive,
01:51:15
◼
►
there was another one that was significantly more money.
01:51:18
◼
►
It was a whole different seller,
01:51:20
◼
►
it was like, so normally the regular price was $10 each,
01:51:23
◼
►
the one I was ordering the second time was $14 each
01:51:26
◼
►
and there was another seller
01:51:27
◼
►
that was selling for $30 each.
01:51:28
◼
►
And I thought, you know what--
01:51:29
◼
►
- Oh my word.
01:51:30
◼
►
- Just in case, these gotta be two different listings,
01:51:33
◼
►
two different companies, maybe this bell's out of production
01:51:35
◼
►
and they're like scalping people for the cost.
01:51:38
◼
►
Fine, I need them, so I ordered two of the $14 ones
01:51:42
◼
►
and two of the $30 ones from two different companies.
01:51:45
◼
►
All four arrived, all four of them are from a company
01:51:51
◼
►
called Honest Medical or HPMS or the Therapy Connection.
01:51:55
◼
►
The mailing labels are very similar
01:51:57
◼
►
and all four of them are the wrong note.
01:52:01
◼
►
- They're all the same generic Graphco bell.
01:52:04
◼
►
So I have now three different sellers
01:52:07
◼
►
that have sold me the same generic bell.
01:52:11
◼
►
All of them seem to be exactly the same company behind them
01:52:14
◼
►
and now I'm getting into like, oh God,
01:52:16
◼
►
this is like an Amazon thing, right?
01:52:18
◼
►
'Cause this is like, this is the problem with Amazon.
01:52:20
◼
►
There's so much room for BS and arbitrage and scams
01:52:25
◼
►
and counterfeiting and generic stuff.
01:52:28
◼
►
Basically this listing has been corrupted
01:52:30
◼
►
by this company is entering these as that item
01:52:35
◼
►
when in fact they are not that item,
01:52:36
◼
►
they are like a generic similar item
01:52:38
◼
►
but it's not the same item that's listed or pictured, right?
01:52:41
◼
►
- And now speaking of third party sellers,
01:52:42
◼
►
I had a weird experience with Amazon recently too.
01:52:44
◼
►
I mentioned my garbage can that I wanted to get more of.
01:52:46
◼
►
I'm scouring the internet trying to find the garbage can,
01:52:48
◼
►
eventually I track it down, who sells it, of course.
01:52:51
◼
►
I found it at Walmart, sold it at Walmart,
01:52:54
◼
►
but I don't know if any of you have ever
01:52:55
◼
►
ordered online from Walmart.
01:52:56
◼
►
They don't know how to deliver you things
01:52:59
◼
►
that you order on the web.
01:53:00
◼
►
They literally don't know how to do it.
01:53:02
◼
►
They're so bad.
01:53:03
◼
►
It's like half the time I order stuff from Walmart,
01:53:05
◼
►
I just assume I'll get an email three days later
01:53:07
◼
►
that says, "Yeah, that thing you ordered,
01:53:08
◼
►
"we don't actually have that, nevermind.
01:53:10
◼
►
"Your order's canceled."
01:53:11
◼
►
Anyway, and then I also found that on Amazon,
01:53:14
◼
►
similar deal to this Bell.
01:53:15
◼
►
Sketchy looking listing, third party sellers,
01:53:18
◼
►
you just send and cross your fingers, right?
01:53:20
◼
►
So a couple days later, what arrives at my house
01:53:23
◼
►
is two gigantic Walmart boxes.
01:53:25
◼
►
They're brown cardboard boxes with the Walmart name
01:53:27
◼
►
and logo wrapped all around them.
01:53:29
◼
►
It's like a blue Walmart decorations all over them.
01:53:31
◼
►
And I'm like, "Good old Walmart.
01:53:33
◼
►
"Finally, bank makes an error in your favor.
01:53:35
◼
►
"Walmart sent me two garbage cans when I just ordered."
01:53:38
◼
►
And I double checked.
01:53:39
◼
►
I went back to my email receipt.
01:53:40
◼
►
I'm like, "Yep, I ordered one garbage can
01:53:42
◼
►
"and Walmart sent me two."
01:53:43
◼
►
Well, that kind of makes up for the 800 other times
01:53:46
◼
►
that you canceled my order without sending me anything
01:53:48
◼
►
after waiting three days.
01:53:50
◼
►
But then I also noticed that my little Alexa
01:53:52
◼
►
had a yellow ring on it.
01:53:54
◼
►
And I said, well, I already said it, whatever.
01:53:57
◼
►
I said, "Alexa, notifications."
01:53:59
◼
►
And it told me that a shipment had arrived from Amazon
01:54:02
◼
►
containing a garbage can.
01:54:04
◼
►
Like, I did order one garbage can from Amazon
01:54:07
◼
►
and one from Walmart, but what arrived at my doorstep
01:54:09
◼
►
were two Walmart boxes.
01:54:11
◼
►
So as far as I can tell, Amazon sent me a Walmart product.
01:54:16
◼
►
Like, it's not ambiguous.
01:54:20
◼
►
It is in a Walmart box that is identical
01:54:22
◼
►
to the box from Walmart proper,
01:54:25
◼
►
but they obviously both came from the same place
01:54:27
◼
►
and arrived on the same day.
01:54:29
◼
►
And they're both from Walmart.
01:54:30
◼
►
And so I order something at Amazon
01:54:33
◼
►
and Walmart fulfills it?
01:54:34
◼
►
Like, what is going on?
01:54:36
◼
►
The same way that you order a thing from this listing,
01:54:38
◼
►
different sellers for different prices,
01:54:40
◼
►
and the same stupid product
01:54:41
◼
►
that's not that product shows up.
01:54:43
◼
►
I don't understand what's happening in Amazon
01:54:46
◼
►
or what even is Amazon anymore?
01:54:48
◼
►
Is it just a place where you press a button
01:54:50
◼
►
and then somehow things arrive at your, like,
01:54:53
◼
►
how is, it's like going to Burger King
01:54:56
◼
►
and ordering a quarter pound of cheese and getting a Big Mac.
01:54:59
◼
►
What, I don't understand it at all.
01:55:02
◼
►
- Yeah. - Anyway,
01:55:03
◼
►
continue your Bell story.
01:55:03
◼
►
- All right, so I was now in possession
01:55:06
◼
►
of six of the wrong kind of Bell (laughs)
01:55:09
◼
►
at various prices from 10 to $30 each.
01:55:12
◼
►
- Oh my word.
01:55:13
◼
►
You're gonna corner the market on Bells,
01:55:15
◼
►
on incorrect Bells.
01:55:16
◼
►
- Yeah, right.
01:55:17
◼
►
And meanwhile, of the three orders I placed so far,
01:55:20
◼
►
all three of them had, like, the same return address
01:55:23
◼
►
and a very similar company name,
01:55:25
◼
►
even though they were all three
01:55:26
◼
►
from totally differently named Amazon third party sellers.
01:55:29
◼
►
And so, like, clearly, like, you know,
01:55:31
◼
►
there's these companies who, you know,
01:55:32
◼
►
put themselves as lots of listings
01:55:34
◼
►
at lots of different price points,
01:55:35
◼
►
even though it's the same company.
01:55:37
◼
►
They're just, you know, making all these shell companies,
01:55:38
◼
►
I guess, or fake names, who knows?
01:55:40
◼
►
So I thought, you know, okay, fine.
01:55:41
◼
►
You know what, Amazon is killing me here.
01:55:44
◼
►
They're useless.
01:55:45
◼
►
Meanwhile, like, I was searching eBay for this,
01:55:47
◼
►
for the brand and everything.
01:55:48
◼
►
I was looking all over the place.
01:55:50
◼
►
Couldn't find them anywhere.
01:55:52
◼
►
And finally, I found using, like, Google Shopping,
01:55:55
◼
►
there was this other site,
01:55:57
◼
►
which I'm not gonna name for their protection.
01:55:58
◼
►
There was this other site that had the listing
01:56:02
◼
►
of exactly the bell I was looking for.
01:56:04
◼
►
It had the picture of the right box and everything.
01:56:07
◼
►
I'm like, finally, it was $21 each.
01:56:11
◼
►
And I'm like, you know what?
01:56:12
◼
►
I'm getting four of them.
01:56:14
◼
►
I'm just kidding. (laughing)
01:56:15
◼
►
Obviously, this is so hard to find,
01:56:18
◼
►
I'm never gonna be able to find them again.
01:56:19
◼
►
It's like, you know, John, like, you know,
01:56:21
◼
►
it's like John Gruber holding onto his old Apple keyboards.
01:56:24
◼
►
It's like, if I can find this for sale,
01:56:26
◼
►
for God's sake, I'll buy them all, right?
01:56:28
◼
►
I never wanna have to do this again.
01:56:30
◼
►
So I ordered four of these bells
01:56:33
◼
►
from this random other site.
01:56:35
◼
►
They arrive a few days later,
01:56:36
◼
►
and I look at the man label,
01:56:38
◼
►
and it says Honest Medical HPMS Therapy Connection.
01:56:43
◼
►
It's the exact same company
01:56:45
◼
►
that was sending them from Amazon.
01:56:46
◼
►
And I was like, you gotta be effing kidding me.
01:56:48
◼
►
- They have all the bells, obviously.
01:56:50
◼
►
They've cornered the market on bells.
01:56:51
◼
►
- Sure enough, I open it up,
01:56:53
◼
►
and it's the wrong bell.
01:56:56
◼
►
And it's four of them from the same damn company.
01:57:00
◼
►
- They just keep sending you the same bells
01:57:02
◼
►
they sent you before.
01:57:02
◼
►
You return them and get a refund
01:57:04
◼
►
when you order them again from a different thing.
01:57:06
◼
►
- Yeah, we keep sending a lot of bells to this address,
01:57:08
◼
►
and they keep returning them.
01:57:09
◼
►
- No, but like, I still had them all.
01:57:10
◼
►
Like, you know, at peak time,
01:57:11
◼
►
I had like 10 bells in my house.
01:57:13
◼
►
So, 'cause I was like, you know,
01:57:15
◼
►
waiting for the UPS guy to come pick up the returns.
01:57:18
◼
►
- You should do a top four on bells,
01:57:19
◼
►
top four bells, and all the bells are that bell.
01:57:23
◼
►
- Right, yeah, exactly.
01:57:26
◼
►
So like, so here I am, I'm like,
01:57:27
◼
►
you gotta, like, no matter what I get,
01:57:29
◼
►
no matter, it's like Groundhog Daily,
01:57:30
◼
►
no matter what I do, the same thing shows up.
01:57:32
◼
►
It's like, oh my god.
01:57:33
◼
►
So, and it turns out this other site that I had found
01:57:37
◼
►
was just like an Amazon front site.
01:57:39
◼
►
Like, I emailed them all pissed off.
01:57:41
◼
►
I'm like, you know, I demand a refund.
01:57:43
◼
►
This is not what was pictured.
01:57:45
◼
►
Clearly, you're just reselling Amazon stuff.
01:57:47
◼
►
They responded, not addressing the accusation
01:57:50
◼
►
that they were just an Amazon shill site,
01:57:52
◼
►
but their return label that they gave me
01:57:54
◼
►
was a PDF of an Amazon return label.
01:57:59
◼
►
- So, so you know, clearly,
01:58:01
◼
►
so I fell for one of these arbitrage sites,
01:58:03
◼
►
but I think I'm gonna get a refund.
01:58:04
◼
►
We'll see, so, I'm like, you know,
01:58:08
◼
►
I'm, you know, blocked at every turn here.
01:58:10
◼
►
What the heck am I gonna do?
01:58:12
◼
►
I went back to Amazon.
01:58:13
◼
►
I went to all the other sellers.
01:58:15
◼
►
There aren't that many sellers of this bell listed,
01:58:17
◼
►
but you know, they were all that same company,
01:58:19
◼
►
just different names.
01:58:20
◼
►
There was one company in the list that they're,
01:58:24
◼
►
like they had longer shipping times than the rest,
01:58:26
◼
►
and they're listing like all their info
01:58:28
◼
►
like that they give to Amazon.
01:58:29
◼
►
Like it looked a little bit different than the rest.
01:58:31
◼
►
- By the way, before you get to the end of the story,
01:58:34
◼
►
I wanted to say what I would do in this situation,
01:58:36
◼
►
and what I do do when I'm trying to,
01:58:38
◼
►
in this exact situation,
01:58:39
◼
►
I always try to find, if they're still in business,
01:58:42
◼
►
the actual manufacturer of the product,
01:58:44
◼
►
and I hope to hell that that manufacturer has a website.
01:58:47
◼
►
Whoever makes this ring for service novelty bell
01:58:51
◼
►
for Spencer gifts, find the company that makes it.
01:58:54
◼
►
Go to their website,
01:58:56
◼
►
and if they don't have online ordering,
01:58:58
◼
►
at the very least get like the exact part number
01:59:00
◼
►
and start searching based on that
01:59:02
◼
►
rather than trusting the picture.
01:59:03
◼
►
Now, maybe it's not possible with a novelty bell,
01:59:05
◼
►
but that's my usual technique, so continue.
01:59:08
◼
►
- All right, so yeah, and I try,
01:59:10
◼
►
but this appears to be like no longer produced
01:59:13
◼
►
for possibly quite some time.
01:59:15
◼
►
So finally, I found this one seller
01:59:18
◼
►
that looked a little bit different than the rest,
01:59:20
◼
►
and I emailed them, and I'm like,
01:59:21
◼
►
hey, here's exactly what I'm looking for.
01:59:24
◼
►
Can you verify whether this is exactly what you have
01:59:27
◼
►
or whether you have this other thing?
01:59:29
◼
►
And they responded, and they're like,
01:59:31
◼
►
yes, we actually have the real thing.
01:59:33
◼
►
We only have three left.
01:59:36
◼
►
Great, I place an order immediately,
01:59:37
◼
►
not from Amazon, but from their site directly.
01:59:41
◼
►
I got my bells.
01:59:44
◼
►
What shows up a few days later is three of the correct bell.
01:59:49
◼
►
So finally, for whatever price,
01:59:53
◼
►
I think 20 bucks each, whatever it was, 15 bucks each,
01:59:55
◼
►
I finally have the correct bell.
01:59:58
◼
►
I have three of them now that work
01:59:59
◼
►
and one of them that doesn't,
02:00:01
◼
►
and so finally I'm gonna hoard these for the rest of time
02:00:05
◼
►
or at least for the rest of the, however long ATP runs,
02:00:08
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I'm gonna hoard these bells, and now finally I have them.
02:00:10
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But it's just like, I know this is kind of,
02:00:12
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and not a great ending to a story,
02:00:13
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but I finally got the right thing,
02:00:14
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but just like, it just kind of shows how messed up
02:00:18
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the whole Amazon ecosystem is that you can get
02:00:22
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one company dominating the listings for this thing,
02:00:25
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selling a counterfeit item from all these different names,
02:00:27
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all these different price points,
02:00:28
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plus this arbitrage site that was off to the side
02:00:30
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that was the same.
02:00:31
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- Counterfeiting a garbagey item.
02:00:34
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- It's like an Apple product or something.
02:00:36
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It's counterfeiting a Spencer Gips thing.
02:00:38
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- No, they're counterfeiting a $10 bell.
02:00:41
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Oh God, so I finally have the right thing,
02:00:44
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and that's it, that's my story.
02:00:45
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- Now you should save the quote unquote broken one too.
02:00:49
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- Just because it's good to have the parts,
02:00:50
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and I feel like if you have two broken ones,
02:00:53
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maybe you can make one working one out of it.
02:00:54
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It's still interesting in exactly how this thing broke.
02:00:56
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I feel like it could be, I tried to repair it
02:00:58
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by the way, a garbage can, but I have some,
02:01:01
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I tried using Krazy Glue that worked for like two days
02:01:04
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as it usually does.
02:01:05
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I have some mechanical ways I could try to fix it,
02:01:07
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but I'm saving the body just like my cheese grater
02:01:10
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so that I can eventually make one whole working garbage can
02:01:14
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several years from now.
02:01:16
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The garbage can situation was pretty grim,
02:01:18
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'cause like what I wanted was a garbage can
02:01:21
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that has a lid where you touch a thing on top of it
02:01:24
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and the lid opens, so I didn't want a foot press thingy,
02:01:28
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and where it is in my kitchen,
02:01:30
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it has to open on the narrow side,
02:01:32
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so it has to be wider than it is long,
02:01:34
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it has to be like a rectangle,
02:01:35
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and the hinge has to be on the short side of the rectangle,
02:01:39
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'cause that's just how our garbage can is
02:01:40
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and where it's placed, and that's not gonna change
02:01:42
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unless we get our kitchen totally remodeled.
02:01:45
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Just try finding a garbage can that's like that.
02:01:47
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They either all have foot pedals,
02:01:48
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or they all open the other way.
02:01:50
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Like price was no object, materials were almost no object,
02:01:53
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I didn't care, it's just impossible to find,
02:01:54
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except for my one garbage can that I found,
02:01:57
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almost the identical garbage can I found.
02:01:59
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The only difference is that there's slightly textured plastic
02:02:03
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in an area where the old plastic used to be smooth,
02:02:05
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which I'm afraid will make it slightly harder
02:02:06
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to clean that part of it, but it's not really visible
02:02:10
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unless you're right on top of it,
02:02:11
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and you can see that it's textured.
02:02:12
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So I got two of them, and I'm keeping 'em.
02:02:15
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Cheese gritters still can't find any of those.
02:02:17
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Anyone ever finds my cheese grater,
02:02:19
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just buy me one, I will pay you for them,
02:02:20
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as long as the prices are reasonable.
02:02:22
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Not like that $75 spatula that I didn't buy.
02:02:25
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- Oh my gosh.
02:02:26
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- But what is the right spatula?
02:02:27
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I would have paid $75 for one of the correct bell.
02:02:31
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- Yeah, yeah, well I mean, the thing is,
02:02:33
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if you don't have a working one,
02:02:34
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like that's the spatula I have a working one,
02:02:36
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but the cheese grater is I know that they break,
02:02:38
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and the bells, apparently now you know that they break.
02:02:41
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Maybe you should be more gentle with your bell.
02:02:44
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- I gotta stop traveling with it.
02:02:46
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Shove it into a suitcase with a sock in the middle
02:02:48
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so it doesn't ring.
02:02:49
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- You should get one of those custom fitted cut foam,
02:02:52
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like carrying cases for the bell.
02:02:56
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- You can margo this up,
02:02:56
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how expensive can you make this $10 bell?
02:03:00
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$150 custom cut Pelican carrying case for it.