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286: I Respect a Good Crust

 

00:00:00   John, how was your Long Island vacation experience, getaway, etc.?

00:00:04   It was fine. So tell me all about your vacation. What was your favorite part?

00:00:08   Well, we used to do the same things. I don't know. I don't have a favorite part. I like all the parts.

00:00:12   We go to the beach, we eat food that we can only get there, I try to sleep late, take a lot of pictures.

00:00:20   You know, the whole deal. There were a couple of pictures that I saw. I think I saw them somewhere

00:00:26   private, like in a slack somewhere or something like that. But there were a couple of pictures I

00:00:30   saw that appeared to me to have been taken with a big camera with big glass, but with you perilously

00:00:37   close to being submerged in water. I was quite impressed by your bravery in taking those pictures.

00:00:46   That's not bravery, that's zoom range.

00:00:48   Yeah, almost, no, almost all of my pictures that I take of people in the ocean, I'm also standing

00:00:53   up to my knees or waist, depending on the position of the waves in the ocean. And once again, I

00:00:58   managed not to get knocked over. And once again, I managed to almost get knocked over many times.

00:01:03   So it's quite an adventure.

00:01:05   Note to self, don't lend any lenses to John.

00:01:07   But the particular picture you're talking about was not taken by me. It was taken by my brother

00:01:13   with a not so great but waterproof camera. And that's not a zoom. People would be saying,

00:01:18   "Wow, look at that zoom. Look at where the wave is." I would have to be

00:01:22   on the side of the person. It doesn't matter. I would have to be just as far from the shore

00:01:28   as they are, but 100 yards away to the left or right to use a zoom. All my shots, yes,

00:01:34   of course, they're with the zoom. But that particular shot is someone who's standing

00:01:37   three feet away alongside the person on the wave. So yeah, you can look at... It's hard to see on

00:01:44   Instagram because that's where you saw that. But if you look close, you can see that camera's

00:01:48   not that great. It's not even as good as an iPhone camera, I feel like, but it is waterproof.

00:01:52   And so that's why you could actually get right next to those people.

00:01:54   And looking again, I see what you're saying. But I saw that.

00:01:57   If you zoom in on it, it's really not even as good as an iPhone.

00:02:00   I saw it and I was like, "Oh." Because I knew your... I don't know if predilection is the

00:02:07   word I'm looking for, but your habit of getting into the water deeper than I would be brave enough

00:02:13   to do in order to take these pictures, which are great. They're great pictures. I'm not trying to

00:02:17   say you're making a mistake. It's just, "Woof." I have a bad history with water, so I get scared

00:02:22   easily. Yeah, understandable. I think this year I came the closest to losing it because the waves

00:02:28   on a couple of days were particularly rough. And they were the kind of waves where it's even for

00:02:36   a long time and you think, "I can just stand here." And this is pretty much the level of the water,

00:02:40   and it's just going to be those little rumblers coming in. And then one smacker comes in and just

00:02:46   smacks you real hard. I stumbled many times. I didn't go down. I didn't go down with one hand.

00:02:52   I didn't have to hold the camera up above me, but I stumbled many times. And at this point,

00:02:57   it's kind of like a death wish where it's like, "Go ahead and knock me over. I'll just buy a

00:03:00   fancier camera." Because apparently I can't make myself buy a fancier camera for way more money,

00:03:04   but if this one got destroyed, I would be like, "All right, well, I guess I have to get a better

00:03:07   camera now." I have no choice. There's nothing I can do. Rationalization is powerful. But I do

00:03:13   always bring a backup camera with me. So yeah, I would ask why you don't get something like a GoPro,

00:03:18   but the pictures would be garbage on a GoPro by comparison. So I understand it, but you're braver

00:03:23   than me. Yeah, you can do video in some cases. Some things we had would have been good for video,

00:03:27   but I don't take video on my fancy camera, and I wasn't about to do it on my iPhone either.

00:03:32   Out of curiosity, what is your backup camera? It's just my previous camera. It's the Tim Cook

00:03:37   method. What is it? A Panasonic Super Zoom? So you say you don't have a favorite part. I'm not

00:03:46   asking you to pick your favorite child, although I bet you that exists, and I won't ask you who

00:03:49   it is. But you don't have any particular favorite part? Everything is just its own perfect special

00:03:53   snowflake? I don't know. I mean, maybe the pies? If I had to pick something. The pies?

00:04:01   Because I've recently been dieting, so it was nice to... All diets were off on my own for the

00:04:06   most part, and there's the particular place they like to get pies on Long Island. And so...

00:04:10   Wait, to be clear, we're not talking pizza. We're talking savory or maybe even sweet pies.

00:04:15   Dessert pies, blueberry pie, apple pie. We got some weird cherry raspberry pie too,

00:04:22   whatever. I'm all about the blueberry. Well, how? It's good. That was not the answer I expected at

00:04:27   all. I mean, I like all the parts, but... Is Long Island known for pies?

00:04:32   You know, this is just a particular place that we got pies when I was growing up. The place is out

00:04:37   east, and where I go out east is really close to that place. Where I live was not close to it,

00:04:42   so it was quite a trek to ever go out and get those pies. But now when we go on vacation,

00:04:45   we're right there. It's like five minutes away. So just go there and buy three or four pies and just

00:04:51   eat pie as a dessert after every meal. Like an entire one?

00:04:55   No, just a slice. You have breakfast, and you have your breakfast pie. You have lunch,

00:04:59   and you have your lunch pie. Well, yeah. I mean, if you have pie in the house,

00:05:01   you have to have it for breakfast. That's obvious.

00:05:04   It's this fruit in it. It's part of an nutritious breakfast.

00:05:06   Yes. Now, first of all, I want to set aside that for everyone. Has anybody ever actually eaten the,

00:05:14   quote, "complete breakfast" that breakfast cereals always advertised they were a part of?

00:05:18   Oh, that's where it's like a banana.

00:05:20   Probably. Like, it was mostly just fruit and stuff, right? It was like fruit. You had the

00:05:24   bowl of cereal, and you had fruit in the cereal. Then you had separate fruit, and then you had,

00:05:27   like, a muffin or something. I bet people have eaten that.

00:05:30   And like a glass of milk and a glass of orange juice and water.

00:05:32   They were like...

00:05:33   I don't think you need the glass of milk, because that goes in the cereal. But the orange juice,

00:05:36   yeah. I feel like the breakfast they give you on British Airways has a lot of stuff in it. I feel

00:05:42   like that could be a complete breakfast. Yeah, probably. All right. So going back

00:05:47   to the pies now. I have one more question about the pies. I noticed in my travels on Long Island

00:05:53   that for some reason they add sesame seeds to pizza crust frequently.

00:05:58   No, they do not or should not. I don't know why they do this.

00:06:02   No one should ever do that, and if they're doing that, they're ruining Long Island. They need to

00:06:06   stop. No one ever did that when I was growing up there, and I'm very angry and sad to learn that

00:06:12   you found that exists anywhere on Long Island. I did, yeah. And honestly, I am in agreement with

00:06:17   you. I was not a fan of sesame seeds on pizza crust. Now, I'm curious. Do they add sesame

00:06:23   seeds to the pie crusts as well? No, I've never... I mean, unless it's part of

00:06:27   the pie of some weird kind, but no. Where are you finding pizza with... This is very

00:06:31   upsetting to me. I'm already upset by your weird uncooked cheese crap thing that you get on...

00:06:36   It's called cold cheese and boom boom, Jon. Yeah, I know. I make a lot of allowances for

00:06:42   what I call East End pizza because things get weird when you go out there. It's like, "All

00:06:45   right. Well, you have nice beaches. You have to sacrifice something, and something has the ability

00:06:50   to make normal pizza. Fine." But sesame seeds in the crust, no. They need to stop.

00:06:57   What makes a good blueberry pie to you? I don't know. Have I had any blueberry pie

00:07:03   other than this one? I don't know. I mean, things you get out east in the summer on the island,

00:07:07   you want stuff that is grown on the farm right there. This is a farm stand type thing,

00:07:11   and they grow the blueberries and all the different fruits that are put in there.

00:07:16   So they're fresh. It's got to... I don't know. It's just... You've seen what blueberry pie is like.

00:07:22   It's just blueberries. There's not really lots of ingredients in it. It's a pie crust with tons and

00:07:27   tons of blueberries in it, and that's it. It can't be too runny, I guess. It has to have some

00:07:33   consistency to hold up. It's got to taste like blueberries, and it's just wall to wall purple

00:07:37   blue blueberries. Top and bottom crust or just bottom crust and open top? Top and bottom.

00:07:44   Lattice or not lattice? This place is not lattice, but I don't mind one way or the other.

00:07:51   See, I'm not a... I don't know if I've ever had a blueberry pie, to be completely honest,

00:07:55   but I love apple pie. You've never had a blueberry pie? I don't know if I have.

00:08:00   They don't have them at cookout. You can buy one in the supermarket from like

00:08:04   Entenmann's or whatever. They're not rare. I mean, I actually don't terribly love

00:08:10   blueberries. There are certain scenarios where I love blueberries, like a blueberry muffin,

00:08:13   for example, but I do love apple pie. I love, love, love, love apple pie, and I have an interesting

00:08:20   relationship with the lattice top because I think as a work of art it is deeply impressive,

00:08:25   and it's clearly very intense to put together and do properly and whatnot, but the crust is one of

00:08:30   the best parts of a pie, and I feel like I'm missing out on half the darn crust if it's a

00:08:34   lattice pie. I want the whole pie crust up top and on the bottom. See, to me, I prefer crumble

00:08:41   pies. Like, you know, the bottom... I respect a good crust, and Tiff's actually really good

00:08:45   at baking pies, and her crusts are awesome and makes me respect them even more. However,

00:08:49   I also really like a crumble pie where the top crust is replaced by clumps of like brown sugar

00:08:55   and butter, basically. Oh, yeah, I can get behind that. You know, like a coffee cake kind of thing,

00:08:59   but like, you know, you can have a crumble top pie of almost any kind of fruit pie, and it works

00:09:03   pretty well, and it is totally ridiculous in the sense of here's more blobs of fat and sugar to add

00:09:09   to your pie, but boy does it make a good pie, and I feel like it's hard to get a good crust,

00:09:16   top and bottom, all the way through for most bakers. Like, you know, they can be okay,

00:09:21   but it's rare that they're good because it's really hard, as I know from Tiff doing it at home,

00:09:25   it's really hard to get both top and bottom crusts cooked properly, you know, without burning one or

00:09:30   undercooking one or having it get too soggy or anything like that. And so it's much easier. Like,

00:09:35   the crumble pies seem to be more consistent for me. Like, you can get pretty much any crumble pie,

00:09:41   and it's probably going to be really good. That's why you buy your pies. The place I buy my pies

00:09:44   from, top and bottom crusts, always cooked all the way through, always even, always good, although,

00:09:48   like I said, some people don't like crusts. Like, I'll see even people in my family, though,

00:09:52   that you give them a slice of pie, they'll eat it, and in the end, they'll be like the sort of the

00:09:56   rim of the crust left. - Oh, God.

00:09:57   - Monsters. - Or they'll just, like, eat out the filling and just leave the crust behind. It's like,

00:10:01   what are you even doing? So not everyone is all on board pie. - In all fairness, I see why people

00:10:06   can get there because there are bad crusts out there. Like, if it's a really good crust, I'm

00:10:11   eating the crust as much as I'm eating the pie. - Yep. - But if it's like a really crappy crust,

00:10:15   or it's really like overcooked or stale, so it's kind of like gummy, at the end, like little folded

00:10:19   over part, I can understand why, like, you know, maybe like one bad crust ruined somebody forever.

00:10:25   - I don't know, man. I know when Erin makes her annual apple pie or apple pies, if it's a good

00:10:30   year, she has some sort of ridiculous procedure where certain pieces of the top get covered in

00:10:35   aluminum foil at certain stages for certain stretches of time to fight exactly what you're

00:10:39   talking about, Marco. It's the same story. - Yeah, like making a good pie crust top and bottom is

00:10:44   hard. It takes some very advanced baking skill to do it. - Yeah. So anyway, I was not expecting the

00:10:51   pie to be the highlight of your peach vacation, but you know what? You do you, Jon. - Whipped cream,

00:10:56   ice cream, or neither? - Ice cream. - Definitely ice cream. - Vanilla only or any flavor permissible?

00:11:01   - Oh, vanilla only. - Vanilla only. But I mean, other flavors will be fine, but I want vanilla.

00:11:07   If they only have strawberry, fine. If they only have chocolate, I want vanilla though. - See,

00:11:12   to me, I think an apple pie, it's gotta be vanilla ice cream. Any other kind of pie,

00:11:17   I usually prefer whipped cream. - No, so much so, I was thinking about this when I was having the

00:11:23   pie. I always said, like, you know, we get the pie and we also get the ice cream, right? And I

00:11:27   was thinking, if we didn't have the ice cream, I would forego the pie and wait until we had the ice

00:11:31   cream. Like, I don't even want the pie. I don't even want the pie without the ice cream because

00:11:35   I feel like it's a waste of a piece of pie. - Wow, you must really hate pie. - No, I want the

00:11:41   combination. I don't want to waste the pie in a suboptimal eating arrangement, right? Because

00:11:48   there's limited pie and then you're there for a limited time, why waste a piece that's, you know,

00:11:53   not going to be as good as it could be? And I like a lot of ice cream. - See, to me, I like fresh

00:11:58   whipped cream that only has a little tiny bit of sugar in it because to me, like, having a mostly

00:12:04   not sweetened whipped cream helps balance out the very sweet pie. And I like the contrast between

00:12:10   the two. Whereas ice cream is so sweet, it's kind of like sugar bomb on top of sugar bomb.

00:12:15   - Well, you got to try the different pies. Like, what was it? Raspberry cherry we had was actually

00:12:21   a little bit tart, right? So the whole pie, the crust is savory and the filling is tart and then

00:12:25   the ice cream is sweet. It makes a great combination. - I have much to learn. -

00:12:31   Let's start with some follow-up. Michael Alderetti, I'm sorry, Michael, if that's wrong, writes in,

00:12:38   "Hey guys, I just got to the crash plan part of the latest episode and I literally just this week

00:12:41   went through solving the problems that Jon mentions, missing menu bar, etc. I have some notes.

00:12:45   According to Michael, you still have the Java client, Jon, and it's running out of memory and

00:12:49   parts of the client are dying and there's never anything in the log or history about this," to

00:12:53   which Michael grumbles. "You can check this by launching the main client app and then pressing

00:12:57   command option C to bring up the console, then type Java MX to see your memory allocation.

00:13:03   Double the number and then type Java MX with the new number with an M at the end to increase the

00:13:08   memory allocation. The client will unload itself and then reload the engine, etc. I don't really,

00:13:12   or I didn't really trust it to do all the right things and ended up rebooting too,

00:13:15   but you might be able to skip that." - So he was right. I do still have the Java thing,

00:13:19   even though it looks different. It was dying frequently, as I mentioned, and I would have to

00:13:24   like relaunch it and whatever. I didn't know what the deal was because there was no indication that

00:13:27   what the problem was. This console thing, command option C, it's not even in a menu bar item,

00:13:32   as far as I can tell. So you have to know this and then it gives you this ugly little command line

00:13:36   GUI thing. It's not even a shell. It's just like a box where you type things. Anyway,

00:13:40   I increased my memory allocation and now it doesn't crash anymore and it's backing up.

00:13:46   And that leads me to my second follow-up item, which is an update about me and crash plan.

00:13:52   So finally, the thing is running consistently and I don't have to babysit it and

00:13:57   stop it from crashing or whatever because the amount I increased in memory was fine.

00:14:00   It hasn't crashed since, so thumbs up. And it's backing up, but for some reason it thinks it needs

00:14:05   to back up way more than I think it needs to back up. It doesn't think it needs to back up everything.

00:14:09   It's not like it forgot about my backup set. It knows that it mostly has stuff backed up,

00:14:12   but it's backing up like hundreds of gigabytes and I don't have hundreds of gigabytes that's new.

00:14:17   So it's confused about something. And the second thing is that the time estimates that were given

00:14:22   me were terrible. First of all, it's time estimating. This is always a hard problem.

00:14:26   Regular people don't understand why can't the computer just tell me how long it's going to take.

00:14:29   It's because not only does the computer not know, nobody knows. No human knows either. It's not

00:14:35   predictable. If you do the naive thing and say, "Just look at the rate you've been uploading over

00:14:39   the last five minutes and assume that will continue and put a number up," you get ridiculous

00:14:42   numbers and it changes all the time. So I'm looking at crash plan updating and I'm letting it run for

00:14:46   a day or two. Sometimes it says, "We'll be done updating in 15 days." I'm like, "Well, that sucks,

00:14:54   but it's hundreds of gigabytes. May need to be finished." Then I'll come back and I'll say,

00:14:58   "Should be finished uploading in 4.1 years." And I say, "Well, that is no good."

00:15:03   And then I'll come back and it'll say, "Two weeks." And it's like, "Well, what's the deal?"

00:15:11   It doesn't even have a thing where you can see the rate. You can work in the activity monitor to see

00:15:15   how fast it's uploading. But the point is it never dropped below two weeks or 10 days or whatever the

00:15:20   lowest number it ever has been. Frequently, it jumps up into the years. So that's my way of

00:15:24   telling how fast is it going? How long does it think this is going to take? I'm like, "Well,

00:15:28   this is no good. I don't like the crash plan. It seems to think it needs to upload more than I think

00:15:34   it needs to upload. And I don't like that it's uploading slowly and I don't like the rate is very

00:15:38   variable. So let me look at some alternatives." So one that somebody tweeted at me this week was

00:15:43   Spider Oak, which I'd heard of before and it's been around for a while. They had a sale or

00:15:47   something. It was like, "Get unlimited backup for an unlimited number of computers for life,

00:15:52   for a rate." And the rate was like $180 a year, which sounds like a lot until you realize you

00:15:58   can do all your computers and it's unlimited storage for all of them. So I'm like, "Well,

00:16:02   that might be a good deal. But before I pay that, let me try the Spider Oak client."

00:16:05   So I install Spider Oak. I don't have it back on my entire computer, but I just pointed it at my

00:16:11   photo library. And I say, "Go, start backing up. Let me see how you're going to do." And it spent

00:16:16   a day and a half just at the phase where it's like trying to find files that need to be backed up.

00:16:21   It never got to the point where it was even uploading anything. So I'm like, "Well,

00:16:24   sorry, Spider Oak, but I'm glad I didn't pay $180 to try to get that good deal because I feel like

00:16:29   I just have too many files." And it was just taking too long. So I gave up on that. And then finally,

00:16:34   I don't even know if they're a sponsor of this episode, but I've been using Backblaze since

00:16:38   well before they were a sponsor and I use it on my computer all the time. This is, of course,

00:16:41   my wife's computer. I don't use Backblaze there because I want to back up the network drive from

00:16:46   it and CrashPlan does that, but CrashPlan was in the doghouse. So I said, "Let me try Backblaze."

00:16:50   So I put Backblaze on our computer. And one of the cool things about Backblaze that isn't mentioned

00:16:55   in the ad reads, but is a thing that exists is that you can manually control how fast it uploads,

00:17:02   basically, how many resources it uses. So by default, it just automatically throttles based

00:17:07   on your activity and stuff. But if you're in my situation and you say, "Look, no one's going to

00:17:12   be using this computer. We're all going to sleep." Just upload as fast as you possibly can. You have

00:17:17   a couple of settings. You have a slider for how fast you want to upload. You can disable all the

00:17:21   throttles. And then there's also a number of threads that you can pick. And the maximum is 20.

00:17:26   I wish it actually went higher. So I just cranked everything up as high as it can go,

00:17:29   put it down to 20 threads and just let it run. And it has no problem saturating my upload pipe,

00:17:35   which is not that big. I don't have a very fast file. So I think mine is 50 megabits up, which is

00:17:41   a half or a third of the maximum file speeds off or whatever. But it's way more than any other

00:17:47   service was getting. And so I'm like, "Well, I think Backblaze wins here." So I ended up paying

00:17:51   for the business group thing for Backblaze. It's just a billing convenience. I don't think it's any

00:17:57   cheaper or more expensive than anything else. But it's like I already had an account at Backblaze.

00:18:00   So I just added my wife's computer to the account. And now I'm stuck thinking what I'm going to do

00:18:04   with my Synology. Of course, Backblaze will let you back up directly from the Synology to their

00:18:08   B2 storage. And I just have to do the math to see what that looks like. I still might end up

00:18:12   just having CrashPlan do my Synology. So basically running Backblaze for the computer and the attached

00:18:17   drives and then running CrashPlan for the Synology because the CrashPlan deal I have is like $2.50

00:18:23   a month or something. It's really cheap. And I've already paid for like a year of it. So anyway,

00:18:28   all this is to say that my backup stuff is a little bit in flux. But from my brief testing,

00:18:35   Backblaze is still the upload speed champ. And I paused it during the podcast. But as soon as

00:18:41   we're done with this, I'm just going to have it re-upload again. It claims it's going to upload

00:18:45   like three and a half terabytes per day. That seems optimistic to me. But it is way better

00:18:50   than 4.1 years, whatever CrashPlan was saying before I paused it.

00:18:54   Yeah. Whenever I tried CrashPlan, which admittedly it's been a while, but whenever I tried CrashPlan,

00:19:00   it would always just slow down to a crawl as it did my initial upload. And it was never going

00:19:05   to complete. It was going to take years and just never complete. And I heard all the same tips that

00:19:09   people are yelling at you about Java limits and everything like that. And I just didn't care.

00:19:13   I tried a few of them. They didn't work. I'm like, "All right. I can't spend any more time on this."

00:19:16   So I've been using Backblaze for a while now. They're not sponsoring this episode. But they are

00:19:22   our sponsor frequently. So we should just close that as you did. But I was using them before they

00:19:27   were sponsored because this all happened back then. And boy, are they so much better at the

00:19:31   upload speeds and everything. It's just night and day different. The only reason I think to not use

00:19:37   Backblaze is if you want network drive backups. That's it. I can't think of any other advantage

00:19:44   that anyone else has over them. They're just so much better in every other way.

00:19:48   And Backblaze is also picky about what it backups to. It refuses to backup the user directory and

00:19:53   stuff like that. You used to be able to override that, but now it's either much more difficult or

00:19:57   impossible. So there are reasons for my luck. Well, you mean the Unix user directory, like USR?

00:20:00   Yeah, USR. There's a whole bunch of directories that it just won't back up. I find that annoying

00:20:04   because my user local is the thing I want to back up because I compile all my software and put it

00:20:08   there. And the fact that it won't back up user local for me is kind of annoying. I used to

00:20:11   override it back when you could, and now you can't. So there are other reasons to look elsewhere. But

00:20:15   for what I'm doing in this case, which is basically backing up photos and plain files on my wife's

00:20:20   computer, it's fine. Yeah, I would be on Backblaze, would have been on Backblaze forever ago were it

00:20:27   not for me really wanting to back up my Synology. And maybe the right answer is to do what you're

00:20:32   saying, Jon, and double dip and pay both Backblaze and CrashPlan. Or you can use the B2 storage thing.

00:20:37   I don't quite know. It's probably some business model that makes this non-profitable. But like,

00:20:41   so Backblaze and CrashPlan and a bunch of other things will run on your NAS. You don't have to run

00:20:46   on a computer with the NAS match. It will run directly on your NAS. It's just that Backblaze

00:20:50   is a solution there is you have to pay them for the storage. So they have this B2 storage,

00:20:55   which is like S3 but a little bit cheaper. A lot cheaper.

00:20:59   Yeah. And you have to pay them per byte for your storage, which is not like Backblaze on your

00:21:05   computer, which is as the tagline for the ad goes, unlimited on the product. You don't have to pay

00:21:10   for your storage. You just pay a flat amount a month and you can upload everything. I guess they

00:21:14   assume that servers and NASes can just have so much storage that it doesn't make sense financially.

00:21:20   But for me, there's not that much more. I'm backing up maybe two and a half terabytes on my NAS

00:21:27   and two and a half terabytes for my computer. So it's about the same. It's just that one of them,

00:21:30   because it's not a computer, will charge me to store that all the time. The other one won't.

00:21:35   So I kind of wish I had a... Financially, it's a better deal to do CrashPlan for the NAS. But I'm

00:21:42   going to do the math on Backblaze B2 and see if I can just stomach whatever's going to charge. And

00:21:47   then I'll just cancel the CrashPlan contract when it comes up for renewal.

00:21:51   **Matt Stauffer** I've actually been doing... I don't know if this helps at all for your needs.

00:21:55   Probably not. But I've actually been trying B2 using the Arc backup program, ARQ. It's a pretty

00:22:01   popular Mac backup app. Arc is cool because you can set tons of different storage services as your

00:22:08   endpoint for Arc. And Arc is just the backup client that runs on Mac OS. And it backs up to

00:22:16   this document or format in case they've got a business or whatever. But I wouldn't really be

00:22:19   too worried about that. And basically, it's a way for you to have a little more control over what

00:22:24   gets backed up. So if you wanted to do something like what Jon was saying earlier about how

00:22:28   Backblaze doesn't back up certain directories, if you wanted more control over it, you could use Arc

00:22:33   to back up to Backblaze B2 or Amazon S3. Or, although I wouldn't recommend this, Amazon Glacier

00:22:38   or all sorts of other things. Dropbox, I think, Google Drive, Amazon OneDrive, all this crazy

00:22:44   stuff. But I decided I was having my Backblaze client, I was running basically the same

00:22:50   installation of the Backblaze client for something like six or seven years. And it was starting to

00:22:54   get a little bit weird with memory usage. And their recommendation when this happens is usually

00:23:00   to kind of like just blow it away and start over. Or to blow away certain log files and start over.

00:23:04   And so whatever else, like the case was, I had this problem and I was going to start over. So I

00:23:09   figured, while I'm starting over, let me try Arc. Let me try that to B2. It is costing me a little

00:23:16   bit more because of how much I'm storing there, because I'm storing a lot compared to the flat

00:23:20   rate of the regular client. But it's kind of nice. It isn't that much more, I forget what it is, but

00:23:26   it's a small amount more plus the cost of Arc itself, which I think is like 30 or 40 bucks.

00:23:30   And then what's nice about it is you as a user, I believe you're licensed on any number of computers

00:23:37   you own for Arc. You know, it's just per user licensing instead of per computer licensing. So I

00:23:43   run Arc on my desktop and on my laptop. And Backblaze has a feature where you can log into

00:23:50   their web app and start a restore for any of your computers onto any device you're on. So if you

00:23:55   like forget a file on your laptop or something, or forget a file at home while you're traveling,

00:23:59   you can go fetch it. Well, Arc, if this is a thing that happens to you a lot, Arc makes it even

00:24:04   faster and easier because it's doing all that with this native interface. Like you do all that from

00:24:08   your Mac with this little tree view thing. And it's not incredibly fast to restore because it has to

00:24:14   download a bunch of catalog files before it does. But it is really nice to have all that in this one

00:24:20   app that you can run on all your computers really. So on my laptop, I run Arc and I can browse my

00:24:25   desktop's files and folders right there. On my desktop, I can do the same thing to the laptop,

00:24:30   vice versa. So it's actually a pretty nice setup. Again, it is more expensive if you're backing up

00:24:36   more than probably about a terabyte or so. But it's kind of fun as an option. I'm not sure I'd

00:24:42   recommend it to everybody, but if you're a nerd and you like that kind of control, Arc plus B2

00:24:48   is a pretty good combo. - Yeah, my crash plan account last I looked is backing up something

00:24:54   like seven and a half terabytes. Now, to be clear, most of that is stuff on the Synology and a

00:24:59   tremendous portion of that is media, a lot of which, almost all of which I could probably

00:25:03   recreate. But the whole idea of my backup solution is I don't want to have to be, you know,

00:25:08   not discreet, but selective, I guess a better word for it, about what I'm backing up. And so

00:25:14   to do that on B2 is like 40 bucks a month, where I'm paying crash plan like 60 bucks a year or

00:25:22   something like that. And so if I was an adult who actually did the right thing, I would move to

00:25:29   PackBlaze, 'cause I have no doubt that it is better in every measurable way except being more

00:25:32   expensive, which makes sense because it's better. So I don't know, I don't know what I'm gonna do.

00:25:37   (upbeat music)

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00:27:46   whatever you are passionate about. I've looked up what it meant to be part of a complete breakfast.

00:27:57   So tell me more. So you know this is from our pre-show here we were talking about how like I

00:28:02   was asking about how like the cereal commercials for breakfast cereal in like the 80s and 90s would

00:28:06   always advertise cereal as being part of this complete breakfast and it would show a picture

00:28:11   of the cereal next to like a bowl of fruit and some yogurt and some milk and some juice and

00:28:18   all this stuff and I don't think anybody has ever actually eaten that breakfast before except maybe

00:28:23   John on British Airways but for the most part they wouldn't include cereal there. Like no one has ever

00:28:30   eaten the complete breakfast that cereal was always advertised as being a part of. Everyone I

00:28:35   know including everyone in my family just ate the cereal and the milk that was their complete

00:28:40   breakfast. So apparently this was kind of a coordinated advertising thing between like Post

00:28:46   and Kellogg back you know in like the 70s or so where and please don't write it because it doesn't

00:28:54   matter but apparently it was because like cereal being mostly you know regular carbs plus a lot of

00:29:02   sugar and very little any other nutrition is part of what your body needs in the sense that your

00:29:09   body needs carbs fats and proteins and so they're and what they're really saying is being part of

00:29:15   this complete breakfast is that cereal alone is not giving you everything you need. So it was kind

00:29:20   of a way to cover their butts and say you should be eating other things not just cereal. The funny

00:29:26   part about this though is if you look at the pictures of like you know screenshots and the

00:29:30   commercials and everything of what they would advertise as being the complete breakfast it

00:29:34   would be so much healthier for you and would lose no nutritional value if you took the cereal out of

00:29:40   it and just ate the rest of the stuff in the picture. To be fair to cereal they did fortify

00:29:45   it with vitamins so you're not just getting sugar and minerals. Yeah they also did that to the milk

00:29:51   though so you didn't need it and if you eat everything else in the picture you're getting

00:29:53   that. I know well they're just trying to prevent your kids from getting scurvy. That's not my word.

00:29:59   Moving on. All right uh John to continue the John Syracuse hour tell me about your photo book PDFs

00:30:06   and I actually meant to ask you then I forgot about it did you already make your photo book

00:30:10   from last week or no? No I didn't the 2008 book just arrived when I got back I haven't done the

00:30:16   2018 I still have to do all that I think they moved the date back from September 1st to September

00:30:20   30th every time you click on a on a book in the sidebar it pops up a dialogue like every time it

00:30:25   pops up to say just so you know blah blah blah I think it's September 30th based on how many times

00:30:29   I've seen that dialogue but anyway I gotta make those um oh and I think I'm basically full up on

00:30:33   photos now like I'm down to double digit gigabytes of free space on my wife's uh hard drive and I've

00:30:40   oh my I've spent a lot of time in like uh Disc Inventory X/10 or Grand Perspective or Daisy

00:30:48   Disc or all those things that show you where your space is used and I've really I've wrung every

00:30:52   ounce out of this thing and there's not really any more room I can get back so

00:30:56   uh I couldn't bring myself to buy a big disc and I wasn't ready to buy a new iMac because I think

00:31:00   they're going to come up with the 5Ks with T2 so I don't want to buy it for that so I just bought

00:31:05   a one terabyte drive because my photo library is 600 gigs almost exactly so one terabyte drive

00:31:12   should give me enough breathing room to get to uh the the new iMac for her um and that of course

00:31:18   will be direct attached so backblaze will back that up so I'm fine so anyway I'm doing that um

00:31:22   so about the photobook pdf someone mentioned this couple shows back uh that I didn't know if you and

00:31:27   I've been thinking about this I've got these photobooks that I made and yes they're printed

00:31:30   and they're on the shelf when we look through them as a family and they're fun their paper and

00:31:33   everything but like what if my house burns down or floods or I lose those books in some way

00:31:37   I put a lot of time into them like selecting the pictures and deciding how they're going to be

00:31:42   cropped and doing like the layouts like pictures going pairs on pages that face each other that

00:31:46   you know look cute and you know it's it's an art to doing it and I spent like a really long time

00:31:51   doing this for all these books cumulatively I didn't want to lose that right and I'm like well

00:31:54   what if when Apple gets rid of the built-in feature like all my books go away too how do I

00:32:00   how do I preserve this in some way apparently in photos and Apple's photos app you can select a

00:32:05   book and basically print it to pdf and it doesn't it's cool it doesn't really like for example the

00:32:11   cover you have a front cover back cover and then flaps like the dust jacket flaps when you do the

00:32:16   pdf the picture on the dust jacket flap just becomes like a regular you know like page with

00:32:23   just a picture floating in the middle of it so it's not exactly how you can't just take that

00:32:27   pdf and print it and get the book back but it will do the pages in the order they're in with

00:32:32   the pictures cropped the way they are I think at full res as far as I can tell like they're big

00:32:37   pdfs so I printed all mine to pdf and you know save them into a little folder and that make at

00:32:45   least lets me know that like if I lose my books I'll at least know which pictures I use how they

00:32:49   were cropped and you know if I never even wanted to print them again I could just look through the

00:32:52   pdf so that was a nice thing to know and so if Apple does the wrong thing and like deletes all

00:32:58   my books after they get rid of the built-in feature at least I'll have them backed up somewhere

00:33:01   and have you seen in the in the news over the last couple of weeks there were a couple articles I

00:33:05   think on nine to five that are that have basically outed the company that was printing these books

00:33:09   for Apple all this time and then also a I think a second company that wasn't the ones printing the

00:33:14   books for Apple but has made plugins for photos app that will mimic the exact same layouts have

00:33:21   you looked at those yep I had all that information back from like three shows ago like the supposed

00:33:26   one that printed their books I I hope like that's going to be my first go-to is the one that was

00:33:32   actually printing their books because I assume that they will literally print like the same

00:33:36   exact product it'll be exactly the same I applaud the company saying we as a business opportunity

00:33:40   here let's mimic those books let's give you offer you the same size of whatever but they're not

00:33:44   going to be exactly the same like they'll do as good as they can but they're not going to be

00:33:46   exactly the same so I have no idea if the quality is going to be as good I have no idea if they're

00:33:49   going to be exactly the same size down to the millimeter I have no idea if they're going to use

00:33:53   exactly the same binding technology so definitely going with what is supposedly the contractor that

00:33:59   that Apple's been using but hopefully my plan is to print every single book I ever want to print and

00:34:04   then the only time I'll have to pick one of those vendors is next year next summer well good luck

00:34:09   with that I hope it works out anonymous writes in to tell us AMD's top-end processors will be

00:34:14   manufactured in TSMC's seven nanometer process node as seen at the en and tech link that will

00:34:21   put in the show notes this is pretty exciting this is a pretty exciting time for AMD since they can

00:34:25   kind of compete with Intel since they finally have access to a competitive process node they won't be

00:34:30   competitive for global foundries and they know that but they they would prefer to use global foundries

00:34:34   since it would be their fab but they can't and shouldn't for reasons in terms of timeline of

00:34:39   TSMC seven nanometer equivalent node as far as I can tell TSMC is in lead closely followed by

00:34:44   Samsung global foundry slightly behind and Intel maybe even behind that which is kind of unknown

00:34:49   since it's hard to tell with all the delays of Intel 10 nanometer yeah that's something we

00:34:54   didn't talk about you know how about Intel I'd be falling behind and Apple's able to manufacture its

00:34:58   phone chips at TSMC seven nanometer well AMD now gets to leave Intel too because even though they're

00:35:04   fab I mean they're you know they're global foundries they're fab AMD used to fab its own

00:35:08   chips and it split the company into the fab part and the other part and so the fab part is called

00:35:15   global foundries and it's not at seven nanometers so but AMD doesn't have to use its ex-fab like

00:35:20   they're independent companies now so AMD has chosen not to use global foundries and and now

00:35:25   has the freedom to use whoever has the best fab and is offering to do it so you know seven nanometer

00:35:32   Xeon like Ryzen based chips would be attractive to Apple in theory if Apple ever decided to go that

00:35:38   route do you think Ryzen has a chance like do you think or just AMD chips in general do you think

00:35:44   that a reasonable next step for Apple instead of going to ARM necessarily could they go to AMD

00:35:52   chips are they competitive enough yeah they're totally competitive enough and especially not just

00:35:56   like competitive enough the way they are like because Intel chips are better at this point

00:36:00   if Apple went with them the infusion of money right into into AMD for those chips because Apple

00:36:06   is a good customer they'll buy your most expensive stuff right and they don't they can absorb some

00:36:11   kind of a premium and Apple tends to drive its manufacturers to make like what what it wants and

00:36:16   end up being powerful stuff I think would work out just fine the question is does Apple want to keep

00:36:20   going down that route or they just because that still doesn't give them the kind of control they

00:36:24   would get even if they made their own ARM chips let alone like their own you know other architecture

00:36:28   chip so it is it's kind of like saying Intel is not doing the job it's like when they switch to

00:36:32   PowerPC like oh PowerPC IBM's not doing the job for us and Motorola is not making anything we want

00:36:38   so let's switch to Intel you go to the better horse like oh Intel is a big improvement but you

00:36:43   don't really get much more control you're just switching to a different vendor Apple doing ARM

00:36:47   that chips that it makes itself that's more control so Ryzen or an AMD thing is 100% viable I think

00:36:55   you know if they decide to go that direction and really commit to it but it doesn't give them the

00:36:59   control that we all think they crave in this realm and speaking of all of these fabs the Intel Core

00:37:07   i9 9900k great model name apparently this relates to Digital Foundry because of a YouTube video tell

00:37:15   me about this Digital Foundry is the YouTube channel I watch it it's a gaming related thing

00:37:18   they talk about like what the PS5 is going to be like and they analyze video games but anyway

00:37:22   they're also talking they do PC gaming too so they're talking about what's Intel's next line

00:37:25   of chips we talked about this last show that they were going to go 14 nanometers still right but you

00:37:30   know they just went to six core they're going to go to eight core and the i9 will be eight core

00:37:34   with hyper threading and the i7 will be eight core without hyper threading and it's just like let's

00:37:37   just keep adding cores on 14 nanometers how they how are they going to do that how can they keep

00:37:41   adding cores like these are desktop chips we're talking about not laptop stuff right so there is

00:37:45   a much bigger budget for power but at a certain point it becomes a little bit ridiculous and the

00:37:49   one detail this is i think it's all like informed speculation like these are unofficial announcements

00:37:54   from Intel and plans could change yada yada but like you know this is an open secret of what

00:37:58   they're doing uh the i9 apparently will have soldered heat spreader like it won't be like you

00:38:04   buy the chip and you put thermal paste on and you shove a heat spreader on you put a heat sink on top

00:38:08   of it they will solder it on like it'll be metal to metal soldered connection for the heat pipe

00:38:13   from Intel now it doesn't mean Apple's going to use those or maybe Apple because they always have

00:38:17   custom cooling solutions and stuff like that but it just goes to show the lengths that Intel is

00:38:21   willing to go to to say can we actually cool a chip on 14 nanometers with eight cores and

00:38:26   hyper threading and all the stuff you know it you know what can we do to make it so that is more

00:38:32   viable in normal size desktop pc cases you know they're pulling out all the stops let's solder the

00:38:37   heat spreader on get rid of the thermal paste like nothing is a better contact than metal to metal you

00:38:41   know uh and i think it would be great for Apple to use one of those in a Mac Pro in 2019 speaking of

00:38:48   that like so i i have my new 13 inch MacBook Pro and i i don't know if i've used it enough to really

00:38:54   have a solid opinion on it yet but um although so far i will say it's generally positive but one

00:38:59   thing i i have noticed which i told you guys in slack earlier is that it really is noticeably warm

00:39:06   like this is this is a generation of computers i would say probably every 2018 and probably 2019

00:39:13   maybe even 2020 computer um it's probably gonna be you know kind of warmer than we expect because

00:39:21   you know as we mentioned Intel is shoving more cores into these chips without shrinking the

00:39:24   process and so it's gonna be you know they're really you know they're really kind of pushing

00:39:28   thermal boundaries here and while my laptop has no signs of like throttling or anything else

00:39:36   you know it seems able to maintain its uh you know its thermal uh load you know when necessary

00:39:42   but it does run noticeably warm like it's pretty warm most of the time that it's in use if i

00:39:49   disabled turbo boost that helps a lot but it still runs warm and i i have a feeling this will apply

00:39:54   to every computer in this generation and the next one um so it's just one thing to consider if you

00:40:00   if you're sensitive to that uh maybe skip this generation and the next couple good luck yeah

00:40:07   oh man john tell me what whimsy means this is uh somewhat evident during the podcast but very

00:40:14   evident after as we got feedback of people uh talking about whether apple has or hasn't lost

00:40:19   its whimsy and the relative values of whimsies people don't know what whimsy is that's that's

00:40:23   a big problem lots of people were writing in for things that they liked like here is a quality of

00:40:29   an apple product that i like and just because you like it doesn't mean it's whimsical like uh to

00:40:35   give an example the unibody on laptops like it makes them makes them feel much more solid and

00:40:40   we all agree that it's better than when they were just like connecting together like a top and a

00:40:43   bottom and sides and everything right not whimsical it's good it's a good it makes their products like

00:40:49   you know high quality and attractive and we like it and we think it's great product design but it

00:40:53   is not whimsical so i would encourage people to look up the word whimsy in your dictionary of

00:40:59   choice and realize that it has to be playful quaint fanciful and perhaps have a humor value

00:41:05   that's that's whimsy that's when things are whimsical it's not just a good thing about a

00:41:10   product all right and then i have a little bit of neutral related follow-up i had lamented on

00:41:17   the video and i think we discussed on the podcast that the golf r i could swear demiro says gulf by

00:41:24   the way but anyway the gulf r uh has a kick down switch so if you recall you push the gas pedal

00:41:30   past where it feels like it can't go any further and then there's a little switch that flips

00:41:34   and to me i didn't understand the point because it was a manual transmission car and i got a lot

00:41:39   of feedback from a lot of people all saying mostly the same stuff but eric scala summarized it the

00:41:43   best he writes the switch does have a function too to be accurate first the adaptive cruise control

00:41:49   can be switched off and instead the car will limit the speed to the speed you set you can push the

00:41:54   gas pedal as much as you want the car will not go above the speed you set that is until you press

00:41:58   the kick down switch so that's like an override saying no really i gotta go also when you switch

00:42:03   the car into eco mode the throttle will respond much slower to your input it will only accept

00:42:07   around 40 maximum input everything beyond that it will just ignore that is until you guessed it you

00:42:11   press the kick the kick down switch those both make sense i had no idea either of those were the case

00:42:17   so that was useful i will collect my credit for doubting your story the the strip was not chip the

00:42:23   the switch was non-functional remember when i asked you are you sure did you check the owner's

00:42:26   manual you told me i didn't you told me you had glanced at the owner's manual okay there you go

00:42:31   i guarantee this is in the owner's manual i felt that's not hard to believe that the switch did

00:42:35   nothing so now now you know read the whole owner's manual from cover to cover you got the car for a

00:42:38   week yeah i'll get right on that you're supposed to be reading the manuals for marco now who's

00:42:43   going to read the manuals for you this is like a chain i'm the only person left to read the manual

00:42:46   hold on hold on hold on i will read the manuals reads the manual of readers

00:42:50   i'll read the manuals for marco when i'm going to be traveling in that car at extraordinary rates of

00:42:56   speeds on the autobahn you're going to help them find the battery so we can jump it exactly um

00:43:01   and then the other question i got a lot which is reasonable is good the other question i got a lot

00:43:07   that was a deep cut is why not just get a gti and chip it and or by that i mean you'll get get a box

00:43:14   that will let you reprogram the the the way the computer the onboard computer works and from what

00:43:20   i understand you can get a box that will reprogram the onboard computer that will give you if not

00:43:26   equal to gulf are uh horsepower and torque perhaps even better than the gulf are horsepower and torque

00:43:33   ratings and the reason i don't want to do that is because i did that to the bmw and i got moderate

00:43:40   gains and for all i know that could have been why the engine torpedoed itself twice so i know

00:43:45   volkswagen is not bmw i know i wouldn't put that on the record i i know that cause this is not

00:43:51   causation but it just i no thank you no thank you if it was meant to be 300 plus horsepower then the

00:43:57   factory would make it 300 plus horsepower i am good thank you very much it's a reasonable suggestion

00:44:02   if you're braver than i i fully encourage you to try it out but i am not that brave anymore

00:44:08   so thank you but no thank you we are sponsored this week by betterment investing made better

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00:45:43   marco you started a trend this past week oh god you you removed infowars from

00:45:54   the overcast podcast directory and then apple said you know what marco's right let's do that too and

00:45:59   then facebook and youtube said you know what apple and marco are right let's do that too and it was a

00:46:04   trickle effect from there as a as an opening statement i would like to request from marco on

00:46:08   this topic because it will lead into it eventually i think this is a good opportunity to have like a

00:46:12   101 segment and the 101 i think mark should do is explaining what a podcast is because to explain

00:46:17   the nuances of this this issue it requires you to know what a podcast is and i think a lot of people

00:46:23   kind of like whimsy don't actually know what a podcast is so can you explain to us and like

00:46:27   boring 101 technical terms literally what a podcast is and then like how how the parts work

00:46:32   and how they fit together who the players are which will then explain what you're going to say

00:46:35   that you did that's actually a really good idea yeah because i you know it doesn't work the way

00:46:41   almost anything else in the internet works and and so it is kind of helpful to know this and and i

00:46:45   get all sorts of um questions or or arguments that suggest people don't understand this very well and

00:46:52   i can't blame them because it isn't explained it very well so here i am going to try to explain it

00:46:56   probably poorly but here we go so to publish a podcast you need audio files you put those audio

00:47:04   files on a server somewhere and then you need some way for people to find them and for podcast

00:47:10   players to know when there's a new episode and so the way that you publish audio files in a useful

00:47:15   way that makes it into a podcast is you create a special RSS feed an RSS feed oh geez do i have to

00:47:22   explain this to you so keep on digging 101 what the heck is an RSS feed an RSS feed is a document

00:47:30   that is in a special version of markup language called XML it's kind of like HTML but a little

00:47:36   more strict a lot more strict and anyway so it's an RSS feed is a document that in a structured

00:47:43   standardized way lists items in a feed format so it could be articles it could be posts and if you

00:47:53   have a special tag in those posts called an enclosure tag that points to the url of an audio

00:47:58   file that becomes a podcast and so when you publish a podcast you are hosting the file

00:48:05   yourself and there there are a few exceptions to this certain podcast platforms kind of take this

00:48:11   over for you and or copy your file and reserve it but for the most part most players out there

00:48:17   including by far the biggest one which is apple's podcast app which has over 60 market share and it's

00:48:21   by far the biggest one like the next one after that has something like you know five percent

00:48:26   market share so a podcast app doesn't like re-host your podcast on its own servers it doesn't

00:48:35   maintain its own content the way like youtube does like youtube videos are all hosted on youtube

00:48:40   so youtube has way more control and way more liability over what is hosted on youtube than

00:48:45   a podcast player does podcast players simply fetch those RSS feeds from each podcast server

00:48:54   and then any new episodes they find that they didn't already know about they download the

00:48:59   pointed to audio file also from the publisher's server and then you can play it you know the user

00:49:07   can play it in the app so like apple's podcast app does not host the files apple does not host

00:49:15   the files when a new episode is published it doesn't even go through apple like the apple

00:49:21   maintains the directory that looks for the new files so it can like make a list of them for

00:49:24   search and stuff but it doesn't actually ever host the file the file never even passes through apple

00:49:30   the way the podcast app therefore works is kind of in some ways kind of like a web browser in the

00:49:37   sense that it's just pulling something from you from a url it's pulling a special rss feed from

00:49:42   a url that's structured in a special way to contain audio files and that's about it and so

00:49:48   you can have that pull from any url anywhere where this gets complicated and where this where the

00:49:55   news this week comes in is the user experience of a podcast app is usually not people entering URLs

00:50:04   of all the feeds they want you can do that you can go to the website of the podcast you want to

00:50:08   listen to you can find somewhere there there's going to be a link to their rss feed and you can

00:50:13   copy that link and you can paste that url into the add url box in almost any podcast app and you can

00:50:18   listen that way that's fine but the way most people do it is they just use use some built-in

00:50:24   search function of the podcast and they search a directory of podcasts by far the biggest directory

00:50:30   out there is apple's podcast directory the way you get into apple's podcast directory is you go to

00:50:38   apple and you submit your feed for consideration and they make sure that it doesn't break any

00:50:44   obvious you know rules like that it's not illegal or that it's not um you know obscene or spam or i

00:50:51   believe they don't allow porn or other adult content apple has people review those and then

00:50:56   they say okay this is okay to be in our directory and they add us the directory they're still not

00:51:00   actually hosting the file but they're maintaining a search index so that way when people go to their

00:51:04   app they don't have to enter the url of every rss feed they can just type in you know this american

00:51:10   life and apple you know uses their search engine and say okay here this is the url for the show

00:51:15   you just asked for here it is and you never have to see it as the user it just gets added to your

00:51:19   podcast app and so it seems kind of like you're you you're using something that apple's in full

00:51:25   control over it seems like you're searching apple podcasts for podcasts that are in apple podcasts

00:51:30   and playing them and apple podcast is therefore you know responsible for everything in it

00:51:34   in reality though the technical version of the technical details of that are

00:51:37   closer to a web browser with the search engine in the sense that you know a web browser can navigate

00:51:43   to any url just like a podcast app could play any urls podcast feed but in a web browser you know

00:51:49   you often will use search instead of entering a url directly because it's just more convenient or

00:51:53   it's easier to find things or whatever else oh and i should clarify one other thing that is important

00:51:58   to understanding what i my role in this um overcast my podcast app i don't have my own

00:52:05   directory i i have like you know stuff on my server that i know about but i don't have any

00:52:10   way for people to submit podcasts to me and i don't have any any like content review of what

00:52:17   gets into overcast because i'm just one person i don't have the resources apple has a whole staff

00:52:23   around the world because you need to do things like you need to understand other languages to

00:52:27   know like is content in other languages obscene or illegal or anything like there's a huge this

00:52:32   takes a huge amount of people to actually you know run this kind of directory responsibly

00:52:37   and there's a reason you know in overcast this is the reason why i have no areas in overcast where

00:52:44   users can enter text visible to other users that's why there's no user reviews of podcast there's no

00:52:51   star ratings there's no comments the reason why is because when you have any of those things in your

00:52:57   app you become responsible for content policing those things and for dealing with harassment and

00:53:04   hate speech and illegal content being posted to it dealing with disputes dealing with complaints

00:53:09   dealing with copyright issues like if you are allowing users to enter content in your in your

00:53:15   platform you're going to have all those problems land in your lap eventually and so i don't want

00:53:19   anything to do with that so i don't have any text input you know directory things no reviews

00:53:24   anything like that and also i outsource my content decisions of what should show up in my search

00:53:31   engine to apple's itunes podcast directory because they have that staff reviewing things because they

00:53:38   have way more resources than i do because they maintain the big directory and also just so that

00:53:43   podcasters don't have to submit their podcast to overcast to be playable in overcast all they have

00:53:47   to do is submit them to apple directory because they're already going to do because that's the

00:53:51   biggest player so that everyone's going to do that and then they just become playable in overcast

00:53:55   when i search apple's podcast directory next for what you know whatever term people are looking for

00:53:59   so anyway so my overcast mechanism for what i show in search and what i don't show in search

00:54:07   is basically do i know this podcast to have an itunes id if i if a podcast has an itunes id that

00:54:15   i know about it will show up in overcast search if it doesn't it won't and there are a couple of

00:54:21   exceptions itunes id or not i will not show a podcast that has the itunes block attribute set

00:54:27   which is a custom tag you can you can have in your rss feed i also won't show anything in search that

00:54:33   has an http basic auth username and password in its url because a lot of protected feeds and

00:54:38   private feeds and passworded feeds use this mechanism i also won't show things that are like

00:54:45   kind of like the like urls that use big long hashes at the end that are that are meant to

00:54:48   be single user private urls things like patreon private urls and slate plus private private things

00:54:54   that they don't use basic auth passwords but the idea is something to be private so i have basically

00:55:00   this you know this list of conditions that like even if something has an itunes id and and would

00:55:05   otherwise show up in search if it appears to be a private feed or if the feed appears to want to be

00:55:10   blocked from search i don't show it but normally otherwise it will show up with apple search like

00:55:18   if it shows up in apple search it will show up in my search because i want apple to be the one

00:55:22   enforcing these content rules the other side of this i know this is long bear with me i have to

00:55:30   enforce these content rules to some level because to some level i is the app owner like if stuff is

00:55:36   illegal like if somebody's publishing something that's illegal and you can play it in my app

00:55:41   legally i'm probably not at fault there because of the way the stretch rate thing works

00:55:47   but it certainly could become my problem even if it isn't my fault and so i don't want to i don't

00:55:52   want to deal with that like i don't have the resources to police everything and deal with that

00:55:56   so i rely on apple enforcing these guidelines that also that also keeps spam out of the directory

00:56:03   that's why like when you search for popular shows the reason why you don't get a whole bunch of

00:56:09   spam with people trying to squat on those names is because apple is doing spam filtering and so like

00:56:15   some degree of filtering is necessary here it also you know the apple deals with copyright issues like

00:56:21   somebody can't just take this show put it up you know call it something like you know accidental

00:56:26   tech padcast and with a typo in it somewhere and copy all of our files and make a separate feed and

00:56:32   steal our you know downloads whatever like they can't do that because apple maintains this and

00:56:36   people complain to apple and get it taken down so anyway some degree of human intervention human

00:56:42   curation of this directory has always been present and it's it's necessary for a good experience and

00:56:49   for good legal and practical realities so what happened last week is the alex jones show um there

00:56:57   i basically what happened is it crossed a whole bunch of lines of like things that you know it

00:57:02   i mean look the guy's always been a tremendous jerk in a lot of ways and incredibly damaging

00:57:07   but it crossed a lot of lines that went from you know simply being a bad person to like actionable

00:57:16   problems like things like hate speech and and and you know inciting violence and you know things of

00:57:20   that nature that like that are against apple's terms for what they allow in their podcast directory

00:57:24   and are in many jurisdictions are actually illegal and so a listener uh emailed me saying hey

00:57:31   i'm leaving your app because you host this content and in you know it's horrible i looked and i'm

00:57:37   like you know this this should not be allowed like this is clearly in violation of apple's own

00:57:43   content guidelines and they were already at that point they were already having problems with

00:57:47   facebook and youtube because they were violating their guidelines too and so i do have a mechanism

00:57:55   in overcast that i can override a feed that would otherwise show up and i can say this feed should

00:58:02   not show up i haven't used this mechanism very often i used it once before for nratv for similar

00:58:10   reasons that i believe that it was violating apple's own guidelines and i used it uh i think

00:58:16   two or three times something like that occasionally a random podcaster will find overcast will say hey

00:58:24   my podcast is showing up in your app that's copyright infringement i demand you take it down

00:58:29   and you know what when people say that i say okay and i set this flag and it's gone from overcast

00:58:35   anyway so i used this flag on these infowars properties because it was very clear that they

00:58:44   were violating apple's guidelines but apple was not removing it from their directory and i was

00:58:49   hearing about it from a lot of people you know a few days a few days after i did that apple

00:58:54   pulled them from the directory and so did everyone else basically and and so you know i think i was

00:59:00   proven right um it was you know had i known apple was going to pull them a few days later i might

00:59:05   have just waited for them to do it so that way like i'm not involved in this um but ultimately

00:59:10   you know it had to be done they were clearly in violation and it was high profile enough that a

00:59:16   lot of people were seeing it and that can get me in a lot of trouble that like that could get me

00:59:22   possibly involved legally in ramifications of this show that can get me kicked out of the app store

00:59:27   because the app store has rules against this stuff so basically like i took action because it was

00:59:32   clearly necessary and i didn't know that apple was about to take their own action so i took my own

00:59:36   i am 100 confident in the action i took and the ability i have to do this because sometimes it is

00:59:43   necessary and i really try i i hope to use it as little as possible because i don't want to put

00:59:49   myself in this position but sometimes you have to be in this position like sometimes something like

00:59:53   this happens where people are you know demanding immediate action and you look at the problem and

00:59:59   you're like well i kind of don't like that i'm seeming that i'm being kind of bullied into a

01:00:04   decision like this but if you look at the you know look at the actual situation it's like yeah this

01:00:09   actually should be solved like this is a problem this does require action so they're correct like

01:00:14   the people asking me to do this are correct so it's important not to think defensively in that

01:00:18   time and just say okay actually yeah this is right i i should take action and just do it

01:00:22   anyway so going back to the original topic these crazy shows remain playable in overcast if you

01:00:30   enter their urls but they're gone for my search directory and so to continue with the events that

01:00:35   took place so you did this what like last week middle of last week or something yeah yeah i

01:00:40   don't remember the exact day but it was last week and so after that apple did eventually do what you

01:00:45   would you know the reason you had to do this because apple hadn't removed uh the info stuff

01:00:49   and apple did eventually remove all the podcasts except for one i guess uh but anyway apple did

01:00:55   remove it so your your block uh your custom block was pretty much only needed temporarily because

01:01:01   now all those things are actually gone from apple's directory as well and after apple did it facebook

01:01:06   and youtube both got rid of that you know the same content on their on their services uh and you know

01:01:13   that grueber was investigating trying to figure out like was this a coordinated thing between

01:01:18   the big three companies uh or was it that apple did it and then once apple did it facebook and

01:01:23   youtube did it and it seems like apple did it and then facebook and youtube did it which i find

01:01:27   depressing because it's like it's so it's so sort of reactive and so big company kind of thing where

01:01:33   it's like uh nobody notices or cares until one of your one of your few handful of important

01:01:39   competitors does something and now you quickly have to do otherwise you look bad it's like well

01:01:43   you all looked bad for a really long time before this but apparently no one cared but as soon as

01:01:47   one goes then everybody has to go it's such a weird kind of high school peer pressure thing

01:01:52   among like the biggest companies in the world and it's the it's not a it's not a good look uh

01:01:58   because it's not like i i find it hard to believe these companies didn't know about this issue like

01:02:03   lots of it's you know it's it's highly charged lots of people on both sides are constantly probably

01:02:06   yelling at both companies about it uh just like someone had to go first and then it looks and then

01:02:11   you have to follow what they did because if you don't do it and it's like well apple did it why

01:02:15   didn't you i find it really depressing um but another interesting aspect of this the group

01:02:19   pointed out is that so apple removed it from the podcast directory which again the reason i wanted

01:02:22   you to explain how podcasts work and what a podcast is just to make it clear that unlike the

01:02:28   case of like youtube and facebook all apple has done is essentially removed an item from like a

01:02:34   search index it's the same as like google not showing your thing in search results your thing

01:02:40   this podcast continues to exist exactly as it has always existed hosted exactly where it's always

01:02:45   been hosted available to exactly the same people it's always been available to the only difference

01:02:49   is it doesn't show up in search marco made it so it doesn't show up in his search and then apple

01:02:52   made it so it doesn't show up in their search and therefore won't show up in marco search right

01:02:56   that's it but apple didn't get rid of the the app in the app store for i don't know what the hell

01:03:02   this app could possibly do it is probably just another way to get the same content right so it's

01:03:06   an infowars app that remains in the app store uh and i'm not quite sure how to square that it seems

01:03:14   like if you think it's it's all a gateway to the same terrible content right and if the content is

01:03:19   violating some kind of guidelines like i don't know anyway i'm imagining that there might be

01:03:23   some follow-up on that in the future to see if the app ever gets pulled because apple especially

01:03:27   the app store apple's been really testy about like political apps like i don't know what the rules

01:03:31   are these days but i remember back like in the 2008 election there was you know some political

01:03:36   apps and apple was like at one point they didn't want like overtly political apps in the app store

01:03:42   and would pull them uh anyway i i really hope that apple gets on the same page here and and

01:03:49   delist the app as well because i don't i don't quite get how the rules would be different it

01:03:52   might just be like it's a big company and there's different people in charge of those two things and

01:03:56   so the other shoe will drop eventually well i thought it was because there were different

01:03:59   guidelines whether you're in the app store or in the podcast directory and for whatever reason

01:04:05   the guidelines and rules and regulations in the app store are not a hundred percent in lock step

01:04:12   with what's in the podcast directory or the rules for the podcast directory and apparently there

01:04:16   were clear violations in the podcast directory but i guess the app follows the letter of the quote

01:04:21   unquote law in the app store at least that's my understanding i haven't personally looked into

01:04:25   whether or not that's true or not yeah honestly i haven't had time to look into it either but

01:04:30   it wouldn't surprise me if it's just because you know apple's a big company these are totally

01:04:34   separate divisions of apple it wouldn't surprise me if the app is pulled like tomorrow or the next

01:04:40   day like because it just took a while to get you know approved by the right people or whatever else

01:04:44   like it's complicated and i honestly i haven't even looked at the app yet i don't i don't have

01:04:47   enough time yeah and it might it might just be like oh the app counts as like a player app like

01:04:51   there's no actual content and all it does is play things so you wouldn't pull it just like you

01:04:54   wouldn't pull a web browser but at this point it's kind of like the principle like the this entity is

01:04:59   uh disapproved of by all the big peers and everything like that and but there's one exception

01:05:04   and that was the subject of today's uh one of today's little buckets of gnashing teeth

01:05:09   uh and that was uh twitter uh info wars is also on twitter and after apple did it facebook and

01:05:15   youtube did it twitter did not get rid of uh the info war as alex jones accounts shocking and

01:05:22   yeah and many people were angry about that and uh what does jack dorsey see their ceo i guess

01:05:29   yes okay yeah anyway he's on twitter of course uh trying to explain why they didn't get rid of it

01:05:35   then let go it didn't technically didn't violate our guidelines and so on and so forth and lots

01:05:38   of people are angry about that uh and you know marco was very measured in explaining

01:05:43   exactly the parameters of the situation and his thinking behind doing it but you know that's

01:05:52   marco or apple or youtube or facebook or twitter all these things are private entities and they all

01:05:58   have to make decisions about what they want on their platforms that they pay for and they run

01:06:03   no you know no thing has an intrinsic right to appear on youtube be on facebook be part of marco's

01:06:12   you know podcast directory be broadcast on nbc like there's there is no right to that you have

01:06:18   a right to free speech you have a right to the government not putting you in jail for doing

01:06:21   something but you don't have a right to these private platforms so every private you know every

01:06:26   platform has to choose what kind of things do we allow here the example that i try to try to pick

01:06:30   example that we can all agree on i think i found a better one that i usually pick spam almost

01:06:35   everybody who has the platform tries to stop spam spam is just like automated you know content that's

01:06:42   like you know advertisements or false things that are trying to make you think that there's

01:06:46   something else or whatever but spam we all know what spam is everybody who has a platform suffers

01:06:51   from spam everyone has a platform tries to stop it uh and nobody ever makes free speech complaints

01:06:57   about spam because everyone understands well of course you're not gonna let spam that's just

01:07:00   garbage right and well i have the right to spam you no you don't just like do you run twitter do

01:07:05   you pay for our servers do you like twitter makes the rules and the rules for twitter and youtube

01:07:09   and facebook and apple's podcast directory is we try to stop spam because it's crappy and why

01:07:14   why do we try to stop it because if we let spam there no it would make our service less attractive

01:07:20   we think that if we let tons and tons of spam be in the podcast directory people would find

01:07:25   our podcast directory less useful and we want it to be useful why does twitter try to stop spam

01:07:30   there's too much spam every time you go on twitter all you see is just tons and tons of people at

01:07:33   mentioning you with pictures of boobs and butts that's bad it will make you it'll make twitter

01:07:38   a worse experience so all these things make decisions about what is and isn't allowed to

01:07:43   try to make their service how they want it to be the best they the best thing it can be to the

01:07:48   customers that they want and so the entire argument about twitter and all these things is from the

01:07:52   group of people who says twitter would be better if you got rid of alex jones if you got rid of

01:07:57   insert whatever here and then it's twitter kind of never really talking about that but instead saying

01:08:05   well we have some rules and we think these rules are the ideal rules to form the community that we

01:08:12   want to form and this doesn't violate our rules therefore we allow it to be there it's just lots

01:08:16   of people yelling and saying we think your service would be better if you got rid of this and them

01:08:20   saying we don't think it would be better and they're an impasse because it's their service

01:08:25   they can pick whatever they want they could let spam in if they want they could delete everyone's

01:08:29   account that begins with the letter p like they you do whatever they want it's their platform the

01:08:33   whole point is an argument over what makes a good community and we're we're members of this

01:08:38   community we can all have opinions and you can vote with your feed and say well this community

01:08:42   has become accessible and it's unattractive to me so i'm going to leave this community and go

01:08:47   elsewhere and that's the signal that you can give to twitter to say the rules that you have chosen

01:08:53   for your community no longer appeal to me or you can yell at them on twitter and say i like your

01:08:59   platform but you're making it worse by allowing this to happen so please change things and

01:09:03   youtube facebook and apple's podcast directory and marco personally get exactly the same feedback

01:09:10   people telling them you have a thing and a set of rules and it is less attractive to me because of

01:09:15   this thing that you're doing please change something and marco's case you know he said yes

01:09:20   i'm going to change this because i agree with you my podcast directory would be better and it's also

01:09:24   a smart business position yada yada all the things that he talked about if i got rid of this so

01:09:29   you know it's it's frustrating to see these kind of debates because at this point i think the

01:09:38   what i just tried to outline like the the basic parameters of like private platforms versus free

01:09:43   speech issues should be so well known that it should be like a meme that everybody learns when

01:09:48   they're seven that like you know how if you are putting your content on some website or social

01:09:55   media thing or whatever that you have no right to be there that free speech and you know the

01:10:00   first amendment and everything are in the united states or whatever only applies to like government

01:10:05   restraint on speech it doesn't apply to your right to have your message distributed by a private

01:10:12   company and yet every time this comes up despite tons of memes and xkcd comics and explainers and

01:10:19   animated gifs and wikipedia pages and a hundred people trying to explain this patiently literally

01:10:25   every time it comes up just just go through the replies and just i thought this was a free country

01:10:30   free speech are you in favor of censorship blah blah and it just it like it's like this is a

01:10:35   lesson that apparently we can never actually learn we are doomed forever to have to re-explain it

01:10:41   um and so i guess we're i'm trying to fill that purpose here to have yet another venue in which

01:10:45   people who have never heard this you know because people are born every day who haven't heard that

01:10:49   it's not free speech when you can't post something on twitter or it's not a violation of free speech

01:10:53   when you can't suppose something on twitter uh that that is not the situation that is merely

01:10:58   an argument about what people think the rules should be for a private company's community and

01:11:04   all we can do is either leave or complain or both and twitter eventually makes a decision about what

01:11:12   they're going to do um i'm thinking that enough sustained pressure will make twitter join its

01:11:19   peers because i think facebook and apple and youtube doing it is substantial amount of peer

01:11:23   pressure but who knows there's things happen so quickly these days this could all blow over and

01:11:28   we'll forget about it until the next big flare-up um i don't know i'm just i'm just depressed that

01:11:34   we keep going through this cycle and i'm doubly depressed because if it's not clear what side i

01:11:38   come down on i think alex jones should be deplatformed as they say uh from everywhere

01:11:43   he's got his own website he can publish his stuff if he can get a tv station to air his garbage fine

01:11:48   but i wish all the platforms that i participated in would boot him off because i think he's a

01:11:53   garbage person yeah agreed yeah like you know my my response to this you know it's it's hard

01:12:00   and people on twitter accuse me of you know being partisan sometimes and everything because it's hard

01:12:04   because i have you know the business that i run here and i also have my own personal feelings

01:12:09   and my own personal feelings are pretty strongly left and i i think very little of

01:12:16   a lot of republicans recently and uh and the people who vote for them and and people who

01:12:22   control their media like like this clown um i i think very very little of them i'm very vocal

01:12:28   about that on twitter frequently so people know that about me but i also run this business that

01:12:33   shouldn't have that strong of an of an editorial voice to say you know like only left-wing political

01:12:39   stuff is permitted or whatever else you know that that's that's not a position that my business

01:12:43   should take and with this you know with this action of me like you know removing them from search

01:12:48   a lot of people i think people were more surprised i mean i got a few people saying like

01:12:53   you know i'm you know being biased here because of my political views or whatever else but but i also

01:12:59   got some legitimate people saying you know i'm not comfortable with you having the the ability

01:13:04   or exercising the ability to d-list shows and and i think you know what i what i mainly wanted to

01:13:12   communicate here and i think what john did a better job of than i did is that the ability

01:13:17   to control what shows get listed is necessary and that ability gets exercised all the time just

01:13:23   usually by apple but like you know as you mentioned the spam example i mentioned like you know various

01:13:28   other like legal concerns copyright issues stuff like that where like there's lots of podcasts that

01:13:35   exist in the world that don't show up in search engines in any popular podcast app because a

01:13:41   very many legitimate practical reasons so like the the ability to remove podcasts from search

01:13:49   indexes or to not add them in the first place like after some kind of editorial or human decision

01:13:54   that ability is necessary for lots of reasons and is exercised all the time always has been and

01:14:00   probably always will be the question of whether that ability should exist or should be used i in

01:14:07   my opinion is a totally solved problem yes that ability is necessary for lots of practical reasons

01:14:13   and needs to be used so the only question becomes then when you use it and so i try to keep myself

01:14:19   as uninvolved as possible by relying on apple and only intervening when it's pretty clear that you

01:14:25   know apple has not enforced their own rules i haven't even written my own rules i just say these

01:14:30   are apple's rules i agree these are reasonable rules and if you can show me an example of a

01:14:36   podcast clearly not obeying those rules that apple won't take action on then if i have to take action

01:14:42   against it i will and the person who is uncomfortable like i mean you know you can be

01:14:46   uncomfortable whatever you want to be in order with but like the idea that uh that overcast is

01:14:51   the kingmaker for podcasts like it's it's when when certain you know private companies reach a

01:14:57   certain size that's when you know in theory antitrust starts to become a factor it's like

01:15:01   well you're not the government but you're so big you're the de facto decider on some large

01:15:06   area of our life or culture or market and now this potential antitrust for you having too much

01:15:12   to clean up blah blah blah and you know in the past that has been a thing let's say and has

01:15:17   has been used to both good and bad measure in various times in the history of the country

01:15:21   but marco is not at that point um that's why i wanted uh to have an explanation of like

01:15:30   how podcasts work marco someone who is not the dominant podcast player in the entire world yet

01:15:36   he's working on it uh is him delisting you not only doesn't make it appreciably harder for people

01:15:43   to find your podcast it doesn't actually affect the podcast at all which continues to be hosted

01:15:49   exactly where it has always been hosted and available to exactly the same people it's just

01:15:53   removing something from a search result in an app that is used by a small fraction of the people

01:15:57   listen to podcasts and they can still use this app to listen to the podcast and they just enter the

01:16:01   url right so it is the most benign kind kind of de-platforming because unlike youtube and facebook

01:16:09   he is not kicking them off a platform he is removing them from a search result uh so i you

01:16:17   know again you can be uncomfortable at whatever you want to be covered but if you're afraid this

01:16:20   is like an overreach of tremendous power hurting someone who wants to get their voice out this is

01:16:27   not that in any reasonable sense of the word and understanding the boring nitty-gritty technical

01:16:33   details of which most people don't reveals that again independent of what you think about any of

01:16:38   this like this isn't you know i i think it is not particularly reasonable to be uh uncomfortable

01:16:44   with that because it is so it's such a it's such a non-event as far as the content and the reach

01:16:50   of that content goes also and honestly you know i want to i want to set um you know set the

01:16:57   expectations of what actually happened here accordingly i got very little actual pushback on this compared to the

01:17:02   amount of people who were incredibly supportive so no don't feel bad for me because this has been

01:17:08   only good for my business if anything um you know i didn't do it for that reason but for the most

01:17:13   part there are there are way way more people on the positive side of this than on the horrible

01:17:20   side of this and that's the argument i would make to twitter if i could ever talk to someone who

01:17:24   would listen would be like your service will be better as in it will be more attractive to users

01:17:30   if you get rid of things that most people in your service don't like like nazis and axjone

01:17:35   right and and just like in marco's case there were some people who there will be some people who are

01:17:39   angry about that but i i would make the argument like a profit motive you are a private company

01:17:44   that wants to be successful not like a moral argument or anything like that which you should

01:17:48   be able to make very easily too but just like the most craven capitalist argument is your service

01:17:54   will be better and more attractive to people if you change it in this way because people like to

01:17:58   hang out in a place that's pleasant and they get all tied up in knots worrying about oh no people

01:18:04   will be uncomfortable because twitter is way bigger than overcast still um and so like oh you are if

01:18:09   you kick them off twitter that's such a big thing there is no equivalent to twitter now they can't

01:18:12   get their voice out which today is not true whatever but uh it will make the service better

01:18:18   like it will make a pleasant the same same with spam like if it's almost as if you have to explain

01:18:23   to them here's why you should get rid of spam because every time i go on quitter it's just 100

01:18:26   bots telling me to buy real estate and showing me boobs and butts in the community porn sites and i

01:18:30   can't see any of the people i follow because people are constantly mentioning me it's just

01:18:34   spam wall to wall and having to make like a years-long argument to twitter to say listen you

01:18:39   should get rid of spam it will make your service better they'd be like i don't know i'm really

01:18:42   uncomfortable deciding what content is spam or what content is not spam i really don't want to

01:18:47   make those calls i feel like our place is not editorialized and blah it's like you just want

01:18:51   to wring their neck that's what it's like with nazis and alex drones and i can't seem to get

01:18:55   through twitter's thick skull that you know you'll make your service better and like it just becomes

01:19:01   clear they think you know that it's engagement at all costs and all these other even more craving

01:19:05   reasons why people think like they need to have some element of of danger and badness because

01:19:09   that causes people to yell at each other and they just need to have monthly active users and all

01:19:13   those other stuff the same argument for spam in fact lots of bots they're like oh they don't want

01:19:16   to get rid of the bots because their monthly active user numbers will go down but eventually they were

01:19:19   convinced of that uh but yeah i would i would love to sit twitter down and explain to them that

01:19:25   people will like your product better and will use it more if you make it nicer by getting rid

01:19:30   of nazis and alex jones but we we have not yet won that argument still trying honestly you're not

01:19:35   going to ever win that argument because like all these like horrible hate mongers that have media

01:19:42   presences and followings and and hate groups on you know places like you know 4chan and some reddit

01:19:48   groups and stuff like that these groups have been empowered by the political climate of the u.s

01:19:55   in the last couple of years um they you know they're growing or at least their their volume

01:20:03   is growing and all this is you know from people i mean many of them are russian bots but you know

01:20:10   some of them are actually people and and so you know somewhere like we say this as though like

01:20:15   oh the the people running twitter should recognize that these bad people who support this horrible

01:20:23   you know hate uh shouldn't be along on twitter without considering the possibility that the

01:20:30   people who make these sorts of decisions at twitter are among those bad people but i think

01:20:36   it's very obvious when you look at the actions and inactions of twitter regarding hate content

01:20:43   racist content nazi content harassment lots of related things like that i think it's very obvious

01:20:50   that the people who make these decisions at twitter up to jack himself and god knows who else

01:20:55   are these people they are these bad people they are alice jones's audience they are

01:21:03   sean hannity's suck-up audience like these they are those people i don't buy that i i think that

01:21:09   the other explanation which is that they're so naive that they think they think they are the

01:21:13   u.s government and they just don't they want to have this hands-off attitude and and their

01:21:16   elevated position makes them not face the consequences of any of the damage they're

01:21:20   just like i am a high-minded elevated uh benevolent overlord of a free exchange of ideas type thing like

01:21:27   they say all those things and i mostly believe them because naivete seems to be a more i don't

01:21:32   say that there aren't there aren't sympathizers for all these things inside the companies but i

01:21:36   think at the very top it's mostly just a bunch of left-leaning people who are incredibly misguided

01:21:41   about what would actually make their service better and about their role and their damage

01:21:45   to the world like zuckerberg's big thing was a good example they're asking him about

01:21:48   neo-nazis now jones i was holocaust deniers right they're asking about holocaust deniers and he's

01:21:52   like well you know it's not really my place to say it's like oh like i really don't think oh he's a

01:21:57   turd too i don't really don't think zuckerberg is a closet holocaust denier for you know it's it's

01:22:03   highly unlikely but he definitely is very naive about uh the damage to his platform the damage

01:22:08   to his platform by allowing that stuff and the damage caused by people using his platform to

01:22:13   disseminate that so naivete is a more uh i think a more plausible explanation as far as i'm concerned

01:22:20   than actual malice but there's there's probably some malice mixed in i just think not at the very

01:22:24   top well i think if i may put words in marco's mouth i i think your point marco may be that

01:22:30   they're really ultimately no different from those that sympathize with these terrible people

01:22:36   because they're not taking action to silence them and and even if jack or or mark zuckerberg don't

01:22:43   personally agree with these hate mongers which i think is a good description by giving them a

01:22:48   platform to spread this hate they are effectively in bed with them even if they're not conceptually

01:22:56   in bed with them and for all intents and purposes they are in bed with them because they're allowing

01:23:01   this to continue is that a fair description or am i totally they're enabling it i mean that's

01:23:06   but but they're also like it's like you know these places they even have rules against like hate

01:23:12   content and stuff that they just selectively don't enforce like you know they don't enforce it against

01:23:17   this popular person they don't enforce it against the president you know there there are there are

01:23:22   rules that like other people on twitter have to follow unless you're a big media personality or

01:23:26   the president in which case rules against hate speech and racism and things don't apply to you

01:23:31   like yeah they have those counter rules where it's like oh newsworthiness trumps all so you know so

01:23:35   to speak i think naivety is is a reasonable conclusion or explanation to a point like for

01:23:43   like one or two kind of instances like this for like oh they did something dumb because you know

01:23:47   they didn't realize how bad it was we're well past that point with these with especially with twitter

01:23:52   and somewhat with facebook i i still i still think they still don't realize because they it doesn't

01:23:56   affect them or their life and they you know they're not it's not it's not real to them they

01:24:01   don't see or understand the consequence like zuckerberg is the most amazing to me like because

01:24:05   i think he was telling the truth like i don't think you can act that dumb and naive like it

01:24:08   just seemed like he was earnestly expressed and the rules are the best because it's like it's rules

01:24:14   they make up for themselves and like well we have to follow the rules like you make the rules like

01:24:19   don't try to like they're like rules lawyering like dnd rules lawyering themselves like well we have

01:24:23   you know no hate speech except for notability and newsworthiness is more important it's like those

01:24:29   just you you don't need to make a set of rules and then follow them yourself you control the whole

01:24:34   service you can do whatever you can do with literally whatever the rule could be whatever

01:24:38   i feel like that is also a valid rule set and i understand having a fixed set of rules is an

01:24:44   important thing to do if so everyone knows what's expected of them let's sort of a code of conduct

01:24:48   if you will right but if you find yourself constantly adding new amendments and stuff to

01:24:54   sort of explain like this weird you know because it's it's dishonest like everyone says like oh

01:24:58   the reason you allow the president there is because this is a tremendous amount of engagement and it's

01:25:01   a high profile way for for people to constantly have the word twitter on their lips and like but

01:25:05   you'll never put that in the rules like you're you'll if you follow these rules will be banned

01:25:10   unless your value to our platform is determined to be worth more than the violation of the rules

01:25:14   like that's the real rule but they don't write that down so they're like well there's newsworthiness

01:25:18   and there's you know the importance of your statement for other people to read even if it

01:25:22   is a violence it's so it's so silly and so kind of you know stereotypically sort of nerdy of like

01:25:31   trying to make a system that rationalizes the thing that you were going to do anyway for reasons

01:25:37   that are too shameful for you to admit perhaps even to yourself yeah and i think i think in this

01:25:42   day and age refusing to take action against like huge obvious bad forces when you have the amount

01:25:50   of power that twitter and facebook and google have i think refusing to take action is being

01:25:58   complicit in these problems as as it was said on the past podcast i forget who this quote from

01:26:03   is that neutrality favors the oppressor never the oppressed right so they're trying to be high-minded

01:26:09   and neutral and just like we're just a platform man that that helps the oppressor it always helps

01:26:14   the oppressor it always helps the the one in power oppressing the less powerful saying oh we're going

01:26:19   to stay out of it they're like great stay out of it because otherwise someone might try to stop us

01:26:23   so now now we can have our way with all these people we are sponsored this week by squarespace

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01:28:29   squarespace for sponsoring our show make your next move with squarespace all right let's bring this

01:28:37   up and end on a happier note with some ask atp and let's start with Fabian Deem who writes i would

01:28:45   love to know your mac os doc preferences this is not going to end well never mind with regards to

01:28:49   placement auto hide magnifying effect and app running indicators i will start when i was at

01:28:56   work and when i had a normal big boy job i always had two monitors and i preferred to keep the

01:29:04   biggest monitor directly in front of me with my laptop to my left and for whatever reason that

01:29:09   caused me to put my dock on the left i do have uh auto hide on i do have genie effect on and i

01:29:17   do have it um what was the other one oh uh brown indicators there you go yeah i do have those on as

01:29:23   well in my personal opinion i prefer left i'm okay with right i think bottom doc people are

01:29:31   i was going to say monsters let's be a little more respectful are making a poor choice because

01:29:37   all of our screens these days are wide screens so with auto hide i guess you can get away with it

01:29:42   but without auto hide especially if you're going to lose real estate lose some horizontal real

01:29:46   estate not vertical real estate we have so little to begin with anyway that's my situation auto

01:29:50   hidden on the left that's where i like it marco how about you uh i'm also a left doc person uh

01:29:57   the bottom doc you know i respect people who do the bottom doc in the sense that it looks nice

01:30:01   and it's the default and everything else but i think it's a bad default because max for a very

01:30:07   long time have had short screens uh so it's weird to waste your more precious dimension of screen

01:30:15   real estate uh on a an element that is by default static so exactly anyway so yeah i uh i'm a left

01:30:24   doc person i do auto hiding on laptops but not on desktops because on desktops i have enough screen

01:30:31   real estate that i i actually get it get enough value out of having the doc always present that

01:30:36   i do it i have it always on on desktops on the left side um i leave my dots on because i like dots

01:30:41   and uh no resizing or scaling or anything like that just constant size hmm john so i'm going to

01:30:50   defend the bottom doctors because i am one on the desktop and there are uh you know reasonable uh

01:30:56   reasons to have it down there first if you're an old school mac person like i am you have your

01:31:00   drives on the desktop and they go on the right so if you do right doc it's potentially overlapping

01:31:04   your drive second if you're an old school mac person uh you like to have your windows in the

01:31:09   upper left corner because that's where they've been for your entire life and you don't want to

01:31:12   make room for them on the left side uh with your doc third reason if it's your right hand and you

01:31:17   tend to have a mouse cursor hovering towards the right side left doc makes no sense i would love to

01:31:22   hide the doc entirely and just use drag during as my process switcher but you can't because the

01:31:26   apis the doc uses for notifications and other stuff is not available through public apis and

01:31:33   no one even hacks into them to use them with private apis these days uh and finally yes the

01:31:38   screens are wider than they are tall but the only thing that matters is would you benefit from seeing

01:31:43   an additional inch of vertical content in any of your windows and for me on a large desktop display

01:31:48   my answer is no because like you literally have to like move your neck to see from the top of a 5k to

01:31:53   the bottom of a 5k like i'm not getting any benefit from that additional inch of space

01:31:57   and depending on how you have your doc scaled it takes up exactly the same number of pixels total

01:32:04   on your screen whether it's on the side or on the right again depending on how it's scaled obviously

01:32:07   if you have a full width it doesn't or whatever but it's not like it's actually taking up more

01:32:11   room so do i need that to see that extra inch of vertical space or will it be more disruptive to

01:32:18   have it on the right or left that said on a laptop my answer is yes i do need to see that additional

01:32:22   inch of space and so you just can't do bottom doc and laptop is the screens are just they're not 5k

01:32:27   screens they're small so on a laptop i do right doc i used to do pinning on the right doc but

01:32:33   these days i think they took that out even in the p-list setting or whatever um auto hide no because

01:32:39   i can't stand to wait for things to happen so i wish i could auto hide it but i just it takes too

01:32:45   long to i can't stand the waiting uh magnify no uh app running indicators yes i was never sold on the

01:32:52   fact that you don't have to care whether your apps are running you still do need to care computers

01:32:55   are not fast enough ram is not plentiful enough uh so yes for indicators all right siesel shibe

01:33:01   writes how many hours a night do you sleep for instance john works a full-time job parents two

01:33:06   kids does many podcasts at least two of which are generously over one hour a week or i should say

01:33:11   conservatively uh as as well as cooks plays video games watches destiny videos and other movies does

01:33:16   1000 backups etc that's actually pertinent given our discussion earlier and siesel finishes how

01:33:23   so john what's your secret this is just about how many hours a night you sleep so i tend to go to

01:33:28   bed like podcast nights i go to bed between 11 and 12 depending on how long we run every day i wake up

01:33:32   at 6 30 every weekday i wake up at 6 30 to you know get everything done and get to work on time

01:33:37   um so what is that like seven six and a half seven and a half hours depending on the day uh weekends

01:33:44   one day is my day to sleep in on weekends but with a house full of kids sleeping in sometimes just

01:33:48   means like eight o'clock or 8 30 but so on the weekends maybe i'll get eight hours of sleep so

01:33:52   i think that's plenty of sleep for an adult of my age six and a half seven and a half hours on

01:33:57   weekdays eight and a half nine hours on a weekend on one day on the weekend uh yeah so that's how

01:34:05   many hours a night of sleep and if you add up all the time that i do like i work from nine to five

01:34:09   i do breakfast and kids in the morning i cook dinner i take kids to activities uh i if i have

01:34:15   a podcast i can squeeze in uh you know an hour of destiny in the middle there if i'm if i'm good

01:34:21   on podcast nights i don't watch any television or anything else because there's just no time but on

01:34:25   nights when i don't have podcasts i can watch a tv show so it works out it's tight like i'm not gonna

01:34:30   say there's lots of slack time in there but it works out and it's not like i'm sleeping three

01:34:34   hours a night i mean i used to do that when i was younger where i would have a similar schedule and

01:34:38   i would like write from you know write some work on my uh you know mag s10 article for hours and

01:34:45   hours and go to bed at 3 a.m like but i can't do that anymore because i'm old uh thomas brock writes

01:34:51   in casey's latest video he points out that the manual golf golf r not golf golf r is missing a

01:34:57   lot of the advanced driver safety and convenience features he didn't point out that this is because

01:35:01   these features are incompatible with manual transmissions things like adaptive cruise control

01:35:05   collision avoidance and others may need to operate the vehicle beyond the speed range of a single

01:35:09   gear well these technologies eventually mean the death of a three-pedal car on an infinite timeline

01:35:13   well this isn't entirely true the car has adaptive cruise and in fact you can shift while cruise

01:35:18   control is on and when it senses that the clutch pedal is depressed it will kill the throttle until

01:35:24   the clutch pedal is distant or engage disengage always get it backwards until you pop pop your

01:35:28   foot off the clutch um the thing that the car does not have the golf r specifically does not have is

01:35:33   auto parking but everything else that i can think of collision avoidance um i mean i think it would

01:35:41   stop itself if necessary and i guess it would just stall if that's the case but everything except

01:35:46   parking i think it had so i get your point thomas and will it ever mean the death of three-pedal

01:35:55   car i don't think this is what's going to be the the nail on the coffin i think the nail nail in

01:35:59   the coffin is going to be people aren't buying them but john you are the one who put this in

01:36:02   here i think so i presume you have thoughts yeah i just wanted to hear actually which of these

01:36:08   things the the car has or not so you answered that because they could they can have still implement a

01:36:13   surprising number of assistive features but at a certain point especially for automation type

01:36:17   things you need to have a different kind of car at that point like you need to have like

01:36:21   essentially an automated manual uh that somehow you could also have like an automated manual that

01:36:28   also has like a clutch pedal or something like you could probably pull it off but in general when

01:36:32   you get into things where the car is driving itself manual transmission is not going to work

01:36:36   but as you said that's not why they're going away they're going to go away because people don't want

01:36:40   them because you know that that's just that's why they're going away because the other transmissions

01:36:44   are faster for performance we talked about this before it's not it's not the fastest performance

01:36:48   option anymore uh automated manuals are amazing and the people who care enough to have a slower

01:36:55   car because they like rowing gears uh we're all getting old and dying and not buying cars and so

01:37:00   that's why they're going to go away it's not because they can't add automation features

01:37:04   additionally there's um there's no fuel economy benefits anymore i remember years and years ago

01:37:11   it used to be that the automatics would be several miles a gallon uh less efficient and that's not

01:37:17   the case either in fact oftentimes it's the reverse and they used to be cheaper used to be

01:37:21   cheaper than automatic transmission so there's a price advantage right but nowadays the volumes are

01:37:25   so low that the price advantage there's still a price advantage in parts it does cost less money

01:37:29   to put a manual than an automatic but uh the volumes mean that it's the same price or sometimes

01:37:34   more expensive to get a manual because they make so few of them that's not always true like the

01:37:37   gulf are the dsg is a thousand or eleven hundred dollar option but i think in m cars for example

01:37:43   it is a no cost option to go manual i think in like corvettes it might be a no cost option to go

01:37:48   manual um i think it's bmw's only no cost option it's probably and they're making money on it

01:37:54   because like it is it is less expensive to put that in and to put it on my transmission

01:37:58   yeah uh secret in the chat also asks an interesting question uh casey what's the bigger deal to you the

01:38:03   third pedal or lack of a torque converter so for those who aren't aware torque converter is the

01:38:08   thing that makes an automatic work and it's to deeply deeply deeply oversimplify imagine two fans

01:38:16   in a pool of thick liquid and one of the fans is connected to the engine one is connected to the

01:38:20   wheels and when the car is stopped that means the engine fan is still spinning but the wheel fan

01:38:24   isn't i please don't write me that is a gross oversimplification just to get the idea across

01:38:30   so what's the bigger deal to me actually having a clutch or not having a torque converter

01:38:34   i like shifting myself i just think it's fun and so to me i would prefer to have a clutch pedal

01:38:41   but i have never particularly minded dual clutch cars where i don't have a clutch pedal but there

01:38:49   is no torque converter and as we explored in my very first casey on cars the zf8 speed when tuned

01:38:56   properly like it was in the julia that is a torque converter automatic and it was really good i'd

01:39:03   still prefer a clutch don't get me wrong but it was really really really good and i am slated to

01:39:09   get a dual clutch car in the next couple of weeks for my next edition of casey on cars and i suspect

01:39:16   i'm going to end up thinking you know what it's good i'd still take my clutch if i can get it but

01:39:22   it's good i drove a dual clutch car for three years and i came to the same conclusion uh it

01:39:27   and by the way dual clutch cars can have almost all of the assistive features uh that this question

01:39:34   was originally about like mine had adaptive cruise and it could go all the way from a stop

01:39:38   to whatever speed it was set to because it can you know it has the same abilities as automatics do

01:39:43   where the computer can adjust the speed the car won't stall if you hit zero um you know like

01:39:49   dual clutches have pretty much all the same advantages of automatics in the realm of like

01:39:54   what's possible in these uh advanced safety features um and i can i can say like you know

01:39:59   driving a dual clutch is not the same as driving a stick with a clutch it isn't the same but i found

01:40:05   it to be close enough and in some ways better john what's your hold up i have never still never

01:40:13   driven a torque converter automatic that i found acceptable but i haven't driven the fancy ones

01:40:17   that you have so right now i'm going to say uh i will do pretty much anything to avoid a torque

01:40:23   converter automatic until unless i find one that i don't find disgusting uh and beyond that obviously

01:40:28   i prefer manual because that's what i continue to buy and my second choice would be automated manual

01:40:32   and my distant third choice would be uh a torque converter automatic and my incredibly distant

01:40:38   fourth choice would be cvt you know it's funny you bring that up a little bit of a spoiler alert

01:40:45   i did not buy anything don't worry but i am getting a car in a couple of weeks that will

01:40:51   be the next casey on cars but i'm actually currently in a different car which is a cvt

01:40:59   equipped car and i have to say i don't actively like it but i don't actively dislike it either

01:41:10   is it simulating an automatic is it one of those no it's not so if i take off from a stop and let's

01:41:16   say i'm at one third throttle the car will just sit at 2 000 rpm until i decide to stop accelerating

01:41:22   it's the most peculiar feeling in the world it almost feels like and marco's going to be deeply

01:41:27   offended by this it almost feels like a halfway between a a gasoline car and an electric car

01:41:33   because there doesn't seem to be any division of gears there's no there it's just it's just power

01:41:41   now in this particular car it's not a lot of power and i don't want to disclose much more than that

01:41:44   but it's just power that's fairly consistent if not an overabundance of it until you stop and

01:41:53   it's a very very very odd sensation i agree with you like i would certainly never choose to have

01:41:58   a cvt car and i i wouldn't say i like it but a lot of people i know especially early on when they

01:42:05   were new deeply disliked these and i think perhaps because it doesn't even bother trying to simulate

01:42:13   gears i don't find it actively bothersome but i don't particularly enjoy it either it's very very

01:42:19   very peculiar most of them do simulate gears now because they've learned through bitter experience

01:42:23   that people don't like it like the the promise of cvt is that you can run the engine at the

01:42:26   most efficient speed all the time but people hate that in terms of like it just sounds like it's

01:42:30   droning and it doesn't feel right so most of the cvts you can buy today are they simulate all the

01:42:34   stupidity of automatics like even though they totally don't have to they're doing it's like

01:42:38   the fake engine noise and marco's old m5 it is a simulation that makes the the cvt less efficient

01:42:45   and worse than it could possibly be to make the experience subjectively more pleasing to people

01:42:49   who expect that maybe eventually those people will get old and die and people will get used to it but

01:42:53   honestly electric is the way out of this if you want something it doesn't have gears and stuff

01:42:56   like just it doesn't have multiple ratio gear ratios that it shifts through get an electric and

01:43:01   the droning i guess if you have a powerful engine with enough noise isolation you can pretend you're

01:43:07   driving in like a bad electric but i don't i feel like the cvt is a a transitional form that has no

01:43:14   place in my life ever thanks to our sponsors this week hover betterment and squarespace and we will

01:43:20   see you next week now the show is over they didn't even mean to begin because it was accidental

01:43:31   oh it was accidental john didn't do any research marco and casey wouldn't let him

01:43:40   because it was accidental it was accidental and you can find the show notes at atp.fm

01:43:49   and if you're into twitter you can follow them at c a s e y l i s s so that's casey list m a r c o

01:44:02   a r m anti-marco armen s i r a c u s a syracuse it's accidental

01:44:13   speaking of cars because i know people love the neutral segments what in the ever living hell is

01:44:31   tesla doing did you see this uh electrek post i did is this hot garbage oh god i don't know you're

01:44:39   not gonna get a model s anymore are you i thought this was gonna be a link about them taking the

01:44:43   company private but now i click on it i think it's just a thing about the cars no that i don't care

01:44:48   about that drama but like so this is the uh a couple of a couple days ago um this site electric

01:44:54   posted uh an exclusive first look based i think on leaked documents um at the tesla model s and x

01:45:01   interior refresh going spartan like model 3 allegedly i think i've been about a year or so

01:45:09   is when they're allegedly going to be doing this um and it has what purports to be like a like

01:45:15   leaked sketches of the of the new interior for the model s and x that really does basically look like

01:45:22   a bigger model 3 that has like you know the the large uh now horizontally uh landscape orientation

01:45:28   touch screen in the middle just like the three uh almost no display in front of the driver

01:45:34   um except for you know everything being on that big screen and the uh the whole cockpit basically

01:45:39   being even more spartan and minimal than it was before um to look basically like a giant three and

01:45:46   the reasons given for this are basically cost savings um

01:45:52   what do you guys think of this it costs not your hundred thousand dollar car i you left out the

01:46:00   best feature in these pictures which is they've taken all the best features of the out of the

01:46:04   tv remote and apparently brought them to the steering wheel it looks to me that it's just

01:46:07   a big featureless touch thing that you're going to brush your hand up against and accidentally

01:46:11   like move your seat or some crap it's like taking the physical controls off of the steering wheel to

01:46:16   just have a smooth black surface some tiny white glyphs on it that i guess are capacitive touch or

01:46:22   maybe like you can't tell because it's just a picture but like i'm having all the wrong feelings

01:46:27   about the total apparent total removal of any kind of physical controls because physical controls are

01:46:32   great because you can feel for them and you can know what position they're in and they're

01:46:35   satisfying to move and change and they should not be removed from car interiors entirely

01:46:40   yeah and and ultimately like the current model s and x have a surprising like before i got the car

01:46:47   i was afraid it would be like too much is on the touch screen but there are a surprising amount of

01:46:51   physical controls on and around the steering wheel and and that's where most of my interaction takes

01:46:56   place any adjustment for audio stuff um that uh any like cruise control or like you know the auto

01:47:03   steer adjustments that's all on the wheel even the sunroof map to the the dial on the right you can

01:47:08   map the different things like oh that's cool yeah and so like although i have no idea how they they

01:47:13   did it during like the walkthrough they they did it for me and i have no idea how to ever change

01:47:17   that um but anyway so because i don't read the manual casey um i don't even know if there is one

01:47:23   i think it's all electronic anyway so like the model s has has a good deal of physical controls

01:47:31   for the most frequently used things and and i haven't driven a three yet but i know one of the

01:47:35   big complaints about it was that the um the the adjustment to the current cruise control speed

01:47:43   in the model 3 has to be done by the touch screen because it doesn't have that apparently doesn't

01:47:48   have that extra stalk uh below on the bottom left of the wheel that the s and x do that allow you to

01:47:54   quickly and easily adjust the set speed of the cruise control and that's something i do all the

01:47:58   time like i i do that all the time while driving i will raise the speed lower the speed based on like

01:48:05   oh i'm in a construction zone on the highway i got to slow down and then oh now i'm in a 65

01:48:08   zone i got to speed up and or or you know i just you know weather permitting or conditions

01:48:13   permitting i want to adjust this by a couple miles per hour up or down um and so that the lack of

01:48:19   that on the model 3 scares me and these pictures aren't clear enough or or you know they're also

01:48:24   not final they're just sketches so who knows and and the fact that the wheel appears to have

01:48:28   capacitive touch buttons i wouldn't put any faith in that i think that that's probably just like you

01:48:32   know artist mock-up taking artist liberties but anyway point is i i'm very happy with the amount

01:48:39   of physical controls that the s has and i don't want those to be reduced um i also am totally fine

01:48:46   having the critical information of like my speed and stuff being in front of me and not a little

01:48:52   bit to my right now this does appear that it has like a little tiny display that will still be

01:48:57   visible or something i don't know i'm not it's not entirely clear like it looks like they there is

01:49:02   like still something tiny in the dash but anyway um yeah so i don't love this now that being said

01:49:08   i don't think this is going to be a problem for me for the near future because my lease is up in

01:49:15   april and this is allegedly not rolling out until like well later in the year or even the next year

01:49:21   i don't think this update to the interior will be in my next car because i think my next car will

01:49:26   happen sooner than this update is likely to hit the market that being said i'm kind of glad about

01:49:32   that because i'm i'm really happy with the current interior of the model s i'm so happy with the

01:49:37   model s in general that i don't really want it to change radically right now like maybe this will be

01:49:42   better that's cool but i'm happy enough with the current one and i'm wary enough about this one

01:49:48   based on the model 3 that yeah i kind of i i kind of not i'm in no rush to get this one did i not

01:49:55   talk to you guys about the fact that i drove a model 3 it was a while ago right it wasn't it was

01:50:00   in may and a listener uh dave g was kind enough to uh swing by richmond as he was going between

01:50:08   new york and florida and he and i met up for like an hour maybe two tops and and i drove his model

01:50:14   three and it was a very nice car and i liked it quite a bit but not having an instrument cluster

01:50:22   i did not care for i'm sure i could get used to it but i think it would be one of those things that i

01:50:28   tolerated rather than one of those things that truly and utterly went away does that make sense

01:50:34   you know it would always kind of be ugh but it would be okay and i do not think moving the s

01:50:45   in this direction is a smart choice i think it in fact sitting here now if i were marco and if

01:50:52   if if the choice was you know to to have an s without an instrument cluster or just say

01:50:58   buy out the one that you have already even with the three-year-old batteries i'd buy the one i

01:51:03   had today because i would not want a car without an instrument cluster just seems wrong to me and

01:51:08   maybe that's me just being an old man i don't know but i do not dig it yeah i mean the thing and by

01:51:12   the way i have considered buying it out i i i'm probably not going to go that route if i can get

01:51:17   like the kind i like again for a decent price simply because i a i i i don't want to take the

01:51:24   financial risk of what the heck this car's reset value will be in five years or whatever

01:51:29   and and b you know what if the company actually does go bankrupt they probably won't you know

01:51:36   that's usually bs and reporting everything but if the company actually goes under i don't want to be

01:51:40   stuck owning their vehicle that needs service ongoing forever and then that kills the resale

01:51:44   value and everything so like that's a big financial risk to take i think that i don't

01:51:48   really want to take but buying it out it has crossed my mind because i like it a lot i have

01:51:53   there's nothing wrong with it you know that i i don't i'm not like dying to get rid of it and when

01:51:58   i replace it i'm probably going to replace it with pretty much the exact same thing so like i'm going

01:52:02   to make very few changes to whatever i get so uh you know i don't really it feels kind of wasteful

01:52:08   to get the same thing again but you know the benefit of leasing is avoiding all those risks

01:52:12   that i was talking about a second ago so that's kind of my goal here but also like you know i

01:52:16   you look at what they're what they're doing here and and they they the goal of this redesign would

01:52:22   allegedly be for for two main reasons number one would be cost saving measures so they can use a

01:52:28   lot more of the same parts between the model 3 and the model s the model x and to me like i don't

01:52:34   like those parts like that that solves your problem not my problem that's my problem is i want a nice

01:52:40   car and i don't care whether your parts are shared between your vehicles or not that's your problem

01:52:45   that's your economics to deal with um and the second reason given is that this is to focus on

01:52:52   autonomous driving and that's wonderful when we get to that world this kind of cockpit will be

01:52:59   great this kind of car design you can go even crazier than this when we actually have autonomous

01:53:03   driving we don't have that yet i have a feeling we're not going to have that next year either

01:53:08   and so i'm going to have this car at a time when i'm going to be driving it and if i'm driving it

01:53:14   and not you computer driving it i want it to look nice for me and to accommodate me the human driver

01:53:21   because i'm still necessary and until that changes it should accommodate me yeah they've they've uh

01:53:27   it's kind of sad to me that they've taken a bunch of good ideas about how a car interiors could be

01:53:31   better right particularly leaning heavily on the touchscreen which is you know a fairly obvious

01:53:36   idea given how much we all interact with touchscreens these days and how good they are

01:53:39   and so on and so forth and they had a balance between knobs and levers and stuff and screens

01:53:46   on s and then they went more extreme in the three i just feel like like it's almost like a johnny

01:53:52   iv thing where it's just they're now pursuing it to its to its absurd conclusion right and they

01:53:57   shouldn't they should use each thing for its strengths like i mean you know the the absurd

01:54:02   conclusion is like why do you why do you have pedals why can't that be on the touchscreen too

01:54:05   like what you know and like and that sounds ridiculous and you they would explain to you

01:54:10   well it's a safety issue and it just feels better works better or people are better able to modulate

01:54:15   their legs or their know how to drive all those things are true of things like turn signals and

01:54:19   also buttons and knobs for less important functions now the steering wheel is still physical the pedals

01:54:24   are still physical the stocks are still physical but right up until that point they say but let's

01:54:29   have like literally nothing else be physical because everything is capacitive and it's just

01:54:32   that's a bad that's a bad trade-off that's a bad design for the exact same reason that the steering

01:54:37   wheel and pedals like so they're they're moving the line like as far as they can seemingly in

01:54:42   well there's two two possible motivations one is the the misguided sort of pursuing of your vision

01:54:47   to its logical and absurd conclusion right how far can we go right i mean i'm not almost surprised

01:54:53   that the steering wheel doesn't look like the one in kit now and speaking of kit the second the

01:54:57   second reason i think we talked about this in neutral is and this is actually a reason i could

01:55:01   justify in in some ways i just wish they found a different outlet is part of the appeal of tesla

01:55:07   and electric cars in general is that people want to feel like they're buying a futuristic car

01:55:11   so you need features of the car that are worse from a usability and reliability perspective

01:55:16   but they make people feel like they're cool i wouldn't say they're whimsical but i would say

01:55:20   that they they feel futuristic and if the door handle is popping out on the model s for a great

01:55:26   example the falcon wing doors are an example that tremendously increases the appeal of their products

01:55:32   even though it basically makes them worse because if they feel cool to people they impress strangers

01:55:37   like they're it makes you feel like i'm not just buying a car that's a regular car but it happens

01:55:41   to have an electric motor in it it is a futuristic cool car and this kind of dash treatment fulfills

01:55:47   that like they they had to go away from the the pop-out handles because it's just you know too

01:55:51   annoying so on the three they have a thing where you pop out the handle by pushing your stupid

01:55:55   little finger into this thing and it and you know it hinges out as opposed to waiting for the thing

01:55:59   to pop out with you from the motor right so it seems like they have like a displaced need to

01:56:05   put that futuristic stuff and i just i just wish they'd put it somewhere other than messing with

01:56:10   the steering wheel and the knobs and the instrument cluster