130: Technical Countermeasures
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I was working on something right before the show started and I paused for the show and
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now I'm like in that annoying mode where I'm thinking about that thing I was working on
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and not thinking about what I should be thinking about.
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Now when you say pauseā¦
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Jason Seifer, everyone.
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Yeah, I feel like we should all like kiss our fingers and plan up to the sky now or
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Is this a reference I'm not getting?
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Me and Casey, the reference getters, right Casey?
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Yeah, totally. That's, among other things, you could call that a sportsball reference.
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I couldn't even tell you which sport you're talking about.
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No, it's every sport, Marco. Every single sport. And the Grammys, and the Oscars. Everything.
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It's a reference to everything. It's a reference to life.
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A while back, this was easily two or three months ago, I was fiddling around and tried
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to teach myself React, not React Native, just straight up React, and wrote a Showbot in
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React. It is at Showbot hyphen R on the web, if you'd like to see it, probably die in
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a terrible awful fire. But it is presently working, which is exciting.
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Now, Jon, I assume you're going to have an opinion on the different placement and
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coloring of the upvote arrows on the Showbot R compared to the regular Showbot.
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was not correctly aligned, like along the center line of the page, so I had to close
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Also, you know, if any web application framework should have an exclamation point at the end
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of its name in the grand tradition of Yahoo, it's React.
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Should be React!
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So it's 165 lines that's including blank spaces, comments, etc.
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On the React version, it is 180 on the straight jQuery version.
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So I've saved 15 lines.
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That's worth rewriting the entire thing?
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Yeah, totally.
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I did teach myself React, and the funny thing is I'm looking at this code and I'm like,
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"What the fuck is this stuff doing?"
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I have no idea what's happening anymore, because it was like two months ago and I've not touched
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Well, one of us has to play with new things on a regular basis.
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That's certainly not going to be you two old farts.
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Definitely not me.
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John has a chance, maybe.
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I do any chance I get new versions of pearl. Yeah, all sorts of new things
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Exciting new versions of jQuery that leave ie8 behind. Oh, I didn't realize that was the thing now. It's a thing the best is like
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you know, so it supports ie9 and above but even in ie9 you have to convince ie to
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Pretend that it's a good browser by like forcing the you know
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Like a meta tag for like a turn it makes your edge mode is enabled because like the first time I loaded up
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What the, I thought this thing works in IE 9.
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What is it complaining about?
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Oh, I have to tell IE, don't be stupid.
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Edge mode, please.
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And then, okay, yeah, now all of a sudden, stupid.
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Anyway, web, fun.
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- Do I have to be testing in Edge?
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Is it different enough that I need to care or not?
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- No, it's like Edge mode in IE 9.
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I'm not talking about the actual browser.
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Like there's IE 9, there's IE 10,
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I think there's even IE 11,
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and then there's that, whatever the hell
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that other thing is.
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I just-- I really-- I fought a long time in--
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I don't know if I fought.
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But anyway, the path of my career has been--
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IE used to be a thorn in our side,
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but you just had to deal with it because everybody had it.
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And eventually we came to this place
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where we can develop-- do our web application development
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for a set of modern browsers, and then only at the very, very
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end see now what kind of disaster
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is this in the various versions of IE that we support.
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And then sort of like spackle over them and try to make it better with those used to be the reverse you had to make
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It work in IE and everything and then you could see if there were some nice things you could do in the modern browsers now
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develop everything against Chrome Firefox or Safari
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Or I suppose even opera and then at the very end when you're done and you're happy with it
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It's like all right now. Let me load it in IE and you just just grit your teeth. You just like oh
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Is opera still do they switch to my kid? I think they still making their own render or is it all up kit now?
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I don't remember. I remember that sounds vaguely familiar to me, but I have never had a job where I have had to support opera ever
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No, nobody ever has
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Maybe someone who people who work for the Opera, you know the company that makes the Opera website maybe
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Maybe do you think even they use opera? Yeah, someone's got it. Oh, we're gonna we're gonna get so little email. Yep
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Yep, but all three devout users that that that also happen to listen to this show are gonna be very upset
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- Extremely.
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- Good thing about that feedback.
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Anyway, we should probably do some follow-up.
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And we have some follow-up.
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And I would blame this on Jon,
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but this is not Jon's fault.
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I have actually added a bit of follow-up.
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And I'd like to start with a bit.
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- At two, KC?
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- Yeah, I know, I know, I'm sorry, Marco.
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By the way, that's a reference to Shakespeare,
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I believe, Julius Caesar.
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- I don't think it's just Shakespeare.
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I think it's Julius Caesar, like, period.
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I think that's just like a thing that was most likely true
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that he most likely said something to that effect possibly.
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- Fine, fine.
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Everyone's a critic, right?
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So David S. wrote in and he wanted to tell us
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that the TrackPoint mouse,
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which we discussed a lot last episode,
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has been scientifically proven, well, by IBM,
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to be more accurate than a trackpad.
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So David S. writes, "In the late '90s,
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I worked at IBM's User Systems Ergonomics Research Group
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for a short time.
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The group did all sorts of user interface research,
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including designing and testing new types of keyboards and pointing devices, but they're
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also known for having invented the trackpoint.
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So of course, as part of that development, they did lots of tests on the ergonomics of
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the trackpoint.
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The results are very interesting.
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As I recall, people were both faster and more accurate when using a trackpoint compared
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with a trackpad.
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I believe the difference was small for people who were novices on both devices, but they
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also found that people got much better with some experience on the trackpoint, and that
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a week of experience made a big difference.
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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, because the accuracy differences were small for novices,
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And because the TrackPoint interface was a little easier to figure out initially, people
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actually tended to like the trackpads more at first, or for example, in using a computer
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in the store.
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And then he has provided a link to Microsoft of all places that has what appears to be
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a scan of this research paper.
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So apparently it has been scientifically proven that TrackPoints are better if you believe
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Well, also like IBM, the maker of TrackPoints, did one study that proved that TrackPoints
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were slightly better than the trackpads of 1990s.
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And that's like, trackpads when they first came out
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really were terrible, and they really did get a lot better
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in the early 2000s and throughout the 2000 to 2010 interval
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like as mostly, let's be honest, as Apple made them better
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because the PC industry's trackpads still usually,
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as we said last time, really suck
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compared to anything good and usable.
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Modern trackpads are, with the exception of the Force Touch,
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way, way, way better than what they were probably testing against. Whereas track points probably
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have not really changed since then, because there just isn't that much to change about
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If they tested, like, a series of tasks where you have to involve typing and mouse cursor,
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that's where the track point would really shine, because that's its biggest advantage,
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especially for people who are good typists or touch typists, is that you don't have to
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relocate. You can sort of keep your hands in the same position and have ready access
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to cursor movement and clicking buttons and typing all at the same time. So you'd -- I
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I assumed that they would do well there, but yeah, the trackpads of the 1990s were just
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these little tiny things that, like, it was barely enough room to move your fingers, like,
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an inch and a half by an inch and a half, like, very small, so you're trying to navigate
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The screens weren't that much smaller.
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The screens were still like, 15-inch laptops existed.
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Trying to move a cursor around a 15-inch screen by swiping your finger around a little plastic-y
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2x2 square, not very fun.
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But I would imagine that the trackpads would do it.
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Anyway, everyone should use mice.
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So you two beat the piss out of me because you say that it's scientifically proven that vinyl's better.
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Here it is. I give you a scientific study that track points are better. And oh no, it's not good enough.
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Well, I mean, this one study is done by the company that invented the track point.
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So it's perhaps a little bit biased. And unlike vinyl and CDs, track pads have changed since the 1990s.
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Vinyl? Not changed since 1990s. Only to perhaps get worse. And the knowledge of how to correctly master them gone away.
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So that's the only thing that has happened to vinyl. CDs, the format is exactly the same,
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the specs are exactly the same, nothing has changed related to CDs since the 1990s.
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Screw you guys, I'm going home. That's a reference, by the way.
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In other news, speaking of inferior pointing devices,
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there are so many tap-to-click wizards in our audience, who knew?
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So many self-proclaimed tap-to-click wizards.
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Oh, here we go. Everything has a caveat.
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Right, well no, I'm saying like they I believe that they they believe their self to tap to click wizards
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Like the basically that they don't they don't perceive any impairment to using tap to click that is the way they prefer to do it
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They are never frustrated by it is not a compromise that they're dealing with. They don't accidentally make any clicks
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It's just you know, they're they are tapped to click wizards according to my definition of like, you know
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We're saying I was saying that I'm not one because whenever I turn on tap to click I find myself inadvertently
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Doing things I didn't intend to do and that pisses me off and it makes me turn that mode off
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Right these people have to click wizards. No problem with it whatsoever
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Does it mean they never make any kind of errors or do they make the errors? It doesn't bother them either way
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they're basically tapped to click wizards because
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It's the way they prefer to work it
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None of them expressed any sort of caveats about like well
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I used it all the time and it only annoys me a little bit. They were like, nope
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I'm a wizard so I guess those guys can start a club
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I demand to see proof and a scientific study. No, no, they are they they are tapped to look was
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I just didn't think there were that many people who basically
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Don't have any like there's no downsides for them for using that to like and it's probably people who like learned on it
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You know who never who just like once they found out that was a mode and like the first you know
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Day that they got their laptop turned it on and like that's how these are up top and that's how they've trained themselves to
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To use it. They don't have any other habits that they're breaking right there
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just this is the way they've built their habits.
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Right, and maybe they actually just accept that a certain degree of unreliability is
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just part of using a trackpad.
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I'm willing to believe that a large part of them actually don't have accidental tap-to-clicks,
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because that gets to the next feedback from ML, whose name consists of two capital letters
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separated by a space.
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I don't understand how you would accidentally click with tap-to-click.
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If you put a finger down and leave it, then it's not a click.
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If you put a finger down and lift it back up, then it is a click.
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On last show we used the wrong terminology in terms of like how much force you apply, but that's basically you know
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There's no force sensor. It's basically there wasn't back in the day
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It's timing based and the reason I personally accidentally do clicks is all my habits around trackpad use
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Don't involve making sure that I don't accidentally touch the surface like briefly or brush against it with some other finger or whatever
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That leads to the other trackpad setting that we didn't talk about last time
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which is, what the hell is the phrasing of it?
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Like, ignore unintentional,
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it's been phrased different ways.
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Ignore unintentional taps,
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and that one is infuriating
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because the trackpad is trying to figure out
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what's an accident and what's not,
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and it will go into this mode where it's like,
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oh, I'm gonna ignore that 'cause it looks like an accident.
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Then you try to do something legit and it ignores you,
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and you become furious.
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You're like, no, except my command, my finger is moving.
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But anyway, all my habits were not designed around
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the idea that I have to be cognizant of how long my finger is in contact with the trackpad
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because if it is in contact with the trackpad too briefly, that counts as a click.
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And so that's just not how my hands work.
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And I have years of using trackpads without tap to click before I, you know, before tap
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to click became even a thing probably, but certainly before I ever tried to turn it on.
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So I'm accidentally hitting the trackpad because during the course of using a trackpad, my
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briefly come in contact with the trackpad
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in ways that register as clicks,
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but I'm not intending to click at all.
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It doesn't happen all the time,
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but it happens enough that I find it infuriating.
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- Right, because it's like if you need to do
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a very, very small, fast cursor movement,
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like if you need to move the mouse over
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like one or two pixels on screen,
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it is very easy for that to be misinterpreted,
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because the way it differentiates
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is not just how quick the tap is,
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but how much it has moved during the touchdown time span.
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because obviously if you mean to tap to click,
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then it's going to be effectively unmoving,
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but of course there's gonna be a very small amount
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of movement a lot of times just 'cause of imprecisions
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and the way people work.
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So it has to determine in software the difference
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between an intentional small quick movement of the cursor
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and a tap to click.
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And that is not a perfect science and it never will be.
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There's always gonna be some little flex margin of error
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where it's gonna get wrong sometimes.
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And so if you're doing certain things
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that require small fast cursor movements,
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you will probably hit this problem more often
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than if you're not doing that kind of movement.
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- And they have no choice but to put that in.
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They can't make you, they can't demand
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that you precisely put your finger down
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and precisely lift it up without moving it
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because that would mean it would become very difficult
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that they just have to build in that margin
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to make it comfortable for people
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to actually use tap to click.
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But that same margin is what makes you
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accidentally activate it.
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And I think the reason, you know,
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control freaks like me are so against tap to click,
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because A, we have this error rate,
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and B, the error rate is potentially very,
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like we have dialog boxes with buttons in them.
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The buttons are close to each other.
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If you were to move the cursor over
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from one button to the other, that's not very far,
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and if it actually registers as a click
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that did cancel or okay when you wanted to do the opposite,
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that could be a data-destructive operation.
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Like there's, not that you'd be hitting dialog buttons
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with a mouse cursor anyway, but anyway.
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A bad click in the wrong place at the wrong time,
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Even if it's just accidentally having a bad click
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that you didn't realize put the input focus into a window,
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into the window that you didn't think you were typing in
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and get one of those wrong window situations.
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Like data loss, wrong window stuff,
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I just, yeah, I don't like it.
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- All right then.
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- That's the final verdict.
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I don't like it.
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- All right, so what does Rich at the pond have to say?
00:14:24
◼
►
- He was giving a defense of trackballs.
00:14:26
◼
►
And the idea behind this is if you,
00:14:29
◼
►
due to old age or if you have any other
00:14:31
◼
►
sort of motor problems, sometimes it's difficult to,
00:14:34
◼
►
I've seen people with this problem in real life,
00:14:37
◼
►
to position the cursor over something
00:14:40
◼
►
and click without moving the cursor again.
00:14:42
◼
►
And when the button and the thing that moves are separate,
00:14:46
◼
►
like they are in a trackball,
00:14:47
◼
►
you move the ball, you're moving the cursor.
00:14:48
◼
►
You take your hands totally off the ball,
00:14:49
◼
►
then you can press the button at your leisure.
00:14:51
◼
►
Usually the buttons are very large
00:14:52
◼
►
and they are separate from the ball
00:14:53
◼
►
and you can be sure that where you're clicking
00:14:54
◼
►
is where the cursor is.
00:14:55
◼
►
So it's better for people with motor impairments.
00:14:59
◼
►
Trackpad is similar when they have the button on it,
00:15:00
◼
►
but the physical button, that's gone now.
00:15:03
◼
►
And now you move the cursor on the trackpad
00:15:06
◼
►
to get where you want,
00:15:07
◼
►
and then you can kind of take your hand off
00:15:08
◼
►
and just go vertically down and click and be sure.
00:15:11
◼
►
But anyway, a trackball with a separate button
00:15:13
◼
►
and a separate ball does have that advantage.
00:15:15
◼
►
- Let's see, oh, next, right.
00:15:18
◼
►
So I'd asked at the end of the last episode,
00:15:21
◼
►
or towards the end of the last episode,
00:15:22
◼
►
"Hey, what's the deal with Apple Sim?"
00:15:24
◼
►
And I had asked kind of,
00:15:26
◼
►
without having done any research on it,
00:15:28
◼
►
āŖ Back in the back door āŖ
00:15:29
◼
►
Lady Winzy, who is a retail employee, weighed in on this and also provided the official
00:15:34
◼
►
link which we'll put in the show notes.
00:15:36
◼
►
I'm a retail employee.
00:15:37
◼
►
AT&T is the only carrier that locks the SIM.
00:15:41
◼
►
Verizon opted out of Apple SIM in its entirety, and you can swap SIMs.
00:15:46
◼
►
So if you're going to get Verizon service, you have a completely segregated Verizon SIM.
00:15:54
◼
►
And then if you want to use the Apple SIM, you can use T-Mobile and I believe Sprint
00:15:58
◼
►
in AT&T, but the moment you engage AT&T, that SIM gets locked.
00:16:03
◼
►
So she continues, "When AT&T is selected as the carrier, a pop-up warns you, but you can
00:16:07
◼
►
always purchase an additional Apple SIM for $5."
00:16:10
◼
►
Which I didn't know, and that's really cool.
00:16:13
◼
►
And additionally, "A Verizon SIM is free at her store anyway, you just have to ask for
00:16:19
◼
►
All of that was extremely useful information.
00:16:20
◼
►
I was very glad that Lady Wednesday reported it.
00:16:23
◼
►
And like we said, we'll put a link to the official documentation in the show notes about
00:16:27
◼
►
this does this set a new record for the cheapest thing you can buy in an Apple
00:16:31
◼
►
store that might be I was gonna say it's cheaper than iPod socks and the the $10
00:16:36
◼
►
magsafe adapter I just bought another one of those actually although if we're
00:16:41
◼
►
gonna go by volume or weight it may still be more expensive that's true
00:16:46
◼
►
these things are well they're not heavy by any means but they're heck a lot
00:16:49
◼
►
heavier than one of the micro nano whatever Sims I always get them
00:16:52
◼
►
backwards can you fold the $5 bill to be smaller than a sim I don't think you
00:16:56
◼
►
I don't think so. Not these new Sims at least.
00:16:58
◼
►
But anyway, that was extremely useful feedback, and there were some other people that wrote in as well.
00:17:02
◼
►
And so thank you to everyone who provided some of that information.
00:17:06
◼
►
But it sounds like, you know, obviously the easiest answer, which I don't know why I didn't even think of this,
00:17:11
◼
►
and Nathan A reminded me in the chat room, just use the same darn Sims. Like, why not just do that?
00:17:16
◼
►
It just completely escaped me. But anyway,
00:17:18
◼
►
but if I weren't to use my existing Sims, I can use, I can
00:17:23
◼
►
I can potentially get two Apple SIMs, one for AT&T, one for T-Mobile, and then a Verizon
00:17:29
◼
►
SIM as well for, it looks like, maybe five extra dollars, which is a pretty slick setup.
00:17:36
◼
►
Moving on, we got some feedback about domestic carriers, one by Chris Niles.
00:17:42
◼
►
He said, "As a genius, the number of iPhone users I see for cellular issues are mostly
00:17:47
◼
►
sprint, then T-Mobile and Verizon, and last AT&T, meaning that AT&T was the best of all.
00:17:55
◼
►
This is from three different markets, he said, the Bay Area, Seattle, and Denver.
00:17:59
◼
►
And then we got some really long feedback from someone who I believe wanted to remain
00:18:03
◼
►
Which one, the signal strength one?
00:18:05
◼
►
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:18:06
◼
►
One of the points that a lot of people brought up, we were asking how you get such a good
00:18:08
◼
►
signal inside Moscone or whatever, is they have indoor antennas that are just for the
00:18:13
◼
►
people inside the building.
00:18:14
◼
►
And so you're competing with only the people inside the building instead of everybody out
00:18:17
◼
►
in San Francisco and the antenna is really close to you.
00:18:21
◼
►
And the person who sent us the email about spectrum and stuff had some tips for like
00:18:25
◼
►
switching to 3G when everyone else is on 4G because sometimes you just can't get the attention
00:18:29
◼
►
like you can receive the signal plenty strong in like a stadium or something but your send
00:18:33
◼
►
signal is bombarded by, is interfering with everyone else's send signal so if you switch
00:18:37
◼
►
to 3G you might actually have a better experience.
00:18:40
◼
►
That was a good letter but it was also very long and probably doesn't really fit into
00:18:46
◼
►
And the next section of the follow-up here is all people telling us about why carriers
00:18:54
◼
►
might have changed the way you buy phones, as opposed to a subsidized phone model where
00:18:59
◼
►
you pay a certain amount for a phone, the carrier pays Apple the rest of the price of
00:19:03
◼
►
the phone, and then you pay a monthly fee to pay back the subsidy, and then some going
00:19:07
◼
►
with the model where there is no subsidy and basically the price of the phone is spread
00:19:13
◼
►
out over the course of your bills.
00:19:15
◼
►
And so Benjamin Glickman's got the first theory here.
00:19:18
◼
►
Well, does he have the first one?
00:19:19
◼
►
I think someone else.
00:19:20
◼
►
Maybe someone moved it.
00:19:22
◼
►
The first theory-- oh, here it is.
00:19:23
◼
►
Derek, yeah.
00:19:24
◼
►
Derek Beachy, yeah.
00:19:26
◼
►
Derek from Veristablium, right?
00:19:29
◼
►
This is the big thing that we're missing
00:19:30
◼
►
is that the upfront cost for a big fancy expensive phone
00:19:36
◼
►
That it's not like, oh, well, I used
00:19:38
◼
►
to be able to get the top of the line iPhone for $200
00:19:42
◼
►
and then a monthly fee.
00:19:43
◼
►
and now I'm going to realize the full giant cost
00:19:46
◼
►
of the iPhone is actually like 700 or $800.
00:19:49
◼
►
It's now that the cost of the phone is $0
00:19:52
◼
►
because they just take whatever the cost of the phone is,
00:19:53
◼
►
divide it by 12 or 24 and then add that to your bill.
00:19:56
◼
►
And so it seems like from the customer's perspective,
00:19:59
◼
►
it has the advantage of being like,
00:20:00
◼
►
"Oh, you know, every phone is a free phone now."
00:20:03
◼
►
Even though you're paying the exact same money
00:20:05
◼
►
or possibly more, it's just spread out
00:20:07
◼
►
into your various bills.
00:20:09
◼
►
There are a lot of theories that this will increase,
00:20:13
◼
►
upgrade frequency because you get the same monthly payment.
00:20:16
◼
►
And I mean, this kind of goes against what Marco was saying.
00:20:18
◼
►
It was like, these thing where you spread out the cost
00:20:21
◼
►
of the phone over multiple months will end.
00:20:23
◼
►
And when it ends, you don't have to pay
00:20:25
◼
►
for the phone anymore.
00:20:26
◼
►
And so one side of this coin is,
00:20:27
◼
►
oh, well then people will just keep upgrading their phone
00:20:29
◼
►
as soon as the payment ends.
00:20:30
◼
►
And the other side of the coin is what Marco was saying,
00:20:32
◼
►
people will be like, oh, my bill decreased
00:20:33
◼
►
and my phone is still good.
00:20:34
◼
►
So why would I get a new phone?
00:20:36
◼
►
So I don't know which one of those behaviors
00:20:37
◼
►
is gonna win out when people start signing up
00:20:40
◼
►
for these things.
00:20:41
◼
►
Presumably the entire rest of the world knows
00:20:42
◼
►
because as stated on the past show,
00:20:44
◼
►
this is how a lot of the rest of the world
00:20:46
◼
►
pays for the phones already.
00:20:48
◼
►
But there are two sides to that coin.
00:20:49
◼
►
- Yeah, it'll be interesting to see
00:20:52
◼
►
whether more people now will choose
00:20:54
◼
►
the bigger storage tiers based on this new pricing.
00:20:59
◼
►
And if anything, this gives Apple even less of a reason
00:21:03
◼
►
to drop the 16 gig because now it's even easier
00:21:06
◼
►
for people to spend more money on the higher models.
00:21:11
◼
►
That's roughly my opinion of that as well.
00:21:13
◼
►
- Jeffrey says the new plans cost significantly more
00:21:15
◼
►
for less, as in the carriers are going to charge you more
00:21:18
◼
►
for the similar size plan and you either won't notice
00:21:21
◼
►
or won't care because they'll be adding the phone price
00:21:23
◼
►
into it and it'll just be all confusing.
00:21:25
◼
►
- Yeah, it's like are the rates actually going down
00:21:28
◼
►
without the subsidy?
00:21:29
◼
►
If I buy my phone outright, just get it unlocked
00:21:31
◼
►
or whatever and then own it outright,
00:21:33
◼
►
am I actually gonna be paying a lower bill
00:21:35
◼
►
after moving to this system?
00:21:37
◼
►
I tried to find this out on AT&T's site
00:21:39
◼
►
and it's very confusing and I couldn't figure it out.
00:21:41
◼
►
But as far as I can tell,
00:21:42
◼
►
I'm actually not gonna be paying any less money on the bill.
00:21:45
◼
►
- You have to have a big spreadsheet and keep it up to date
00:21:48
◼
►
because they change the numbers all the time.
00:21:49
◼
►
You can get special deals
00:21:50
◼
►
depending on where you're coming from.
00:21:51
◼
►
You just have to keep redoing the math.
00:21:53
◼
►
Like, has it ever been cheaper to buy an unlocked phone
00:21:55
◼
►
and then pay a monthly fee?
00:21:57
◼
►
Is it, you know, which is cheaper?
00:21:59
◼
►
If they'd still done the subsidy
00:22:00
◼
►
or if they just take the price of the phone
00:22:01
◼
►
and divide it by 12 or 24 and add it to your bill,
00:22:03
◼
►
what bill are they adding it to?
00:22:05
◼
►
Is it the bill they're adding it to
00:22:06
◼
►
bigger than it was before so the total comes out?
00:22:07
◼
►
you just gotta do the math yourself.
00:22:09
◼
►
At the bottom, here's the bottom line
00:22:10
◼
►
with all this stuff in the US anyway.
00:22:12
◼
►
What are you gonna do about it?
00:22:13
◼
►
You got like two, three choices if you're lucky.
00:22:17
◼
►
One of those choices is probably super crappy,
00:22:18
◼
►
so really you've narrowed it down to two.
00:22:20
◼
►
And like the amount of sort of unspoken collusion
00:22:24
◼
►
in these industries and the huge barriers to entry mean
00:22:26
◼
►
that there's very little connection
00:22:27
◼
►
between the value of the service you're getting
00:22:29
◼
►
and how much money you pay,
00:22:30
◼
►
and so we're just, we're all screwed.
00:22:32
◼
►
So like worrying about this is, it's almost academic.
00:22:37
◼
►
Aaron E has another theory about this thing.
00:22:40
◼
►
It was, he says it's primarily motivated by the FCC
00:22:43
◼
►
that was pressuring cell phone companies
00:22:44
◼
►
to get rid of their early termination fees
00:22:46
◼
►
because they had really high fees
00:22:47
◼
►
for like if you bail on your contract early.
00:22:49
◼
►
And so the cell phone, this theory is
00:22:51
◼
►
the cell phone company's way around this is,
00:22:52
◼
►
all right, we won't have early termination fees anymore.
00:22:55
◼
►
What we'll do is we'll give you a phone for $0
00:22:58
◼
►
and we're essentially loaning you the rest of the money
00:23:00
◼
►
for the phone that you will slowly pay back
00:23:01
◼
►
over the course of your plan.
00:23:02
◼
►
But if you bail early,
00:23:04
◼
►
of course you have to give us back the money
00:23:05
◼
►
we loaned you to buy your $800 phone.
00:23:08
◼
►
So instead of an early termination fee,
00:23:09
◼
►
it's like, oh, and by the way, you gotta pay us,
00:23:11
◼
►
it's like a loan, and then you sort of exit the contract,
00:23:14
◼
►
and it's like, well, you gotta pay back the loan
00:23:16
◼
►
'cause you've been using the phone, you've got the phone.
00:23:18
◼
►
So that's their way of getting around
00:23:19
◼
►
the early termination fee while still making sure
00:23:21
◼
►
that if you leave the plan early,
00:23:22
◼
►
you gotta pay a whole bunch of money to them,
00:23:24
◼
►
which motivates you to stay.
00:23:25
◼
►
We have a bunch of links to various FCC complaints
00:23:29
◼
►
and things related to this for the show notes.
00:23:32
◼
►
- Our first sponsor this week is Fracture.
00:23:35
◼
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We all have all these photos that we take these days with these awesome phone cameras
00:23:52
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or my crazy new camera, whatever the case may be.
00:23:54
◼
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We all have lots of photos these days.
00:23:56
◼
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There's more photos than ever.
00:23:57
◼
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People are taking more photos than ever and that's really, really good.
00:23:59
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The problem is that back in the old days you'd get photos printed and then you'd have this
00:24:04
◼
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this physical artifact and you could store it away somewhere,
00:24:07
◼
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you could display it, you could flip through,
00:24:09
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you could show it, you could see it more often.
00:24:10
◼
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Nowadays, we have more pictures than ever,
00:24:13
◼
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but we look at them less than ever
00:24:16
◼
►
because they're all just buried in our camera roll
00:24:18
◼
►
or they're put on social things
00:24:19
◼
►
and then they just kind of fall off the timeline,
00:24:21
◼
►
we never see them again.
00:24:22
◼
►
I think we really need to take advantage of things
00:24:24
◼
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that can take our pictures and show them back to us
00:24:27
◼
►
or display them or let us share them with our loved ones
00:24:30
◼
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in a less fleeting way than just posting it
00:24:33
◼
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on Facebook or whatever.
00:24:34
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So, Fracture lets you print photos.
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And this is like the most modern kind of print
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00:24:41
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Photos that are printed on a glass surface.
00:24:44
◼
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So you have this nice thin lightweight piece of glass.
00:24:46
◼
►
The ink is on the backside of it, but it's so thin
00:24:48
◼
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it looks like it's right on the surface.
00:24:50
◼
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And then there's like a thin layer of foam board
00:24:52
◼
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behind that so the foam board can then hook onto
00:24:55
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a picture hanger or it can stand up on your desk
00:24:57
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for the smaller sizes.
00:24:58
◼
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They have like a desk mount option
00:24:59
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or like a desk stand option.
00:25:01
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But for the most part, I get the big ones
00:25:02
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and I hang them on little photo nails.
00:25:05
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And they're huge and they're beautiful and they're light.
00:25:08
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So it is like no stress to put this thing on your wall.
00:25:12
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And they also have small ones too,
00:25:13
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and the small ones are really affordable.
00:25:15
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I actually, I have a number of the small ones as well.
00:25:18
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They have small squares that start at five by five inches
00:25:21
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for I think it's like 15 bucks.
00:25:22
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00:25:55
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Thanks a lot.
00:25:56
◼
►
- I'm glad I kept forgetting to make the fracture
00:25:58
◼
►
order I wanted to do.
00:25:59
◼
►
I decided I'm gonna, since I don't have app icons
00:26:01
◼
►
upon a wall like Marco, I figure I can put up the logos of all the podcasts that I've
00:26:05
◼
►
been on or associated with in some substantial way, and to make fractures of all those in
00:26:10
◼
►
line up, but I kept forgetting to do the others, and now I'll use our code.
00:26:13
◼
►
Although I haven't decided what size I'm going to get.
00:26:15
◼
►
What size are your icons?
00:26:16
◼
►
>> If you have the little one that we made of us in the Mac World Studio, that's 5x5.
00:26:20
◼
►
>> Yeah, I know, it looks kind of small in my wall, I don't know if I -- well, it depends
00:26:23
◼
►
on how many icons there are.
00:26:25
◼
►
I gathered up all the high-res artwork from all the people who are associated with the
00:26:28
◼
►
shows who would have access to that. So I think I have, I can go a little bit bigger,
00:26:32
◼
►
but I don't know. Yeah, it depends on like your viewing distance too, you know, where
00:26:34
◼
►
you're putting them and everything. Yep. But yeah, it's, it's great. All right, moving
00:26:38
◼
►
on. What's next? It's notebooked Xeons, which is something I could not possibly care less
00:26:45
◼
►
about, but I know you too. Oh no, that's not true. You should care. Everyone should care
00:26:49
◼
►
about this. All right, tell me why. Tell me why. Well, so the announcement is another
00:26:54
◼
►
one of these Intel half announcements where they're like, they announced that they're
00:26:58
◼
►
going to make Xeons with power specs so they can go in notebooks, but they don't have
00:27:03
◼
►
all the details on them quite yet. Kind of like how they announced all the Skylake stuff,
00:27:06
◼
►
but you have to wait for IDF for all the details. Anyway.
00:27:10
◼
►
Intel is so good at half-assed announcements.
00:27:12
◼
►
Yeah, I don't know. I don't know why they do that. But anyway, we'll find out when
00:27:15
◼
►
we find out. But we know enough. I think we know enough to be kind of excited. And it's
00:27:20
◼
►
kind of exciting to dumbwigs. We talked about it in the past. What is the difference between
00:27:23
◼
►
a Xeon and the rest of the Intel chips? And there's things to be said about, well, like
00:27:27
◼
►
more conservative and they're lagging behind the other things and maybe they give you the
00:27:32
◼
►
ones that are, you know, that have fewer manufacturing defects or something like you can do this
00:27:38
◼
►
hand wavy camera like these are the fancy expensive ones but the things that count are
00:27:42
◼
►
they spec them out with way more PCI Express lanes which is why they can go in the MacPro
00:27:47
◼
►
perhaps not for the Xeons in the notebooks but that remains to be seen and the second
00:27:52
◼
►
big thing is that they have ECC RAM and can usually support more RAM and those two things
00:27:57
◼
►
I think are super important.
00:27:59
◼
►
In Apple's "pro laptops" you can get a pretty large amount of RAM.
00:28:04
◼
►
Is it still just 16 or can you get 32 in the big one?
00:28:07
◼
►
I believe it's still 16, but I will double check.
00:28:08
◼
►
That's correct.
00:28:09
◼
►
Either way, by the standards of just a handful of years ago, a 16GB notebook is huge.
00:28:15
◼
►
We keep putting more and more RAM in these things, and the error rates surrounding RAM,
00:28:21
◼
►
maybe they're getting better, but probably not as fast as RAM capacity is increasing.
00:28:24
◼
►
It's kind of like data integrity on the file system, where we keep getting bigger and bigger
00:28:29
◼
►
disks, but the error rate for the things we're storing them on aren't getting that much better,
00:28:33
◼
►
or not getting it better or faster, or in some cases might even be getting worse.
00:28:36
◼
►
And so if we have all these bits and the error rate is one in a million bits or one in a
00:28:40
◼
►
billion bits and we have like, you know, millions and millions and billions and billions of
00:28:43
◼
►
bits, that means you've got errors there.
00:28:45
◼
►
And so ECC RAM is RAM that checks for hardware faults that cause a bit to flip here and there,
00:28:53
◼
►
it can fix some kinds of errors and at least report the other kind.
00:28:57
◼
►
And that's one of the reasons I've always loved the Mac Pros, because they all come
00:29:01
◼
►
with ECC RAM, which is more expensive, but I mean, again, maybe it's voodoo.
00:29:05
◼
►
I think people have done some studies on this, on ECC RAM actually is a benefit, but it just
00:29:09
◼
►
seems like the hardware cost of ECC RAM is not the big of a deal, but Intel has always
00:29:13
◼
►
segmented its product line by saying, "Oh, only our fancy Pro chips get ECC."
00:29:18
◼
►
And so if Intel is going to be stubborn and they're not going to bring ECC RAM down to
00:29:21
◼
►
to their consumer chips, the next best thing is to say,
00:29:25
◼
►
fine, we'll make notebook chips with the Xeon feature set.
00:29:28
◼
►
So again, we don't know if they have more PCI express lanes.
00:29:31
◼
►
We don't know if they're like the higher quality processors
00:29:34
◼
►
or the ones with the, you know,
00:29:35
◼
►
a more conservative manufacturing processor or whatever.
00:29:38
◼
►
We do know they're gonna have ECC RAM
00:29:40
◼
►
and they can support up to 64 gigs of RAM.
00:29:42
◼
►
And who wouldn't want a 15 inch Mac Pro
00:29:46
◼
►
with 64 gigs of ECC RAM?
00:29:48
◼
►
That sounds like an awesome machine to me.
00:29:50
◼
►
Finally, that sounds like, I mean, you know,
00:29:52
◼
►
going back to the old 17 inch days,
00:29:53
◼
►
that sounds like a truly pro MacBook Pro,
00:29:57
◼
►
as opposed to just like, well, it's a MacBook,
00:29:59
◼
►
but it's a little bit bigger and fancier,
00:30:00
◼
►
especially now that they're all aluminum and everything.
00:30:02
◼
►
So I have no idea if Apple will even use these things.
00:30:05
◼
►
Oh, and the other thing they advertise
00:30:06
◼
►
is that it's coming with Thunderbolt 3,
00:30:07
◼
►
but so do the desktop ones.
00:30:09
◼
►
It's just a question of whether they have Thunderbolt 3
00:30:11
◼
►
integrated into the controller for it,
00:30:13
◼
►
or is it just like you have to buy the controller chip
00:30:15
◼
►
if you get the Xeons in their chipset?
00:30:17
◼
►
But anyway, I don't know if Apple will use these.
00:30:20
◼
►
I don't know if they're worth using,
00:30:21
◼
►
this first generation of things,
00:30:22
◼
►
but I like the idea of ECC RAM and more RAM capacity
00:30:27
◼
►
come to Apple's Pro Notebook line.
00:30:29
◼
►
So fingers crossed.
00:30:30
◼
►
- Yeah, it'll be interesting to see what happens.
00:30:32
◼
►
I mean, what they announced,
00:30:34
◼
►
I believe it's only gonna be the Xeon E3 line,
00:30:37
◼
►
and the E3s are even closer than usual Xeons.
00:30:42
◼
►
They're even closer to the consumer line.
00:30:45
◼
►
They don't have extra PCI Express lanes.
00:30:48
◼
►
They do support ECC, as you said.
00:30:50
◼
►
They do support the higher RAM counts on certain chipsets.
00:30:53
◼
►
Our tipster in the chat room is basically on fire right now
00:30:57
◼
►
because he's saying that you can get ECC
00:30:59
◼
►
on the consumer chips as well.
00:31:00
◼
►
I don't know about that.
00:31:01
◼
►
We'll find out.
00:31:02
◼
►
But the Xeon name on the E3 line doesn't mean much.
00:31:06
◼
►
- Yeah, it's all marketing segmentation anyway.
00:31:09
◼
►
But fine, if you wanna do this marketing segmentation,
00:31:11
◼
►
I don't care what it's called.
00:31:12
◼
►
All I want is a laptop with ECC RAM
00:31:14
◼
►
because it's crazy to have 16 gigs of non-ECC RAM
00:31:17
◼
►
in a supposedly pro thing.
00:31:18
◼
►
And I think that the laptop should go up higher RAM.
00:31:21
◼
►
I'm not saying Apple's gonna sell one with 64 gigs,
00:31:23
◼
►
but maybe they could sell one with 32
00:31:25
◼
►
with the super expensive top of the line.
00:31:26
◼
►
Like I think people would buy that
00:31:27
◼
►
because it's especially now that the laptop CPUs
00:31:30
◼
►
are practically as fast and sometimes faster
00:31:32
◼
►
and single threaded than some of the, you know,
00:31:34
◼
►
supposed pro CPUs from years past.
00:31:37
◼
►
That if you have a top of the line 15 inch laptop
00:31:40
◼
►
and you can just put more RAM in it,
00:31:41
◼
►
you could probably do some pretty amazing things
00:31:43
◼
►
with that on the road.
00:31:44
◼
►
So whether it's just a silly marketing thing
00:31:49
◼
►
and whether the E3s are not all they're cracking up to be,
00:31:51
◼
►
you don't get any extra PCI express lanes
00:31:53
◼
►
and Thunderbolt 3 is available everywhere anyway
00:31:55
◼
►
and you could just buy a different controller chip set
00:31:57
◼
►
to get ECC RAM on the desktops.
00:31:58
◼
►
The bottom line is Apple hasn't done that.
00:32:00
◼
►
They continue to sell their laptops,
00:32:01
◼
►
even their super top of the line ones without ECC RAM.
00:32:04
◼
►
And maybe this will change that
00:32:05
◼
►
because maybe they'll have a nice can solution from Intel
00:32:07
◼
►
that won't require them to get some different extra chip
00:32:12
◼
►
to make their RAM ECC.
00:32:13
◼
►
On the other end, the Xeon line is always really holding back
00:32:18
◼
►
what the Mac Pro can do with things like ports
00:32:21
◼
►
and chipsets and everything else,
00:32:22
◼
►
because the Mac Pro uses the higher class of Xeons,
00:32:25
◼
►
the E5 series, and with the extra PCI lanes
00:32:29
◼
►
and a couple other things,
00:32:30
◼
►
and those tend to lie behind in chipsets.
00:32:32
◼
►
I don't know, do the E3s use more consumer-y chipsets?
00:32:37
◼
►
Because it always holds back the Mac Pro
00:32:39
◼
►
with things like how soon it can support Thunderbolt
00:32:42
◼
►
or USB 3, or whatever new port specs come around.
00:32:47
◼
►
The Mac Pro is always the last thing to get that support
00:32:49
◼
►
because Intel's Xeon chipsets that support the Xeon CPUs
00:32:54
◼
►
at that level, they just lag so far behind
00:32:56
◼
►
the consumer stuff.
00:32:57
◼
►
- And they don't need to because they're gonna go
00:32:59
◼
►
in servers and no one needs Thunderbolt 3 ports
00:33:02
◼
►
on a rack server somewhere, you know?
00:33:04
◼
►
- Exactly, and so why would Apple want to tie another one
00:33:08
◼
►
of their product lines to the delayed chipset
00:33:13
◼
►
and platform support of the Intel Xeon line?
00:33:15
◼
►
- Well, you know, if it's the same as PCI Express,
00:33:19
◼
►
this doesn't make a difference there,
00:33:20
◼
►
but I think the ECC RAM is the thing.
00:33:22
◼
►
The ADB tipster says that you could get ECC
00:33:24
◼
►
on the desktop things, but not on mobile,
00:33:25
◼
►
so this is a first for Intel,
00:33:27
◼
►
or a first in recent history that you can get
00:33:31
◼
►
laptop chip from Intel with the ECC RAM support.
00:33:34
◼
►
I just think it's, like Data Integrator,
00:33:36
◼
►
it's like, it should be everywhere.
00:33:37
◼
►
It should be, all RAM should be ECC RAM.
00:33:40
◼
►
If it was spread across the entire industry,
00:33:42
◼
►
the small additional cost of making the actual RAM chips
00:33:45
◼
►
support ECC and all the controllers and everything,
00:33:47
◼
►
doesn't seem like that big a deal to me.
00:33:49
◼
►
And I think it's like, it's literally the least we can do
00:33:52
◼
►
as we add a ridiculous number of bits
00:33:55
◼
►
to all of our machines and the RAM category
00:34:00
◼
►
that we're just not, we're just like,
00:34:02
◼
►
well, I'm sure it'll be fine.
00:34:03
◼
►
I'm sure every single one of the bazillion bits
00:34:05
◼
►
that we send through this thing
00:34:06
◼
►
always come back exactly as we did it. And a couple small one-bit errors here and there.
00:34:10
◼
►
You can get kernel packs, you can get corrupted data, you can get everything. Like, if you
00:34:13
◼
►
can't trust your RAM, what can you trust? Not your file system. Yeah, forget that. Is
00:34:19
◼
►
this really going to trickle down to anything that I'm going to buy anytime soon? No, you
00:34:24
◼
►
just got a new laptop. Well, no, Work got a new laptop. I didn't. I have, I would say,
00:34:29
◼
►
what do you think the actual odds of Apple using any of these chips at all ever in any
00:34:33
◼
►
of its products. Like I think even that is maybe 50/50. I think low. I'm gonna give it 50/50 because
00:34:38
◼
►
I hold out hope that someone is like, "You know what? We could sell a laptop for way more money
00:34:43
◼
►
than we do now if we just position one as like the suit." But that's what they used to do with
00:34:46
◼
►
the 17-inch. It was like, it's like, "Well, this is barely a laptop, but certain people need it,
00:34:51
◼
►
so we're gonna charge them an arm and a leg and here you go." There should be one of those,
00:34:55
◼
►
shouldn't there? Just like the Mac Pro? Yeah, 4K screen. Sure. Why not? 21-inch laptop, go.
00:35:01
◼
►
PowerBook G5, we are ready finally.
00:35:04
◼
►
- Liquid cooling.
00:35:06
◼
►
- Our second sponsor this week is Backblaze.
00:35:08
◼
►
Go to backblaze.com/ATP to see for yourself.
00:35:12
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That's step one.
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It solves such a huge class of potential risks
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Anything that can happen to your house
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or your workplace can affect every copy of your data if you only back up locally within
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that building. It's really, really nice to have an off-site backup of some kind that
00:35:40
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is not tied directly to, like electrically directly to the computer it's backing up and
00:35:45
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that is not in the same building and not even in the same city as the computer it's backing
00:35:49
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up. There's a huge benefit to that with all sorts of disasters that you can be safe from
00:35:55
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and your data can be safe from. So online backup in general, I highly recommend that
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everybody has online backup. Now, Backblaze, even before they sponsored our show, I was
00:36:06
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a huge Backblaze convert and I've tried other solutions out there. I've tried multiple other
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solutions out there and they work for some people and that's cool. They've never worked
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for me though.
00:36:15
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And so between my computer, my wife's computer and my home server, we have something like
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six terabytes in Backblaze. It's a lot. It's something in that ballpark. It's just five
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bucks a month per computer. So we have three computers, we pay 15 bucks a month, that's
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it. Backblaze, it's unlimited and unthrottled. So as I said, unlimited space, there's unthrottled
00:36:35
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upload speed. So as quickly as you can upload it, they will accept it. And the client they
00:36:39
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give you, it's real native code. And so it's fast, it's efficient, and there's no weird
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like heap limits and weird stuff you get with some of these things. It's always kept up
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to date with modern OSs. So like, you know, I don't have to worry when El Capitan comes
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out in a couple of weeks or months or whatever. I don't have to worry, oh, what if Backblaze
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doesn't update immediately? Because they will. They always have. It'll be fine. Like, they
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probably already work on the betas. And then once you have your data backed up to Backblaze,
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you can access it from anywhere. They have mobile apps for Android or iOS, and of course
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you can always go to their website on other computers, and you can go and you can restore
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just one file. So for example, if you're on a trip, you left a file on your home computer
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have online backup, I highly recommend Backblaze. Go to backblaze.com/ATP. Five bucks a month
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00:37:59
◼
►
Thanks a lot. So I have an announcement to make. ATP is now numbers. We've now bought
00:38:06
◼
►
all numbers. Apple would sue us for that name. You've got to think of it. I know you have
00:38:09
◼
►
difficulty with the names. I'm not surprised you came up with numbers. Integers. We are
00:38:14
◼
►
buying all the integers. Oh my goodness. Yeah, we couldn't get integers.com or the integer
00:38:17
◼
►
Twitter handle so we're just gonna go with the integer with it with a lowercase L inside
00:38:22
◼
►
Where we're going in the clouds it doesn't matter whether we can't get the Twitter handle.
00:38:26
◼
►
We'll just buy Twitter and we'll make it integer number 45.
00:38:29
◼
►
This is getting bad quickly.
00:38:30
◼
►
So to summarize this news, I don't know if it's even possible, it just sounds so stupid
00:38:34
◼
►
when you say it out loud, Google decided to rename itself Alphabet and then make and then
00:38:43
◼
►
divide up its businesses, divide up all the things that Google did before.
00:38:46
◼
►
Some of the things that Google did before are going to be under a new subsidiary of
00:38:51
◼
►
Alphabet called Google, and that's going to be like search and Android and web ads and
00:38:57
◼
►
I don't know what the heck goes under that.
00:38:59
◼
►
And then a bunch of the other stuff that Google does is going to go under someplace else?
00:39:05
◼
►
Just directly under Alphabet?
00:39:06
◼
►
I forget, but anyway, it's not under Google anymore.
00:39:07
◼
►
It will be all that stuff they do with self-driving cars and giant balloons with Wi-Fi access
00:39:14
◼
►
points on them and biomedical stuff and contact lenses that check your glucose level and Google
00:39:19
◼
►
does a lot of weird stuff like a lot of sort of R&D type stuff and so this is this is a
00:39:23
◼
►
reorganization under a new name Alphabet that is just that is saying like within alphabet
00:39:29
◼
►
which is still the company the same company that Google was they're dividing up their
00:39:32
◼
►
businesses in different bins the super confusing part is that their stock symbol will still
00:39:36
◼
►
be G O O G on whatever that is NASDAQ or whatever like their stock symbols will still look like
00:39:40
◼
►
Goog or Google or whatever, but the name of the company will be Alphabet and Google will
00:39:45
◼
►
just be a subsidiary, a wholly owned subsidiary of Alphabet. Larry and Sergey, I don't know
00:39:50
◼
►
how to pronounce his name, are staying in charge of everything, but now they're in charge
00:39:55
◼
►
of Alphabet and they appointed a new CEO of the Google part of Alphabet. It's not the
00:40:00
◼
►
same guy who did Google+, right?
00:40:01
◼
►
>> No, it's Sundar Pichai, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly, and the guy who did Google+
00:40:07
◼
►
left, right? Wasn't thatā¦
00:40:08
◼
►
Yeah, I can't keep track of the drama involved in this, butā¦
00:40:12
◼
►
Anyway, he left. And so Sundar, from what I understand, everyone likes Sundar a lot.
00:40:19
◼
►
Yeah, he's good. I think I've seen him in presentations. He always seems like he's
00:40:23
◼
►
a good presenter anyway. I have no idea. Nothing about him except seeing him on stage at I/O,
00:40:28
◼
►
I think. Yeah. So, I don't know. I mean, to me, you
00:40:31
◼
►
look at this move, and first of all, it's odd, and it's kind of like Head in the Clouds
00:40:38
◼
►
kind of spacey, new age, Larry Sergey type stuff.
00:40:42
◼
►
- Is it spacey?
00:40:44
◼
►
Is the name spacey?
00:40:45
◼
►
'Cause I think the actual move,
00:40:46
◼
►
despite being super confusing,
00:40:48
◼
►
is less head in the clouds-y
00:40:50
◼
►
because it's finally recognizing
00:40:51
◼
►
that this company called Google does two kinds of things.
00:40:56
◼
►
Crazy things like self-driving cars
00:40:58
◼
►
and hot air balloons and all that stuff,
00:41:01
◼
►
like just maybe they're good ideas,
00:41:02
◼
►
maybe there'll be dead ends,
00:41:03
◼
►
like kind of free-wheeling research,
00:41:07
◼
►
you never know what's gonna hit or whatever.
00:41:09
◼
►
And then very solid, predictable,
00:41:11
◼
►
same business that Google's been doing forever
00:41:13
◼
►
with the web ads and the search and all that other stuff.
00:41:15
◼
►
And having them both under the umbrella of the same company,
00:41:19
◼
►
that I think is more kind of hippy dippy,
00:41:21
◼
►
head in the clouds, like we're just like a company,
00:41:24
◼
►
we're just like we have a campus and you play volleyball
00:41:26
◼
►
and we give you free food.
00:41:27
◼
►
And some people try to figure out how to monetize web ads
00:41:30
◼
►
and other people are trying to figure out
00:41:32
◼
►
how to save the world one whatever at a time.
00:41:34
◼
►
And we're all in the same family.
00:41:36
◼
►
It's like, how would you feel if your job was doing analytics
00:41:39
◼
►
on like keyword search, return on investment,
00:41:42
◼
►
and someone else's job was like self-driving cars
00:41:46
◼
►
or something?
00:41:47
◼
►
Is that really the same company you're
00:41:49
◼
►
recruiting for that company just the same way across the board?
00:41:51
◼
►
So I think it is a little bit more concrete
00:41:54
◼
►
and a little bit more down to earth to say,
00:41:56
◼
►
we really need to divvy this stuff up
00:41:58
◼
►
so it's clear who's working for what and what the goals are.
00:42:02
◼
►
And then Google can be Google.
00:42:03
◼
►
And then everything else can be its own thing.
00:42:06
◼
►
and we don't have to mix them together.
00:42:08
◼
►
I don't know all the financial implications,
00:42:09
◼
►
like does it help them with reporting,
00:42:10
◼
►
does it help them with hiding profits and losses
00:42:13
◼
►
and making themselves look better,
00:42:14
◼
►
and not having the crazy, it's like Alphabet
00:42:16
◼
►
or whatever they, I wish I knew.
00:42:19
◼
►
I read all these press releases
00:42:20
◼
►
and I've already forgotten 'cause it was too long ago.
00:42:22
◼
►
It was only a couple days, but.
00:42:24
◼
►
Is all the new research and stuff
00:42:25
◼
►
under just plain old Alphabet
00:42:26
◼
►
or do they make another subcompany?
00:42:28
◼
►
I think it's just under Alphabet.
00:42:29
◼
►
- And there's X, there's like the X Labs, whatever.
00:42:32
◼
►
- Yeah, but those things are basically cost centers.
00:42:35
◼
►
And those don't look good on Google's balance sheet, right?
00:42:38
◼
►
So if you can get them off into another subsidiary,
00:42:40
◼
►
then you can kind of do more hand-wavy stuff.
00:42:42
◼
►
- Well, yeah, 'cause what's interesting is
00:42:44
◼
►
they didn't spin out things like YouTube or Android
00:42:47
◼
►
out of the new division called Google.
00:42:50
◼
►
- That fits with Google, don't you think?
00:42:52
◼
►
YouTube is a fairly concrete, established thing.
00:42:55
◼
►
It is not like glucose-sensing contact lenses.
00:42:59
◼
►
- But so is Nest, and Nest is spun out.
00:43:02
◼
►
- Yeah, but Nest is still kind of like,
00:43:04
◼
►
Can you make money selling nerds a really expensive smoke alarm that goes
00:43:09
◼
►
off at the wrong time? You know to me whenever you see a company like like
00:43:14
◼
►
Google which which has they have a spotty record of BS and their
00:43:20
◼
►
statements let's say that I mean it's not they're not they're not totally
00:43:23
◼
►
awful but they're not perfect either and Apple does a lot of their own BS - I'm
00:43:27
◼
►
not trying to be all like you know weird about it here but this is the kind of
00:43:31
◼
►
thing that it's worth sniffing around to see, is there a cynical take on this that is plausible
00:43:38
◼
►
for why else they might have done it? And because there's so much floaty language here
00:43:44
◼
►
and the cynical take is, what you said, is it sure looks like they're moving a lot of
00:43:50
◼
►
cost centers out of Google and leaving Google, the thing that is named Google, now as a more
00:43:58
◼
►
focused and most likely more profitable kind of entity.
00:44:01
◼
►
That's not cynical.
00:44:02
◼
►
Isn't that just good business?
00:44:04
◼
►
Isn't that kind of like not letting the two things like, they're just, it just seemed
00:44:08
◼
►
very different culturally and what their goals are and what their priorities should be and
00:44:12
◼
►
combining them into one thing just like confuses like they're separable enough because it's
00:44:17
◼
►
not like, oh, we should spin off MacPaint and MacWrite into Claris.
00:44:21
◼
►
Sorry to use old references for the young people listening.
00:44:24
◼
►
Because that will let them, like that was a core competency of Apple.
00:44:27
◼
►
that need to be spun out, but like hot air balloons, man?
00:44:30
◼
►
Like that's not the same company, right?
00:44:33
◼
►
So I think it's one of the things
00:44:35
◼
►
that I've always admired about Google
00:44:37
◼
►
is that they're willing to do all of these things.
00:44:39
◼
►
Like people ding them for it.
00:44:40
◼
►
It's like, what are you doing out there
00:44:41
◼
►
trying to make these self-driving cars?
00:44:43
◼
►
Like, if not them, then who, right?
00:44:45
◼
►
You either have a bunch of smart people
00:44:46
◼
►
that have a lot of money.
00:44:47
◼
►
I'm glad they're trying to do these things.
00:44:49
◼
►
And I think those projects will be given
00:44:52
◼
►
kind of more air to breathe and be under less pressure
00:44:55
◼
►
in a separate company.
00:44:56
◼
►
And yes, the flip side of that is the other part
00:44:59
◼
►
of the company will probably look more focused.
00:45:03
◼
►
It's not like it looks more focused to investors.
00:45:05
◼
►
You're still buying the stock in the big overall company.
00:45:07
◼
►
I just think it's just better organizationally.
00:45:11
◼
►
So I'm not like, I don't think there's any real
00:45:14
◼
►
actual cynical interpretation of this
00:45:16
◼
►
except for the one that I heard
00:45:17
◼
►
which sounds like total BS to me is like
00:45:19
◼
►
that Sundar was gonna leave and they were like,
00:45:20
◼
►
oh, we better make them CEOs.
00:45:22
◼
►
It just totally does not pass the smell test for me at all.
00:45:26
◼
►
but this is gonna be like the stupidest reason ever
00:45:28
◼
►
to reorganize this big giant company.
00:45:29
◼
►
But everything else about it seems straightforward
00:45:33
◼
►
and a reasonable thing to do.
00:45:35
◼
►
I just really don't like the name, but I don't know.
00:45:37
◼
►
Marco, what do you think?
00:45:39
◼
►
- I mean, I'm with you for the most part.
00:45:41
◼
►
Believe me, if there was an obvious cynical take on this,
00:45:45
◼
►
I would be the one to make it,
00:45:47
◼
►
and I don't think there is a clear one.
00:45:50
◼
►
I mean, there is possibly the looking better
00:45:52
◼
►
on the investment type of divisional stuff
00:45:55
◼
►
that we don't know enough about to really talk about.
00:45:57
◼
►
There is possible issues with taxation
00:45:59
◼
►
that a lot of people have pointed out
00:46:01
◼
►
that this might be like a tax dodge.
00:46:02
◼
►
I think those are definitely gonna be benefits of it.
00:46:06
◼
►
They probably were not the cause of it,
00:46:09
◼
►
and they were probably not the driving thing
00:46:11
◼
►
that drove this decision with them.
00:46:13
◼
►
I think this actually is mostly about what they say it is.
00:46:18
◼
►
I think this is actually something
00:46:20
◼
►
that they're saying honestly,
00:46:23
◼
►
'cause you're right, it does make sense
00:46:24
◼
►
organizationally to separate out these really,
00:46:27
◼
►
really disparate things into their own divisions.
00:46:31
◼
►
Things that have nothing to do with what else
00:46:33
◼
►
the company is doing or have very little to do
00:46:35
◼
►
with what else the company is doing.
00:46:37
◼
►
It does make sense to separate those out.
00:46:39
◼
►
That being said, this is all still Google.
00:46:43
◼
►
It's putting a new name on it will have some
00:46:48
◼
►
like PR distancing benefits to it,
00:46:51
◼
►
kind of like the joke that is intellectual ventures
00:46:54
◼
►
doing things through LOD-SYS.
00:46:56
◼
►
You know, this is a thing that is created
00:47:00
◼
►
to imply that there is artificial distance
00:47:04
◼
►
or disconnection that isn't really there.
00:47:07
◼
►
So this is really still the same people running it.
00:47:09
◼
►
It's still the same company.
00:47:11
◼
►
It's all, right now it's even installed
00:47:13
◼
►
in the same buildings and everything
00:47:14
◼
►
that are all labeled Google.
00:47:15
◼
►
So this stuff is all still Google stuff.
00:47:18
◼
►
So Nest was spun off from Google.
00:47:20
◼
►
If you weren't comfortable with Google owning Nest
00:47:24
◼
►
and having the data from your house
00:47:25
◼
►
about your Nest thermostats,
00:47:27
◼
►
if you weren't comfortable at that before,
00:47:29
◼
►
you shouldn't be comfortable about it now either
00:47:31
◼
►
because it's the same thing.
00:47:33
◼
►
Like, it's all the same people,
00:47:34
◼
►
so it's important to keep the perspective on this
00:47:38
◼
►
that it's not like how AT&T was forced to split up
00:47:41
◼
►
and they had to make actually separate companies.
00:47:44
◼
►
This is like, no, this is still all the same people
00:47:48
◼
►
all are working together, really.
00:47:51
◼
►
They're just different divisions, but this is all still what we know as Google.
00:47:55
◼
►
Maybe that's the one cynical take I heard.
00:47:57
◼
►
I think it was from Horace Diddoo, or someone related to his conversation, maybe a commenter,
00:48:02
◼
►
was basically like, "Google makes the money and sends it over to Alphabet, and Alphabet
00:48:09
◼
►
takes the money from the Google part and feeds it back into Google data that it collects
00:48:14
◼
►
from whatever crazy things it's doing, like scanning the entire Earth or every book in
00:48:19
◼
►
existence or whatever.
00:48:20
◼
►
So it's an exchange of money and data.
00:48:22
◼
►
So it's all entirely, all in the family.
00:48:26
◼
►
There's no wall being built between these two things.
00:48:28
◼
►
It's just like, now we're getting to be free to have different reporting chains, different
00:48:32
◼
►
cultures, different priorities in our meetings.
00:48:36
◼
►
I imagine they can concentrate on what they're doing and not worry so much about what the
00:48:40
◼
►
Google side of things are doing.
00:48:41
◼
►
It becomes more like they can pretend within this little universe, the little Googleverse,
00:48:46
◼
►
they can pretend they're two separate companies that communicate with each other like two
00:48:50
◼
►
separate companies would, even though they really are the same company and they both
00:48:53
◼
►
have the same boss who can just tell them what to do if they really want to.
00:48:55
◼
►
But at this point in Google's history, I think the two founders still are exerting kind of
00:49:00
◼
►
like personalized idiosyncratic control over the company that they founded.
00:49:07
◼
►
They don't need any money.
00:49:08
◼
►
They care about money only insofar as--
00:49:11
◼
►
as far as I can tell--
00:49:12
◼
►
only insofar as it helps them achieve whatever goals
00:49:14
◼
►
they're trying to achieve.
00:49:15
◼
►
So I am even more inclined not to believe
00:49:19
◼
►
that it's some kind of clever financial maneuvering,
00:49:21
◼
►
because really they just want, why
00:49:24
◼
►
aren't we making better progress on our research projects?
00:49:26
◼
►
And why is Google--
00:49:33
◼
►
the Google proper distracted by all these researchy type
00:49:36
◼
►
really reorganized so both groups can better achieve their goals because that's what they
00:49:41
◼
►
want to do as the founders of the company. I really don't think they're motivated, but
00:49:45
◼
►
we could become even more rich. I mean, they're not Larry Ellison, right?
00:49:49
◼
►
Hmm. Fair enough. It's funny. I was sitting here thinking to myself, "What are the different
00:49:56
◼
►
stops on the journey from a dictatorial CEO that kind of does whatever and doesn't care
00:50:03
◼
►
what anyone thinks, perhaps maybe like Jeff Bezos, Bezos, whatever, and somebody who just
00:50:09
◼
►
toes the company line like probably every Hewlett-Packard CEO that's ever been. And
00:50:15
◼
►
I feel like Larry and Sergey are no Jeff Bezos, but certainly closer to that side of the spectrum
00:50:23
◼
►
than someone who just, you know, tries to get shareholders as much money as they possibly
00:50:29
◼
►
can. And this seems to me like you guys are just saying, you know, let's try to reorganize
00:50:35
◼
►
the company in a way that makes a little bit of sense, and let's try to remove any shackles,
00:50:40
◼
►
perceived or real, that prevent us from doing this change the world kind of stuff that we
00:50:45
◼
►
really want to be doing.
00:50:46
◼
►
Yeah, and I think the line is, like, if you feel ownership of the company, if you were
00:50:52
◼
►
one of the founders of the company, or at least were there super early, you feel like
00:50:56
◼
►
have a right to just do whatever you want with the company. And investors be damned,
00:51:01
◼
►
Wall Street be damned, obviously to some degree or another. A lot of times founders don't
00:51:05
◼
►
have full control over the company, they lose control and so someone else, you know. But
00:51:09
◼
►
if you're one of the early people, you're like, "This is my company, I do what I want
00:51:12
◼
►
with it." But if the company has been around for hundreds and hundreds of years and you
00:51:15
◼
►
are like the 17th CEO, it's harder to feel like you have the, that you should just be
00:51:22
◼
►
like, "You know what? What do I want Google to be? I'm the CEO." Because the CEO in most
00:51:26
◼
►
companies that have been around that long is beholden to a board of directors and they
00:51:29
◼
►
don't have the control and they didn't put everybody on the board so they really aren't
00:51:32
◼
►
in charge or whatever but as founders and founders who are wise and very carefully managed
00:51:38
◼
►
to retain majority control over the company they founded they feel like this is my toy
00:51:42
◼
►
this is my plaything I'm gonna do what I want with it and I think that's a great way to
00:51:45
◼
►
run a company I hate the other way where they run a company where you're like the CEO is
00:51:50
◼
►
like a steward for two or three years and whatever happens the company doesn't matter
00:51:54
◼
►
as long as they get their golden parachute and their bonus and they go out and someone
00:51:57
◼
►
else comes in and it's like completely rudderless, no actual leadership, short-term thinking,
00:52:05
◼
►
but companies that are huge and have huge revenues and huge impact on all the people
00:52:09
◼
►
around them and the people who buy their stuff and that's the worst.
00:52:12
◼
►
So I fully endorse this modern style of ambitious, very strange, unconstrained, biconventional
00:52:22
◼
►
thinking leadership of companies, even if in the end it ends up doing in some or all
00:52:27
◼
►
these companies in the long term.
00:52:30
◼
►
Apple so far I think is the only one that's in the second phase because its founder leader
00:52:35
◼
►
is gone now and leadership has been passed over.
00:52:38
◼
►
Does Tim Cook feel the same kind of ownership over Apple as Steve Jobs did?
00:52:41
◼
►
Maybe not, but I think he's still doing the same kind of things.
00:52:44
◼
►
What is Tim Cook like?
00:52:45
◼
►
You know, the environment, human rights, diversity.
00:52:51
◼
►
All those things that Steve Jobs was not,
00:52:53
◼
►
Steve Jobs was not steering Apple in that direction,
00:52:57
◼
►
at least not to the degree that Tim Cook is.
00:52:59
◼
►
And so Tim Cook has put his stamp on Apple.
00:53:01
◼
►
I feel like he is not embarrassed to do that,
00:53:05
◼
►
or doesn't feel like it's not his right.
00:53:06
◼
►
Maybe it's because he was there with Steve the whole time.
00:53:08
◼
►
Anyway, we'll all be dead by the time Apple finally
00:53:12
◼
►
is on its 17th CEO,
00:53:13
◼
►
and that will probably be just a big mess.
00:53:15
◼
►
But for now, Apple is still doing well in this area.
00:53:18
◼
►
And I think this move by Google, aside from the name,
00:53:20
◼
►
Marco, that's what I was asking before,
00:53:22
◼
►
aside from this name, which I think is really terrible,
00:53:24
◼
►
this move makes sense to me.
00:53:26
◼
►
- It is an exceptionally bad name.
00:53:28
◼
►
- You should call it the alphabet, right, Marco?
00:53:33
◼
►
- Wow, yeah, that wouldn't have helped either.
00:53:35
◼
►
- But like, who will ever say the word alphabet?
00:53:38
◼
►
'Cause like I said, even the stock symbol is goo.
00:53:39
◼
►
We're just gonna, like,
00:53:40
◼
►
I think we should all agree on the show,
00:53:42
◼
►
not that we're like trying to be contrary
00:53:44
◼
►
or being stubborn or whatever,
00:53:45
◼
►
but I'm just gonna keep saying Google.
00:53:48
◼
►
And I think most people are gonna keep,
00:53:49
◼
►
even when we're talking about the self-driving cars,
00:53:51
◼
►
it can be like Google self-driving cars.
00:53:52
◼
►
Are people gonna say Alphabet self-driving cars?
00:53:55
◼
►
I don't know if Google is really committed to,
00:53:57
◼
►
or if it could even,
00:53:59
◼
►
do the kind of rebranding necessary to turn,
00:54:02
◼
►
God, I don't know this chain, but it was like,
00:54:04
◼
►
AT&T, Atlantic Bell, like, you know,
00:54:09
◼
►
you ever see the diagram of like chain of names
00:54:11
◼
►
after AT&T was broken up, that eventually, you know,
00:54:14
◼
►
we have these different other names
00:54:15
◼
►
and they recombine into the monster that is Verizon
00:54:18
◼
►
and the new AT&T and, yeah.
00:54:21
◼
►
Anyway, that kind of rebranding usually only happens
00:54:24
◼
►
when the previous name is so incredibly hated
00:54:26
◼
►
that the value of it is zero or negative.
00:54:28
◼
►
So you make up a new word and people are like,
00:54:31
◼
►
well, I hated Bell Atlantic, but this Verizon company,
00:54:35
◼
►
I've never heard of this.
00:54:36
◼
►
Maybe they're better, I can't, I don't know.
00:54:37
◼
►
- Singular is terrible.
00:54:39
◼
►
- Yeah, but AT&T is pretty good, yeah, anyway.
00:54:41
◼
►
- Do you know, I've heard some wonderful things
00:54:43
◼
►
about Xfinity.
00:54:44
◼
►
- Oh no, that's where people see the chain.
00:54:47
◼
►
I guess people see the chain entirely.
00:54:49
◼
►
But anyway, Google is a name that people like
00:54:51
◼
►
that has positive value, that is a very strong brand,
00:54:54
◼
►
and I don't see Alphabet ever eclipsing that.
00:54:57
◼
►
And so I hope people just won't actually use that name
00:54:59
◼
►
except in like official documentation
00:55:02
◼
►
and like actual press releases
00:55:04
◼
►
and people who have to be journalists.
00:55:05
◼
►
But casually speaking, until it seems incorrect
00:55:10
◼
►
based on common usage,
00:55:11
◼
►
I'm just gonna keep saying Google for the whole thing.
00:55:13
◼
►
- Our final sponsor this week is Casper.
00:55:16
◼
►
Casper is an online retailer of premium mattresses
00:55:19
◼
►
for a fraction of the price of normal mattresses.
00:55:22
◼
►
And the mattress industry has inherently forced consumers
00:55:25
◼
►
into paying notoriously high markups.
00:55:27
◼
►
Casper is revolutionizing this mattress industry
00:55:29
◼
►
by cutting the cost of dealing with resellers
00:55:31
◼
►
and showrooms and all those weird mattress stores
00:55:33
◼
►
and scam artists you see,
00:55:34
◼
►
and passing the savings directly onto consumers.
00:55:37
◼
►
Now Casper mattresses are obsessively engineered
00:55:41
◼
►
at shockingly fair prices.
00:55:43
◼
►
They provide just the right sink and just the right bounce
00:55:46
◼
►
by combining two technologies, latex foam and memory foam.
00:55:50
◼
►
Combining those together for better nights and brighter days.
00:55:53
◼
►
Now, Casper mattresses with this combination,
00:55:56
◼
►
they are resilient, they are supportive,
00:55:58
◼
►
and they are very, very comfortable.
00:56:00
◼
►
It is a hybrid of latex foam and memory foam.
00:56:03
◼
►
And then, so all this is available.
00:56:05
◼
►
Now, this is incredibly comfortable.
00:56:07
◼
►
Now, Casey, you have one of these, right?
00:56:09
◼
►
- Mm-hmm, that's right.
00:56:10
◼
►
And it is very, very comfortable.
00:56:12
◼
►
As I've said numerous times on this show before,
00:56:15
◼
►
I actually don't care for memory foam very much.
00:56:17
◼
►
I think it's weird.
00:56:19
◼
►
I wish I could describe why, but I just don't like it.
00:56:21
◼
►
And it is really true that this is memory foam-ish,
00:56:26
◼
►
but in a way that it actually is super duper comfortable
00:56:28
◼
►
to sleep on, even if you're not a memory foam
00:56:30
◼
►
kind of person like me.
00:56:32
◼
►
So yeah, I definitely recommend Casper mattresses.
00:56:34
◼
►
They are excellent.
00:56:35
◼
►
And even if you didn't want the mattress,
00:56:37
◼
►
if you just wanted to say donate it or something,
00:56:39
◼
►
it is almost worth the money just to see how it shipped
00:56:42
◼
►
to you because it is ridiculous.
00:56:44
◼
►
So it comes in this really relatively,
00:56:46
◼
►
compared to a mattress, this relatively small box,
00:56:49
◼
►
and it's just kind of compressed in there,
00:56:51
◼
►
and you open it up and it inflates itself
00:56:54
◼
►
into this big, full, normal-sized mattress.
00:56:57
◼
►
All right, and you're definitely not getting it
00:56:59
◼
►
back into the box, but if you want to try this thing out,
00:57:03
◼
►
they have a 100-day return policy.
00:57:05
◼
►
So 100 days, try it in your home, and if you don't like it,
00:57:09
◼
►
they will arrange a painless return for you.
00:57:12
◼
►
So it really is no risk.
00:57:14
◼
►
And these mattresses are made in America,
00:57:16
◼
►
obsessively engineered, and the pricing is incredibly good.
00:57:20
◼
►
So they price at just $500 for a twin size mattress,
00:57:24
◼
►
and the prices go up all the way to either 750 for full,
00:57:27
◼
►
850 for queen, and 950 for king.
00:57:30
◼
►
Now if you try to get a premium, comfortable foam
00:57:34
◼
►
of any sort, or even just a good spring mattress,
00:57:37
◼
►
a king size premium mattress for under $1,000 is unheard of.
00:57:41
◼
►
Like, it is, it's crazy.
00:57:43
◼
►
That is about half of what you would pay,
00:57:45
◼
►
or even better than that, it's even less than half
00:57:48
◼
►
for a lot of these really good mattresses.
00:57:49
◼
►
And again, these are made in America.
00:57:51
◼
►
It's hybrid memory foam with latex foam
00:57:54
◼
►
to really provide the best of both.
00:57:56
◼
►
It is awesome.
00:57:56
◼
►
And you can even get 50 bucks off your purchase
00:57:58
◼
►
by going to casper.com/atp and use code ATP at checkout.
00:58:03
◼
►
Obsessively engineered mattresses at shockingly fair prices
00:58:07
◼
►
with just the right sink, just the right bounce.
00:58:09
◼
►
Casper.com/atp, code ATP at checkout.
00:58:12
◼
►
Thanks a lot.
00:58:13
◼
►
All right, so Marco you wrote a perhaps contentious,
00:58:18
◼
►
but probably not really contentious post about ad blocking.
00:58:21
◼
►
Would you like to tell us why you're such a jerk
00:58:23
◼
►
and why you hate anyone who writes for the web?
00:58:26
◼
►
- So this was interesting.
00:58:28
◼
►
I wrote a post basically defending
00:58:30
◼
►
modern day JavaScript blocking,
00:58:33
◼
►
which will of course rule out many ads and many trackers.
00:58:36
◼
►
I was actually really afraid to publish it
00:58:39
◼
►
because I have so often published something
00:58:42
◼
►
and had it blow up in a way I didn't really expect or want,
00:58:47
◼
►
and really regretted it afterwards.
00:58:49
◼
►
And this, in which I, as a fairly prominent voice
00:58:54
◼
►
in some circles, am advocating basically
00:58:57
◼
►
for many modern ad and tracking blockers,
00:59:00
◼
►
I thought, knowing as many people as I do in publishing,
00:59:03
◼
►
this could be a problem.
00:59:05
◼
►
And so I showed it to a bunch of friends ahead of time.
00:59:08
◼
►
- It was like five hours ahead of time.
00:59:10
◼
►
By the time I saw your link to like,
00:59:12
◼
►
"Okay, take a look at this, it was already posted for real."
00:59:14
◼
►
So I'd say, "More lead time next time."
00:59:18
◼
►
- Fair enough, I actually got direct feedback
00:59:20
◼
►
from a few friends who read it faster than you did.
00:59:23
◼
►
- I didn't see the link until much later.
00:59:26
◼
►
- Well, whose fault is that?
00:59:28
◼
►
- I am a Slack completionist in most of my channels,
00:59:31
◼
►
so I did read it, but I should look at
00:59:33
◼
►
what this time stamps are.
00:59:34
◼
►
Anyway, it wasn't that long.
00:59:35
◼
►
But yes, you did solicit.
00:59:36
◼
►
I'm not a web publisher, so I can't give you
00:59:38
◼
►
the feedback you're looking for anyway.
00:59:39
◼
►
Or just tell you to pick different words.
00:59:41
◼
►
- Right, right, right, so yeah, anyway.
00:59:44
◼
►
So I actually really did kind of sanity check it
00:59:46
◼
►
with some friends ahead of time
00:59:48
◼
►
because I was afraid to say this.
00:59:51
◼
►
And so the gist of my article here,
00:59:54
◼
►
it's called The Ethics of Modern Web Ad Blocking,
00:59:57
◼
►
and this is a lot of stuff that we actually talked about
01:00:00
◼
►
on the show here in the past.
01:00:01
◼
►
We have to be very careful with the web
01:00:03
◼
►
because if you just follow a link,
01:00:06
◼
►
then your browser will just load that page
01:00:08
◼
►
and everything on it without giving you a chance
01:00:11
◼
►
to kind of say, "Oh, you know what, no thanks.
01:00:13
◼
►
"I don't agree with everything this page is trying to do."
01:00:16
◼
►
You know, like, when you follow a link
01:00:18
◼
►
that somebody sends you or that you,
01:00:20
◼
►
or if you find in a search or whatever,
01:00:23
◼
►
you load all the trackers, all the ads,
01:00:25
◼
►
all the code that page wants you to execute,
01:00:27
◼
►
you just load it and run it in your browser.
01:00:29
◼
►
Like, that's just how modern browsers work.
01:00:31
◼
►
All the collection of your data they're doing,
01:00:34
◼
►
you know, if you find something on the page offensive
01:00:37
◼
►
or if it's tracking you between multiple sites
01:00:39
◼
►
through cross-site trackers like ad networks
01:00:41
◼
►
and Google Analytics and stuff like that,
01:00:43
◼
►
you're giving all that data up
01:00:45
◼
►
without really being asked first.
01:00:47
◼
►
Like they take the data and then you can maybe go
01:00:49
◼
►
and try to disable it later.
01:00:52
◼
►
And that whole model has been so abused
01:00:56
◼
►
by web publishers and advertisers
01:00:57
◼
►
and scammy and legitimate companies alike.
01:01:00
◼
►
It has been so abused that now,
01:01:02
◼
►
like everything you do on the web
01:01:04
◼
►
is watched like a hawk tracked. You have massive privacy violations happening
01:01:09
◼
►
constantly like and this this came to a head a few weeks ago. There was, you
01:01:14
◼
►
know, not only the safaris, you know, I think, but then, like there was a people
01:01:17
◼
►
calling out the verge for their and the verge calling out mobile web for sucking
01:01:22
◼
►
and everyone's like well look at your page. It's full of like fifteen thousand
01:01:25
◼
►
trackers and eight megs of javascript and all this stuff and and grouper
01:01:29
◼
►
called out. I'm or for you know because they have great writers, but they have
01:01:32
◼
►
a site that's full of these really crappy ads a lot of the time. And then Renee Ritchie
01:01:35
◼
►
from IMAW wrote this post explaining about how basically how bad ad networks are and
01:01:39
◼
►
how they kind of don't have much control over the matter. And so there was all this discussion
01:01:44
◼
►
around this, but really what it comes down to is I think now in the same way that pop-up
01:01:50
◼
►
ads got so crazy in the early 2000s that pop-up blockers became basically required usage and
01:01:58
◼
►
then became integrated into the browsers themselves and turned on by default. My argument is that
01:02:04
◼
►
now JavaScript tracking and, you know, cross-site tracking and some of the ads, but it's honestly
01:02:13
◼
►
more problematic with the tracking, have gotten so bad and so abused that it is now time to
01:02:20
◼
►
take technical countermeasures to reduce or eliminate that tracking if you don't want
01:02:26
◼
►
it the same way that we took technical countermeasures to block pop-up ads 15 years ago. And I really
01:02:33
◼
►
thought this was going to be, as I said, I thought this was going to be very controversial.
01:02:36
◼
►
I thought a lot of people who were in publishing, which includes a lot of my friends, would
01:02:40
◼
►
really be offended that I'm suggesting ad blocking, basically. And it wasn't. The guys
01:02:47
◼
►
from the All were really upset with me, but I don't really know them and I don't really
01:02:52
◼
►
care. That's it. Nobody else was. Like, I thought there would be a huge divide.
01:02:59
◼
►
That's why I said, like, I was a little afraid to publish it. Instead, I've
01:03:04
◼
►
gotten hundreds and hundreds of responses on links and just hundreds of
01:03:10
◼
►
people telling me, "Yes, finally. Yes, I agree. That's exactly right." Including
01:03:16
◼
►
many of my friends who are publishers, including many publishers I am not
01:03:19
◼
►
friends with, maybe I am now, we'll see, I was shocked at how positive and supportive
01:03:28
◼
►
and how much in agreement the reaction to this was. I mean, I can go on my blog and
01:03:33
◼
►
I can post my name is Marco Arment and I will get more disagreement on that than I will
01:03:40
◼
►
from this article. Like, it is crazy how much people will argue with me over anything else
01:03:44
◼
►
I ever say, and this that I thought was going to be incredibly controversial, it turns out
01:03:50
◼
►
a lot of people think this, and even publishers know, because like, you know, and I said,
01:03:55
◼
►
you know, it's not like publishers are like evil, you know, devil corporations, like publishing
01:03:59
◼
►
is hard. It's, as I learned when I tried to do the magazine, and as I've seen like with
01:04:02
◼
►
my other efforts with, you know, ad supported media and trying to do stuff online that makes
01:04:08
◼
►
money, it's hard. And especially if you have to have a staff, then your costs are way higher
01:04:13
◼
►
than individuals like me or John Gruber publishing on our own sites. Like, having a staff is
01:04:18
◼
►
incredibly expensive and so it is very, very hard for publishers to make enough money to
01:04:22
◼
►
stay afloat. And we see so many publishers shutting down or downsizing. It is incredibly
01:04:28
◼
►
difficult to make it work. And so they have been, you know, kind of forced, some of them
01:04:35
◼
►
have been forced by financial situations, some of them have just been greed. But they've
01:04:39
◼
►
They've been, whatever the cause, publishers,
01:04:42
◼
►
many of whom are well-meaning, have been quote forced
01:04:46
◼
►
to adopt really terrible ads
01:04:49
◼
►
and integrate really terrible tracking.
01:04:51
◼
►
And there's, of course, this whole obsession
01:04:53
◼
►
between lots of people about metrics
01:04:55
◼
►
and tracking everything everybody ever does on a webpage
01:04:58
◼
►
or on media or in an app.
01:05:00
◼
►
And apps are a whole separate discussion.
01:05:01
◼
►
We'll get to that, I'm sure, in the future.
01:05:03
◼
►
But there's all this tracking going on
01:05:07
◼
►
and all this abuse from ads,
01:05:09
◼
►
and publishers often just say,
01:05:12
◼
►
and like Renee said this,
01:05:13
◼
►
often they'll get a report of some ad being bad
01:05:16
◼
►
or inappropriate or over the line in some way,
01:05:19
◼
►
and they have to go,
01:05:20
◼
►
well, they have to go to the ad network
01:05:21
◼
►
that's certain to them and try to report it,
01:05:23
◼
►
and that's often very hard.
01:05:24
◼
►
And you're just inserting code on your page
01:05:27
◼
►
that will call to an ad network
01:05:29
◼
►
and just have them run arbitrary code
01:05:31
◼
►
that some advertiser entered in some system somewhere
01:05:33
◼
►
on all your viewers' computers.
01:05:36
◼
►
And so you as the publisher really don't have a lot of control over that.
01:05:40
◼
►
The ad network barely has control over that and they have even less incentive to care.
01:05:45
◼
►
And so you have this terrible situation where like there's really nobody kind of policing
01:05:52
◼
►
the store in a way that will be effective.
01:05:55
◼
►
And so you have to do it as the user yourself.
01:05:57
◼
►
You have to adopt technical countermeasures.
01:06:01
◼
►
you know, I had my term. It's like you have to start considering installing ad blockers
01:06:07
◼
►
or tracking blockers like I mentioned. I use ghostery. I know there are others. Please
01:06:11
◼
►
stop telling me about the others. I'm happy with ghostery. It's fine. I think I think
01:06:19
◼
►
now is the time to do that and what's what's extra frustrating is that a lot of the problems
01:06:25
◼
►
with this, a lot of the problems that have led to this are things that are inherent to
01:06:30
◼
►
the way web browsers work, like the way how they request things, how cross domain requests
01:06:36
◼
►
work, how cross domain cookies work, how JavaScript includes work and what they have access to.
01:06:42
◼
►
And over the last twenty years that this kind of stuff has been possible and has developed,
01:06:49
◼
►
web browser manufacturers and standards committees have added all these capabilities to the web
01:06:56
◼
►
that add new things web pages can do and new ways. Now the new thing is to make web pages,
01:07:05
◼
►
to give them more of the abilities that were previously exclusive only to apps and to sort
01:07:09
◼
►
of make web pages more app-like. But meanwhile, the core problems that enable all this terrible
01:07:16
◼
►
tracking and privacy invasion and horribly slow JavaScript and everything, those have
01:07:21
◼
►
not been addressed very well by the web development and standards communities. And so like, you
01:07:28
◼
►
know, like, why have they not addressed that? Why have they, I don't know, like...
01:07:33
◼
►
- The recent years, like, you're right up until maybe like a year or two years or three
01:07:37
◼
►
years ago when browser vendors, especially the, you know, Chrome and sort of the leading
01:07:43
◼
►
edge modern browsers, really started turning the screws on things that are, they're mostly
01:07:49
◼
►
security focus but they end up affecting advertising.
01:07:54
◼
►
Anything related to cross-site scripting, the doors have been slamming down on things
01:07:59
◼
►
related to accessing DOM elements and other frames or accessing anything happening in
01:08:04
◼
►
JavaScript that was served from a different domain.
01:08:08
◼
►
And it's kind of a pain in the butt if you're doing web development, especially if you own
01:08:12
◼
►
a fleet of your own domains, they're all something.foo.com and you want them to all cooperate.
01:08:17
◼
►
That used to be easy because that just worked normally, but then they started pulling things
01:08:21
◼
►
It's like, "Oh, I got to add cross origin request headers to everything," and the wildcarding
01:08:27
◼
►
You can't do star.foo.com.
01:08:28
◼
►
You got to either do star or the exact domain names, and if the domain names don't match
01:08:31
◼
►
up, maybe something will work, but you can't get your JavaScript stack traces.
01:08:35
◼
►
And it's like, that is, like I said, it's mostly security related.
01:08:39
◼
►
You're like, "Oh, that's not related to advertising."
01:08:41
◼
►
Advertisers can still do what they want because they make you serve it through your own proxy
01:08:43
◼
►
or do something else that gets around all this stuff.
01:08:46
◼
►
But it does end up limiting the privacy-invading things you can do.
01:08:49
◼
►
In the bad old days, once JavaScript got on your page, you could read all your cookies,
01:08:53
◼
►
you could read things in other frames, even an embedded iframe, and now the restrictions
01:08:57
◼
►
are much greater than they were before.
01:08:59
◼
►
So I think that is, like you talk about technical countermeasures, the most important countermeasures
01:09:04
◼
►
is what you mentioned before, like the platforms and the browser vendors.
01:09:10
◼
►
They have much more power than individual nerdy users because we are few and the grand
01:09:16
◼
►
in the grand scheme of things, not that important.
01:09:18
◼
►
But as soon as, you know, popups,
01:09:20
◼
►
everyone hated popups and popunders and all that stuff.
01:09:23
◼
►
Browser vendors correctly realized
01:09:26
◼
►
that there is almost no downside to,
01:09:29
◼
►
and a big upside to putting pop-up blockers in your browser.
01:09:32
◼
►
So it was practically overnight.
01:09:34
◼
►
They just slammed the door shut on that entire thing.
01:09:36
◼
►
Like that was, they were in epidemic.
01:09:38
◼
►
Popups were everywhere.
01:09:39
◼
►
And it was like, everyone just said,
01:09:40
◼
►
nope, that's not happening.
01:09:42
◼
►
Was there any sort of lengthy negotiation
01:09:45
◼
►
and hemming and hawing about putting the websites
01:09:48
◼
►
we love out of business, doesn't matter.
01:09:50
◼
►
It was in browsers, it was on by default.
01:09:52
◼
►
That's the end of that, right?
01:09:54
◼
►
There was a little bit of arms race fighting,
01:09:56
◼
►
like see how we can like, if you, when you click
01:09:57
◼
►
on this link, I'll count that as your intentional click
01:10:00
◼
►
to pop up a pop thing, but for the most part,
01:10:04
◼
►
putting that feature in the browser made pop-ups
01:10:07
◼
►
way less prevalent than they were before.
01:10:09
◼
►
Like I still see them, they still, they can still trick you
01:10:11
◼
►
into clicking and doing something like that.
01:10:13
◼
►
That is a super important technical countermeasure.
01:10:16
◼
►
Same thing with Apple, allowing you to use,
01:10:18
◼
►
what do they call them?
01:10:19
◼
►
Content filters or whatever in iOS.
01:10:22
◼
►
You couldn't do that before.
01:10:24
◼
►
Apple has opened that door
01:10:26
◼
►
and I think they made the same calculation.
01:10:28
◼
►
They're like, we know if we do this,
01:10:30
◼
►
the first thing out the gate
01:10:30
◼
►
is gonna be a million ad blockers.
01:10:32
◼
►
We're gonna make it super efficient.
01:10:33
◼
►
We're gonna make it faster
01:10:34
◼
►
because they want people to download those ad blockers
01:10:39
◼
►
and use them to make their experience
01:10:41
◼
►
browsing the web on their iPhone better.
01:10:43
◼
►
So that's like the--
01:10:45
◼
►
I almost feel like we are not as involved in the struggle
01:10:49
◼
►
as we like to think that we are.
01:10:52
◼
►
That really it's a negotiation between the platforms,
01:10:54
◼
►
the software, and the websites.
01:10:57
◼
►
Only as nerds who know about what a Chrome extension is
01:11:01
◼
►
and are shopping around for this ghostery and disconnect
01:11:04
◼
►
and all these other--
01:11:05
◼
►
and the good old ad blog and all that stuff.
01:11:07
◼
►
Most people don't run those things
01:11:09
◼
►
or don't know how to install them
01:11:10
◼
►
or someone installs them for them,
01:11:11
◼
►
but then they break some websites or whatever.
01:11:13
◼
►
Like navigating that is mostly a nerd concern.
01:11:16
◼
►
But since those are the circles we travel in,
01:11:18
◼
►
I understand your concern about like,
01:11:20
◼
►
if I post this and I endorse this,
01:11:22
◼
►
I know everyone who's reading it knows
01:11:23
◼
►
how to install these things probably.
01:11:25
◼
►
And so now by my endorsing it,
01:11:27
◼
►
am I encouraging other people to install it?
01:11:29
◼
►
And then, you know, am I reducing the revenue
01:11:31
◼
►
to sites that people I know work for or whatever?
01:11:35
◼
►
And when I think about that,
01:11:36
◼
►
like just sort of our own little microcosm,
01:11:38
◼
►
not in the sort of grand scheme of things,
01:11:41
◼
►
for the wider web, when I think of that, I think,
01:11:44
◼
►
well, it's the same negotiation
01:11:46
◼
►
we've always had between sites.
01:11:48
◼
►
It's not so much, you have to decide,
01:11:52
◼
►
you have to do the calculation.
01:11:53
◼
►
Do you like reading this website?
01:11:55
◼
►
Yeah, I like the website,
01:11:56
◼
►
but I don't like this other part of it.
01:11:57
◼
►
All right, well, you can decide,
01:11:59
◼
►
I'm gonna continue to read the website,
01:12:00
◼
►
but I'm going to do something
01:12:02
◼
►
that will make it a better experience to me.
01:12:04
◼
►
Are you gonna block all ads?
01:12:05
◼
►
Most people know that, yeah, if you block all ads,
01:12:08
◼
►
probably you are making less money for the site,
01:12:11
◼
►
but you're just one person and maybe you think,
01:12:12
◼
►
well, even if me and everyone I know blocks ads
01:12:14
◼
►
and even if all the nerds block ads,
01:12:16
◼
►
it's only X percentage, so I still feel okay with that.
01:12:18
◼
►
So maybe you're fine with it.
01:12:19
◼
►
You just have to decide.
01:12:20
◼
►
Like, there are consequences to everyone's action.
01:12:22
◼
►
Like, should I block pop-ups?
01:12:23
◼
►
Oh, what if I'm stopping the revenue
01:12:25
◼
►
that these guys were getting from these obnoxious pop-up ads?
01:12:28
◼
►
If I want the site still to exist, I better enable pop-ups.
01:12:30
◼
►
Well, some sites did go under
01:12:32
◼
►
because they couldn't be supported without pop-ups,
01:12:33
◼
►
but other sites didn't go under.
01:12:35
◼
►
They found another way to make money.
01:12:37
◼
►
If everybody's blocking pop-ups,
01:12:38
◼
►
advertisers just find another way to advertise.
01:12:40
◼
►
So I'm sort of on this battle between users and websites
01:12:45
◼
►
and browser vendors and whatever, I try to,
01:12:49
◼
►
in my actions with the own stuff that I install,
01:12:52
◼
►
try to make them reflect the sites that I care about.
01:12:56
◼
►
I like a white list.
01:12:57
◼
►
The sites that I care about that have just
01:12:59
◼
►
become too obnoxious, I feel like I
01:13:00
◼
►
have to send them a signal.
01:13:01
◼
►
Like, I like your site.
01:13:02
◼
►
I like reading these things.
01:13:04
◼
►
But autoplay video is just not happening.
01:13:06
◼
►
So I'm going to install things.
01:13:07
◼
►
I'm going to install things that are going to stop that.
01:13:10
◼
►
that is my signal to you, the site,
01:13:12
◼
►
that if the only way you can exist
01:13:14
◼
►
is with auto-playing video, then I'm sorry,
01:13:16
◼
►
but I don't want you to exist.
01:13:18
◼
►
And I don't, you know, speaking of ethics
01:13:19
◼
►
and morals and stuff, I think that that is not,
01:13:22
◼
►
like there's no obligation on either side.
01:13:24
◼
►
They put something listening on a port at an IP address,
01:13:28
◼
►
and I, and they welcome the entire world
01:13:31
◼
►
to make a request for it and receive that information,
01:13:33
◼
►
and we can do whatever the hell we want
01:13:34
◼
►
with that information.
01:13:34
◼
►
I can redirect it to a file, I can run it through Lynx,
01:13:37
◼
►
or I can show it in a web browser,
01:13:39
◼
►
but just not request any of the Flash
01:13:41
◼
►
and not request any of the JavaScript trackers.
01:13:43
◼
►
Like that's the negotiation.
01:13:45
◼
►
There's nothing ethical about it.
01:13:47
◼
►
It's purely practical.
01:13:49
◼
►
It's like if you understand the consequences
01:13:51
◼
►
of what you're doing on your end
01:13:53
◼
►
and how it might affect revenue
01:13:54
◼
►
and how it might affect the existence of the thing
01:13:55
◼
►
on that end, also how it might motivate them
01:13:57
◼
►
to change their website.
01:13:58
◼
►
If everybody blocks pop-ups, like then the sites go,
01:14:02
◼
►
well, we'll have to come up with a different strategy.
01:14:05
◼
►
And maybe that strategy involves
01:14:06
◼
►
a million JavaScript trackers
01:14:07
◼
►
that are not as invisible as pop-ups,
01:14:08
◼
►
but they can end up paying more when we track your habits.
01:14:11
◼
►
And if everyone installs something to block that,
01:14:13
◼
►
they'll have to find another way.
01:14:15
◼
►
I'm pretty comfortable with this negotiation.
01:14:17
◼
►
I don't lose any sleep over the give and take.
01:14:22
◼
►
I think that's just the natural way things work out.
01:14:24
◼
►
The thing I'm mostly frustrated with is
01:14:26
◼
►
for the longest time it seemed like the browser vendors
01:14:29
◼
►
were kind of afraid to take that extra step.
01:14:31
◼
►
Like, browsers could come with built-in ed blockers,
01:14:34
◼
►
for example, or built-in JavaScript, like they don't.
01:14:36
◼
►
They just kind of like, well, we have an extension framework
01:14:39
◼
►
and people can write whatever they want
01:14:40
◼
►
and the nerds can install it and whatever.
01:14:42
◼
►
Browsers do come with a built-in pop-up blocker.
01:14:45
◼
►
It seems like we're ready for the next round
01:14:47
◼
►
of kind of platform owners and browser vendors
01:14:51
◼
►
to take the next step,
01:14:53
◼
►
because I think leaving it entirely to third parties,
01:14:55
◼
►
even how iOS is doing,
01:14:57
◼
►
is gonna create a little bit of confusion.
01:15:00
◼
►
There's a potential for the ad blockers
01:15:02
◼
►
and the anti-tracker things to themselves be scammy.
01:15:04
◼
►
I think someone pointed out the ghostery
01:15:06
◼
►
is produced by an ad company.
01:15:07
◼
►
The good old ad block extension is also,
01:15:10
◼
►
lets people pay it to whitelist their ads.
01:15:12
◼
►
Like scaminess finds a way.
01:15:15
◼
►
It's like a life in Jurassic Park.
01:15:18
◼
►
So we still have to be vigilant,
01:15:20
◼
►
but I think I'm ready for the next round of,
01:15:23
◼
►
like you said, technical countermeasures
01:15:24
◼
►
from all parties involved to renegotiate the contract.
01:15:27
◼
►
Because there's nothing that says
01:15:29
◼
►
that the only way sites can make money
01:15:31
◼
►
is to have increasingly scammy ads.
01:15:33
◼
►
If nobody can have that much trackers
01:15:35
◼
►
that much stupid JavaScript, if it ends up being wildly blocked, they'll have to, you
01:15:39
◼
►
know, find a different way, hopefully a more tasteful way to advertise.
01:15:43
◼
►
This is the negotiation.
01:15:44
◼
►
They put out content, but if we find it annoying, they have to, you know, provide something
01:15:49
◼
►
that we like and not annoy us too much.
01:15:50
◼
►
And if they're annoying us too much, we'll do something back.
01:15:52
◼
►
And they have to figure out a way to make something that people enjoy that also pays
01:15:57
◼
►
And that's why I think the whole thing of like, if you block ads, you're a criminal,
01:16:01
◼
►
you're taking foods from people's mouths, you're trying to put sites out of business.
01:16:05
◼
►
"There's no obligation on either side of this.
01:16:07
◼
►
"We all have to come to a mutual agreement
01:16:08
◼
►
"and we feel like we have a beneficial relationship
01:16:10
◼
►
"where I enjoy the things that you're writing
01:16:13
◼
►
"and you enjoy me coming there to see it
01:16:15
◼
►
"and seeing your ads or whatever."
01:16:18
◼
►
That's the negotiation we're all in here.
01:16:20
◼
►
And it's not as if one party is just obligated
01:16:23
◼
►
to just choke down whatever the other party does,
01:16:25
◼
►
nor is, on the other side of the coin,
01:16:28
◼
►
sites that say, "You can't come read our site
01:16:29
◼
►
"if you run an ad blocker."
01:16:31
◼
►
And ours technically has various times done
01:16:33
◼
►
various detection to see, "Hey, are you blocking ads?
01:16:35
◼
►
"Nope, sorry, you're not allowed to read our site."
01:16:36
◼
►
They can do that too, like that's the negotiation.
01:16:40
◼
►
- Because ours technically, as historically,
01:16:42
◼
►
I would imagine, I don't remember the exact numbers,
01:16:44
◼
►
a higher percentage than normal of ad blockers
01:16:47
◼
►
because it's read by a bunch of nerds, right?
01:16:48
◼
►
And so it's like, well, you can't have 50%
01:16:51
◼
►
of the people running ad blockers,
01:16:53
◼
►
it's just not viable for our business.
01:16:54
◼
►
You are reading our site, you obviously enjoy the content,
01:16:56
◼
►
we'll try to keep it tasteful, we don't have autoplay ads,
01:16:58
◼
►
we don't have video ads, like we don't have a lot of ads
01:17:01
◼
►
on the page, if you block ads, you can't read the site.
01:17:03
◼
►
So that's the thing we're going through here.
01:17:06
◼
►
And I'm ready for the next round of,
01:17:08
◼
►
oh God, I almost quoted the "Phantom Menace."
01:17:12
◼
►
I won't do it.
01:17:13
◼
►
Everyone knows what I was gonna say.
01:17:15
◼
►
- I actually don't.
01:17:16
◼
►
- Me neither.
01:17:17
◼
►
- I know, the rest of the audience does.
01:17:19
◼
►
Now I'm depressed.
01:17:21
◼
►
I don't like that popping into my head.
01:17:23
◼
►
Damn you, George Lucas.
01:17:25
◼
►
- How many times have you seen the "Phantom Menace?"
01:17:27
◼
►
I've only seen it like twice.
01:17:30
◼
►
I did a podcast about it.
01:17:31
◼
►
I don't even wanna talk about it.
01:17:33
◼
►
It's a dark time. That was from one of the good movies. Oh wow. Alright, so we should
01:17:38
◼
►
potentially be done here, but so Jon can get himself a tissue and cry. Wow. Well, thanks
01:17:43
◼
►
a lot to our three sponsors this week, Fracture, Backblaze, and Casper, and we will see you
01:17:52
◼
►
Now the show is over, they didn't even mean to begin, 'cause it was accidental.
01:17:59
◼
►
Oh, it was accidental.
01:18:02
◼
►
John didn't do any research, Margo and Casey wouldn't let him
01:18:07
◼
►
'Cause it was accidental (it was accidental)
01:18:10
◼
►
It was accidental (accidental)
01:18:12
◼
►
And you can find the show notes at ATP.fm
01:18:17
◼
►
And if you're into Twitter, you can follow them
01:18:22
◼
►
@C-A-S-E-Y-L-I-S-S
01:18:26
◼
►
So that's Casey Liss M-A-R-C-O-A-R-M
01:18:31
◼
►
Anti-Marco Armin, S-I-R-A-C, USA, Syracuse, it's accidental.
01:18:41
◼
►
They didn't mean to, accidental.
01:18:46
◼
►
Tech podcast so long.
01:18:51
◼
►
Jon, let me make you happy.
01:18:53
◼
►
How is not doing a review this summer?
01:18:56
◼
►
It's pretty good. Pretty, pretty good.
01:18:59
◼
►
See, just like that, you're back in it.
01:19:01
◼
►
Let's do another hour and a half.
01:19:02
◼
►
Another reference?
01:19:03
◼
►
You wanna watch Star Wars with all your new time?
01:19:06
◼
►
How about, let's start with episode one.
01:19:08
◼
►
Let's uh, what's that again?
01:19:09
◼
►
There's a couple of weird things about not doing the reboot.
01:19:12
◼
►
Like obviously yeah, free time, less pressure, more relaxing, blah blah blah, but the other
01:19:15
◼
►
thing is that of course I have El Capitan installed and uh, well, the thing that's annoying
01:19:21
◼
►
me about it is, it seems like, first of all I have it installed but I don't use it a lot
01:19:25
◼
►
because it's on my main computer and I don't want to reboot and it'll have a reason to
01:19:28
◼
►
to go into it.
01:19:28
◼
►
And then every time I reboot into it,
01:19:29
◼
►
there's like two new updates.
01:19:30
◼
►
But rather than just installing the latest version on top
01:19:33
◼
►
of it, I have to go through the update like two times.
01:19:34
◼
►
Like I'm a Windows user.
01:19:35
◼
►
It's like upgrade to beta 5, upgrade to beta 6,
01:19:38
◼
►
upgrade to beta 7 with a reboot in between each.
01:19:40
◼
►
It's like just bring me right to beta 7, guys.
01:19:43
◼
►
Anyway, I don't know much about using the operating system
01:19:47
◼
►
because I'm finding myself not using it.
01:19:48
◼
►
So the other exciting thing that's going to happen here
01:19:50
◼
►
is it's going to come out.
01:19:52
◼
►
And I'm going to have to read reviews
01:19:53
◼
►
to find out what the hell-- I mean,
01:19:54
◼
►
I think I know most of this stuff.
01:19:55
◼
►
but all the little intricate details
01:19:58
◼
►
and the deep dives and stuff, I'm not doing that myself,
01:20:01
◼
►
so I basically don't know.
01:20:02
◼
►
I don't know what it's like to use that
01:20:04
◼
►
as my main operating system
01:20:06
◼
►
for any substantial period of time,
01:20:07
◼
►
because I just haven't been.
01:20:08
◼
►
It's like I've only booted into it.
01:20:10
◼
►
Every time I boot into it, there's two more updates,
01:20:11
◼
►
and then I do all the updates and I wander around,
01:20:14
◼
►
and I enjoy the fact
01:20:14
◼
►
that I don't have to take any screenshots,
01:20:16
◼
►
and then I fiddle around with it
01:20:18
◼
►
and play with the various options and look at things,
01:20:20
◼
►
and then I reboot it into my regular OS.
01:20:23
◼
►
- It'll be interesting to see when it comes out
01:20:27
◼
►
and as you have to then turn to other people
01:20:29
◼
►
for their reviews, you're probably gonna have
01:20:33
◼
►
some very conflicting feelings of probably immense relief
01:20:36
◼
►
that you didn't have to do it,
01:20:38
◼
►
but also immense dissatisfaction
01:20:40
◼
►
with the job everyone else did and your absence.
01:20:42
◼
►
- I'm fine with it, it'll be fine.
01:20:44
◼
►
I'm excited to use the new OS,
01:20:46
◼
►
because I see, it's hard to tell
01:20:49
◼
►
'cause you reboot into a clean OS,
01:20:50
◼
►
you're like, "Wow, this is so much faster."
01:20:51
◼
►
because there's nothing installed on it
01:20:53
◼
►
and it's like even a different Apple ID
01:20:54
◼
►
and it's all, you know,
01:20:55
◼
►
it seems smoother and cleaner and nicer.
01:20:58
◼
►
They've done minor refinements to the look that I like.
01:21:01
◼
►
I think all the changes they've made to the look I endorse,
01:21:03
◼
►
even on my crappy non-retina screen here,
01:21:05
◼
►
it looks a little bit crisper and cleaner and tighter,
01:21:07
◼
►
less kind of low contrast, faded and edgeless.
01:21:12
◼
►
And yeah, like I like everything about it so far.
01:21:19
◼
►
I like the suggestion from Chloe Diggs Pipe Wark
01:21:22
◼
►
in the chat room who says,
01:21:24
◼
►
"We should pool our money to get Jon out to California
01:21:26
◼
►
"so he can review the actual El Capitan."
01:21:29
◼
►
The mountain.
01:21:30
◼
►
- I don't know how I would review the mountain.
01:21:33
◼
►
I don't like being on top of the,
01:21:34
◼
►
what is it, the caldera or whatever that's gonna explode
01:21:36
◼
►
and destroy the entire West Coast.
01:21:38
◼
►
Sometime in the next 50,000 years, guaranteed,
01:21:41
◼
►
or something like that.
01:21:44
◼
►
- Oh my goodness.
01:21:45
◼
►
So is there any one particular review
01:21:47
◼
►
that you're looking forward to?
01:21:49
◼
►
Do you know who's doing it for ours?
01:21:51
◼
►
Is ours doing it?
01:21:52
◼
►
- Yeah, ours is doing it.
01:21:53
◼
►
I will read theirs.
01:21:55
◼
►
If Vittucci does one, I'll read it.
01:21:57
◼
►
I'm more, I'm sure I'll read.
01:21:59
◼
►
If Jason will probably do one for Macworld at this rate,
01:22:01
◼
►
I'll read that one.
01:22:02
◼
►
I read them all anyway, but now I'll read them
01:22:05
◼
►
and I'll be learning things.
01:22:06
◼
►
- And I'm with Marco that I can't wait
01:22:11
◼
►
until all this comes out and then you quietly tell somebody,
01:22:15
◼
►
one of us hopefully, oh my god, I cannot believe the job that these people have done. Like,
01:22:21
◼
►
they did a great job, but... Did I ever say that before? No, it's fine.
01:22:25
◼
►
Like, it's fine. They got most of the way, but...
01:22:28
◼
►
Unless there's like some obvious pop culture reference that nobody managed to make,
01:22:32
◼
►
then I feel like I will miss, you know, that really, I was needed. That annoyed me about
01:22:38
◼
►
the Google alphabet thing, where they made like the period a link to the hooli thing.
01:22:43
◼
►
Did you see that?
01:22:44
◼
►
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:22:45
◼
►
And it was like, oh my god, it's the best Easter egg ever.
01:22:48
◼
►
Like seriously, a period length?
01:22:50
◼
►
Amateur hour.
01:22:52
◼
►
I think it wasn't even underlined.
01:22:54
◼
►
Like they styled it in such a way that it--
01:22:56
◼
►
Text decoration, none.
01:22:57
◼
►
Whoa, advanced technology.
01:22:59
◼
►
Yeah, all right.
01:23:00
◼
►
Anyway, my pointless HTML Easter egg genius
01:23:05
◼
►
will go unrecognized in my lifetime, clearly.
01:23:08
◼
►
I'm sorry, Jon.
01:23:09
◼
►
Who's going to make all the Simpsons links references?
01:23:12
◼
►
- Yeah, the worst thing about Easter eggs in HTML
01:23:14
◼
►
is you just view source and you can see them all, right?
01:23:16
◼
►
I was never clever, I was never like doing the job.
01:23:19
◼
►
In this age of right-click inspect,
01:23:22
◼
►
you can't even hide stuff in the DOM anymore.
01:23:23
◼
►
Maybe if I did it with Shadow DOM.
01:23:24
◼
►
But anyway, I didn't even try to hide.
01:23:26
◼
►
It was just out there in the open,
01:23:27
◼
►
so it seems like all the Easter eggs
01:23:29
◼
►
and all my references should have been found by now.
01:23:31
◼
►
But most people just don't even care,
01:23:33
◼
►
so they just go right by it.
01:23:35
◼
►
- Yeah, I didn't click.
01:23:36
◼
►
I would at least hover on all of your links,
01:23:38
◼
►
but I didn't click on a lot of them
01:23:39
◼
►
because I knew, if I'm honest,
01:23:41
◼
►
- I wouldn't understand the damn reference
01:23:43
◼
►
in the first place.
01:23:44
◼
►
- Sometimes I give you the hover, sometimes I don't.
01:23:47
◼
►
Depends on the reference, depends on the thing,
01:23:50
◼
►
but period links.
01:23:52
◼
►
- Let's just say that I did not read your review on Expert.
01:23:58
◼
►
I read it on amateur hour.
01:24:00
◼
►
- Yeah, I wouldn't even follow most things
01:24:01
◼
►
'cause I was reading on iPads usually
01:24:03
◼
►
'cause that's how I would prefer to read,
01:24:05
◼
►
like, you know, to sit down, concentrate,
01:24:06
◼
►
not sitting in front of a computer,
01:24:07
◼
►
but like sit down and actually read, you know, reading mode.
01:24:10
◼
►
And for me, that's an iPad or an iPhone.
01:24:14
◼
►
So I would always read it on an iPad.
01:24:16
◼
►
- I could have done some cool gesture recognition
01:24:18
◼
►
Easter eggs but never got around to it.
01:24:22
◼
►
Oh goodness.
01:24:23
◼
►
So what do you do in the summer other than traveling a bit?
01:24:25
◼
►
Like do you feel like you have time to fill?
01:24:27
◼
►
I mean, I assume the answer is no, but.
01:24:30
◼
►
- It's more relaxing.
01:24:31
◼
►
I mean, I'm podcasting more this summer than I was
01:24:36
◼
►
'cause I've got the two regular podcasts now,
01:24:37
◼
►
even though one of them is every other week.
01:24:39
◼
►
And so that actually does make a big difference.
01:24:42
◼
►
So it's basically, and it's possible
01:24:43
◼
►
between all the vacations,
01:24:44
◼
►
it's like at least two podcasts every week.
01:24:46
◼
►
So that is taking up more time.
01:24:48
◼
►
And then, yeah, being on vacation
01:24:51
◼
►
and not stressing about things and just, you know,
01:24:53
◼
►
the nights when I'm not podcasting,
01:24:55
◼
►
I can actually just relax and watch an episode
01:24:58
◼
►
of "Orange is the New Black" and not worry
01:25:01
◼
►
about what I have and haven't written
01:25:02
◼
►
and not worry about retaking screenshots
01:25:05
◼
►
or poring over details of the OS
01:25:06
◼
►
or trying to get in touch with Apple PR
01:25:08
◼
►
in the three days before I have to publish my thing.
01:25:13
◼
►
- I am glad, I really am.
01:25:16
◼
►
I'm glad that things are going well
01:25:18
◼
►
and that you are relaxed.
01:25:19
◼
►
So, are you relaxed enough to do it
01:25:22
◼
►
for whatever ridiculous name they come up with next year?
01:25:28
◼
►
- So you're not Michael Jordan.
01:25:30
◼
►
This is your one and only retirement.
01:25:31
◼
►
- No, I'm gonna go play baseball?
01:25:33
◼
►
- You never know, just asking.
01:25:36
◼
►
- I'm already reviewing toasters, kind of.
01:25:38
◼
►
- That's true.
01:25:39
◼
►
And bless you for doing it.
01:25:41
◼
►
Oh goodness.
01:25:43
◼
►
They have a door yet?
01:25:48
◼
►
- See, home contracting work is never done.
01:25:50
◼
►
- Yeah, like the goal was to have this done this summer.
01:25:53
◼
►
I think we'll probably still make that,
01:25:55
◼
►
but you know, could be into September, whatever.
01:26:00
◼
►
Marco, how's your new child that arrived about a week ago?
01:26:03
◼
►
- Oh yeah, the camera.
01:26:06
◼
►
- It's really good.
01:26:07
◼
►
Yeah, I mean, I've only had it a week so far. I knew going into it that I would not be happy
01:26:13
◼
►
with the battery life that the battery life on all the Sony mirrorless cameras, at least
01:26:18
◼
►
the full frame ones is awful and they have continued that tradition. The battery life
01:26:22
◼
►
is indeed terrible. They have partially fixed that problem by just shipping it with two
01:26:27
◼
►
batteries. Seriously, yes, they ship it. This is the first thing I've ever bought that comes
01:26:31
◼
►
with two of its own batteries. So, and they give you, they give you an external charger
01:26:36
◼
►
also in a control via USB when you plug it in so it's hilarious so yeah so they
01:26:42
◼
►
we have multiple batteries and it's fine and the picture quality is just stunning
01:26:47
◼
►
I mean it's just ridiculous what I especially like about it so this is I'm
01:26:51
◼
►
talking about the a7r - I don't know if I actually said that earlier I think I
01:26:54
◼
►
forgot to what I especially like about it is that my my hit rate or my keeper
01:27:00
◼
►
rate like that the percentage of pictures I shoot that end up being good
01:27:04
◼
►
and like good enough to keep and not just delete because something was out of
01:27:08
◼
►
focus or whatever my hit rate is extremely high way higher than it's ever
01:27:12
◼
►
been with any other camera I've ever used including an iPhone and and I think
01:27:17
◼
►
there's there's a number of possible reasons for this number one I think is
01:27:22
◼
►
just that it has a really really good autofocus system most mirrorless cameras
01:27:27
◼
►
don't have phase detect autofocus and phase detect is that's what Apple called
01:27:32
◼
►
focus pixels in the iPhone 6 and it's what it's the way that SLRs have always
01:27:37
◼
►
focused. The alternative is contrast detect where you just read the image off
01:27:41
◼
►
the sensor and you you move the focus motor forward and back until you see you
01:27:47
◼
►
notice like there are more high contrast edges at this focal length than this
01:27:51
◼
►
focal length that's most likely in focus and that's why you see cameras kind of
01:27:54
◼
►
going in and out of focus as as they try to find that point that's called hunting
01:27:59
◼
►
and it's more prevalent in contrast systems.
01:28:02
◼
►
And so for a while, mirrorless cameras only had those,
01:28:05
◼
►
and many of them still only have that,
01:28:07
◼
►
but a few of them have phase detect autofocus,
01:28:10
◼
►
and this is one of them.
01:28:12
◼
►
And the previous Sonys, with the exception of the A7II,
01:28:15
◼
►
the previous, like the A7I line, didn't have phase.
01:28:19
◼
►
So this results in way faster and more accurate autofocus
01:28:23
◼
►
than, you know, it's almost SLR speed.
01:28:26
◼
►
It's not quite there, but it's almost SLR speed.
01:28:28
◼
►
it's the closest I've ever seen in a camera
01:28:30
◼
►
that wasn't an SLR.
01:28:32
◼
►
Or for my usage, I think it's close enough.
01:28:35
◼
►
It's a little early to say that definitively,
01:28:36
◼
►
but I think it is close enough to be, you know,
01:28:40
◼
►
very similar to a good SLR.
01:28:42
◼
►
Like I used the system in the Nikon D750 that I rented
01:28:46
◼
►
was, is well regarded, it's another very, very well-liked,
01:28:49
◼
►
very advanced autofocus system for SLRs.
01:28:52
◼
►
I don't think it's the best in the world,
01:28:53
◼
►
but I think it's certainly up there.
01:28:56
◼
►
And I would say this is actually very close to that.
01:28:58
◼
►
it's very, very close focus speed wise.
01:29:00
◼
►
So anyway, contributing to my percentage of pictures
01:29:03
◼
►
that are good being high is that really good focus system,
01:29:06
◼
►
that the percentage of pictures that I'm shooting
01:29:08
◼
►
that the focus is correct is very, very high
01:29:11
◼
►
because it's just fast and accurate.
01:29:14
◼
►
And the other thing that I like is,
01:29:16
◼
►
there's this, and the sensor,
01:29:19
◼
►
you can crank the ISO sensitivity on the sensor
01:29:22
◼
►
up like crazy because it's just really, really good.
01:29:26
◼
►
like most modern Sony sensors,
01:29:28
◼
►
which includes the ones in Nikon cameras,
01:29:30
◼
►
most modern Sony developed full-frame sensors
01:29:32
◼
►
are just stunningly good with keeping low noise
01:29:37
◼
►
at high ISO sensitivities.
01:29:39
◼
►
So what's good about this camera is that
01:29:41
◼
►
not only does it have that, but it has a feature
01:29:44
◼
►
that is only in a ridiculously small number of cameras.
01:29:47
◼
►
I don't know why this is such a rare feature
01:29:49
◼
►
and such a relatively new feature,
01:29:51
◼
►
where you can set it on auto ISO,
01:29:54
◼
►
and then you can customize what your minimum shutter speed is.
01:29:58
◼
►
So you can run the camera in aperture priority mode,
01:30:02
◼
►
and you can set the aperture to whatever you want,
01:30:03
◼
►
and then you can say auto ISO,
01:30:05
◼
►
but keep the shutter speed above, say, 1/250th of a second.
01:30:10
◼
►
'Cause 1/250th, you can freeze most motion
01:30:15
◼
►
with most lens lengths around that,
01:30:17
◼
►
so that's a good minimum.
01:30:19
◼
►
So if you're shooting inside at f/5.6
01:30:21
◼
►
and trying to keep 1/250th of a second,
01:30:24
◼
►
The ISO has to crank really high up to like, you know,
01:30:27
◼
►
the 10 to 25,000 range, really high ISOs.
01:30:30
◼
►
And this camera, it just looks good.
01:30:32
◼
►
Like it still looks good at those crazy ISOs.
01:30:34
◼
►
And again, you can get this in modern icons as well.
01:30:37
◼
►
So I, you know, not to say this is exclusive to Sony,
01:30:39
◼
►
but to have this in such a small camera
01:30:44
◼
►
with so many advanced features.
01:30:45
◼
►
So the combination of the focus system being so good,
01:30:49
◼
►
the auto ISO with the minimum shutter speed,
01:30:51
◼
►
making it so that you can basically shoot anything
01:30:54
◼
►
in any light and have it be sharp,
01:30:56
◼
►
as long as you're willing to tolerate some noise
01:30:58
◼
►
at the extreme high ISOs.
01:30:59
◼
►
And also it has a stabilized image sensor.
01:31:04
◼
►
So, you know, just similar to the iPhone 6 Plus,
01:31:07
◼
►
this has sensor shift technology.
01:31:10
◼
►
So it can shift the sensor around to do image stabilization
01:31:13
◼
►
no matter what lens you put on it.
01:31:14
◼
►
So even when you're using a really short lens,
01:31:16
◼
►
like a 35 millimeter, which it's very hard to find
01:31:20
◼
►
short image stabilized primes generally,
01:31:23
◼
►
though not a lot of manufacturers ever make those
01:31:25
◼
►
'cause there's a lot less demand for image stabilization
01:31:28
◼
►
in short lenses like that than there is
01:31:30
◼
►
like for telephotos and zooms.
01:31:31
◼
►
So you can have like very, very short distance
01:31:35
◼
►
image stabilization, shooting really fast, high ISO.
01:31:39
◼
►
So the combination of those things
01:31:42
◼
►
just incredibly improves the hit rate of what you're taking.
01:31:46
◼
►
So rather than shooting like 200 photos
01:31:50
◼
►
in an afternoon of doing something
01:31:51
◼
►
and then trying to pick out the 20 good ones,
01:31:54
◼
►
I'm shooting like 40 photos
01:31:56
◼
►
and picking out the 20 good ones.
01:31:57
◼
►
It's incredible, the difference, the time it saves.
01:32:01
◼
►
And even like, I'm even considering turning off RAW
01:32:04
◼
►
because the JPEGs that come out of this camera are so good
01:32:08
◼
►
and do such a good job with dynamic range capture
01:32:10
◼
►
and there's a bunch of options
01:32:12
◼
►
I still can play with with that,
01:32:13
◼
►
that it's just incredible.
01:32:15
◼
►
Even RAW is becoming a lot less necessary
01:32:19
◼
►
and I'm using the Photos app and Lightroom
01:32:23
◼
►
kind of in parallel right now,
01:32:24
◼
►
'cause the Apple camera RAW system
01:32:27
◼
►
doesn't support the RAW files for this yet.
01:32:28
◼
►
So I'm only dealing with the JPEGs in the Photos app
01:32:32
◼
►
and only seeing the RAWs in Lightroom,
01:32:33
◼
►
and I like the JPEGs better
01:32:36
◼
►
than the color I can get in Lightroom,
01:32:37
◼
►
and they don't look worse for the most part.
01:32:42
◼
►
I'll go to the RAW if I have to pull up shadow detail
01:32:44
◼
►
really high or something, but that's rare.
01:32:47
◼
►
So yeah, overall, it's great.
01:32:49
◼
►
Like, it's a really great camera.
01:32:51
◼
►
So I'm extremely happy with it.
01:32:53
◼
►
I have three lenses, and I don't expect
01:32:57
◼
►
to get any more in the near future.
01:32:58
◼
►
I have a 35 2.8, a little 35.
01:33:01
◼
►
I have the 55 1.8, which is possibly
01:33:05
◼
►
the best lens I've ever seen.
01:33:07
◼
►
And I have the 90 macro, which is really ridiculously sharp,
01:33:12
◼
►
and it's awfully close, and it's massive and heavy,
01:33:16
◼
►
but for product shots for my blog and stuff like that,
01:33:19
◼
►
I'm greatly enjoying that.
01:33:21
◼
►
So yeah, overall, three thumbs up.
01:33:25
◼
►
Every time I think of buying one of these
01:33:26
◼
►
super expensive cameras, I remember A,
01:33:28
◼
►
that I'd rather spend the money on a Mac,
01:33:30
◼
►
and B, that where I take most of my pictures
01:33:33
◼
►
during each year is standing waist deep in ocean waves.
01:33:38
◼
►
And I really wouldn't want to be holding
01:33:40
◼
►
a two or $3,000 camera in my hand while doing that.
01:33:44
◼
►
So far I haven't dropped one, and I don't know how many years we've been going on a vacation to the beach
01:33:49
◼
►
and me taking pictures of kids in the waves, but like, at least, you know, six, seven, eight years.
01:33:55
◼
►
Haven't dropped the camera yet, but it's gonna happen eventually, and when it does, I want it to be like a $600 mistake.
01:34:00
◼
►
I really don't want it to be a $2,000 or $3,000 mistake.
01:34:06
◼
►
I did fall this year with it, but only on the sand, and the camera was held safely in the air.
01:34:12
◼
►
I wish I'd seen that. I can only imagine the acrobatics you went through to save the camera.
01:34:16
◼
►
What I was actually saving was my sneakers, because we were just like, it was after a
01:34:20
◼
►
run and like, I didn't have like, you know, I had actual sneakers on with socks and it
01:34:24
◼
►
was just, I wasn't going to go in the water, but like the waves, you know, come up and
01:34:27
◼
►
like one wave started coming up and it was, caught me by surprise and I started to run
01:34:31
◼
►
backwards up the hill in the sand to keep my sneakers out of the water and I lost my
01:34:35
◼
►
footing and went under my butt, but the camera stayed in the air and no water on the shoes
01:34:41
◼
►
either. Sand on the butt but otherwise nothing. That's by the way this is this is my you know
01:34:48
◼
►
for for people who do not have super expensive cameras let me give you the most important
01:34:51
◼
►
photography tip. Take your crappy camera and take pictures in ridiculously bright sunlight.
01:34:57
◼
►
They look really good because everything is lit up and your crappy camera that does not very
01:35:03
◼
►
light sensitive with a tiny little sensor it's fine you capture any kind of motion in the bright
01:35:08
◼
►
bright light of a sunny summer's day in mid-afternoon,
01:35:11
◼
►
they look really good.
01:35:12
◼
►
- Oh yeah, just put your iPhone in a plastic bag, done.
01:35:15
◼
►
- Well, don't go that far.
01:35:16
◼
►
- Bright sun is, yeah, pretty much any camera.
01:35:19
◼
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Like that's why the iPhone,
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like whenever there's a new iPhone
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and they're talking about how great the camera is
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and they show like this is a real picture shot on an iPhone.
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It's always like this bright, sunny,
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beautiful scene in California.
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It's like, no, that's not--
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- Or it's like a closeup of a flower in the midday sun.
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Yep, that will always look good.
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With my cameras, with the cameras I buy, I don't even bother taking pictures indoors
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at this point.
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Like there's no point.
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Like they're just, they're always going to be terrible.
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There's just, it has to be outdoors and it has to be sunny.
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Which is fine with me.
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There's plenty of times when those conditions are met and I can get lots of pictures of
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family and things.
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We still get professional photos taken.
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Now I think we're down to once a year just to have someone else take them so we can all
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be in the picture and have family photos.
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I mean, the professional photographer uses a fancy camera so they look better than ours,
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but I think we are adequately documenting our lives at this point.
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As long as it's all backed up, we'll be fine.