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Upgrade

119: Make the Chart Bigger

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade, episode number 119.

00:00:12   Today's show is brought to you by Encapsula, Foot Cardigan, Eero, and Away.

00:00:18   My name is Myke Hurley, and I am joined by Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:21   Hi Myke, I'm just sitting here in the place that I'm always sitting when we do Upgrade.

00:00:26   Nothing special, nothing different.

00:00:28   How about you?

00:00:29   Should we just fall off?

00:00:32   I am standing right now, and standing is the key, we're going to talk about that a little

00:00:36   bit later on, in mega office, my new office.

00:00:41   Beta 0.2.

00:00:42   Yeah, so expect things to sound weird and echoey and everything, because I haven't got

00:00:48   anything ready, and that's just the way it's going to be today, I think.

00:00:54   Yeah.

00:00:55   Yeah.

00:00:56   settle into this place and later on in the episode I'm gonna talk a little bit

00:01:00   about what my what my setup arrangement is here because it's extremely different.

00:01:05   We'll look back on this this period and and it'll be those fond memories of

00:01:11   Myke's transitional phase when he was moving and still doing podcasts while

00:01:15   moving but now you know just we got we got to do it. I'm very excited for

00:01:20   you I'm very excited that you're there. You were saying before we get started

00:01:24   Maybe you should have taken the week off, but you know what?

00:01:27   You're soldiering on.

00:01:28   I got to put this content out.

00:01:30   People, they want the content.

00:01:31   They're demanding it.

00:01:33   They want to hear our thoughts about Home Alone.

00:01:36   They do.

00:01:36   That's true.

00:01:37   I was going to say you could get a guest host,

00:01:38   but then who would talk to me about Home Alone?

00:01:40   I will not accept that.

00:01:41   I will not accept anybody else to talk about Home Alone.

00:01:44   I mean, seriously, that's like--

00:01:46   I've spent how many years not watching Home Alone,

00:01:50   and now here we are and I've seen it.

00:01:52   So, you know, 25 plus years in the making of me waiting to see Home Alone and you are

00:01:57   the person I waited to see it, well not see it with, talk about it after I saw it.

00:02:02   Kind of see it with.

00:02:03   Yeah.

00:02:04   Close enough.

00:02:05   All right, we mentioned last week that we're going to be doing voting for the upgradees

00:02:10   for this year and we want you all to be involved.

00:02:14   So you will find a link in the show notes to the voting form, the Google form for the

00:02:19   third annual upgradees.

00:02:21   Yeah, yeah, so we put in a bunch of nominees and I think there's a fill in the blank too

00:02:27   and so you can influence what we talk about in the Upgradies episode which will be coming

00:02:34   out the first of the year. So you've got some time to influence our decisions.

00:02:41   Or the second.

00:02:43   Yes, well I mean I sort of meant colloquially the first of the year but yes it will literally

00:02:49   be January 2nd, 2017. Put that on your calendars.

00:02:52   We have, as I said, we've shortlisted the things that me and Jason have thought of,

00:02:57   but we're very aware of the fact that there may be some things we haven't thought of.

00:03:01   So if you see something that you think desperately needs to be nominated in category, let us

00:03:06   know and you'll see I put a note right at the very top of the form that the chief upgradients

00:03:11   reserve the right to amend the nominee list and that's purely in case we've forgotten

00:03:15   anything.

00:03:16   Mm-hmm.

00:03:17   - That's right, it sounds very formal for like,

00:03:19   oh geez, no, I can't believe we didn't say, you know.

00:03:22   But yes, very formal, chief upgradients decide.

00:03:24   Very formal, very serious.

00:03:25   - I thought it was better than just like,

00:03:27   we're leaving this open because we have terrible memories

00:03:30   and we haven't been writing stuff down throughout the year,

00:03:32   which is what I'm gonna do next year.

00:03:34   I've realized that I'm gonna start maybe keeping notes

00:03:36   throughout the year for the things that I wanna put

00:03:39   in the upgradies, so I don't forget.

00:03:41   On last week's show, we were talking about

00:03:47   keyboard shortcuts on the iPad.

00:03:49   And I mentioned how I really liked

00:03:51   when you press the Command key,

00:03:53   it shows you every available keyboard shortcut

00:03:55   and there's nothing on the Mac to do this.

00:03:57   Well, there's a few people wrote in

00:03:59   to let me know about something,

00:04:00   which I'm sure I have seen before.

00:04:03   As soon as it was sent to me, I remembered it,

00:04:05   but I never would have remembered it on my own

00:04:06   about the help of the Upgradients.

00:04:09   And Al was the first person to write in

00:04:11   to recommend an application called Cheat Sheet

00:04:15   by Stefan Furst.

00:04:16   And basically it does just that.

00:04:18   It gives you the ability to hold down a key

00:04:21   and see all of the keyboard shortcuts

00:04:23   available for the application that you're looking at.

00:04:26   So it is exactly what I was trying to wish into existence.

00:04:30   So it does exist.

00:04:32   - Yeah, that's actually a really great,

00:04:34   I wonder why that's not a Mac OS feature, right?

00:04:37   Like why Apple could presumably either look at

00:04:42   the contents of the menus and things like that,

00:04:46   or it could set up some sort of method by which developers

00:04:50   would define that stuff separately

00:04:53   for that particular feature.

00:04:54   I'm a little surprised that Apple doesn't offer that.

00:04:55   It seems like a very friendly feature,

00:04:57   and it's very nice on the iPad.

00:04:59   So I'm a little surprised that's not in Mac OS.

00:05:01   I have thought to myself that maybe the reason that it's not

00:05:04   there is because Mac applications have so many

00:05:07   keyboard shortcuts that it's kind

00:05:08   of an ugly and confusing thing.

00:05:11   Like you open up something like Photoshop or Logic,

00:05:15   and you will be swiping pages through pages

00:05:17   and the names that they're given won't make any sense

00:05:20   until you're actually acting, you know.

00:05:22   That's what I think is it might be a little bit

00:05:24   too entrenched to do this.

00:05:26   Like there are some applications like Airmail on iOS,

00:05:29   it has like three or four pages of them

00:05:30   and it's like this is too many.

00:05:31   - Right. - Right, so it's like,

00:05:33   I don't know what the right mix is there to be honest,

00:05:35   'cause it's good to have the keyboard shortcuts

00:05:37   'cause they're typically hidden, right?

00:05:39   So it's like if somebody finds them,

00:05:40   then good, you know, bully for them.

00:05:42   But there are many applications on the iPad that I find keyboard shortcuts for

00:05:47   that are not listed in that sheet and I don't really know how that's possible,

00:05:51   but it happens. Um, so yeah, they're there. Just,

00:05:55   just press all the keys. Press every key. Every time you get an application,

00:05:59   spend four hours pressing every single key and every single command key up, uh,

00:06:04   combination you can think of and write it all down.

00:06:06   Get a pad and a pen.

00:06:11   and as you're typing, take notes about what seems to happen.

00:06:14   And then, yeah, that's a great way to do it.

00:06:17   - That's our recommendation to you

00:06:18   for good keyboard shortcut behavior, I think.

00:06:23   - Honey, I can't come to dinner yet.

00:06:24   I've just moved from command to command shift.

00:06:27   I'll be a little while.

00:06:29   - I've got a new application.

00:06:30   Block off the calendar for a week.

00:06:32   Pizza watch. - I'm napping it.

00:06:35   - This is the second follow up I'm gonna call pizza watch.

00:06:38   Justin has written to let us know that Domino's, the great pizza chain of Domino's, is currently

00:06:44   using pineapple pepperoni in their advertising, Jason.

00:06:51   It's happening.

00:06:53   So thank you to Justin for letting us know that such a thing exists. I mean, I'm always

00:06:59   happy to know that people are eating their pizza in this way because it is the superior

00:07:04   combination.

00:07:05   Yeah, that's good, thank you. And this has been Pizza Watch.

00:07:09   [imitates laser sounds]

00:07:12   Oh yeah, that's much better. Lasers are used elsewhere.

00:07:15   Yeah. Oh, Myke, we had a lot of ARM follow-up.

00:07:19   Mm-hmm.

00:07:21   Lot, lot, lot, lot.

00:07:23   Yep.

00:07:25   There was a big—the big news that honestly, I—

00:07:32   Microsoft doing stuff on ARM has been,

00:07:35   and working on an emulator has been out there.

00:07:37   I didn't really talk about it a whole lot,

00:07:38   but it's been out there for a little while.

00:07:41   But we, Microsoft has relaunched its ARM strategy.

00:07:46   If you may, you may remember that when the Surface launched,

00:07:50   there were two different kinds of Surfaces.

00:07:51   There was the Surface and the Surface RT basically.

00:07:54   And they went through different names.

00:07:57   There was Surface RT and Surface Pro and all that.

00:07:59   But basically there are two different kinds of Surfaces

00:08:01   that were made and are now are not.

00:08:05   Now it's just an Intel based one for the time being.

00:08:08   But for a while they made an ARM version.

00:08:10   That was the RT version and they had a RT version

00:08:13   of Windows and that was on ARM.

00:08:15   And it included Microsoft Office recompiled for ARM

00:08:19   but classic x86 apps wouldn't run on it

00:08:23   'cause they didn't have an emulator.

00:08:24   And then it had all of the modern, you know,

00:08:26   Metro styling stuff on it too.

00:08:29   and it didn't really, you know,

00:08:32   it didn't take advantage of all that old Windows software.

00:08:34   And so people weren't that fond of it and it died.

00:08:38   But Microsoft is sort of going back to that again.

00:08:40   They're working with Qualcomm.

00:08:42   They're going to do not only an x86 emulator for ARM,

00:08:46   but a full on ARM version of Windows again.

00:08:49   And so in theory, you know,

00:08:51   you'll be able to buy a laptop next year,

00:08:53   maybe with a Snapdragon processor

00:08:55   like Qualcomm makes for smartphones.

00:08:57   and it will run Windows even though

00:09:00   that Snapdragon is an ARM processor,

00:09:02   and it will be able to run your old Windows software

00:09:06   in emulation.

00:09:07   So that's interesting.

00:09:09   The thing that I think, you know,

00:09:14   emulating x86 on ARM, it's emulation.

00:09:17   It's gonna, you know,

00:09:19   I don't think this changes the story for Apple at all.

00:09:21   If Apple wants to emulate, it can do it.

00:09:24   If it moved to ARM, you pay a penalty for that, right?

00:09:27   emulation will slow everything down because you're running a virtual chip inside a real

00:09:32   chip. But what I find really interesting about this story, when we were detailing all the

00:09:37   things about moving to ARM, this suggests that Microsoft is now publicly hedging about

00:09:46   the future of Intel. And I think that, to me, is the most fascinating thing about this

00:09:51   because Microsoft already tried this and kind of it was kind of a flop and yet here they

00:09:55   are again and maybe Qualcomm is pushing them and funding this, but I do wonder given that

00:10:00   Microsoft, you know, Windows matters to Microsoft and that Microsoft is doing this, the question

00:10:08   I have is what does that say about Microsoft's perception about the future of ARM processors

00:10:14   versus the future of Intel processors. And it's just another log on the fire, but I think

00:10:22   really interesting that that Microsoft is is committing to this. The emulation

00:10:31   thing is what's interesting to me. I mean if they consider it important enough

00:10:35   why not just I mean I guess they just don't want to have a specific version

00:10:39   again right because it ends up being a bifurcated disaster. Yeah I mean unless

00:10:46   I you know I think what Microsoft is hoping is that it'll just be you know it

00:10:50   just works, right, where developers will start compiling for both, but if you only have the

00:10:55   x86 version it'll work on ARM and it'll run an emulation. Theoretically an ARM Mac could

00:11:00   probably boot Windows for ARM natively but then run x86 apps in emulation inside of it.

00:11:09   It's weird. I don't know. It's a fascinating thing. I think it's really weird that they

00:11:16   They had Windows RT and killed it and now they're bringing it back, sort of.

00:11:21   But I don't know.

00:11:23   I don't know.

00:11:24   I mean, it's entirely possible, and we talked about some of this stuff last week, it's entirely

00:11:27   possible that Microsoft looks at mobile computing innovation and says, "This stuff could make

00:11:37   better laptops than what Intel is doing."

00:11:40   That Intel has just not done a good enough job with power saving and battery life and

00:11:45   and all those things, and the smartphone industry

00:11:48   is so successful that it's driving innovation so fast

00:11:53   that if we make a version of Windows that runs on this stuff

00:11:59   there will be a whole slew of laptop makers

00:12:02   who will embrace it and make pretty good laptops

00:12:05   that are running on ARM.

00:12:07   So it also could be that,

00:12:09   because Microsoft isn't choosing here, right,

00:12:11   that Microsoft is like, sure Qualcomm,

00:12:14   "Yeah, we'll make a version for you to try and sell to Dell and Lenovo and whoever else

00:12:19   to make PCs for." We can do that, but they're also still making the Intel version, and so

00:12:24   if it is a flop, the PC makers and Qualcomm will be the ones who are paying the most for

00:12:31   it.

00:12:32   Yeah, this is a slightly different game. I think people are looking at this and pointing

00:12:36   to it as a reason that Apple will go into or should do it, but I think Microsoft play

00:12:40   a different game, don't they?

00:12:42   You know, like you're saying about who does this impact the most?

00:12:46   Well, it's going to impact the people trying to sell the products.

00:12:49   Microsoft is still getting their licensing fee one way or another.

00:12:52   Right, Microsoft's putting down a bet in a way, and I'm not sure Apple...

00:13:02   A lot of the things that Microsoft does in public, Apple does in private.

00:13:05   I mean, I think you could take that back, like, all the way to almost everything.

00:13:10   is Apple working on augmented reality?

00:13:12   Sure they are.

00:13:13   Are they doing lots of demos

00:13:15   and have they given their product a name?

00:13:16   No, but HoloLens is the thing that's out there, right?

00:13:19   And so it's like, and that has always been the way

00:13:21   Microsoft was pre-announcing hardware and software

00:13:24   and features years before they shipped.

00:13:27   Sometimes they never did ship.

00:13:28   Let me tell you about the search in Longhorn.

00:13:30   Woo, it's gonna be great.

00:13:32   - Oh, Longhorn, last class from the past.

00:13:35   - We went to Europe like 2004 or something

00:13:38   and we were in a B&B in Amsterdam with this other young couple and they were, and it turned

00:13:44   out the guy was working on search for Longhorn and I was like, "Oh man, he's like, yeah."

00:13:50   Never shipped. Anyway.

00:13:51   LongHorn became Windows Vista basically.

00:13:54   Became Vista, yeah.

00:13:55   For a long time.

00:13:56   Yeah, but in some, sort of, but a lot of the stuff got dropped out.

00:14:01   Like Copeland, right?

00:14:02   It's not quite like saying Copeland became, you know, Mac OS 8 because it's sort of like,

00:14:07   a few of the bits of it did, but it's not quite the right analogy, but it's close.

00:14:13   So this is my point, is that Microsoft does this stuff in public because of the way, you

00:14:18   know, this is a weird metaphor, but like Microsoft keeps some of its organs outside its body,

00:14:23   but it's kind of like that, right? It's like Microsoft makes Windows, it makes kind of

00:14:26   the brain, but like, and then the computers, well, they do now make Surface, right? But

00:14:33   are all these PC makers, and they're part of this life form of the Windows PC world.

00:14:40   And Apple, it's all inside Apple. Like, Apple keeps it all inside. So, you know, is Apple

00:14:45   making a bet? I'm sure Apple, we've all talked about it, I'm sure Apple's got Macs that run

00:14:49   on ARM processors inside Apple, right? I mean, just as they did with Intel, where they had

00:14:53   the Intel project running for years inside Apple when they were using PowerPC. And I'm

00:14:58   sure they're investigating it. It wouldn't shock me if they've investigated all of this

00:15:02   stuff. You know, my whole thesis was it comes to Apple's disposition about how much effort

00:15:09   it's going to be to move the Mac over and if it's worth it, worth their time versus

00:15:13   just letting the Mac kind of ride. But seeing Microsoft publicly do something like this

00:15:18   makes me think, you know, Microsoft's pretty smart and the fate of Windows matters a lot

00:15:25   to them. And so you look at this and think that's another, that is interesting, that

00:15:32   That makes me wonder a little bit, makes me think a little differently about Apple's

00:15:36   internal calculation about it if Microsoft is kind of publicly hedging at this point.

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00:17:06   All right, so...

00:17:11   A little more on Arm, I think.

00:17:14   I thought we were done.

00:17:15   Let's continue on Arm, shall we?

00:17:17   I know you did, but I've just got a couple other quick things that are a little more

00:17:20   follow-up. Just, um, so we spent a lot of time on it.

00:17:23   Myke: Maybe I just subconsciously want Arm to just go away.

00:17:26   Tim Cynova Don't cut off your own arm, Myke. Here we

00:17:30   go. I heard from a lot of developers who say that emulation, or virtualization of x86 and

00:17:37   support of x86 is absolutely vital. And I am, like I said last week, I'm sure that it

00:17:43   is. What I wasn't trying to do was say, "I know that those people aren't important"

00:17:51   or something like that, but what I was trying to say is, I would think that

00:17:55   Apple has some idea of what percentage of its device sales are to people who

00:18:00   have to have x86 compatibility to do their jobs. And what we've seen with

00:18:08   Apple recently is that if that that number might be bigger than we would

00:18:14   like it to be at the point where Apple says it doesn't matter right I mean that

00:18:19   seems to be something that has been going on is like what we think of as

00:18:22   important may not be what Apple thinks of as important and I haven't seen any

00:18:26   good statistics saying this many Mac users in the installed base need an x86

00:18:34   system I mean I hear lots of anecdotes and I heard from several developers who

00:18:38   said, "Come on, there's got to be millions of them. I go to conferences at my job and

00:18:44   I see people who are using Macs and using various virtualization or systems and they

00:18:50   need x86 compatibility." But those are anecdotes and it's very easy to get down in a field

00:18:57   where everybody you know is doing certain kinds of work and needs that. And that's very

00:19:04   important to you and it's very important to them, but it doesn't necessarily mean it's

00:19:07   a very important slice of Apple's market. And I'm not saying it's not important,

00:19:13   but I'm saying that Apple may not think it's important. We don't know. And Apple

00:19:20   has shown that it is willing to, shown recently, that it is willing to make decisions that

00:19:26   it think benefit its products for the, you know, whether it's 95% or 98% or 90%, whatever,

00:19:35   of its user base to make the product that they use better at the expense of people who

00:19:41   are in that 1 or 2 or 5 or 10 percent that, you know, where it's very important to them.

00:19:48   And that's just where we are. So, you know, I don't, I would be kind of fascinated to

00:19:53   see if there are statistics about like how many Mac users, you know, rely on x86 compatibility

00:19:59   specifically to do their jobs. I heard some people say like web developers need x86 compatibility.

00:20:08   I'm not quite sure why that is because, yeah. Anyway, it's all fine. Anecdotes are great.

00:20:15   Don't send me more anecdotes. I don't want more anecdotes. I am curious if there's public

00:20:20   information about this. I'm sure Apple knows or has a very good idea of what percentage

00:20:26   of its sales are people who would not be able to buy a Mac if it didn't offer x86.

00:20:33   Yeah, I stand by my thinking from last time that I have no doubt that there are many,

00:20:38   many, many people that do this. Millions? I don't think so, but many, many, many,

00:20:42   many people that need this emulation stuff. Absolutely. And they would be very sad if

00:20:48   it went away. Absolutely. But I don't think that it's enough people if Apple want to

00:20:52   make this decision that they won't make it. I think the magnitude of this decision

00:20:56   is so great that if Apple makes it, what they're saying is this is so important that we're

00:21:02   willing to give that up. Like, I mean, that's the only reason. If it's big enough for them

00:21:07   to make a switch, it's big enough for them to say, you know, we're going to let the chips

00:21:11   fall where they may with people who are currently behind.

00:21:13   We're going to have to leave some people behind.

00:21:14   Yeah, yeah.

00:21:15   I just can't imagine a meeting room where they're saying, right, so we're ready to do

00:21:19   this and then somebody puts their hand up and says, well, you know, 1% of our customer

00:21:24   about issues is at boot camp, you know, or like some kind of emulation for something.

00:21:29   I can't, I was like, "Oh, okay, well, we'll stick on Intel's roadmap then." I just don't

00:21:34   see it happening.

00:21:35   Yeah, I mean, it's possible that they would still do something like what Microsoft is

00:21:39   doing, which is use ARM in situations where it's necessary, which is laptops especially,

00:21:47   the MacBook would be the beachhead there. I think that it's a question, my gut feeling

00:21:51   is that it seems unlikely to me that Apple would long-term keep all the Mac on two separate

00:21:58   processor platforms. It seems unlikely to me, but it's not impossible that it would

00:22:04   do it. And this comes to another piece of feedback we got, which was, I heard from some

00:22:11   people who were like, "Hey, did you know that the iPad has a processor in it?" Yeah, I heard

00:22:19   that. I read that somewhere. My point about that was that the iPad Pro, the fastest iPad

00:22:27   Pro is about as fast as the slowest Mac. And that's it, you know, so just saying, well,

00:22:35   of course they could do it. Of course they could do it. The question is, how do you scale

00:22:39   to provide the kind of power and speed that is required by people who have faster Macs

00:22:46   than the MacBook.

00:22:48   And not saying they couldn't do it,

00:22:51   throw some more cores at it, whatever, they could do it.

00:22:55   It's just effort, it's more effort.

00:22:56   They can't just take a chip from an iPad,

00:22:59   pop it in a Mac and call it done,

00:23:01   unless they like, I mean, it's more than that

00:23:04   without going too much into it.

00:23:05   So yes, the iPad Pro has a very nice processor.

00:23:08   My iPad Pro has a processor that in single core operations,

00:23:13   I believe is faster than the 2016 MacBook.

00:23:16   not in dual, not a multi-core, it's a little bit slower,

00:23:19   but it's faster in single core.

00:23:20   That's pretty amazing.

00:23:21   But that's the 2016 MacBook.

00:23:26   You can't, you know, if you're picking and choosing,

00:23:29   the 2016 MacBook does not represent the best of the Mac.

00:23:32   It represents the worst of the Mac in terms of speed.

00:23:34   So yeah, anyway, in terms of new models, anyway,

00:23:39   the MacBook Air might be slower, I don't know,

00:23:41   but that's a legacy product at this point.

00:23:44   And yeah, so finally, this is the point,

00:23:48   which is all of this argument about details,

00:23:50   I feel like, like I said last week,

00:23:52   is kind of moot because in the end,

00:23:55   I think, like I said earlier,

00:23:58   it comes down to the choice Apple wants to make.

00:24:00   And I think it's not about can Apple do this?

00:24:03   It's really, does Apple think this is worth doing,

00:24:07   worth the effort of doing?

00:24:09   Like, is the Mac, and the touch, you know,

00:24:11   there are plenty of arguments for both.

00:24:13   I'm still kind of inclined to say it's more work

00:24:16   than is worth it for Apple.

00:24:18   Although, you know,

00:24:19   thinking about the Microsoft stuff a little bit

00:24:21   has made me pause a little bit more about it.

00:24:24   But in the end, this is like, you know,

00:24:28   how much effort does Apple wanna put

00:24:30   into a Mac processor transition

00:24:32   and what does it get by doing it?

00:24:33   And what we saw with the touch bar is Apple is willing

00:24:38   to put in a certain amount of effort into the Mac.

00:24:40   And so that's the case four.

00:24:42   It's like if Apple would do that, then why not do more?

00:24:46   And maybe one of the reasons that the Mac has been

00:24:48   so sluggish for the last couple of years is that

00:24:51   Apple is taking their eye off the ball with Intel

00:24:54   because they wanna build our Macs.

00:24:56   That's a theory, it's out there.

00:24:58   But I don't think it's supported by rumors,

00:25:00   but it's a theory, there are lots of theories.

00:25:03   So we'll see, but in the end, I feel like this is,

00:25:05   we can debate like all of the different data points,

00:25:09   But those are data points in Apple's decision-making process

00:25:13   because Apple can do it if it wants.

00:25:15   It's just a matter of if it wants to.

00:25:16   And I think that's, I'm still inclined to say

00:25:20   that it's less likely because it would be so much effort

00:25:23   to do it, at least now.

00:25:24   - So Apple TV single sign-on launched this past week.

00:25:31   - Joe Steele's in the chat room, so get ready.

00:25:33   (laughs)

00:25:36   - So can you remind me what this is?

00:25:38   'Cause like as far as I'm aware,

00:25:39   single sign-on means nothing to me in the United Kingdom.

00:25:42   - It is a much ballyhooed feature of tvOS 10.

00:25:46   And the idea here is your television provider

00:25:52   can provide access to content

00:25:55   that you get, normally you would pay for

00:25:59   on cable or satellite,

00:26:02   but you get it on streaming digital as well

00:26:06   because you're already paying for it somewhere else.

00:26:08   So an example would be, I have Comcast,

00:26:11   I have HBO and Comcast.

00:26:13   That means that I can go, I can, on an Apple TV or an iPad,

00:26:17   I can launch HBO Go and log in with my cable information.

00:26:22   And it says, oh yeah, you're a,

00:26:24   you're a Comcast subscriber who has HBO.

00:26:27   So you can watch HBO on your devices too.

00:26:30   It's great, right?

00:26:31   I mean, it's legitimately great.

00:26:32   It is frustrating when that doesn't work

00:26:34   and don't get me started.

00:26:35   There are separate deals for separate providers, so I can do that with HBO, but I don't appear

00:26:41   to be able to do that with something like Starz, where they don't have a deal with Comcast,

00:26:46   so I can't do it.

00:26:48   When I had DirecTV, I couldn't do ESPN streaming.

00:26:51   Now that I have Comcast, I can.

00:26:53   But the point here is, your cable or satellite login, your TV provider login, is like a magic

00:26:59   key that unlocks streaming capability for content you're already buying via the traditional

00:27:07   TV method. Right? That makes sense. So single sign-on, the idea is, I mean, this was one

00:27:17   of the complaints that we all had about this not too long ago, which is, why is it that

00:27:23   every time I launch an app it asks me to log in with my cable ID and password, especially

00:27:28   on the Apple TV where putting in an ID and password is laborious. Shouldn't it be collected

00:27:34   somewhere where I can enter it in the settings that like, "Yes, I'm on Comcast. Here's my

00:27:38   password. Here's my ID. Apple TV, you do the work for me." Well, that's single sign-on.

00:27:43   That's the idea is you do it in one place. TV OS knows that it totally works or iOS knows

00:27:50   that here's what I know. And boom, it'll just, you say, "I want to watch HBO." And it's like,

00:27:56   totally I already know who you are I got you logged in great here watch HBO that

00:28:01   single sign-on and now we have it huge asterisk so basically what it seems like

00:28:08   is it is launched kind of unceremoniously I don't know if this was

00:28:13   like it was like December right December was the time frame that Apple gave for

00:28:18   this feature when it announced it it was in the September event right and now

00:28:24   there are significant portions missing like TV channels and TV stations missing

00:28:30   tvOS 10 feature but it didn't get enabled until an update and then they

00:28:36   turned this feature on and this is for iOS as well right and it is it is in iOS

00:28:41   as well because there's the TV app for iOS and it's the same idea as it's

00:28:44   supposed to kind of connect all of this stuff is that out okay hmm I think it's

00:28:53   10.2 that it's in, which isn't out yet,

00:28:58   but I think maybe out like this imminently,

00:29:01   I think maybe this week, but it's already out on Apple TV.

00:29:05   So here it is, you can sign in.

00:29:12   The problem is Apple has apparently, this is bizarre,

00:29:16   again, bizarre TV stuff.

00:29:18   Apple apparently has to make individual deals

00:29:21   with TV providers to connect with this because there is an API or something. And so the question

00:29:28   is, are these contractual issues or are they technical issues? But either way, none of

00:29:33   the major, well, few of the major TV providers in the US, the major satellite providers are

00:29:40   there, which says something about them because satellite providers feel pressure from internet

00:29:46   because they can't really offer high-speed internet. And so all of their customers, if

00:29:51   they've got high speed internet are getting it from somewhere else probably

00:29:54   a competitor and so I think they're inclined to make their their streaming

00:29:58   experience as awesome as possible but in terms like Comcast which I have or

00:30:03   Time Warner Cable these are not these are not there so so like I can't use

00:30:08   single sign-on even now and then what's worse is the apps also need to support

00:30:13   single sign-on they have to be updated to support this feature and only you

00:30:20   know 20 apps have been supported and and there some of them have only been

00:30:24   updated on one of the platforms so like A&E is iOS only and FX now is TV OS only

00:30:32   so it is not all there yet it's a great idea I think it gets me and I guess this

00:30:38   is why I keep thinking that that either Apple just wants everybody to to do what

00:30:44   they want to take their orders or there's something contractually obligated here because

00:30:51   the thing that frustrates me about this is like on my Mac when I try to watch any of

00:30:56   these things it just puts me it'll it just it takes me to a Comcast login page where

00:31:01   I put in my username and password and then it does a redirect with a key that basically

00:31:05   says yes this person is validated and then I'm through on whatever service it is and

00:31:10   I keep thinking to myself, why doesn't Apple just do that in the background? Like, I know

00:31:15   that that's scraping, basically, but you could totally do that and just like, there's a form

00:31:21   submission, oh, Comcast, form submission, get the key, take it over here, put it over

00:31:25   here, boom, we're done. But nope, that's apparently too complicated or too hinky. So instead we

00:31:31   have everybody needs to update their stuff to use our single sign-on system and the answer

00:31:36   is not everybody did it. >> I just, I think I'm just struggling to

00:31:41   get my head around why this is such a feature worth doing anyway.

00:31:46   >> Well, I mean, it's a very Apple approach, right? I mean, the idea is if you, you know,

00:31:54   it goes back to our complaints about getting set up with the Apple TV when the new Apple

00:31:58   TV came out, which is you keep putting in your password and it's frustrating. This solves,

00:32:03   a problem on, at least in the U.S., on TV apps, on Apple TV, is you have a single login

00:32:11   that all of them need to do, to give you access, which is your TV provider login, whether it's

00:32:18   a traditional cable, satellite, or even something like Sling, which is a sort of like an over-the-top,

00:32:25   you know, virtual cable service that just comes over the internet. You have a, you need

00:32:32   that one password and username to get,

00:32:36   activate all of them.

00:32:38   So the very Apple thing to do is to say,

00:32:40   just give it to us and we'll take care of the rest.

00:32:43   And in a perfect world, that is what it should be.

00:32:49   Is like, you should be able to turn on your Apple TV

00:32:51   and it says, hey, hey buddy, it looks like you're on cable.

00:32:56   Why don't we log you in?

00:32:58   And then that'll unlock all the content

00:33:01   that you get on Comcast.

00:33:02   Like, all right, I'll do that.

00:33:04   And it's like, yeah, okay, awesome.

00:33:05   We know who you are and we know you're on Comcast

00:33:09   and here are the apps you can use.

00:33:10   And if you launch them, they show you everything

00:33:13   that you have access to and we're done.

00:33:16   And that would be great because right now the experience is,

00:33:19   oh, let me go get the HBO app.

00:33:20   Let me launch the HBO app.

00:33:22   Oh, now it says I need to get my iPad

00:33:25   and go to a webpage and put in the code I see on screen

00:33:29   and then log into Comcast and now wait a minute and now it works. And then I open up the Showtime

00:33:37   app and it says, "Hey, go get that iPad because now you need to do this here." And so on and

00:33:43   so on for every app that you use. Then you move to the ESPN app and it asks you the same

00:33:48   thing. That's the idea.

00:33:50   Why did they launch this now if they're missing so many providers? Why didn't they just delay

00:33:55   I mean, you know, it's easy to poke fun right now, but they delay AirPods, which is significantly

00:34:02   more important.

00:34:03   I don't know how many people are going to be like desperately waiting for this thing,

00:34:09   and then it launches and they can't use it with the providers anyway, which leaves a

00:34:12   bird kind of like a bad experience where people may never come back to it.

00:34:16   I think it's a couple things.

00:34:17   I think it's Apple wanting to reward the providers that have done the work, because this has

00:34:23   been in the offing for a while.

00:34:24   - And maybe it puts the onus on the people

00:34:26   that haven't done it to do it, right?

00:34:28   'Cause now customer support is gonna go out,

00:34:30   you know, like people are gonna contact like whomever

00:34:33   and just say, "Hey, why haven't you done this?"

00:34:35   kind of thing.

00:34:36   - Yeah, so I think that's it.

00:34:37   I think that's exactly what it is.

00:34:39   It's one, to reward the people who've done it,

00:34:40   and two, to put pressure on the ones who haven't.

00:34:44   - It reminds me of Apple Pay in that way, right?

00:34:46   Like, they didn't really have,

00:34:48   everywhere that Apple Pay's launched,

00:34:50   it hasn't launched with all the providers

00:34:52   that everybody would want,

00:34:53   and I think Apple just push it out there so it puts public kind of pressure on the banks

00:34:57   and the financial institutions to get it supported.

00:35:00   It's a very Apple thing to do it and it's not limited to Apple, but I think this is

00:35:04   a very common way to do it, which is you're trying to get 10 players to play ball with

00:35:09   you and five of them play ball with you and the five who've played ball are like, "Come

00:35:14   on, let's go." And at some point you're like, "Yeah, let's go." And then you name

00:35:20   and shame the ones who aren't playing ball. And maybe they come to the table and maybe

00:35:25   they don't. I just broke that metaphor. Maybe they come to the field to play ball? Yeah.

00:35:31   And maybe they don't, but yeah. They keep their organs inside their body though, Myke.

00:35:37   That's the important thing.

00:35:38   Oh, do we have to keep going back to this?

00:35:42   Sort of a dialysis machine of cable TV. Anyway, yeah.

00:35:48   On the football field.

00:35:49   So that's the story. It is weird, but I think this is Apple's lesson for working with the

00:35:54   entertainment industry in general is, you know, we talk a lot about Apple wanting to

00:35:59   control everything, and boy is that true, and not have to rely on anybody else for anything

00:36:05   they do. And this is a case where they have to rely on all sorts of other people, and

00:36:10   it is one of those reasons why Apple's efforts in TV are not particularly Appley. There are

00:36:17   other, I mean, I'm not going to put it all on their partners, Apple's done all sorts

00:36:21   of non-Appley things with the Apple TV, but this is one of those cases where it's like,

00:36:25   you know, there's no alternative, Apple has to cut deals, Apple has to work with third

00:36:29   parties and they're not necessarily the shiniest and most technically savvy of third parties.

00:36:34   And so we get stuff like this and it's messy and ugly and not very Appley, but Apple wants

00:36:40   to be on, you know, wants to have this product and be in this space and this is the kind

00:36:45   of this is the kind of stuff that ends up happening if they can't, you know, compounded

00:36:50   by the fact that Apple probably has some very particular approaches to their partners and

00:36:55   some and has made some very specific decisions about what's good enough for them and not

00:37:00   good enough for them, which can benefit their products and frequently does, but it can also

00:37:06   lead to problems dealing with other people.

00:37:09   I want to shift gears here a little bit and read you a quote Tim Cook gave to Reuters.

00:37:17   "Our data shows that Apple Watch is doing great and looks to be one of the most popular

00:37:22   holiday gifts this year.

00:37:24   Sales growth is off the charts.

00:37:26   In fact, during the first week of holiday shopping, our sell-through of Apple Watch

00:37:29   was greater than any week in the product's history and as we expected, we're on track

00:37:33   for the best quarter ever for Apple Watch," he said.

00:37:36   Cook did not respond to any requests for specific sales figures for the gadget, Reuters said.

00:37:43   Tim Cook's doing his best Jeff Bezos impression.

00:37:46   Yeah, he really is. Off the charts, I made a new Bezos chart, people can check it out,

00:37:51   we'll put it in the show notes.

00:37:52   I do want to point out that on your chart, the sales stay on the chart?

00:37:57   Well, so somebody called me on that and I did, on Twitter, I did release the earlier

00:38:03   version of the chart where it was off the chart, but what we do is we just update the

00:38:07   chart so then the sales growth is on the charts. But you know, initially it starts off the

00:38:11   charts and then you fix the charts and then it's on the charts again.

00:38:14   Make the chart bigger, right? You're going to make the chart bigger. That's the real

00:38:16   problem. Exactly.

00:38:17   If things keep going off the chart, just make the chart bigger.

00:38:19   But it sounds more fun to say sales growth is off the charts than to say sales growth

00:38:23   was so big that our charts were broken and we had to fix them by making them bigger.

00:38:28   That's not as good. I think there's something kind of cool in

00:38:30   saying like sales growth was so big we had to create a new chart to contain it.

00:38:34   Yeah, that's right. I mean it's less snappy, but uh... Sales growth is so good our charts are

00:38:41   a lot larger now, right? You know, but again, off the charts, it's fun to say I did make a chart

00:38:46   with the fact that things are the best yet and there's no scale because like Jeff Bezos talking

00:38:55   talking about how great Kindle or Amazon Prime or whatever is doing. He likes to show charts

00:39:00   where the numbers start low and they go high, but we don't know what the numbers are. And

00:39:07   you just have our left guess. And with the Apple Watch, because Apple Watch is in "other,"

00:39:13   and so there are lots of estimates and the people who look at the "other revenue" line,

00:39:18   and in that link that we'll put in to six colors, I also did a chart of the "other revenue."

00:39:24   And lots of smart people, including Horace Didieu, have done the kind of like extrapolation

00:39:30   based on this of what, you know, what Apple watch sale should be and based on like changes

00:39:35   in the other revenue line.

00:39:37   And this all came about because IDC, the analyst, which is, yes, was owned by the same people

00:39:47   who owned my company that I used to work at.

00:39:50   Really, like, innovative name and structures there.

00:39:53   - Yeah, yeah, International Data Corp, the analysts,

00:39:58   they, yeah, tell me about it.

00:40:01   Anyway, they said basically,

00:40:03   "Oh, Apple Watch sales are terrible."

00:40:05   And all the analysts who've been looking at this were like,

00:40:08   "No, we don't think that that's actually really accurate."

00:40:11   And then it was enough of a kind of hubbub

00:40:14   that we ended up with a Tim Cook statement to Reuters

00:40:17   saying, "No, actually, they're pretty great."

00:40:19   and we have to take them at their word. But if you look at the other figure, people feel like

00:40:27   the IDC report was wrong. And now we've got Tim Cook on the record as saying,

00:40:33   "It's doing great and we're going to have the best quarter yet." So even though the chart is like,

00:40:39   "Last year it was cool and this year it's better and we don't know what those mean,"

00:40:45   at least that was, you know, that's all we've got to go on is that and extrapolating from the other

00:40:49   revenue line. So like, I know why they do this. I know why Tim does this. I know why they're not

00:40:57   giving figures. I know why he's saying it's better than before. But there is like the logical part of

00:41:01   my brain that's like, why even bother saying it? Like if you're not going to tell us what it means,

00:41:05   or does it mean you sold two this time and you sold one last time? Because it might as well be

00:41:09   that you know? They say it's competitive which I kind of don't buy either. I'm not quite

00:41:15   sure. What does that even mean? I think the reason, I mean look the number one reason

00:41:18   you do it is because you don't you know you don't want to talk about numbers and you don't

00:41:24   want to share them in case you're not you're not happy with the numbers. It's it's but

00:41:29   you know what this goes back to something else public companies have to disclose information

00:41:34   they hate it they don't want to disclose information but they're above a certain level you have

00:41:38   to break out revenue for products. And as long as the Apple TV and the Apple Watch are

00:41:43   below that number, Apple can roll them into "Other" and not talk about them. And they

00:41:48   rolled iPod back into "Other" once it went down below that level. And I think what this

00:41:54   says is, culturally, public corporations are not interested in sharing any information

00:42:01   that they're not forced to by law. Bottom line, I think that's it. And I think, you

00:42:07   know, Jeff Bezos is a little bit like that too, where he can get away with those charts,

00:42:11   and so he does.

00:42:13   It's frustrating. My concern as a watcher of Apple is they're going to start to do this

00:42:20   more and more, try and get away with it like Bezos does, and that I don't like, because

00:42:27   I like to know all the numbers.

00:42:29   Well yeah, we want to know, sure, totally. And it leaves the analyst to guess. The problem

00:42:34   with playing this game is that you have to do what he did, which is when a report comes

00:42:38   out that says, "Wow, Apple's numbers are really bad, but Apple won't give the numbers," then

00:42:43   you're forced to make a statement to Reuters saying, "No, actually, they're very good.

00:42:48   Tim Cook out?" and then go back into the mothership, return the cloaking device back on. But that's

00:42:56   the game you have to play. If you're not going to disclose the numbers, this is what you

00:43:00   have to do. So you can either disclose the numbers or you can't or you have to manage

00:43:05   expectations like this or and and and dribble out little tidbits here and there which you

00:43:11   know we we've been that's one of the reasons I pay attention to those analyst calls is

00:43:15   that there are good little tidbits in there that they will mention and you write it down

00:43:22   and like Horace Deidre has done that for a long time where you know he tracking I think

00:43:26   was tracking iOS activations or something like that and it's like that's

00:43:29   not on any chart but they mention it from time to time and you end up

00:43:35   building a chart that's like they on you know for a long time it was at WWDC

00:43:39   they mentioned it and occasionally they mentioned an analyst call so you have

00:43:42   these charts that are like well in June they said that for this period it was

00:43:46   this and in in September they mentioned that for this other period it was this

00:43:50   and you kind of like from that you try to extrapolate what the numbers might be

00:43:55   be, which is hard, but sometimes that's what we all have to do because they're not

00:44:00   going to share the numbers.

00:44:02   Yeah, and then once you've got them, you know, once you get them every year or every

00:44:06   18 months or something like that, there's iOS activation things, you can draw, you know,

00:44:10   you can draw lines between them, you can make projections on them, you know, that stuff,

00:44:14   it helps inform.

00:44:15   So that's why it is important, you know, the, you know, the jokes, like the more color

00:44:19   jokes, you know, give us more color on that, is actually very useful stuff.

00:44:24   But for whatever reason, Apple decided that this is a product that they're not going to

00:44:29   give information on.

00:44:30   And I don't know, I feel like when they do that, it must give an element of question

00:44:38   to the analysts, right?

00:44:40   Do you not believe in this product enough that you don't want people to know how many

00:44:44   are selling?

00:44:45   Like what, you know, it's got to, it must raise those kinds of questions which probably

00:44:49   put it on the back foot with people like put people on the back foot anyways so that they're

00:44:54   willing and ready to write these articles saying that it must not be selling well right

00:44:58   that's my only thinking around this.

00:45:00   That's part of the game I mean this is the challenge they obviously had this argument

00:45:03   internally and decided that you know let's just it's a brand new product we don't need

00:45:07   to disclose it we don't know how well it's going to do let's let's because the other

00:45:11   side of it would be if they if the numbers were flagging people might start freaking

00:45:15   out and saying oh no why do you keep doing this and you know the shareholders get mad

00:45:19   and all of that, and this lets them kind of build it and grow it in secret and let it

00:45:24   kind of bubble away because they think it's important long-term even though the numbers

00:45:28   in the short term might not look great. You know, I can see both sides of it, but you're

00:45:34   absolutely right. You know, all the benefits you get out of hiding your numbers, there's

00:45:40   the downside of people will then speculate about your numbers, and sometimes they will

00:45:44   speculate badly, and you have to deal with it, and people will wonder why you're hiding

00:45:49   your numbers and you'll have to deal with it. And you know, I agree with you but that

00:45:55   it would be better if they released this stuff but I don't work at Apple and if I worked

00:46:01   at Apple I might have a very different opinion about it. I mean people want to know, people

00:46:07   want to know lots of things. People want to know how many Relay members there are, people

00:46:11   want to know how many Six Colors members there are, people want to know how much money Stephen

00:46:14   Hackett makes from his YouTube channel and you know we don't tell. The reason I don't

00:46:19   do Patreon is because I'm not interested in a system that shows you how many people are

00:46:23   giving me money. Not interested. Right? And so I can see, you know, it's easy to be curious

00:46:30   but if you're the person on the inside you've got lots of reasons to not share that information

00:46:34   but there is always going to be a, you know, a trade-off.

00:46:41   So there's some real time follow up iOS 10.2 is out now.

00:46:44   So the TV app is now out.

00:46:46   As we're recording.

00:46:47   And the TV app for the Apple TV is now out as well via a software update.

00:46:52   So it's all out now.

00:46:54   Enjoy your single sign on everybody.

00:46:56   Enjoy the new emoji more than anything else.

00:46:58   Yeah.

00:46:59   The emoji is so good.

00:47:00   The new ones.

00:47:01   They changed the peach back though.

00:47:03   They changed it and changed it again.

00:47:05   They changed it from like a peach looking thing to something that looks more like a

00:47:09   bottom.

00:47:10   Yeah, because people were using peach to mean butt.

00:47:13   Well, they do anyway, you know.

00:47:15   They changed it from what people consider to look like a butt to look like a peach.

00:47:19   Although I think the one that they changed it to look more like a butt,

00:47:23   but now they've changed it back again.

00:47:24   I think they should prioritize making it look like a peach.

00:47:27   If it also looks like a butt, then that's great too.

00:47:29   This has been Emoji Talk with Myke and Jason. Enjoy.

00:47:31   No, I think it's important to have an emoji that looks kind of like a butt, you know?

00:47:35   Oh, well.

00:47:37   I'm going to link to a Macworld article that explains all about the Peach Butt in case

00:47:41   you're interested.

00:47:42   So there you go.

00:47:43   I'm not, but some people may be.

00:47:46   Some people may be.

00:47:47   There's lots of great, there are lots of great emoji in this update.

00:47:49   So you should go check them out.

00:47:50   There's a lot of agenda stuff, which is fantastic.

00:47:53   There's a lot more professions.

00:47:55   And there's also whiskey and bacon.

00:47:58   Seriously what more could you want from your emoji?

00:48:00   I don't know.

00:48:02   This week's episode is also brought to you by our friends over at Eero.

00:48:06   These days everything in our homes requires an internet connection.

00:48:09   I would tell you right now as somebody who is moving into a new home, I am realising

00:48:15   very quickly how much stuff I have needs to connect to an internet connection because

00:48:19   I have a new internet connection, right?

00:48:20   Like I have a new ISP so I'm reconnecting everything in my house again.

00:48:24   You know you're looking at thermostats, light bulbs, we're looking at getting some like

00:48:28   a lot more smart home stuff here, security cameras, everything and we're looking at using

00:48:33   all these services that take so much bandwidth these days, all these streaming services like

00:48:36   Netflix.

00:48:37   Wi-Fi is the foundation for all of the things in our homes because nobody wants like a million

00:48:41   cables running around their house connecting to all these many, many devices.

00:48:45   And the thing is, Wi-Fi at home is broken.

00:48:49   Connections can be inconsistent, they can be slow, they can be unresponsive.

00:48:52   And to get the best possible connection, you need a distributed system that can provide

00:48:56   you with a connection all over your home.

00:48:57   And this is something that has been so expensive to do in the past.

00:49:00   But with Eero, you can install an enterprise-grade Wi-Fi system in your home in just a few minutes.

00:49:07   This isn't just simple extender technology.

00:49:10   Each of Eero's little devices that they make, each Eero has two radios inside, so it keeps

00:49:14   your connection fast and in sync in your whole home on one network name, which is a really

00:49:20   good thing.

00:49:21   I mean, I know a few people that have tried to do this, and they have multiple networks

00:49:24   at home, which kind of sucks.

00:49:25   Somebody comes to your house and is staying over for a couple of days.

00:49:27   You're like, yeah, you've got to connect to this one here

00:49:29   and this one here and this one, no one wants that.

00:49:31   Eero makes it all simple.

00:49:33   Jason, I believe that your house is set up with Eero's.

00:49:36   - Yeah, I have three here in my little house.

00:49:40   - And how does three work for you?

00:49:42   Like, do you find that since installing the Eero,

00:49:44   you've had a better connection in other places

00:49:46   that you may not have had before?

00:49:48   - Yeah, well, one of the challenges here was always

00:49:50   that the internet comes in at one end of the house,

00:49:55   so the other end of the house would not get

00:49:57   a very good signal.

00:49:58   And so there was always a challenge of like wiring.

00:50:01   I ended up with a wired connection

00:50:02   to sort of a central location in the house,

00:50:05   but even there, it was not, the coverage was not great.

00:50:10   And now I have one in our back bedroom

00:50:14   and one in the center of the house

00:50:16   and then one out here in the garage.

00:50:18   And everything is now covered,

00:50:20   which is one of the nice things about the multiple,

00:50:23   the mesh approach to wifi.

00:50:26   We've spoken in the past weeks about the potential for Apple to be getting out of this game, right?

00:50:31   So there are big companies that said they don't want to do this anymore and you get a company like

00:50:34   Eero comes along who's created a new way to make all of this work and it works. The average house

00:50:40   in the US is easily covered by two or three Eero's like Jason has so you can get a three pack as a

00:50:44   good starting point but if you live in a larger space and you need more you can add up to 10 in

00:50:48   total and because of their 30-day money back guarantee you can always return one or more of

00:50:52   of them if you end up not needing that many.

00:50:54   So say you buy five and you only need four, you just send one back and you'll get a refund

00:50:58   on that, which is awesome.

00:50:59   If you want to find out more about Eero and get one for yourself, just go to Eero.com.

00:51:03   That's E-E-R-O dot com.

00:51:05   And because you listen to this show, you will get free expedited shipping.

00:51:08   You just need to enter the code upgrade at checkout.

00:51:11   Thank you so much to Eero for their support of this show and Relay FM.

00:51:14   I actually spoke with Eero a couple of days ago and I think business is booming for them

00:51:20   right now, which I'm really pleased about because I know it's a good product.

00:51:23   But it was quite funny.

00:51:24   It's like, oh, yeah, I'm not surprised.

00:51:26   I'm not surprised.

00:51:28   All right.

00:51:28   So I mentioned at the top of the show, Jason, that

00:51:31   I am in a completely new arrangement here. I have.

00:51:34   It's something that I'm very stressed out today.

00:51:37   Recording review, not because of you.

00:51:39   If anything, you're calming me down.

00:51:41   But everything is different here.

00:51:43   I tried to turn my iMac on before we started.

00:51:46   I just set it up and

00:51:49   I couldn't log in because my keyboard wasn't working.

00:51:53   Well, you're not an authorized user for that location, obviously.

00:51:56   It would seem so.

00:51:57   I use the Microsoft Sculpt ergonomic keyboard, the one

00:52:01   that Marco uses.

00:52:02   I got it in his recommendation because I

00:52:04   was getting some RSI problems a couple of years ago

00:52:06   and it really helped.

00:52:07   And it just wasn't working.

00:52:08   I have since had Adina go to the local store

00:52:12   and get me some batteries.

00:52:13   Now, the store is only downstairs.

00:52:15   She was very kind to go and do that.

00:52:16   And I've changed the batteries in my keyboard

00:52:18   happy to report that somehow the batteries died in the last two days. I don't know why

00:52:23   that has happened, but those batteries, I've had that keyboard for like two years and it's

00:52:27   the first time I've replaced them. So that's what it is. So I'm going to put a link in

00:52:32   the show notes to a photo that I took of my setup just before we recorded and you will

00:52:36   see that there is a MacBook, a MacBook adorable sitting where the keyboard should be and I'm

00:52:40   currently using the MacBook. This is part of my continued stress of this episode is

00:52:44   I am recording onto a machine I have never recorded a show onto before. So who knows what's gonna happen?

00:52:50   But you can go there and you can take a look at this because the reason I want to talk about this is I tweeted a

00:52:55   Picture of this stuff the other day and I had so many people asking me questions

00:52:58   This reminds me of what happened with you. Oh, yeah people out people love people love asking

00:53:04   What products are using and all of that? They love it. It's also because of because of my work

00:53:10   I used a bunch of really weird things. Yeah, right like boxes and stuff with lights on them

00:53:16   That you may have no idea what they are

00:53:18   You know quite frankly. I don't know half of what I was looking at your picture and thinking like, okay

00:53:26   I think I know what that is, but it goes to this. It looks like it goes to this other thing

00:53:30   I wonder what that is. I was doing the same thing. Absolutely

00:53:34   So you can go look at in the show notes, but I guess I'll start with the base which is the desk

00:53:39   So I am using an IKEA. It's called the Beck ant be EK and T sit stand desk

00:53:45   Am I the corner version because I've always wanted a corner desk. I don't know why I just like the idea of it

00:53:52   Just wrapping around a little bit now

00:53:54   Before anybody writes in to tell me about all of the desks that I should have bought instead of this one

00:53:58   All of the wire cutter top picks are not available to be shipped to the United Kingdom

00:54:05   They are all US based which is a frustration I have with the wire cutter

00:54:09   That they they should I think this should be part of their consideration process

00:54:14   That they should at least offer something they do mention the IKEA desk quite a lot in there in their article about sit-stand desks

00:54:21   because

00:54:24   There are a lot of people that kind of swear by this thing now my thinking was

00:54:28   This was a desk I knew I could buy if it sucks or breaks then I'll get a new one later

00:54:33   But like since you know, I a couple people asked me about the desk some people have got this and say they love it

00:54:38   Some people got this and say that they hate it, which is basically how all conversation on the internet tends to go

00:54:43   Yeah

00:54:44   But my Myke is what I wanted was I wanted a desk that was sit stand a motorized that wasn't gonna cost me a million

00:54:51   Pounds because there are a couple of companies companies use companies that would ship one to me on a boat

00:54:56   I'm not gonna do that. That's that's bonkers. I

00:54:59   I have, so I got one when I was setting up my home office and it was, um, actually Lex

00:55:06   Friedman, our buddy, uh, recommended it and, uh, it was relatively inexpensive. And so

00:55:12   I set it up and it's fine, but I very much had the same approach that you did, which

00:55:18   is if it, you know, if it's not great, I'll get another one. I was like, literally this

00:55:23   was a desk that I bought because I wanted to set up a home office and I hadn't even

00:55:28   gone out on my own yet. Remember, I set up my home office like more than a year before

00:55:32   I left, right? As a work from home and a hedge if I wanted to quit my job. And so I wasn't

00:55:37   going to buy super fancy. Now I have to say, so then my father-in-law saw it. I was like,

00:55:44   "Oh, sit stand adjustable desk. Very interesting. Motorized. Very interesting." And of course,

00:55:50   the next time I visited them in Southern California, he had bought the, I believe, top of the line

00:55:57   wire cutter choice adjustable sit-stand desk. And I will say this, I saw it and how it works

00:56:04   and I was like, "Oh yeah, mine is cheap." Like, his is really, really great. And I think

00:56:11   that from time to time. Like, one of these days, given that this is now my desk 100%

00:56:15   of the time, one of these days I might get, I might splurge for a nicer, bigger, fancier

00:56:21   desk. But the fact is, this thing has served me for whatever, three, four years now. But

00:56:26   But yeah, I'm glad, Wirecutter, I mean the challenge with giving products availability

00:56:32   in different countries is different.

00:56:35   And so like the question is could they do like Wirecutter UK or what?

00:56:40   It's hard.

00:56:41   It's hard.

00:56:42   My feeling is just like have, if you've got an entire content, if you've got an entire

00:56:47   category with like five picks in it and none of them are available outside of the US, just

00:56:52   find one.

00:56:53   Yeah.

00:56:54   - That's a good point. - The international,

00:56:55   the European pic, right?

00:56:57   - Yeah, that's a good point.

00:56:58   - So, 'cause you know, I've seen pictures of these,

00:57:00   and I know how much better they are

00:57:02   than the one that I have.

00:57:03   Like, you know, I've already found something

00:57:05   I don't like about it, like I've got it standing right now,

00:57:07   and everything wobbles a little bit, not a lot,

00:57:10   but more than I would like.

00:57:11   Now I wonder if that's just something

00:57:13   about standing desks in general,

00:57:14   like, or like, coming from, my old desk

00:57:17   was like this huge, heavy glass thing.

00:57:20   - Ah. - You know,

00:57:21   and it didn't have legs, it had glass

00:57:24   that went all the way around the outside.

00:57:26   So that thing was never wobbling

00:57:28   because it didn't have like a central point.

00:57:31   It had like, glass went all the way around the short edges

00:57:36   and into the longer edges.

00:57:37   So it was like super stable.

00:57:39   So I don't know if like,

00:57:40   just because of the way these legs are like,

00:57:42   because they come into the middle, right?

00:57:44   They have like feet and then they have like one pole each

00:57:46   on each side that goes up to the middle

00:57:47   that is making it wobble anyway.

00:57:48   But hey, the thing is, I'm standing right now,

00:57:51   which I've never done.

00:57:52   and we're an hour in and I kinda like it

00:57:55   because when you're talking, I can just go over here, Jason,

00:57:58   and just like walk around a little bit,

00:58:00   which is kind of a nice thing to be able to do

00:58:03   whilst I'm recording.

00:58:04   So that's cool.

00:58:04   I'm happy with the standing desk thing.

00:58:07   - Myke, it's all about the length of your headphone cord.

00:58:10   That's the important thing. - Okay, hang on a second.

00:58:12   - 'Cause I'm also standing right now.

00:58:13   - This is as far as I can go.

00:58:15   - Which is pretty far.

00:58:19   - I can't go very far unless I pick up my USB interface,

00:58:22   but that's a, and mine wiggles a little bit too.

00:58:24   I have my iMac and my microphone on boom arms, right?

00:58:27   So if I stand here holding the desk

00:58:30   and I shake it a little bit, everything wiggles.

00:58:33   - But the thing is, it shouldn't be a problem

00:58:36   because the shock mounts and everything

00:58:38   that I have built in here, you shouldn't hear anything,

00:58:40   but it's just frustrating.

00:58:41   Like I'm talking right now and I have my elbow on the desk

00:58:43   and my microphone is just like bouncing up and down

00:58:46   in front of my face, which is,

00:58:47   I think this is just gonna be the downside of this.

00:58:51   But yeah, so this is like a different thing for me

00:58:54   and it's about like, I've just realized

00:58:56   like how much time I am at my desk

00:59:00   and it's not, I don't spend the whole day at this desk

00:59:03   and I won't spend the whole day at this desk.

00:59:05   Look, I'm getting a sofa for this office

00:59:06   and I'm having a sofa in the front room

00:59:08   where when I'm not recording,

00:59:09   I will probably be there a lot of the time.

00:59:12   But when I am at my desk, when I am recording,

00:59:15   it is hours, right?

00:59:18   Like me and you will probably be on the phone

00:59:21   for about two and a half hours today,

00:59:22   and then I will spend maybe another hour editing

00:59:25   immediately after, and I don't get up, right?

00:59:29   Especially when we're recording,

00:59:31   I'm not leaving the room to go to the bathroom

00:59:34   or get a glass of water, right?

00:59:35   'Cause that would be kind of rude to you.

00:59:37   Like, I'm here, I'm sitting here,

00:59:39   so it's just me thinking that maybe what I would do is

00:59:43   I'm sitting down, I mute my microphone,

00:59:45   I raise the desk, I unmute, you know?

00:59:47   And now I'm standing.

00:59:48   - I started this podcast sitting,

00:59:50   and now I'm standing right during one of the ad breaks,

00:59:53   I think I just muted it and lifted, you know,

00:59:56   it's mechanical, but I put it all the way up

00:59:58   and now I'm standing, it's great.

00:59:59   And that is right, so then you've got a different,

01:00:03   you know, a different feel for,

01:00:04   it breaks up the hours that you're there.

01:00:06   You don't just sit in the desk, it's great.

01:00:09   Get a floor mat if you don't have one, by the way.

01:00:12   - For me to stand on? - Yes.

01:00:15   - Why is, what's good about that?

01:00:16   I see people talking about this.

01:00:18   It is good for your, yeah, it's good for your, the ergonomics of the situation, having, having

01:00:23   something a little squishy to stand on instead of just a hard floor, even if it's, even if it's

01:00:28   carpet, it's, you should get a little mat. I have, I started with like a little, a little like a yoga

01:00:35   mat that I folded over, and now I have, I think, what is the wire cutters choice for a standing

01:00:40   mat, but anything that gives you an anti-fatigue mat, I think they call them, something that,

01:00:47   that you can stand on that's a little bit squishy. Yeah, I have, I think I have their flat mat choice,

01:00:52   or at least it was at one point, but it's good. I have used, I've stood here without it, and

01:00:58   my legs and feet get angry at me much faster than with the squishy one.

01:01:03   All right, I've put the link to that in the show notes, so I'm sure I'll have to look and nothing

01:01:08   will ship here and there. I'm gonna probably get a mat sent.

01:01:12   I'm sure, like I said, at the very least you can get like a yoga mat and fold it over and

01:01:16   stand on it and that would be something.

01:01:19   But this would be one of those things that I could get sent to someone and pick it up.

01:01:22   It's true.

01:01:23   Because it's small, it could fit in a suitcase.

01:01:25   I don't know, mine wouldn't fit in a suitcase.

01:01:27   Interesting, interesting.

01:01:28   Yeah, I'm seeing a lot of them, they're like these big huge plastic things.

01:01:32   Interesting, I'll take a look.

01:01:33   See, I would want something that wouldn't interrupt the chair.

01:01:36   Right, well, yeah, I have to roll my chair out of the way and drop it down and then pick

01:01:40   it up and roll my chair back in.

01:01:42   That works, that works.

01:01:43   I'm sure I can work.

01:01:44   Right, so.

01:01:45   What else?

01:01:46   question that I got was, "What are the boxes?" Right? And I have lots of little boxes on

01:01:52   my desk. So you take a look. I'm gonna go from this image from the right to the left

01:01:56   because it's less exciting on the right.

01:01:59   Okay, let me stop you then because I think it is it is it oh maybe it's maybe it's in

01:02:04   one this is a different picture than the one that I saw on Twitter but it is so you have

01:02:09   a headphone amp on this desk right? Yeah. I'm gonna go from far right. Okay. I played this

01:02:15   game too and I got that one right at least. Alright, let's do it. Right to left.

01:02:18   So far right is two USB hard drives that I have connected to my Mac all the time

01:02:24   via the... Currently the... Okay, just so you know, the cable management is not done

01:02:29   yet. I literally took all of this out of box ten minutes before I recorded and put

01:02:32   it on the desk. So I have just two USB hard drives. One is what I just call

01:02:38   cold storage. I just put stuff on it, like there's not really any organization to

01:02:42   I just put things on it. It could be like video files TV series that kind of things like a terabyte or something

01:02:48   And that it's like it's like storage. I never even think of it's just always connected. The other drive is my time machine drive

01:02:55   So I just have that just sitting there and the time machine

01:02:59   Drive, I think both of them are spinning disks actually

01:03:03   It was funny because I plugged this in before

01:03:06   Plugging in the power to my USB hub and the time and the spinning one of the spin just drives was very unhappy about that

01:03:12   It was making a clicking sound which I've not heard before which could be a problem. Not good

01:03:17   I'm gonna do and we'll do some just utility work on that afterwards. I mean, it's not an important drive, right?

01:03:22   It's just like what time machine goes on to I can just get a new drive and just rebuild time machine again

01:03:26   It's not it's not a huge problem. Plus now I can use online backup. So hip hip hooray. I

01:03:31   Cannot wait to get this thing running on backblaze where I guess I've just not been able to use it because of my internet connection

01:03:37   So I'm very excited to start doing online backup here

01:03:41   So if we move in now we have my headphone app.

01:03:44   This is by a company.

01:03:48   The company's name is Shita.

01:03:51   Now Marco takes liberties with this.

01:03:54   Because it's S-C-H-I-I-T.

01:03:56   Now I went on their website and it's very funny actually.

01:04:01   The homepage of their website it says, "Yes, this is the name of our company."

01:04:08   This is how it's spelt, but it's actually pronounced "sh-e-tah", not like the naughty

01:04:15   word which I will not say.

01:04:18   So this is a product called the Magni 2.

01:04:21   And all this is is a headphone amp.

01:04:23   Now the reason that I use a headphone amp is because the USB audio interface that I

01:04:27   use, which is the box with all the lights on it, the black box that sits underneath

01:04:31   the iMac, that's called the USB Pre 2.

01:04:34   Now this is what my microphone plugs into, and then I can adjust some levels, and then

01:04:38   I can, because my microphone plugs in by XLR, it's not a USB microphone, and then I take

01:04:43   the USB cable and plug that into my Mac so I can record from it.

01:04:46   Now the sound that comes out of the USB Pre 2, I find to have quite a bit of interference

01:04:52   to it.

01:04:53   So I use the, the, the Magni 2, the Shita Magni 2 as a way to give me clear sound, which

01:05:01   I've, I've found it very frustrating.

01:05:04   I was getting a lot of interference coming straight out of the USB Pre 2.

01:05:07   I don't know if you have this problem, but I have real bad problems.

01:05:11   I've known some people that do and some people that don't, but just plugging the headphones

01:05:14   straight in would either give a low whine or GSM signals would interfere with it.

01:05:20   It was very frustrating.

01:05:22   So I used the headphone app for that.

01:05:24   So, just before we move on, because I want to stop, this is some real-time follow-up

01:05:28   from me, which is, as far as I can tell, that pronunciation on their website is a joke,

01:05:34   and it really is just a pun.

01:05:35   Okay.

01:05:36   or not even a pun, it's just that they thought it would be really funny to say

01:05:41   we, you know, we make a lot of really good sheet ta.

01:05:45   So you were phished in by that and it's a joke but we're still not going to say the word

01:05:50   because we don't want to bleep it out.

01:05:51   Thank you for the real-time follow-up on that. I just read the first line on their website

01:05:55   and was like, "Great, that's what I was saying on the show."

01:05:57   No, that's their story that they tell and then they go, "Nope, actually, nope, it's not.

01:06:02   They just thought it would be funny."

01:06:04   but I still don't want to say it.

01:06:06   - Nope.

01:06:06   - So Marco does not take liberties.

01:06:08   He does what you're supposed to do,

01:06:10   but I still want to say it.

01:06:11   - You gotta find a bleep sound

01:06:13   and you gotta drop it in every time you say it

01:06:15   and it's not worth it.

01:06:16   - I'm just not gonna do it.

01:06:18   Then, yeah, I already mentioned the USB Pre 2.

01:06:21   I do not recommend this because it's so expensive.

01:06:24   - Right.

01:06:25   Yes, agreed.

01:06:27   - The headphone amp is like $90.

01:06:29   If you want a headphone amp, if you want more control,

01:06:30   you want better sound, go for it, it's great.

01:06:32   It's great for what it does

01:06:33   and this thing's built like a tank.

01:06:35   The USB Pre 2, I'm a big fan of Casey Neistat

01:06:40   and there's a video on Casey Neistat's vlog,

01:06:44   I will not be able to find this because it's like 600 videos

01:06:47   where he talks about his gear philosophy.

01:06:49   And one of the things he says is like,

01:06:52   you start off with terrible equipment

01:06:54   and then you pay a little bit more money

01:06:56   and your quality is like doubled or tripled

01:06:59   by spending a little bit more money.

01:07:01   But after that, like after the first few times that you upgrade,

01:07:05   it becomes you spend more and more money for just tinier

01:07:10   and tinier increases in quality.

01:07:12   But it comes to a certain point where like you,

01:07:16   after creating something for so long or doing something for so long,

01:07:19   you desire that quality and then you have the means to pay for it.

01:07:23   But it's not necessary if you're starting out, right? So this is,

01:07:27   this is my philosophy with USB Pre 2.0.

01:07:30   This thing is way, way more money than you need.

01:07:34   Like frankly, XLR microphones completely is way more than most people need.

01:07:40   But I have found a setup now that gives me exactly what I want, which is I sound in

01:07:49   podcasts as I do to myself in my ears.

01:07:53   And that is because I have spent a stupid amount of money.

01:07:57   You'll be able to go and look up how much money all this stuff costs.

01:07:59   But this is what I do for a living.

01:08:01   I've had this stuff for

01:08:03   a year to a year and a half.

01:08:07   And I don't think I will replace it for like five years.

01:08:09   Like I have no I'm at the point now where like I found the perfect equipment.

01:08:14   And to be honest, the equipment that I found before I thought was the perfect equipment.

01:08:17   And I had that for like four years.

01:08:18   It's like, you know, I don't change this stuff out very frequently, but I found stuff that really, really works for me.

01:08:25   So that's my feeling is like if you're doing this stuff,

01:08:28   you want some lower cost interfaces or you want a USB microphone.

01:08:33   Now I will include a link in the show notes to, uh,

01:08:36   something that Jason put together for low cost USB audio interfaces. Like I have,

01:08:40   um, the Tascam two by two, which is something that you've put in here,

01:08:43   which I use for like on the go and for small stuff.

01:08:47   It does a perfect job, but I just really like the fact that the,

01:08:52   the USB pre two, which is the one that I use,

01:08:55   It just gives me that little bit more like I can just do some weird stuff with that

01:09:00   Which in a pinch is great. Like it has all these little switches that you can flip and you can yes

01:09:06   Basically, it's like I have something that will let that will grow with me and I won't be constrained by it

01:09:12   You know like the two by two like it gets really crazy if you try and talk to anybody over Skype

01:09:17   Right, like you couldn't do local recordings a bit perfect like two microphones

01:09:21   But there's no way to get that those two microphones in Skype with the USB pre you can make it work

01:09:26   Right and and that's kind of like the feeling that I want and what I'm looking for

01:09:31   With this stuff and so it is more expensive than you need

01:09:34   I don't recommend that anybody goes and buys what I have

01:09:38   but if you've been doing this stuff for years and maybe you're already using an XLR microphone and

01:09:42   You and you make some money doing this audio work in some way

01:09:46   Then I recommend the USB pre to to you because I have had

01:09:49   Literally zero problems with this thing since I bought it and I couldn't be happier with it, but I don't recommend

01:09:55   Yeah, yeah, I have the same problem where people are like, what do you use for this? It's like yeah, but I don't recommend

01:10:02   what I use to the the regular person off the street because it's I

01:10:07   decided a couple years ago that I was doing this enough as my

01:10:11   part of my livelihood that I was going to buy a really nice microphone and a really nice USB interface and thanks

01:10:17   Marco ruins us all

01:10:19   Funny that guy makes makes other people spend money, but and I'm very happy with it, but I'd never recommend it

01:10:25   So so I don't know if I mentioned this before I've mentioned it now

01:10:29   So the the the the headphone amp that I'm using the headphones I'm using which haven't spoken about and the microphone

01:10:34   I bought those all whilst in Marco Ammann's house

01:10:37   Because he sat me down his computer

01:10:41   I was like, "Talk into that, listen to these."

01:10:43   And I was like, "Well, I'm gonna have to buy all this stuff."

01:10:45   - I can't go to that house.

01:10:46   I don't have enough money to go to that house, no.

01:10:47   - Don't go, don't go.

01:10:48   I mean, we saved money by not staying in the city,

01:10:51   and then I spent all that money on audio equipment.

01:10:54   So also in the show notes are some lower cost microphone

01:10:58   options that Jason has found.

01:10:59   You've done some really good stuff with this,

01:11:00   so it's good that we can put that in there.

01:11:01   Like if you're interested in this stuff,

01:11:03   maybe you wanna start or you wanna upgrade a little bit

01:11:05   from what you're currently using, ding,

01:11:07   then Jason's put together some great resources for that.

01:11:10   So let me talk about my, the little blue box that sits on the right hand side, on the left

01:11:15   hand side.

01:11:16   - Yay.

01:11:17   - That is a Roles Mute Switch.

01:11:19   Now there are not many XLR Mute Switches that work really well.

01:11:23   This one is called the Roles, it's this little blue thing.

01:11:25   I couldn't get it here, so Jason got one for me, and when I saw you in August, you gave

01:11:29   it to me.

01:11:30   - Yeah.

01:11:31   - And it's fine.

01:11:32   I mean, it's just built like a tank, and it just has a big button on it.

01:11:36   - It's a big piece of metal with a button on it.

01:11:38   - Yeah, it's perfect.

01:11:40   But it does, and it's got two modes.

01:11:42   It's got the mode where your mic is muted

01:11:44   when you hold it down and then you let go when it comes up,

01:11:46   or it's got a toggle, which is how I use it,

01:11:49   because I will have, on many panel podcasts

01:11:53   and things like that, I'll have an extended period of time

01:11:55   that I'm not talking, so I can mute it and walk away

01:11:59   and then come back.

01:12:00   And yeah, it's not the most exciting piece of hardware

01:12:05   in the world, but I love it.

01:12:07   I'm very happy to have a hardware mute switch.

01:12:09   My Blue Yeti microphone that I used to use had a mute switch right on it.

01:12:13   I'm not one of those like, "Oh, you just muted using a keyboard shortcut."

01:12:17   And it's like, "No, I like having the physical button."

01:12:18   I want to mute it everywhere.

01:12:19   Yeah, yeah, exactly right.

01:12:21   Because that's the thing is you can mute in Skype, but it's not actually muting your recording

01:12:24   somewhere else.

01:12:25   So yeah, exactly.

01:12:26   And because we do record to multiple places, I don't want to have to forget about that.

01:12:32   And for a while, I had no mute switch.

01:12:35   I just couldn't get one, and it was really, really annoying.

01:12:38   I very rarely use it, but I've used it a couple of times in this episode already.

01:12:42   Because there's so much stuff going on.

01:12:44   So this is a great little thing.

01:12:46   Now my microphone, again, this is a microphone I recommend to nobody.

01:12:50   It is the Neumann KMS 105.

01:12:55   By far and away the best microphone I've ever used.

01:12:57   Like flat out the best microphone I've ever used.

01:13:00   I think Marco uses this one or has used this one, but it's not in his review because it's

01:13:07   so expensive for what you get. Now I was very lucky to find a slightly used one on eBay

01:13:14   for like three quarters of the price, which I was very happy about. Somebody in the UK

01:13:19   has got a few dings on the case, but it works perfectly fine. This is, this microphone gives

01:13:25   the cleanest sound that I've ever used and it does a really good job of not picking up

01:13:31   background noise. Like there is so much noise and echo around me right now and if you think

01:13:37   the show doesn't sound as good as normal.

01:13:39   You have no idea how it would sound

01:13:41   if I was using something else.

01:13:43   This microphone is absolutely fantastic and I love it.

01:13:47   The one thing I don't like about it

01:13:48   is it looks like a microphone for singing.

01:13:52   Like it's that kind of shape and I don't like that.

01:13:56   I want my microphones to look like broadcast microphones.

01:13:59   Like I've used the Heil PR40 for so long.

01:14:02   - And it looks like you're at a radio station.

01:14:04   Yeah, well I've got the Shure SM7B

01:14:06   which also looks like that.

01:14:08   - But this doesn't.

01:14:10   And I've often thought there must be like cases

01:14:12   that somebody must have made.

01:14:14   Do you know what I want, Jason?

01:14:15   I want that like big silver microphone,

01:14:18   you know, like with the slats in it.

01:14:19   - Yeah.

01:14:20   - You know, like the really old timey one.

01:14:21   I want something like that to put over the top of this thing.

01:14:25   But anyway, it doesn't matter,

01:14:27   but it's just my one little nitpick,

01:14:28   which is not important in any way.

01:14:29   - No, I feel that same way.

01:14:30   I might be able to get better sound,

01:14:33   or at least as good a sound

01:14:34   with one of the other mics that I've got,

01:14:37   that I use when I'm doing remote recording

01:14:39   or adding a microphone here.

01:14:41   The sound might be as good or better

01:14:45   with those other microphones,

01:14:46   but it would look like a microphone

01:14:51   and a mic stand from a rock show in a shock mount

01:14:54   with a thing dropped down in front of it as a pop filter.

01:14:58   And instead I've got,

01:15:00   my microphone has all of that built into it,

01:15:02   so I just have a microphone here

01:15:04   and it looks a lot nicer.

01:15:06   If it sounded worse, appreciably worse, I guess,

01:15:08   I would change, but I'm still happy with mine.

01:15:11   - So there is, oh actually the microphone that I'm using,

01:15:17   Marco has added it to his thing now,

01:15:19   and he puts it at number two because of the price.

01:15:22   - Because of the price, yeah.

01:15:23   - Yeah, so that when, I think when I got it,

01:15:25   it wasn't in there, but it was updated,

01:15:28   oh, in September 2015, so maybe it was,

01:15:31   maybe I don't know what I'm talking about.

01:15:33   But what I would recommend to people is Marco's number one pick, which is the Shure Beta 87A

01:15:40   and also the 58, is it the 58A?

01:15:42   Yeah, Beta 58A is a lot cheaper than the 87 and I think it sounds great.

01:15:48   That's my travel microphone for my live stuff is a bunch of the Beta 58As.

01:15:53   But if you're just buying a microphone, it's the Audio-Technica ATR2100 USB because it's

01:16:00   It's cheap and it's good and it does USB and it does XLR.

01:16:04   So that's my number one.

01:16:06   I'm going to put a link to Marco's mega review of microphones because you can go and listen

01:16:10   to the samples.

01:16:11   But I actually recorded analog this week on a beta 58A because it was part of, well I'd

01:16:18   already packed up all this equipment.

01:16:20   And when I was editing it I was like, "Do you know what?

01:16:22   This sounds close enough.

01:16:23   I can hear the differences.

01:16:24   I don't know if other people would.

01:16:27   But this microphone that I use is, this is my tool.

01:16:31   This is the tool of my trade, is this microphone.

01:16:33   So I'm the one that does the best job for me.

01:16:36   I use a boom arm, so that's the thing that comes in from the right hand side and suspends

01:16:40   the microphone.

01:16:41   I use one by a company called K&M.

01:16:44   Again, I use this one, it was recommended to me by Marco.

01:16:50   I like this one a lot because it has an XLR cable built into it, as opposed to trying

01:16:56   The one I had before I was wrapping a cable around it and kind of strapping it on

01:17:00   But in this one the cable is built into the stand like into into the arm

01:17:04   So out one side a plug microphone and out the other side is a cable that I can take and plug in

01:17:09   To my interface. I really like that that makes it a lot simpler

01:17:14   So that's really good. And then my headphones are the bare dynamic DT 770

01:17:21   I

01:17:23   I just really like these headphones. They're super comfortable. I don't like the cable. It's like a straight cable

01:17:27   I wish it had a coiled cable

01:17:29   But it has a straight cable and they're just really good

01:17:32   they sound really good with music, but I like them because I can wear them for many many many many hours and

01:17:37   And they're very very comfortable. So yeah, that's that's that's kind of my

01:17:42   Gear, I mean there's a couple of other little things floating around here

01:17:45   Like my Wacom tablet is off to the side because I don't have the iMac set up yet

01:17:49   But that's there you'll see that I've took a trip to dongle town. You can see two dogs on here

01:17:54   And then I course the magic trackpad again

01:17:57   I'll mention is in case people don't know how I do this when I edit and actually when I use my Mac

01:18:02   I'm left-handed. So I use my way compa in my left hand

01:18:06   Where I'm navigating interface and you know making cuts and stuff and then I use my right hand on the trackpad

01:18:11   Which I use for gestures and for panning. I maintain that this is the best way to

01:18:17   especially edit anything and I try and turn people onto this like you don't have to use a tablet but I think

01:18:22   Two-handedness is awesome having a trackpad for gestures and then some other form of input for more fine-tuning editing is great

01:18:29   So yeah, that's that's kind of my feeling on that. But yeah, that that is my equipment. That is my new setup

01:18:36   that's what I'm dealing with here and I

01:18:38   Have obviously had to 5k iMac

01:18:40   Which is the Mac that I usually use rather than the MacBook adorable sitting there

01:18:44   That I'm looking at right now and wondering if it's doing the job that it's supposed to be doing

01:18:48   I do really like this computer a lot. I've been using it more recently and

01:18:52   And I kind of hit upon something Jason why I like this computer

01:18:57   It is the computer closest to the iPad

01:19:00   Yeah, sure. This is so thin

01:19:03   It's so light and it's like the keyboard feels not like a regular keyboard

01:19:07   Really?

01:19:08   I think it reminds me of the iPad when I use it

01:19:11   but I was doing some stuff on it today like I posted cortex today from it from a cafe whilst the flooring was being put in

01:19:16   which is what I was dealing with today and

01:19:18   trying to export from

01:19:21   Final cut like the the YouTube video and trying to encode the mp3

01:19:25   It took a very very very long time

01:19:31   A very long time and I realized why I love my iMac. I really do love this machine

01:19:38   It's not built for that stuff. It will do it, but it's not built for it

01:19:41   I had that same experience when I've traveled with especially with that my 11-inch MacBook Air

01:19:46   where once I got the 5k iMac I got used to the speed of

01:19:51   plugins and

01:19:54   Exporting the file from logic and doing video encoding and then I was doing a podcast production on

01:20:00   from I think from my mom's house in Arizona on my MacBook Air and

01:20:05   Again, I have edited so many podcasts on that thing, but after coming off the 5k iMac

01:20:11   I I was like, oh my god, I it's gonna take five minutes to export this thing

01:20:16   I just said, you know, I I'd forgotten so there it's great. You can take it with you

01:20:20   It doesn't have a lot of power. That's the trade-off

01:20:22   But it's you know, there these are delightfully little laptops. They just don't have the power of that the 5k iMac

01:20:29   So I I have those I have those moments when I'm even now on my iMac

01:20:34   I have those moments where I'm denoising something and I've got the original 5k iMac so it's got the slower

01:20:40   SSD than the the one that's like twice as fast of SSD

01:20:44   The channel to the SSD and I have those moments where I'm like, oh man

01:20:48   Imagine how much faster this would be because it's entirely just hitting the disc. It's like oh well

01:20:54   I'm not gonna buy a new iMac just for a faster disc, but there it is

01:20:57   Yeah, I am I think it took

01:21:02   cluster an hour to make the Final Cut video.

01:21:06   - Yeah, yep.

01:21:09   - Which is like a five or 10 minute thing,

01:21:10   I'm not even kidding, on my iMac.

01:21:13   I'm not surprised, right?

01:21:14   Like I know what I'm getting into with this stuff.

01:21:16   And frankly, like this is the thing,

01:21:19   it wouldn't have been done.

01:21:21   I couldn't have done it.

01:21:23   I couldn't have been at home while they were doing this.

01:21:25   So it may have taken an hour,

01:21:27   but it took an hour and it was done.

01:21:30   Otherwise it wouldn't have been done.

01:21:31   and it would have been many more hours late.

01:21:32   So, you know, this is the thing.

01:21:35   And what I was able to do was just grab this,

01:21:36   I just grabbed it and just walked down to the cafe,

01:21:38   didn't even have a bag with me.

01:21:39   Because this thing is so incredibly small

01:21:41   and so incredibly light,

01:21:42   and it's exactly what I'm looking for.

01:21:44   But it's just realizing what you're losing sometimes.

01:21:49   It's like, okay.

01:21:50   Like, you just put it all into perspective,

01:21:51   but I am still very, very happy with my choice

01:21:56   of getting this over the MacBook Pro.

01:22:00   And that pro would have done it quickly, but it wouldn't have been as easy to carry around.

01:22:04   And that's what I'm looking for.

01:22:05   All right, so do you have any more questions about my setup here?

01:22:08   No, I mean, I identified the audio, the USB audio interface.

01:22:15   I noticed that, the amp for your headphones.

01:22:17   I don't know.

01:22:21   I don't think I mean, I guess my only question is, now at your new place, are you closer

01:22:26   to Dongle Town?

01:22:27   Is the trip to Dongle Town longer or shorter than your old place?

01:22:31   It's a quicker trip to Dongle Town.

01:22:33   Okay, good. Good. That's good.

01:22:34   That was really important for the move.

01:22:37   Looking at the future that we're going into now,

01:22:39   like how far away from Dongle Town.

01:22:41   It's important.

01:22:42   Apple users need to be close to Dongle Town.

01:22:44   All right. Good. That's all. I have no further questions.

01:22:47   This week's episode is brought to you as well by our friends over at Away.

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01:23:34   In the carry-on bag that I have, the compression system includes an integrated laptop or iPad

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01:23:41   But it has like this, I struggle to explain it, but it's not like a sheet but it's like

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01:24:32   They also have a removable washable laundry bag too, which is great. So you're able to just pull this laundry bag out

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01:24:57   If it's powered over USB you're set. So I first heard an ad for the away suitcase on a talk show

01:25:02   Yeah

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01:25:04   Then pursued them to try and get them to sponsor because it was like I think this would be great for our audience and I want

01:25:09   One I won I was gonna buy one

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01:25:37   So I think it's a good I was talking to after I heard this ad

01:25:40   The the way out on ATP. I was talking to Lauren about this because I had that same reaction of like, oh my god

01:25:47   That sounds so great. It really is and she was like, well what you know, how do you make a smart suitcase?

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01:26:01   how many times are you at the airport looking, sitting somewhere stupid because there's an

01:26:05   outlet there, or you have to wait for somebody to finish using the USB charger.

01:26:09   And now you just have it kind of like, you've got it with you and it's a big battery.

01:26:14   So you can do multiple recharges and you know, your carry-on is with you when you're

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01:26:51   with

01:26:58   as

01:27:15   on

01:27:31   the

01:27:46   show is every now and then that code is in use.

01:27:50   Yeah.

01:27:51   It doesn't happen very often, but it does happen because it is a word that many companies

01:27:57   would use.

01:27:58   All right, it is ask upgrade time.

01:28:01   Rajiv wanted to know, "Why do Americans only get 24 hours to watch an iTunes-rented

01:28:08   movie whilst other countries get 48 hours?

01:28:11   And the reason is, is local laws about return periods."

01:28:14   So I remember when the iTunes store started doing rentals, originally it was

01:28:18   like you got 24 hours to watch it.

01:28:20   But I think in the UK, I think we get 72, so you were 48 or 72 hours.

01:28:24   And it's just based upon European Union laws, um, about, uh, the, the time that

01:28:31   you get to watch a movie in.

01:28:32   And I think we get like 30 days to watch it or something.

01:28:34   And then once you start, it's like 48 or 72 hours to complete it.

01:28:37   So it's, it's different, completely different to yours and just all just

01:28:40   based on consumer law and stuff like that.

01:28:45   - As a parent, let me tell you,

01:28:48   24 hour rentals are the worst.

01:28:51   It's a little bit better now,

01:28:53   but when the kids were little or littler,

01:28:57   it was very difficult to get through an entire movie

01:29:01   before we were just exhausted and had to pass out.

01:29:04   There were so many times when there were movies

01:29:06   that I wanted to watch.

01:29:07   I mean, it still happens to a certain degree

01:29:10   where it's not appropriate when our younger kids

01:29:14   are running around.

01:29:16   So you can only watch it when they're in bed

01:29:18   or in some cases like when they're,

01:29:20   we have a very small house,

01:29:22   my son's bedroom is next to the living room,

01:29:25   shares a wall with the living room.

01:29:28   And so it's not just when he goes to bed,

01:29:30   but it's like, and is asleep.

01:29:32   And then you're like, you're picking a movie to watch

01:29:36   and you're like, I can't watch this two hour

01:29:37   20 minute long movie because I'll pass out and you know, there's there's no way it's too late for us to start this movie and

01:29:44   We would choose short movies or we would not rent a movie because we couldn't do it over two nights. It's the worst. I

01:29:50   Just think that it should be like I know it's more complicated

01:29:54   But you get 24 hours to you know to watch it from the start

01:30:00   So let's say you start a movie get halfway through

01:30:01   You get 24 hours in which you can go back to the start and watch it through but other than that

01:30:06   You should just and you could pick up from any point for as long as you want

01:30:09   Right, you should be able to watch the movie the whole way through once whether you pulls it or not

01:30:14   Yeah, I I agree with that

01:30:16   I mean you could argue that that allows you to keep the movie forever because you keep backing it up and things like that and

01:30:20   During your rental period you should be able to back it up to the beginning and start it again or watch it as many

01:30:24   But the fact is it comes from a pay-per-view

01:30:26   System it's using pay-per-view contracts a lot of the time where they had very specific like 24-hour purchase

01:30:33   you know, a 24-hour rental, watch it as much as you like, and then it disappears and all that.

01:30:37   But I agree with you. I'm not sure what is served by having it be a 24-hour window and not a 72-hour window.

01:30:43   I doubt there are very many people who don't get to the end of a movie and rent it a second time the next day, right?

01:30:48   I don't think that happens, but it would be, it's, yeah, it's totally consumer hostile.

01:30:53   I know that Amazon has some. Joe Steele, our buddy in the chat room, mentions that some of their,

01:30:59   Some but not all of their titles do have a longer window and I have rented movies on Amazon for that reason

01:31:04   That I'll see two-day rentals on there and Apple just hasn't gone down that route and it's annoying

01:31:08   Andrew asked now that spark has a desktop client the email client either if you're going to be changing your email workflow setup

01:31:17   so I use air mail on all of my devices and

01:31:21   I really love the power that it has and

01:31:26   It seems to be getting more and more features all the time.

01:31:28   And this is, you know, my email client is the type of app where I want more and more features all the time

01:31:32   because I like for it to get better.

01:31:35   Airmail has bugs. It can be buggy. It can be weird.

01:31:39   But it's being actively developed and they're working on all of those things and the power that it provides me and the flexibility that it

01:31:46   provides me, I'm willing to take for the bugs that it has.

01:31:49   I'm using Gmail and

01:31:52   I use mail plane on the Mac and I'm currently using actually mail dot app

01:31:56   But I I've been looking at the Gmail app too on iOS

01:32:00   I'm I'm keeping an open mind. I really like using mail plane using the Gmail web interface essentially wrapped around a Mac app

01:32:08   It is it works really well for me and how I how I deal with mail. I've really kind of become a

01:32:14   Convert to that after many years of using Apple mail and Eudora before that but I'm gonna keep an open mind

01:32:22   mind because I think either airmail or spark it it goes back Myke to my organizational

01:32:29   system my calendar to-do list my cal it goes back to my calendar to-do list so it could

01:32:40   be part of a larger organizational shift for me in 2017 or or not so I'm gonna keep an

01:32:47   open mind. I do think, and Andrew makes this point in his question, that I can't rely

01:32:54   on anything that doesn't work on the Mac and iOS.

01:32:59   That was one of the reasons I went with AirMail. I'd spoken about how much I liked Spark in

01:33:03   the past, but I couldn't use them completely. I couldn't go all in on it because it didn't

01:33:07   have a Mac app. And all of these applications, they kind of, they do things to your email,

01:33:12   right? They make them look a certain way, they might categorize them in a certain way.

01:33:15   They have special mailboxes they make in your account in order to move things in and then

01:33:20   they move them out again and they notify you and things like that.

01:33:22   You need to be present in that interface in order to get that stuff.

01:33:27   Now even though I use Airmail, I don't use things like snoozing features anymore because

01:33:31   I was bitten so badly when mailbox died.

01:33:33   So I don't use snoozing and I will never use it again because I'm not going to let myself

01:33:38   get into a situation where an app goes away and then all this stuff gets broken.

01:33:42   However, I will not be switching to Spark because I don't know what their business model

01:33:48   is and I don't like that for something like my email application.

01:33:51   Airmail, you pay upfront, Spark is free and they said they were going to have in-app purchases

01:33:56   for like these different categorization features since it launched and they've not done any

01:34:01   of it.

01:34:02   So I question, now I know the company like they have a, you know, Riedel, they make a

01:34:06   bunch of applications that they sell.

01:34:08   So you know, they are a company that makes money, but Spark can't be a profit center

01:34:12   for them right now and until I see something like that I won't even be considering a move.

01:34:17   Because my email application, again, this is coming from somebody who used Mailbox.

01:34:21   Mailbox got bought by Dropbox, Dropbox tried to use it, couldn't make money out of it,

01:34:25   killed it.

01:34:26   My email is too important to me and I want an application that I can rely on and right

01:34:29   now I believe that that application is airmail.

01:34:31   As cool as Spark is, as cool as it looks, I need to know that it's going to be around

01:34:36   and right now I can't see how they're gonna guarantee that other than just saying it and that's not enough.

01:34:42   Yeah, I hear that. I'm not too worried about the snoozing features just because they tend to work by moving things into special mailboxes

01:34:50   and when I stopped using whatever was a mailbox that I don't even... I just moved them out.

01:34:58   But I have 500 messages in my inbox, so that would work for me.

01:35:03   I know.

01:35:04   Jason!

01:35:05   I know.

01:35:06   No, I have six.

01:35:07   Organisational system.

01:35:10   Your system, I can't.

01:35:13   Someone needs to just fly like David Sparks in to just sit with you for like four days.

01:35:19   I might get you that for Christmas.

01:35:20   I might get you a Sparks.

01:35:23   So you can calm down and just deal with you.

01:35:27   Now see how much it costs to hire him for a couple of days.

01:35:31   Nathan wants to know, "Why do you think that there are not more games that use split view

01:35:35   on the iPad. I only know of one and that's threes. And you know what? I thought about

01:35:39   it and said that is a good point. Like threes you can use in split view in the little side

01:35:43   pane. So you can maybe have like a long YouTube video up or something and play threes at the

01:35:46   same time. I've done this. You know, I might be like watching a long video or listening

01:35:51   to a podcast and I have threes open on the side panel. I think there are just not a lot

01:35:55   of games that specifically work. I mean threes works because threes on the iPad, especially

01:36:00   on one of the pro iPads, it's too big. So like threes works on the side panel because

01:36:05   really is an iPhone game any other size screen it kind of is a bit too much so

01:36:09   it works really well but I do wonder why I haven't seen more games that like

01:36:13   specifically take advantage of that because I think that there is something

01:36:16   there. I think most game developers don't think I think most game

01:36:22   developers would like to believe that their game is the center of attention

01:36:25   and that why would anybody be doing something else while they're playing my

01:36:28   game. Good point. And some games that's true maybe some games that's not true I

01:36:34   I mean, if I was playing Words with Friends with somebody who was online at the same time

01:36:39   and we were moving back and forth, right, like, I might want to keep that window open

01:36:43   and do something else rather than switch away and then get-- wait for the notification.

01:36:49   But you know, I think-- I think you could argue that Splitview is really good for moving

01:36:54   between, you know, I'm doing something over here and I'm doing something over there and

01:36:57   they're kind of interrelated, and a game is usually 100% of your focus.

01:37:03   So that's why I think.

01:37:05   Good point.

01:37:06   Ken asked, "On Twitter, Jason recommended using Signal.

01:37:11   Do you think iMessage is just a secure?"

01:37:13   What is Signal?

01:37:14   I don't even know what it is.

01:37:15   Signal is a secure messaging platform.

01:37:18   It's all encrypted end to end.

01:37:20   And that was, we were talking about protecting yourself from government spying basically.

01:37:28   and using Signal was something that is sort of generally thought of as a best practice,

01:37:34   that it's a end-to-end encrypted system that seems trustworthy and doesn't seem to have

01:37:40   been broken and you could use it.

01:37:44   I think iMessage is secure based on what we know of it, other than the fact that there

01:37:50   is some metadata that gets sent to Apple, and so it just depends, right?

01:37:57   Apple is a big target. I think Apple has engineered iMessage very specifically to be end-to-end

01:38:03   encrypted. I would say the problem is that iMessage only works if you've got iOS devices.

01:38:10   So the advantage of using something like Signal is that it also works on Android. I am not

01:38:15   a security expert.

01:38:17   >> Because your text messages won't be encrypted in the same way that your iMessages would

01:38:21   be.

01:38:22   >> Sure, sure, exactly right. Yeah, if you're sending the green bubbles to somebody on Android,

01:38:26   That's not gonna do it, but Signal is cross platform.

01:38:29   I'm not a security expert.

01:38:30   I really am not at all even remotely,

01:38:32   but when I listen to security experts,

01:38:34   that this is one of the things they say is,

01:38:37   use Signal 'cause it's pretty secure.

01:38:41   iOS is actually pretty secure compared to Android.

01:38:43   I think they like Chromebooks at this point

01:38:48   that they're pretty secure.

01:38:49   They're very specific things that are like harder

01:38:52   to subvert, but that's,

01:38:56   That's all I can say about it.

01:38:57   Bill asked, are there any iOS browsers that can spoof a website and make you

01:39:02   think that you're using Internet Explorer?

01:39:04   I wonder why Bill wants to do this.

01:39:05   I see he's testing something.

01:39:06   Check out iCab.

01:39:08   iCab has browser spoofing.

01:39:09   iCab is a incredible in every sense of the word application for iOS.

01:39:15   It is a third party browser that does just crazy things.

01:39:22   like you can do like multiple,

01:39:25   I think I got up to three pane split view in iCab.

01:39:29   Like it gets, it's one of these applications

01:39:33   that's been around forever.

01:39:34   Like it was one of those applications that got like,

01:39:37   has had a history of being like banned from the store

01:39:39   and all that stuff like, you know,

01:39:41   and then making like a big fuss when it was like,

01:39:44   there should be third party browsers and all that stuff.

01:39:46   And iCab has a long history of active development.

01:39:50   It is a good application.

01:39:52   I know Federico uses it for some stuff,

01:39:53   not to browse, but for some interesting things.

01:39:57   I think Fraser spoke about it on an episode of Canvas,

01:40:01   one of their earlier episodes.

01:40:02   So, iCab would be, if any app's gonna do it,

01:40:05   iCab's gonna be the one.

01:40:06   - Yep.

01:40:07   - Myke asked, "What are the pros and cons

01:40:09   of 1Password versus LastPass?

01:40:11   I have 1Password on my phone and iPad,

01:40:14   but have yet to migrate from LastPass.

01:40:16   Is it worth it?"

01:40:17   - Yeah, and the short answer here,

01:40:19   I picked this question because Wirecutter just updated their best password managers

01:40:25   article and we'll put a link in the show notes. They recommend LastPass largely because it's

01:40:32   cheaper and it's more friendly cross-platform. It doesn't work, one password doesn't work on

01:40:42   Chromebooks and does it's got features that are missing on Windows at least at the moment

01:40:48   and it's more expensive. So these are reasons why they picked it. My understanding is that LastPass,

01:40:57   I mean LastPass had a security problem at one point and I think they sync. Doesn't LastPass do

01:41:03   like their own cloud service? I have no idea. I don't know. I mean I sync my

01:41:10   1Password database with Dropbox, so in order to get my passwords you would need to break into

01:41:17   my Dropbox and then break into the encryption of the file inside of my Dropbox.

01:41:24   I do our bits to their own nails with it too, don't they?

01:41:27   Yeah, you can also do that depending on the system that you've got.

01:41:31   So you know, you just gotta shop.

01:41:36   I think in the end, price and compatibility across platforms are the things to look at

01:41:41   first.

01:41:42   Yeah.

01:41:43   I feel better about using my own Dropbox.

01:41:46   through one password. It just makes me feel better. Like there's multiple layers here,

01:41:51   multiple companies, you know, an element of maybe physical access required. Like I like that,

01:41:56   I like that level, those extra layers that it gives me. Don't tell me if it's wrong. I like

01:42:00   what I do. It makes me happy. Please don't tell me that I'm being a bonehead. I don't want to know.

01:42:04   Yeah. And, um, what Wirecutter says about 1Password very specifically is it's got a more polished and

01:42:10   convenient user interface. It's a little faster at most tasks. It's got a local storage option.

01:42:14   if you don't trust the cloud, it gives you more options than Last+

01:42:18   password working with attached files and it can do the one-time token stuff for

01:42:23   two-step verification which you otherwise would have to do in a separate

01:42:27   app. But it is more expensive and less compatible across if you care about

01:42:33   things like Chromebooks or some of their features on Windows.

01:42:37   We've also discovered today that one password is easier to say on a podcast.

01:42:40   yeah so otherwise we're talking about last plus la la la la last last it's a

01:42:47   long-lasting solution yeah this week's episode is we're gonna do Myke at the

01:42:53   movies after this by the way finally yes to home alone which I'm so excited about

01:42:58   but this episode is brought to you by foot cardigan look it is the holiday

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01:43:50   slowly replacing all of my socks over the last year with Foot Cardigan socks. All of

01:43:54   my good socks are packed away right now so I'm wearing non Foot Cardigan socks

01:43:57   today and my feet are just not as comfortable and they don't look as fun

01:44:01   And it makes me very sad when I look down and just see some plain socks and I'm not happy about it

01:44:06   I want my spatula socks and my robot socks on my comic socks

01:44:09   That's what I want today, but I don't have them because they're all being protected and they're being moved. So Myke

01:44:14   Is that your foot cardigan? Oh my did it come what?

01:44:18   Cardigan package right here. I was on the way. What is it? Oh

01:44:21   I don't should I open it right now? Yeah, I want to know what the socks will look like

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01:44:37   What the socks look like this month? Oh

01:44:39   I've got bad news for you Myke. Oh

01:44:42   I'm gonna I I ordered I ordered this

01:44:45   To be put under the tree

01:44:48   because I'm giving them as gifts to to myself and a certain someone and so

01:44:54   It's not you and so it's wrapped. I can't tell you but I'm excited

01:45:00   - Yeah, there's tinsel, it came with tinsel

01:45:01   and a cookie cutter, that's awesome.

01:45:03   - Oh, that's awesome, that's really cool

01:45:05   'cause they're doing like holiday gift subscriptions.

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01:45:22   Look at that, I turned that around, Jason.

01:45:24   - You did, well, I realized the moment

01:45:27   that I started opening it that I bet

01:45:28   was going to be wrapped inside. So yeah, what you're going to do.

01:45:33   Home Alone, one of my very favorite Christmas movies. You just did a great episode of Top

01:45:39   Four where both Marco and Tiff put, you did it with you and Lauren and you did Christmas

01:45:47   movies. Both Marco and Tiff put Home Alone on their Top Four list.

01:45:54   So I'm very interested to find out what you feel about this movie. Before you tell

01:45:57   me in true Myke at the movie style what did you know about this movie before you watched it?

01:46:02   You knew the screaming part because you did that last week don't do it again please.

01:46:07   Everyone will be happy to know if you listen to the end of the last episode and heard Jason scream

01:46:13   I ducked the audio down he was about two times louder than that at the time so please don't do

01:46:19   that again. So here's what I know about it I know that in 1990 when I was 19 years old

01:46:27   I was aware that this was a huge hit that that was the, you could not turn around without bumping into somebody who was talking about Home Alone.

01:46:37   It was, uh, it was, I think it became the highest grossing comedy of all time.

01:46:43   It ran through, uh, Christmas and into January with big word of mouth and, and big box office, even though it was a, you know, a holiday release and released in the middle of November.

01:46:56   the middle of November because it was so successful and so everybody was talking

01:47:00   about it. I felt like by the time I got through college I was probably the only

01:47:06   person on earth who had not seen Home Alone and I just didn't see it. I didn't

01:47:13   exert any effort to go see it and since then I don't think I've really avoided

01:47:18   it as much as well maybe I haven't avoided it like it wasn't on TV and I

01:47:23   I was like, "Oh, Home Alone, I can't watch that.

01:47:25   I gotta keep the streak intact."

01:47:27   But it was one of those things where I started to think,

01:47:29   I'm the only person who hasn't seen Home Alone.

01:47:32   - I do this.

01:47:32   I'm like this for Game of Thrones.

01:47:34   Like, I'm never gonna watch Game of Thrones

01:47:35   'cause I'm happy I don't watch it now.

01:47:36   Like, it's like a badge of honor that I hold for myself.

01:47:39   - Here's a unique thing.

01:47:40   Well, and so this is,

01:47:41   I want you to know what I did for this show is that

01:47:44   it's been 26 years since this movie came out,

01:47:46   and you made me break a 26-year-long streak

01:47:50   of being able to say to people,

01:47:51   "You know, I've never seen Home Alone,"

01:47:52   have them be like, "What? That's impossible!" In fact, Top Four was sort of like my going

01:47:57   away party for that little part of my life because when we recorded that I hadn't seen

01:48:02   Home Alone, but like a couple days later I saw it.

01:48:05   So I should say, what do I know about it? I know that it's a movie where Macaulay Culkin

01:48:11   is at home and burglars are trying to break in and he does terrible things to them in

01:48:17   order to not be taken or attacked or whatever to defend his home from the burglars and I

01:48:25   knew that it was a John Hughes production and that Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern were in

01:48:32   it. That is all I knew about Home Alone.

01:48:34   Okay. You knew most of it, right? Really, like, that's what Home Alone is.

01:48:40   Well, but okay, so here's the thing though. The thing that I think of as Home Alone, and

01:48:46   Maybe this is true. So it was funny watching this with Lauren because for her, this is

01:48:51   an old, an old movie she's seen unknown numbers of times dating back to 1990 when

01:48:56   she probably saw it in the theater when it came out like everybody else in humanity.

01:49:01   So I'm asking questions and making comments about they could have done it this way as

01:49:07   if it's a brand new thing. And she's like, but you're talking about ancient history.

01:49:11   It's it's a little bit like fact checking a Gone with the Wind or something where it's

01:49:14   It's like, yeah, it's kinda too late now for you to be asking these questions.

01:49:20   So I was doing some of that, but the thing that really surprised me is what we think

01:49:23   of as home alone doesn't happen in the movie until an hour and fifteen minutes in.

01:49:29   That's when the assault on the house begins.

01:49:31   Everything before that is, you know, it's set up and there are other little vignettes

01:49:35   and that's the stuff I didn't realize.

01:49:37   I mean I kind of figured that it would start with

01:49:40   like him being left home alone and

01:49:44   be like good luck Kevin and they leave and he's home alone and he has adventures and

01:49:50   Is attacked by these guys and fends them off and all of that, but but no that's not how it's structured at all

01:49:57   There is on that line though that there is a the thing is having seen this movie a bunch of times

01:50:03   There's something that I noticed this time is how little setup there actually is to the point where he gets left

01:50:09   Like that is very quick that point. It's well, okay

01:50:13   so it's the thing is there's a lot that happens between that point and the home invasion part and

01:50:18   Yes arguably that I mean if you if you take away a lot of the cultural significance all of that is is

01:50:24   Interested in important stuff. It's like how this little kid

01:50:27   Tries to live on his own

01:50:29   Right, I can go into the store and all and in theory like if you weigh them all up

01:50:33   They're all like interesting parts on their own

01:50:35   But there is now so much cultural significance around the home invasion section of the movie that it is strange

01:50:40   but like if you take that away because I was trying to watch it in a different way than usual like I was trying to

01:50:45   Pay attention to things

01:50:46   The point at which the movie starts to Macaulay Culkin is on his own is very fast

01:50:51   And it's there isn't much backstory in this movie either which was a surprise really like trying to

01:50:58   outline why this would happen like you very quickly

01:51:01   Realized that like but it's set up that like the whole family hates Kevin. Yeah

01:51:06   Yeah

01:51:07   And there's no reason why for that and I actually think that the movie is better for that because it keeps it

01:51:12   Moving quicker than trying to go into like Kevin McAllister was a boy who was always in trouble at school, you know

01:51:19   They don't really go into any of that

01:51:20   It's just like none of his brothers and sisters like him probably because he's the youngest and the parents seem to be a bit of a trouble

01:51:27   And he doesn't like them too, right? Because he wishes that his family would just go away and leave him alone.

01:51:32   Yeah.

01:51:33   I think it's funny. I agree with you. It happens as it happens as quickly as possible,

01:51:39   but I noticed the great extent they go to to make it like the movie puts in a lot of work to

01:51:47   engineer a scenario

01:51:49   where a kid would be left at home alone for multiple days, a little kid would be left at home alone for multiple days.

01:51:54   Like they try really hard and it feels I gotta be honest

01:51:59   It feels super artificial like it's very clear that they the movie needs to get to its premise

01:52:05   And so you all have to watch for 15 minutes as the movie does its work to get to the premise and I get you

01:52:12   Know, I don't know what a better solution is other than like literally

01:52:15   He wakes up and nobody's at home and we find out at the end that oh we didn't realize you weren't with us

01:52:22   and then we were trapped in France and then I made my way back. Like you could just do that, I guess, but

01:52:27   people, I think they were worried in 1990 that people are going to be wondering like, how could this happen?

01:52:32   And so, and how awful are these parents? So they have to make it that the parents are more frazzled,

01:52:37   they wake up late, there are two vans.

01:52:39   This is at a time, pre-9/11, when you could go to the airport and just kind of like run through the airport.

01:52:47   Yeah.

01:52:47   Which at the time was not, you know, at the time,

01:52:51   There was still airport security, so you know and as a parent you're like counting your kids

01:52:55   But this is a large group the idea is that everybody always

01:52:58   expects that somebody else knows where Kevin is and they're and they're so busy running through security that they're not stopping to count everybody today

01:53:05   To you know post 9/11 security that this would be you know very difficult to pull off

01:53:11   But at the time I think you can just kind of go, but there's a lot of that

01:53:15   There's an awful lot of that that is there and I guess why I get why they do it

01:53:20   But I did have that move that moment of like come on movie. I get it. You want him to be alone

01:53:24   Let's let's just get there

01:53:26   But it needed to do all that work with the you know that kid goes in the van to look around and then comes back out

01:53:32   But they've done the count you know, but it's it's it's over fast

01:53:35   It happens pretty fast

01:53:36   But I was I just noted that they put in a lot of effort to get to the premise because that you know

01:53:43   Really the point was to get to the premise

01:53:45   So a few things that I noticed

01:53:48   The McAllister's are very rich it would seem their house is massive and I don't know why it's not explained

01:53:54   What either of the parents yeah, it's a it's a movie house. It's very nice. It is the suburbs in Chicago

01:54:00   I mean, it's it's it is a very nice house. That's true that there are five children account

01:54:06   These are five children in the McAllister immediate family

01:54:10   There are many more children in this movie, but there there are five Kevin has

01:54:14   two brothers and two sisters

01:54:17   None of the kids look alike at all and the funny thing is

01:54:21   Macaulay Culkin's younger brother is in this movie, but he's a cousin

01:54:25   Yeah, which is hilarious that like they actually use his younger brother, but not as immediate family

01:54:32   But I guess cuz he's younger right there Kevin needed to be the youngest kid in this I wonder if I

01:54:38   Wonder how it ended up working out right like was it was it?

01:54:42   It was at Macaulay or was it there?

01:54:44   I can't remember the other guy's name.

01:54:46   Like I wonder whether they were thinking

01:54:47   who they would go without the two of them.

01:54:50   I think that whilst Macaulay Culkin is young in this movie,

01:54:53   I think he does a really good job of carrying this on his own

01:54:55   which is not an easy thing to do.

01:54:57   Like I don't know how old he is in this movie,

01:54:59   but he's young and he does a really, really good job.

01:55:03   And I think he does a convincing job in a lot of places.

01:55:05   Like you believe that he is Kevin McAllister.

01:55:08   I think it's kind of what ruined his career as well.

01:55:10   Isn't that like, I think he is Kevin McAllister.

01:55:12   - I think he's nine.

01:55:14   - Which is, he did an amazing job as a nine year old

01:55:16   throughout this movie.

01:55:17   - Oh yeah, he carries the movie and he does it quite well.

01:55:22   Yeah, he does a good job, I noticed that,

01:55:23   that he does a very good job.

01:55:26   But it's without him, I don't know if this movie

01:55:31   would be the success that it is,

01:55:33   'cause you need somebody who's capable

01:55:36   and not a complete blank, and he is kind of annoying

01:55:39   at times, but he is a presence and that's good,

01:55:43   'cause you need somebody, you need a strong personality.

01:55:45   And he's supposed to be kind of annoying.

01:55:46   That's why his parents and family are annoyed by him, right?

01:55:49   That's why they leave him behind.

01:55:51   Yeah, it's funny, you talk about spelling some things out

01:55:56   and not spelling other things out.

01:55:58   Joe Pesci is there in a police uniform

01:56:00   at the very beginning and he's not explained.

01:56:03   And I said to Lauren, why--

01:56:04   - How did he even get in the house?

01:56:05   - I said to Lauren, why, oh, I think he just walked in

01:56:07   when the other family was coming in or something.

01:56:09   I said, why is he there?

01:56:11   And she says, just wait.

01:56:12   I'm like, but why is he, did I miss why he's there?

01:56:14   She said, no, just wait.

01:56:15   I'm like, all right.

01:56:16   And then he does the, you know,

01:56:18   we just had some break-ins in the neighborhood

01:56:19   where I'm checking, making sure everybody's around.

01:56:21   If you can keep an eye on your, you know,

01:56:23   your neighbors and all of that.

01:56:24   And it turns out that, yeah, he's casing the joint,

01:56:26   but that was a funny thing where he's not introduced

01:56:29   and he's just sort of like part of the furniture.

01:56:31   And then we see, and he gets his little ding,

01:56:35   gold tooth that is there.

01:56:38   So we can see him.

01:56:40   And yeah, his uncle, Kevin's uncle is mean, and uh, just look what you did, you little jerk, is a line,

01:56:46   and I just wrote down the, uh, "Does he say family suck?" Something like that. I think Kevin says

01:56:52   family suck. So you'd be, you know, you'd be sad if you woke up and didn't have a family.

01:56:56   And then, okay, so let me ask you a question, because I always assume that this movie is a,

01:57:05   You know, it is a an unrealistic story, which is fine. So it's a fantasy on that level

01:57:11   But there's this one scene where he goes to bed

01:57:14   and there and there's this, you know, you'd be sad if you woke up and didn't have a family where like

01:57:20   The the power goes out in the night

01:57:23   And I I started wondering to myself

01:57:27   Is this movie kind of trying to imply that something sort of magical happens here that kevin is? I don't think so

01:57:34   - No, no.

01:57:35   A lot of those movies around this time would do this,

01:57:39   but I actually think what this movie's doing

01:57:41   is magic from a child's perspective,

01:57:45   'cause he believes he wished his family would play.

01:57:49   Right, like he wakes up,

01:57:50   and he doesn't think they've gone to the airport.

01:57:52   He thinks he did this,

01:57:54   and I think the conceit of this movie is

01:57:57   what movies of the '80s and '90s

01:58:00   make children believe they can do, right?

01:58:02   - Yeah, also why would he not go to the police?

01:58:06   Why would he not ask somebody for help?

01:58:08   The answer is--

01:58:08   - Because he thinks he's magic in the way.

01:58:09   - 'Cause he's Anthony from the Twilight Zone

01:58:11   and he sent his family to the cornfield

01:58:13   and so he isn't gonna talk to that.

01:58:15   That's true, there's something about the shot

01:58:18   of the storm blowing in and the power going out

01:58:21   that the way it's shot, maybe the way the music is,

01:58:24   that I thought made it seem a little more magical

01:58:28   than coincidental that led me.

01:58:31   I was like, that's weird.

01:58:32   And then it's never brought up again, but it was, you're right, it's meant to be that he does this.

01:58:36   So they're late to the airport because they can't, and that's where we get the whole rush to O'Hare Airport

01:58:41   and the vans and all of that.

01:58:42   And, you know, again, I don't really think that a scenario like this would be possible,

01:58:50   but they try very hard to get you through it so that you don't hate the parents and you end up with Kevin Home Alone.

01:58:57   There's another element of this which wasn't discovered really in bi-popular culture until many years later, right?

01:59:02   So like that there is a lot of this

01:59:04   It's like very hamfisted and trying to set it up right like the ways in which this would happen

01:59:08   I agree with that like the tree falling and making the power go out

01:59:11   Sets up a lot of like why no one can call Kevin on the phone. Yes. Oh, yeah

01:59:16   It's very you can see the plot machinations going on on the screen, right?

01:59:20   Which is this is all about setting up his isolation. There's one more element of this

01:59:24   So, you know when he knocks the milk over onto the pizza and it goes onto the trip onto the tickets, right?

01:59:28   This was discovered like in popular culture many years later with the blueberry production of this movie

01:59:34   So the the milk is knocked over it goes on to a train ticket like the plane tickets

01:59:38   The dad tries to clean it all up and he throws a bunch of tissue into the trash and they actually show a shot in front

01:59:42   Tissue into the trash in the trash is one plane ticket. Ah

01:59:46   So which is why they didn't have an extra plane ticket for Kevin exactly and it's like

01:59:51   never considered like it was in the movie never made a thing of but nobody really noticed it because it was that you would have had to

01:59:57   Seen it. It's really hard to see but like I remember this just like a few years ago

02:00:00   I was like became a thing of popular culture

02:00:02   So this is one of the ways they tried to set up like and and the thing is I I can agree to a point

02:00:07   They go to a really like they go to a really far extreme

02:00:10   But the thing is what I actually quite like about this movie is that it is thought through in that way

02:00:15   Oh, yeah, you know like it's like these are the ways

02:00:18   oh, it's very engineered and I can feel that and you know, I don't I don't love it

02:00:23   but I appreciate why they had to do it which is they had to engineer it so that

02:00:26   how would this perfect situation happen? Why don't kids get left home alone all the time?

02:00:33   It's like well all these things had to happen for it to happen this one time and that's what

02:00:38   we have here but you don't hate the parents because they were just frazzled and they didn't

02:00:42   realize and they thought the other one had it and I've seen that as as I think mentioned on

02:00:47   On the top four episode, Lauren's parents left her sister at a gas station at one point

02:00:53   and had to turn around and go back.

02:00:56   So it happens.

02:00:57   I do really like, going back a step, I really like the idea that it is meant to play like

02:01:04   Kevin believes he did this because it changes the tone of the movie.

02:01:07   Yeah.

02:01:08   If Kevin believes that they just went without him, it makes an angry child, not a happy

02:01:14   child.

02:01:15   You know, he thinks he got what he want rather than, "Oh, they forgot about me."

02:01:19   There's one moment that I really like in this movie as well, which it plays to the

02:01:24   realism part that I like when he's looking through Buzz's room and he's like destroying

02:01:27   everything and he picks up a copy of Playboy and he opens the covers and he goes, "No

02:01:32   clothes on anyone. Sickening." And throws it behind his head.

02:01:35   Yeah.

02:01:36   That's what nine-year-old boys think.

02:01:37   Right?

02:01:38   I think it would have been really easy to have him be like, "Waka waka." Like, you

02:01:41   Like, you know, that just seems like the thing you do for laughs, right?

02:01:45   The nine-year-old boy finds Playboy for the same time, but they actually go realistic,

02:01:48   which is like, no nine-year-old boy wants to look in Playboy.

02:01:52   Like it's just not a thing.

02:01:53   And I just think it's really funny.

02:01:55   Yeah.

02:01:56   No, I agree.

02:01:57   I agree.

02:01:58   So he like watches, he made his family disappear, he's watching Miracle on 34th Street, and

02:02:03   oh, and he watches a gangster movie.

02:02:08   The movie of an anime.

02:02:09   Is that to great effect?

02:02:10   a filthy animal, right? That one. That's right. That's right. Exactly right. That's the line.

02:02:16   And then it's revealed that Joe Pesci is actually a burglar. And they then try and burgle the house

02:02:23   and it fails because Kevin kind of becomes wise to it. He's scared but he turns the lights on and

02:02:27   he kind of blocks them out. As well, during this point, something we skipped over is the

02:02:31   McAllister family have realized when on the plane that Kevin's not there. They've realized that.

02:02:36   and then they they arrive in Paris they go into Paris for the holiday season and

02:02:41   then the whole thing starts of them trying to get in contact with the police

02:02:44   who they get through to the most apathetic police department in the world

02:02:48   who sends an officer knocks on the door nobody answers and he's just like oh

02:02:51   well it's useless and then leaves and then the police are exited from the

02:02:55   movies yeah that's the end until the very end right yeah they that's it we

02:03:00   checked the and although I like the way that's constructed where then the mom

02:03:05   Catherine O'Hara, great from SCTV, right, says, "Oh, I called the, I called the

02:03:13   police, they're gonna check on Kevin." And I'm like, "Great, job done."

02:03:16   I was like, "No, no, not job done, no." So then she waits in the airport and then there's

02:03:21   like many ways in which she tries to get home and we'll pause that for a bit and

02:03:25   we'll come back to that later when she actually does find her route. But then it

02:03:28   goes into like Kevin trying to live his life and it just produces one of my

02:03:32   favorite lines from the whole movie when he's in the store and he says, "It's this

02:03:35   toothbrush approved by the American Dental Association. He asks the lady. It's

02:03:39   hilarious. It's hilarious. Because she has no way, she's like, "I don't know." But it's like he's seen it on TV,

02:03:45   right? Like he's seen it on an ad. And I love that line so much.

02:03:50   It's, um, I really enjoy the scene where he's checking out and the checkout lady

02:03:56   says, because that one he just leaves and they chase him and he runs away and... Yeah.

02:04:00   Because he gets scared of the guy with the shovel. Yeah, right, the guy with the

02:04:04   shovel, which we'll come back to. But I like the later scene where he goes shopping and

02:04:10   he's actually buying the stuff that he needs at the supermarket and the lady says, "Is

02:04:14   your mom here?" And he says, "Well, of course she is. Why, who would let a..."

02:04:19   Who would leave a kid on him at Christmas?

02:04:21   Yeah, who would do that? And they're like, "Well, where is she? Oh, she's out in the

02:04:25   car," whatever he says. And I just really love that he's got his sort of wacky confidence

02:04:32   there of like, "Well, of course I'm not here alone. Yeah." I thought that scene was really

02:04:38   funny. That was really good. He was a pizza at one point too.

02:04:42   Yeah, he was in the mob movie. Yeah, that was funny.

02:04:47   This is kind of the point where the movie starts to turn and Kevin wants his family

02:04:50   back now. Like he's sad, he wants them to come back. And then also at this point, this

02:04:55   is when Mrs. McAllister, she bumps into John Candy, who is a staple of my childhood.

02:05:02   So yeah, we got a real SCTV reunion here, Catherine O'Hara and John Candy together.

02:05:06   They were both on SCTV, Sketch Comedy Show, Canadian Sketch Comedy Show.

02:05:10   I'm pleased you elaborated on that because I have no idea what you're talking about.

02:05:14   SCTV is a classic sketch comedy show, kind of like Saturday Night Live, but different

02:05:20   with a different cast and it was made in Canada and it's a bunch of great performers who you

02:05:26   would know from that.

02:05:28   know about Bob and Doug McKenzie that whole bit? Strange Brew? Do you know anything about

02:05:33   any of that? No idea what you're talking about. No? Okay. Well, anyway, it all came out of

02:05:35   SCTV. Rick Moranis actually was also an SCTV guy. So there's two SCTV cast members here,

02:05:43   which is great. And John Candy. It's great to see John Candy. Also in Planes, Trains

02:05:50   and Automobiles, another John Hughes movie. And it's hilarious because she's at the airport

02:05:57   in New Jersey somewhere trying to get back to Chicago and John Candy has a bunch of guys

02:06:03   wearing yellow outfits that are a polka band and they're driving to Wisconsin so they can

02:06:09   stop off on the way in Chicago, which it is on the way, and so he offers her a ride and

02:06:16   they take a ride in the polka truck.

02:06:18   The Polka King in the Midwest.

02:06:20   Polka polka polka.

02:06:21   so weird and funny and their initial scene at the airport is funny where he's trying

02:06:29   to have kind of an inappropriate, not in a bad way, but in a like, perhaps the small

02:06:34   talk is not appropriate with a lady who's terrified that she's left her son home alone

02:06:38   and finally he's all very sunny about it and then he's like, "Oh, oh yeah, right. Anyway,

02:06:43   we got a truck and we're going to Chicago so we can take you." And then there's a scene

02:06:46   where they're playing polka music in the back of a delivery truck. It's hilarious and weird

02:06:53   and delightful.

02:06:56   Then we find out that the scary shovel guy isn't scary and he's just sad, right? There's

02:07:01   like a scene where like Kevin talks to him and this is like the redeeming moment and

02:07:06   Kevin's like "I have to protect the house" because he knows that the burgles are coming

02:07:09   and this is when he starts to run home, right?

02:07:12   I love that scene where he goes into the church and he meets the salt man, right? The shovel

02:07:16   man. And he tells a sad story about how that's his granddaughter singing, but he doesn't

02:07:24   get to see her because he and his son had a falling out and he's afraid. And Kevin says,

02:07:29   you know, grownups shouldn't be afraid of anything. And he's like, yeah, well, which

02:07:32   also is good because it makes Kevin realize that the burglars can be afraid of things

02:07:36   too, right? That carries onward. But I really love the moment where he asks Kevin if he's

02:07:44   been good and Kevin's like oh yeah yeah I've been very good and he's like well

02:07:48   no I haven't been and that made me laugh a lot where he was like no not really

02:07:54   actually I'm gonna moment of introspection here no actually I am NOT

02:07:58   I have not been good it was that was great and then so that's a that's a

02:08:02   really nice scene that sets up something with the shovel man later but at that

02:08:06   point we are in we have reached an hour and 15 minutes it is time for the

02:08:12   construction of traps for Daniel Stern and Joe Pesci to fall into.

02:08:18   Now Jason, I've done something special. I can tell you that I've done this. I catalogued

02:08:25   every injury that is undertaken by the home invaders and I've listed them out for you.

02:08:33   Would you like to hear them? Yes, let me know.

02:08:36   This is all of the injuries sustained by the character Harry, played by Joe Pesci. He gets

02:08:42   So BB Gunton, this is in chronological order, BB Gunton and the Nether regions, he slips

02:08:46   on ice down to concrete, he slips down stairs which are iced and falls down the stairs.

02:08:52   He receives a severe burn on his head from, on his hand, sorry, from a door handle which

02:08:58   leaves the imprint of the M into his hand, the McCallister M. He then receives a flame

02:09:02   furrow to the head.

02:09:04   He then is covered in glue and feathers.

02:09:06   He slips on toy cars to a wooden floor.

02:09:08   He receives a paint can to the face.

02:09:10   He trips on tripwire and falls down to the floor.

02:09:12   He receives a crowbar to the ribs in an attempt to kill a spider.

02:09:16   He then falls from a zip wire down to the ground below via hitting a brick wall and

02:09:21   then receives a shovel to the head.

02:09:24   These are the injuries sustained by Marv, who is played by Daniel Stern.

02:09:27   BB gun to the forehead.

02:09:29   He slips down concrete stairs that are covered in ice.

02:09:32   He then slips on ice down to the floor below.

02:09:34   He receives a crowbar, which falls on his head.

02:09:37   He receives a clothes iron falling on his head.

02:09:40   He steps on a nail whilst barefoot.

02:09:42   He falls downstairs onto concrete floor.

02:09:45   He steps on broken glass walls whilst barefoot.

02:09:48   He slips on toy cars to a wooden floor, receives a paint can to the face, a tarantula on the

02:09:52   face, crowbars to the ribs because of an attempt to kill a spider, it happens to both of them,

02:09:59   falling from zip wire to ground below via hitting a brick wall and then shovel to the

02:10:03   head.

02:10:04   Indestructible.

02:10:05   indestructible. So the real hidden element of this movie is what we've not found out

02:10:12   about is these are actually superhero burglars. They have super villain powers. Super villains.

02:10:19   Well okay so this is a light fun movie up to this point. At this point it becomes a

02:10:24   cartoon and I'm fine with that. It's a pretty great cartoon. It's a pretty great live action

02:10:31   Yeah, the level at which they take this it could have been done so badly

02:10:35   Like I don't know what makes this one good, right?

02:10:39   But it is enjoyable, but you could do all of this and not work because it's so

02:10:44   Fantastical like no human being would get through

02:10:48   Maybe the first two or three steps of that. Yeah, right like people you just put stop

02:10:53   I I don't think Daniel Stern would be able to continue after he gets the nail through his foot, right?

02:10:58   Well, I mean the clothes I into the head maybe it will have killed him. Oh the iron

02:11:02   Yeah

02:11:03   I do I do like how the the

02:11:05   Again in true cartoon fashion the shape of the iron is on his forehead for the rest of the movie. That's great

02:11:12   You know like but it's it's it's so brilliant and the thing if you should now watch Home Alone 2. Oh, I'm sure

02:11:20   Why not? I'm not gonna wait 26 years for that one

02:11:22   I'm sure Home Alone 2 personally like because it takes this to the next level Home Alone 2

02:11:28   is the force awakens to the original Star Wars it retells the exact same story

02:11:34   ah like well but the thing is it does it all the same beats and it takes it up a

02:11:38   notch I really like it it does a really really great job of like continuing the

02:11:42   next movie because it goes up a notch but also hits all the things you're

02:11:47   familiar with and enjoy so they kind of perfected the movie because they hit

02:11:52   upon but they worked out what hit with people which was the home invasion

02:11:56   section so it's much longer and more elaborate and more fun and Joe Steele

02:12:00   agrees with me. So two notes I wanted to say here first off we missed

02:12:05   the time earlier where he creates a... Ah, the mannequins! Yeah. He's got the

02:12:11   mannequins that he's moving with ropes he's got Michael Jordan cut out on a toy

02:12:15   train that one made me laugh out loud right hey it's Michael Jordan and he's

02:12:19   just going by what how is he moving oh he's on he's taped to a train yes that's

02:12:23   - That's great, that's really good.

02:12:24   So we see him doing that, and then later,

02:12:27   right before the burglars come,

02:12:29   I don't know if you ever watched The A-Team

02:12:32   when you were a kid, but that is a scene out of The A-Team,

02:12:34   which is in every episode of The A-Team,

02:12:36   there's like a musical montage,

02:12:38   and you see them building all the things

02:12:39   that they're gonna use in order to defeat the bad guy,

02:12:42   and we get that montage here, where it's,

02:12:45   Kevin is gonna, we see him build all the things,

02:12:48   he puts the tar down, he puts the nail in.

02:12:51   We need the setup so that then we can see all those traps being sprung and understand what we're seeing and I enjoyed that little

02:12:57   Montage too and the music is so good in this movie the John Williams John Williams so good

02:13:02   It's so so good because it's like he sets is I think it's called I learned us from down more on a lee motif lee motif

02:13:09   light motif

02:13:10   Yeah

02:13:10   Sure

02:13:11   The original theme and then it is just French or something is just adapted and adapted and adapted throughout the whole movie and and I absolutely

02:13:19   love the score of this movie. So then Kevin has fended off the home and their mum comes

02:13:27   back and it's a nice touching moment and then the whole family arrives almost immediately

02:13:31   which is hilarious because they just got the flight and they just waited a day and got

02:13:35   the flight home.

02:13:36   But it's okay.

02:13:37   How many times have you seen that too? How many times have you seen it where somebody

02:13:41   gets on an earlier flight but then they get waylaid and then it takes them all this time

02:13:44   to get back and the other people who waited for the other flight are right behind them

02:13:47   or ahead of them.

02:13:49   - There is a problem that I have with this end of the movie

02:13:51   in which the McAllister parents do not seem excited enough

02:13:55   or happy enough.

02:13:57   There is an element where,

02:13:59   a moment where they both just go into the kitchen

02:14:01   and just leave Kevin there in the hallway on his own.

02:14:04   And I was like, I feel like there needs to be more fanfare

02:14:06   about this.

02:14:07   It's very, that last moment is very strange.

02:14:10   It strikes a weird beat with me.

02:14:12   - They don't know what he did.

02:14:13   He also, Kevin has proven to be a very good cleaner of things.

02:14:17   Yes, and replace her, I assume, because so many things got damaged and/or broken and/or lost.

02:14:23   Yeah, he does a good job of cleaning up overnight.

02:14:25   Right, but again, the movie doesn't want to have the parents yell at him for ruining the house, right?

02:14:32   While, you know, we left you here for three days and all these things are broken, right?

02:14:35   They don't want to have that be the tone that the movie ends on, so instead he sort of magically cleans things up.

02:14:39   The only thing he doesn't clean is Buzz's room. His brother, Buzz.

02:14:43   That's a funny joke and his brother can be angry at him, but the parents should not be.

02:14:47   I mean, I can see the reasoning behind that.

02:14:52   I'm okay because they don't know what he's gone through. I'm okay with them being, you know, they just flew to Paris and back and had their vacation ruined because of this mistake that they made.

02:15:01   So, you know, I'm okay with it being temperate.

02:15:03   being temperate. I actually was thinking like I wasn't thinking that the family was going

02:15:07   to come back. I was thinking if I was if I was on that plane with my all my children

02:15:11   and my you know and my brother-in-law's children or whatever and we were going to Paris for

02:15:19   Christmas week and little Kevin was left home alone what would I do and I think the answer

02:15:25   would be that I would volunteer to fly home but I don't think I would have the whole family

02:15:30   turn around. I get again why they want the closure of everybody back in the

02:15:35   house at the end of the movie but that seemed that's it like let everybody else

02:15:39   like one of the parents who forgot their son you get to go home and be with the

02:15:44   son but you don't bring the whole family back don't waste your vacation let

02:15:47   everybody else have a good time. That is a good point it is not necessary that

02:15:51   everybody had to come home. Catherine O'Hara coming home makes sense right and

02:15:55   I it actually made sense that she did that

02:15:57   but again

02:15:59   logically

02:16:00   Okay

02:16:01   but I understand why a

02:16:02   Lot of my things in this are like I can see why the movie does these things

02:16:06   Because it the movie wants to tell the story it wants to tell right so it's like yeah

02:16:11   They probably should have stayed but you know what I want everybody in the house in the end like I have them in the beginning

02:16:15   You know yeah, we could just start it with

02:16:17   You know with him being left behind, but we want you to feel sympathetic about it, and you want to you want him

02:16:23   Everything that happens in this movie you can see why it's constructed that way, but it's fine because you know

02:16:28   they're telling the story they want to tell and

02:16:30   And so they wanted to hit these particular beats and it's I completely forgive it

02:16:35   Overall thoughts in a movie and she realized I asked you this question and then we skipped over it. Yeah. No, I thought it was fun

02:16:43   I thought it was a fun movie. Um, yeah, I did like it. I enjoy the I enjoy

02:16:49   I enjoy the cartoon part. It moves really fast and is a lot of fun.

02:16:54   The assault and him repelling them that I thought was the entire movie.

02:16:58   I think that part is really great.

02:17:00   I like the bit with the recurring bit with the guy, the Salt Man.

02:17:07   It actually reminds me a little bit of in... Have you seen Groundhog Day?

02:17:10   Have we talked about Groundhog Day?

02:17:11   Yeah, yeah, yeah.

02:17:13   It reminds me of the old man in Groundhog Day that he keeps coming back and he can't save him.

02:17:18   It's a little bit like that where it's sort of this, this, um, a little more touching. I mean,

02:17:22   he's initially scary, but he turns out to have this sort of sad story. In the end,

02:17:26   we see that he's taken Kevin's advice and reunited with his son and his son's family.

02:17:31   And it sort of like runs through the movie. Um, and I really like the scene where they're talking

02:17:35   in the church. I think that's got some nice touching moments and also some funny moments.

02:17:39   Um, so that part is, that part is fun. Um, the John Candy thing is hilarious and great. Um,

02:17:46   the if if i had a complaint about it i would say it's that in that first hour and 15.

02:17:50   um i'd i'd probably like a less premise setup at the beginning you know they even though it

02:17:56   moves fast it's like yeah we get it he's home alone get it and i don't know that middle part

02:18:01   is kind of um where he's home alone is a little bit mushy i kind of i kind of wanted more wacky

02:18:08   stuff like more montages of a nine-year-old doing all the things that he's never allowed to do.

02:18:17   And I don't know, I felt like if we're gonna have-- if this is the movie that you're making

02:18:24   and not just wall-to-wall assault by the burglars, I expected it to be maybe like a little bit more

02:18:29   of that time with him. Like, "Kid, you're home alone, your parents are gone, you can do anything!"

02:18:35   And he does some of it, but you know, he also makes himself macaroni and cheese.

02:18:39   So I don't know.

02:18:40   >> Home Alone 2 is the movie for you.

02:18:42   >> Yeah, maybe so.

02:18:43   >> Because also at that point, right, like, the way that they can kind of make it work more

02:18:49   is for Kevin, it's it happened again. So this time he knows there's no magic involved.

02:18:54   So he goes wild.

02:18:55   >> Ah, yeah, fair enough. Maybe he feels some responsibility the first time because he's made

02:18:59   his parents disappear. We don't make too fine a point on it, but he does think that he has

02:19:03   use mental powers to make his entire family vanish from the face of the earth. So yeah,

02:19:08   fair point. Yeah, good movie. So yeah, I recommend Home Alone 2 for you. It's also a Christmas movie,

02:19:13   so yeah, sure. Still in the season. 'Tis the season, yeah, absolutely. I'll check it out.

02:19:17   That might be fun. And this was on HBO Go, I didn't even have to rent it. It was just right

02:19:21   there for the season. Perfect. All right, I think that wraps it up. Well, thank you, Myke. You're

02:19:26   one for one in recommending movies for me to watch that I like and I'm gonna say I am

02:19:34   still I still have a pretty good record with you because neither of us really liked Gremlins.

02:19:41   We did hear from people by the way who said we just don't understand Gremlins. It's like

02:19:45   whatever I think I understand pretty well. I did hear the flophouse was praising Gremlins

02:19:51   2 again and I don't think I would like Gremlins 2 but it sounds like like Home Alone 2 it

02:19:56   it sounds like Gremlins 2, it's like,

02:19:57   hey, you know what people really liked in Gremlins

02:19:59   is all those gremlins doing crazy stuff.

02:20:01   Let's do a whole movie of that where we just go to town.

02:20:03   It's like-- - Yeah, you see,

02:20:04   that's the thing, that was the bit that I hated.

02:20:06   - It is the part that I hated too,

02:20:07   but if you're gonna be that, then embrace that part,

02:20:10   'cause then the movie is pure, right?

02:20:12   Then the movie is about one thing,

02:20:14   which is we're gonna have lots of gremlins.

02:20:16   And even if that might not be the movie for me,

02:20:19   I can appreciate that that's the movie

02:20:21   where they're like, oh, you know what people really liked

02:20:23   is this, let's do that,

02:20:24   which Home Alone 2 apparently is very similar in that way.

02:20:28   Fine, give the people what they want.

02:20:29   - If you wanna find the show notes for this week,

02:20:30   including the link to get to our voting form

02:20:33   for the third annual upgrade is,

02:20:36   you wanna head over to relay.fm/upgrades/119.

02:20:39   That is where you will find our links

02:20:44   and everything for this episode.

02:20:46   I wanna take a moment again

02:20:46   to thank our lovely sponsors,

02:20:48   Encapsula, Foot Cardigan, Eero, and Away.

02:20:50   If you wanna find Jason online, he says sixcolors.com.

02:20:53   And also @jsnell, J S N E double L on Twitter.

02:20:57   I am @imike, I am Y K E.

02:21:00   We'll be back next time with another episode of upgrade until then.

02:21:04   Say goodbye, Mr.

02:21:05   Snow.

02:21:05   Oh, you did it again.

02:21:09   I did the slap too.

02:21:16   Yeah, I got that.

02:21:18   That's it.

02:21:18   Never again.

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