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Upgrade

45: Grandpa's Superhero

 

00:00:00   [Music]

00:00:08   From Relay FM, this is Upgrade episode number 45. Today's show is brought to you by Squarespace,

00:00:14   Build It Beautiful, Stampstar.com, Post-It On Demand, and the New Mexico Tea Company,

00:00:19   making excellent teas available to people all around the world. My name is Myke Hurley,

00:00:23   and I'm joined, as always, by your host of mine, Mr. Jason Snell.

00:00:28   Hello Myke, how's it going?

00:00:29   I'm very well sir, how are you?

00:00:31   It's Monday, start of a new week, upgrade time.

00:00:33   It's Monday.

00:00:34   It is, it is like, this is just how we start our week.

00:00:37   Although you have, you live an entire Monday before you get to this point.

00:00:40   Yeah, it's 7pm in the evening right now.

00:00:42   It's Monday morning, so it's really the kickoff.

00:00:46   I can do some basic stuff at the beginning, but this is really the big kickoff of my week

00:00:52   right here.

00:00:53   Yep, we, I guess that's what the relay in relay is for. So I begin to end my day, you

00:00:59   start your day. That's how it works. Interesting. I thought you meant that this is just the

00:01:03   first leg in a marathon relay of podcasts that lasts the entire week all the way through.

00:01:09   How about that? That too, Monday to Friday, worldwide. Really worldwide.

00:01:15   Yeah. Sure. Switch on. That's all I know.

00:01:20   Should we do some follow-up?

00:01:22   Uh, yeah, that's a good idea.

00:01:24   So, Paul wrote in, because if you remember last week, Jason, you were bemoaning the fact

00:01:30   that on Apple Music, you cannot shuffle a whole artist.

00:01:34   Shuffle an artist, right.

00:01:35   And I had several people say, "Well, sure you can.

00:01:37   You just add all of their music to your music library and then shuffle it."

00:01:40   I was like, "That's not what I meant."

00:01:43   No.

00:01:44   You meant as a--you take one artist and then you just shuffle all their music, right, is

00:01:48   the idea.

00:01:49   Yeah, I find a random artist that I kind of am interested in and say, "Alright, just play

00:01:55   me, you know, shuffle everything."

00:01:57   And you know, you can choose if there's a curated playlist, you can do that, but otherwise

00:02:01   you need to add it to your library in order to do it.

00:02:04   But Paul had a little nuance that we hadn't mentioned, which I liked.

00:02:09   So basically, what Paul said, that when you have these artists, I don't know if it's in

00:02:15   your library or not, I think this is even in your library.

00:02:18   If you have two albums or less, you have an option to shuffle everything, but if you have

00:02:23   more than two, then you cannot shuffle.

00:02:26   There is no shuffle option.

00:02:27   It doesn't make any sense.

00:02:30   I don't know.

00:02:31   I mean, I will grant you that a lot of these artists, the catalogs are messy, right?

00:02:39   There are, I was talking to Dan Morin about this earlier.

00:02:41   We had a little Skype chat that a podcast almost broke out, but we stopped it in time.

00:02:46   I was like, "I'm gonna say that for the other podcast." But we were talking about this.

00:02:50   Everybody uses music differently. It's such a complicated thing that it is true that I

00:02:56   think that Apple Music feels like it's a work in progress, but it's also, let's give them

00:03:01   some credit. This is a very difficult thing to get right. And they're starting from not

00:03:07   from scratch, but from like a year of Beats music development. But one of the problems

00:03:12   here is you see an artist and you say, "Well, I would like to just sort of shuffle through

00:03:16   their work." There's like live stuff and singles and there's all this junk in there that's

00:03:24   probably not canonical, like you wouldn't want it in the shuffle, ideally. And so that's

00:03:30   a problem. How do you do that? And, you know, I think basically if they've covered it with

00:03:35   playlists then you're pretty good. You could just listen to the, you know, the intro to

00:03:40   whatever playlist and that would be a good way to get started with an artist but they're

00:03:43   not always available and you know so I don't know maybe maybe they need to I like the idea

00:03:51   of sort of saying here here are all of their studio albums would you like to listen to

00:03:55   all of this or add all of these or something like that because right now it is kind of

00:03:59   messy because you'll get all this extra you know iTunes sessions and other stuff like

00:04:04   that that's thrown in single versions that are just the same song that's over there but

00:04:08   it's over here and you know what which makes sense if you're buying music but not if you're

00:04:13   if you're just subscribing.

00:04:14   >>ANDY Or an album's deluxe edition.

00:04:16   >>DAVID Oh yeah I see that a lot. The deluxe edition. Yeah.

00:04:20   >>ANDY Beats used to do a good thing with this where I haven't looked at the Listen

00:04:25   Apple Music so I don't know if it does it. When you'd see an album and it would have

00:04:28   a little drop down that said one other version or whatever and it would show if there was

00:04:31   the deluxe edition or limited edition or a re-edition or whatever or maybe like a remaster

00:04:37   could select and it would you could press the drop down it would select you could choose which one

00:04:41   you wanted to listen to quite like that kept kept the view a bit cleaner i was doing i did a search

00:04:47   this weekend for um david bowie for uh ziggy stardust in the spiders from mars because there's a

00:04:54   there's in one of the four episodes of the incomparable that i dropped last week there's

00:04:59   a sing-along at the end to a couple of songs from that album and i wanted to listen to the originals

00:05:03   perhaps to clear the sing-along out of my head, and I discovered that indeed there was

00:05:08   the 30th anniversary edition or whatever, and then there was also the original, and

00:05:15   it's just, you know, it's just kind of messy. I think one of them was just, you know, the

00:05:18   main album, and one of them is the main album plus a bunch of bonus material, but, you know,

00:05:22   it's just kind of messy that it's not, you know, this is one of the challenges with these

00:05:27   catalogs is sometimes there's just a whole lot of junk, and then when you have access

00:05:30   to all of it, it gets more complicated.

00:05:34   That was on episode 255B of The Incomparable.

00:05:37   Yes, it was.

00:05:38   You're killing me, you know.

00:05:40   You are killing me right now.

00:05:41   We released 255A, B, C, and D last week.

00:05:44   How many more are there?

00:05:46   Well, that's it for 255.

00:05:50   I guess this is a follow-up, I'll just mention it.

00:05:52   We did this thing called the Summer Superhero Spectacular where, for Comic-Con, because

00:05:56   last week was Comic-Con, we're going to talk about that later.

00:05:59   days of Comic-Con, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And we had the stupid idea to do a

00:06:04   superhero tournament with four region 64, not teams, 64 heroes, and have completely

00:06:10   arbitrary judgments about who the, you know, which hero was going to move forward, who

00:06:13   the more awesome hero was. And I had no idea, and it went for like two and a half hours.

00:06:19   And I had no idea how we were going to release it when we recorded it. And I thought, you

00:06:22   know, Comic-Con's coming up. What about releasing one of those four regions every day for the

00:06:29   run of Comic-Con. So we did that, ABCD. And the story is that halfway through, I've got

00:06:40   the retina iMac on an arm, and over time, if I'm not careful, the power cord gets more

00:06:48   taut as I kind of move the arm up and down and tilt it and stuff like that. It keeps

00:06:55   sliding down the back of the desk. So when we were about halfway done, I was—we'd

00:06:59   been going for a while—I decided to reposition my iMac, and the power cord popped out the

00:07:03   back. So one, I lost my recording, and we weren't streaming it live, so I had no backup.

00:07:08   So the first two episodes are a Skype track from someone else, of me, because my microphone

00:07:13   track wasn't recorded. So that was bad. I didn't notice that, by the way. The Skype

00:07:17   track dropped. The Skype connection dropped entirely. So I have—some of the people on—were

00:07:24   using Skype, but some of them just had a recording going in the background. And so I ended up

00:07:28   with, once we pieced everything together, we got back on the call, we did the other

00:07:31   two regions, we finished this three-hour-long marathon session. When I put the thing in

00:07:37   Logic to edit it, there is all of this sound from when people's call had dropped, of them

00:07:44   going "Oh geez, the call dropped, stupid Skype," you know, they say things. And then as the

00:07:48   call picks back up, then everybody kind of comes back. And we had just talked about,

00:07:56   it's a long story, but we, you know, we talked about a character named Starman, and they

00:08:01   had begun to sing Starman by David Bowie. And so when, when the call dropped, Steve

00:08:08   Lutz and Phil Michaels just sort of kept singing David Bowie. And as they came back together,

00:08:13   it sort of turned into a duet. And so that's at the end of Episode B. But it was literally

00:08:17   we were just, the reason it happened is that we, people were killing time because everything

00:08:21   was ruined by my uh-

00:08:22   Oh that's how that happened. I thought they were singing together.

00:08:26   Well they, they, they were, so they were singing, they were singing together and then they were

00:08:30   singing separately and then they were singing together again when the call came back. So,

00:08:34   so he sort of, the call dropped and I cut some stuff out in the middle but the call

00:08:39   dropped and then Steve just sort of started singing on his own as the call came back and

00:08:43   And then at some point, Phil rejoined, heard Steve singing, and then he began to sing.

00:08:48   It made me laugh.

00:08:49   Every time I hear it, it makes me laugh.

00:08:51   But anyway, that was why I was looking up Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars,

00:08:55   because I only vaguely--I never owned that album, and I only vaguely know those songs,

00:08:59   and that was a great use of Apple Music, actually, once I picked which edition I wanted.

00:09:04   And so, yeah.

00:09:06   So there's a little follow-out, a little podcast story, and a little Apple Music all rolled

00:09:11   together in one. Okay, so Elton John's Rocket Hour, I wanted to just let people know that

00:09:16   I listened and loved it. Yeah, that was good. That happened right after our show last week,

00:09:25   right? Yeah, I caught the rebroadcast on Tuesday. Right, and I heard it Monday night when you

00:09:30   were sleeping while we were driving back from LA. And it gave me everything that I thought

00:09:37   it was going to and everything I wanted. It highlighted Elton's varied music tastes.

00:09:43   Also, it shared some great stories as well. And now I have a calendar entry for 2 p.m.

00:09:49   every Tuesday to remind me to listen in.

00:09:53   Yeah, that's good. I mean, I think I've heard a bunch of podcasts talking about, like, I

00:09:58   was listening to ATP talk about the tyranny of radio and all that, which I kind of agree

00:10:02   but I was really happy how we described it last week, that this is, you know, if the

00:10:11   point of Beats 1 is not just to play some music, right, it's supposed to have like,

00:10:15   these are like shows, they're like entertainment shows, they're about the personalities involved,

00:10:19   and if you're listening just to hear pristine, like, just a song, and then another song,

00:10:23   and then maybe a voice comes in and says, "That was the name of that song," that's not

00:10:28   the point. You know, and that's what radio used to be, and I think that's not the point

00:10:31   to Beats 1. So having Elton John do that. I followed Beats 1 on Twitter now and I was

00:10:38   um, Lauren was working an evening shift and I was done editing or recording a podcast,

00:10:45   something like that, and I saw this tweet about a new show starting on on Beats 1. It

00:10:49   was uh, it was Ellie Goulding, the pop star, and I started playing that and while I was

00:10:55   making dinner and that was really a lot of fun. I mean she's a pop star but she was playing

00:10:59   like electronica in one show and then the show I listened to it like got into

00:11:03   alternative and then heavy metal after a while and you know that that I didn't

00:11:08   like everything that I heard but it was just a lot of fun to do that and I

00:11:11   listened while I was making dinner and and I think that that's the interesting

00:11:15   thing about about beats one and then you can go back and there's a playlist so I

00:11:18   was able to find the songs that I really liked and add those and listen and

00:11:22   explore those artists yeah you can just search their names they come up as a

00:11:25   curator and you can find the playlists attached. Yeah, yeah, that was a lot of it

00:11:30   was a lot of fun and and the the the rock show got harder as it went and I

00:11:36   sort of verged out of what I liked after a while but there were some tracks or

00:11:40   especially early on that I really liked and now I'm going back and listening to

00:11:43   her playlist of her previous show but I'll check that out and I love that's

00:11:46   actually one of the things I really like the St. Vincent's mixtape delivery is the

00:11:49   same thing finding these people who are not just musicians but are are people

00:11:53   who love music and having them present music that they like to you in, you know, in an

00:11:59   hour a week. It's not, it's just a slice of their, their, you know, worldview of music.

00:12:05   These people who are, whether it's Elton John or it's somebody like St. Vincent or Ellie

00:12:08   Goulding, that's really interesting. And again, it is, you know, it's not something that I

00:12:13   would listen to just in the background because I don't, I don't listen to music that way.

00:12:18   But when I'm in a place where I kind of want to listen to something, you know, or I want

00:12:21   to make time to listen to something that I think is going to be an interesting journey

00:12:25   that I'm paying attention to, then that really works for me.

00:12:32   So you had some follow out for ATP?

00:12:35   Yeah, I just wanted to mention, I mean it's funny that we follow out to ATP because they

00:12:39   have many more listeners than we do.

00:12:42   Well, I do.

00:12:44   You know.

00:12:45   And I love that podcast and listen to it every week.

00:12:48   And I had to listen, I got behind, they lapped me.

00:12:51   I had to listen to two ATPs,

00:12:52   but I was doing a lot of housework this weekend,

00:12:54   so it was not a problem.

00:12:55   I was back to listening to John Syracuse

00:12:57   while mowing my lawn,

00:12:58   like in the classic hypercritical days,

00:13:00   but with bonus Casey and Marco.

00:13:02   It was just, I wanted to mention it

00:13:04   because we talked about the,

00:13:06   Safari's the new IE thing last week,

00:13:08   and in ATP 125, they talked about it.

00:13:11   I found, it was one of those things where they,

00:13:14   it was like a reconcilable differences, so to speak,

00:13:19   between Marco and John where, you know,

00:13:22   Marco would say one thing and John would say another thing

00:13:24   and I agreed with both of them.

00:13:25   And I'm not sure they felt like they were agreeing

00:13:27   or disagreeing.

00:13:28   I did have one note, John talked for a while

00:13:32   about how like the open web is good

00:13:33   and it's in everybody's best interest

00:13:37   that the open web continue to grow.

00:13:38   And I agree with that, but at the same time,

00:13:41   I had a moment of slight disagreement with Mr. Syracuse

00:13:47   because I feel like what got unsaid there was this idea

00:13:51   that the dream of creating mobile apps

00:13:54   using web technologies,

00:13:56   so that if you can't or won't build native apps,

00:14:00   but you can still be on Android and iOS,

00:14:02   that's a nice dream.

00:14:03   And I can see why you would say,

00:14:05   well, that's good that there's something

00:14:07   that not everybody controls

00:14:08   that people can use to build these things.

00:14:10   But for me, I just get flashbacks to the Java era

00:14:13   where people told us,

00:14:15   you're gonna be able to write once

00:14:16   and run it everywhere.

00:14:17   And the fact was that stuff was really bad.

00:14:20   It was mediocre at best.

00:14:21   And it was not tied to a particular platform

00:14:24   and that was actually bad because when stuff isn't tied

00:14:27   to a particular platform, it's generic.

00:14:29   It doesn't feel like your native stuff.

00:14:31   And I'm not sure that that, you know, yes,

00:14:34   an open web is good for users,

00:14:36   but if it leads in that direction, then,

00:14:40   if it leads in that direction,

00:14:43   I'm not sure it leads to some place

00:14:45   that creates products that are good for the user experience.

00:14:49   And I'm not sure, you know, I get John's point

00:14:53   and I agree with it that the last thing you want

00:14:56   is everything to be completely controlled

00:14:58   by platform vendors and that there's no other way

00:15:03   into these devices other than by building native apps.

00:15:07   But I, you know, I think that people are not talking enough

00:15:11   when they talk about this issue about the fact

00:15:13   that one size fits all multi-platform apps,

00:15:16   even if we believe Lauren Briktor that, you know,

00:15:18   you can build something that's gonna be super awesome,

00:15:22   60 frames per second response, you know,

00:15:24   it's not gonna be slow, it's gonna be able to do

00:15:28   what native apps do in that way.

00:15:30   I still am not convinced that they aren't gonna look weird

00:15:32   and be weird and also lag behind technologically

00:15:37   because they'll all be based on something

00:15:40   that comes through a standard spotty,

00:15:41   whereas Apple can hold a WWDC and say,

00:15:44   here's some new APIs, ships in the fall,

00:15:46   and the apps will take advantage of it.

00:15:48   They can't do that with the web technologies.

00:15:49   So anyway, but otherwise,

00:15:52   I thought it was a really great discussion.

00:15:54   Marco was definitely on the same wavelength

00:15:57   that I am on this, but I thought John's points

00:15:59   were really great as a web developer.

00:16:02   And Casey's nice too,

00:16:03   but he didn't have as much to say on that episode.

00:16:06   So there you go.

00:16:07   - And just before we jump into our topics today,

00:16:10   there was just one thing that I wanted to bring up.

00:16:13   Satoru Iwata, who was the CEO of Nintendo of America and the president of Nintendo,

00:16:20   passed away last night.

00:16:22   And that is an incredible loss to technology and video gaming.

00:16:27   Iwata was an incredible man and he did amazing things.

00:16:31   The people that are interested in video games to the level that I am and some other people on Relay are,

00:16:37   this is a lot akin to Steve Jobs. They had they died around the

00:16:43   same sort of age. Iwata was 55 and he was someone who was a real visionary.

00:16:49   Nintendo might not be doing as well right now but potentially they're on the

00:16:54   upswing, they're making some big changes in their company. But Iwata's time at

00:16:58   Nintendo saw both the Nintendo DS and the Wii U, some of the biggest selling

00:17:05   games consoles of all time during his time was responsible for both of them

00:17:09   and he was a man who had incredible technical achievements as well he was a

00:17:13   developer and even as a CEO was contributing code and CEO and president

00:17:19   was amazing sorry the Wii not the I said the Wii U but I meant to say the Wii the

00:17:25   Wii yeah marketing problems he was contributing code as a president and

00:17:29   there's just a bunch of great stories on the internet right now so I'll include a

00:17:34   a couple of links in the show notes if you want to read a bit more, find out a

00:17:37   bit more about him, but I just wanted to mention it today because I think that it

00:17:41   is an incredibly important story in technology and I'll go amiss about

00:17:46   mentioning it. Yeah, glad you mentioned it. I imagine you'll talk

00:17:52   more about that maybe on another program later this week. Yeah, we'll be

00:17:56   talking about it on virtual and I expect that the Isometric gang will be

00:18:00   discussing it as well. I would imagine. So a couple of shows there on Relay you can

00:18:04   go to and our shows this week I'm sure will be completely dedicated to

00:18:11   Iwata and his life. It's very sad, very sad. So we should take a break. Let's

00:18:18   thank our first sponsor this week and then we can start talking about some

00:18:22   public beta related issues that we want to talk about today and good stuff too.

00:18:26   I'm thrilled to welcome back the New Mexico Tea Company for sponsoring this week's

00:18:31   episode. We've had them sponsor a couple of weeks ago. The New Mexico Tea Company

00:18:36   has been sourcing fantastic loose leaf tea from all over the world and they can

00:18:40   deliver it to you. They discover and import great teas but they also make

00:18:44   some on their own. They make some great teas themselves as well. They are

00:18:48   focused on making excellent teas available to people all around the world.

00:18:52   They have a great store where they can do this. You can go and buy whatever you

00:18:55   want and I've heard a bunch of you have been trying out some of the teas that we

00:18:58   mentioned I heard from David at the New Mexico Tea Company but what I wanted to

00:19:03   talk to you a little bit today is I really wanted to mention their Tea of the

00:19:06   Month Club and I brought it up last time but this is such a fantastic deal

00:19:10   basically for $19.99 a month you get three different teas and they're gonna

00:19:15   last you around 50 cups and it's a really fantastic thing to try out

00:19:19   because you'll be receiving not only teas that are kind of like that you will

00:19:24   be your normal type of thing you know you can choose if you want to receive

00:19:27   pure tea or herbal tea but you're also going to get some interesting new stuff to try.

00:19:32   So you know everyone can go to a store and buy the things that they're used to but you

00:19:36   want to find out new stuff right you want to get new tastes and things like that and

00:19:39   this is what the tea of the month club at the New Mexico Tea Company can give you.

00:19:43   You'll be subscribing and you'll have excellent tea at home always but you'll be also broadening

00:19:49   your horizons trying some new high grade specialty teas and really kind of going out there and

00:19:54   trying some new stuff. So you know I mentioned that the New Mexico Tea Company

00:19:57   had sent me a box of stuff to try out and there was stuff in there that I was

00:20:01   familiar with but now my favorite teas that they have in this box is stuff that

00:20:06   I never would have tried on my own. Like huh that so it's like you know that

00:20:11   they're like more maybe like fruity there's this one I'm trying to find the

00:20:15   name of it now. Jason why don't you talk about it and then I'll grab the tea I've

00:20:18   been trying this week and I can explain to people what I like about it.

00:20:21   Alright, well today I had for the first time the Royal Yunnan, which is a rich and multi-Chinese

00:20:29   organic black tea.

00:20:31   I put some milk in it because the multi teas I like with milk.

00:20:37   And it was really nice.

00:20:38   And this goes with the, again, I've had the Earl Grey, I've had the Canadian breakfast

00:20:43   and the English breakfast, and we had their green tea, I've had one of their fruity teas

00:20:49   that actually is a summer tea that they recommend you make iced tea with, so I did that. Lots

00:20:54   of different--the variety is amazing, and I like how the way they've set up the Tea

00:20:59   of the Month Club is--the idea is you drink a cup of tea a day and two on the weekends,

00:21:07   and that is how much tea you get every month from them. And I like the idea of having some

00:21:13   surprises, some surprise and delight in the box is a smart idea too.

00:21:17   So there's two teas that I've been trying and enjoying and these are things I never

00:21:20   would have tried on my own. One is called Lucky Summer which is Ruribos.

00:21:25   That's the one that I made iced tea out of.

00:21:27   Oh really? Yeah I love it. I drink it hot as well. How do you say this? Ruribos? I don't

00:21:33   know.

00:21:34   I don't even know.

00:21:35   It has peach, it has peach different types of fruit, lemongrass, spearmint and peppermint

00:21:41   which is a really weird mix when you put it on paper but tastes incredible. And Pondicherry

00:21:45   which is cherry berries, rose hips, hibiscus, and some other natural flavorings as well.

00:21:51   And these are things that I never would have tried on my own.

00:21:53   So that one I can tell you is hibiscus.

00:21:55   I like saying it like that. Someone said it to me that way before and I can't stop saying it.

00:22:00   I think it was in Starbucks because they were doing this like hibiscus thing before and the

00:22:05   lady called it hibiscus and it's just become like a joke between me and a friend and now I can't

00:22:10   help but say it. It is not Greek.

00:22:14   And I think it's rebus.

00:22:16   Rebus, rebus, something like that.

00:22:19   - Emboss.

00:22:20   - It's pronounced hibiscus, Myke.

00:22:22   That's what I'm saying.

00:22:23   - Yeah, so like, you know, this is just an example

00:22:25   of some of the incredible stuff that you can get, you know,

00:22:27   'cause you're gonna get these really interesting

00:22:29   and new things to try out,

00:22:31   and you're never gonna know the type of thing

00:22:32   that you're gonna fall in love with.

00:22:34   And you always get memberships, always get free shipping,

00:22:36   and you can cancel them at any time, but that's great, right?

00:22:39   It's 20 bucks a month, basically,

00:22:41   and you can get free shipping.

00:22:43   If you have two people in the household you can double the T for $29.99 so you get a saving

00:22:47   on that too.

00:22:48   If you use the code upgrade at checkout you'll get 25% off your first three months of your

00:22:53   tier the month club bringing the price down to $14.99 but if you want to just buy some

00:22:58   stuff in the store you'll also get free shipping with that too but remember with the tier the

00:23:03   month club you always get free shipping.

00:23:05   They really have a great variety of teas, so go and check them out at the NMT, so NMTEACO.com,

00:23:13   so NMTEACO.com/upgrade, and I'm sure that you're going to find something that you like.

00:23:20   Go support us by supporting them.

00:23:23   Go check out the New Mexico Tea Company.

00:23:24   Thanks so much.

00:23:25   Yay, tea!

00:23:26   Right, so, public beta time, huh?

00:23:30   Yeah, 'tis the season for public betas.

00:23:34   So many public betas. Last week, we got the El Capitan public beta and the iOS 9 public

00:23:41   beta, which came right, like I think a day or two after the presumably the same build

00:23:46   more or less got ceded to developers. So now for the first time, people with iOS devices

00:23:53   can publicly, you know, can beta test just by signing up for the public beta, can use

00:23:59   a beta of the next version of iOS. Last year we did this for Mac OS, but it wasn't until

00:24:05   I think early this year that iOS public beta started. So the world can be as dangerous

00:24:12   as you want it to be.

00:24:15   And you've been trying them out, right?

00:24:18   Yeah, so I've got iOS 9 on an iPad Air 2 that I got specifically for iOS 9 testing, and

00:24:27   then I did put the public beta on my iPhone,

00:24:30   which I'm a little hesitant to do,

00:24:33   and I would not do it under normal circumstances,

00:24:36   but I've got to write about this stuff,

00:24:38   so I've got to live with it.

00:24:39   And I have a laptop here with El Capitan on it,

00:24:43   and I haven't put it on my Mac yet,

00:24:45   although I probably will do that this week

00:24:47   just because I think I've got to live with it,

00:24:50   even though it's gonna, you know,

00:24:51   this is, the problem with this is like,

00:24:53   This is my production Mac here.

00:24:57   I record podcasts, I edit podcasts on it, and I write on it.

00:25:01   So I think I'm just gonna kinda cross my fingers

00:25:03   and know that I've got my laptop, my MacBook Air.

00:25:06   If there's something that I just can't do

00:25:09   on this current public beta build,

00:25:11   I'll have to switch to the laptop to do that part

00:25:14   and then come back.

00:25:15   But that's because I do this for a living, right?

00:25:19   I write about this and talk about this stuff,

00:25:21   so I have to use it.

00:25:22   I don't think I would recommend that anybody, especially iOS,

00:25:26   like don't put this on your phone unless you really, really, really, really

00:25:30   are prepared for causing pain because you're going to get weird bugs and things crashing and

00:25:35   that's just how it is. Like developers can't even release their apps if they're built against iOS 9

00:25:42   to the App Store or put on TestFlight if you're a beta tester for some apps.

00:25:47   I believe they can't even do that yet.

00:25:49   So what ends up happening is people write app reviews

00:25:54   and say this app sucks because it doesn't work right

00:25:56   on iOS 9 public beta, which is really about as unfair

00:26:00   as it gets because in many cases they can't,

00:26:03   there are things they can't do.

00:26:05   Not only that, but of course it's not fair to ask developers

00:26:09   to have their apps be functional on beta software.

00:26:14   - 'Cause it can't be in some instances.

00:26:15   I mean there are some crashes I guess that people can fix but some stuff is gonna break

00:26:20   and you might not be able to fix it and I don't even know if you can submit.

00:26:24   I mean you can submit some fixes I think but it can get a bit sort of sketchy as to what

00:26:30   you can kind of fix when on the previous version.

00:26:33   Federico wrote a nice little piece about this.

00:26:35   He kind of like, it broke down the problems and what Apple tries to do but then make some

00:26:40   suggestions for what Apple should do.

00:26:43   If you're a beta tester and you want to be helpful, you could contact the developer of

00:26:49   your favorite app that doesn't work quite right in iOS 9 and say, "Hey, I'm using the

00:26:54   iOS 9 public beta.

00:26:57   You probably are aware that your app doesn't work, you know, doesn't do this, doesn't work

00:27:02   right in this way.

00:27:04   If you are looking for people to test your app, I would be happy to do that because I

00:27:09   love your app and I'm on the public beta."

00:27:11   They can say no.

00:27:12   They may say no.

00:27:13   will say no, but you could do that if you wanted to.

00:27:15   That wouldn't be unreasonable.

00:27:16   They might like another tester and they might not,

00:27:20   but you also have to be prepared to the fact

00:27:21   that things are not gonna work until another build

00:27:24   of iOS 9 or until iOS 9 comes out.

00:27:27   And this is why I think you should really hesitate

00:27:30   before installing a public data,

00:27:31   especially of iOS 9 on your iPhone

00:27:33   because your iPhone is so important to you.

00:27:38   All of our iPhones, super important to us.

00:27:41   And, you know, like my iPad is important to me,

00:27:46   but it's less like crucial

00:27:50   because I'm usually using it in the house

00:27:52   and there are other devices around.

00:27:53   My iPhone, I'm using it out and about,

00:27:55   and if it breaks, I just am out of luck, which is not fun.

00:28:00   And my Mac, I feel like the Mac,

00:28:01   you can work around problems because it's a Mac

00:28:04   and there's many more ways to do things on a Mac

00:28:08   than there is on an iOS device.

00:28:09   So I just go in with a lot of caution, especially iOS.

00:28:13   iOS betas are weird and the apps will crash

00:28:18   and app developers can't really fix

00:28:19   a lot of those problems right now.

00:28:21   And just warning, warning sign, flashing warning sign.

00:28:25   - There was something that I wanted to mention

00:28:28   about the app review part,

00:28:33   like people leaving app reviews.

00:28:35   'Cause when I see people talking about this on Twitter

00:28:38   whatever. You always see people that kind of lash out and be like,

00:28:41   "Oh that person's an idiot. Those people shouldn't know how to use computers." That

00:28:45   kind of thing. And I think that that's unfair because I think that the thing

00:28:50   about this is we all install the betas because we're interested in what's

00:28:54   coming next, right? But there are lots of nerdy people out there who feel exactly

00:28:58   the same, right? They're not necessarily as in tune with the

00:29:03   independent developer community. Those two Venn diagrams don't

00:29:08   completely overlap. I think there are people that are nerdy who like

00:29:12   gadgets and tinkering and stuff. They read Apple websites and

00:29:15   stuff but they don't follow indie app developers on Twitter. So they're not

00:29:20   necessarily... I don't think that people necessarily know the effect that

00:29:26   this stuff can happen or know that this isn't a good way to submit feedback or

00:29:30   whatever or even know that apps should or shouldn't be updated to to fix these

00:29:35   problems right like I don't know if people necessarily know that like an app

00:29:39   developer can't update their app for iOS 9 stuff so I find it a bit strange when

00:29:46   people like lash out against these people I don't think it's their problem

00:29:50   or their fault like because as well like you know you should read the things that

00:29:54   it says on Apple's website who does I didn't know it said anything about it on

00:29:58   Apple's website when I downloaded the El Capitan public beta. I didn't read it.

00:30:01   I just downloaded it, right? Because I know best. So I think that, I think really

00:30:06   this is Apple's problem to solve, like, and not just to put some a line in some

00:30:12   documentation. If it is really a problem then they should look into it and it

00:30:16   probably is an issue because I expect that it is affecting some developers, you

00:30:20   know, might have like perfect five-star ratings and then they get some one-star

00:30:24   ratings because of this and then you kind of look at somebody's overall

00:30:28   development stuff and you see the average start to go down and you might

00:30:30   question whether you want to buy the app. So it probably does make an effect but

00:30:34   personally I think that this is something that Apple need to do more

00:30:38   about and I actually don't think that it's in education because I don't think

00:30:41   you can do that. I think they need to they need to prevent people from doing

00:30:46   this and in my own personal opinion on this I know why some people don't like

00:30:51   this idea but I think that anybody that signs up for the beta should have

00:30:57   reviews turned off at their Apple ID. Yeah or only be visible for

00:31:01   people running the public beta. Yeah. Like in a sandbox or something. I

00:31:05   agree with you. I mean put yourself in the mind of a developer here. You are

00:31:09   you are probably, let's say you're updating your app for iOS 9, you are

00:31:13   kicking hard for the release of iOS 9 in the fall. That is what you're targeting.

00:31:19   And so the public beta comes out and you hear from people who are like, "Oh, your current

00:31:25   version doesn't work on the public beta."

00:31:27   And you're like, "Okay, well, I'm working on a new version.

00:31:29   I can't release it to the App Store right now."

00:31:34   And what a terrible position to be put in as a developer of trying to fix bugs for the

00:31:40   public beta users instead of just working on the big picture of getting that final version

00:31:47   done for the final version of iOS 9.

00:31:49   And that's what developers, some developers are in that position right now, where they're

00:31:52   like, "Do I fix this so that it runs for the people on..."

00:31:56   And it's for themselves too, right?

00:31:57   Because they're probably running development versions of iOS 9 as well.

00:32:02   But you know, priorities here, I think their priority should be the finish line, not this,

00:32:09   you know, the starting of the public beta.

00:32:12   That's dumb.

00:32:14   So yeah, it's too bad, because you know, you need to know what the rules are for being

00:32:19   a beta tester and complaining that there are bugs and that third-party apps don't always

00:32:24   work right. You know, you're there. The purpose of the public beta is for people to give feedback

00:32:30   to Apple and third-party developers about things that aren't working right and it's

00:32:36   not just to make people who are really excited about living in the future a chance to live

00:32:41   in the future for a couple of months. So I also encourage you if you do use any of these

00:32:45   public betas, use the feedback assistant and give Apple feedback because they are actually

00:32:49   listening and learning and we saw last summer some changes made in Yosemite based on feedback.

00:33:00   So they are totally listening, I can tell you that. They're not just listening to anonymous

00:33:04   crash data which you can say to provide to Apple where they can count what the crashes

00:33:08   are and things like that, but they're listening to feedback. They listen to the radar bug

00:33:12   reporter feedback from developers, but they listen to the feedback assistance stuff from

00:33:16   users as well. And so if you're gonna go down this path, definitely

00:33:21   give feedback about things you find that don't work right. But

00:33:24   writing, you know, not writing nasty app reviews. Instead give feedback in the

00:33:28   feedback assistant so that

00:33:29   Apple can fix the problems for the general public release which doesn't

00:33:33   come until

00:33:34   whatever, September probably. So I don't have an awful lot to say about

00:33:39   El Capitan. I put it on my MacBook Pro a couple days ago,

00:33:43   which is not the machine that I use to record.

00:33:46   I wouldn't do that.

00:33:47   - Right, smart.

00:33:48   - But it's the machine that I use every day,

00:33:50   but I was confident putting it on there,

00:33:51   'cause it was just like, you know,

00:33:53   what's the worst that could happen?

00:33:55   But I have another Mac, like if everything exploded,

00:33:58   I could start over again.

00:33:59   - Right, right.

00:34:01   - And I've been pretty happy with it.

00:34:03   I've, you know, I very much like looking at San Francisco

00:34:07   on this machine, as well as I like looking at it

00:34:11   on my iPad as well.

00:34:12   the new system font.

00:34:13   - The new system font.

00:34:15   I think it's very good looking,

00:34:16   and I wished that more apps that I had

00:34:20   used the system font as their font choice, right?

00:34:23   So they would update.

00:34:25   Some of my apps do.

00:34:26   Like, I think, yeah, OmniFocus, I think, yeah,

00:34:30   it's using San Francisco,

00:34:31   but like, you know, Tweetbot isn't.

00:34:34   Like, I would like to see more San Francisco, you know?

00:34:36   I think it's a very, very nice font.

00:34:38   I like looking at it.

00:34:39   Nice, if I could choose it or something.

00:34:42   Anyway, so that's cool.

00:34:45   I like the split screen stuff.

00:34:47   I use full screen a lot.

00:34:49   I have my web browser in full screen.

00:34:51   It's the way that I like to work.

00:34:53   And today I was doing some show follow up and prep

00:34:57   whilst using two browser windows side by side in full screen

00:35:00   and I really like that.

00:35:02   That's a great way for me to work

00:35:03   rather than going from tab to tab

00:35:05   or having to swipe from screen to screen

00:35:07   which is what I usually have to do.

00:35:08   So having the two browser windows side by side

00:35:12   is great and yes I know I could just put them on a desktop and resize them but

00:35:17   it's not doesn't work for me that way I like doing it in full screen I like that

00:35:21   app that snaps in immediately side by side and that you

00:35:26   know the websites take it just all works and I don't have to worry about it and

00:35:30   I'm finding mission control and spaces to be way more responsive and I like the

00:35:36   way that you can just drag things from desktop to desktop really easily like

00:35:41   from you can drag it from the desktop onto a full screen window then that

00:35:45   makes it a like a split screen window and you can drag it away again it's

00:35:50   really easy to make something full screen by just dragging it up into the

00:35:53   mission control bar like way like a lot easier than before I really like it I

00:35:58   mean because I am one of the people that uses all those features on a daily basis

00:36:03   I use all the gestures and stuff like that and I found it to be way better the

00:36:07   The big mouse thing is annoying me.

00:36:10   Wow.

00:36:11   Can you turn it off?

00:36:12   I haven't tried.

00:36:13   I'm trying to just live with it to see if I get used to looking for it, but at the moment

00:36:17   the only time I ever see it is by accident.

00:36:20   So I just move my mouse and it goes "huh?"

00:36:22   I'm like "what are you doing?"

00:36:24   I haven't seen it currently, I'm looking in the mouse settings and it isn't there.

00:36:28   I'm sure you can turn it off.

00:36:30   But I want to leave it on for a bit to see if I get used to shaking my mouse to find

00:36:34   it.

00:36:35   I'm only using a 13-inch display.

00:36:37   Like, it's not--

00:36:38   Right.

00:36:38   I'm not having a hilariously difficult time

00:36:40   trying to find my mouse at the best of times.

00:36:43   I actually do have to find the cursor a lot on the iMac.

00:36:46   So not bragging or anything, but it's a really big screen.

00:36:48   So one thing--

00:36:50   I've got nothing to compensate for, Jason.

00:36:52   One thing I wanted to mention is something I found when I was--

00:36:56   and I wrote up a thing on six colors

00:36:59   and another thing on Macworld about the El Capitan public

00:37:01   beta.

00:37:03   I wrote a couple thousand words on Macworld about it.

00:37:05   The problem that what I'm finding, and again, it's beta,

00:37:09   so there's time, is apps have been written

00:37:13   for full screen mode, because up to now,

00:37:17   full screen mode meant that app was the only thing

00:37:20   that was there, right?

00:37:20   It was active, it was the only app you could see.

00:37:23   Now, what split screen mode is,

00:37:26   is basically a variation on full screen mode.

00:37:29   It's essentially full screen mode with two apps

00:37:31   sharing the screen.

00:37:32   And it's gonna be interesting to see how app developers,

00:37:37   including Apple, have to revise

00:37:40   how they approach full screen mode.

00:37:43   And it's also, I think maybe some questions I have

00:37:45   for Apple about their approach to full screen mode.

00:37:48   I say this because I was using Preview

00:37:52   to write my story actually,

00:37:53   I was using Preview with a PDF of the Reviewer's Guide

00:37:57   and I think the Notes app to take notes.

00:38:02   And so they were side by side in split screen mode.

00:38:08   And I would move over, I would move my cursor over

00:38:11   to the PDF and try to use the finger spread command

00:38:15   to make it bigger and nothing happened.

00:38:20   Now in the regular mode, if you've got preview

00:38:23   in the background and another app in the foreground

00:38:26   and you do that, that's the behavior

00:38:28   is it doesn't do anything 'cause it's not foregrounded.

00:38:31   But in the split screen mode,

00:38:33   I sort of feel like both apps are front most in a way.

00:38:38   And I think the apps think that too,

00:38:40   'cause the apps think, like preview doesn't change when,

00:38:44   let me back up.

00:38:46   So you've got two apps running side by side

00:38:48   in split screen mode.

00:38:49   This is now for the first time in full screen mode,

00:38:53   one app is foremost, foregrounded, and the other one is not.

00:38:57   And in fact, the one that you've clicked in,

00:39:00   if you move your cursor to the top of the screen,

00:39:02   that's the one that shows in the menu bar.

00:39:05   And if you click on the other one,

00:39:06   then that one shows in the menu bar.

00:39:08   So now there's this concept in full screen mode

00:39:10   of which is the front most app,

00:39:11   and an app that's not front most behaves differently.

00:39:13   And some apps in their full screen mode

00:39:16   don't even show you whether they're front most or not,

00:39:18   because they assume they are.

00:39:20   So like preview looks like preview in split screen mode,

00:39:24   whether it's selected or not,

00:39:26   because what other app could be showing?

00:39:28   Possibly, it's in full screen mode, except now it's not.

00:39:31   Now it's in split screen mode.

00:39:32   And so I have those moments where I think to myself,

00:39:36   something's got to give here.

00:39:37   Either Apple needs to change the behavior

00:39:40   in split screen mode to do something,

00:39:42   maybe even something like what they do in Unix,

00:39:44   where the focus changes when your cursor moves

00:39:47   over the other app.

00:39:49   Like when my cursor moves over preview,

00:39:51   preview acts like it's front most

00:39:53   and I can zoom in and stuff without clicking.

00:39:56   'Cause right now you have to click

00:39:57   and then you click on it and nothing seems to happen.

00:39:59   But it's come to the front, but you wouldn't know.

00:40:01   And then you can zoom around to your heart's content.

00:40:04   Zoom in, zoom out, whatever.

00:40:08   And then if you start typing,

00:40:11   the notes doesn't type anymore

00:40:14   because you're not in notes anymore, you're in preview,

00:40:17   but you can't even look at the menu bar

00:40:19   to tell which one's front most

00:40:20   because the menu bar is hidden.

00:40:23   So I feel like, again, and it's a beta.

00:40:25   So the question is, does this stuff get resolved now

00:40:28   or does it not get resolved

00:40:30   and this becomes a flaw in this concept

00:40:33   for when El Capitan launches?

00:40:35   We'll see, we'll see.

00:40:36   But that was one of the first things that struck me

00:40:38   is like these apps don't quite know

00:40:40   whether they're alone or not

00:40:43   and don't signify things that, you know,

00:40:47   it doesn't make sense in full screen mode for you to care

00:40:50   because you're the only app,

00:40:51   but now they're not the only app.

00:40:53   So is Apple gonna revise preview?

00:40:55   Are there gonna be changes to full screen mode?

00:40:58   I don't know yet, but that was the thing that struck me

00:40:59   is that it's a little bit weird right now

00:41:01   that apps don't behave quite right

00:41:03   and the metaphor is a little bit strange,

00:41:05   having two apps with the menu bar hidden

00:41:08   in full screen mode.

00:41:10   - 'Cause like one of the weird things is

00:41:13   - Scrolling is possible in both,

00:41:15   no matter which one is foremost.

00:41:17   So you can scroll up and down,

00:41:19   but you can't pinch to zoom, right?

00:41:21   So it's like, you've got half of it there.

00:41:23   - Different apps have different behaviors

00:41:25   based on whether they're in the foreground

00:41:26   or in the background.

00:41:27   So like preview is a good example

00:41:28   and other apps are like this where you can scroll

00:41:31   in when it's in the background, but you can't zoom.

00:41:34   But that gets weird 'cause then you're in full screen mode

00:41:36   and you're like, okay, well, some things I can do

00:41:39   without clicking on it, but other things I need to click

00:41:41   first and then I can do other things with it.

00:41:43   And with preview, it's even weirder

00:41:46   because you're not clicking to like edit something.

00:41:49   You're just clicking to click on something

00:41:52   that's part of preview so that it comes to the foreground.

00:41:55   Even though it is in the foreground technically, right?

00:41:58   Because, well, not technically,

00:42:00   it visually it's in the foreground

00:42:02   'cause there's only two apps

00:42:03   and spatially they're both at the top.

00:42:06   But you still have to click on that one

00:42:09   because it's not active

00:42:11   because the other one's active.

00:42:13   See, this is, it's tough stuff, this is not easy stuff.

00:42:16   This is like the desktop metaphor

00:42:17   and every time you add something to it,

00:42:20   there are complications around it.

00:42:21   But that's just one of the first things

00:42:23   that struck me about it.

00:42:24   And I think it's less problematic on iOS,

00:42:28   although there's still some issues on iOS

00:42:30   with the split screen view.

00:42:31   I think it's a little less problematic

00:42:33   because you are physically interacting.

00:42:35   - Yeah, that problem doesn't exist there

00:42:37   because whatever you're touching

00:42:40   becomes the current. - Exactly.

00:42:43   There's no hovering with a cursor and then doing a gesture.

00:42:47   But in the iOS, if we take the iOS model and apply it here,

00:42:51   then absolutely when you move your cursor over it

00:42:53   and do a pinch and zoom, it should answer.

00:42:57   It should know that is what you're intending to work on.

00:43:00   But that's not how the Mac works at all.

00:43:02   You don't, you know, moving, 'cause on Unix

00:43:04   you have this situation where you move your cursor

00:43:06   over an app, in some of the, like X windows kind of,

00:43:10   interfaces, and forgive me because I'm sure there are specific names of specific kinds

00:43:13   of Linux, GUIs, in which this happens, but the idea is that the focus follows the cursor.

00:43:21   And for a Mac user, that's really weird, that the focus follows the cursor, that when your

00:43:25   mouse moves over that app, that app is now where the focus is. And for us, as Mac users,

00:43:30   you click, and then the focus comes. But, you know, yeah, I think that is sort of broken

00:43:38   in the split screen view and on the Mac.

00:43:41   But on iOS, yeah, it makes sense

00:43:42   because you're touching that app,

00:43:44   that app is gonna respond.

00:43:45   The only place where it gets a little weird is the keyboard.

00:43:48   But even there, you have to tap to get an insertion point.

00:43:51   I mean, you are tapping on something and saying,

00:43:53   this is where I want the keyboard to be.

00:43:56   And then the keyboard comes up.

00:43:57   So it's a lot clearer there

00:44:00   because it's not mediated by a little cursor

00:44:04   that you move around.

00:44:05   Should we take a break?

00:44:10   I think so.

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00:47:07   Squarespace.

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00:47:09   Squarespace!

00:47:10   Squarespace!

00:47:11   So you've put in a little topic here, which I'm going to have to help explain to me.

00:47:17   Sure.

00:47:18   I wrote a post about it last week.

00:47:21   Okay, so we're recording this Monday.

00:47:24   So, morning my time, the New Horizons spacecraft will reach Pluto, formerly a planet, now debatably

00:47:35   a minor planet, but we, you know, when we were growing up it was always the ninth planet

00:47:41   and it's still one of the major bodies in the solar system.

00:47:45   And I just, I am a space nerd, I admit it, that is one of my nerdinesses in addition

00:47:51   to computer nerdiness and pop culture nerdiness, which we're going to get to because Comic-Con

00:47:57   also happened last week. But I wrote a post about it because I tried to cross the streams

00:48:02   with my tech nerdiness and my space nerdiness. So the idea here is this, Pluto is very, very

00:48:08   far away. It's like 3 billion miles away. We're 93 million million miles from the sun.

00:48:15   Pluto is 3 billion miles away. It is very, very, very, very far away. So far that it

00:48:20   it takes about four and a half hours for light or radio waves in this case to travel from

00:48:27   Earth to the spacecraft. So very far away. And on tomorrow the spacecraft will zoom past

00:48:36   Pluto and its moons and then into, you know, further deeper into the Kuiper belt and of

00:48:43   icy objects that sort of surround the solar system and then out into interstellar space.

00:48:49   So I think this is interesting for a few reasons.

00:48:52   One is that I think it's a great story of delayed gratification.

00:48:56   They launched it in 2006.

00:49:04   So they launched it before the iPhone.

00:49:09   This is a spacecraft that was built before the iPhone existed.

00:49:14   But it's, you know, it's a computer in there.

00:49:16   So first off, the people who run this mission

00:49:21   have been sitting for almost 10 years

00:49:24   just waiting for it to get to its destination.

00:49:26   And then literally, it will blow past its destination

00:49:30   in a day, less than a day, and that's it.

00:49:34   So delayed gratification and then, boom, all of this stuff

00:49:36   is going to happen.

00:49:37   And that's going to happen tomorrow.

00:49:39   So I think that's really exciting.

00:49:40   Tuesday, July 14 is when it's going to happen.

00:49:44   And it's also a story of delayed gratification in that,

00:49:48   during its closest approach, when it's just gobbling up,

00:49:52   'cause it's only got this one shot at it,

00:49:53   so it's gonna be taking pictures

00:49:55   and using all of its instruments to gather all this data,

00:49:58   it's gonna be, one, it's too busy doing that

00:50:00   to send anything back to Earth,

00:50:02   and two, it's actually not gonna be able to see Earth

00:50:04   for part of it, because of the way it has to position itself,

00:50:07   its antenna won't be pointed at the Earth.

00:50:09   So it's delayed gratification in the sense that

00:50:13   When this is all happening, the most exciting things,

00:50:17   even, you can't see it live, not even live delayed

00:50:20   by 4.4 hours it takes for the transmissions

00:50:22   to get back to Earth.

00:50:22   It's gonna be too busy to talk to us.

00:50:24   So they're not gonna know until tomorrow night,

00:50:28   US time, whether it survived or if it hit like a piece

00:50:32   of debris and was destroyed, which they say is a one

00:50:36   in 10,000 chance, but, and they're flying it through

00:50:39   the path of one of the moons of Pluto,

00:50:41   the idea there being it's so big

00:50:42   that there's no debris in its path because it swept it all up.

00:50:47   So delayed gratification and then here we get into the computer stuff.

00:50:52   It's running a 12 megahertz processor.

00:50:57   It's got a lot of solid state storage from a time when

00:51:01   SSDs weren't common but they built in, there's a lot of, that's their storage,

00:51:04   they've got a lot of solid state storage.

00:51:07   So, and it went into safe mode a couple weeks ago and this is the computer part

00:51:11   of the story is

00:51:12   It had a computer error when they were trying to put it into its full exploration mode,

00:51:17   and they had to debug it.

00:51:18   Now I just want you to imagine for a minute debugging something that's, first off, it's

00:51:22   a 12 megahertz computer.

00:51:26   It's 3 billion miles away.

00:51:28   Every command you send to it will take four and a half hours to reach it, and then another

00:51:32   four and a half hours for the response to come back.

00:51:37   And the good news is that they resolved this.

00:51:40   They figured out what it was, they analyzed what they had done, they figured out that

00:51:43   it had gone into a safe mode because they had put, I think, put the commands in in the

00:51:47   wrong order, like just in the sequence, because you're dealing with very low power and this

00:51:52   very slow processor.

00:51:54   They've got it up and running now.

00:51:56   So that's cool.

00:51:57   The other thing we need to keep in mind is that I think it's a one megabit connection,

00:52:02   one kilobit connection, one kilobit per second from beyond Pluto. So when they've prioritized,

00:52:13   like, they've scripted the whole mission, they know all of the pictures it's taking,

00:52:16   and then they prioritize, like, that should be a good picture, that should be a good picture,

00:52:20   and they picked this, like, really basic data set to be the first thing that once it points

00:52:25   its antenna back at Earth, these are the first things that we send. Like, the "oo-ah" pictures

00:52:29   that are going to be on every website and every TV channel. They're going to send those

00:52:33   first. But it's going to collect so much data tomorrow that it's going to take, get this,

00:52:39   the next year for it all to come back. This little spaceship is going to continue motoring

00:52:45   off into interstellar space, and for the next year, while they steer it toward, they're

00:52:51   going to probably fly by another icy object out in deep space. But for the next year,

00:52:55   it's going to just very slowly dump everything back.

00:52:58   In fact, they've got a whole script set up

00:53:01   where like they're going to send lossy stuff first.

00:53:04   So they'll like send the JPEGs,

00:53:06   they'll send things that'll have some image artifacts,

00:53:07   but they want to, but there'll be smaller.

00:53:09   Those will come first.

00:53:11   Then they're going to send some thumbnails of everything.

00:53:13   Then they'll send all the full quality ones.

00:53:16   And they have a whole script of what gets sent when

00:53:20   over the course of not just weeks,

00:53:23   but months and almost a year, I think,

00:53:26   of data from this one day,

00:53:28   and from this period as they've been approaching Pluto.

00:53:31   So I think it's a really interesting tech story

00:53:34   in addition to being a space story,

00:53:35   that this is, you know, it's old tech anyway,

00:53:38   plus space tech is always even older

00:53:41   because they've got to have like proven simple systems.

00:53:44   You can't, you know, you can't send a mechanic out

00:53:47   to check on the computer when it's 4 billion miles away.

00:53:49   And then they also have to like harden all the parts

00:53:52   against radiation.

00:53:53   So this is a special radiation hardened part.

00:53:56   So I think that's a fun story.

00:53:58   I also think there's an interesting angle,

00:54:00   which is to think,

00:54:01   what will the next set of space probes be like?

00:54:04   Because in the last 10 years,

00:54:06   we've gotten really good at low power,

00:54:09   miniaturized technology.

00:54:13   Like mobile devices have really come on in the decades

00:54:19   since New Horizons was being prepared for launch.

00:54:23   And I think that's really interesting to think about.

00:54:25   Will our knowledge in how to make mobile,

00:54:30   I mean, this is as mobile as it gets, right?

00:54:32   Send it out of the solar system.

00:54:34   Will that lead, you know,

00:54:36   they're not gonna take something off the shelf

00:54:37   that's cutting edge today

00:54:38   and put it in a spaceship tomorrow.

00:54:40   It's gonna, there'll need to be some lag time.

00:54:42   But I would imagine if this is what this device is able to do

00:54:48   A 12 megahertz processor that was launched 10 years ago

00:54:53   and probably designed and built 15 years ago.

00:54:55   If this is what this can do,

00:54:57   can you imagine what some stuff that's based on

00:55:01   what we've learned about making devices

00:55:03   that can use less power

00:55:05   and that are still very powerful and very compact

00:55:08   might mean for future stuff?

00:55:09   So I just think it's a fun subject

00:55:11   and hopefully we'll see some cool pictures from--

00:55:13   - I'm happy that you've said about it

00:55:14   because I didn't really know anything about it at all.

00:55:17   Yeah, so tomorrow you can pay attention to basically no news.

00:55:22   It'll be us saying, well, it should be taking pictures now.

00:55:25   And then we wait.

00:55:28   And like I said, it's all about delayed gratification.

00:55:31   New Horizons wants you to wait.

00:55:33   But I think it's exciting.

00:55:34   And when I was reading about their computer problem

00:55:37   that they had and seeing the old tech involved and the fact

00:55:40   that we're talking about such a slow data link--

00:55:42   and they have to have these radio telescopes

00:55:45   all over the planet.

00:55:45   They're in Australia.

00:55:46   they're in the US and they're somewhere else.

00:55:49   Maybe it's the UK.

00:55:53   They have to have this network of radio telescopes

00:55:55   so that they're always, or receivers,

00:55:58   because they're always, you know,

00:56:01   they wanna stay in connection.

00:56:02   Even as the Earth turns,

00:56:04   they need to stay in connection with the spacecraft.

00:56:06   So it's just this incredibly hard technical problem.

00:56:10   In addition to the science that's going on

00:56:13   with the observations, the ship itself

00:56:16   and how we talk to it is this, it's like the solar system's hardest IT problem.

00:56:21   So I think that's kind of fascinating too.

00:56:24   So just before we started recording, the New Horizons craft settled the size of Pluto?

00:56:31   I don't know if you saw this.

00:56:33   Yes.

00:56:34   Yeah, that was in the press conference this morning, yeah.

00:56:35   Yeah, so that's interesting.

00:56:37   I don't know if it means it can be a planet or not.

00:56:40   I don't really understand if that's a possibility.

00:56:42   Well planet is not a, I mean it's not actually a helpful phrase because it's more complicated

00:56:49   than that. I think the International Astronomical Union came up with a redefinition of planets

00:56:55   that I think nobody is particularly satisfied with, but the idea is Pluto is not like the

00:56:59   other things we think of as planets, and it's more like these other objects that are icy

00:57:05   objects at the distant reaches of the solar system. And what precipitated the whole thing

00:57:10   is a guy named Myke Brown, who is PlutoKiller on Twitter, by the way, discovered an object

00:57:17   that is now called Eris, and it is heavier than Pluto. And it kind of called the question,

00:57:26   it's actually slightly smaller than Pluto, but it's more dense, so it's heavier, it's

00:57:28   got more mass. And that made everybody go, huh, okay, now we have to, now we really have

00:57:35   to do something. Either Eris is also a planet like Pluto is, or we need to maybe say, "You

00:57:41   know, Pluto and Eris and these other little icy things all the way out at the edge that

00:57:45   orbit in funny orbits that are not like any of the other planets, maybe they're not the

00:57:49   same as all of the stuff, the other eight objects we call planets. Maybe they're a different

00:57:55   kind of thing." And, you know, whether you want to call them planets or lesser planets

00:57:59   or minor planets or icy objects or trans-Neptunian objects, whatever you want to call them, they

00:58:07   are different because the discovery of Eris was like, "All right, now we need to say."

00:58:11   And then there's also a space probe around Ceres, which we've always talked of as an

00:58:15   asteroid. It's in the asteroid belt, but it's round and big. And you could maybe argue,

00:58:21   and I saw some scientists on Twitter the other day say, "The more we look at Ceres, the

00:58:27   less it looks like an asteroid. So you almost need to say it's a small planet

00:58:31   and what is it? It's different even from... It's just different even from Pluto and

00:58:36   and and well it's just it's closer in and it's small it's much smaller than

00:58:40   than the other the other planets in the inner solar system but is it an

00:58:44   asteroid or is it a planet? It's it's just kind of fun but but anyway Myke

00:58:47   Brown discovered Eris and that kind of made everybody question the simple sort

00:58:52   of nine planets approach that we taught, you know, kids in school. And, you know, they

00:58:58   might be giants to the fun song about this on their Here Comes Science album. And one

00:59:04   of the things that they, one of the phrases they used is, you know, there's Pluto, Eris

00:59:07   and a bunch of other stuff out there. And it's okay to talk about the other, all the

00:59:10   frozen stuff that's out beyond Neptune. And that's cool. But I recommend Myke Brown's

00:59:16   he has a book I think it's called it's like how I killed Pluto which is

00:59:26   actually a lot of fun about how yeah it's how I killed Pluto and why it had

00:59:29   it coming it's a good book about the good title it's a really yeah and he is

00:59:34   he is Pluto killer on on Twitter so he's enjoy I'm sure he's enjoying this too

00:59:39   because this is his field of study is these icy bodies out of the far reaches

00:59:43   of the solar system and we'll learn a lot from that that spaceship with the 12

00:59:47   megahertz processor you know for the last month every picture it's taken even

00:59:52   as it's been approaching Pluto has been the best picture ever taken of Pluto so

00:59:57   yeah it's fun. Just a quick question about that that what is it called the

01:00:04   craft? New Horizons. So after it goes past Pluto is it gonna be looking for

01:00:12   anything else? Like is it just carrying on? Or will it finish? Will it run out of fuel or whatever?

01:00:18   Well it's got a radioactive... it has some propellant and has a

01:00:22   radioactive power source. So what they plan on doing after they pass Pluto and

01:00:28   they know that the ship is okay, what they're gonna do is they've got...

01:00:30   I'm not sure if they've picked... they've got a couple different objects that they

01:00:34   could head for, so they want to head for another known icy object out there in

01:00:39   in what's called the Kuiper Belt and fly by it too.

01:00:44   And so I think that's their goal is to fly by another one

01:00:50   of these kinds of objects, smaller than Pluto,

01:00:52   but not very well known, you know, because they're far out.

01:00:55   We don't know a lot about these objects.

01:00:56   And the idea is that this is the stuff that's left over

01:00:59   from the formation of the solar system.

01:01:00   So you can learn a lot about the solar system

01:01:04   and about the formation of the planets

01:01:06   and the solar system from this kind of junk

01:01:09   that's just kind of floating around

01:01:11   in the far reaches of the solar system.

01:01:13   And then after that, after they do whatever corrections

01:01:16   they do to try and go past one of those objects,

01:01:18   then it just keeps going.

01:01:19   Just like, I think Voyager 2 is the furthest away

01:01:24   of any object that is manmade

01:01:27   and is now out beyond the influence of the sun,

01:01:31   but it just keeps going.

01:01:33   And if it's anything like, I haven't read this,

01:01:35   But I assume if it's anything like Voyager,

01:01:37   they will try to keep it alive as long as they can

01:01:39   and try to do some basic science.

01:01:41   Like Voyager, its whole goal was to look at planets,

01:01:44   but it's actually been really useful scientifically

01:01:46   using some of its instruments

01:01:48   and its draining power source to radio back faintly

01:01:52   information about like what it's measuring

01:01:54   as it goes further and further away from the sun.

01:01:56   They've been able to sort of like learn

01:01:58   how far does the sun's influence go.

01:02:00   So, you know, I'm hoping that they'll do something similar

01:02:03   that because this is the fastest object that we've ever shot out of the solar system.

01:02:09   So at some point New Horizons will be the furthest away of any man-made object.

01:02:15   That's really interesting to me, right?

01:02:17   Because how much do we really know who passed Pluto?

01:02:20   Like I assume not a lot.

01:02:22   Well I mean this stuff is smaller and it's very hard to see from Earth even with the

01:02:25   Hubble Space Telescope.

01:02:28   It's hard to see and it's easier to see.

01:02:29   I mean, this is not a floating flying telescope

01:02:33   where it can be like the Hubble Space Telescope,

01:02:36   but far away.

01:02:37   Its cameras are more limited than that,

01:02:39   but it is out there, right?

01:02:40   So there's an opportunity for it to notice things

01:02:44   about that region of space that we have to look at

01:02:48   from very far away, like I said, 4 billion miles away.

01:02:51   And it's, you know, this is why,

01:02:54   I mean, why did Eris get discovered 10 years ago

01:02:58   or less than that, five years ago, eight, seven years ago,

01:03:01   not a long time ago.

01:03:02   Well, no, actually, I think it was exactly 10 years ago.

01:03:08   It got discovered then because it took that long

01:03:10   for us to have good enough ground-based

01:03:13   and space-based telescopes and computers

01:03:16   to take these pictures of the sky and notice that,

01:03:19   oh, that little dot of light moved a little bit.

01:03:23   It's very hard to see from here.

01:03:25   So this has been one of those kind of cutting edges

01:03:29   of astronomy because it's required the technology

01:03:33   that we have today in order to find this stuff.

01:03:35   Like Myke Brown writes about how he, you know,

01:03:37   he took all of these images that were taken

01:03:39   by the telescopes in Hawaii and ran them through a computer.

01:03:43   And it was like, literally the computer is looking at,

01:03:45   you know, millions of images trying to find moving objects.

01:03:49   And most of them are gonna be like airplanes or satellites,

01:03:52   but what they're trying to do is identify,

01:03:54   are there any objects out there big enough for us to find?

01:03:57   And the answer was, actually his answer about a year ago

01:04:01   was no, it seems like we probably got them all

01:04:04   that we're capable of seeing right now.

01:04:06   - Well, there you go. - Frontiers of science.

01:04:10   It's kind of fun.

01:04:11   And the tech, I like the tech angle.

01:04:12   I mean, imagine we get frustrated by our computers

01:04:15   here on earth and then they have to deal with this computer

01:04:17   that is four and a half hours away by radio

01:04:21   and on a slow connection running a slow processor,

01:04:24   and that's all they've got.

01:04:26   They've got to make it work.

01:04:27   - It's crazy stuff, man.

01:04:29   I'm happy that you took the time to talk about this,

01:04:30   'cause I had no idea about any of this, really.

01:04:33   I mean, I know that something was happening, right?

01:04:35   But in the past, I didn't know anything.

01:04:37   - So should we switch off and talk about something

01:04:40   that's just as nerdy, but in a totally different direction?

01:04:43   - Yes.

01:04:44   Comic-Con.

01:04:46   - Comic-Con!

01:04:48   So there's been a bunch of stuff as there is every year.

01:04:52   Disney's showing basically was Star Wars this year,

01:04:56   no real Marvel stuff.

01:04:58   And DC attempted to display their expanded universe

01:05:03   as did Fox.

01:05:06   All superhero all the time.

01:05:08   And I wanted to talk about a couple of the trailers

01:05:11   specifically, and then we could talk about whatever else

01:05:14   you wanted to as well.

01:05:15   So first off I want to talk about the Dawn of Justice trailer. So this is Batman/Superman.

01:05:19   Yep.

01:05:20   So this one came out, this is like a general frustration of mine is, why don't they put

01:05:24   the trailers all out like after they show?

01:05:27   Well I think they didn't they with Batman vs Superman?

01:05:29   They did with Batman and Superman, they did with the Star Wars, but like I want to watch

01:05:33   the Deadpool trailer but it's like apparently it's gonna be in the next, it's gonna be three

01:05:36   weeks away?

01:05:37   Well they haven't learned the lesson that the people who did the Star Wars, this year

01:05:43   I felt like some some companies really got it like there was some stuff that was posted as soon as it was shown and

01:05:49   The panels were posted now like we're just gonna put it out there

01:05:53   Rather than have it be some sort of shaky cam version of this thing

01:05:57   We're just gonna put it out there and then other companies haven't learned the lesson yet. Nope. So yeah, I think it'll happen

01:06:02   I think eventually everybody will realize you first to show it at Comic Con and then you show it to the whole world

01:06:06   immediately after you don't

01:06:09   Say no no no you see it see it in three weeks until then just watch this handheld

01:06:13   You know cell phone camera version of it. That's stupid

01:06:17   So I want to let's talk about the one of justice so basically the conceit of the trailer is

01:06:23   People everybody's upset Superman for what he did to metropolis

01:06:29   Yeah at the end of Man of Steel. Yeah, so like trying trying to take the the gigantic mistake of

01:06:38   movie and make it a plot point that's clever so you know you have spoken about

01:06:42   this length on episode 146 of the incomparable which I'll put in today's

01:06:47   show notes which I think that people should listen to in case they haven't

01:06:50   already that's in there so that's where to discuss Man of Steel and I agreed

01:06:57   with everybody on the panel basically that it was too much destruction too

01:07:00   many people killed potentially and it was all ridiculous and I have a long

01:07:06   weren't in problems with Superman as a character anyway, that don't work in 2015, like the

01:07:12   fact that the disguise wouldn't work because everyone was seeing pictures of his face,

01:07:16   like it's just, the Clark Kent disguise is pointless now.

01:07:20   But the short version is that Man of Steel felt a little too cavalier with the destruction

01:07:25   of city blocks and that Superman didn't appear to really care or attempt to move the destruction

01:07:33   elsewhere and that that seemed very unheroic and plus the fight isn't very interesting

01:07:38   because they're both invulnerable so they're destroying buildings but they have no, they

01:07:42   don't actually hurt each other to speak of because they're super powerful, all-powerful

01:07:47   beings. So in this trailer we see Batman, we see Bruce Wayne witnessing this destruction

01:07:54   and apparently the idea is that there are a lot of people on Earth who feel like I do

01:08:00   about the end of Man of Steel and have a problem with Superman and you know Batman's not gonna

01:08:07   I guess not gonna take it anymore or something.

01:08:10   Before we talk about any more of the details of the trailer because I did want to talk

01:08:14   about a few more I have a question for you.

01:08:16   Do you think that the city-wide destruction in Man of Steel was portrayed the way it was

01:08:26   for this movie to exist and have a plot, or do you think it is a reaction after the fact?

01:08:34   I think it's a reaction after the fact. I've heard from some fans who basically are trying

01:08:38   to say, "See, the reason it happens that way in Man of Steel is so they could do this movie."

01:08:44   Well, I think I've seen some statements from the filmmakers to the contrary, but I'll just

01:08:49   say if they ended that movie the way they did because they thought this is going to

01:08:55   make a great sequel, they are really stupid because the last thing you need to do is wreck

01:09:00   your movie and make people hate it because you've got a really great sequel idea. Because

01:09:05   first off you need to make a good movie or there won't be a sequel or you won't be asked

01:09:09   to make it. So I don't believe that this is all part of some great plan that people would

01:09:15   - that you would undermine Superman to this degree. So I think it's a reaction. I think

01:09:21   that that actually fed into this is people were people were kind of appalled

01:09:24   by the ending of the movie and they said oh that's actually an interesting way

01:09:29   into this story to have people like like Lex Luthor and Batman as it turns out be

01:09:36   appalled by what happened in the movie but if that was the plan all along I

01:09:39   think that they're guilty of some serious malpractice because it wrecked

01:09:43   you know it wrecked the movie for me so it's like hey we're gonna make you

01:09:48   really angry at this movie so we can make another movie."

01:09:50   Okay.

01:09:51   - My feeling would be if that was gonna be what they did, then they should have had a

01:09:56   hint to Batman at the end of the movie.

01:09:58   Like if that was the decision that they made, then Bruce Wayne should have been at the end

01:10:01   of the movie.

01:10:02   - There were no consequences at the end of the movie.

01:10:04   At the end of the movie of Man of Steel, if it was very clear that this fight that happened

01:10:10   was horrible and that that you know Superman was was kind of morally I don't

01:10:21   know just questionable at this point that that people were wondering that I

01:10:26   think I think that would have been an interesting way to end it but boy that

01:10:30   would be a really that would be an even more dark way in that movie so I don't

01:10:35   know it's a it's a complicated topic we talked about a lot on that

01:10:39   an incomparable episode. So you know you can go there for it. My question with this movie

01:10:42   is I find it problematic when I watch the trailer that I agree with Batman and Lex Luthor

01:10:50   about Superman. Like I agree with them that he's a menace who could destroy everything

01:10:55   and he's shown no evidence that he is on our side and that he cares about human life and

01:11:01   the fact that in the trailer his mother says you don't owe these people anything. I'm like

01:11:06   "Oh man!" And I also know that Superman...

01:11:08   - Yeah, but why is that bad though? Like, you've got to pick a side, so maybe they're setting it up, especially in this trailer, to make you pick that man's side.

01:11:15   - Yeah, well, the... why it's bad is that Superman is incredibly valuable, and so in the end they're gonna learn that it's Lex Luthor who's the true enemy,

01:11:24   and they're gonna form the Justice League with Wonder Woman and Aquaman, and everybody's gonna be happy.

01:11:29   And my question is, can this movie do enough

01:11:34   to redeem that character after the disaster

01:11:38   that I feel was the end of "Man of Steel"?

01:11:40   And that would be quite impressive if it does that.

01:11:44   I'll put it that way.

01:11:45   I would be very impressed if in the end,

01:11:47   this was about bringing Superman low

01:11:49   and having him realize the error of his ways

01:11:51   and that he now needs to start acting like a true hero

01:11:54   and care for people.

01:11:55   And if that's his character arc,

01:11:57   That would be a bold move for a character that is generally portrayed as being just

01:12:02   a Mr. Friendly Sunshine Happy superhero guy.

01:12:06   But they could do it.

01:12:07   That would be fascinating if Batman teaches Superman what it means to actually be a hero.

01:12:11   I have my suspicions that that's not going to be how it goes.

01:12:14   So I have a couple of other questions about this trailer and I'm hoping you might be able

01:12:18   to help clean up for me.

01:12:22   First is, is this Batman's origin story?

01:12:24   seems not but it seems like they're making some weird crosses because you

01:12:29   know he picks up the paper and it's like Wayne family dies because one of the

01:12:33   buildings that they destroy is a Wayne building but but there seems like to be

01:12:40   cause to the fact that this is Batman returning to action right I think that's

01:12:45   what it is I think this is I think that Batman has already existed but that this

01:12:51   is a the impetus for either Batman to return or for him to change his approach

01:12:56   from what he was doing before and think you know think more globally maybe or

01:13:01   maybe you know beyond just being a protector of Gotham or something like

01:13:04   that but I agree you can almost look at it like this is the origin of Batman he

01:13:08   becomes Batman because he's so outraged I don't think the timeline works for

01:13:12   that I don't think it makes it makes any sense that he would be a new Ben Affleck

01:13:17   would decide to be new Batman at this point so it's got to be more complicated

01:13:20   than that but I think the trailer sort of simplifies it to make you feel like

01:13:24   no no no this is the this is when we meet Batman it's important that you meet

01:13:27   him now yeah because there are some parts of the trailer which show that

01:13:31   Batman had already existed like you know when he and you've I'm sure you've seen

01:13:36   the trailer I don't know how much you studied it or looked up about it because

01:13:39   I've been a bit fascinated by it you know when he looks at that suit and it's

01:13:43   got the yellow spray paint on it in the trailer I don't know if you remember it

01:13:47   that is Robin's suit and it's yeah it's what the Joker writes on is it is it

01:13:55   Jason Todd I you you're beyond my I I only occasionally I only go to the

01:14:03   Church of Batman for Easter okay so one of the Robins was caught by Batman and

01:14:07   yeah that's what was caught by the Joker and by the Joker yeah and so basically

01:14:12   the the suit is up in this case and it's got the Joker writing on it and it's so

01:14:15   Robin suit so so he's a messed up you know maybe retired or semi-retired

01:14:20   Batman who comes back into action because of all the crap that has gone on

01:14:24   with Superman and Zod destroying cities and stuff yep there's also one other

01:14:29   point which is weird I don't know if you've got an answer but I wanted to

01:14:32   mention it seems really weird to me there's like Batman is getting beaten up

01:14:36   by a bunch of people those people have Superman's logos on their arms like

01:14:40   there's Superman's army which I can't I don't know what that means like there's

01:14:44   so many questions. So my guess is that they're not going to portray their most important

01:14:49   piece of intellectual property as a fascist and that it's going to be that Superman's

01:14:54   name and likeness and logo are used, unauthorized use, by people who fancy themselves vigilantes

01:15:03   in the name. That's my guess about what that means is that the meaning of Superman kind

01:15:09   of is out of Superman's control and starts to represent a whole bunch of things that

01:15:15   he doesn't want it to. And then my guess based on the first half of Man of Steel, which I

01:15:19   actually liked a lot, is that this allows Henry Cavill to be sort of mopey disaffected

01:15:27   Clark Kent, which I actually really like the fact that he is he is alien, like literally

01:15:30   alienated from humanity. He's not human. And that after all of these bad experiences, maybe

01:15:35   he's like I don't even want to be involved and then his story arc maybe is

01:15:40   that he realizes he can't not be involved because he's made such an

01:15:44   imprint on society that if he doesn't take control of it other people will use

01:15:48   his name to do things he doesn't agree with that that that's what I read I read

01:15:52   into the you know fighters with the Superman logo is that they're not

01:15:55   authorized those are not authorized merchandise jackets is what I'm saying

01:16:00   Interesting. I'm excited about this movie having seen this trailer. I like the idea

01:16:07   of angry Batman, like really angry Batman, coming out of retirement to punch Superman

01:16:15   in the face. I kind of like that. I've never really liked Superman, Jason.

01:16:20   No, I agree. I agree. I've never really liked Superman. I mean, Superman's fine. He's boring.

01:16:26   Batman is much more interesting. Superman is great, he's apple pie and la la la. But

01:16:30   um, I agree with you, I didn't like the teaser trailer, I thought it was more of the same

01:16:34   from Zack Snyder and I was just like writing it off like, "this is a total disaster." I

01:16:38   looked at this one and said, "you know what, I'm not inclined to go see it, but I'm more

01:16:42   interested in it than I was before I saw the trailer because of that at least hint that

01:16:47   maybe they will, they will, you know, may--" just to back up and think about the corporate

01:16:54   politics here. Superman's always been perceived as number one, but I gotta say, I think Batman

01:16:57   is number one. Batman is more liked and more relevant in modern movies and in modern culture

01:17:04   than Superman is. Superman's sort of like Grandpa's superhero, and Batman is the superhero

01:17:11   of the last 20 years, certainly from DC. And so that would be really interesting if this

01:17:16   whole movie is about Batman punching Superman in the face and saying, "You screwed up, and

01:17:21   you need to hear what we have to say about this." That would be really interesting. Like

01:17:26   I said, I would love to see a movie where Superman is brought low and realizes that

01:17:29   he's really blown it and that he needs to make amends, and that that's where the Justice

01:17:35   League comes from. That would be interesting. I'm not sure I've got any confidence in Zack

01:17:39   Snyder to pull that off, but that would be a really interesting story and that would

01:17:43   make Superman way more interesting. And also, I think, wouldn't that be interesting for

01:17:48   Batman to like have him be the guy who is the adult supervision who's like you know

01:17:52   shape up Sunny that would be cool yeah and just to be like because it's a retired Batman

01:17:58   it's like let me teach you yeah the things that you need to know if you're going to try

01:18:03   and do this yeah and then also Wonder Woman is in it because reasons um thank you Joe

01:18:10   Steele for pointing that out she Wonder Woman and apparently Aquaman um Jason Momoa who

01:18:16   might remember as uh as uh caldrogo from game of thrones is i believe he's aquaman i think

01:18:22   so he may show up at some point too makes sense to have them all in it i think just

01:18:26   to solidify the justice league movie this this this is the movie where dc this is like

01:18:32   their iron man this is the movie where they say we we are now a shared universe as of

01:18:37   this movie it turns out that yes man of steel was part of it but like this is the moment

01:18:41   where they're like here's our plan we're gonna have a lot of movies this is where it starts

01:18:44   you start to meet these characters. So, you know, I wish them luck. I mean, I wish them

01:18:49   luck. I think Man of Steel is a terrible foundation to build on, but you can always, you know,

01:18:57   you're only as successful as your latest movie, right? So if Batman vs Superman does the trick,

01:19:02   then they'll be off and running.

01:19:04   My hope will be that they realize that the foundation is this movie, you know? Then that's

01:19:10   why they're putting everyone in it. They want this one to be a remembered one. The last

01:19:13   thing that I wanted to mention this Jason was what do you think about the

01:19:16   idea of a Ben Affleck directed solo Batman movie?

01:19:20   That was the rumor.

01:19:22   I have no opposition to that I think I think that's I think Ben Affleck is

01:19:25   actually a talented guy and and I think that would be an interesting idea to

01:19:30   that might be that might be DC's actual Iron Man right they're actual like let's

01:19:37   take somebody who's got a little bit more of a vision for this character and

01:19:40   and have them do a movie.

01:19:42   I would love to see that.

01:19:43   I would love to see a different take on Batman

01:19:45   that is not Christopher Nolan's Batman

01:19:47   that we've seen for the last 10 years.

01:19:49   - Yeah, I'm a big fan of Ben Affleck,

01:19:51   and especially if he's directing work,

01:19:54   so I'm very excited about that, personally.

01:19:57   What did you think of the Star Wars stuff?

01:19:59   It wasn't a trailer, but just like a reel of things.

01:20:03   - Yeah, it was like to get the fans hyped up.

01:20:05   I thought it was good for that.

01:20:06   I think, you know, it wasn't a trailer.

01:20:09   We had a bunch of people ask,

01:20:10   Is the incomparable gonna do five hours about this video?

01:20:12   And the answer is we're not gonna do anything about it

01:20:14   'cause it's not a trailer.

01:20:14   It's like a behind the scenes reel.

01:20:17   It's like a DVD extra kind of thing.

01:20:19   And I think it's interesting.

01:20:19   It gave away some new character names and some settings

01:20:24   and some other hints about what we're gonna see

01:20:26   in the new Star Wars movie.

01:20:27   And I thought that was a perfectly appropriate thing

01:20:30   to drop at Comic-Con.

01:20:32   I'll also point out,

01:20:33   and some people were pointing this out last week,

01:20:35   that Disney's got a lot of events.

01:20:37   They had the Star Wars,

01:20:38   the big Star Wars event in Orange County earlier this year, and then they've got the big Disney

01:20:42   Expo that they do. So Disney's got kind of some of its own events where it wants to make

01:20:46   news. So I feel like maybe this was a good use of Comic-Con. It's not dropping the full

01:20:51   trailer but it's still doing something for the fans, keeping the hype, building. They

01:20:57   had the three principal actors from the original trilogy on stage at Comic-Con, which was a

01:21:04   big deal. It wasn't just Mark Hamill and Carrie Fisher, but Harrison Ford was there too. I'm

01:21:08   I'm not sure he's made public appearances since he got in his plane crash on that golf course.

01:21:13   So, um, so I, I, that was, yeah.

01:21:16   And he doesn't like, uh, you know, he's rumored to be very, you know, testy about,

01:21:20   you know, appearing with fans and star Wars stuff and all of that, but he was there too.

01:21:23   So, and he seemed to have fun like, yeah.

01:21:25   So, so I think, I think it was good, but in terms of, um,

01:21:29   judging how the movie's going to be, it didn't, didn't really tell us anything.

01:21:34   It was just sort of like little tidbits for the fans, which is fine.

01:21:36   That's a great use of Comic-Con.

01:21:38   - A couple of things that I liked from The Real,

01:21:43   they were talking about practical effects a lot

01:21:46   and they showed some of that and they showed some models,

01:21:48   which look really cool.

01:21:49   And it's nice to see that sort of stuff there, right?

01:21:52   'Cause it shows that JJ is embracing what people want,

01:21:55   even whether he wants it or not, which I'm sure he does,

01:21:58   but you know, he's trying to give people what they want.

01:22:00   - Yeah, no, he wants it to,

01:22:02   I think the way to phrase it is,

01:22:04   JJ Abrams is embracing what the fans of the original trilogy want, which is fine because he's one of them.

01:22:11   Yeah, yeah, yeah.

01:22:12   So he gets it.

01:22:13   Mm-hmm.

01:22:14   Yeah.

01:22:14   And also Simon Pegg, which is just funny that he's in it.

01:22:18   He's in it in a costume.

01:22:19   In an alien costume.

01:22:20   [laughs]

01:22:21   I really hope, I really hope that you just never would know it's him.

01:22:25   Oh yeah.

01:22:26   And he's just because he wants to.

01:22:28   I assume that's what it is.

01:22:29   Yeah.

01:22:29   I absolutely assume that's what it is.

01:22:32   And I would expect that he would probably be the first in a long line of people that

01:22:37   are doing something like that in this movie.

01:22:39   You know, that know JJ, so I think that's really cool.

01:22:42   And I liked it.

01:22:43   Was there anything else from Comic Con specifically that you wanted to mention that caught your

01:22:48   eye?

01:22:49   No, I mean, I think it's worth mentioning, you know, the other superhero stuff.

01:22:53   There's another DC movie, they had the Suicide Squad on stage.

01:22:57   I saw like a shaky cam over the shoulder version of that.

01:23:01   I thought it looked pretty cool. Yeah so we'll see when the real official version

01:23:06   comes out and then Fox had their, Marvel wasn't there but Fox had their stuff

01:23:10   that they own of Marvel's there so they were talking about the new X-Men movie

01:23:13   which follows on from Days of Future Past. I still haven't seen that yet. It's

01:23:19   pretty good it's you know it's well it's pretty good for an X-Men movie. Oh burn!

01:23:25   But that's that's sort of how I I take it. It's a fun combination of the old

01:23:28   cast and the new cast and this apocalypse I think is similarly kind of a mix-up of old and new

01:23:36   and then they also showed some stuff from their Deadpool movie which I have zero interest in

01:23:41   because I don't like Deadpool but it's what's interesting about it is it's an R-rated movie so

01:23:47   it's going to be super violent and raunchy and stuff which I think you know what I think that's

01:23:51   interesting to do a superhero movie that's got that breaks some of the rules that have been

01:23:55   established for superhero movies so Suicide Squad also looks very risky. Yeah it does I suspect it

01:24:04   will be right on the edge of PG-13 and not verge over into R whereas Deadpool I don't know like

01:24:09   yeah just the trailer that I'd seen it looked a little uh a little much I would be surprised I

01:24:16   mean I don't know what the classifications are but it looked way further than I've seen any other

01:24:22   - Yeah, I'm sure they're gonna push it, but I'm skeptical.

01:24:25   But we'll see, but Deadpool, they're just going for the R.

01:24:28   So it's gonna be gory and profane,

01:24:32   and they're gonna amp it up all the way.

01:24:35   There were some teases of the DC TV stuff,

01:24:38   which I think is, that's the DC comic stuff

01:24:40   that I really love, is the Flash and Arrow,

01:24:42   and they've got a new spinoff coming,

01:24:43   and they're also doing a Supergirl show,

01:24:45   the same producers.

01:24:46   There was some zombie news.

01:24:49   There's a Walking Dead spinoff called Fear the Walking Dead,

01:24:51   which is sort of, The Walking Dead,

01:24:53   which I read as a comic too,

01:24:55   it's clever in how it starts out

01:24:57   because especially since they didn't have the budget,

01:24:59   it starts out as the guy wakes up,

01:25:01   Rick wakes up in the hospital,

01:25:02   he gets shot and he's in a coma

01:25:04   and then he wakes up and there's nobody around

01:25:06   and the apocalypse has already happened.

01:25:08   So now that The Walking Dead is like

01:25:10   one of the most successful shows on TV,

01:25:13   not just cable TV, on television in total,

01:25:17   they have the budget to do Fear The Walking Dead,

01:25:20   which is set in LA and tells the story of the zombie apocalypse hitting LA.

01:25:27   Which is, that's a very interesting thing.

01:25:30   That's a very interesting choice.

01:25:32   I'm more interested in this than The Current Walking Dead because I read the comic and

01:25:37   The Walking Dead comic in my opinion is miles better than the TV show.

01:25:40   I agree with you.

01:25:41   I agree with you.

01:25:42   I think the TV show is fine but the comic is great.

01:25:45   I think this will be interesting.

01:25:46   like the lessons learned from doing the other show and the fact that they can wind the clock

01:25:50   back and and tell that which is you know the fun story as a zombie you know telling a zombie

01:25:56   story of how how civilization crumbles and seeing it all and you know it that that should

01:26:02   be that should be interesting and then the other zombie show that was shown at Comic

01:26:07   Con is Ash versus Evil Dead which is coming to stars I think and and to either have your

01:26:13   R-rated movies. This is the R-rated TV show, essentially, but it's the it's a TV

01:26:20   show sequel to the Evil Dead movies with starring Bruce Campbell. So if you like

01:26:24   your gory, you know, gory zombie movies in the style of the Sam Raimi, Bruce

01:26:29   Campbell, Evil Dead, Army of Darkness kind of films, there's gonna be a show of it

01:26:35   that looked pretty funny and super violent and gory but also really funny

01:26:39   which is I think what you would expect from that.

01:26:41   The only other thing I wanted to mention is two of my favorite comic books from my childhood,

01:26:45   The Micronauts and ROM, were teased from IDW Publishing.

01:26:50   And I had long conversations with comic book people on Twitter about this because those

01:26:54   are toys that became comics, and the challenge there is that the toy intellectual property

01:26:58   and the comic book storylines are owned by different people.

01:27:03   So the things that we remember nostalgically from those properties are problematic because

01:27:10   Marvel Comics owns, like, with the Micronauts, the toys and the look of the toys are owned

01:27:15   by the toy company, which can, you know, and the holding company for the intellectual property.

01:27:19   So they can be licensed.

01:27:21   But all of the other stuff that went into that universe that was created just for the

01:27:25   comic book is still owned by Marvel.

01:27:27   And so this happened once before where they tried to do a new Micronauts comic book, but

01:27:31   all they could use were the images of the toys.

01:27:33   And so they had to create new characters and new settings.

01:27:36   And it was weird and not really ideal

01:27:39   because it kind of blows off the nostalgia factor.

01:27:42   You can't even start from a nostalgic place

01:27:43   and then tell new stories

01:27:45   'cause you don't own half of the nostalgia.

01:27:47   And the Rom space knight thing is even worse

01:27:49   because that was literally just a plastic toy of a robot

01:27:52   called Rom space knight.

01:27:54   And that was from Mattel or Parker brothers.

01:27:58   And he had three different guns that he could use.

01:28:00   So you had like a scanner and a neutralizer

01:28:02   and something else and a translator.

01:28:04   Everything else that people remember,

01:28:06   because the toy came and went in a year,

01:28:08   but the comic lasted for like five or six years.

01:28:11   Everything everybody is fond of that character

01:28:13   comes from the comics.

01:28:15   So if IDW publishing only has the rights to the toy,

01:28:19   they can create a comic based on that toy,

01:28:22   but they can't use any of the other stuff

01:28:24   that everybody remembers, the supporting cast, the villain.

01:28:29   It's just the human version of the robot guy,

01:28:33   can't, not owned by them.

01:28:34   So Moises Chuyang tells me to be patient

01:28:37   and that it's possible that IDW is actually also trying

01:28:40   to license stuff from Marvel comics.

01:28:43   They've worked with them on stuff in the past

01:28:45   that there might actually be more to this story

01:28:47   that there, that IDW as a publisher says,

01:28:49   look, if Marvel doesn't wanna buy this stuff,

01:28:51   maybe we'll buy it and we'll license stuff from Marvel

01:28:54   and then we'll put it together.

01:28:55   But it's just a funny, this is one of those examples

01:28:58   a beloved thing from my childhood that is out of print and can't be brought back into print because

01:29:03   the rights have kind of torn apart and expired. So, um, but there was a tease and all it said was

01:29:10   2016 Micronauts ROM, uh, IDW Publishing. So we'll see whether they dash my hopes. Um, I, I hope

01:29:18   Marvel would pick up the license because then they own everything and they could do, they could use

01:29:23   those old comics as a starting point. But, you know, we'll, we'll see. I'm going to listen to

01:29:27   to Moises and remain open-minded about it. And yeah, and all the Doctor Who people were

01:29:32   in San Diego too, which I am always amused to see English people running around San Diego,

01:29:36   because there's a lot of "Ah, the sun, the sun!" But they just announced the air date and showed

01:29:41   a little trailer for the new season of Doctor Who. But I just, I do enjoy that because a lot

01:29:45   of times you get these British actors who have never been to something on the scale of Comic-Con

01:29:50   and they're kind of amazed that, you know, how is it that all these thousands of Americans are

01:29:55   excited about our TV show because they when they're in Cardiff making Doctor Who you know

01:30:00   they there are some fans around but you know it's nothing like the scale of going to Comic-Con so I

01:30:06   always I enjoy that more than the actual panels sometimes it's just these people who have never

01:30:10   been exposed to how insane Comic-Con is and and and that's you that's usually the British actors.

01:30:19   Also Sherlock.

01:30:21   Yeah

01:30:24   They did have a teaser trailer for the

01:30:26   For the Christmas special of Sherlock which is not part of the modern Sherlock, but it's the same actors

01:30:32   But they're in the you know whatever it is Victorian the classic Sherlock Holmes era for the Christmas special

01:30:38   I have unpopular things to say about that trailer

01:30:41   Which is it looked to me like a like a Saturday Night Live sketch

01:30:44   And I thought it was painful, and I fear that it will be a terrible thing

01:30:48   I couldn't disagree anymore on that one.

01:30:52   That's fine, that's fine. It just hit me wrong. It hit me as a whole series of jokes that are like,

01:30:57   "See? We're back in the past now!"

01:31:00   And it just didn't hit me right at all.

01:31:04   But I'll watch it. I like Sherlock.

01:31:08   Yeah. I'm sad that you didn't like it.

01:31:12   Yeah. It's okay. It's okay. But I didn't.

01:31:17   I thought it was too much. I thought I worry that Sherlock is is is getting a little too smug with its success

01:31:23   and

01:31:25   That that trailer didn't didn't convince me otherwise, but you know again

01:31:29   I like the show so much that I'm gonna watch it regardless and I hope it's good

01:31:32   Cool. Should we just do a couple of ask upgrades before we sign off today? Let's do it

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01:33:47   Martin asks, and he asks me this question, I think Martin is very angry,

01:33:51   "If Zane Lowe is so great, how come he talks over the records or tracks and

01:33:56   isn't he meant to be in the peel mold?"

01:33:59   The talking over the tracks

01:34:03   is a style that Zane implements.

01:34:07   I quite like it. I think I mentioned this last week, I like that style.

01:34:13   He doesn't ruin the songs but every now and then he'll mention something if he's excited

01:34:17   about a song or he wants you to listen to a specific part and that reminds me of what

01:34:21   it's like to listen to music with a friend when you're listening to something like "Oh!

01:34:26   Listen to this bit, this is really good!"

01:34:27   That's kind of what Zane Lowe reminds me of and it is that infectious excitement that

01:34:32   I like about him and I think when he's talking about the Peel mold he's talking about John

01:34:36   Peel and how great John Peel was at discovering music which Zane Lowe still is.

01:34:42   presenting style is different and as I said last week I think I really all make

01:34:47   me have a last week before I really love Zayn's style of just being super pumped

01:34:51   up and excited one time because it makes me excited about the music he's excited

01:34:55   about so I don't think that it doesn't mean he's great I think it just means he

01:35:00   has a different style that he implements and if you don't like it that's fine

01:35:03   just listen to the playlists so when when I when I mean I mentioned this

01:35:08   last week and I mentioned at the beginning of this show too, when I say

01:35:12   that listening to a Beats 1 show is an entertainment program and it's not just

01:35:16   sort of you're playing a song and then playing another song, this is part of

01:35:20   what I mean, which is if you're there to appreciate the music and the DJs are

01:35:25   supposed to get out of the way, this is not for you. You should just listen to

01:35:28   the playlists because they play those songs and there are no DJs. And that's

01:35:34   sort of how I came to terms with this because I've never liked it when DJs talk over songs.

01:35:39   It's like what's it about you or the song? And the answer is it's about them. That is the answer.

01:35:45   And if it's never about them to you and it's about the song, don't listen to this because that's not

01:35:49   what it is. Like when, because we were talking about last week about about, oh who's the DJ in

01:35:55   London? Julie, Adonuga. When we listened to her show last week,

01:36:01   that was, you know, the music was coming and going and she was talking and it was

01:36:09   like you can either say she is getting in the way of the music or you can say

01:36:12   this is this is about experiencing this entertainment with with her as our guide

01:36:18   and she's talking to us throughout it and if you if you are into that then

01:36:23   this is the show for you but again if you if you want them out of the way this

01:36:28   this is not what, that's not the purpose here. It's just not the purpose of those

01:36:32   kinds of shows. I don't love DJs talking over music. That comes from my history as

01:36:38   being one of those people, like John Syracuse has said, one of those people who

01:36:41   pressed record on the radio to get a version of the song that you liked when

01:36:45   it when it got played on the radio back when I was a kid. But once I came to

01:36:50   accept that this is just not what these shows are, then I kind of made my peace

01:36:55   with it. It's like I'm not here for the unbroken pristine version of these songs

01:37:00   I'm here for this experience with this person.

01:37:04   Adam asked "was about to take a trip home from a nearby city and Apple Music

01:37:11   recommended a playlist called take a chill drive is that a coincidence?" I'm

01:37:17   gonna say yeah however yesterday when I was about to start cooking and I

01:37:23   was given two different playlists with cooking themes. I mean I'm assuming it's

01:37:28   just guessing time of day right and it's just throwing up stuff that it thinks

01:37:32   might be a thing but found it very very peculiar that it's that it seems to be

01:37:37   Apple music knows what I'm doing and is suggesting music specifically but hey

01:37:41   very interesting I mean I don't know but...

01:37:45   All right I have a um I found they had a what family game night playlist that was

01:37:51   surfaced for me that I saved because we do have a family game night and I

01:37:55   thought that was really fun that they had a little playlist for family

01:38:00   game night so I saved it and we will when we next have family game night

01:38:05   we will we'll play that playlist.

01:38:07   Yep, it's awesome.

01:38:09   And lastly, @Cgomas on Twitter, what is the consensus of securing individual apps with

01:38:17   touch ID if your phone itself locks using it at a reasonable interval. For some

01:38:22   reason I've read this and was like "oh yeah that is weird" like just immediately when

01:38:27   I heard it I was like "that is strange like I have like a bunch of apps and I

01:38:31   choose to turn on touch ID but I have my phone lock after like two minutes so

01:38:35   it's not you know a crazy amount of time." However there are a couple of apps that

01:38:40   I have on my phone that if I gave somebody my phone to look at I wouldn't

01:38:44   want them opening and those are the ones like you know it seems to be that there

01:38:48   is an overlap between those kinds of apps and the apps that also have touch ID

01:38:52   or password support like we use FreshBooks I don't want people going in

01:38:56   there day one I don't want people going in there you know etc. One password. Yeah

01:39:01   maybe in the biggest one I don't want people going in there so there is there is an

01:39:05   element of it but it is funny that like you know you have whole phone locks but

01:39:10   yet you still have individual locks with the same password, effectively your thumbprint,

01:39:15   in different apps. It's, you know, it's just it was just an interesting thing that when I read it,

01:39:19   I was like, "I've never considered that before." But there's a special class of apps that,

01:39:24   that, right, I think all apps expect that you're going to decide whether you want to lock your

01:39:29   phone or not. Yeah, and, and like, they don't need special security, most of them, because they know

01:39:34   that you're just gonna do a system-level set of security settings, right? And then there are

01:39:39   there are those apps that are like, you know,

01:39:41   we need more security than that.

01:39:43   We demand, we're not content with,

01:39:46   if the phone's unlocked, you can get to this stuff.

01:39:48   And they put a password in front of it.

01:39:50   And then the nice thing is you can put Touch ID

01:39:52   in front of it instead, and that makes it easier.

01:39:55   But I think that's the rationale is that there's some stuff

01:39:57   that yeah, if you unlock a phone and show something

01:39:59   to a friend that they're not gonna take it

01:40:01   and open up your passwords.

01:40:03   Or you can leave your phone unlocked

01:40:07   and only those things will be locked.

01:40:09   - Yeah, it's just an interesting,

01:40:15   it's an extra layer of security,

01:40:16   but as you say, for the apps that do it,

01:40:18   they're the ones that you want it for, really.

01:40:21   So, makes sense.

01:40:23   Right, so that's it for this week's episode.

01:40:26   If you wanna find our show notes,

01:40:27   you can go online and find them at relay.fm/upgrades/45.

01:40:32   Thanks again to our sponsors this week,

01:40:34   the great people at the New Mexico Tea Company,

01:40:36   Squarespace and Stamps.com. If you want to find us online you can find Jason at SixColors.com

01:40:42   and he is also @JSnell on Twitter and I am @IMyke and we will be back next time. Thanks

01:40:51   so much for listening. Say goodbye Jason Snell. Goodbye Jason Snell.

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01:40:57   [ Music ]