The Tech Guy Episode 1916 Transcript
Please be advised this transcript is AI-generated and may not be word for word. Time codes refer to the approximate times in the ad-supported version of the show.
Leo Laporte (00:00:02):
Podcasts you love from people you trust. This is TWI. Hi, this is Leo LePort and this is my tech high podcast. This show originally aired on the premier radio networks on Sunday, August 7th, 2022. This is episode 1916. Enjoy the tech eye podcast is brought to you by ITProTV. Are you looking to break into the world of it? Get the introduction you need with it. Pro TV, visit itpro.tv/twit for an additional 30% off all consumer subscriptions for the lifetime of your active subscription. When you use a code TWIT 30 at checkout. Well, Hey, Hey. Hey, how are you today? Leo LePort here. It's tech eye time. Yes. Your worst nightmare, a geek with his own radio show. What does that mean? Well, we're gonna talk tech. Yeah, that means computers, internet, home theater, digital photography, smart phones, smart watches, augmented reality, Bitcoin NFTs, you know, that kind of stuff. All the stuff that's changing in the world around us. Eighty eight, eighty eight. Ask Leo is my phone number. If you wanna call and talk, I'd love to do that. I'd love to hear from you 88 88, ask Leo.
Leo Laporte (00:01:25):
Let's see, what else? Oh, the tech, the website tech I labs.com tech I labs.com. That's free. No charge links will go there. After the show, you'll also get audio and video from the show and a transcript to and it's all just, you know, wander on in this is episode 1916 tech I labs.com article today in well actually a piece in subs stack by Paul Roberts about Epson printers. <Laugh> end of life. Now this is a, unfortunately the printer business is rife with this kind of stuff. You know, printers are cheap often so cheap that you wonder, well, how they make money on this. And of course they, they don't, they make money on the ink after the fact. And even then, if it's, if you use that printer too long, they get mad. So EP absence got these printers. It's the L series printers that have a little timer in it, a little clock. And after the counter reaches a certain number, they just don't work anymore. You get a message that says apart inside your printer is at the end of its service. Life service is required and then it just stops printing.
Leo Laporte (00:02:52):
It's been working well. It's been fine. So turns out Epson has a hard coded end of life in the software to protect you against full ink pads. Epson describes these as porous pads in the printer, the collect distribute, and very importantly, contain the ink that is not used on printed pages. Over time. These pads wear out, epsis says, you know, most of the time your printer's gonna wear out for other reasons, or actually they didn't even say that. They said before, the printer is replaced. For other reasons, maybe you just don't like the looks of it. You want something else, but if you're a high volume user and you haven't replaced the printer after a certain number of pages you get this message and your printer stops working mark Tavern. Who's a lecturer at the university of new Haven at Connecticut tweeted this.
Leo Laporte (00:03:49):
My wife's very expensive Epson American printer, by the way, note, very expensive. This wasn't even a cheap one. Just gave a message saying it had reached the end of its service life and proceeded to brick itself. Apparently she could pay to service it or buy a new one, even though it was working fine to which a professor of international law at Harvard university, Jonathan Xtra, who's been who's, you know, at well known commentator on these kinds of things, says a printer self bricking after a while is a great example of quote. You think you bought a product, but really you rented a service.
Leo Laporte (00:04:26):
If you look around on YouTube, there are videos of people replacing those pads. It's not expensive. It's not hard Epson. Doesn't provide the parts. You have to do a little, do it yourself. There is a little utility for windows users, actually, which is kind of interesting. If you use windows 10 87 Vista or XP, there's an EP official Epson reset utility that can only be used once <laugh> and will allow for printing for a short period of time. It's called the waste ink pad counter, and you can reset it. You can reset it if you're a Mac user, no, they, they don't make anything for the Mac. And Epson says maybe <laugh> we might make one for the Mac <laugh> but not now, L 360 L one 30 L two 20 L three, 10 L 365, maybe other models. Those are the ones that we know about this.
Leo Laporte (00:05:27):
You know, this is why our landfill is, is full of completely usable computers and technology things like your your AirPods, which really don't have replaceable batteries. In those, the earbuds you get from apple was Washington post just did a piece on and, and in fact, they have a accompanying thing on a GRA graveyard <laugh> of, of electronics devices. And in which they kind of list some devices that are, are the battery. You see this is called cuz of lithium ion battery in this case which after a certain number of charges, you know, this needs to either be replaced or the device needs to be replaced. And in some devices like AirPods, they're so small, you gotta glue the batteries and you can't replace. 'em Really, I mean, some people can, you know, if you have, if you're very good with <laugh> a razor this week in the Washington post, the electronics are built with death dates. Let's not keep them a secret Jeffrey Fowler, 14 consumer devices that most found most could stop working in three to four years because of batteries that cannot be replaced like your Amazon fire tablet.
Leo Laporte (00:06:42):
Once it goes through, you know, a certain number of recharges, the battery dies, we know that but Amazon offers no way to replace it. The fire HD eight tablet, Amazon won't disclose how many recharges it could take. Amazon offers no battery replacement service attempting to replace the battery is possible. Thanks to I fix it. Thank you. I fix it, but it's moderately difficult, but that's it. Air pods designed to die two years. Apple does have a battery service, but what they do, they give you a new air pod. <Laugh> they sell you a new one for $49, an ear <laugh> iPhones. You can repair MacBooks. You can repair BS, QC 35 noise canceling headphones. You cannot designed to die. I'll put a link in the short show notes, cuz it's a, it's good to know things like the Fitbit charge. Generally it's it's around things that are so small that you, you really couldn't expect them to be, you know, replace the battery, but should we be making products like that? I guess if you want something that'll fit in your ear and I guess, but does seem like it's kind of wasteful something to be aware of anyway, when you buy these things, I guess, right?
Leo Laporte (00:08:05):
We, we live in a disposable society. We just, it really is kind of the nature of, of the beast. I'm I'm sorry to say, ah, good news. It looks like Congress is gonna pass the this American innovation and clean energy act that does a whole bunch of other stuff. Bill gates, editorial last week in the New York times, we're on the verge of a remarkable moment for Congress and the country. This is him urging the inflation reduction act of 2022 urging the passage of it. It looks like they stayed up late last night. <Laugh> stayed up all night and passed it. So bill gates I guess, is probably pretty happy. And then there's the case of the French scientists. The internet troll it's in Klein. He's a physicist posted on Twitter. He's a research director at France's alternative energies and atomic energy commission seems like a reliable source posted a photo last week saying the closest start of the sun from the James web space telescope. This level of detail, amazing a new world is revealed day after day. Many, many likes, many, many retweets, thousands of them <laugh> couple of days later, you probably saw this story. He revealed that the photo he tweeted was not the work of the world's most powerful space telescope. It was a slice of sausage
Leo Laporte (00:09:34):
Chorizo. It did actually look, if you look at it, it looks kind like it could be from the James webspace telescope. Maybe they were pointing it somewhere besides space. I don't know. <Laugh> he then apologized. He said, according to contemporary cosmology, it's probably better in French, a coupling to contemporary Cosmo, no object, belonging to Spanish. Char Kuta exists anywhere but on earth. A lot of people were upset. A lot of people were upset.
Leo Laporte (00:10:05):
Hey, you know, I think, I think honestly probably like you have to get a driver's license. You have to pass a test, get an eye exam. There should be a, you know, some sort of exam before you get a Twitter account before you be allowed to tweet. So maybe not responsible tweeting, there should be something. I don't know. <Laugh> the photo of a distance star, actually Spanish sausage, eighty eight, eighty eight, ask Leo the phone number (888) 827-5536, toll free <laugh> from anywhere in the us or Canada, outside that area. You can still use Skype out to reach me. Leo Lao tech guy. Your calls are next. It is it is, but it is a bit of a little bit of a sausage that is all just a little bit tiny bit of a sausage, a little for so kinda looks like the, a get distant galaxy though. The ring Nebula is actually a ring baloney. Yeah, just did tended beat of society. So song, oh, I gotta show this now. Wait a minute. Henry sent me my son, the rockstar, my son <laugh> that's a good one too. My son, the rockstar sent me a video. All
Leo Laporte (00:12:13):
He was at outside lands, outside lands, which is the big festival in golden gate park. And he sent me this video. Can I go full screen on this? I don't want to show his phone number,
... (00:12:35):
Buddy. Hello? How are you doing?
Leo Laporte (00:12:39):
SA Hank, Phil Rosenthal. Lily Rosenthal. His fans are there.
... (00:12:45):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:12:46):
Apparently he's sign. He says I was signing loaves of bread, autographing loaves of bread afterwards my son, the, my son, the rock star.
... (00:12:59):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:13:08):
My send the rock star. Hello? Sam, apple, Sam.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:17):
Hello, Leo.
Leo Laporte (00:13:18):
How are you? My friend.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:20):
I am doing very well. Good.
Leo Laporte (00:13:22):
It's
Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:23):
Good. Beautiful hot muggy weekend here in Michigan. And we took Daisy and went out to the lake yesterday and I paddled around on the paddle board with her and she went
Leo Laporte (00:13:35):
Nice. Yeah. Very nice. Very lovely.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:44):
She loves to swim.
Leo Laporte (00:13:45):
Yes.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:46):
She hates bats, but loves to swim.
Leo Laporte (00:13:48):
Isn't that funny? Yeah, I know, but it's my choice. It's all about that's right. My choice.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:13:53):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:13:56):
Alrighty. And you are sitting, looking out at a beautiful lake mic. Is it lake Michigan? You're looking out at
Sam Abuelsamid (00:14:01):
That is east grand traverse bay.
Leo Laporte (00:14:04):
Oh, well the, well, what's it a bay on
Sam Abuelsamid (00:14:08):
It's at the Northern end of the lower peninsula of Michigan. That's where traverse city is.
Leo Laporte (00:14:13):
Yeah, but it's not, it's a bay on a lake, right?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:14:16):
It it opens up to lake,
Leo Laporte (00:14:20):
Michigan MI, Michigan. Okay.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:14:21):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:14:23):
Very nice. Yes. That's where Kate Patello ended up is in traverse city. My old cohorts from the screen. Save us. All right. We'll talk to you a few.
Kim Schaffer (00:14:37):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:14:38):
Now that's a song. That's a good song for Kim Schaffer. Our our phone angel. There she goes. Unbreakable though. She may be hello, Kim.
Kim Schaffer (00:14:49):
<Laugh>. Hi.
Leo Laporte (00:14:51):
You will be in charge of all the calls today. I always am. <Laugh> oh, that's true. What's different today than yesterday. That's true. How could I, I couldn't do this without you could. I, I would have to just, no, you could pick. I could do. Does anybody do that? Just answer the phone without any screening at all. And just say, who are you? What's your name? Where you're from probably, but it's risky. Seems like a risky thing. As, as long as you have a, a, a good Laura with a good, quick delay. Did Larry king do that? Cuz remember he would only know what's sitting caller. Yeah. Caller Detroit, Michigan caller. He never knew their name. No wonder if that's how he worked. I think that is how he worked. Maybe he just pick it up. Could be. And he was just relying on the people, the goodness of the people, the control room to dump it out.
Leo Laporte (00:15:34):
Yep. <Laugh> he probably had a little button on his suspenders that, you know, he could just snap him and that be it or under the desk under, under the desk button. <Laugh> one of my one of my friends, one of the hosts of Mac break weekly, Jason Snell wanted a fingerprint reader for his Mac, but they don't make one. Right. So he took a keyboard that has a fingerprint reader on it and mounted it under his desk. So he could just touch the touch, the fingerprint reader and his Mac leaps into the life. Are you talking about a long time ago? Cuz my Mac has a fingerprint reader. <Laugh> no desktop Mac. Oh desktop desktop. No, all the laptops do. Yeah. And they do sell a keyboard. Some sort of ma they call it magic keyboard that has a fingerprint reader, but, but he didn't want to use that keyboard.
Leo Laporte (00:16:18):
He has a different one. He likes. So he just, he just glued it. He Velcroed under his desk. He seems like the kind of guy that would invent. That's a pretty strange thing to do. Well then later CA somebody came along and printed a 3d container for it. He cut it out of the, he cut the thing outta the keyboard, put it in a 3d Mount mounted box. So that's somebody who really wants to have a fingerprint reader on his Mac. You know, if you got a windows machine they they're built right in. But that's another story for another day. <Laugh> who should I talk to? I, I think it's our weekend of filmmakers. Yeah. I love that today. We've got Fred and Pasadena. Who's also a filmmaker. Nice. Yesterday we visited the volume with Jody. Yeah. Yeah. Hi Fred Leo lo thank you, Kim Leo Laport. D tech guy.
Caller 1 (00:17:04):
Hello, Leo.
Leo Laporte (00:17:05):
Welcome.
Caller 1 (00:17:07):
Thank you. I've been thinking about this for the last couple of weeks. I there's this new game called stray.
Leo Laporte (00:17:17):
Oh, I can't wait to play it. You're a straight cat. You play a straight cat.
Caller 1 (00:17:23):
It's thin like the con like even watching the, the, the the cinema, what are they called? The cinematic are like pretty amazing.
Leo Laporte (00:17:30):
Yeah. It looks like a really cool game. And this problem solving, you're wandering in a kind of futuristic universe and you have to solve your way out of it. A couple of, you know, negatives on it. It's not very expensive. I think it's 40 bucks, but you only get a few hours of gameplay. I, I don't think it's one of those 60 or a hundred hour games, but that's all right. It's still a beautiful game. Are you a cat lover?
Caller 1 (00:17:53):
Yeah. We have a couple of cats. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:17:55):
I think it's really made for cat lovers. Cause you, cause you already know how cats behave. I'm told, I'm told the behavior is very realistic of the cat <laugh>
Caller 1 (00:18:05):
But here's my issue. Yes. I'm gamely not gaming, but gamely undesirable.
Leo Laporte (00:18:12):
<Laugh> why is that?
Caller 1 (00:18:15):
I have, well, because a, I don't have a game console. Oh, you need either a PS four or PS five.
Leo Laporte (00:18:21):
Yeah. It's a plays only. Yeah. I
Caller 1 (00:18:24):
I'm a Mac user, so I have a monster Mac pro workstation that I use for my,
Leo Laporte (00:18:32):
Are you a video editor? What do you, what do you do?
Caller 1 (00:18:35):
I do visual effects. Oh, cool. Episodic TV. And
Leo Laporte (00:18:38):
Cool. Have you seen that new documentary on Disney plus light and magic? Oh boy,
Caller 1 (00:18:43):
Not yet. I'm kind of saving it. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:18:46):
It's so good. Cause it's kind of about the transition from practical effects to computer effects and it was a cliff. It just fell off a cliff in 92 with park.
Caller 1 (00:18:58):
I go back. I did the first season of star Trek the next generation. Oh my. Oh, we did the, we did that on production switchers and tape machines. So wow. That's how far that wow. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (00:19:10):
Wow. So yeah, this, you know what, it's funny. I'm in the I'm I'm exa I really wanna play stray. I have an Xbox and I have a Mac and I'm actually going so far as to thinking, thinking about putting windows back on my gaming machine, which is Linux machine only now, cuz I just wanna play stray. So it's a Sony developer's a Sony house, right? So they had a Sony exclusive.
Caller 1 (00:19:36):
Yeah. And it's on steam.
Leo Laporte (00:19:38):
I mean, yeah, but that's but, but steam, even though there's Mac and Lennox, windows of steam, not all games
Caller 1 (00:19:45):
Play. Yeah. No I checked it already.
Leo Laporte (00:19:47):
Yeah. So it's windows or PS only. And that's just Sony's decision. There's some thinking in the gaming community that, because it is popular, it just came out about a month ago. That maybe they will eventually let up on the exclusive and let, I don't think you'll ever be on the Mac though. This is kind of the problem for apple lovers. Mac lovers is it's not it's, it's not that it would be a bad gaming platform, but it's just that game companies don't do many games for it. And now that Apple's doing Apple's Silicon, that's gonna get even tougher. There's a
Caller 1 (00:20:24):
Lot. And because they write most of the game, developers write to Invidia
Leo Laporte (00:20:27):
Exactly the video card, do the graphics processor and apple has metal. They have, I mean they have these technologies, but they don't have anything like an Nvidia capability. And hon honestly I think developers are just reluctant to spend money on developing for the Mac. They don't know what the audience would be like. There's plenty of casual games, thanks to the iPhone and the iPad. There's just not a lot of what we call. We call these triple a titles and stray is one I, I I'm with you. I really wanna play. So you're gonna have to get a windows PC. My, my friend or a, or a PlayStation five might be worth that.
Caller 1 (00:21:02):
Well what about do you think if I, cause I I'm, my math pro is is
Leo Laporte (00:21:10):
It Intel?
Caller 1 (00:21:12):
Yeah. So I'm thinking I'm
Leo Laporte (00:21:13):
You could run windows on it. You could run windows
Caller 1 (00:21:16):
On. Yeah. I could run windows on it and play it that way. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:21:18):
And I think
Caller 1 (00:21:19):
Only drag is I can't sit in front of the TV.
Leo Laporte (00:21:21):
<Laugh> I know. Does it have an in video card? No. Is as an AMD card?
Caller 1 (00:21:26):
No, it's a yeah,
Leo Laporte (00:21:27):
But I think it'll be fine. I don't think that's gonna be a problem. Your best be be to use boot camp. This is the technology that moves a little, moves your stuff around on the hard drive makes a partition just for windows. And unless you install windows. Yeah. That
Caller 1 (00:21:38):
Side by side. I I've used it in the past, but upgraded to this machine, I haven't boot.
Leo Laporte (00:21:43):
It should run in boot camp. Stray is not super demanding. You can run in a lower, a lower graphics quality. And I'm sure it supports AMD. It's not like they love and video so much. They say, well, poo poo to AMD. They do that. Yeah. I'm I'm desperate to play this game. It looks like so much fun. I'm with you. Exactly.
Caller 1 (00:21:59):
Yeah. I thought, oh good opportunity to get a St. What is it? A steam
Leo Laporte (00:22:04):
Deck, a steam deck, or let me tell you about another thing you could do cloud so you could play it on your Mac. In the cloud. There are companies like Anthony Nielsen are are talented production guy says shadow.tech will let you, in fact, I'm thinking about doing this, then you could play stray on a PC, not in your house, but on the cloud, through a browser. And that might be the way to do it. Or even Microsoft's X cloud solution game pass solution. Leo Laport, the tech guy. Yeah. I think this is that's an interest. Anthony, do you, have you played stray in in shadow, on shadow tech? He just messaged me in the in the discord. So I, I hadn't thought about that. He
Caller 1 (00:22:47):
Called
Leo Laporte (00:22:50):
Shadow.Tech. It's 30 bucks a month, but you know, if you really wanna play that game, oh, stray is not available on GForce now yet. That's another streaming one. And I SU I don't know if it's in the game pass. I think it's not in game pass. It's on steam only. So shadow.tech is the solution. You know what? I'm gonna do it. Cause I wanna play the game.
Caller 1 (00:23:15):
Maybe I'll do it that way.
Leo Laporte (00:23:16):
Yeah. I got 30 bucks to throw away. <Laugh>
Caller 1 (00:23:19):
Yeah. I mean, I saw, I saw the cinematic for that game, like eight, like eight when they teased it me too ago. And I, me too. And I saw, oh my God, this is my game. No
Leo Laporte (00:23:29):
Idea. Nobody shot. Nobody dies. There's robots. There's kitty cats. What, how
Caller 1 (00:23:35):
Could you, oh, plus cats are, you know, they're so stealthy and they do other animals. Yeah. Do, yeah. Yeah. So pretty exciting.
Leo Laporte (00:23:45):
Now here's another Mac research.org stray on Mac. We'll put a link in the show notes to this article. Oh, oh wait a, is there a way to play it? Can you play stray on a Mac? No, this is just a BS article. How to, well, wait a minute. How to play strand Mac cloud gaming bootcamp parallels. Yeah. Yeah. So it's exactly what we were just saying. Boot camp would be of course the eternal free to not free, but you don't, you pay for straight, but free way to play. Yeah. But I, but I think cloud might be the, might be the right solution.
Caller 1 (00:24:23):
Yeah. Cool. Well, thank you so much.
Leo Laporte (00:24:25):
Hey great question. It's funny cuz I've been thinking the same exact thing. What shows are you working on right now?
Caller 1 (00:24:32):
Well, I may or may not have just finished a movie that involved a Blon God with long. Oh. And, and I
Leo Laporte (00:24:42):
Oh you did the VFX for that. Huh?
Caller 1 (00:24:45):
I worked, yeah. I was one of the composers on that show and then I'm working on another movie that I'm NDA. I can't talk about. Yeah, of course not.
Leo Laporte (00:24:54):
But, but that's a fascinating thing cuz people say, oh, visual effects is for sci-fi. You don't have 'em in regular people movies, but of course you do.
Caller 1 (00:25:02):
No, you do actually 90% of what I'm doing for this movie is stuff that, where the director said, oh, you know what, I'd love to tighten up the timing right. In this shot. Right. So they walk. So they, and so I'm having to figure out ways how to, you know,
Leo Laporte (00:25:19):
Speed it up,
Caller 1 (00:25:20):
Do these complicated split screen. Wow. To get people in the frame, you know, like repro, projecting, whole parts of the room and stuff just to wow. You know? Cause you gotta remove the old people and put them people in. Wow. So it's, it's really, it's fun. I mean, I love it. I, you know, I'm
Leo Laporte (00:25:37):
Older. I can't wait to see this. Yeah. You remember this movie? Yeah. You remember this story? Yeah. Yeah. Can't wait to see it.
Caller 1 (00:25:44):
I'm a, I'm 65 and I still look forward to going to work every
Leo Laporte (00:25:49):
Day. Oh, you got a great job. Yeah. Do so. So you're old enough to have worked in pre CGI stuff. Yeah.
Caller 1 (00:25:58):
Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. Like yeah, like I, like I saw, like I was, like I said, I was doing it on production switchers because there was no
Leo Laporte (00:26:05):
Right.
Caller 1 (00:26:07):
There was nothing. I mean,
Leo Laporte (00:26:08):
Amazing.
Caller 1 (00:26:09):
You know, back in 85, I was also on reading rainbow with what Barbara? I was I I'm on the
Leo Laporte (00:26:15):
Oh
Caller 1 (00:26:16):
Cool. So at a reading rainbow.
Leo Laporte (00:26:17):
Oh, how cool. Yeah. How cool. So yeah, that's that's a fascinating fascinating era. And I know this movie that I I've seen shots of the director trying to duplicate like the famous picture of her with Joe DiMaggio in the window and trying to get it exactly like the famous photo. And so I can imagine there was a lot of, a lot of stuff to do to kind of make it just so how cool. Yeah.
Caller 1 (00:26:43):
No, it's cool. It's like it's also like, you know, it's like it's, it's a, it's an area called forensic cinematographer.
Leo Laporte (00:26:49):
Ooh, Ooh.
Caller 1 (00:26:51):
Where you, where you have to look at an image and come and dope out. Yeah. Or forensically figure out how the image
Leo Laporte (00:26:56):
Was created. How do we duplicate that? Hey, I have to run, but thank you, Fred. A pleasure meeting. You let me know how you like stray will do. All right. I'm gonna try it. I'm gonna try it on that that cloud it's time to drive a car baby. You can drive my car with our car guy, Sam apples, Sam principle researcher at guide house insights. He also does a great car podcast vehicle podcast@wheelbarings.media. Hello Sam.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:30):
Hello Leo. How are you today?
Leo Laporte (00:27:32):
I am great. How are you?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:34):
I am just dandy.
Leo Laporte (00:27:36):
And how's the world of middle?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:38):
Middle of summer.
Leo Laporte (00:27:38):
Yeah. Especially in Michigan people. Yeah. People in Michigan. Summer's the best time a lot of 'em have hello houses on the lake or the, I see you're on the bay here and just enjoy the weather. Yep. Beautiful.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:27:53):
No, I love it here. We got, we've got lakes all over the place. Yeah. Yeah. Unlike, unlike California, you know, we have still have plenty of water.
Leo Laporte (00:28:00):
Yeah. Not just California, a lot of the country now running outta water. Yeah. Most, well, the other half less has way too much. So, you know, you can't win what's up in the what's up in the automotive world.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:12):
Well I wanted to talk a little bit about the inflation reduction act, which perhaps by the end of the day today may get passed by the
Leo Laporte (00:28:20):
Senate. They stayed up all night.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:28:22):
Yeah. They stayed up, pulled it all nighter and and so far they, they haven't pulled out. What is, you know, at least for me personally, you know, the, one of the most interesting parts of it, which is changes to the federal tax incentive program for electric vehicles since was I think 2010, 2009 or 2010 we've had a tax incentive program for EVs for plug-in vehicles. That was it was a fairly straightforward program that you could get a federal tax credit of up to $7,500 for purchasing a plug-in electric vehicle. And so this included both battery electric vehicles and plugin hybrids and the minimum it had the car had to have a minimum four kilowatt hour battery pack. And between four and 16 kilowatt hours, they gradually increased the, the credit from, I think it was about $1,200 up to $7,500.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:29:23):
And then anything beyond 16 was the 7,500. The problem with that program well, there's several problems with that program. One be because it was designed to help jumpstart demand for EVs. It was capped at the first 200,000 vehicles that are manufacturer sold first 200,000 plugin vehicles. After that, it, it would start to phase out. And so the first manufacturers that hit that 200,000 threshold were, were Tesla and general motors back in 2019. And then they, they started to phase out over a one year period after they hit that 200,000 number. So currently if you buy a Tesla or a GM EV you don't get any tax credit from the federal government. The other part of the program is because it was structured as a tax credit, you would buy the vehicle today. And then the, on the following year's tax return, you could claim up to $7,500, but depending on what your income level was, if you didn't have enough tax liability, you might not get that full 7,500.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:30:28):
In fact, you might not get anything at all. And most, most consumers when they're purchase, when they're deciding what vehicle to purchase, one of their key decision factors, what is my monthly payment gonna be? Because most people have to live on a budget. They have a certain amount, they pay for their mortgage or rent certain amount for food, certain amount for transportation. And so, you know, they, they know, okay, I can afford to pay $400 a month or $500 a month for my vehicle. And if you're buying an EV that is more costly upfront, and you're not gonna get that tax credit until the following year, it doesn't help to reduce the monthly payment on that vehicle and make it more affordable so it can fit in people's budget. So this is one of the, one of the, the big challenges. So for under this bill that is go going up for a vote today likely they SRU restructured that. So now the 200,000 vehicle cap is gone and one, oh, really one of the option. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Huh? The manufacturers will be able, all manufacturers will be able to sell as many up through 2032. You'll be able to sell as many vehicles as you can sets
Leo Laporte (00:31:37):
It. So Tesla gets it back. GM
Sam Abuelsamid (00:31:39):
Gets it back. Yes. Sort of. Okay. <Laugh> so then, and then the other, the other one of the other key factors is that now at the time of purchase, you have the option as a customer to transfer that tax credit to the dealer that you're buying it from you. And then that comes back to you as an immediate discount on the vehicle. So $7,500 right off the top of the, the vehicle. And so that lowers your monthly payment. So it'll make vehicles EVs more accessible to more people. So that's, that's the key part, but there's also some other restrictions that they have added into the program. So now it only applies to EVs that are built in north America. So us Canada or Mexico, the countries, we have a free trade agreement with. And also half of the tax credit is for the vehicle.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:32:34):
The other half, the other 37 50 will be based on, on the domestic content of the battery. So starting off at about 40% domestic content for some of the key minerals in the battery, and then gradually going up to 80% by 2028 which means, oh, and, and also there's also a price cap on the vehicles. So for cars, it's $55,000 for SUVs and trucks. It's $80,000. So if you wanna go buy a new lucid air you're gonna be outta luck. <Laugh>, you're not gonna get any break on that one or a model S plaid. You're not gonna get a break on that one, but frankly, if you can afford to spend a hundred to $150,000 on a new EV you probably don't need a tax break on it. You, you
Leo Laporte (00:33:21):
Can probably, yeah, I think that's appropriate. Yeah, yeah,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:33:24):
Yeah. So, so there there's that, and, and the domestic content rules that will rule out a, a lot of the EVs that are currently available now over the next couple of years, there's gonna be a lot of new battery production and material production here in north America. And that will help. Those will all be eligible for, you know, and so there will be a lot more vehicles eligible for this tax break over the next three or four years. So that's, that's that's, and it's gonna be, you know, more, more vehicles that are affordable to more people, which so I think overall, I think it's a good move in the right direction.
Leo Laporte (00:34:04):
It isn't a done deal yet. Unfortunately,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:06):
No, they, they do still have to take the final votes. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:34:10):
Both in the Senate and then the house.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:12):
And there's, you know, given, given the the makeup of the, the Senate in particular you know, it's, it's never, it's never over till it's over, as they
Leo Laporte (00:34:21):
Say. Yeah. It, it is one of those omnibus bills that has so many different you know, features that this, this
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:28):
One is, is not, I wouldn't actually classify it as an, as an omnibus bill. I mean, it is more, it it's, it's more constrained even though the bill is 750 pages long, and I went through a bunch of it earlier, did
Leo Laporte (00:34:41):
You really?
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:42):
Wow. yeah, cuz I, I had some questions for clients that I had to answer. Yeah. but it
Leo Laporte (00:34:47):
Also talks about prescription drug
Sam Abuelsamid (00:34:49):
Prices. Yeah. Prescription drugs. And there's some tax provisions. Yeah. So it, it covers a fair number of areas. So I guess you could call it a omnibus bill. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:34:58):
I don't know what the technical definition is, but it's more than just that. Yes. One thing with a EV tax credit and you know, the negotiations continue. We'll see. We'll see.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:09):
Oh, and I forgot to mention somebody Eric Deckman mentioned in the in the chat there's also, if you buy a used EV you can get a $4,000 credit on that as well. So that's, that's also another, another big benefit of this, because point the vast, most people only buy used cars. They don't, most people don't buy new cars
Leo Laporte (00:35:28):
At some point we don't need to jumpstart the EV industry. It'll true. It'll reach point,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:33):
But we're, but we're not quite there yet.
Leo Laporte (00:35:34):
I think we're there yet. Yeah. Yeah. 5% of cars sold last year in the us were electric vehicles. I don't know if that includes hybrids or just battery electric,
Sam Abuelsamid (00:35:43):
But no. Yeah. So in the, in the second quarter of this year, it was, we got up to 5%. Wow. We were battery EVs. Wow. LA in 2021, it was about two and a half percent. So, so it was last quarter. It's really starting to accelerate. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:35:54):
Yeah. And some say that that's a critical turning point. That that is in fact where the, the switch gets flipped. Certainly gas prices have, have helped that along as well. Sam bull Sam, he is our car guy, car technology, and more at his podcast wheel bearings. Find it everywhere. You can get podcast or go to wheel bearings.media. That's the website. He's also principal researcher for guide house insights. And now you can see his day job requires him to do things like read congressional legislation. <Laugh> which boy, I hope they paid you. Oh boy.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:23):
Is that painful?
Leo Laporte (00:36:24):
<Laugh> thank you, Sam. Always a pleasure. Leo
Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:27):
Laport. You're welcome.
Leo Laporte (00:36:28):
The tech guy more calls right after this 750 gripping pages, just so I thought it was passed overnight. But apparently there's the voter
Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:42):
That was, I think there was some procedural votes. There's
Leo Laporte (00:36:44):
Some procedural stuff. Yeah. So it's not over.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:47):
And, and they, and of course, you know, they had to eliminate the $35 a month cap on insulin.
Leo Laporte (00:36:52):
That just kills
Sam Abuelsamid (00:36:53):
Me. That is just absolutely disgraceful. It is every member of every member, member of the Senate that voted against that should be thrown out immediately. Yeah. That, that is absolutely disgraceful.
Leo Laporte (00:37:02):
Well, you just, you know, you're doing the bidding of the drug companies obviously.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:05):
Yeah. You know, but you know, what's more important the drug companies or the people that need insulin. Yeah. I mean, if you need insulin, you need it. You have no choice. You have no options. People
Leo Laporte (00:37:13):
Are literally having to choose between, you know, paying the rent yeah. And getting their insulin. Yeah. I think that's a shame. Anyway, the, the battle continues. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> <laugh> John tester of Montana a couple hours ago said three hours unless they add a bunch of other stuff on <laugh>. He said another one. So we may be getting we may be getting close. Thank you, Sam.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:40):
Thank you, Leo. You want me to stick around?
Leo Laporte (00:37:43):
Oh, what am I saying? Yes. Stay here, Sam.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:46):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (00:37:47):
<Laugh> don't go anywhere, Sam. I forgot you like to do that. And I much appreciated.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:37:53):
Yeah. And there's a bunch of questions in the chat today. Oh, good. So let's see, let's go through some of these somebody here was saying that they oh, circus monkey says he is looking for a hybrid. Fortunately for you circus monkey, there are a lot of hybrid options, more and more all the time in addition to the battery EVs. And there's some really good ones out there. So depending what you're looking for, I mean, we've got hybrids now in, in pretty much every segment, almost every segment available. So if you're looking for a full size pickup truck, there are hybrid options from both Ford and Toyota now for the F-150 and the Tundra going down, you know, in SUVs, the Explorer, the Toyota Highlander both have hybrid options, smaller SUVs like the the Hyundai Santa Fe and the Tucson both have both hybrid and plug-in hybrid options as well as the Kia Sorento and the Sportage and then smaller sedans or, you know, mid-size sedans like the Toyota Camry the Hyundai Sonata many others are all available as very fuel efficient hybrids.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:07):
So there's, there's a lot of choices out there for hybrids. There's also plug-in hybrids, which can be a great option for a lot of people if you want to, because most people do like nine 80% of all driving daily driving is less than 40 miles. So you can you know, if you get a plugin hybrid, if you have the availability to plug in overnight at home you can typically get 30 to 40 miles of electric driving range with most plug-in hybrids now. So you can pretty much do all of, most people can do all of their daily driving their daily commuting on electricity alone. And then when the battery's depleted, the car continues to just run as a standard hybrid. If you need to do a road trip, then you just keep right on going.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:39:55):
So vehicles like the Toyota Pacifica minivan the Toyota route, or sorry, the Chrysler Pacifica minivan, the Toyota RAV4 prime and and or the Kia Sorento, plugin hybrid, all great options. They'll, they'll all go at least about 35 miles, 35 to 40 miles on electricity. And then you just keep on driving, you know, so if you're taking that summer road trip to Disney or to visit the grandparents or, you know, whatever you can, you don't have to worry about planning where you're gonna stop and charge. You can just use it as a regular hybrid and just stop at a gas station. And then when you get to your destination, you can plug in and charge, or, you know, during your, your, your daily driving, you can do that. And I will be back at the, the next break.
Leo Laporte (00:40:39):
Thank you, Sam. All right. Take care. Ah, yes. The tech guy podcast brought to you today as often. It is by my good friends at it pro TV, man, I, I got involved with it pro TV way back when they, when Tim broom and, and Don Ette were just about to start it, they came to a, a panel I did at NAAB with Adam Carol and some others, we were talking about streaming and they said, whoa, they were already it trainers, right? And they said, whoa, there's something here. We could do it training that way. And it pro TV was born the best possible it training that you can watch anywhere you are on your computer, on your apple TV, on your Roku, hit the row with a tablet or mobile device. And, and in 20 to 30 minute chunks, you're getting smarter learning those skills.
Leo Laporte (00:41:33):
If it's your first job in it, getting those certifications that help you get that first job. If you're already in it, getting re-certified or getting new certs and new skills to get a better job, there is no better place to get into it than it pro TV. And they're, they're they call, I call 'em trainers. They call 'em edge entertainers. They are experts of course, in the field. They have to be, but they also are fun. Their passion for the topic matter is, is contagious. And so you are watching and you're getting into it and you're saying, oh yeah, this is gonna be fun. They make it as, as easy as possible to get that first job in it, or to get those certs, they've got virtual labs. You can use any browser and set up a windows server. For instance, windows, clients, they have practice tests.
Leo Laporte (00:42:17):
So you can take the exam before you take it for real, which is really helpful, great support for exam prep more than 5,800 hours of it training. And they keep it up to date because they've got seven studios running all day, Monday through Friday. So they're always, and you need to the test change. The, the content changes, the programs get updated. There's news certs all the time. I think it pro TV. Well I'll quote, one reviewer is quote, the best website to study it and cyber security related courses. He says, I like the part where they make a few courses free for a weekend. All right, well, let's do it. Then this month getting started in it is free for the weekend of August 13th of 14th. That's that's next weekend. So getting started in it absolutely free. That's a great thing to check out, live webinar with Ben Finky coming up in a, a little more than a week.
Leo Laporte (00:43:08):
All things cyber security. That's Thursday, August 18th, 2:00 PM. Eastern. Now they always, you can always watch the webinar later on demand, but it's nice to go because then you can ask questions. So do it live 2:00 PM Eastern August 18th there's a lot of past webinars on demand as well. New it training episodes are added daily. Today. You could step into the booming cloud world with it, pro TVs, AWS cloud practitioner, training, everything you need to pass your cert to pass the exam, get your cert and get on your way to a career in the cloud you can register at, and I'll give you a special address for this one. This is the AWS cloud practitioner courses go.it. Pro.Tv/Aws-Cloud-Practitioner. And for your it team, it pro TV has a great enterprise plan, a business plan, which is a great way to keep your team skilled up so that they can solve the problems your business is gonna face.
Leo Laporte (00:44:06):
And nowadays that's pretty important. It pro.tv/twi and digital 30% off all consumer subscriptions for the lifetime of your active subscription, just use the code TWI three zero, that's it pro.tv/twi offer code 30 for an additional 30% off. As long as you stay active forever, if you want it pro TV build or expand your it career and enjoy the journey. We love these guys all the best it pro TV. You take these courses. You'll be happy. I know so many people have it. Pro.Tv/Twi offer code TWI three zero, Leo appoint the tech guy, 88 88. Ask Leo back to the phones. We go, Hollywood Jim on the line. Hello, Hollywood, Jim.
Caller 2 (00:44:54):
Hi, thank you so much for taking the time to help me last week.
Leo Laporte (00:44:58):
Jim's right. We should explain. Jim's writing the grand Opus, thousands of page book about being an audio engineer on on film and TV production. And he said it's bogging down. Microsoft word was looking for an alternative. And I mentioned something called Scrivener. And I'm curious if you, what you thought of it.
Caller 2 (00:45:22):
Well, I found it to be worse than word in almost every way.
Leo Laporte (00:45:26):
<Laugh> okay. There you go. However,
Caller 2 (00:45:29):
I do have a plan C okay. Maybe the geniuses in the chat room.
Leo Laporte (00:45:33):
Was it, was it too slow for you? What was wrong with Scrivener? I know was, I know there's a learning curve.
Caller 2 (00:45:38):
Well, yes, fortunately I found a very good book, which was sufficient to help me navigate the massive Scrivener user guide. Yes. okay. To start with, I used the blank template and imported the entire word file into the draft full yikes. Okay. Cause I, because that's what I wanted to do. Right. I found some of the pictures in it didn't import some did. Yeah. The TC lost its hyperlinks. Yeah. And changed its formatting. None of those were a real problem. The problem was the first thing, the Scrivener search function, the little magnifying glass only brings up a little window with a find and replace similar to word. Doesn't open a left panel with a summary of how many instances ah, or where they're located. Okay. That's the first problem. Yeah. then that little window doesn't move out of the way, when a found word is located beneath it, which it does automatically and work.
Leo Laporte (00:46:37):
That's very annoying. Yeah. Yeah.
Caller 2 (00:46:39):
Yeah. The Schulner spell checker flagged all sorts of common words like online half hour DC to DC video games. That was a, a real nuisance the entire file, the way I imported it initially was one long text string with no pation. So the keyboard keys for page up and pay down page down, just go to the beginning and end of the whole thing instead of fast forwarding up and down, and the fast forward, the up and down keys on the keyboard are kind of slow trying to use the, to drag the button at the side to scroll is two course. So that's another problem now, attempting to edit the text takes more seconds for response and sometimes graze out the screen.
Leo Laporte (00:47:29):
So that's, that's the big problem. I mean, that was the problem you were having with word what's plan what's plan C then do you do have an idea?
Caller 2 (00:47:36):
Well, yes, but let me just finish. What else I try. I,
Leo Laporte (00:47:40):
I don't, I get it. It doesn't work. <Laugh> it's fine. I mean, I don't, I mean, these are all very specific to your needs, so I got it. It's not gonna work for you. We don't need to give the litany of all the reasons it's not gonna
Caller 2 (00:47:53):
Work. Okay. So what I'm going to do is split up my manuscript into three separate files, one for each volume that allows them to work fast enough is just going to be a real problem to manually have to calculate three indice at the end is text files. But if that's what I have to do, that's what I have to do. That's my plan C however, I discovered that the task master goes to a hundred percent CPU usage every time the program freezes. I know you said, well, that's not really anything wrong, but I wonder maybe if it is in this case,
Leo Laporte (00:48:30):
Well, it is, if it slows you down, I mean, you want programs to use all the resources available to them Ram and processor it's, but it's only a problem if having pegged, the processor is now you are waiting for it. That's not what you want.
Caller 2 (00:48:45):
Right. So I have a five year old A's business, computer. Yeah. And here's the spec, excuse me. It's a 2.9 gigahertz Intel core I seven dash 7,500 U it's only multi cores with two cores and hyper threads with four threads. Do you think getting a more powerful computer might help?
Leo Laporte (00:49:12):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, of course, how many cores your processor have has is only relevant if your software is threaded mm-hmm <affirmative> and not all software is
Caller 2 (00:49:24):
Is, is word 20, 21,
Leo Laporte (00:49:27):
I would guess it is. But you know, that's an interesting question and it may not be CPU bound. In fact, I'm suspecting, even if it is multi-threaded, it's not the CPU that's running out of hetero, although you said it's at a hundred percent it might be things like IO. Remember it's paging things in and out. You don't have enough Ram to hold the whole thing. So it's gotta save parts of it into, onto the hard drive. All of that can impact performance.
Caller 2 (00:49:57):
Yeah. I have 20 gigs of Ram, which is all that the machine will take.
Leo Laporte (00:50:00):
Twenty's probably enough. I mean, how big is the file? I mean,
Caller 2 (00:50:04):
Oh, the file's 20 some odd megabytes. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (00:50:07):
See that. Should, you know, that all fits into memory easily as would multiple copies of that. So I don't think that's a, a problem word I'm looking here. It looks like word needs no more than what you've got, which is two cores, four threads that it doesn't, it isn't gonna use more than that. According to what I'm reading. Okay. So I'm not sure that having a faster machine. I mean, I, I mean a faster machine does make a difference. Obviously, especially since you're you're, you know, you're running at headroom, you don't, you're the, machine's not keeping up with what you're writing. Yeah. I'm not I'm this is an interesting question. It's a conundrum. Yeah. I still think there might be better software out there, obviously quivers not right for you. I'm. It might be, there might be something that's faster.
Leo Laporte (00:50:59):
The problem really is you wanna keep this whole thing in memory and at the same time, as you're keeping in memory you want, and this is probably what's using so much processor. You want word to keep it indexed, keep it table of contents. And all of that has to be kept up to date. Every time you type a word, everything has to, repaginate go to the table of contents, go to the index. That's a lot of work it's doing every time you type a word. So I suspect that's, you know, ultimately that's, what's bogging down. You will certainly benefit by dividing it up into smaller chunks. I understand you lose some of the functionality you want.
Caller 2 (00:51:33):
Yeah. It means hopping back and forth between world. Yeah. But if that's what I have to do, that's what I have to do. The last thing is I could not find the show notes for that show. I don't know if they haven't been posted yet, but cuz you mentioned you're going to put something in about turning off various things.
Leo Laporte (00:51:51):
The show notes are@twi.tv. Well let tech guy labs.com is a short version of that. And then the episode number, and it was last Sunday or last Saturday, last Sunday, last Sunday. So that would've been episode 1914. So if you go to tech guy labs.com, you'll see a 1914 there and whatever's, there is whatever the editors decided to put in the show notes. I don't control what they're putting in there. It may well be that they didn't hear me say I'll put those steps in there for you. I will go, I will, we have 'em we have a little cage in the back for the editors and I will, I will go feed them some meat or something and see if I get them to do that. But I apologize if it's not there. Yeah. I don't, I don't exactly control what's going on on the show notes, which is a terrible excuse. I should <laugh> I apologize.
Caller 2 (00:52:36):
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Leo Laporte (00:52:37):
Hey Jim. Good luck. Yeah. Good luck. This isn't it, you know, I mean you're not alone, George a R Martin and his, you know, song of ice and fire. His game of throne series probably has a similar problem. There has to be a tool for writers who are writing long books that keeps up and I, and I'm just not sure what that is. And it may be, there are some things you can do to tweak word that I'm not aware of. I'm sure there are to make it faster, but it, you know, I'll be honest. Word is kind of a pig for instance word doesn't store your files as text it stores your files in memory in a very oddball unique to word format that requires some computation to UN you know, UN unen code and put on the screen. It's doing a lot of work that, you know, probably isn't necessary. So we're gonna, we're gonna find some find some tools from the chatroom. We've got a link to a tech radar article, best writing software of 2022, an open source tool for writers called manuscript. There's got to be something for people with really big books. We'll find it for you. Leo Laport, the tech guy,
Leo Laporte (00:54:01):
I told him EAX, but there is a bit of a learning curve for that. <Laugh> I don't blame him for not doing that. All right, Sam, I'm gonna give you a whole chunk of a whole chunk of time and get a cup of coffee while you are talking cars.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:54:18):
All right. Sounds good. Okay. So a few things continuing with the the tax break thing, one other item I didn't get around to mentioning is that this morning I got an email from the folks at Fisker. Fisker is launching their first vehicle, the ocean, which is an a mid-size electric SUV starts production in November. And unfortunately for Fisker it will not qualify for the for the tax breaks because it, the ocean is going to be built by Magna a major supplier at their plant in Austria. So it will not qualify for any tax breaks. However what Fisker is saying is that if you have a reservation for an ocean and you convert it to a binding contract right now, and just, I wanna stipulate, I cannot confirm a hundred percent right now.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:55:16):
I have to do some more research, whether this is actually accurate or not. But what Fisker is saying is that if you convert it to a binding contract right now then it will still be eligible for the tax break for the current $7,500 tax break. The you know, so if you have a reservation on one right now that is a refundable reservation, but if you turn into a sales contract the other thing that is not clear and I've, I've reached out to Fisker for a question on that to, for an answer on this is whether that means that you will also have to pay for the vehicle in full by the end of the year. My guess is the answer to that is probably yes, that you will have to pay in full for your Fisker ocean by December 31st in order to be able to claim it on your 20, 22 tax return next year.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:56:09):
And that means that you will have paid for the vehicle without actually having received it because while production is scheduled to start in mid-November we won't likely have any deliveries in the us until sometime in early 20, 23. So you'll have to make your own decision on whether you think that's a, a worthwhile worthwhile offer, or if you want to, you know, opt for something else, some other EV that is actually that does qualify under the new credit program. The ocean does look like a really nice car. I've sat in it. I've, I've talked to Henrick, Fisker, the CEO and the designer of the ocean quite a bit. And it, it, it's, it's a sharp looking vehicle and it's gonna have a base price starting at $37,500. But as I said, because it's not going to be assembled here in north America, it won't qualify for the new tax breaks.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:57:06):
Some other comments, some of the questions that were in the chat somebody was asking about the Toyota BZ four X and the potential buyback. So what's going on here? This, the BZ four X is Toyota's first purpose built EV that just went on sale in June. As of now they've only delivered about 270 of them to customers before they discovered a problem and did a stop sale and sent a notice to customers to tell 'em to stop driving the vehicle. Apparently there's an issue with the Lu bolts and the wheels can fall off, which is generally not a good thing. You don't want your wheels falling off while you're driving down the road. And they're apparently still looking for a solution. It's not entirely clear what the real problem is here. It's sound, my guess is it's probably a manufacturing issue with the bolts me that perhaps is causing them to stretch and then back themselves out.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:58:10):
So the wheels fall off never, never a good thing. But apparently they are offering customers that have taken delivery of the BZ four X either, either a loaner vehicle or a buyback of the vehicle. And that's, that's not a great start for Toyota with their first purpose built EV also let's see James had a question about whether Tesla is going to require customers to subscribe, to be able to access all of their battery capacity. And I'm not entirely sure what what James is asking about here, but I suspect it has something to do with a story that, that came up a few weeks ago, a couple of weeks ago with a customer that had bought a, a used model S he was the third owner of the vehicle. And what what happened was the original owner had had the battery replaced by Tesla under warranty.
Sam Abuelsamid (00:59:15):
And it was originally had a 60 kilowatt hour battery pack in it. Tesla did not have any 60 kilowatt or battery packs in inventory. So they put in a 90 kilowatt hour battery pack, and this is something that Tesla has done many times. And in fact, they've even sold vehicles with larger batteries and then software locked the battery to a lower capacity, so they could sell it at a lower price. The, at the time that they, that Tesla did the battery replacement, they did not do the software lock on the battery. So all of a sudden the car had 50% more driving range than it did originally. And so that car was sold to a second owner and then onto a third owner. The third on, by the time the third owner had it, they also had the they decided to take the car in to have the media control unit replaced.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:00:12):
And this is something that Dr. Mom, grandma had talked about in the chat previously on the model S and the model X Tesla had some issues with the the storage chip in those media control units that controls the infotainment system, essentially wearing out. It was a flash memory part. It was wearing out too many rights. And they came up with a newer version of this this, the third owner of this model S had tick the car in, had that replaced while that was being serviced. The technician realized that the 90 kilowatt hour battery pack in here, basically they had the wrong configuration file in the car. So the software, the battery had not been software locked to 60 kilowatt hours. They updated the software when the, when the owner got the car back. Now, all of a sudden he had a third less range than he did before.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:01:06):
Cuz he only had a 60 kilowatt hour capacity instead of 90, even though it still had the 90 kilowatt battery in there, he had bought the vehicle based on the assumption that it had 90 kilowatt hours worth of range and paid for it accordingly. Tesla said, you can, you can get back up to the full capacity. It'll cost you $4,500. Not a good look for Tesla. They should not have handled this the way they did. Got a lot of online criticism on Twitter and, and, and a lot of stories online. Definitely a bad, a bad look for Tesla. They should not have treated the customer this way. The customer had no way of knowing that there was a configuration issue. Ultimately Tesla backed down and they said, fine, you can, you can have your 90 kilowatt hour capacity back without, without paying anything extra for it.
Sam Abuelsamid (01:01:57):
That said, you know, a lot of auto makers are trying to move to various types of softwares as a service models where they can charge subscription fees for various features and functions on vehicles to try to have recurring revenue streams. I think it's realistic that going forward on new vehicles that is, you're probably going to have to have some kind of subscription associated with it, if for nothing else then just to get software updates. You know, the, the model that Tesla has had where they provided a lot of software updates for free over the years is not really sustainable because you know, it does cost money to develop software updates and to those software updates. And you know, I think you, you will not see most manufacturers, including Tesla. I don't think Tesla is going to be sustaining this for much longer. You know, for things like regulatory recalls, you know, where they're required to make, make a fix or were bug fixes or security fixes, those will probably continue to be free, but anything else is probably going to require some sort of payment, whether it's a one time payment or a subscription payment going forward just because there's, there's no, you know, somebody's gotta pay for it. And you're either gonna pay for it in higher vehicle prices or through a subscription of some sort
Leo Laporte (01:03:18):
Real quick. What's your take on California going after Tesla for self-driving?
Sam Abuelsamid (01:03:23):
Oh, I think this is way overdue. They should have done this six years ago. Okay. it, you know, they, they, they, Tesla already got busted in Germany for this. The Germans don't allow them to use the term autopilot anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And I think they should have done this years ago.
Leo Laporte (01:03:36):
Thank you, Sam. I
Sam Abuelsamid (01:03:38):
Talk to you next
Leo Laporte (01:03:39):
Week. See you next week. My friend. Bye bye. Well, Hey, Hey. How are you today? Leola port here, the tech guy time, our computers, the internet, home theater, digital photography, smart cars, smart watches. You know, that kind of thing. Anything with a chip in it. Eighty eight eighty eight ask Cleo is my phone number (888) 827-5536. That's told free from anywhere in the us or Canada outside that area. You can call using Skype out. AJ is on the line from Nolans. Hello,
Caller 3 (01:04:21):
Leo.
Leo Laporte (01:04:21):
Welcome to the show. Good to talk to you. I,
Caller 3 (01:04:25):
I had to call you before one of us died
Leo Laporte (01:04:29):
Ohoh. What's the matter because
Caller 3 (01:04:33):
Because
Leo Laporte (01:04:33):
Anything I should know about <laugh> no
Caller 3 (01:04:36):
Nothing, but I I've heard you talk so often. And I know that we're the same age we got kind of similar background. We're
Leo Laporte (01:04:45):
Young yet. We're we've got many years left.
Caller 3 (01:04:49):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:04:50):
Okay's good. <Laugh> let's hope. All
Caller 3 (01:04:52):
Right, but here here's what I want to ask you. Or, or you know, some point in your life, you, there were no computers me either. And there are a few of us like that, that, that lived in a time where there were no computer. It's
Leo Laporte (01:05:04):
Amazing ISN, isn't it? Yeah, yeah,
Caller 3 (01:05:06):
Yeah. Somewhere along the line they showed up and just a bug hit. I have a feeling you're an analog guy like me. I was in the middle of a graduate work in English literature, 19:10 AM and American English and American literature. And somehow my wife had to get a computer and, and somehow I'm laying in bed, reading dos books.
Leo Laporte (01:05:26):
<Laugh>, that's what, that's how it starts. Yes, yes. But,
Caller 3 (01:05:30):
But I did learn how to code, but I was always the guy in the office who, when someone had a computer problem, they came to me and I knew how to fix it, how to get their printer going, how to get their monitor to look right. Things like that.
Leo Laporte (01:05:41):
You became the tech guy in your neck of the woods. Well,
Caller 3 (01:05:44):
That did, there is a place in the world for us, even though you're not a programmer.
Leo Laporte (01:05:48):
Absolutely.
Caller 3 (01:05:50):
So that has led me to this other observation as we, we move on here, your programs in particular TWI and other ones in the last year or two have been these phenomenal conversations about things that at base our tech, because that's the world we live in now, but there's so much more that you guys have talked about. I I've just been amazed. Oh, thank you. Listening to them. So I, I wanna deposit an idea to you because I've been carrying around for a while and it has to do with the singularity. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:06:21):
Always a topic of conversation. I love this always
Caller 3 (01:06:24):
A topic of conversation, but here's, here's my take on it. And I'm wondering if, if, if you think it interesting enough to talk to the other people about, and that is I think a guy named Ronson wrote a book about the first woman who got canceled on she went on an airplane, wrote this kind of,
Leo Laporte (01:06:41):
Oh yeah, yeah. She, she got fired because yeah, she wrote something negative about Africa and and got fired tweeted. She tweeted, it was one of the first people to get fired on Twitter.
Caller 3 (01:06:52):
Now that guy wrote a book about that phenomena and canceled culture in general, but he was going back to saying, you know, since the Dawn of time we've had people, we put people in the middle of the village, in the, in the Ary. And we threw vegetables at em and during world war II there, or there was a Stazi in east Germany and neighbors were raving on each other or in China, children are encouraged to rat on their parents. What he is saying is, is there's something inside us, a worser angel that wants to do that. And I, I am saying that this new technology that we live in and every day has given us the tool to do that in an unprecedented way. So much so that it's not that the machines are becoming sentient. It is the combination of our worser angels and the tools to use them.
Leo Laporte (01:07:48):
It's not the machines, it's the humans. Is that what you're saying? <Laugh>
Caller 3 (01:07:52):
Well, it's the combination of the two. It's sort of like the bio vibe
Leo Laporte (01:07:55):
I've talked, we've talked a little bit about this, that social media, Twitter, Facebook weaponizes stupidity in interesting ways. I mean the, the case you're talking about Justine Sako who worked for a big Hollywood agency was flying to South Africa. And just before she landed in Cape town, this is five or six years ago. She said she tweeted, and this is the problem with Twitter. She tweeted something. I'll tell you the tweet, going to Africa. Hope I don't get aids. Just kidding. I'm white. Yeah. That's about as bad as you can be. Right? I mean, this is nasty, you know, for so many reasons. The problem with Twitter is there's a, I think there's a mismatch and others have said this between your perception of it and what it is your perception of it is it's like a water cooler conversation, say things off hand things not to be taken seriously.
Leo Laporte (01:08:48):
The problem is Twitter is forever. And so, and many people read it. So it isn't just water cooler conversation, but people treat it that way. And they say things that are in judicious and then get fired as she did now, was she canceled? Cuz she got fired. That's kind of an UN that's kind of a big way to say it. I mean society has norms and society gets to express itself, not just through laws, but through norms, including shunning, including saying I don't like, you know, Nazis. I don't like that point of view. I'm gonna shun you. And I don't, I think that's how society expresses itself. I don't think that that's bad, different, you know,
Caller 3 (01:09:31):
There, and I'll tell you why, because it's not so much whether she did or did not get canceled. It's the vast number of people who can now do this at once. Absolutely.
Leo Laporte (01:09:42):
That's
Caller 3 (01:09:42):
Very different. That's very different than the way things used to be. I mean, you could have movements, you have not to movements you had or workers' movements or yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:09:50):
Absolutely. We've weaponized speech in some ways using things like Twitter. It's one of the reason I don't like Twitter. I think Twitter fosters a certain amount of outrage, right? It's really, it's an outrage engine. And so a lot of people with their hot takes or outrage, they tweet on Twitter and perhaps put their foot in their mouth, say things they shouldn't say and Twitter really optimizes for that. And so you do have, and you do have all sorts of, you know, gang up on people, all sorts of things. I've been, you know, slimed on Twitter. Hardly anybody in the public eye has not been slimed on Twitter. You know, it's, it is, it's an interesting change in the world.
Caller 3 (01:10:28):
Well, I, I would combine this with the idea. It was just in the, the New York times today. ASRA Kleins article was talking about Marshall McCluen and new postman amusing ourselves to death. Yes. And it,
Leo Laporte (01:10:40):
It is, we're getting good at that. Aren't we <laugh> yeah.
Caller 3 (01:10:43):
The idea of the medium being the message the, of communication know, as you can even think of how things have changed around presidential campaigns, where people used to write things or speak for long hours and now you have to be the likable guy who drinks
Leo Laporte (01:10:56):
Beer. Yeah. And do it in sound bites. Yeah. Appropriate for everything television news, you could blame, by the way, it's easy to blame technology and social media, but you could also blame cable news networks. You could. I mean, and just the American desire for hot takes and, and quick opinions. There's a lot of things you can blame. Absolutely.
Caller 3 (01:11:17):
Well, I'm not looking to blame, I'm looking to observe and try to understand. And I think that it is just the amount, the massive, the size that has changed the way that we communicate. And for that, matter of think, people don't read as book books as often. They don't agree often. I agree. They don't read long phone articles and it's not that it's just some people it's that it is a lot of people. Yeah. So that brings me back to the singularity of,
Leo Laporte (01:11:39):
But we're, we're the old men yelling at the clouds, you understand? Because it's just like our parents said, turn down that music, that rock and rolls ruining music or cut your hair. It's kind of the way it is. The world has changed. And we as people who grew up in a different time, maybe don't appreciate it as much as young people do. I hate to judge them. I hate to judge a new generation because I don't like how they live, go, what, what does this have to do with the singularity? Now I'm curious. The singularity
Caller 3 (01:12:08):
Singularity though, is the combination of the, the human and the machine. It is the idea that there are large swaths numbers of people gigantic, you know, population size numbers of people. And we are communicating and speaking and interacting in a different way than 20 years ago, even. So it's, you know, it may not happen so much to the farmer somewhere in Somalia, but many parts of the world, they control the economy and life and, and technology. That's the way we're communicating now. Yeah. That's the way we are influencing. Now that's the, we're doing politics now. So it's this combination of the, it's the bionic bionic mass, the machine and the mass of humanity that is now functioning in a different way. And that's what I'm calling.
Leo Laporte (01:13:00):
I agree with you, AJ, if you, if you were to say there is a common thread in this show and all the shows I do on our podcast network, TWI, it is how the world is changing. Due to technology. It's changing dramatically, probably irrevocably in many, many ways. That's to me as, as I think it is for you too, it's, it's fascinating to observe. It really is. And it's clear that that's happening. Some of it's for good. Some of it's for ill it's not, it's not immediately clear that it's all bad. I would say
Caller 3 (01:13:31):
That's true. And I'm not saying bad either. I I'm saying I'm just observing that and saying, what, what do we do about it? How do we survive?
Leo Laporte (01:13:38):
Nothing to do about it. <Laugh> nothing to do about it for you and me. We could just say, I mean, you know, you could talk about a lot of things that are changing in the world. What are we gonna do about the climate crisis, right? And this isn't gonna affect you and me. We're gonna, we'll be gone before. It's really an issue, but it's sure gonna affect our kids and grandkids. What, what, you know, there's so many things by the way, that is also a consequence of technology. If you believe in human created climate, climate change that's a consequence of technology. And and so we see a lot of consequences. We see a lot of good things too. And I, I just, I don't think I've thought about this a lot. You're right. We spend a lot of time talking about it and I, I just don't know if there's anything you can do about it. It's almost an inexorable change.
Caller 3 (01:14:26):
Well, I I've already seen some change into people are starting to look at all cable news, whether you
Leo Laporte (01:14:31):
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. People are becoming aware of it. Yeah.
Caller 3 (01:14:34):
I agree. It's like, it's a little too much and I want think and, and look like that. Yeah. Meanwhile, in the meantime, I back off and I play and I study my gypsy jazz guitar and there you go. Music and I, and I
Leo Laporte (01:14:44):
A little more, Jago a little less J goal. I like it. All right. Hey, it's a pleasure talking to youj great points. Long
Caller 3 (01:14:51):
Time listening. Thank you. Thank
Leo Laporte (01:14:52):
You so much. I'm so glad you called in. Sometimes we do get philosophical. It is philosophical. It really is. And this show from day one and I've been doing this for 30 years. My goal always was to help us together, understand how technology's changing our lives and, and what we can do. Not about it as if we can change it, but what we can do to, to, to make it work for us, that's really what this is all about. It always has been but you gotta understand it. You gotta observe it. You gotta see it. And you kind of have to figure out, well, where does this, what role does this play in my life? Right? And I think it's all all bad. Well talk the singularity. He mentioned it, but we didn't really talk about it is the notion that at some point machines, some machine is gonna become indistinguishable from humans.
Leo Laporte (01:15:44):
The great SI computer scientist, Ray KW talks about this effect wrote a book called the singularity is near he was wrong <laugh> but, but at some point computers are gonna be an distinguishable from humans. And at that point, it's gonna take off, it's gonna be like a hockey stick. They are going to develop their own code themselves much faster than any humans could do, and it will get faster and faster. It's a according to Wikipedia, a hypothetical point in time at which technological growth will become uncontrollable and irreversible. Are we there yet? Maybe that's kind of the question of the show. Are we there yet? It ain't exactly clear. That's true. Something's happening. <Laugh> of course this was 1968 that people have thought that for a long time, we are definitely in a changing world. Actually. We're gonna talk about artificial intelligence with regard to photography and image making in just a little bit with Chris. Marwar our photo guy. Meanwhile, Mike is on the line for Orlando, Florida. Our next call. Hello Mike.
Caller 4 (01:16:56):
Hey Leah. How you
Leo Laporte (01:16:57):
Doing? I'm well, how are you?
Caller 4 (01:16:59):
I'm doing very good. Thank you.
Leo Laporte (01:17:01):
What is
Caller 4 (01:17:01):
Up my question about streaming home video? I have digitized quite a bit of my own family home video. Nice. And I'd like to play it on the apple TV. I know you can do it from the I from the Mac to the apple TV, through an app on the apple TV, but I'm wondering if there's a cloud option where you could play that there or even really any other device. Yeah. Any
Leo Laporte (01:17:26):
Time. Yeah, there absolutely are UN obviously many cloud options. You can put it on YouTube, for instance, you don't have to make it public on YouTube. But, but you could have a URL that you share with people it's such a long obscure numeric URL address that nobody's gonna guess it. If you wanna even more private, there's certainly places that you could put it that you know, Facebook would be one that you have to be given permission to look at it. You can also, you can also, is there
Caller 4 (01:17:57):
A way, is there a way though to have like a menu kind of, of interface?
Leo Laporte (01:18:01):
Sure. Probably the, the most interesting way to do this would be to serve it yourself. You're not gonna have high volume, so you don't have to use YouTube or, or Facebook. Somebody who's gonna give you kind of infinite bandwidth. You could serve it yourself with something called Plex, P L E X. Apple has a technology, a media server technology. So does windows that allow you to on a server of some kind put video and then have computers log into it and play it back? What Plex does is it turns any media, whether it's yours or movies or whatever photos that you've got into a streaming media service that you can use on your own hard drives. A lot of people use a network attached storage, a Sonology or something like that to do it. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> or you could do it from an individual computer using your own bandwidth or, and I believe Plex has this.
Leo Laporte (01:18:59):
Now you can also offer it from a Plex server in the cloud, really Dropbox, almost any cloud service will give you the capability to serve video. The reason I mentioned Plex is cuz Plex does have menus. It does allow you to have to organize it. Generally, what you wanna do is set that all up locally and then upload it to the server. And then the server will serve up the menus. Just like a DVD. I presume you want something like that, a DVD menu that says here's the kids when they were 12. Here's the kids when they were 14.
Caller 4 (01:19:31):
Yeah. I mean, I've, I've, I've titled all the videos and I've been like, and then I have other videos that are not family related that I'd like to have like categorized.
Leo Laporte (01:19:40):
Yeah. So a lot of people use Plex for that. That's that's very common.
Caller 4 (01:19:45):
How does that connect to the apple TV?
Leo Laporte (01:19:48):
There's a Plex app. There's a Plex app for everywhere. So there's the server which you would run somewhere. If you go to plex.tv, you can learn more about this. There's a server, which you could run anywhere. And then there's apps for Android iOS, Mac windows, Linux, and there's a web interface as well that you could, could watch the stuff. So in effect,
Caller 4 (01:20:11):
Are you familiar? Are you go
Leo Laporte (01:20:12):
Ahead. Sorry, go ahead. No, you go ahead. No, you, you first <laugh>.
Caller 4 (01:20:15):
Are, are you familiar? Cause I've seen, I've looked at apple TV for apps and I've seen an app called that supposedly will link to things like Dropbox.
Leo Laporte (01:20:25):
There you
Caller 4 (01:20:26):
Go. Things like that. Yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:20:27):
It's a infuse is just a video player. And so if you've got the video on, on anywhere it works with a NASA, it works with a Mac, a PC, it works with Plex. It works with Google drive. It works with one drive Dropbox, as you said, then, then infuse will stream it from there. Great choice, fire core.com for that one. Leo LaPorte tech guy. Yeah. There, in other words, there's about a million ways to solve this. It kind of also depends. Is it just gonna be in your house or you want aunt Judy in in Detroit to watch, I mean, you know who you want to have, watch it infuse is kind of is a Plex client among other things. Plex has its own client, but yeah, you could use infuse.
Caller 4 (01:21:11):
Yeah. I I'm a little familiar with Plex. I've heard Andy talk about it. Yeah, yeah. And trying to figure it out, but I wasn't sure how
Leo Laporte (01:21:17):
So there's a couple of decisions. Have
Caller 4 (01:21:18):
It on somewhere connected hardware.
Leo Laporte (01:21:20):
Yeah. Somewhere has to be a server. It can do it over the internet, but somewhere has to be a server. And the question is, you know, so that's the first thing is where am I gonna keep it? Where do I wanna store it? If
Caller 4 (01:21:32):
You want, it doesn't necessarily have to be hardwired.
Leo Laporte (01:21:34):
No, it has to be on the internet.
Caller 4 (01:21:38):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:21:39):
But infuse is neat because it will also work with airplay or Google cast. So that's kind of neat too. Hmm. Yeah. Infuse is a, is actually a very good solution. Yeah.
Caller 4 (01:21:50):
Yeah. Cause I'm on iCloud right now, but iCloud doesn't allow that kind of function. Right. So I go, I might have to move everything over to like
Leo Laporte (01:21:57):
Google drive or Dropbox, you know, you're gonna pay for that. Yeah, I know. Yeah. That's that's
Caller 4 (01:22:04):
Paying, but if I, if I, if I lose, I could drop the iCloud and then pay for Dropbox.
Leo Laporte (01:22:09):
Sure, absolutely. Yeah. And, and then yeah. And so yeah, there, yeah, there are a lot of ways. So you have to decide who, where am I gonna serve it from? And then you decide what you wanna use as the client. So you have a client, it's a client server thing. The server has all the videos, serving it over the internet. And then, then you need to client like infuse or the Plex client. Yeah. You got it. I think you've solved it.
Caller 4 (01:22:34):
Yeah. Okay.
Leo Laporte (01:22:36):
<Laugh> and it's really, it's mostly gonna be figure out where you store it because if you store it locally costs more, cuz you gotta buy the hardware and stuff, but you have complete control of it. If you just store it on Dropbox, you have to pay a monthly fee. It's it's, that's the kind of decisions you have to make. It's also, it's all pretty simple to do. One of the reasons people use YouTube in Facebook is cuz you don't pay any bandwidth fees. It's free.
Caller 4 (01:22:56):
Yeah. I just wanna do it. It's not as organized as I'd like it to be.
Leo Laporte (01:23:00):
<Laugh> yeah. Cool. I think it's a great idea. Yeah.
Caller 4 (01:23:03):
Do you have a moment for just help us a quick question? Sure. My wife and I share my I, my iCloud account for the sole reason of when we take pictures, it all goes to the same photo account.
Leo Laporte (01:23:19):
Yeah. That's a recipe for disaster in the long run. Cause cause you're getting her text messages on her own account. Yeah. Create her own account. I can
Caller 4 (01:23:28):
Filter those out. But yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:23:29):
If you look at photos, you'll see, they have a capability to a shared album. For instance, I have an apple photos album, anytime a picture, take a picture of Lisa. It goes into the Lisa album, which she gets automatic. Cause she's always wants any pictures I take of her. So this is under sharing now Google photos that does it too. But if you use apple, it sounds like you're an apple guy I photos to, or what they call photos now will totally do this. You just create albums. You can, that are automat.
Caller 4 (01:23:59):
So it'll automatically, it would automatically upload. Yeah. You can set up to automatically upload to that. You
Leo Laporte (01:24:04):
Don't have to. And she, and it's shared with her apple accounts. So she has access to it just like you do. So I have it said so when anybody in my family, cause it has face recognition. When anybody in my family is in a picture, it automatically shares this to my family photo album, which is then shared automatically to everybody in the family. And they all have different accounts.
Caller 4 (01:24:25):
So any shared photo or, or photo I take or photo she takes, if we had separate iCloud accounts,
Leo Laporte (01:24:29):
You can set that up. That's right. Yep. Okay. Yep.
Caller 4 (01:24:33):
I'll check that out.
Leo Laporte (01:24:34):
I do that. Cuz Lisa says every time I take a picture of her, give me that. Gimme that gimme me. So you got it's all in your eye photos. <Laugh> it's all there. All right. Great. <laugh> all right. Take care.
Caller 4 (01:24:44):
Thank you.
Leo Laporte (01:24:45):
Sure. Anytime. No, sir. Keep that coat of Chrome. Keep that camera. It's time to talk photography with Chris mark. My personal photo sensing@sensei.photo. S E S E i.photo. Hello Chris. Good to see you.
Chris Marquardt (01:25:04):
Hello. I'm not sure we're gonna talk about photography today though.
Leo Laporte (01:25:07):
Image images instead. Well
Chris Marquardt (01:25:10):
Images instead. So, so here's the thing, there's this whole new breed of computer systems coming out right now that is well they, we call 'em art generators or image generators. The one that's been fairly, fairly viral so far is called Dolly by open AI and those, those are systems that you give a prompt, you put some text in, ask it what kind of picture you want. And it spits out the picture. It's a little
Leo Laporte (01:25:44):
Eerie. You've probably seen them on Twitter. If you've, if you look around, you'll see a lot of Dolly, D a L L dash E pictures. They're a little EIE but it's still cool.
Chris Marquardt (01:25:55):
It's eerie from, from a few perspectives because I mean some of those pictures, especially when you create faces of people might look a little bit weird, but then it's also eerie in a way that it is gonna replace probably going to replace a few people over time because it can do the job of, let's say it's probably a bit of a threat for stock photography, at least a certain kind of that. So, but still, I mean, I'm having a lot of fun playing with, with the system and it's in beta right now. So it's, but it, it is accessible. You can create pictures and you can actually use them now. And yeah, let's, let's just dive right in. So the things that you can do with it are really interesting because it allows you to, I mean, do things that would be hard to photograph, for example, reser stuff here. What
Leo Laporte (01:26:47):
Is this? I'll have
Chris Marquardt (01:26:48):
An example though. It's a steak, it's a steak with a cold grill. So it has, I, I see colds hanging off of it just coming from the fire. So,
Leo Laporte (01:26:55):
So you give it a text prompt and it generates an image based on it. What the text prompt was a stake
Chris Marquardt (01:27:03):
Was IPRO for, this was a, a stake over, over hot cold with ICS hanging off of it. <Laugh> and, and it didn't a few tries to get to that example to, to get to the result. But it is, this is what came out. It doesn't always really understand what you want. So I try to make a total row mugshot, which is, which resulted in a whole bunch of different total row shaped mugs mugs. So it <laugh> did not really do what I wanted, but but look at those materials, look at those surfaces. That is, oh,
Leo Laporte (01:27:41):
It looks like they really exist. I mean, it looks like they really exist and that's, what's a little, little scary about this cause they didn't, they exist exist only in the mind of a computer.
Chris Marquardt (01:27:51):
The other thing you can see on this picture is that Dali is really bad with text. So it tried to put total row on the mugs on some of them and it Toro to, it just doesn't do text well. So that's an easy way to spot some of those. But you can also go artsy to paintings, to drawings and these kind of things. This is an example of a girl holding an umbrella, standing in front of some cityscape which I'm, I'm happy with that result. Again, took a couple of tries. You have to iterate, you have to, you have to reprogram your brain a bit as a, as a visual artist. I personally, I, I like to see what's there and let myself be influenced from that. Now I have to, to spell things out. I have to build prompts that are very descriptive and that, that, that get me to where I want. And it takes iterations. It's not like a, typically not a one shot thing. Can,
Leo Laporte (01:29:00):
Can you modify, you're trying an existing one. Can you say, okay, that's good. But can you change the, the height of the buildings or, I mean, or do you have to start scratch from scratch each
Chris Marquardt (01:29:08):
Time? Not, not even in that detail, but, but what you would do is you would create, it creates four. Every, every time you, you put a prompt in, it creates four different ones or slightly different ones. And then you end up with a you could just modify the prompt and say, oh wait, wait, this didn't come out exactly the way I wanted. So I will I will massage the prompt a bit. Yeah. To try something new. That's the iteration, sometimes it takes two tries, three tries, five tries, 10 tries. And so on. So I've seen,
Leo Laporte (01:29:43):
There's some amazing things from this though. Yeah. There's a guy who has a new startup who created his logo using Dolly. Oh yeah,
Chris Marquardt (01:29:51):
Yeah. Oh yeah. I would, I would totally do this. If you ever wondered what bacon and eggs look like when it came from from a Michelin star restaurant
Leo Laporte (01:30:02):
<Laugh> this is what it's, it's pretty close.
Chris Marquardt (01:30:05):
It's really, this is, this looks quite convincing. I asked it to create a magazine cover for a magazine that talks about alien vegetables <laugh> and what you see here. It looks like it came from another planet what's
Leo Laporte (01:30:19):
In, it's interesting for a few reasons. I mean, you're getting interesting images that are fun to play with and look at, but it also kind of is you almost feel like a view into the mind of the computer. Like how it's, how it's interpreting what you're saying. It's very good. I mean, these are, these are fairly advanced technologies are using something called G generative. What is it? Adversarial
Chris Marquardt (01:30:45):
Networks, adversarial network.
Leo Laporte (01:30:47):
So you give it different learning data sets and they fight. <Laugh> sort of what is that? That's a burger. Oh my God. Is,
Chris Marquardt (01:30:55):
That was, that was a, that was a, that was a burger from a, from a burger ad set in 1965.
Leo Laporte (01:31:01):
And it looks, it's got the sixties
Chris Marquardt (01:31:02):
Colors, the style, right?
Leo Laporte (01:31:04):
The orange nailed style. Yeah, yeah. This next one's kind of more nightmarish,
Chris Marquardt (01:31:10):
Well, nightmarish in a way. But then also I gave it, I gave it a fantasy kind of name. I called this thing, the 12 gob and I asked it to make a 12 go
Leo Laporte (01:31:18):
For me. That's all you said is 12 gob and it, and it got something. Yes. Wow.
Chris Marquardt (01:31:23):
Yes. I, it got something. It looks
Leo Laporte (01:31:24):
Like a guy
Chris Marquardt (01:31:25):
To it. Doesn't it. Doesn't it. Or the Terminator taught us.
Leo Laporte (01:31:30):
Oh,
Chris Marquardt (01:31:30):
There you are.
Leo Laporte (01:31:30):
That's very
Chris Marquardt (01:31:31):
Goods. Scary. Just imagine that's on your
Leo Laporte (01:31:34):
What's interesting. And puzzling to me is that somehow it understands when you say Terminator that there is a, there are things that looks that come from that movie and it knows a tortoise, okay, this is what a tourist looks like, but somehow it applies the one to the other and it, and it, and it works. It kind of, it's not just like a, a, you know, you glue a Terminator arm onto a turtle. Whoa, who's this, this is a person.
Chris Marquardt (01:31:59):
And well, that's a person. That's a portrait of a person, a very, very artsy stylized kind of black and white thing. Took me about half an hour to get the prompt, but
Leo Laporte (01:32:11):
This person never existed
Chris Marquardt (01:32:13):
Because these things there's
Leo Laporte (01:32:14):
No
Chris Marquardt (01:32:14):
Human person never existed.
Leo Laporte (01:32:15):
This looks like a real human with a story. Fascinating. Yes, you'd be, this would, you'd be happy to have this in your portfolio.
Chris Marquardt (01:32:25):
This is art. I mean, it does, you, you can get it to a point where it's does things that I would consider art.
Leo Laporte (01:32:34):
It's remarkable.
Chris Marquardt (01:32:36):
Also scary. Yeah. Also a bit scary.
Leo Laporte (01:32:38):
Yeah. and I, into the mind, if you can call it that of computers, we're not saying they're sentient. They're not
Chris Marquardt (01:32:46):
Thinking I did one. I did one of you, a Cuban.
Leo Laporte (01:32:49):
I like that.
Chris Marquardt (01:32:51):
Painting of Leo port. Did you,
Leo Laporte (01:32:53):
Did you give it a picture of me at some point? No.
Chris Marquardt (01:32:55):
No, I didn't. I asked, asked for a, I asked for a guy in, in front of a microphone.
Leo Laporte (01:33:01):
Oh. But it does look like me, like
Chris Marquardt (01:33:02):
Cubist
Leo Laporte (01:33:03):
Painting. I'm I must be it kinda
Chris Marquardt (01:33:04):
Look like
Leo Laporte (01:33:04):
That. The prototypical guy in front of a, my microphone
Chris Marquardt (01:33:07):
<Laugh> took me, took me a few tries and I picked the right one. So that is cherry picked for sure.
Leo Laporte (01:33:11):
So you can apply to get, to use Dolly and beware. It's one of those things. You start doing it and hours later you go, what time is it? But you do have to, it's a waiting list. You do have to get in just to search for D a L L dash E creating images from text, from open ai.com, a 12 billion parameter version of G PT, three trained to generate images from text descriptions, using a data set of text image pairs, which works. I I'm sure they think better than they really could have ever imagined.
Chris Marquardt (01:33:49):
<Laugh> and it's, and it's not the only one. We, we will see several of these kind of things, competing things coming out.
Leo Laporte (01:33:54):
Yeah. What a world. Yep. Chris Mar Hart you'll find his work@sensei.photo pictures. He actually takes his books and of course is coaching sensei.photo. Thank you, Chris. Thank, oh, we didn't talk about the assignment. What's the word? And I'll do it after we come back.
Chris Marquardt (01:34:13):
Friendly,
Leo Laporte (01:34:14):
Friendly, friendly, friendly. Okay, good. I'll mention it when we come back. Thank you, sir. That was a good one. That's fascinating.
Chris Marquardt (01:34:23):
Absolutely. Oh, I do have to I won't be here for the next and possibly the next two weeks because that's fine. I told you about the Eastern European photo road trip. I wanna do next. Yeah. Year. I will do the scouting tour, starting on Sunday,
Leo Laporte (01:34:38):
Driving around in your model three.
Chris Marquardt (01:34:40):
I'll do the entire thing on Sunday and I'm vlogging it by the way. So anyone listening to the stream here, it's at TF ttf.com/scout.
Leo Laporte (01:34:53):
Nice TF ttf.com/slash scout. Excellent.
Chris Marquardt (01:35:01):
Yeah, I'll, I'll use that as a bit of an outlet. So also to help me sort, my thoughts about this thing, I find that talking about things is, is good.
Leo Laporte (01:35:13):
Yes.
Chris Marquardt (01:35:15):
So, so next week, possibly next after next week, let us
Leo Laporte (01:35:18):
Know. That's fine. We'll assume next week for
Chris Marquardt (01:35:20):
Sure.
Leo Laporte (01:35:21):
On, yeah.
Chris Marquardt (01:35:22):
Yeah. Cool. I'll email and let you know.
Leo Laporte (01:35:25):
Very good. Thank you, sir. All right. Take care. Okay, dokey. Bye.
Chris Marquardt (01:35:29):
Bye. SU then bye now.
Leo Laporte (01:35:32):
Oh, from a, from Arctic, from R the Arctic. Oh boy. Rod pile from the Arctic circle coming up slack. Okay. Oh, wow. That is so cool. Wow. I will have it. Ready for the sat phone. Wow. Yeah, we should tell him more like, what is it really like 1 34? Cause I don't want him to waste sat minutes sitting on hold. What is the exact time? Is it Laura? When's the exact return on the bottom of the hour. Okay. So have him call it 32 30 or 30. Have him call it 33 and then I could say we are attempting to raise rod pile via satellite phone.
Speaker 7 (01:36:49):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (01:36:50):
Yeah. Yeah. It'd be fun. <Laugh> wow. He is he is up there. He is at Sal Bard latitude
Leo Laporte (01:37:02):
Le Laport, the tech guy, just in case you are playing the home version of our Chris Marwar photo game. Every month. Chris gives us an assignment, asks you to take pictures, illustrating a word or an idea, and then uploading those to flicker. Our word of the month is friendly. So take a picture, illustrating the idea, friendly, upload it to flicker.com. That's free it's photo sharing site and then join the tech guy group and submit it. Renee Silverman. Our tech guy group moderator will. Thank you. Make sure you tag it though. TG friendly is that way. Renee knows this for that assignment. TG friendly will put it in a photo album and in a few weeks, Chris will review them and pick three and you'll be famous on the radio. Friendly is the topic for Chris's photo assignment in a little program note about 45 minutes to an hour.
Leo Laporte (01:37:54):
We're gonna go go to the Arctic circle. Rod pile, our space guy. I thought he was gonna be taking the month off because he is traveling up north to the north pole. But he just messaged us via a cell satellite phone, not cell phone, satellite phone. And he is way up north, but he's gonna try to call us at about an hour. So 1 32 Pacific, 4 30, 2 Eastern, we will, we will talk to rod pile in the Arctic circle. That should be interesting. Our space guy. There's lots of space news, not just the chorizo and space. There's other stuff. Keith is on the line from Portland, Oregon. Hello, Keith.
Caller 5 (01:38:37):
Hey Leo. How are you?
Leo Laporte (01:38:38):
I'm great. Welcome. Thanks for hanging on
Caller 5 (01:38:42):
First time. Long time. Yay. I have. Yeah, so I got century link the fiber network and they give you, you know, their wireless router.
Leo Laporte (01:38:53):
Nice.
Caller 5 (01:38:54):
And I wanted a little bit more. So I went to Amazon and I picked a TP link. Archer one. It's the most popular one there on Amazon.
Leo Laporte (01:39:02):
Yeah. That's cuz wire cutter. The New York times review site picks it often as their number one wifi router. So it's a good choice. The Archer. Yeah.
Caller 5 (01:39:13):
I wish I could get it to work. I've tried. Well,
Leo Laporte (01:39:16):
This is gonna be an issue because of the century link. So the century link because it is fiber has to have a special box on the fiber to turn it into ethernet. Is there just one box or are there two boxes?
Caller 5 (01:39:33):
No,
Leo Laporte (01:39:34):
It's just one box
Caller 5 (01:39:36):
It's yeah, the NT. I think they
Leo Laporte (01:39:38):
Call it. Yes. That's what they call it. So you got the on NT and that probably has a router built into it, right?
Caller 5 (01:39:45):
No. Then I, then I bring that to there. It looks like a one of those Mac trash cans actually. It's white. Got
Leo Laporte (01:39:52):
It. Okay.
Caller 5 (01:39:53):
That, yeah. And I, you know, I, I hardwire my laptop into it and it, that it works fine. Fine. But when I, yeah, and I've learned through the forms and everything, you have to go into the century link settings, wireless and change a few things does 2 0 1 and 2 0 2. You have to change some Vtech things. It's
Leo Laporte (01:40:16):
Yeah. So you have is it a C 4,000? Is that the router that they've they've given you? Oh actually that's the modem. I'm just trying to, I'm looking at central links guides. It is. So what you'll need to do is almost always, if you want to use your own router with this kind of thing, sometimes you can just unplug there. If it's, if what they've given you is just pure router. You could plug the ONT into your own router. Have you tried that route so to speak?
Caller 5 (01:40:45):
Yes I have.
Leo Laporte (01:40:46):
And that did not work,
Caller 5 (01:40:47):
You know, I can actually get it up. I can get into the TP and I can see it like right now I can see it.
Leo Laporte (01:40:56):
Oh, that's good.
Caller 5 (01:40:57):
But I, yeah,
Leo Laporte (01:40:58):
I, so you may, so sometimes what providers do is they lock down Mac addresses, they know the Mac address of the router they gave you. And if you mm-hmm, <affirmative> replace the router, they gave you, you will then need to call them and say, Hey, I've replaced the router. And this is the Mac address of the new device on there. Sometimes they can just ping it. Sometimes they'll have to enter into a database and then it might work. Now, if it doesn't, there is a, there is a plan B, which is to continue to use the century link router they gave you, but put it in bridge mode because, okay, you don't want the TP link and the router both to do network address translation. You only want one to get assign IP addresses in your internal network. And ideally it would be the TP link.
Leo Laporte (01:41:45):
Almost all routers have a bridge mode. You could put it in a bridge mode, which says, look, you're not doing any routing. I don't want you to do routing. I just want you to be the gateway into my into my house. That may be easiest, cuz it require, it shouldn't require a call to century link, but it probably isn't gonna be as, as, as, as efficient, as setup as just putting the Tepe, replacing their router with a Tepi link. So that's what I would do is call them and say, Hey, look, I'd like to use my own router.
Caller 5 (01:42:14):
I have made the call. And I told 'em and didn't didn't help. You know, they
Leo Laporte (01:42:21):
Did. They say, okay.
Caller 5 (01:42:24):
Yeah, they said, okay, they, you know, this, I'm not alone when you search it up on the internet. There's there's other people like me having similar issues.
Leo Laporte (01:42:32):
What did they? So they said, okay, you can bring your own router. And you told 'em the make and model of the router. Right?
Caller 5 (01:42:39):
Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:42:39):
And and then, and then did they ask for the Mac address?
Caller 5 (01:42:46):
I don't think so.
Leo Laporte (01:42:46):
No, they may not. They may not need it. Sometimes they can just ping it and then they go, oh yeah, there's a new device.
Caller 5 (01:42:53):
Yeah. They could see it. They could see it. I'm like right now, when I look at the Archer settings, I can see my Archer X two, one,
Leo Laporte (01:43:01):
Ah, I'm looking, I'm looking at their site. Okay. So they're using P P O E. So did they give you login and password?
Caller 5 (01:43:13):
Yep. Yep. Yep. I've got that from that.
Leo Laporte (01:43:15):
And, and so this is a li this is a little bit a call back to the good old days where in order to get onto an internet service, you had to add a log. They use P P O E V P. I VCI you'll need credentials for that, which then the TPO link has to understand that such things exist and let you enter the credentials. Did you find somewhere on the TP link that would let you enter those credentials?
Caller 5 (01:43:42):
Gosh, I think so. When I'm asking,
Leo Laporte (01:43:46):
Is this DSL, let me see if this is, so they're saying this is the DSL, what is it? Is, is an old DSL technology. Maybe this is not for fiber. I, I apologize. Yeah. Let me look, let me look back. But they did give you some credentials, right?
Caller 5 (01:43:58):
Right. It's P P O E. They did. And they, you needed. Yeah. And then the username that essentially link gives me is my name and a couple numbers and a password. And I've got that intern into the to the TP link wireless router setting. So I'm pretty far, I'm just one step away. I feel so close. <Laugh> so
Leo Laporte (01:44:21):
Far, I'm looking at an article from me, geek.com. I don't know if you found that, that does mention this transparent bridging mode. So that's the two ways to do it. I'm not, it's hard for me. Yeah. In the ISPs like century link will either sell you a modem. Router combo includes both a DSL or fiber modem. That's the on NT and a wireless router, but it's not in your case. All in one box, it's in two separate boxes. Is that right? Yeah.
Caller 5 (01:44:47):
The on N T yeah. The O N T is next to the wall and then I've got the white little trashcan thing. Yeah. But
Leo Laporte (01:44:54):
Which I think is a ZY cell modem, if I'm, if I'm identifying it correctly I'm not sure what is going on.
Leo Laporte (01:45:09):
Probably we're gonna punt and go back to the bridge mode. So, yeah.
Caller 5 (01:45:14):
You know, I, I also wonder if I should just kind of, I've been messing with it so much. Wonder if I should just reset everything?
Leo Laporte (01:45:21):
Yeah. That's not a, always a, that's always a good idea. I'm thinking if
Caller 5 (01:45:25):
You could, from scratch. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:45:27):
Use their, the device that they gave you both devices, the on NT and the router. And and then attach the TP link to the router and then put the router in bridge mode, I think is gonna be probably the simplest since you've already tried this logging in with their PPO E credentials and it didn't work I'm wondering is because their device, their router has those credentials and logs in for you. It does that part.
Caller 5 (01:45:57):
Yeah. I can yeah.
Leo Laporte (01:45:58):
See it doing that,
Caller 5 (01:45:59):
Plug that in. Yeah, it works fine.
Leo Laporte (01:46:01):
Yeah. so for, so you, when you, when you do put in your TP link, when you put the Archer directly onto their ONT, the Archer sees internet, does it all the lights light up properly? Oh
Caller 5 (01:46:13):
Yeah. Yeah. I've got I'm full green,
Leo Laporte (01:46:17):
So that's good. Maybe there isn't an issue here. Maybe it's somehow getting that to, to do the right thing in the wifi. Hold on a sec. Leo LePort the tech guy. Yeah. I mean certainly this is the simplest thing is to have the ONT, the router and then your Archer in series. In fact, when you do that, when do you get the green lights? When you, when you take their router out of the series?
Caller 5 (01:46:56):
No, I mean, right now, it I've got the TP link plugged into the O N T. Perfect.
Leo Laporte (01:47:02):
And you got rid of the trash can,
Caller 5 (01:47:03):
The lights are green
Leo Laporte (01:47:04):
And all the lights are green. So that means you are getting, that means you are able to talk to the home office and you are getting an internet connection from them. So now it simply sounds like a problem with the Archer that it's, for some reason, not, you're not joining it properly. You gave the Archer wifi you're using as wifi only.
Caller 5 (01:47:25):
No, there's a computer plugged into the ethernet
Leo Laporte (01:47:28):
And the ethernet works or does it not work?
Caller 5 (01:47:30):
No, no ethernet
Leo Laporte (01:47:31):
E no ethernet, ethernet
Caller 5 (01:47:34):
And Leo, when I go to their page for like TV link, it, you know, they gave me a network map in their settings and it says, internet check, you know, and it actually even gives me a data.
Leo Laporte (01:47:44):
Yeah. That's the same thing as the green lights. That's the, the router saying I see everything. Mm-Hmm <affirmative> but why is the router? I, yeah, reset the TP link cause reset it because I, the router's getting internet, which means you're logged in the P P E O E the P O E worked that you're logged in. Yeah. Maybe,
Caller 5 (01:48:07):
Maybe I'll maybe I'll unplug because a lot of they say unplug the power to the on NT. Maybe that's my steps. I'll
Leo Laporte (01:48:15):
Yeah. What that does is that say, that sends a signal back to century link so that they kind of reestablish. Okay. And that would go all along the chain. That's that's fine.
Caller 5 (01:48:26):
That's fine. Reset the router and try it again, maybe.
Leo Laporte (01:48:31):
And you're connecting you connect to the O and T with an ethernet cable.
Caller 5 (01:48:35):
Yeah. You know, it's I check the cable cable works cuz it works for the other. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. For the other router. Hey, before I forget, you talked to my son from Myorca a couple years.
Leo Laporte (01:48:47):
Oh yeah. Cool. Yeah. How is he? Is he still there?
Caller 5 (01:48:52):
He's here with his friends. They're getting ready to go play Pokemon.
Leo Laporte (01:48:55):
Nice. He's back home
Caller 5 (01:48:57):
Pokemon. He's back home in the United States, but nice. He's now buying lots of iPhones and fixing them. He's got about oh, 10 of them on our table.
Leo Laporte (01:49:06):
He's got a nice little leg side gig, side hustle going on.
Caller 5 (01:49:10):
Oh, I love it. I
Leo Laporte (01:49:11):
Love so he should know how to get this all working if he's this, that DEP. Well,
Caller 5 (01:49:15):
He's telling me he's more software than
Leo Laporte (01:49:17):
Working. Oh, okay. Yeah. Oh dad, I don't know. <Laugh> I'm gonna be in my York in the spring, just for a day. It's part of our our cruise, a Mediterranean cruise, but I'm, I've never been there. I'm looking forward to it.
Caller 5 (01:49:32):
We spent eight months here. It was great. Beautiful. Oh yeah. Beautiful. The Caz is what they call 'em. They're like little codes. Oh, nice. You go to the CS. Crystal clear water. Oh,
Leo Laporte (01:49:45):
I can't wait. Yeah. I've never been well, I've never been, we spent a lot of time on Malta, which I loved, but we didn't get to Palma. So I'm looking forward to going across the bay a little bit and seeing that, oh
Caller 5 (01:49:57):
Man, I can't wait to get back there.
Leo Laporte (01:49:58):
Yeah. So I, I think this is solvable. I think it's one of those things where you just keep trying stuff. There's two ways to do it. As we said, you could keep the the trash can in, in series and just bridge, you put it in bridge mode. That might be the easiest. Then you'd have to turn off P P O E on the TP link. It would just be a regular router.
Caller 5 (01:50:24):
Hmm. Well, I'm gonna give it another
Leo Laporte (01:50:26):
Time. Did you get all the greens? I feel like you're, you're inches away. It's just getting that TP link. Just, just being, getting that to somehow do the routing. Something's turned off in the TP link, I
Caller 5 (01:50:36):
Think. And I can even get where, you know, people can see the network. I, I made a, you know, a network and people can see it. Oh, you know? So it's broadcasting
Leo Laporte (01:50:46):
Look at your DNS settings then maybe in the TP link, make sure your DNS is set for either the DNS provided to you by CenturyLink or one of the third party. DNSS like tri 9.9 0.9 do nine. I, that sounds like a DNS issue. You've got internet. You just can't surf. You can't go out. That sounds like a DNS issue,
Caller 5 (01:51:11):
DNS. All right. Thank you so much.
Leo Laporte (01:51:14):
You're welcome. Good luck.
Caller 5 (01:51:16):
All right. Have
Leo Laporte (01:51:17):
All right. Get my regards to your boy. <Laugh> okay. Bye-Bye take care. Well, Hey, Hey. How are you today? Leo? LePort here. The tech guy. Yes. It's time to talk computers in the internet and home theater, digital photography, smartphones, smart watches, blockchain, Bitcoin NFTs. Anything on your minds? Eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number eight eight two seven five five, three, six to free from anywhere in the us or Canada outside that area. Certainly, certainly you could still call but you have to use Skype or something like that. Skype out so that you can do it for free eighty eight eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number lines are open Tom on the line from Hava. Hello, Tom.
Caller 6 (01:52:03):
Good morning, Leo. Good morning with you. Loha I'm Aloha. I'm listening. I'm out here on the north shore of Oahu, looking at Mount CAALA out my window. It's very nice. Beautiful. I'm listening on K I with my legacy outdated grace Mondo internet radio. Fortunately, I had a lot of stations in the history. Nice. Because as you know, receive us, stopped working.
Leo Laporte (01:52:28):
Yeah. As long as as long as those stations don't change their internet address, their URL. You're okay. URL.
Caller 6 (01:52:34):
Right? I know.
Leo Laporte (01:52:35):
<Laugh> I'll I'll tell my friends in KFI don't change your URL,
Caller 6 (01:52:40):
The, the, and there's no way to direct under a URL on these radios. I have two of
Leo Laporte (01:52:44):
Them. Oh, that's too bad. You, you, you said you have a sea crane is, is the sea crane, the one you have or no, you had the, the, no, no, the grace. No, I have the, I have, yeah, the grace. Yeah.
Caller 6 (01:52:54):
Mondo, the original Mondo, the Mondo plus the newer one is updated to the new sky tune, I believe. Yes. the
Leo Laporte (01:53:02):
Bottom sky tune.net. Push
Caller 6 (01:53:04):
Digital. Yeah. Yeah. So the ocean digital is nice. It's all up to date and I have that in the bedroom, but it, it doesn't have the fidelity. The Mondos have really nice.
Leo Laporte (01:53:13):
They sound good. Don't they? Yeah. Yeah. I gave my mom a grace some years ago and yeah, sure. It's not gonna work anymore. Now that receive is,
Caller 6 (01:53:22):
Well, if it's in it, it's in the history. You have to go to my stuff history. So any station that she ever used will still be there most likely, but you have to go to history every time to find it and tune it in. Yep.
Leo Laporte (01:53:38):
Mention a reason. I mentioned C crane is that they, they understood this problem and they actually provided upgrades for people with older radios. They, they now use sky tune for everything. Yeah. Yeah.
Caller 6 (01:53:47):
All grace did is offer a discount. And then when you try to use the discount, oh, we don't have any avail.
Leo Laporte (01:53:54):
Oh, thanks a lot
Caller 6 (01:53:55):
Price.
Leo Laporte (01:53:55):
Thanks a lot.
Caller 6 (01:53:56):
And I thought, you know, you know what, I'll go get a ocean digital, you know, that'll work good. So, anyway, my problem is this. I have an and a, a T-Mobile branded unlock, LG G a thin phone, which is a great phone. My previous LG had a better camera, but this one's great. And it's operating on Android 11. It has a December update. The phone is current. I checked it. I'm, I'm using simple mobile as the carrier, which I understand was recently purchased by Verizon. And for the last 10 days, I've been going nuts on the internet. All of a sudden my keyboard changed. Whereas the, the characters on either side of the space bar, I had assigned to the ones I wanted, according to the phone instructions, you, you open up one section and you drag the, whatever it is you want to that location. And there you go. So 10 days ago, all of a sudden it switched to question mark and period, which I hardly ever use. Oh. So I've been trying to change it for the last 10 days, doing internet searches with every possible, you know, nomenclature question mark and I can't find,
Leo Laporte (01:55:09):
And your previous method of changing those keys no longer works. It's
Caller 6 (01:55:13):
It's no longer works. And also at the same time, I, I, I, I used to be able, when I block a number, I used to be able to go into the phone and see a list of block numbers. Can't find it. You put blocked numbers into the search of settings and no results. So I'm going, what, what happened? I also, I, I downloaded G board, so I thought, okay, man, there's a problem with the LGT board. Download G board, same issue. You can't change those two keys.
Leo Laporte (01:55:42):
Yeah. I suspect what happened. I mean, remember that it's an Android phone, and even though LG has gotten outta the business, they have kind of said, yeah, we'll keep updating it for a while. Sounds like you got an update that changed its capabilities and hid some stuff which is too bad. What you want is a, is a programmable keyboard, essentially.
Caller 6 (01:56:05):
So so that was another reason. Like I said, I got the G board and I thought, oh, I should be able to. And same thing
Leo Laporte (01:56:11):
G board's Google's version. But yeah, I don't know if it's programmable in that way. Yeah.
Caller 6 (01:56:16):
It, it didn't work.
Leo Laporte (01:56:16):
There are a variety of third party keyboards. That's one of the nicest things. This is something, you know, that Andrea's done from day one, which has allow you to install third party keyboards. And so there are many other third party keyboards that it will in fact, allow you to program keys and so forth.
Caller 6 (01:56:34):
So, so what's a good one that that's not gonna be, you know, I like the, the quo keyboard that I've been using, I'm used to it. So I want something similar. That'll allow me to, to be able to assign those two keys. Yeah. That's the only issue. What happened to the block numbers? I have no idea. I'm going well, wait
Leo Laporte (01:56:51):
A minute. Yeah. They just moved things around in the settings. I'm sure they're there somewhere that may also be the carrier. The carrier is who's storing those. So maybe the carrier is no longer making those available.
Caller 6 (01:57:02):
So that would be, that would be simple mobile.
Leo Laporte (01:57:04):
Yes. Probably. And that may have something to do with Verizon's acquisition, frankly.
Caller 6 (01:57:09):
Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know what's going on. All I know is, you know, I have the same internet service that hasn't changed. Hasn't improved. It's everything's the same. So I, well, maybe they're just gonna own it and not change it.
Leo Laporte (01:57:21):
I, I am looking at a list of Android keyboards looking for one that lets you reprogram keys cuz that's what you want. Right. You want the ability to say right? Hey, I never used the question mark. I'd like it to be something else.
Caller 6 (01:57:35):
Right, exactly.
Leo Laporte (01:57:36):
Yeah. and I don't, I'm sure there are some, I mean, this is kind of an obvious feature. In fact I'm kind of disappointed. So it must have been the, the stock LG keyboard. Huh?
Caller 6 (01:57:49):
That's what I always do since day long
Leo Laporte (01:57:51):
Was yeah. Yeah. They must have allowed you to do that and I'm just, yeah. There's
Caller 6 (01:57:55):
An instruction of how to do it.
Leo Laporte (01:57:56):
That's really cool. I didn't even, I have never had that experience. <Laugh> so now I'm looking for another keyboard for you
Caller 6 (01:58:03):
When I'm texting. I use commas all the time. So I put that on the right side of the space bar. Yeah. Easy to hit. And that's where I had. Now it's a period. And the other, one's a question, mark. I never use a question mark and I hardly ever use a period. Yeah. Well, how do I put this back? And I'm like I said, for 10 days, I've spent hours on the internet trying to find out. So next thing, I guess what you just recommended, I will
Leo Laporte (01:58:27):
Just look for a third party. There's one called keyboard. That is programmable, but it looks like the programmability is like, so you could send phrases with a single keystroke. I don't think that's really what you wanna do is replace. No, no. The key caps in effect change the key caps. Right, right. And I'm sure there must be anybody in the chat room aware of anything like that. You never use the question mark. Huh? <Laugh> never,
Caller 6 (01:58:56):
Never, you
Leo Laporte (01:58:57):
Don't ask questions or you just don't feel the question marks needed.
Caller 6 (01:59:00):
Occasionally I, I do on WhatsApp. I have friends in Argentina. So I'll use my Spanish
Leo Laporte (01:59:07):
Keyboard. Oh the upside down question mark. Yeah. The upside mark. Yeah.
Caller 6 (01:59:11):
<Laugh> when I'm texting my friends here in the United States, I hardly ever use a keyboard. I mean a question mark. That's why I didn't have it on there. I thought for the few times I use it, I hold the button down. It brings up the character. Then I'll hit the question, mark. You know, that's, that's that, that's how often, how very,
Leo Laporte (01:59:29):
I think you were lucky, cuz I don't know of any Android phone that lets you reprogram key caps except for the LG. That was a feature of the LG. It's weird that they've taken that away. You might redownload the LG keyboard where maybe just simply in an update. They said, well, nobody uses this. Let's take this out. Why you would take a feature out is beyond me cuz there's somebody who, well
Caller 6 (01:59:50):
I did, I did come across a few comments about the other people complaining, but no, no solution. <Laugh> I why everybody, the com is the most common use.
Leo Laporte (02:00:00):
Yeah. Why would you get a lot to get rid of that?
Caller 6 (02:00:02):
<Laugh> you know, now I gotta go through two steps.
Leo Laporte (02:00:04):
You know my kids, when I use punctuation and text messages, my kids mock me. They say you're okay. Boomer, nobody uses punctuation anymore. So you're just a you're ahead of the crowd. That's all. I'm gonna keep looking for programmable keyboards, but the nice thing is you can install as many keyboards as you want and switch between them easily. So there's gonna be
Caller 6 (02:00:28):
Well, well like you said, there's probably, that's why I asked for advice. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:00:32):
I don't know of one
Caller 6 (02:00:33):
Install. Delete,
Leo Laporte (02:00:34):
I don't know one, I see one that's actually called programmable keyboard. But most of these look like they are like, you could program a keystroke to type a whole sentence that kind of, you know, shortcuts. You just wanna replace a letter and I, I think that's a sensible.
Caller 6 (02:00:53):
Yeah. I wanna reassign a card. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:00:55):
Why wouldn't yeah.
Caller 6 (02:00:56):
And that's what I put for the search. No nothing. <Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:01:02):
I don't know. I, and then somebody's saying maybe they moved the block numbers into the settings for the phone app as opposed to in the Android setting. So look in the phone app, the calling app and see if there's settings there. They I'm almost certain, there is somewhere that you can see what numbers have been blocked. They just changed where they put them. That's all. So you need to, oh,
Caller 6 (02:01:23):
Okay.
Leo Laporte (02:01:23):
You need to dig around.
Caller 6 (02:01:24):
But that's cause you know what happened as I was dialing and as you know, calling into the show, you have to get lucky. So I'm, I'm hitting red re redial. And then all of a sudden the, the thing came up, block number and I, I was moving so fast. I hit block your well, you
Leo Laporte (02:01:38):
Know, it's still blocked. That's good.
Caller 6 (02:01:39):
Unblock
Leo Laporte (02:01:40):
Don't block Leo <laugh> well, I appreciate it.
Caller 6 (02:01:44):
And then I go try to find it. I can't find I've seen this before. I could look at all the numbers. I've blocked on text and, and it's not there. Yeah. I'm going, you know, I just go to settings and typed in, blocked the word blocked.
Leo Laporte (02:01:54):
Yeah. That should work. But maybe it's a separate setting just for the phone app or it's under the cellular connections. Cuz it's really a feature of the cellular company. They're the ones who do the phone. Yeah. I
Caller 6 (02:02:03):
Didn't know that.
Leo Laporte (02:02:04):
Yeah. They're the ones who do not the phone itself. And and so you are Tom, an example of technology changing underneath your feet in all respects. Exactly. With the receiver, with the phone, with the phone numbers, they moved them with the keyboards <laugh> yeah. No wonder people hate technology.
Caller 6 (02:02:23):
Well, it's just, it's just frustrating when you get you, I've had this phone for a while and they, you know, they kept telling me other one, oh, your phone's not gonna work. We're gonna be updating. So I thought, okay, let make the look around. I got this phone. And of course after I get it, I'm real. I'm happy with it. Except and use camera. It doesn't take sunsets. Like my other one does the other phone, the
Leo Laporte (02:02:43):
Other
Caller 6 (02:02:43):
Phone was better
Leo Laporte (02:02:44):
Then LG announces. We're getting outta the business as we're done. We don't like this business. <Laugh> I'm sorry
Caller 6 (02:02:50):
Going no, man. I was gonna get another new LG phone.
Leo Laporte (02:02:53):
Keep listening. Somebody is gonna give us a program and will keyboard. I do have a link for you. We'll put in the show notes for Verizon on blocking and unblocking numbers on the thin queue. Very good. It looks like you do it in contacts. Okay.
Caller 6 (02:03:10):
I went there. Yeah. And looked for an an issue, but I I'll try it again. Yeah. I know that. I've you know, I get, I get calls, you know, random calls all the time. I don't answer the phone. Like some people do if I don't recognize the number. Yeah, yeah, Nope. Nope. I'm with you. It's some kind of scam deal. Oh, will you? They can leave a message. No message. Oh no message. Within 10 or 15 minutes
Leo Laporte (02:03:30):
Here. Here's what I would do. I click the phone icon from the dial, a recent tab. Go hit the menu icon, which is those three dots in the upper. Right? Right. You'll see. Call settings in there inside call settings. There should be a list of call blocking in which numbers are blocked.
Caller 6 (02:03:46):
Okay. I appreciate your time Leo. I
Leo Laporte (02:03:47):
Know right Tom way on the line. I got one outta three.
Caller 6 (02:03:50):
Again, sometime
Leo Laporte (02:03:51):
At least you got in now. You know how I know call again?
Caller 6 (02:03:54):
Know I will.
Leo Laporte (02:03:56):
All right, Tom. Have a problem. Okay, bye. Have a good one. Oh, I promise you're gonna have a problem. Technology constantly pulling the rug right out from under your feet. Oh really? You paid $250 for me to shave my head. You know, that caused major problems because I had forgotten that I was gonna get married in four weeks. And so as a result, <laugh> all my wedding pictures with Lisa have me with a shaved head. I blame you might be the caller. Didn't want comma or question marks. So he wanted to replace comma and question mark on the keyboard with something else. He used a lot money. Well spent. <Laugh> Lisa still tells that story all the time. I got my motor running. I'm heading out on the highway. I was born to be mild. Leo LaPorte tech guy, eighty eight, eighty eight. Ask Leo the phone number. Spencer's on the line. A AKA Astro nerd from Charlotte, North Carolina. Hello? Astro nerd.
Caller 7 (02:05:19):
How you doing Leo?
Leo Laporte (02:05:20):
Why do you call yourself Astro nerd?
Caller 7 (02:05:24):
That's been since 95, 96. I
Leo Laporte (02:05:28):
Isn't it funny. We make up these handles mostly when we're teenagers right on AOL's instant messenger. Well, it
Caller 7 (02:05:35):
Wasn't a teenager.
Leo Laporte (02:05:37):
<Laugh> and then you're stuck with it for years.
Caller 7 (02:05:40):
I was an, an astronomy boss.
Leo Laporte (02:05:42):
Oh well that's okay then way that's okay. I do notice though, in our chat room, there are a lot of people with very strange handles and I suspect many of them thought them up as youth, like toad, sloth and swamp rat. And they thought 'em up when they were young and now they're stuck with them. What can I do for you? My friend Astron nerd.
Caller 7 (02:06:03):
Well, I was wondering if you might like some eclipse advice from time to time coming up on these next two solar.
Leo Laporte (02:06:14):
I would, I would,
Caller 7 (02:06:15):
One of them, one of them is an annual eclipse and that's October of 23. And one of them is a total, which is April the eighth 24.
Leo Laporte (02:06:30):
I know so many people, including our studio manager, John Lenina who who's who's handled from his youth is jammer B <laugh> who make the trip to, you know, totality that region of totality. Just to see it. We went down to Australia to Cairns Australia about 15 years ago to see the total down there. This one's good though, right? Because it's gonna is a big sash right across America.
Caller 7 (02:06:56):
Yeah. It's X marks the spot from the annual to the total. They cross around San Antonio, Texas.
Leo Laporte (02:07:05):
Nice.
Caller 7 (02:07:06):
But, but, but the, the annual eclipse is where the moon's too small to cover the sun up. So it's kind of like a, a test
Leo Laporte (02:07:16):
If
Caller 7 (02:07:16):
You
Leo Laporte (02:07:16):
It's just a ring around the sun,
Caller 7 (02:07:19):
It, it, yeah. It's a ring of fire around the sun and it's kind of a test for the one six months later, sort of for the April 8th. That's
Leo Laporte (02:07:31):
Really cool. Which is yeah.
Caller 7 (02:07:33):
For four minutes and, and 20 some odd seconds
Leo Laporte (02:07:36):
Of totality
Caller 7 (02:07:38):
Of totality. Yes. Nice. And, and you have to be standing in the shadow of the moon or you don't get it.
Leo Laporte (02:07:45):
Right. Right. And we're here, here in California. We, we might get the annual air, but we're not gonna get the total solar clips. So I might have to come out east to see that
Caller 7 (02:07:55):
The annual let's see where's that cross I'm the annual crosses in the upper,
Leo Laporte (02:08:02):
Right? Yeah. Northern, Northern California might get it Northern California. Yeah, yeah,
Caller 7 (02:08:05):
Yeah. More Oregon than California. Right. Right. And Nevada gets a good bit of that annual and the annual crosses the four corners of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico, and then goes on into Texas.
Leo Laporte (02:08:23):
Very cool. Which are you follow eclipses? Have you gone off to see some in the past
Caller 7 (02:08:28):
First one I saw was 1970 and it was up the east coast and I've been stuck ever.
Leo Laporte (02:08:36):
It hooks you, doesn't it. There's something kind of magical about it. All the birds get quiet. All of a sudden everything it's just magical and it, yeah. And because it's so rare, there's something extra special about it. Well, Spencer's stay in touch. I mean, not nobody's gonna probably make plans for next year yet, but maybe you should start thinking about it and stay in touch. We got a big meteor shower coming up this weekend. I think Leo LaPorte, D tech eye more calls and a visit to the Arctic circle. Next. Our rocket man is up in the Arctic circle. He is at close to the north pole. He's joining us now via a very expensive sat phone. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you rod pile. Rod, are you there?
Rod Pyle (02:09:30):
I am here. Courtesy Iridium. How are you?
Leo Laporte (02:09:32):
Iridium? Wow. That's still around.
Rod Pyle (02:09:36):
Yeah. Sometimes it's the only thing that'll do. Wow. So we have, we have a little bit of of an internet access, but it's $7 in megabytes. So we don't use it. Holy
Leo Laporte (02:09:45):
Cow. So where are you exactly?
Rod Pyle (02:09:49):
We're about 15 degrees south of north pole. We're on a land mass called Devon island near an area called how in impact crater. And there's a base of about eight buildings here called Howton Mars project, which was wheeled into existence by my friend and planetary scientist, Pascal. And I tell you, you know, I had read about it. He, he and I had talked about it over many, a late night until you get, you don't realize what Mars really looks like. And I, I kid you not. If you've looked at those pictures and war of it in from the rovers, it's a dead ringer. Wow. Breathe here, which is really, yeah. Yeah. It's incredible.
Leo Laporte (02:10:24):
So NASA goes there to simulate Mars, rovers and so forth. Is, is that what you're doing there?
Rod Pyle (02:10:31):
There's a couple of things going on. There's a team and I hope you can hear me. I don't think it's gonna coming and go. There's a team here from MIT's haystack observatory. That's doing an experiment about the early universe formation, how hydrogen got ionized, way, way back, 13 billion or so years ago. And then there's another experiment we're doing, looking for tar grades and little catches of Moss, which is about the only plants you see here. There are no animals, no birds, occasional rabbit, occasional polar bear. But it really is a bear in the landscape as I've ever seen. It makes the desert look lush. And then later on, they've got some experiments they're doing with a space suit from co aerospace. So there's a lot of fun stuff happening. It's pretty exciting.
Leo Laporte (02:11:13):
And, and why are you there?
Rod Pyle (02:11:17):
Well, I'm media, my friends
Leo Laporte (02:11:18):
<Laugh>
Rod Pyle (02:11:21):
Who talk to you and I'm writing dispatches every couple of days or going up on space.com under a series called a month on Mars. And then when I get back, I'll be writing a series of articles for a Astra and probably worrying you to death about my experiences.
Leo Laporte (02:11:35):
I think it's super cool. I'm so jealous. How many, how many people in the group?
Rod Pyle (02:11:41):
There's eight? There's four from MIT. And this gentleman named John gut, who is an Antarctic and Arctic hand of many decades. Who's kind of watching over like a bear and he's incredibly good at what he does. And then there's,
Leo Laporte (02:11:58):
We lost him. We lost him such as the nature of satellite phones. I'm not surprised. Wow. I'm just thrilled. We could talk to him at all up there 15 degrees south of the north pole in the Arctic circle doing research with NASA. Now I'm gonna keep an eye field and see if he calls back. But I suspect, I suspect that if we lost him, it's because not because he accidentally pressed the hang up button. <Laugh> much more likely, oh, oh, it looks like he's calling back. I thought, I thought maybe should I answer? Yeah, I answer that. Is that him? Oh, good. It is. Is that you rod satellite? Sorry, is that no, that's fine. The satellite they move, you know, what are you gonna do?
Rod Pyle (02:12:45):
<Laugh>
Leo Laporte (02:12:47):
So, so is it cold up there? I mean, how, how challenging is the environment?
Rod Pyle (02:12:53):
It's pretty challenging. You know, we're lucky cuz we're here in summer. So if a sun gets in the forties, if it gets overcast, it, its been, we've had really good weather. It can rain a lot. It can get very windy, but so far we've had pretty good days. The MIT days are out stringing up this fixed and antenna that they're putting together that has six months have to lay out in a grid to detect these signals or look the early universe. So they're, they're suffering the worst. Now it I'm back at home base talking to you and writing articles in the so I have a pretty easy, but it's, it's really, you know, you look 360 degrees and you see landscape with a few Bluffs and Buttes and, and a lot of rolling Hills and some dry planes. If you remember the Mars, Phoenix land, those little polygonal structures you saw in the soil. Hmm. They they're, they look like paving stones. They were from the cold, warm, cold, warm site. Ah, those are all over the place you see 'em everywhere and they're anywhere from a foot across to maybe a hundred feet across. But the rest of it's just rolled heal. So it's red below the horizon and bright blue of other horizon right now
Leo Laporte (02:14:03):
And useful for geologists to kind of get an idea of what landscapes in that, those kind of conditions look like course is very different. Cuz you had, you do have an atmosphere. Thank goodness. Did the sun go down at all? Did you get a night at all?
Rod Pyle (02:14:18):
Say again,
Leo Laporte (02:14:19):
Did the sun ever go down last night?
Rod Pyle (02:14:23):
No, it doesn't go down at all. So it's interesting. You know, as it gets later in the day, the sun does close on the horizon and the sky gets almost, you remember the solar eclipses you've seen, it gets almost that kind of pearlescent color. Neat. And everything gets very red. So it kind of adds to the drama. But if you get up at two or 3:00 AM to relieve yourself and you open the door, it's still bright sunshine. So yeah, a little disorienting.
Leo Laporte (02:14:45):
It's a little, it's like the sun bounces off the horizon and comes back up.
Rod Pyle (02:14:50):
Yeah, exactly. So just move this big circle around you. And it does go up a bit. It's 25 degrees up in the sky right now, maybe 35.
Leo Laporte (02:14:59):
Very cool.
Rod Pyle (02:15:00):
And the clouds come in and it gets,
Leo Laporte (02:15:02):
How much is this called? How much is this call costing?
Rod Pyle (02:15:08):
I don't have a firm number yet who earn what team you're with and who's sponsoring you and so forth. So I'll know better when I get home, but it's as much as a deluxe cruise crossing this Atlantic.
Leo Laporte (02:15:21):
Okay. Well send me a bill. Will you <laugh>
Rod Pyle (02:15:24):
You bet. And, and you gotta, oh you really, you have to someday.
Leo Laporte (02:15:28):
Oh, I would love to. In fact, Lisa, my wife, who is, I never thought of as the adventure actually wants to go up that way as well.
Rod Pyle (02:15:39):
No kidding.
Leo Laporte (02:15:39):
Yeah. You're as far north, as FBAR, you're, you're really north of here. And is this as far north as you're gonna go?
Rod Pyle (02:15:49):
Yeah. I mean, we'll do traverses from here, you know, 10, 15 kilometers out, but that's about it. And, and the, you know, the accommodations are Spartan. We're sleeping on work tables. So we clear 'em off during the night, not our sleeping bags during the day we clear 'em again in the medical chat with our safety officer, but it's, it's kind of rough and ready. It's it reminds you a little bit of Boze Dr. Ventures and the distant past, of course that's been a fantasy of mine for years, so I get to live it in relative comfort and safety and within a medium phone so that I like a lot. Did you and I tell you what's really saved. My kind in terms of messaging is I've got a GPS, one of those garment GPSs that has texting on it. So you can stay sane by texting people that you care about. Cuz otherwise the complete disconnect is a bit of a shock to the system as you
Leo Laporte (02:16:35):
Imagine. I bet. Yeah. You know, internet. So did you bring books? What do you do in your downtime?
Rod Pyle (02:16:43):
I've got some books on my phone. It's interesting though. You start realizing how much shenanigans, apple and windows do in the background. I did get onto the internet briefly to try and upload a couple of stories and all that nonsense. They, in the background that we ignore at home on broadband suddenly you see the megabyte meter. Oh yeah. And I think in 30 we use 20 megabytes and they said, unplug, unplug,
Leo Laporte (02:17:06):
<Laugh> stop.
Rod Pyle (02:17:10):
I I'll be doing a lot of reading. And we gather around the table and then old traditions of such outposts and talk and tell, tell tales over dinner. So it's, it's a lot of fun.
Leo Laporte (02:17:19):
It sounds a little bit like that, that scene in jaws where you all sitting around the, the table on the boat, talking about your war wounds, rod pile
Rod Pyle (02:17:28):
I a song that think we can go for it.
Leo Laporte (02:17:31):
<Laugh> let's do a C shanty. Shall we? Rod pile from the great north. He is calling in via a Rium satellite phone. I'm not looking forward to seeing the bill. But I am so glad to hear from me. And I'm glad you're having a good time. Keep having fun. You find rods work for this on space.com. He's also editor in chief of a Astra magazine space.nss.org. You can go there. And his articles when he gets back will be there as well. And I look forward to getting him back on our podcast this week in space, because I think he'll have a lot to talk about. Maybe we'll even have a slideshow, even though it's an audio show. <Laugh> this week is spaces at twi.tv/t w I S watch out for the polar bear safe travels rod.
Rod Pyle (02:18:20):
I do. Thank you. See you next
Leo Laporte (02:18:22):
Week. That's so great to talk to you. Rod pile from the north pole, Leo LePort the tech guy more calls right after this.
Leo Laporte (02:18:37):
Let me thank you. I wanna thank you for letting me be your tech guy every week here. Thanks to professor Laura, our musical director. She keeps us bouncing along. Thanks to our phone. Angel Kim Schaffer, getting you on the air. John Lenina our studio manager. Thanks to everybody who makes this show possible. Most of all, thanks to you for listening, cuz we could do all this work. We could, we could pour our hearts out here on the radio and if nobody listened well, that'd be pretty bad. So thank you. I appreciate it. I like being your tech guy. I do. Rich is on the line from Westchester New York. Hello Richard Leo Laport here.
Caller 8 (02:19:13):
Leo. Thank you so much for allowing me some time with you.
Leo Laporte (02:19:17):
Okay. Welcome. My pleasure.
Caller 8 (02:19:19):
I'm the, I'm the caller who called in about a little over a year ago. Your first caller that doctor said that apple watch saved my life.
Leo Laporte (02:19:29):
Oh yeah. And you're still here with us. Yay.
Caller 8 (02:19:34):
It's it's been a strong year. I was bike riding early this morning in the New York heat. So it's wow. It's been exciting.
Leo Laporte (02:19:42):
So re recap for us. How did the apple watch save you?
Caller 8 (02:19:48):
I was feeling lousy all day and lie down for a nap and I was on vacation basically on my own in Kona, Hawaii. And the apple watch sounded an alarm that walked me up. And unfortunately I did not remember that alarm, but it was enough to make me look down at the watch and it was a message about my heart rate. And of course instantly, I said, that's not possible. Yeah. And I discounted it. Yeah. And I used my apple watch to take my pulse. First one was in the fifties. Second one was in the one 50 and I, I know enough about first aid. I said, you know, time you get to the
Leo Laporte (02:20:32):
Hospital. That's atrial fibrillation. If I ever heard it. Wow. I am so glad that they caught it. I'm glad you got to the hospital and boy that's, I mean, it's a, there have been many stories since, you know, it's really quite remarkable.
Caller 8 (02:20:47):
I think I heard one of the apple news by say that they've been getting reports once a day. Yeah. On how the apple watches save lives and I believe it. Yep.
Leo Laporte (02:20:58):
It's really great.
Caller 8 (02:20:59):
But we've had an exciting year. It's been good on the way back from all of that. And we've moved and I have a larger space for a living room. I have an area that's maybe 20 by 30 feet and I gotta say the, the apple the mini pods, the mini speakers.
Leo Laporte (02:21:21):
Yes.
Caller 8 (02:21:23):
They're, they're absolutely amazing.
Leo Laporte (02:21:24):
The home pod mini
Caller 8 (02:21:27):
The home pod.
Leo Laporte (02:21:27):
And it fills that that 600 square foot space with music. Those, how many do you have,
Caller 8 (02:21:33):
You know, understand that I don't have a gold plated ears
Leo Laporte (02:21:37):
<Laugh>
Caller 8 (02:21:39):
So, you know, I, they, they impress me and at the end of the day we paid for it and all they gotta do is impress me and I am good. Now I wanna,
Leo Laporte (02:21:52):
I actually, I agree with you. I put one in almost every room of the house and I'm just, they're, they're they're for the size remarkably good sending, there is a rumor, you know, apple has an event coming up in a few weeks sometime next month. There's a rumor that they will be announcing new home pods. They killed the big one, which sounded really good. But I'll be curious what they do with the home pod mini I'm sure there'll be something interesting.
Caller 8 (02:22:16):
I I'm very impressed with, as you walk through the house and you keep coming into the range of a different speaker audibly. Yeah.
Leo Laporte (02:22:25):
That and the phone sees it and goes, hello. <Laugh> and
Caller 8 (02:22:30):
It makes, makes me smile.
Leo Laporte (02:22:31):
Yeah. Yeah. It's a little weird cuz my phone buzzes when it sees a speaker, but it's, but I know now what's going on so well what can we do to help you in your 600 square foot? Great. R we call that a great room. So, cause it's so great.
Caller 8 (02:22:46):
So I, I, I would also like to we've used sound Heiser wireless speakers as apartment livers for most of last 50 years. And I need to be able to project audible speakers across the room. Yes. The sound bar didn't do it. And the TV, certainly we have an L GTV current, you know, what are the current models? It's not doing it for me. I realize I need something around the other side of the room.
Leo Laporte (02:23:19):
And, and when you say audible, do you mean audible? Like audio books, audible or audible? As in, I can hear it audible.
Caller 8 (02:23:28):
I think of everything. Audible.
Leo Laporte (02:23:30):
You're not thinking of audio books cuz that's the name of the audio book company. I'm just making sure I use. And the only reason it's a confusion for me is because I, in fact do listen to audio books on my speakers all around the house. It is one of the things I'm disappointed with on the Siri home pods, cuz they don't support audible audio books, but you have to have an Amazon echo device or an echo compatible device to do that. But I, I do have echo device. I, you know what we use for mobile, very good sound wireless speakers that I'm very happy with. And I normally don't recommend Sonos, but I have to say the Sonos move M O V E is really good. The sound quality's excellent. They are rechargeable. They sit on a little charging station, which is nice. You just leave them there.
Leo Laporte (02:24:20):
So they're like, Wireds, you know, they're like plugged in, but as soon as you, but you lift them off of it, there's not, they're not plugged into it. They just sit on it, you lift 'em off and you can carry 'em with you. I carry 'em outside. I carry 'em around the house. The sound quality is very full. They're very good speakers they're and, and they ought to be they're $400 each, but boy, they sound really good. I, I have to say, even though I'm I ought a Sonos and I have been fighting <laugh> but those Sonos moves sound quite good. They use their Sonos has its own voice control. So you could say, Hey, Sonos to it. And then you get a John Carlo Esposito. <Laugh> who is the chicken guy? <Laugh> from a breaking bad is the voice. He's great voice. But you can also set 'em up to use Google assistant. And I'm very happy to say Amazon echo so I can have my audio books on the moves. So I am very happy with the sound quality on the move. If you're looking for speakers, it'll fill that 600 square foot room that you can pick up and carry with you, but, but stay, you know, charging on a base as expensive as they are. I do think they're a little overpriced. I think the move is a, is a good one. Is that, is that kind of what you were looking for?
Caller 8 (02:25:35):
The longer you talked, the more I realized you were suggesting a remote control syndrome where we all have different remote controls,
Leo Laporte (02:25:44):
There's no remote control for the move. It's all voice. Thank goodness. <Laugh>
Caller 8 (02:25:49):
Exactly. So, but I don't necessarily wonder if I wanna have two speaker systems I'm gonna research. Well, you
Leo Laporte (02:25:58):
Can, you can certainly add
Caller 8 (02:26:00):
From LG, LG to the apple world.
Leo Laporte (02:26:03):
Yeah. You can add so many speakers support as the Sonos do and probably the LGS do Apple's airplay technology, which is wifi. So you can, then anything you can play on your phone, you can airplay to those speakers. I would look for absolutely airplays better than Bluetooth. Bluetooth would do that too, but Bluetooth is highly compressed because it's low bandwidth. And so for good quality, I think airplay is a better choice and many speakers now, many portable speakers support airplay since you're in the apple ecosystem. I'd certainly recommend that.
Caller 8 (02:26:37):
Good.
Leo Laporte (02:26:37):
And yeah, you're right. You don't want a whole nother speaker system. If you're happy with the speakers you've got just yeah. Look for more capable versions in the same family. Yeah.
Caller 8 (02:26:47):
Yeah. I just like to connect new dots. Yeah. you love aphorisms. I know. The definition of growth is instantly combining connections. Nice. So you keep increasing connections. That's right.
Leo Laporte (02:27:04):
That's what your brain does.
Caller 8 (02:27:06):
Maybe, maybe if I can add another connection to the apple speakers, I could grow that.
Leo Laporte (02:27:12):
I, this is where I'm a little disappointed because apple did have higher fidelity speakers, the, the full size home pods, which they just continued and the minis are too small, really to be full fidelity. I'm sorry. No matter how many you get and I'm hopeful, I would watch to see what apple does next month. I'm hopeful that they will find a way to bridge that gap. I think what they found is that people generally don't wanna spend that much money for bigger speakers. People are happy with a little bit lower fidelity for a smaller speaker and a smaller price. Hey, a pleasure talking to you. I'm out of time, but thank you everybody. I will be back next week to talk high tech, have a great geek week. Leo Laport, the tech guy. We'll see you next time. Well, that's it for the tech guy show for today. Thank you so much for being here and don't forget twit T I T it stands for this week@techandyoufinditattwit.tv, including the podcast for this show. We talk about windows and windows weekly, Macintosh a Mac break, weekly iPads, iPhones, apple watches on iOS, today's security and security. Now, I mean, I can go on and on and on. And of course the big show every Sunday afternoon, this in tech, you'll find it all at twit TV and I'll be back next week with another great tech guy show. Thanks for joining me. We'll see you next time.
