28: Hitmen & Hookers

And here we are, episode 28, and keeping fingers crossed to the gods of Skype right now to make sure that we don't break out too much. Yeah, seriously. So Heisenberg's dead.

Dexter's a lumberjack. We've got no government. And the Atlas Shrugged movie has been funded. What's going on? What is going on? Yeah. I don't, I mean, I really enjoyed the Breaking Bad finale. I think that they took it the only place that they could take it to make it somewhat satisfying for everybody. But the thing that drove me absolutely crazy, and I don't really even want to talk about Breaking Bad anymore, because like within five minutes of that episode being over, the entire

internet was taken over by everybody's op-ed opinions about it. Yep. Well, same thing happened with The Sopranos. Surprisingly, nobody said anything about Dexter. No, well, Dexter, I mean, I always felt that Dexter got, this entire last season, they really got screwed because Breaking Bad is just so much better and wrapped up a lot better and had a lot more craziness going on.

I was very pleased with the Dexter ending. Again, I felt that that was the only thing that they could really do with the character. It was good. I like it. He's a killer lumberjack. Watch out, Seattle. Yeah, I kind of wanted them to get together at the end, but, you know. Yeah, well, they were never going to end it happy.

Yeah. So I saw that a plane crashed, like the ones that we usually listen to when we're used to do the show at your house. Somebody crashed in your neighborhood. Yeah, I saw that later on that day when I got home. Interestingly enough, I happened to be driving around that area and traffic was really bad right at that time, but I didn't have any idea that there was a plane crash until later on in the day, so.

Yeah, it's crazy. Yeah, there's actually, I mean, I looked into that a while ago just because I was toying around with the idea of buying something here a while back, you know, back in the salad days when we were actually making money, and some of the houses in that particular area within the flight path are super nice, but so I did the research on it, and there's actually been quite a few plane crashes in the area in Santa Monica Airport, so usually it's generally just the smaller planes that fly in

and out of there, but that makes me really concerned because they're actually trying to do more and more larger planes and jets, and oh, man, I mean, you could just wipe out half of Venice. Yeah, those little planes drop out of the sky all the time. I wouldn't want to live around there. They're in Van Nuys, too.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I'm glad they didn't hit your abode. No, no, no, they did not. Actually, the entire crash was actually in the airport itself, so this time it didn't actually hit the community at all, so. That's good. You know what hit me this morning?

What hit you? Media Temple outage, again. Hmm, yes. So if you were trying to get to the Grumpy Old Geeks website on Friday morning, all apologies that it was down because the Media Temple team over there, their very short bus was apparently waylaid somewhere, and they didn't quite make it to work on time, and I have just had so many problems with these guys, so I'm in the market for good hosting. So if anybody's got any good recommendations that's not Media Temple or Dream Host or Blue Host or any of those,

any of these big box hosting companies, just send me an email, jason.grumpyoldgeeks.com, please. And share that information with me as well. I'm not going to mention who I've been doing my hosting with, because I still kind of really like them. I've got a guy over there that really tries to take good care of me, and has done a really good job for a long time, but just over the last month or so, our sites have been, the server's just been slow. I keep, you know, opening up

tickets with them, saying what's going on. They say they've got it. They, you know, replaced the SQL server. We put in a new one, and it's better for like two days, and then it's, everything just slows down again, and I'm just like, hey guys, come on. What's going on here? Yeah, I seriously miss the old days of going to Fry's, getting an e-machine, taking it down to my ISP and Riverside, setting it all up, running FreeBSD, and, you know, just knowing that it's my hardware, I miss that. Now there's clouds, clouds are for the birds.

I agree. There's just so many problems with it. This is all supposed to be so much easier and so much better for us, and it's, yeah, back in the day when we just ran our own, everything ran so much better. Yeah, I mean, I have had pretty good luck with Amazon, AWS, you know, EC2, S3, the RDS servers, and stuff like that. Yeah. But it's pricey. Yeah. It's very pricey. Yeah. Well, you get what you pay for. Remember the old days when Server Beach was new? I do, yes. Yeah, I miss them. I really

miss, those guys were good. Yeah, that was a really good service. I never really had problems with them. The only reason I ever ended up leaving them is they got too expensive for me, too, and I was, you know, I found a deal that was half the price, so. Yeah, then they got gobbled up by Rackspace, or no, Pier 1, Pier 1. Pier 1, right. Yeah. Yeah, it was crazy. We had so many servers at JPEG Magazine that when the CTO of Pier 1 came out, he took me to lunch in San Francisco. It was kind of nice. It was kind of nice. That's pretty cool.

Yeah, back in the day. I think we were running 18 boxes for that thing. Wow. That is impressive. Yeah, well, I mean, we went from zero to, like, 250,000 users in just a couple months, and all those people were uploading, you know, print resolution photos, and so we had, I had a, you know, image processing farm. I had a sequel farm. I had a web farm. Yeah. They were all mine, too. They were all mine. I miss them. I miss my little babies. Cool. What are you

going to do? So did you see that thing that Evan Williams wrote this week, or it was actually a speech that Evan Williams gave at the XOXO conference about the secret for getting rich? Yes. I did see the piece. I actually really like everything that he had to say, but I don't think it's, I think it's still a hell of a lot of luck and a hell of a lot of who you know if you're going to make it rich. Just following these recommendations ain't going to do much.

Yeah. I mean, he put it down to one simple rule is find a pain point that, you know, and make that pain point easier for people, which, duh. I mean, that's the whole point. That's a bit of a no-brainer, but he does have a point. It is kind of against the philosophy of Silicon Beach and Silicon Valley right now, where everybody's running around trying to, you know, just do these off-the-wall things and finding things, solving problems that don't even really exist.

Yeah, definitely. There's a lot of that. There's a lot of blue sky going on. Exactly. Yes. So it was a good little speech and I got it, but it ain't going to make you rich. Yeah. I was looking for the video of it, but it's not online, which is actually probably fine because Evan's not really the best public speaker. So I'd go with the text. It'll be linked in the show notes, crumpyoldgeeks.com slash 28.

Yes. There you go. So I'll go ahead. Oh no, I was just, you just made me think about something that when you said he wasn't a very good speaker. You're really into podcasts and you're always kind of, you know, sending me ones and you're trying to listen to new ones all the time. I was listening to a couple just this week myself. And in fact, I went back and I listened to one of the What the Fucks and it was an old live one. And he had like a group of like five or six different comedians coming

in and out. And there was a huge, like massive, mean spirited battle in that podcast. And it was riveting, absolutely riveting. It's the first thing I've listened to in ages where I just couldn't stop listening. And it reminded me of kind of the old terrestrial talk radio days and things like that, because those were really interesting shows. They didn't self-select the people that were on.

I mean, they had booking agents that just brought people in that were promoting stuff and they had battles with the other DJs that were on the same station. And there was, there was some uncomfortableness going on. And I think that that's been completely lost in the podcast world in general. I mean, obviously there are exceptions, but people ever, we, we pick the people that we want to have on our podcasts. Everybody else does that too. It's a lot of self-selection. It's a lot of circle jerks.

You'd be on mine. I'll be on yours. We get along. Let's talk about this. I think we've really lost something by not having uncomfortableness. Well, maybe we should start like the pod fight network and we'll just get different shows and cross pollinate with different guests with different points of view and actually have conversations and discussions. Yeah, that would be interesting. I, but you know, that's kind of in general, uh, a feeling that I kind of have about the entire internet. Anyways, we are so easily able to filter things out now that we just basically

create a beautiful little bubble around us that can't be disturbed. Yeah. I mean, there's something to be said for, you know, being uncomfortable and getting out of your comfort zone and, and having, having good old fashioned arguments. One of the, one of the best things about being in Europe is sitting around at a pub with a Welshman. Cause I tell you what, no matter what your point of view is, it's going, there's going to be opposite and you will argue for hours and it's, it's a blast. It's a total

blast. And yeah, maybe we start the Welshman podcast. You know any Welshman? Um, no. Well, yes. Yes, I do actually. Actually, well, he probably will be one. He's a hopeful future guest, uh, Carl Wallinger from world party is Welsh. So, um, yes, when I'm over in London, I'm hoping to figure out a scheduling to be able to go sit with him and, uh, call into you and do a little show. So

nice, nice. Yeah. And you know, one of the other great, great, uh, argumentative podcasts was the, uh, the Adam Carolla, Gavin Newsom episode. Oh yes, that, that, I totally forgot about that one until you just mentioned it right now. That was wonderfully uncomfortable.

Yeah. And I mean, it made national news. It was so uncomfortable, but Gavin got his ass handed to him on a plate. Yes, he did. And, uh, yeah, I mean, that's a perfect example of why, why politicians rarely go off and do anything like a podcast or show up on radio. So, but yeah, I, I have a lot of props for Carolla on that one. He, he really just didn't let up and left it uncomfortable and kept it uncomfortable the entire interview. Yeah, definitely. So the, um, one of the things

that I wanted to bring back up that, uh, since we were talking about Ev before, um, remember I was telling you about the, the six page note that I sent Evan about, you know, making Twitter ephemeral and I want, I want the ability to make my tweets go away. And that's that ghost tweet app that, uh, we talked about one time. Yeah. And I'd never kind of put the two and two together that basically what I envisioned is Snapchat. Yeah, pretty much. I mean, it's exactly it. I mean, that makes your together. Snapchat's more about making your boobies

disappear, but, uh, yeah, pretty much same thing. That's why, that's why I never thought about it because from the instant I heard about it, all, all I knew what it was about was sexting. That was it. Kids were using Snapchat. That's what I figured too. But then I found out that they have like a $1 billion valuation. I mean, we all know that these are bullshit anyways, but I thought Snapchat was just this tiny little fringe thing used by the kids to send each other, you know, masturbation fodder. Yeah. And they're doing 350 million shots a

day. That's a lot of tits. Seriously. You might want to go sneak into their office. They're right down the street from you. Oh, I know. I drove past it the other day and was thinking about them as well. Um, yeah, I saw the, you had put up a story about them actually. Yeah. The story is about their new thing called stories, which is a 24 hour view that's totally ephemeral and goes away. Right. So it's just becoming more like Facebook a little bit in

terms of creating like, uh, yeah, this is just where I start to become, I guess, old. Maybe this is my first glimpse at me becoming my parents where I'm just, uh, do we need another version of this? Do we need this? There's, it does the same thing as other things do. I don't get it. Oh, it doesn't do the same things that other things do because it automatically deletes it, which is exactly what I told Evan he should have done. So he could have had two companies that are the two multi-billion dollar companies instead of just one. Right. Okay. So here's

no, cause it's pissed me off. Listen to my advice people. Okay. Cause I might be a few years ahead, but stuff it away and then do it later because I was spot on with this one. You were, you were definitely, but I still just don't even see the point. Why would I want to create something that just disappears after 24 hours? Because that, because it's, you know, it, you, after 24 hours, you lose context, you know, that's, and it's, it's being in the moment. And I think that's what kids like a lot about it is that they can still stay in touch with their friends. They

see what's going on, but they're, they don't have that stigma of, you know, whatever you put on the internet is going to be there forever. Well, no, it's not. That really snarky bitchy comment I wrote about Janet. She won't be able to see after tomorrow. Exactly. There, there's, you know, there's a desire for people to have that kind of open communication without the, you know, the historical ramifications coming back to bite you in the ass. Right. Gotcha. Well, I, you know, I, I, I kind of get that, but I just don't get it

personally. And speaking of things I don't get personally and, uh, useless, uh, social networks that already kind of existed in one way, shape or form. Happy third birthday, Instagram. Oh, okay. It's on, it's his third birthday today. And, you know, congrats on all the money that the handful of you made with no discernible business plan whatsoever, other than selling out your entire company to another company that has no discernible business plan whatsoever, but it has a lot of money. The news came down yesterday that, uh, Instagram will be shoving

ads in our streams. So yeah, they, they, yeah, well, we all knew that was coming. How could it not? So yeah, now that they have the Facebook ad machine behind them, it makes total sense. Yeah. Hmm. Speaking of other useless social networks, you remember path vaguely, uh, I look at it once or twice. Yeah. It's for smaller social networks. You're limited. Um, that was the first place. I really saw people using those round profile icons and now they're everywhere

and I cannot stand them. I don't know what's wrong with the square. Seriously. What's wrong with the square? Well, you know, the square's old and, and we need new, new, new, new, new, new. Let's make it look new. Squares are for squares. Exactly. You want to be cool, right?

You want to be in the circle. You want to be in the Google circle. Oh yeah. Jesus. Oh, so, uh, I also saw that, uh, one of your, your sites that you pimped before fab.com is, uh, speaking of not making any money, they're dumping a bunch of people. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a great site, but how much money can you really make just, uh, being a curating site? Uh, you

know, again, $1 billion valuation, absolutely ridiculous. And, and finally the, the market seems to have caught up with that idea and they're going to have to scale back. I mean, fab.com I think is a valid business model that will last a very long time and can be very successful, but not as successful as they thought they could be. Yeah. It just, they went, got too big, got too greedy and not sustainable. So when, and from the, the article I read, it

sounds like they're actually cutting the older staff that was there, like the older staff because they've changed the business model somewhat. So they're pivoting as the kids would say, so they're killing some old people in redundancies and consolidating and probably the larger salaries. Oh yeah, I'm sure. I'm sure. So, you know, at least they're looking, they're looking to the future to like, to their profitability. So it's not just, Oh, we're, we're running out of money. We got to get rid of everybody. It's like, no, we just need

to streamline and focus. I just want to bring it up cause they were one of your, your faves before. And they still are. And I don't see this as a bad thing. I think that the, like I said, they just kind of overstep their boundaries and you know, as long as they keep up the good editorial job that they've been doing with their products. I still love to look at it every now and then. I just don't order things that often because you know, I'm trying to kind of do your Spartanized thing. So. Yeah. I'm in the forced Spartanized. Oh, it's called

being broke. Well, there's that too. Uh, the nice thing about the government shutdown is there's nobody home at the IRS right now. Really? Actually, strangely enough, I got a letter from the IRS yesterday and you know, it was kind of nice because there's a, normally that's really, really bad news, but they just sent me a letter saying, Oh, you have paid off blah, blah, blah.

Well, which I did six years ago, but apparently they just got around to sending me a letter about it. Well, the postal system is also in trouble. So that's true. They probably sent it before the last government shutdown and it just got to you. Yeah. I'm not so sure about this whole government shutdown thing. Do they really want us to know how little we actually need them?

I haven't noticed much of a difference. Uh, the people that, uh, work for the government, uh, that pulled a paycheck, I'm sure they notice big time. They're definitely noticing, but a post office is open here. So they didn't shut that down. I'm pretty sure that's considered, uh, um, a necessary function, essential services or whatever. Yeah. Essential services. Um, but Hey, the NSA is also on vacation. Sweet. Yeah. There's a, there was an article that I was reading yesterday

about, um, how severe they think that the, uh, the, the NSA shutdown is going to be like with in regards to people planning attacks on us. And so everybody's out planning right now because nobody's listening. It's like, Oh God, sure they are. Yeah. Too much fear mongering. It's not like the hard drives aren't running and the information isn't being collected. There's just not a huge staff force going through everything right at the moment. So even if you sit here and say, Tomahawk missile, blow up, blow up, blow up, hit the, hit the, um, you know, they'll get, they'll still find you.

It might just take another week or two. Yeah. So look out next week. Yes, exactly. You're the one that said it wasn't me, Brian, Brian is the one that said it. Uh huh. Sure. So I found an article this week that backs up something that I've been saying for a long time. Beer makes you more creative. Uh, I fully agree with you on this. So, but I love the article.

It was fantastic. There's yes, it's science. It's coffee versus beer, which, which makes you more creative and hands down beer does. Yeah. Uh, I, you know, just my own experience in life tells me this is definitely true. Um, I use coffee to amp myself up and, and burn, make myself burn through a bunch of rote procedures and programming and boring stuff that is not creative. It'll get me through it really,

really fast and make me do it. But a creative from coffee. Hell no. That comes from beer. We all know that. Uh, so somebody posted a thing on my, my Facebook wall the other day, uh, in wine, there is wisdom in beer. There's freedom in water. There's bacteria. Benjamin Franklin. Very true. Um, you know, as much as I, I, you know, why are there a lot of famous drunk artists, but no famous drunk accountants, that's a great little line from the article. So this is worth a read. It's quite funny. Um,

I, I agree that that is alcohol that kind of unleashes your creativity because a lot of that's just about stepping outside of the kind of regular boundaries that we put on ourselves throughout day. Um, you know, it can either become a creative thing or it can become, I'm going to hit on that, you know, 10 foot blonde over there. Um, either way, but I do still hold to my, to my, what I call my pool theorem, which is if I walk up to a pool table and try to play a game with

you completely sober, I will suck. If I've had three or four beers, I'm a little lubed up. I will play really, really well. Once I have another three or four beers, I will suck again. And I think the creativity falls right in that as well. You'll, you will be really, really creative if you're a little bit lubed up and the ideas will just get more and more dumb as you drink more and more beer.

Absolutely. There is a tipping point. Yes. The tipsy point. Yeah. So it's a good little article. It's cool. I liked it. It was, it was, uh, it was funny. And, uh, you know, I agree a hundred percent. Yep. And they do, they do say that like you, you hit the point of diminishing returns after two beers, which I, I, I take umbrance with.

Well, they, they don't take into account our, uh, tolerance levels. Yes. In human tolerant levels are, uh, one thing. Yes. Yeah. So speaking of creative types, um, I saw that, uh, Dave Stewart, who, uh, was kind of the, the, you know, the, uh, musical genius behind the arrhythmics. Um, he's also a very well-known behind the scenes producer, extremely talented guy, uh, really amazing musician, uh, hit back on,

uh, I guess a while ago, Tom York had posted an article about how why he ate Spotify and nobody should be on it. Um, he now disagrees with some caveats. He thinks Spotify is now a pretty good thing, but only if everybody in the entire world picks one streaming service and pays for it and it hits critical mass. If all of that happens, he says they will in theory make as much money as an artist as they did in the old days from record labels.

Now, what does he count as everybody? How many people does it take to hit critical mass? Well, he's not, he's not an accountant and he doesn't get into anything like that. He's just, he's, he doesn't get into any specific numbers. He talks a lot about the numbers like back in the day, uh, what they used to make and things like that, but he doesn't, uh, he doesn't talk specifically about how many people it needs, but in the article, they talk about, uh, you know, maybe 93 million additional subscribers in the near future that Spotify could pick up. Um,

I, I, I sort of agree with this. I think that, I think that while the deck is stacked in terms of this will work for established artists, it's not going to help for people that are just starting out anymore because they don't, Spotify isn't exactly funding tours or, or putting in promotion on people. This works if people already know about you. So it's only kind of picking up one, one part of the slack that's been left behind by the record labels.

Yeah. And I have one issue with picking one service that makes no difference. Those, those royalty rates are pretty much set in stone for streaming services. Actually, they're, they're not at all. They're not? No, royalty rates are not there. They're negotiated on a per service basis and by tons of lawyers, one of which happens to be my wife.

I will take that as an expert opinion. Yeah, they are not set in stone at all. They are completely, uh, uh, renegotiate. They're negotiated on the first deal. They're renegotiated. They can be renegotiated on a per artist basis. Uh, for example, Lady Gaga has a higher rate of revenue on some services than other artists do because her lawyers went in and argued for it. So now in the old days, didn't ASCAP and BMI set standard rates for radio play and jukebox play? And yes, but the subscription services are not

considered radio play. Okay. So it's, it's, yeah, it's, it's a weird wild world out there. It would make sense for them to standardize so we could have more streaming services instead of just these, you know, the only two that you can choose from or three. Yeah. Is Mog still around? I think that one's gone. I think it's pretty much just RDO and Spotify now that are in terms of like the big subscription services. Yeah. Cause I pay for, I pay for RDO, not Spotify because it's still so

fucking ugly. It is pretty ugly. I mean, it's an interesting take. It would be nice if somebody pulled out a calculator and actually figured out what that critical mass number would be because Spotify only has what, 6 million paid users right now. Yeah. Something like that. It's, it's quite low. So, um, I agree with his thought in theory though. I mean, definitely if everybody were to actually pay for the service, then perhaps artists would actually start making some money again. Um,

but people don't. So, and I'm, you know, why would they? Everybody's quite okay with sitting through the occasional 32nd commercial every 10 songs or so. Oh, okay. Yeah. I, I, I, I've always paid for these services. I've never used the free versions. Yeah. Far more people are sticking with the free than actually paying for it. So.

Okay. Well, uh, to come back to something that we talked about last week with people trying to get famous on YouTube, I'm sure. Well, this, this video of a, uh, rather, rather fetching young lady quitting her job to a Kanye West song has now hit 13.3 million views.

And she was on the today show as always happens. If you become viral now. Yeah. The today show pick up anybody. I mean, seriously. Yes, they will. Uh, but it was pretty fun. I, I would, didn't think I was going to like it, but, uh, she does a pretty good job. She can dance. No, I really enjoyed it as well. I thought it was very clever. Um, obviously she put some time and effort into it, but it doesn't feel like it was staged and planned ahead of time. You know what I mean? It was just kind of like, this would be really funny if I did this. And then she thought

about it and made it good. Um, really enjoyed it. So it was, it was quite funny and she seems very clever and, uh, definitely will probably not have a problem getting a job anywhere else. Although there was a followup, the, the maligned company has, has made an effort at damage control by doing their own version saying that they're hiring. Yeah. I gotta, I gotta track this down and see that yeah, for sure. Cause they're a company that produces videos. So I'm hoping they did at least a decent job of it. Yeah. Yeah. Well, she did, you know why it was, it was very good. She did a

really good job. I don't, I have nothing else to say about it. I see something like that and I'm thrilled. And then I go for my bike ride down here in Venice beach and I see everybody with their GoPro cameras trying to set up their viral videos. And then I get upset again. So put your blinders on exactly. Exactly. I don't think I really have any other news this week because everything's been, uh, shut down, shut down, shut down. And that, that poor girl that got killed yesterday.

Yeah. I still don't, I don't, I don't think anybody really understands that story yet, but apparently there was a letter left apparently that, uh, they just haven't released the details on. So maybe we'll get some explanation from that. Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to go there. Oh, I, well, I have a bit of news. Um, this, this is just something that might introduce or, uh, be interested to the, uh, the boozers that listened to us. Um, I was over at the, uh, Roosevelt. Well, I went to the

Italian food festival that Adam Carolla and Jimmy Kimmel do every year here in LA. Um, which was, you know, fine. Great. Walk around, have some pizza, have a little sangria. Uh, but it was right over by the Roosevelt hotel. If you're here in Los Angeles, it's old famous hotel. They have a bar in there called the library bar. It's not the main bar. Um, it's off to the side. It's really small and it's, they have no menu. All they have are serious mixologists. And you basically just say a flavor

or a thought or whatever, and they will concoct a beverage for you. So, um, it's a fantastic bar. Every, you just got to go there. You can walk up to the bar and just say, I want something smoky and you will have something that you've never, ever had before. It's completely just made up on the spot and absolutely fantastic drinks. Really, really pricey. But the one thing that he, the bartender was working on at the time and he had it out and I asked him, what is that? Um,

and you can just do this at home and it was fantastic. Banana Jameson. What? He took a whole bottle of Jameson, poured it into, you know, one of those lovely looking, whatever the hell they're called, just big glass, a whole bottle of Jameson. You mean a jar? Yeah. But you know, there's, there's a fancy name for fancy jars, whatever the hell that is. So he basically made Jameson or banana infused Jameson. Yeah. And he cut up banana and let it sit in there for three or four

days. Something I never would have thought to do myself. Delicious. Oh man. I am going to have to try that. Absolutely delicious. I came up with the idea when I got home and this could be one of those, like a few too many drinks, creativity things. But, uh, I thought about actually if we, uh, if you caramelize the bananas first and then put them in, I wonder how that would taste. Well, it's worth a shot. Yeah, it's definitely worth a shot. So there's some booze news. I used to make my own infused

vodkas, which, which was kind of fun. I did too. I haven't done that in a long time because it was just got too dangerous having a huge pile of cherry vodka sitting around the house. It really does get, get kind of crazy. Although, uh, my friend Steve, he made raspberry infused tequila that was out of this world. Mm. That sounds lovely. Yeah. Tequila is just the devil's juice. So I don't recommend anybody do it, but tequila does not affect me like that. I know many, many people that just cannot do

tequila. Um, well they can, but very, very bad things happen. Yeah. It makes me very punchy. Tequila makes my pants fall off. That too. Um, to talk about a previous Kickstarter, Soma water that we, that we talked about when, uh, Dr. David Teeter was on, but unfortunately he got hit by a car as, uh, as we talked about before and he is back in the hospital today. So he could not join us, unfortunately. So

get better soon, dude, please. Um, but the, uh, the Soma project, people are not very happy. No, no, no, they're not. Um, I'm actually just even, I just loaded up the page right now that, that we'll have in our, in our notes on our site. And the first thing I see is someone's comment.

Strange that my comment from Sunday was deleted. I still haven't received my product. Yep. And people in Canada were having to pay like 40 bucks in, in duties coming across the, the border. Uh, and apparently it dribbles a lot. It's not going, uh, very well. No, it does not seem to be going well. Um, it's, it's funny cause yeah, the, um, a good friend of ours, uh, Wendy and

Mark did their Kickstarter as well. And as I've been arguing all along, one of the big problems I have with Kickstarter is that generally these people don't really, they don't really know how to, how to run companies or they've never really done this sort of thing before. And they don't take into account. There's just simple things like, of course you're going to have to pay international shipping fees and duties. You just have to, and the, and not being aware of that and not making, you know, full disclosure about these things when you open it up. Well, you should have known better.

Yeah, definitely. And there's a, uh, well, real quick before I move on to the next one, the, um, there are apparently, we're trying to track these down. So there are apparently investors who are posting in the comments who are not saying that they're like the actual investors. Right. In the product, not the Kickstarter investors, but actual investors who are like, you know, so trying to put in there, putting in a positive comments. Yeah. So it seems a little shady and

they're finally pulling back on some of their, their claims, their health claims, because they don't have any of the, uh, any of the certifications yet. The ANSI NSF 42 and 53 are two of the ones that they're, they're undergoing, they say, but you know, the, the claims that they made before were completely unfounded. David was told, David was totally right on that. Yeah. He was spot on. And

now they're getting a bit of trouble about it. So, yeah. So we'll see. We'll see. So the, uh, the guys from the other really cool Kickstarter I like, uh, called spark, which is a little, it's a kind of little breadboard with a wifi adapter that you can plug it to electronics. And it's kind of like, I think it is an Arduino based board that you can, you know, do home maker electronic projects

that you can create devices that connect to the internet is basically what it is. It's a little, a little chip that connects your, whatever else you're making to the internet. Yeah. The, um, the guy Zach Spula from spark made a really good post about why Kickstarter projects are always delayed because theirs are delayed right now. So anybody that's going to make any kind of physical product that they want to do a Kickstarter on needs to read this article

because he is, it's, it's a really well-written article about supply chains, parts, delays, milling, manufacturing, the whole nine yards. Yeah, exactly. Uh, I read through the article as well. I mean, he's pretty spot on. This is the exact kind of experience that, that our friends have had as well. Um, you know, if it, when you get into it and you're relying on third parties, they, the vendors, they can be late. They, what they said, send you can be wrong. You're probably doing this kind of mostly in your spare time, unless you got an insane amount of funding and you were

able to luckily quit your job or whatever. Um, things just in general take longer than you think they're going to. Absolutely. And you're going to run into problems that you couldn't possibly anticipate. And whatever deadline that you set for yourself, you're going to, you're going to miss.

It just happens. It happens just as contractors, you and I, Jason, we know this, uh, with all of the projects that we always take on. I always pad, I try to do the Star Trek, you know, Scotty rule, say it's going to take eight hours when you know it's only going to take you four hours. So if you get it in under eight hours, you look like a hero. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And my, my, my rule of thumb is when you're 90% there, you're halfway done. That's a good one. I like that too. Yeah.

That comes in handy a lot when I'm doing, doing some of these contracting websites, 90% there, halfway done. It was the way it always is. It's always the little stuff at the end that you're polishing, you know, you're trying to make perfect and that stuff just takes longer. If you want to make something good, if you want to make some crappy, you can rush it out. But you know, I like quality work, not, not, not, not crap. So we've always complained about Kickstarter that nobody gets a percentage

of the, the things that they're funding. Yeah. You're, you're asking to invest without actually getting any of the benefits of actually investing. Now this isn't the same thing, but it's very similar. Now that, uh, president Obama's jobs act has gone through, it lifts a lot of the restrictions on private investors. So you can now become an accredited investor without having a million dollars in the bank. You think you only have to have $2,500 in the bank

and you can then become accredited. And we're seeing sites pop up now that are kind of like Kickstarter for startups. Right. And Tim Ferriss did one last week. He raised, uh, $250,000 for a startup called ship. And he did it in 53 minutes by just saying, Hey guys, come join me in this round.

People, people, people saw it on his website. They went in and invested. Yeah. So now, but now they have a cut. Yeah. Which I like that a lot more. Uh, I'm a little concerned about the name you pick ship is a little too close to jip, which worries me about this sort of thing. But, uh, well, Tim Ferriss is obviously, I mean, he's got a platform, he's got followers, he's got people that are into it.

And I'm glad that he leapt in right away with this actually, because you don't want to see a failure as the first big project. So good luck. And I like this so much more than Kickstarter. This is great. Yeah. Like AngelList is, I think where he did it. Um, Kevin Rose is jumping in on this too. He's, he's got a great track record. So if I had any money, I would be following what he does for sure.

He and Tim both have, I think Kevin has a better track record than Tim, but, um, cause he's, he's been investing longer, but it's, yeah, I think it's really cool that if we could bring that number down, so, or, or have Kickstarter, you know, have a wing of Kickstarter that was for accredited investors where you get a piece of the company for a product. So if I, you know, I want to start widget A, I don't have to go out and create a startup and try and do these, these big rounds. I

could do something smaller and, and fund it that way and, and still, you know, give out stock in the company. Right. So I think it'd be the way to go. It's, it's definitely, uh, it's an idea I have absolutely no philosophical issues with. This is great. I'm, I love it. It's fantastic. Yeah. I mean, there's a risk involved, but it's the same as any investment. Yeah. And as we see from people on Kickstarter, even just trying to get their sum of water, there's risks there too. Yeah, definitely.

Um, you know how you add that pet peeve, uh, about the circles for the icons? Yeah. Does every single one of these sites that either comes from Kickstarter or angel investing have to do this scroll down thingy? Everybody does this for their sites now. Uh, look at, look at ship.com. It's when you just like, as you scroll down, it's one, the site is one long page that brings things in and out. Everybody does this. It's just seems like every single site on Kickstarter. Everybody's

using this template now. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's my pet peeve of the day. Yeah. It's a standard design, uh, uh, thing, I guess. I can't remember what you'd call it, but yeah, they're using it a lot. Yeah. Everybody's using this kind of template for their sites right now. Stand out, do something different people. I mean, honestly, I like it because it's all your infos on one page. You know, you're not clicking through page after page after page of stuff. And then you, cause you don't need,

you know, if it's going to be a five page site, why not just put it all on one page and scroll and have triggers and targets that I agree because there's so, there's so little actual information on any of these sites. It's a great way to display it. It's at least visually engaging. So yeah, man, I ran across one. This is another giant pet peeve of mine. People have sites that have infinite scroll. Now, like if you're on Pinterest or Twitter, God, yes. People who put footers under the infinite scroll that you can never get to, but you can see when you get to the bottom

of the page and while the content's loading it and then the footer goes away. Yeah. It's like you're fucking more. If you're doing an infinite scroll site, don't do a footer. Yeah. It's common sense, but I see these sites all the time and they're nice looking sites with, you know, lots of staff members where somebody should have raised their hand and say, excuse me. Um, you see those links? Yeah. Well, you can't get to them. Oops. Maybe I can

Kickstarter a, a Kickstarter at an infinite scroll template site that has absolutely no footer on it. Okay. I'm in cool. Welcome to this week in shit. We put on our computers. I've been doing a lot more writing recently and I pulled out an app that I've had for years that I just kind of put off to the side and forgot about when I stopped doing like semi-professional blogging for a living.

It's called Scrivener 2. Well, back then it was just called Scrivener. Now it's Scrivener 2. They've upgraded. And it is one of the single best writing apps if you're doing anything that requires research, research or note-taking. It has all of these great tools like corkboards and...

But no journalism requires research anymore. Oh, this is true. No, this looks fantastic. I'm just looking at the screenshots and where has this been all my life? I'm going to have to get this. Absolutely. Yeah. If you're doing any kind of writing, it's for blogging, especially for me, it would, it was a lifesaver because I just grab all my notes to save my links in through video and do whatever. And if you're doing like character driven stuff, you can have character boards and it's all in all, it's great. You can do chapter reordering right there.

They've got a ton of video tutorials. Most of them are for the Mac, but most of it translates over to the PC side because they do have a PC version. Right. But if you're doing any kind of writing, I cannot recommend this app highly, highly enough. It's a 45 bucks. So it's not, not super cheap. No, but I have, um, I've only paid once and I, that was years ago. So I think they, they do honor upgrades and it's just, it's well worth the money if you do any

writing. Yeah. And it looks beautiful. Yeah. And it's just, it works so great. I wish they had like an iPad version. So that was my next question. No, it's, it's so deep. I don't know if they're ever going to do one. Right. There'd have to be pretty dumbed down. Yeah. Or, or have some very clever interface techniques. Yeah. Just because with all the multi pains and all this stuff in here, lots of, you'd have to do lots of swiping, I think, to get to the stuff that you need to find.

Yeah. Yeah. And, uh, man, yeah, I'm so happy to like find it in my app folder. I totally had forgotten about it. I was trying all those text editors for the iPad and I told you about the ones I liked last week and nothing really, yeah, I can write on the iPad, but it's just not nothing like having a keyboard because I can just, I can go so much faster. I've got a laptop. I agree with you a hundred percent. I actually tried quite a few of, of the ones that you had recommended and I still just, I have, I can't sit and write anything long

on the iPad. Maybe I need one of those. Uh, maybe I need the new windows surface with the keyboard. I don't know. Don't go there, man. Don't go there. I'm not going there. Don't worry. And I also picked up, uh, infinity blade three this week. Hi man. I played one and two. I loved them. I finished, I finished infinity blade two in a day, which really bummed me out. It was, it wasn't that deep, but infinity blade three. I've been going for a couple of days and I'm,

I'm still pretty, pretty low on the totem pole. Uh, it's, it's huge. And they, they demoed this, you know, when they did the big keynotes for Apple, because it's such a, such a pretty game. It looks stunning. I mean, it uses the unreal engine with the fact that they can get the unreal engine to work on this thing is amazing too. But the gameplay is almost identical to the old ones that this time you can play multiple characters, which is fun. The worlds are massive. The, it, I mean, once you learn how to beat one of the, one of the bosses,

you can beat all the bosses. So that part, it's, it's kind of mindless swiping, but it's seven bucks. So it, which is a little steep, but for the size of the size of the thing, I think it's one point, no, it's 2.1 gig. Wow. That's big for a game. Yeah. I mean, for your phone, but I, the real surprising thing for me was because I got it since I got the 5S and I figured, Oh, it's going to play great on the 5S. And for shits and giggles,

I put it on my iPad mini thinking it was going to be a dog. It plays great. Wow. It is super fast, super, um, uh, responsive. I got no complaints and I like playing it better on the iPad cause it's, you know, it's so pretty. You want to, you want to see it on a bigger screen. Yeah. Kind of like how I felt with plants and zombies. Yeah. Yeah. About two days. Yeah. I played that one through on my mini too. I love my iPad mini. I can't

wait for the new one to come out. I am definitely going to get, uh, the next one I'm getting is going to have LTE in it. I'm sick of this wifi crap. I want to take this thing out with me and be able to use it on the road. I'm not going to pay for tethering through my ET and T account because I still got grandfathered in on my data package and I'm not touching that thing. Yeah. I'd keep that forever if you can. And they did. They, I got a, I got a text from them saying that, uh, I, I already downloaded three gigabytes of data over my phone and that

next month that might be slower for me. How the hell can you call that unlimited when it's capped like that? Yeah. Throttling is not unlimited. It doesn't count people. It's ridiculous. So the, the big news with the five S was the, that M seven chip that does all of the crazy, um, calculation with the magnetometer, the accelerometer, it's like always on and always capturing.

Yeah. So I've been waiting for somebody to actually come up with a good app that takes advantage of it. Fortunately, somebody has, it's a, it was, I guess this was a coding exercise, um, where this guy was just trying to figure out how to use, uh, use the data that the M seven collects and just made a very bare bones pedometer out of it. It literally tells you how many steps

you took today, how many steps you've taken in the last seven days. And you can turn on a little switch that shows the, uh, the steps you've taken that day in the badge of the app. So you don't even have to open the app. Now that's super nice. It's perfect. Right. And so today I kept my phone in my pocket all day, everywhere I went and compared it with my Fitbit almost step for step. Wow. So that M seven chip really works so far. So good. I was amazed. This would be like the only reason for me

to actually want to upgrade now to get accurate counts. I'd like to, I mean, hopefully, you know, uh, it doesn't matter for me until I do the upgrade, but, uh, hopefully like all the apps that we've been talking about, especially moves, which I still love, we'll incorporate that in their next update for, for you lucky five S people. Yeah. I love this thing so far. The camera is amazing. It's I'm digging it. I'm totally digging it. So, and this is, I mean, I'm not going to use it for my, my tracking, but it's nice to know that I can just, instead of having to pull out my Fitbit,

I can just look at, just glance at the phone and see where I'm at. Yeah. I mean, you definitely, it's the more things that I start to carry, the more I just want one item for everything. So that's, that's probably why even, even until I get a five S or if whatever I do, I'll, I I'm not going to do a Fitbit again because I'm just used to, I like having the app and not having to carry around a second thing. But speaking of iOS seven and all that, I'm getting used to it. It really annoyed me at

first, but I'm used to it. I still hate the way it looks. You know, all the things we talked about last week with the icons and all that sort of stuff, but it's fast. Some of the, you know, the swiping, you were right. I got used to it. A lot of those things I got used to the double click on the homepage. I love that. It's fantastic to bring up everything that you've been using recently.

All right, Apple, you won again. The one thing that I'm still not, I don't have the hang of is that double tap for switching from app to app. I only remember it when I'm trying to take a password from one password and put it into a new app that I put in to log into something. But I usually tap it, go to the homepage, swipe around, look for the app, go back. It's like, Oh, I got to get that habit out of my head.

I finally got the double, the double tap habit going and it makes everything so much faster. It's great. Did you, did you turn off the, uh, the motion stuff with the, the wobbly backgrounds? No, I've actually left it on and I've gotten really used to it and I like seeing the little, you know, sperm blobs move around. I'm fine with it.

It's a, it's a definite little, it's a speed hit. So I turned it off and I noticed that I got a little bit more responsive bump. Yeah. Okay. I'm not really like playing games or anything on my phone, so it doesn't bother me too much, but, uh, I wasn't talking about games. I'm just talking about general navigation. All right. Yeah. Well, I'm also not like in an incredible hurry with my phone. I'm like, Oh my God, I have to get to my Instagram account right now.

What kind of slacker are you? Jesus. I, uh, I'm just way more easy going, man. Optimized for productivity. There was, uh, Oh, what was the other thing I was going to tell you about? Oh, the fingerprint crappy Oka. Oh yeah. I talked to a friend of mine who just got the upgrade and he is not having any of the issues that you were having. He said it's worked basically for him a hundred percent every time.

And I've, I've talked to a couple other people and they say it's super fast and you know, pops right in. Mine is not fast. It got slower and the recognition got down to about 50% one day. Huh? So I turned it off. I might go back and re-scan, but I'm hoping, here's what I'm hoping. I'm hoping I got a faulty fingerprint sensor and I can get a free one later. That's what I'm thinking too. It's either that or it's your fingers, man. Yeah, it could be. I get those weird

chubby programmer fingers, I guess. I don't know. My, my thumbprints weren't off from hitting the space bar for 20 years. Yeah. Well, go find some new apps next week. I'm tired of being the only one that brings anything. All right. I'll delve back into the app world and mess around. I'll have something for next week. Excellent.

Look at what the fucking cat dragged in. Last week, uh, Bob left sits from the left sits letter who we've discussed a couple times sent out another one of his missives. Now, usually he just, well, he started off basically just talking about the music industry and this is kind of a, just a music industry list, but he's gotten more and more tech and more and more overall culture, uh, recently, obviously for, because there's not much going on in the music industry and it's all kind of blended in together. Um, he sent out one called hype.

It's having a resurgence. He says, um, basically the gist of the article is, uh, we're all just buried in things and, and social networks have failed us in terms of finding things that we like and, and how, you know, the old culture of the old media institutions that we all thought were going to die are basically becoming our filters again. Um, because there's just too much stuff out there.

It's too hard to find. We need, we need filters that we trust that aren't necessarily our friends, blah, blah, blah. And he ends with, so the rich get richer and the poor bitch and eventually give up. And his thrust being the internet has failed us once again. Yeah. Bitch, bitch, moan, moan.

Did you ever, there was a, uh, a great video that Clay Shirky did a couple of years ago called, um, filter failure or it's basically information overload. Isn't the problem. Filter failure is the problem. Yeah. It's a, it's a great piece. I got to put that in the show notes for sure. I love Clay. He's one of my favorite guys. And this, this left, left shits guy is, is really just kind of

starting to piss me off with whining about how he can't filter properly. And he, kids don't complain about this stuff. You know, I don't see my brother. He's 21 or 22 now. Jesus. Um, he, he, he and his friends don't complain about it. They go about their daily lives and they know where to get the stuff that they want to get. You know, it's, it's people who have been spoon fed their entire life that don't have their, the mental tools or the, you know, the technologies to figure out where

to find the stuff that they want to read or want to see or, uh, whatever they want to consume. Right. They're the ones that are bitching about it. So, um, yeah, I mean, I see your point, but I also see that, that at least in the, in culture now and particularly for younger generations, there aren't a lot of subcultures. It is kind of a homogenous. Everybody is going to listen to Miley Cyrus.

And that's that you don't have a lot of, of the different things that you would be getting if there were these bigger filter systems out there. That's absolutely untrue. Absolutely. Tell me, tell me why. No, I think it's easier for people to get into their own niches. You know, like I said, I, cause I, my brother's my, my cultural reference point because he's 20 years younger than I am.

So I watch what him and his friends are doing and they've got their own different subcultures and he's got some cultures within subcultures, you know? Right. So I don't think, and even when I went up to, um, university of Wisconsin to go see him graduate, you could just see that it's not homogenous at all. Okay. By any stretch. All right. I think, I think it's just as a, just as diverse, if not more diversified because people can find their tribes. Yeah. I mean, I, I guess I, my cultural

reference points for, for that generation, um, probably are coming at it a little bit differently from yours. Cause I'm not seeing that the people that I know that are in their early twenties are very much straight aboard, whatever the hell you're going to see on the today show tomorrow that everybody else is posting. That's what they're into. They're not chasing after smaller niche things and they're not even looking for them. They're just a, this is what's in their face. This is what they're, they're told to watch and look at and everybody else is looking

at it. So now I'm going to look at it too. Okay. I mean, and that's there, which is, yeah, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I guess I totally, you're right about left says he fucking bitches a lot and he bitches and he bitches and he bitches. But then again, that's also what he's supposed to be doing. That's the point of his letter. Um, but I do tend to agree with, so the rich get richer and the poor bitch and eventually give up. I, this, we've had this discussion. I mean, making money off the internet is why we started doing this. And we talked about

how, you know, everybody's making a YouTube video, but it's the 0.0000001% that are actually going to make any money doing YouTube videos. Okay. So what it's YouTube and the people that own the servers, the rich people that keep getting rich off that stuff and the poor bitch and eventually give up. He's right about that. Well, I don't know. I really don't. I mean,

it's tough being poor. So, you know, it's tough to be poor. You've only got so many hours in the day and I, I don't know the, the, the, the poor definitely bitch. I got to say that I'm, I am in a not very affluent part of the country right now and everywhere I go, it is, it's a, like a complaint society, right? They all, that's

what they do. They get together and they complain. Nobody, nobody tries to come up with a solution. They blame it on somebody else. Um, I don't know. I just, and that's one of the reasons I just want to remove myself from that. I'd like to, everybody thinks I'm a pessimist, but deep down, I'm an optimist and I'd like to look for solutions instead of complaining about the problem.

Oh, I agree a hundred percent with that. And we don't see a lot of that on, on either end of things. I mean, even the, the people that are kind of optimistic, aren't really trying to solve anything, but, uh, I don't know how, yeah, I guess this is, this is a weird article that can hit you a bunch of different ways. I definitely thought it was interesting and I totally see where you're coming at, but I really do see his point as well. And it's hard, it's hard to figure out.

There is no spoon. Well, I think we need to get him on the damn show because that would be fun. Actually, it would be fun because I, you know, you and I end up kicking around. If you're not subscribed to his newsletter and you're interested and, um, when I first subscribed because everybody else in the music industry had, and it was always just kind of being discussed, he used to just infuriate me. Every single one I got, I was just like, why the fuck am I reading this stupid shit? This guy doesn't know anything. Um, it makes you think if nothing else, it does make you

think. And you and I kick around half the emails that he sends out and, and have a few, you know, words about it over email all the time. So it's good for, it's good for getting your, your mind thinking. And speaking of filters, you're my filter for it because I subscribe to it and 90% of it bored me. So whenever there's an interesting one, you send it to me, that's, you're my filter for these. So yeah. Okay. We're proving him wrong. The social network filter is working in this case.

Absolutely. Do you like Malcolm Gladwell? I do like Malcolm Gladwell. And you will like his new book. Ooh, I heard he had a new one. David and Goliath, underdogs, misfits, and the art of battling giants. Fancy. I, I just picked it up. Um, I'm only halfway through it at this point, but I, I'm going to recommend it anyway, because if you like his books, I mean, he does, he does a cool thing. He takes

statistics and weaves a good story about it. Like outliers, everybody talks about the 10,000 hour thing now because he brought it up in outliers. All experts have 10,000 hours, blah, blah, blah. Yeah. This one is, is very, very cool because it's taking on, um, per like perceived weakness and perceived strength.

And when, when a weakness is actually a strength and you know, crazy underdog stories that aren't underdog stories, he totally the first, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to spoil it. Spoiler alert. He debunks it all. In the first chapter, he completely says, Goliath never had a chance and, and, you know, states the case why. And it's, it's compelling and I dug it. I dug it. So, um, I, I've liked every single one of his books. He's, he's a genius. He's a great creative

thinker. He really, he does the research. He puts the time in, he thinks these things through. Um, I, I heard he had a new book coming out. I wasn't aware that it was out already. So thank you for being a filter for me, Jason. Absolutely. Um, going to be downloading this and reading it immediately and love the concept. This sounds amazing. So, and I love, I love getting his books on audible because he reads them and he's actually a very good speaker. If you've ever seen any of his Ted talks, they're really good. And I, I was reading an interview with him

one time. They're like, how do you do, how are you, why are your Ted talks so good? Or why are all your speeches so good? He's like, cause I practice, practice, practice. Yeah, this is not, he doesn't get up and do these things off the cuff. Those, those speeches are completely rehearsed, completely, you know, edited for content and time. And, and his storytelling is, is, is really well done. So I, I got no beef with Malcolm Gladwell at all. And this book is, uh, not, not a disappointment at all.

Excellent. I will be downloading it tonight and I will start reading it as soon as I finish the book that I've been reading this week. Dr. Sleep. It's fun. I was going to do, you know, I've been stuck in work mode and I've been, you know, reading all these nonfiction deep thoughts with Jack Handy. Oh my God, my brain's going to explode books. And I just finally went, I need something fun. And lo and behold, Stephen King has a brand new book out. I love Stephen King. I love almost everything he's ever written. Dr. Sleep is a followup to

The Shining. And, um, so far I'm about three quarters of the way in. It's everything that you want from a Stephen King book. It's funny. It's dark. It has incredibly creepy elements and it's very well written. Loving it. Now, did you, uh, did you read the original novel, The Shining?

I did read the original novel, The Shining, and I saw the movie and I don't know if that's where you're going. Well, I just want to know how different they are because I've seen the movie. I don't, I generally, as a rule, don't read Stephen King books. Right. He's not my cup of tea because there's always a fucking alien at the end. Not always. Most of the time. So if I, if I picked up this book, is it going to make sense because I've only seen the movie? Yes. Yes. It'll make

sense because it basically, it's, it's the sun from, from the movie. So you don't, it's not, you know, it's not a, you could actually read this without ever having even seen or read The Shining. Okay. It works as a standalone and it's highly enjoyable and it doesn't involve aliens. I mean, spoiler alert, the kid lives apparently at the end of The Shining.

Come on. The movie and the book, how long do we have to wait? When is it not too soon for a spoiler? Um, it's actually, I thought you might be going, uh, in the direction that, uh, about the movie version of The Shining versus the book and how Stephen King has never liked the movie version of The Shining because that is obviously Stephen King's off doing press about Dr. Sleep and it's being brought up. So, um, I, I, I see them both as their

own entities. I really enjoy the book. I also, I mean, the movie is a classic. I mean, Jack Nicholson was amazing, but I also see Stephen King's point because, uh, the characters aren't quite the way that he wrote them. So, well, tough because the movie was awesome. Yeah, it is awesome, but it's not, it's not quite the book. Um, I, I would go back and read The Shining and then read Dr. Sleep, but you don't have to. Uh, Dr. Sleep is obviously because it's

now, you know, it's, uh, it's good. It's good and it's modern and it's, it's, um, I'm really enjoying it so far and it's great semi-mindless fun. I can't ever say Stephen King is mindless because he does have intense backstories that are really interesting and intriguing. So good stuff. Yeah. Um, I definitely have to check it out. And I, I was listening to the Adam Savage podcast not too long ago and they were talking about all this Kubrick stuff and they were mentioning the Blu-ray version of The Shining. Right. It has amazing extras. So I'm

going to pick that up and then maybe I'll, I'll check the book out after that. Yeah. I actually haven't seen the movie in probably 15 years, so I might be worth another viewing as soon as I'm done with the book anyways. It's worth it for Scatman Crothers. Yep, exactly. Awesome stuff. Yep. And, and trivia note, Scatman Crothers was also the voice of, uh, Hong Kong Fui. Was he really? That's what I was getting to. Yep. Hong Kong Fui, number one super guy.

Wow. Digging deep. Hong Kong Fui, quicker than the human eye. Chicka-chong, chicka-chong, chicka-chong.

Security. Ha! Tales from the dark web. That's what everybody's saying today. Ooh, the dark web. That's okay. You can do whatever you want this week. The NSA is not working. That's true. Well, this guy missed it by, missed it by that much. So the FBI caught this guy, Ross Ulbricht, who apparently was the mastermind of the Silk Road, which was one of the largest, or if not one of the largest, if the largest criminal marketplace. Yeah. You basically get

anything there. Did you ever check it out? I really, really, I had heard about this about, I don't know, two years ago. And I was, I really always wanted to take a look at it and see what, what was going on. But, uh, I was always a little too scared. Yeah. I'm a giant pussy when it comes to that. I am not going anywhere near it. I do not want any kind of IP trail. I should have done it from your place. Oh yeah. Or Starbucks. That's true. Yeah. Well, no, cause then they tie, tie location where your phone is. Yeah. Yeah. Not good. Not good at all. Yeah. But apparently

you could get anything on there. Drugs, uh, whatever. Murder. Murder, forged IDs, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, obviously this stuff is, exists and nailing one guy. I mean, there's gotta be another one already. If not five or 10. Yeah. And the big news came up because to get to the Silk Road, you had to use Tor. Everything was on Tor. So it was, it was off the beaten path of the internet. It wasn't on the real and regular internet. It was on the dark

net. Um, so it came out today that, uh, or the, the guardian are protectors of freedom now. Um, the last fucking bastion of journalism as far as I'm concerned. Uh, they released a couple of presentations about how the government, uh, our government and the British, the GCHQ are targeting the Tor network. And I gotta say they're pretty funny slides. It's worth, it's

worth, uh, worth taking a peek at him. I'm going to link, I'm going to link to the, the, uh, whole set of files, um, on the guardian sites called the NSA files. Just look for anything that, uh, uh, relates to Tor and you'll see him. There's a couple, I think there's three of them. Yeah, there's a couple, there's two or three of them. Just looking at this main page should just scare the crap out of you. It's awesome. Which one? The NSA files, just that page. Oh yeah. The direct one. I mean, NSA program collects nearly everything a user does

on the internet. How Microsoft handled the, handed the NSA access to encrypted messages, NSA collecting phone records to millions of Verizon customers daily. Oh God. So yeah. And, uh, they have great code names for some of these. This one's, uh, was it peeling back the, peeling back the layers of Tor with egotistical giraffe.

Yeah. Yeah. It's pretty funny stuff. And some of them are talking about, uh, how the Tor browser didn't turn on no script by default. So JavaScript still worked and they're like, thanks for that. You know, it's, it's really funny, but it's a, uh, oh yeah. Yeah. The thanks to Tor button. It's easy. You know, somebody who was writing these actually kind of got it and had a sense of humor. Yeah. Tor stinks presentation. Yeah. Before we had, uh, erroneous

ingenuity commonly known as air. And then we had egotistical goat and now we're up to egotistical giraffe. I don't know, but it's, it's a set of documents about a workshop that, uh, the NSA and the GH GCHQ were doing on how to crack Tor. And the upside is it seems like they can't.

It does seem to be that that is the Tor stinks presentation that I just alluded to, where they, they flat out say, we will never be able to de-anonymize all Tor users all the time. But with a manual analysis, we can de-anonymize a very small fraction of Tor users. Yeah. And they also say that, that when they've tried to find one particular person, they couldn't.

Yeah. So that's good. So we do have a tiny, small bit of security still left in the world. Unfortunately, uh, basically you're just like, you're, you're tarred by default if you use this because it'll just assume that you're doing something wrong, even if you're just trying to be private. Well, the whole point is they just trying to find your IP is hard enough, you know, so they're trying, they're trying to do multi-vector analysis on when, when, what computers were online at that given time and who was on Tor at that time and try and, you know, piece it all together.

Yeah. So it's, and it's, it's interesting because they say that, you know, the critical mass of their targets use Tor and scaring them away from using Tor might be counterproductive because they want to keep them there. So they know where to look for them. Yeah. Yeah. We know anybody using this is probably doing something bad. So please stay on it and don't switch to something else.

Yeah. Until we can figure out how to look at you, stay there. Don't, don't, don't go away. So I, this might, this, uh, this release might be slightly counterproductive. Perhaps. We'll see. I've never actually used Tor. I've downloaded, uh, all of the stuff for it, but just never had a reason to. I'm not, I'm not on the run for anybody. I got nothing, nothing to go check out over there.

Yeah. Yeah. Me either. But, uh, it's just, it's nice to know that it's still out there and that they, I guess, can't get to everything. So. Yeah. I would, maybe one weekend when I, when it's snowing or something, I'll, I'll break it open just so I, this is one of those things where I'd like to know about how to use it.

Yeah. Just for the knowledge, just in case. Uh, yeah. Yeah. Get on tour and find the new Silk Road from the Dread Pirate Roberts and, uh, see, see what's going on. You know, get myself some drugs and, uh, and a couple, uh, hitmen. Hitmen and hookers. Yeah. Oh, I think we've got a, we've got a title for the episode.

I think so. I was about to say a new podcast. Oh, you can find us through tour. Yeah. Only available on tour. Not in the iTunes store. So I ran into a site, uh, called, well, it's called the faces of Facebook. Uh, I, I don't remember how I ran into it. I think it was an article on Slater Salon or something like that. Uh, it's at app.thefacesoffacebook.com. It's kind of neat. I mean, it's just, uh, you

know, they're using the Facebook API to basically bring in every single Facebook users, uh, profile pictures. So you go there, uh, it comes in as like a gigantic pixelated mess. You should click anywhere on the map and zoom in. Boom. You get to see a whole bunch of Facebook profile pictures. Um, I don't know if it's just me and, and, and luck in air quotes or, uh, or there's just a really lot of slutty girls out there. But, uh, almost every time I click in, there's just a lot of kind of slutty girl profile pictures.

Yeah, you get all the luck. I don't have that many. I got a bunch of bros, lots of bros and one really fat man. This did not, this did not work for me on, uh, Chrome or Safari. So there's some slutty girls jackpot. Um, uh, I only, I, I'm still basically just using Firefox. So it worked for me right away. You were telling me that it wasn't working at all. And, uh, I was like, wow, I finally found something that Jason isn't getting to work. So I guess it's Firefox

only, uh, which is a bit weird because it's hard to think of any code that you can just do for Firefox and nothing else. Um, but you know, this last caveat emptor, I just found a, uh, what a naked dude with a boner. Um, so it's, it's not a family friendly. Well, yes, it's a, it's a safer work as, as Facebook can be before they catch anything. God forbid there might be breastfeeding photos in here. Oh my, oh my. Um, you know, it's, this is 30

seconds of fun and then you're on and done and never look at it again. But I thought it was pretty cool. It's, you know, just neat. I'm glad somebody made it. It's funny. And just scan around and just see, see the, see the world basically see who you're sharing this world with. Yeah, this is, this is oddly voyeuristic. Isn't it though? I mean, it's, it's pretty crazy. I mean, it's just whatever your profile picture is set to, as long as you're not a hundred percent set to private, uh, this app is pulling it right in and it's

just, it's kind of fascinating. You just scan around, just click around a couple of times and, and, and look at the people that you're sharing your world with. And I'm glad I don't do drugs cause this could, this could really be a rat hole. All right. It's got, let's see what 1.2 billion faces in here now. And it's, it's loading more as I speak. It's just kind of keeps bringing things in crazy, huh? That is very crazy. Oh, and they all link directly

to people's profiles. Exactly. That is a little strange. Well, we've given up our privacy just in case you ever doubted it. Here you go. Uh, after that, I'm going to calming manatee.com.

Oh, I don't know. This is, this is one of those sites that I don't know how I found it this week, but it's, it's pictures of manatee with very soothing sayings. Like I'd hug you if I had arms. Treat yourself. You deserve it. It's okay. We still like you. They're clearly jealous of you. Don't listen to your jerk brain. You are smart and pretty. Oh, I just

got that one too. Oh yeah. So I don't know why I like it. Oh yeah. That will, uh, that will take away the Facebook stuff. I'm, I'm cleansed. I'm cleansed now. Yes. So go to the faces of Facebook and then calm your manatee self. So if you grew up, uh, here in Los Angeles, uh, you definitely heard love line. I was probably part of your growing up. I'm 40 years old and I, I was listening to it. They've been doing it an awful long time. I guess you don't need

to be in LA cause they were syndicated, but, uh, Adam and Dr. Drew back together again. Uh, they've been doing a podcast for quite a while on Corolla's network. Um, it's, it's good. It's, you know, in general, it's kind of love line continued except a lot more bitching from Adam cause they don't have to just sit and take calls and they don't have a producer and he's kind of up his own ass. But in general, it's really good. And speaking of being up your own ass, uh, this last particular episode, I think that everybody should really listen to it's,

it's not kind of their normal thing. Um, I, if you're aware of Dr. Drew at all, um, he actually just had prostate cancer and surgery for it. Um, he hasn't really talked about it, uh, until this podcast and it's, uh, you know, 47 minutes of them basically talking about something that is really, really important to us dudes and, uh, not a lot of information about it that we all know of. People don't really talk about it. Listen to it. Yeah, absolutely. I was fascinated

by it. I couldn't cause they, they kept alluding that he had surgery and something was wrong for quite a while. And to finally figure out here, here, what it was, uh, sobering and to really get into, you know, the medical aspects of it. Um, the, the choices that you make, uh, you know, you don't, you think cancer and automatically the answer is get it out, get it out. That may not be the best case. Um, it really fascinating, interesting stuff. And the reality is that, uh, if we happen to make it into our eighties or nineties, we will die

from prostate cancer. The end of story. So we're, you will get it. Um, it's just a question of when, so, uh, we'll learn about it a little bit. Yeah, I definitely recommend checking that one out. It was, uh, cause I don't listen to that show as often as I used to just, just because of the aforementioned bitching by Adam. Um, and they, they only get to like maybe one call per episode too, if they're lucky. So I kind of miss that part. Having the people

call in and then riff on it was always the fun part of love line. And I was, I used to listen to it in Chicago. So it's not just you SoCal people. Yeah. Yeah. I totally agree with you. I wish the podcast that they did was more calls rather than Adam complaining. Cause he's got his own two hour podcast every day where he does that. So if anybody over there is listening, more calls on the Adam and Drew show, please. Thank you. Yeah. So I've, I've gotten a new one this week. I have, I've been kind of busy, so I didn't really get to listen

to as many new, new shows as I wanted to. Um, this is a new show on five by five called capital with Joel Bush and they had, uh, or he had on Brian Brushwood who got famous fairly recently with, uh, his show scam school, which the side note, I was on the first episode. You can, if you, if you want to go back in the archives, you can see me and, uh, our former guest, Joey Robbie a laughing at our friend who was banging his head on the table from one

of Brian's awesome bar tricks. Um, but it's, it's, it's a really interesting podcast because this episode is episode number eight and it'll be linked in the show notes and they talk about, he talks about marketing, what it's like being a magician coming up in the business and working hard and how he started podcasting by just, you know, doing it. Right. And he's like, you're going to suck at the beginning. We know, we know that all too well. Yeah. You should, uh,

if you think our first episode sucks, you should hear the four we did before that, that we didn't even put out there. Oh my God. I sent you the first edit list on the first episode and there were 70 edit points. I gotta say, by the time we went to air for the first, the first aired episode, I think we only had like six. So yeah, yeah. We got a lot better real fast. Took a month, a month of work. So, and he's done it for years now and he's now he's a busy guy. He's got many

shows quite famous. So it's a, it's a cool, cool origin story if you will. Yeah. I got a, I haven't had much time either, but you sent this to me and I got about 20 minutes into it and it's something that, you know, normally it's, if you walk away from things these days, just because of the push and pull and how much is always going on, you usually don't get back to it. This is something I'm going to go back and finish for sure. Yeah. It's definitely worth listening to. And the rest of the episodes of capital are pretty good. I've listened to them all so far and I'm,

I'm digging the show. Cool. Very cool. Oh, shizzle. Shizzle. If you guys got any cool podcasts that you think we might like, please send them to us. After you've given us a five star rating on iTunes, of course. It's a podcast at grumpy old geeks.com.

When we're getting ready to start our show and I'm scanning over our little mammoth HQ board that we use for, for all the links and things that we want to talk about. And I scroll down and I see something and it says the most evil piece of shit on the internet. I was very hesitant to click on it because if Jason says it's evil, I'm scared. This is so evil. My, uh, my friend, Dr. Jonas Luster, uh, posted a screenshot of this game that he was playing on his Facebook page. And

I'm like, Oh wow, that looks intricate. Interesting. Let me click on it. Right. Worst thing I ever did. I lost, I lost 24 hours of my life to this thing. It's called cookie clicker and it's been making the rounds and it is simply a game where you start off by clicking a cookie to make more cookies. And then when you, once you get some more cookies, you can buy cursors that will click the cookie for you.

And then you can buy grandma's to bake the cookies. And then you move up to all these different, uh, things that make more cookies. And the whole point of the game is just to make cookies. There is no end. It is an, it's an ongoing game. You can get power-ups, you get achievements, but it is, it is a pointless game. This is 100% pointless. Driving me absolutely insane. This is like Tamaguchi with cookies on a web browser. Yep. I mean, the cool part about it is it's all

HTML five. It's JavaScript. Really well done. Yeah. This is pretty impressive in terms of programming. The downside, wait till you get, wait till you get the cookies going. I'm, I'm currently making 31,915,786,318.1 cookies per second. I'm making 0.2. Yeah. Well, you got, you got to buy some cursors. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, no, no. I already did this. I went down the rabbit hole with the

plants versus zombies. I'm not doing this, Jason. Damn you. No, turn it off now. Turn it off now. I, this is just, I don't know what it is. I got to turn, I opened it back up and it saves your spot. So you can go back to it later. Oh joy. And there, there are hacks out there that you can get some JavaScript that will click the cookie for you. And there's a golden cookie too, which will up your

production, uh, met drastically for like 77 seconds. I don't, I, I'm starting to get manic again, just thinking about it. If you've got OCD and a mouse, do not click on the link. I do not have this gene. I just closed the window after 30 seconds and I'm, I'm all good. Oh, I wish I, I wish I was like you. I will never think of it again. Oh, okay. I'm going, I have dreams about cookies after this

because I would get up and I'm like, Oh, cause you, you know, once you get up some more cookies and you can buy another thing that makes more cookies faster to get another thing. As far as game mechanics go and you know, lab rat, uh, I was about to say if we were, if we were hanging out in the lab together, you'd be on that treadmill and I'd just be sitting there sipping a beer. Yep. That's exactly what it is. And as far as the balance and game mechanics,

it's, it is a perfect example of how to get people to do stupid things for no benefit to themselves whatsoever. Nothing good came out of this. And the guy who made it's French. God damn it. Oh me. Oh you. So I would like to big, big thanks and hugs and all that good

stuff to miss Wendy Marvel for designing our new grumpy old geeks logo. Yes. Now we look very slightly less grumpy, less grumpy. It looks twice as grumpy. Well past, uh, there were some, uh, previous versions that we didn't end up using. Oh yeah. See, we figured a smiley face flipping the bird was probably a little over the top for the iTunes people. Yes. Unfortunate because that one was my favorite, but very funny. Good job, Wendy. That was awesome. Thank you so

much. Um, I also want to give a congrats out to the LA Dodgers or as they're called, if you're a Angelino, Los Doyers for their, uh, nice win last night over the Braves in the first postseason game. I'm actually paying attention to baseball right now. So good job. Looking forward to the rest of it.

And a final shout out for me, uh, to Sinead O'Connor, who I was an ex client and I got to know reasonably well quite a long time ago, uh, for her open letter to Miley Cyrus as against open letters as I typically am. The first letter was well-written, well-stated and spot on, uh, Miley's response.

And then Sinead getting really pissed off at her and the ongoing drama. Not so cool. Uh, Sinead, maybe you should have just left it with a one letter, but you know, you're right. And, uh, Miley Cyrus is an idiot. So yeah, you need to tell Sinead to stop feeding the trolls. Yeah. She never, the problem with Sinead is she doesn't have the off switch. She should make the statement and then just walk away. So throw the mic down and walk off the stage.

Exactly. So that's it for me. Ah, well next week I will be, uh, coming to you live from or recorded from the lovely town of Downers Grove, Illinois. Well, we will be interviewing a Mr. Mike Vinicor, who is an old friend and a game designer who I used to work with back at Midway when, uh, in the, the Mortal Kombat days. Ooh, fancy. Yes. We were, we actually, our first jobs in the game industry, uh, we were testers on a, an Aerosmith game called

Revolution X. I totally remember that game. We were testers where you can, if you get to the end, you can see our name. I'm, I'm listed as Thor. So he's MXV. Nice. And, uh, yeah, we, and in between basically we'd give them bugs and then they'd have to go fix the bugs and do a build while they were doing the build. We'd sneak around the corner and start a Mortal Kombat 2 tournament with the guys who made Mortal Kombat. Right. All right. So that was kind of cool. So one of your old friends and a lot of talk about gaming, I'm just going to have

a book. Yeah, there's a lot. It's true. Well, Mike also has one of the largest, uh, collections of punk rock vinyl in the world. So I think there'll be a lot of, there'll be some music talk, some wrestling talk is, uh, and some photography talk. I don't know about, uh, if any of those are up your alley. No, you know, I'll just have that, uh, I'll have that new book that you recommended with me and I'll chime in on the punk rock. And speaking of punk rock, the reason I'm going out there is going to see Agent Orange and the

Bull Weevils. That'll be fun. I've never seen Agent Orange, but the Bull Weevils are a Chicago punk band that have been around forever. And I'm friends with those guys. So it'll be, be a fun time. Awesome. Chicago. Well, have a great trip and, uh, I'll talk to you from Chicago. Yes. And next week, uh, we can maybe talk about the fact that the Nobel prize for agriculture is going to a Monsanto executive. This just came across my desk. Can you believe

that? Oh boy. That'll be fun. That's what happens when there's no government. Keep up with the grumpy old geeks on the web at grumpyoldgeeks.com, on Facebook and facebook.com slash grumpyoldgeeks, or email them at podcast at grumpyoldgeeks.com. Have a good week.

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